Out to one side of the coreline is a hill sloping down a ravine into a snowless cave. \nThe cave is strangely warm, relatively anyway. The rocks are geometric: square cubes and hexagon pillars.\nThere’s a small branch. Left is at the same level, right slopes further down.\n\nThe uneven slope grants you some footholds for a relatively controlled descent. The further down you go, the warmer the air becomes. \nThere’s markings on the cave wall where the slope evens out: “X” is etched into the rock here.\nWhy would someone go into a cave? What could you find there? \nWell there is lava which is kind of cool. Maybe there’s hints of people who tried to live away from the corelines, a bit of history. Some old blankets, some empty glass containers. A diary with words written in sharpened graphite.\n“This place is comfortable enough. Definitely warm. Food’s an issue… But I think I saw some mushrooms further up I can eat until it gets warmer out there.”\n\n“There’s tremors. The coreline is breaking apart the world. Destroying the land. I feel it.”\n\n“I’m lonely. To be blunt, I’m lonely. My days are spent melting snow by the lava, cultivating mushrooms — of which I’m running low! — and writing in here. I want someone to talk to, someone to hold, someone to hold me. Oh, what have I done!”\n\n“I’ve been sleeping a lot more. Sometimes I dream of other people. And sometimes I get visions of things beyond the cave. What are they doing at Beach? How do they stop snow from covering the glass roofs! Maybe they have hot lava too, circulating, circulating between the glass.”\n\n“I found another person! He was dead, though. Frozen. He was a very fit man with no food or clothes. I dreamed he followed a siren’s voice, meandering across the wastes in search of beauty. In search of me! And here he is now. I’ve taken him in. I’m going to eat him.”\n\n“He was flavorless. Legs and arms. Saved his face, I couldn’t eat it. He was filling. I feel full, too full? Was he still alive? I can’t think about that. I’m full. I’m full. That’s what’s important. Is that what’s important? I’ve eaten too much. Something feels wrong. What’s wrong with me?”\n\n“What have I done? I’m sure he was dead and I would have starved but I feel so so wrong, I’ve crossed a line I’ve gone too far. I can’t spit him out. I’ve tried so hard but he’s stuck inside. I hear him screaming to be let out and it hurts so much. I want to join him. If I die he can hear me say sorry. Living empty isn’t living, it’s just. moving. So I’m done. This isn’t the life I want.”\n\nYou follow a path outside the other end of the cave. it feels strangely warmer here. [_] here is a journal beside neatly folded clothing.\n\n“It’s been a long time. I had to break off this half of the journal so I can’t read what came before. It’s too painful. I’m better now, though I’m very very hungry I try not to think about it. I’ve been mixing mushrooms into the snow water and it makes a soup which is more filling but I know I’m finally going to run out even with the new section I found filled with them."\n\n"I’ve been visiting the coreline again. I watch another woman tinkering there, she builds such pretty things but tosses them far away in anger so I’m scared to say hello. But I don’t attack or eat her or steal her food because I don’t want her to be hungry.”\n\n“I made her a gift. She looks so upset when she thrashes metal pieces across the yard and screams so loud the cave walls shake. So I took the pieces she threw and put them together into a new shape and left the shape by her house. She looked at it for a long time and screamed again but it was a different scream.”\n\n“I’m going to die. I don’t want to call it suicide because I’m just finished living. I’m not sad anymore because she builds shapes like the one I made for her even though it looked silly now that I’m looking back on it. I simply don’t have food and I’m going to starve so now I’m going to go for a walk and wait for spring. I don’t know when it’ll get warmer but I’m good at waiting.”\n\n“I’m not cold anymore. I’m not hungry anymore.”\n\n[[asd8]]

The sky is twisted into a shade of pink. The ground feels softer here. There’s the scent of something strange in the air, though the plateau looks relatively uniform aside from the fissures in the ground.\n\nYou follow the scent to one of the fissures. There’s actually a rocky slope here that you can carefully step down, though when you reach the bottom some of it caves in making the way up tretcherous. The scent is stronger, though it doesn’t have a discernable placement. Smells like something living, something warm, maybe, but nothing you can place.\n\nAt the bottom of the fissure is a tiny geometrically and completely black cube standing on its corner. The walls gently curve around the cube and the pedastal it balances on.\n\nThe living scent flickers in and out of your awareness down here. Aside from the cube, the rest of the pit is a pile of rubble. \n\nAs you approach the cube it abruptly topples onto its side with a low thud. It’s made of stone and covered in etched spirals. It looks like the cube Ko had mentioned earlier. You grab the cube with both hands. It’s heavy, and warm, and it emanates a whirring sensation from within.\n\nThe curved walls of the ravine are holding their breath. The pale sun’s piercing gaze can’t penetrate the dark cube, which aside from its etchings, gleefully absorbs the light. \n\nIt’s time to bring the cube back to Ko. You turn around to walk back up the slope. Your only way out is up the hill of loose boulders.\n\n[[pok pok pok etc|asd91]]

