Current requests regarding upkeep of the Tower will be placed here as soon as necessities arise. Any material donations and contributions will be appreciated, but we may trade goods if necessary. Crossed-out requests have been satisfied. Dates and times follow the clock in the Red House of Wayside Island. View bottom of the article for access routes from each Collapsing limspace.
| DATE | REQUEST |
|---|---|
| 4.6.1998 | A deployable Precursor Terminal for the lower-half maintenance outpost, in service of better coordination. We will reward any kind soul with all we have to offer: simply come to the outpost in Floor 7 for negotiations. |
| 7.6.1998 | Electrical battery (any), along with vegetable food. We are still looking for a Terminal. |
| 19.6.1998 | Flashlight (any: Factory-marked are preferable), in service of exploring below Floor -21 and above Floor 25. |
| 27.6.1998 | !!!URGENT REQUEST!!! Electrical wiring replacements & experienced helper required to repair lower floodlights. The stability of the limspace is at risk! |
| 4.6.1998 (C2) | Our outpost requires a few magma-crystals to stay warm. We will be glad to trade for weapons and foodstuff! |
| 5.6.1998 (C3) | We are in need of a well-read Wanderer to help us better interview the Janitor. Precursor experts will be greatly appreciated! |
| 9.6.1998 (C3) | Reminder that our first request for 4.6.1998 is still up! |
[SECTION IN DISUSE SINCE 29.6.1998 (C6). REQUESTING DELETION OR ARCHIVAL.]
[IN MEMORIAM: TEAM DAWNGAZER.]
LIMSPACE CLASSIFICATION |
| Difficulty | 3/5 | The space has no native resources: food, tools and sources of warmth have to be acquired elsewhere. |
|---|---|---|
| Entity Count | 1/5 0/5 | 1 |
| Chaos Gradient | 1/5 | The space is very stable except for the occasional failing of lights |
| Basset-Frazier Index | 1.333/5 | Unique properties minimal: nature yet unknown. |
OVERVIEW |
Amidst the starless skies, the lone Tower remains. A vertical contraption that stretches dozens of kilometers up and down, with each of its ends lost in the dark emptiness that surrounds it. Half-machine and half-living, its many air pipes breathe calmly, mechanical components regularly pulsing in a uniform rhythm. Although its exterior made of contracting and expanding metallic plates was once painted, what little colour remains can barely be seen in the hostile white lighting the Tower exudes.
Like flower bulbs on a tree, innumerable floodlights pepper the Tower's metallic hull. They are fed by massive wires running up and down from its heart, and perpetually shine upon the darkness. Despite the absence of anything to illuminate aside from the cold metal of its fixture, each floodlight — in its center white quartz — points outside, suggesting that the Tower was not always lonely.
We Wanderers believe the light plays a more important part to the Tower than meets the eye. There is evidence of significant stress exerted upon each floodlight, and they are prone to regular failure. Crushed or nonfunctional ones are very common in the lower and upper segments of the Tower, which fade into the dark: some Wanderers have sworn that each time a light fails and is repaired, the darkness crawls a little closer to the Tower's heart.
Floor -6, center. Machines unknown: possible pneumatic station.
The Tower has around 78 explored floors in each direction (marked with positive and negative numbers, relative to their position from the Heart), although at least two more are known to exist. Floors below -21 and above 25 begin to darken, making exploration impossible past a certain point.
Each floor of the Tower, between 100 and 120m wide, is connected by two sets of stairs,2 and dotted with iron doors along the walls of its inner border. A light above each door shines either red or green: red means the door is secured, green means it can be safely opened.
Beside every door is also a small slot which may contain a square, white-colored sign. Every green-light door has this slot occupied: signs have simplistic drawings of the limspace ahead, along with a short name. For instance, the door to the Ashen Tomb reads "DARK VALLEY", and has a drawing of a small fire. See "ENTRANCES & EXITS" for further information.
Notably, some red-light doors do have names and drawings. It is considered evident that such doors used to lead to now-collapsed limspaces. It is also a cause of worry that red-light doors with white signs are more common along the lower and upper points of the Tower: many believe the Tower to occupy the center of the Collapsing System, and if something were to befall the Tower, the same would soon befall the entire system as well.
FLOOR 0: THE HEART |
The Heart, also known as Floor 0, is the widest point of the Tower at 120m, and the operative core for its machinery. Many unseen, inaccessible engines buzz from its inside, feeding the pipes that run up and down the tower. Hundreds of wires leave the Heart through diametrically opposite holes at both sides and each connects to one floodlight.
Floor 0 diagram. Red circles mark location of terminals
A total of twelve halls arranged into two concentric hexagons (connected at each vertex) around the Heart allow for observation of its inner machinery and the outside of the Tower through thick glass panels. Said machinery is eerily similar to steam-powered devices, but almost unbearably cold. Two basic output-only terminals communicate the status of the machinery.
