You are at home. The river that once fed your farm is dark and sour. Something stale and toxic flows down from its source high above your land. Your crops are dying, and without them you’ll never survive the winter. There’s no time to wa
The forest is deep and dark, and the trees are choked with vines. No birds sing, and no insects buzz. The only sound is the river winding through the bare rocks. You notice briefly that no plants seem to grow in the water, nor directly on
As the forest thins, you find yourself in an abandoned fishing village. The air is thick with the scent of rotting fish and damp wood, yet the water even seems plagued as it emerges from the shadow of the high wall beyond. The water flow
Dawn arrives as you come to a great drain in the city’s shattered wall, through which the river lethargically trickles. What force could have turned the thick, cold stone to gravel? There isn’t time to ponder the answer, merely thank the h
The river bisects the city like a wound stitched shut with bridges. A part of you swears that there are eyes watching you from the darkened windows. But that is surely wishful thinking. You are alone, and a heavy silence hangs over the emp
The largest bridge is home to an open air market. Beneath the canvas roof, wondrous objects are laid out - tokens of another world - yours for the taking. The vendors are absent, but the goods and even the money have been left in their p
Cracked foundation and rusted drains lead into the basin of the city’s public bath. Though old perfume and incense still cling to the air, refusing to die, the stale scent of diseased water sits just below, stinging your lungs. The water
Long ramps form a zigzagging path up the waterfall, separating the old district above from the new district below. Through the sun hangs in the sky, the cliff face casts a deep shadow along the path. You are grateful for the dim light st
The old city is dense and winding, yet you walk its paths swiftly. The river leads you onward as it pours into and out of buildings made of mirror-like stone, which plays tricks on the eye and makes navigation a maddening ordeal. High abov
Water floods rooms and pours off of balconies in a way that seems neither wholly planned nor wholly accidental, and it changes elevation in ways that hardly seem possible. The obscene architecture of the manor makes it difficult to tell if
Above the ceiling the entire river flows through a massive pipe. Offshoots and leaks deliver putrid water to plants that seem to fare far better than your own. They glisten and drip with sickly smelling sap, the river concentrated. Any hun
You follow the pipe to a derelict junction. Once, water would’ve been pumped through dozens of pipes, shuttling it off through miles and miles of rusted, leaking pathways. Shuttling it to who knows where. Now, the mechanisms that drove the
When you finally find the end of the pipe maze, you emerge above ground and above the clouds. How long have you been climbing? And how high are you now? You didn’t think this journey would take so long, but the water which pours down the
The elevator stops at a platform extending out of a clifftop fortress. Cannonballs and powder kegs lie scattered around the planks, absent of anyone to use them. Strangely, the cannons are pointed straight down. Back at the city. Actually,
The river flows beneath the abandoned fort, lending its aged funk to the scent of dust and old lumber. A drawbridge spans the river on the far side, which appears to have been redirected into a trench to form a crude moat. Beyond the water
Hand over hand, you climb the cliffs until you come to a longer, flatter stretch through which the river wends after leaving the gaping mouth of a cave. The light dies at its mouth, and the stale fetid stench of the river is heavy within.
Lanterns which cast a strange light are hung amongst the glistening stone spires. Details are too sharp and too clean within their glow, and the world beyond it may as well not exist at all, having been swallowed up by a thick and ravenous
At the tunnel’s end you see light that isn’t cast by the lanterns. Beams of warm grey light stream from the ceiling of the chamber beyond. As you stumble towards it, splashing through the polluted waters, you notice the scenery changing. T
A thin gutter flows through a work site. The ancient bones of great sea beasts seem to have been carved out of the wall, smashed to shards, and driven away into the cavernous dark for a purpose that is unfathomable to you. You alternate be
Deep within the mine, vile water spills out of a massive stone statue of a desiccated human head. At least you think it’s a statue. You hope it’s a statue. You say a silent prayer, gods let it be a statue. Somehow that payer echoes around
It takes you longer than you expected to work up the nerve to walk through the mouth. The mouth of the first human face you’ve seen since you started climbing. Within, you find a pile of stone organs. They don’t look human, but you aren’t
A cold wind blows through a darkened field of chimneys which radiate outward until your eyes fail you. The wind is strong, but it does not disturb the dozens of falling streams of water, pouring from the chimneys above to the chimneys belo
You slowly pull yourself up the chimney, the rocks slick with falling water. The knotted rope cuts into your hands as you go, but it gives you a chance to rest your legs. You wonder why there is a rope attached here at all. Who put it here
At long last, you lift yourself out of the stone shaft and for the first time in what seems like ages, the sky hangs above you instead of stone. Familiar stars shine down, but the reflections that bounce out of the thin pool of fetid wat
Jammed in between the rocks where the river enters the floodplain is the broken corpse of a tall ship. How did it get to the top of this mountain? The though tis pushed from your head by a forlorn concertina on the deck. For some reason th
Behind the boat, there is a ravine, cut by years and years of the river’s current. How are there still cliffs above you? How can there be anything above you? You’ve climbed so far. But there is no sign of the river’s contagion here. Press
The ravine is far behind you and you find yourself in a bog where the river cuts thin, winding pathways through dark, hungry-looking mud. Dozens if not hundreds of bootprints have been pressed into the muck. Are there other people follow
You find yourself on a long and gently sloping expanse, which allows you to see far into the distance. Unfortunately there is not a soul in sight. Only a roughly constructed wall built out of stacked hovels down which the river falls. Ligh
You walk through the streets of the village above the falls and feel an unusual calm. The shops and houses remind you of your own home, far far below. You miss it. But if you can’t find the source of the river’s blight, there won’t be much
The skin of rotting gourds bubbles and pops next to rows and rows of dried and splintering stalks. The bleached and dusty soil is suffering from a blight you know all too well. A grim realization begins to dawn on you. You know this blig
info
prev / next