Out in the other direction of the coreline is the shoreline. There’s not much here except, in the sand, round colorful pebbles of glass. Ko joins you here, sees the glass. She bends down. “Mekki talked about the rainbow pebbles here. She collected them as a child.”\n\nSifting a glove through the sand, Ko plucks out a pebble of each color. She holds them up to the pale sunlight, squinting through the smoothed glass, before packing them away into her bag. “I hope she likes it,” she says, standing and brushing off the sand from her clothes. “Hope it’s not too forward.”\n\n“…”\n\n“It’s not a secret that I like her. But I haven’t…” She sighs, turning away from the shore and stepping back up to the icy plateau. “The shoreline was a good find.”\n\n[[asd9]]\n\n----\n\n\n\n----\n\n

There’s rocky daggers jutting out from the snow, stark black rocks that cut against the white landscape. tah-leem, ko had said, pointing to them. “people say talim aren’t natural formations. careful climbing them – you’ll get lost.”\nYou walk towards one of the rock talim, a lone formation jutting out from an otherwise unbroken snowscape.. This one isn’t particularly steep. You stand at the top and notice the sky from this angle is a subtle shade of pink. There is nothing else up here but a view of your surrounding area: talim and chasms and the dark coreline whose light is visible even from up on your rock.\n\nYou climb back down and nearly fall into one of the chasms directly at the base of the talim.\n\nTowards the afternoon sun is a set of twin talim in parallel with each other, slender and smooth.\n\nAway from the sun is a low-rising talim surrounded by a ring of rocks both large and small.\n\nYour footprints from the coreline are not here, but its general location was away from the side of your talim.\n\n[The twin talim are separated just enough for you to fall between the two of them. You choose one side and make your way up to the top. There’s a faint scent of something indescribable – the scent of something living, and warm? – that grows stronger as you approach the top. \n\nFrom the vantage point of this talim you can see a web of jagged chasms tearing into the landscape in extremely dense patterns, completely cutting off your talim from the surrounding area. \n\nA strong, cold wind blows against your face. It’s getting colder.\n\nYou climb down the twin talim and examine your surroundings. The fissures surrounding you are both wide and deep; you will not be able to cross them. \n\nThere is one other talim on this section of land – a very wide and flat piece of rock those top partly juts out over a fissure.]\n\n[The wide talim is easy to climb due to its angle. You reach the edge of it quickly. \n\nThe surrounding landscape is largely barren of formations aside from gentle snow-covered hills and slopes. At your side, however, is a gigantic wall of ice – a blue-white behemoth that stretches too high to see the top of.\n\nYou climb down the rock. The ice is nearly vertical and stretches indefinitely in both directions. In the distance is the shadow of a talim, partially embedded in the ice. In the other direction, towards the sun, is the shadow of something low and flat to the ground.]\n\n[The snow is packed so hard your boots do not leave footprints. As you walk towards the evening sun you hear a thunderous sound from somewhere in the distance, a booming crack from over the horizon.\n\nThe low shadow is, in fact, another talim, disc-shaped and short. It hardly lifts from the ground at all, its top reaching the same height as yourself. There is no further variance to the landscape – beyond this talim is nothing but the rolling snowy hills and the looming glacier beside you.]\n\n[You climb to the top of this disk. You blink, and your surroundings change again. You are now in an excessively hilly area. The ground undulates haphazardly into looming hills blocking out the sun and winding depressions with frozen strands\n\n[You head in the general direction of the coreline as seen from the top of the rock, but there’s nothing but great fissures and tall talim stretching out of the snowscape.\n\nThe nearest talim to you is incredibly steep, but climbing to the top can give you a sense of direction. You slip several times on the way up, but make it without injury. The angle of rock at the very top levels out a bit, allowing you to comfortably stand and gain your bearings on the surroundings.]\n\n[[asd10]]