(Recreated below as last transcribed during 7.6.1998 (C5), by A. Quixano.)
|
TWH: 12% drs: online (29|88) > REPAIRS REQ: F0; INTAKE, ENG 6, STABL 1, STABL 2, STABL 3, STABL 4 (…), F1; OXY SYS, PROJECTOR, F2; (…) [376 ITEMS OMMITED] oxy: offline (NULL%) // TODO: REESTABLISH QOL MONITORS > ERR FLRS LOST ERR: FLOORCOUNT OFFLINE. |
The beating of the Heart's engines has often been compared with that of strained breathing, with its characteristic irregular tensing-and-relaxing patterns routinely producing disquiet among newcomers. While assurances that the Tower is functioning cannot be given, it has remained largely unchanged since its discovery.
OPERATION & HABITATION |
Spanning Floors -7 through 14, with the exception of the Heart, are an assortment of utility and habitation structures: from measurement devices attached to mechanical apparatuses extending from the Heart to simple pipe cranks, with bedrooms, bathrooms, bars and food tables inbetween. The difference between utility and habitation areas is stark — while the former are often equated to engine rooms in modern ships, the latter are reminiscnet of barely-furbished hotels.
Habitation areas are uncomfortably pressed between numerous utility structures that take up most of the size of each floor, and sometimes spanning multiple ones. The lights in Operation & Habitation floors are the brightest, tinting each room in a faint grey colour.
Operation & Habitation floors have all been recently covered in a fine coat of dust, with the exception of the structures in Floor -1: innumerable small rooms connect a series of outer observation chambers with a system of thinning pipe shafts that run down the Tower. What exactly each pipe connects to is unknown: none reach their destination before arriving at the fading point.
Some notable structures include:
- A discussion table with a wireless projector, aimed at an inner wall. Yellowing, empty leaves litter the table, haphazardly thrown.
- A three-floor-sized electrical distributor occupying half of Floors -3 through -6, connecting to numerous electrical panels across each one.
- A wide door in Floor -1 awaits the arrival of an elevator from below, but the shaft remains silent.
- A maintenance barn or tool room filled with floodlights and pieces thereof. Reparation and testing of many was attempted and ultimately abandoned before our arrival.
Living at the Operation & Habitation floors is punctuated by the rythmic expansion and contraction of the Tower's outer hull, preceded by the flowing of air from the Heart through the pipes. Pneumatic contraptions are thought to make this motion possible, but the lack of any pipes connecting to the Tower's walls makes it a questionable hypothesis at best.
Maintenance of the outer floodlights is intense: electrical mechanisms tend to be strained by long, long usage and material deterioration is to be expected. Replacement electronics, wiring and mechanical parts need to be routinely brought in and speedily applied to prevent the lights from going off for too long.
Despite all of this mechanical activity, heating is nonexistence: constant fires need to be maintained to keep the occupied floors above freezing range. Magma-crystals from Vulkan Hole are particularly effective at staying lit for extended periods of time.
We have decided to drape the massive glass panels of the floors that our outposts occupy in sheets in order to avoid staring at the distance for too long. Direct mental influence is most likely not a concern, but the sheer emptiness of the abyss surrounding the Tower can quickly drill into one's morale. Avoiding the dark is best, so long as its existence is not ignored.
THE EDGES |
From Floors -21 down and 25 up are the Edges: darkened areas of the Tower where dust coats grow thicker and failures become more common travels farther from the Heart. To describe them as "darkened" is not entirely accurate — while indeed electrical lighting gradually ceases to work and intact floodlights become less common, the phenomenon affects more than the equipment: new lights brought into such areas are ineffective, as if filtered through an unseen black membrane.
Evidence of prior habitation is almost entirely absent: decay has erased any marks of use in floors away from the Heart, but faint traces of quick retreat remain in those closest to it.
Floor unknown. Note stairs to above floor in the background.
Staying in the Edges is not much different from Operation & Habitation, but avoiding the darkness is not quite possible. The feeling is best described as being drenched in it: an uncomfortable sordidness, not malicious yet disquieting, that one cannot get rid of. Nevertheless, checking that the outer floodlights remain functional is a primary necessity, and one that forces us to spend most of our day neck-deep in it.
While we try our best to avoid stepping into the floors farther from the Heart, it is often impossible. Floor 36, for instance, holds a lone working floodlight, more than nineteen floors apart from the next functioning one. Four-hour-long trips to maintain it working are necessary, as the mechanisms that maintain it appear to suffer from immeasurable strain.
Past the very borders of each Edge, where the faint reflection of the floodlights stops being visible, illumination is impossible. No explorations have been carried out into the dark floors up and below these segments, but it is rumoured that at a certain point, matter itself would fade — one's arm, extended into the abyss, would be met with only a cold breeze, then nothing at all.
LONG HALLWAY & WALL |
From Floors 13, 7 and 5 extend three long hallways, each continuing for approximately 100m — with slight variances — before meeting an abrupt end: neither a clean or irregular cut, but familiar fading. From the very end of the hallway in Floor 7, when all the floodlights are on and one's sight is sharp, a faint figure can be seen in the distance: a metal wall, several kilometers wide, covered in broken floodlights.
How thick, wide or tall the Wall is cannot be discerned, but its size and shape suggest that it entirely encircles the Tower. It is possible, if unfeasible to verify, that its shape is either a singular band or a full cylinder. What its purpose may be remains an enigma: some Wanderers have suggested that the thin protrusions that sprout from the visible segment of the Wall resemble "advanced weaponry" of an uncertain kind.
What is especially mystifying about the Wall is the immense irregularly-shaped hole that pierces its left side, barely visible. Whether a break-in, an explosion or an exit, it remains a subject for many sleepless nights of fire-warmed discussion.
ENTRANCES & EXITS
| Functional Doors | ||
|---|---|---|
| Floor | To: | Sign Name, Drawing |
| 9 | Vulkan Hole | "MAGMA", volcano (above perspective) |
| 7 | Ashen Tomb | "DARK VALLEY", small fire |
| 7 | Wayside Island | "SKY LOOP", four houses |
| 2 | Farm | "STABLE", rolled hay |
| 2 | Factory | "FIREPOWER", gear on fire3 |
| 2 | Dark Corridor & Outer Dark Corridor | "METEOR SHOWER", starred sky?4 |
| -3 | Farm | "STABLE", rolled hay |
| -5 | Lost Iumalsk | "HANGING", rock hanging from a chain |
| -6 | Kenos | "?", N/A: "don't open" |
| -6 | Unknown5 | N/A, down-pointing triangle |
| Nonfunctional Doors | ||
| Floor | Sign Name, Drawing | |
| 17 | "IRON ANGEL", black circle w/ spiral protrusions | |
| 14 | "ETERNITY", white circle | |
| 14 | "MOONLIGHT", waxing moon | |
| 11 | "PRISON", prison bars | |
| -6 | "SCYTHE", clockwork mechanism? | |
| -10 | "THE SIGNAL", eye6 | |
Team Dawngazer — Personal Commentary
----- -----
[RECOVERY FILE:] Team Manifest [4.6.1998 (C2)]
OUTPOSTS:
- FLOOR 7 ("Base")
- FLOOR -7 ("Lower Edge")
- FLOOR 14 ("Upper Edge")
Floor -7 is rather hard to reach from above due to the absence of stairs: when descending (probably from Floor 7) keep track of either hole at the side of the Heart from which wires protrude, and try to stay below it: you'll find a pipe shaft inside the empty bar in the cubical, right beside the leftmost table.
Try to feel for the welded stairs with your legs and slide inside the shaft: it's a little dark, but there is no danger unless you slip.
MEMBERS
- Juárez, Ana
- Keegan, Manuel
- Monocchio, Alejandro
- Bohl, Mark
- Falstaff, Julian
- Girón, Julieta
- Baldwin, Chloe
We will greatly appreciate any help or newcomer looking to join us! The Tower has plenty of space.
(We rotate membership of the outposts every week.)
[RECOVERY FILE:] "The Janitor" [18.7.1998 (C3)]
Just over a month ago, a man came out of the darkness.
It happened while I was taking care of the lower Edge, looking around for failing floodlights. It's usually a rather long process — takes a while to run through the window panels of each floor, normally at opposite sides and separated by winding paths across a dozen rooms, more than 150 meters worth.
By the time you get to the bottom floors… Well, you don't really want to stick around. Takes at least five hours to get there, and the slow descent into darkness doesn't help stay lucid. It feels a little immature — we're not exactly exposed to any danger, compared to other places in the System — but I've never really finished my days doing well. By the last few floors, I do a quick sweep and I sprint up as quickly as I can.
Last month… That almost cost a man his life. I barely heard him grunt while speeding up the last stairs, and when I turned back he was nearly slipping off the border. I almost didn't catch him.
He simply stared, hanging from my hand. He was dressed in jeans and a white button shirt, shivering. His head tilted to the side, the same surprised expression as a big dog. Didn't even talk while I helped him up, didn't say a word while stumbling up the stairs to our outpost. He stayed silent when he arrived, just lying asleep in front of the crystal fire.
It took him a day to wake up, but when he did, he was one of the nicest gentlemen I've ever met. Helped around all day, gave advice, even joked around every once in a while. And that same day, Mark — the dick he is — started asking, snooping around his life. We were all embarrassed as all hell to hear Mark storm the man with questions, but he just responded with a wide smile. He introduced himself as the Janitor.
MARK: Janitor, huh? Where do you come from?