A faint light in the distance of the tunnel has appeared. Ko glances over at it. "...I'm only guessing you're a stranger at all, and I'm only guessing that you care about where you're from. And I'm only guessing you'll learn anything with me. So don't get too hopeful. You can't even communicate, so it's up to you to get what you want." \n\nShe scratches her arm. "Anyway, we did need an engineer. So at least you'll feel good about helping us. And about getting good trade."\n\nThe light grows in size. Ko puts her bottle away and brings her satchel closer as the two of you finally reach the end of the tunnel. The light feels excessively bright after being in the dark for so long; a few moments pass before you can see anything at all.\n\nKo lifts the transport roof and hops down with her satchel strapped across her shoulder, and you [[follow|be1]].

You’re woken up by a tap on the shoulder. “We’re almost there,” says Ko.\n\nThe tunnel is still black in both directions, but you sit up anyway. \n\nKo says, "Some details about why we're here. Goyo is the only engineer left at Beach and she's been sick. So we need to check up on her coreline. Might need some fixing, definitely needs prisms replaced."\n\nShe sips from her bottle of water. "I'll be honest. If you're coming with me only to find answers, keep low expectations. My instinct says the coreline's where you're most likely to learn something about yourself, [[but...|tun2]]"

She shakes her head, reaching back to the wall and twisting a gear. The flame in the center of the room shrinks, dimming the room further. "Well, you're here now. Maybe you don't care about learning where you're from. Maybe you just care about where to go now you're here." She crawls to her pile of cloth and lies down. "Guess it doesn't matter. We got a coreline to fix and that's what comes first. Night."\n\nYou attempt to arrange your cloth pile into something resembling comfort, but exhaustion takes over and you fall asleep.\n\n[[Time passes|asd8]].

Day 3\n\n- you run coreline diagnostics and it’s technically labeled fine but the output is still lower. You help ko down closer to the source. She emerges sweating and panting. It’s deeper than she’s ever gone before without being overwhelmed. It’s partially machine wear but the actual source is weaker too. Nothing we can do.\n- she needs to think. You develop your skills. Then explore.\n[[exploration3]] \n- talk about exploring.\n- talk about being an engineer. Nobody wants to be one because it’s tough and everyone’s convinced they won’t need them soon enough. Some people believe the coreline is actually preventing their progress. Ko understands but it’s stupid to think the coreline is bad. They don’t understand what engineers have to do. Her glass bottle cracks. She sighs and wraps it in cloth. It falls apart when she releases her grip. “Sorry for ranting. You’re a good listener. Maybe ‘cause you’re a bad talker. i don’t normally talk much to people other than Mekki.” Scratches her arm. “Maybe turn around when you don’t want to listen so I know when to stop talking.”\n\n[[asd10]]

-it's the final moment: ko's project seems more important than the coreline work here. ko seems visibly excited. she twists the gear.\nnothing happens.\nher machine didn't work, even on a small scale. \ncan't fix the coreline. can't replace the coreline. what are we supposed to do?\n\n-it’s time to go back. The journey feels shorter.\n- you stay at Goyo’s again. Ko and her fight a lot but get serious when it comes to fixing the weather. Goyo believes the secret is in a world prism, a means of trapping and amplifying the sunlight so that the world will be warmer. Ko believes the secret is in warming the core of the earth itself.\n\n\nthe two of you head back to hub in silence.

Snowfall Part II\n\n[[Begin]]

Day 4.\nKo runs another test, everything is fine, it says. She grunts. Teaches you how to slot prisms. You’re surprisingly efficient at it.\n\n- explore [[exploration4]]\n- ko realises she forgot to tell you about the gym. Offers it to you [if you went to the shore]\n- talk about exploration. You’ve grown!\n- talk about her project. It’s not working - missing some component. You’re leaving tomorrow, by the way. Ko feels it’ll be time to replace prisms.\n\n\n\n

Day 5\n- coreline needs replacement prisms. You do the work – ko’s impressed. \n- still weak. That should have been it. Ko was sure there would be something she could do. But everything is "fine" and it’s still not outputting enough. She punches the gym, dents the beam. \n- come with her to the talim. It takes you to the foot of a small mountain. You climb up. Ko asks you to sit and stay still, or wait at the bottom if you’d like.\n- she mourns gekim, saying she misses him and she wishes she had asked more about his life. She’s sorry for letting him down. She hopes he’s somewhere warm where he deserves to be. Then she speaks to zhu and asks for clarity in understanding the paths ahead so she may choose the right one. She asks for clarity for you to learn where you belong and to find your home.\n\n[[asd12]]