JANITOR: This installation of course. I work here!
MARK: You… Work here? Looks a little empty for a workplace, y'kno.
JANITOR: Haha, it wasn't like that last time! Everyone just- upped and left, it seems.
MARK: Owh. [PAUSE] So… What's this place for?
CHLOE: Leave the man alone, for fuck's sake.
At this point, his smile crumbled into a grimace. The poor man looked lost, staring at the distance — an all-too-familiar expression.
JANITOR: No, no, don't worry. It's fine with me. [PAUSE] Ahh… Well, I'll be damned if I can remember. I know as far back as your fine friend uh…
MARK: Julieta.
JANITOR: Yes! Her. My apologies, noggin's not been working well lately… Left for the other side, haha!
That lost stare, that doubtful laughter. It's the kind of detail that betrays a man who knows a joke but can't recall why it's funny. It gives me the creeps.
JANITOR: Well, uh… I think this place is supposed to stabilize something. That's- That's why the lights are there, right? Why you have to keep them on.
MARK: Ah, yes! We'd figured out as much. These doors on the sides lead to other places, y'know?
JANITOR: Yes, yes! I remember that. Other uh… Fragments. Wish I could leave for them, haha.
MARK: We can show you around if you want. Take a walk outside here.
JANITOR: Sorry mate, can't do that.
MARK: Why's that?
JANITOR: Well, I'm the janitor! I have to stay, even if everyone else leaves, hah.
The way he talks should by now feel obvious — there's something wrong with it, with how he strings sentences together. It's as if he doesn't know what he's saying, but knows what to say. He kept talking for a while, stumbling onto other subjects.
That's not how he talks while doing other things, though. His advice and help on maintenance is quick, clear and concise, and his perspective is lucid. I'll be damned if his help hasn't cut about an hour off of every intensive repair session.
It's just while he's trying to remember things, we think. But sometimes he seems to get a clear glimpse, like last month while replacing the wiring in Floor 18:
JANITOR: Wai- Wait a minute, I got a bad ache.
MANUEL: What's wrong? We gotta get the light on!
JANITOR: No, no- Gimme a minute, please.
ANA: Hand me his tape, Manu.
CHLOE: Can you get him back to camp? We'll catch up when this is running.
MANUEL: Dude, can you stand up?
JANITOR: Fffuck… I know why this place is empty. [SOB]
MANUEL: We'll talk about it later. Come with me, I'm taking you somewhere warmer.
JANITOR: Why did they do it? Why did they do it?!
ANA: Flip the switch on the other side, Chloe.
CHLOE: On it. Watch the upper wire.
MANUEL: Do what?
JANITOR: They jumped. They all jumped! They jumped out!
None of us wanted to ask him about it. He stayed in bed for a full day, made a quivering mess. He never went back to his regular self. And if that wasn't ominous enough… He said this just a few weeks ago.
I know why they did it.
He didn't talk after that. He didn't eat, he didn't move. He just stared out, into the starless sky. And, well… To jump to the reason why it took me so long to type this out…
The man killed himself, less than 12 days ago. He just… Walked down again. When I caught up, speeding down the stairs, he was at the last floor. Staring right back at me, with the look of a surprised dog. He tilted back… And fell. People just don't do that here. I didn't even get to take a piece for my necklace.
But well, it's getting a little self-indulgent around here. I don't even know why it's affecting me that much. Things here haven't been doing very well lately — there's more failures than ever, and the lights don't seem to make a difference anymore. I think we lost a few floors last week.
That's enough for today.
— Julieta G.
[RECOVERY FILE:] Collapse Status: About [9.6.1998 (C4)]
For the so-called center or heart of the Collapsing Liminal System, all evidence of ongoing collapse is conspicuously absent. Colour remains consistent across the entire Tower, and no unexplained phenomena are visible in the distance. No Wanderer has yet reported voices or whispers in unusual dreams, cracks amidst the air and faint ghostlights remain to be discovered.
It is generally thought that the collapse takes a unique form within the confines of the Tower — such is the encroaching darkness, almost diametrally opposite in the bombastic shine of "normal" collapse. If assumed so, then the Tower must be in a dire position: nearly engulfed, and with its guardian floodlights routinely failing, and worsening after the Janitor went away.
Despite the all-importance of the Tower in the preservation of the Collapsing Space — if correctly assumed to be its heart — our team has rarely received the required help to keep its strained mechanisms functioning. We are chronically forced to go on speedy runs throughout the Collapsing Space to acquire the necessary materials and a few temporary hands to help us out.
So if you have some time or resources to spare… Remember us. Come give us a hand. For the sake of the System.
The preceding files have been recovered from the Archivist Intranet following the collapse of the Tower Limspace, during 29.6.1998 (C6). The Collapsing Liminal System remains active.
In memoriam: Team Dawngazer.