<<if $j eq "t">><<display traderstart>><<else>><<display engineerstart>><<endif>>

Enter your code here.\n\n|\n\n[[1|code1][$fsongs = 2]]||[[2|Begin]]||[[3|Begin]]\n[[4|Begin]]||[[5|Begin]]||[[6|Begin]]\n[[7|code1][$fsongs = 1]]||[[8|Begin]]||[[9|Begin]]\n\n(diagnostics: [[engineer|engineerstart]]

The transport’s progress through the tunnel is difficult to track. The tunnel is equally black in both directions and the rumbling of the transport does not change. Your only light source is the dim bulb by the front of the transport which hardly illuminates either you or Ko. \n\nThe transport would be soothing if not for the sound, and the occasional distressing bump in the tracks.\n\nThe two of you sit in relative silence. Ko periodically rummages through the bag of supplies, sometimes producing and wordlessly offering you some water, but mostly sits upright and sips from her own bottle.\n\nDespite the noise and the bumpiness of the ride, you eventually [[fall asleep|tun1]].

By the time you approach the shapes enough to see them clearly, a layer of clouds had drifted in with a light snowfall. The sun had risen but was quickly obfuscated by the clouds.\n\nThe talim, formations of dark rock as jagged as the surrounding chasms, jut out of the ground like teeth. "You'll get lost if you climb them," Ko says.\n\nAs you scan your surroundings, noting the varying heights and angles of these different rocks, you notice to your side the distant form of a humanoid walking. You only catch a glimpse of them -- they are heading towards an especially large talim and quickly vanish from sight as they step into the shadow of the tall rock. \n\nKo had not noticed, her eyes only focused ahead.[[asd1]]

Your walk back to the coreline is considerably shorter, though your legs have settled into a constant, dull burn. Ko seems unaffected by the constant walking. “Before we build a replacement part,” she says, “I’ll teach you how to [[forge|asd3]].”

The hallway opens to a large circular chamber. The ceiling here is glass as well, giving you a full view of the evening sky. The floor is filled with glass lamps and glass furniture arranged in a circular pattern.\n\nYou follow Ko across the room and sit down on the other side of the chamber, by the wall. The chairs and tables, you notice, are embedded with panels of wood for opacity. Ko says, “Good crafting. I’ll give 'em that.”\n\nShe rummages through her satchel and produces two bottles of water, offering you one. You haven’t had a drink in a while, and the air here is surprisingly dry, so you accept it.\n\nYou sit with Ko for some time. Ko busies herself watching people pass by. Beach is much more densely populated than Hub — many individuals clad in grey cloth of various cuts pass to and from this chamber into the multiple archways. Ko seems to avoid eye contact with the individuals bearing glass jewelry. She explains, "Not enough food from home for both of us, so we're getting more."\n\nEventually one of the passersby turns to Ko and walks over, a nondescript individual with long white hair. They carry multiple small satchels. They say, “[[Wha’you trade?|be3]]”\n\n

Untitled Story

You climb off the transport after Ko onto BEACH. This room is more tall than it is wide.\n\nThe walls and floor here are of a rough, sandy-beige stone. A dark blue sky shines through the thick glass ceiling. A few people in the room, dressed in generic cloth but adorned in glass jewelry, mount the transport in your place. Ko does not make eye contact with any of them, though she notices you taking in your surroundings. "New eyes," she murmurs. "So you've never been here."\n\nAside from the transport itself, a few loaded transport carts, and several glass benches, there is little else of interest in this room. A greeter stationed at the room's exit bows at the two of you, saying, "Welcome to Beach, humble Hub fellows. May I recommend --"\n\nKo glances at the greeter as she walks by, who immediately falls into silence and staggers into another bow. \n\nYou follow Ko through the arch into the upward-sloping hallway. “Knee-ohm,” Ko says, tilting her head at the brown walls and ceiling. “[[Nijom|be2]] keeps in heat but is too heavy to send on transport. So they build everything with it here.”

You're shaken awake by a rough hand. "Time to go," Ko says. "We need to dress." \n\nYou wash up in the bathroom while Ko finishes packing. When you return to the central chamber, Ko brings you a second set of robes to go on top of your own. It comes with a hood and sleeve pockets to cover your hands. She also hands you a heavy bag to strap across your back while she puts on her own.\n\nKo looks up through the glass ceiling at the starry sky. "Let's leave before sunrise." You follow her through Beach's network of hallways and chambers until you come across two sets of thick sliding glass doors. \n\nKo gestures at the set of doors. "There's a small chamber between the doors so the cold doesn't get in." She pushes the first door across and beckons you in. You force it closed while she opens the next door, and immediately feel a deep [[chill|be7]] in your core.

You hadn't been outside since first arriving at Hub. The landscape of Beach is much, much colder -- without the extra layers of cloth, you would not make it far without freezing.\n\nLike when you first approached Hub, the passage of time is difficult to track. As you walk, Ko occassionaly lifts her head and sniffs at her surroundings, but otherwise marches forward with a steady, lumbering rhythm. \n\nThe moonlit landscape follows subtle undulations, scarred with massive jagged chasms that tear across the ground in wide swaths without visible pattern. A good amount of your journey is spent navigating around these rifts. Luckily, the snow is so hardened your feet hardly sink beneath the surface despite the staggering weight of the supplies on your backs.\n\nYou've been hiking long enough to see the sun's first rays blast out across the sky. Shadowing the slowly brightening sky are several black shapes jutting out over the horizon. Ko gestures to these jagged shapes with her head. "Tah-leem", she says, her first audible words since leaving Beach. "You should feel honored to see the talim in person. [[Zhu's spine is holy|be8]]."\n\n

Ko leads you through several hallways and chambers, ranging from living quarters to crafting rooms to bars towards a shabbier end of Beach where the ceilings are not as high and the walls are rougher. \n\nThe two of you eventually arrive at a medium-small chamber. Ko says, “This is Goyo’s room. Excuse her mess.”\n\nIt’s a large circular chamber like the others, except the walls are covered in sheets of paper from floor to ceiling. Complex charcoal diagrams line the walls, ranging from engines to prisms to detailed maps.\n\n"Goyo's probably at the medical ward now," Ko says. "We'll be staying here for the night and leaving next morning."\n\nKo inexpertly navigates around the metal scraps littering the room, kicking parts aside as she makes her way to the device in the center of the chamber. She places her satchel down and twists a nearby pipe to activate a smooth and controlled jet of flame from the device. Pulling out the bag of soup powder and a bottle of water, she gestures you over with her head. "[[Let's cook|be5]]."\n\n

You and Ko have to wade through several heaps of scrap before finding a bowl-shape large enough to cook in, but the soup itself comes together quite easily. The soup is not awful but lacks interesting flavours. \n\nAfterward, Ko gives you a brief and wordless tour of the washroom and bedroom before leaving the chamber with her satchel. Both washroom and bedroom contain nothing but bare essentials, a contrast to the center chamber which seems to hold a multitude of abstract scrap. "Getting prisms," she says. "Be right back."\n\nMost of the mess here is metal, but a few chunks of twisted glass and piles of folded paper make up a considerable portion as well.\n\n- Most of the metals are bent into large, strange geometric shapes. There’s miniature engines as well, lifeless husks of curved plate and spiralling cords wrapped around arrays of gears and pins. Goyo, whoever she is, must have been trying to replicate something — there’s multiple models of the same engines and geometric shapes, with only tiny nuances between them.\n\n- Most of the glass has been carved or bent into large, strange geometric shapes — the same shapes as their metal counterparts. Some refract light into a singular point within, creating a brilliant burst of colour in the middle.\n\n- The diagrams depict both engines and geometric shapes of multiple types. Lines connect the shapes with the engines, though all of the diagrams here are crossed out in a thick line of charcoal.\n\n"Back", says Ko. Her satchel appears full. "Let's get sleep. We set out tomorrow for the Beach coreline, and it's cold out there."\n\nYou and Ko share a wooden bed. The sheets are thin and the wood is hard against your spine. Ko's arms and legs take up most of your space, spread out as though trying to embrace the moon in her dreams. Despite your uncomfortable condition, you eventually fall asleep.\n\n[[Time passes.|be6]]

You're woken by the sound of the shack door closing. Your hip and shoulder are stiff, and your feet as well -- you had forgotten to take your boots off. Ko's standing by the door and waves to you. "Morning. Got the piece. We're gonna slot it into place."\n\n- after getting special gloves you head over to junction two, where the pipe was broken\n- ko makes you stand back while she slots the piece in. \n- while walking she tells you the junction specifically exists to be weaker than the rest of the coreline pipe so that any impurities or pressures that could cause issues will have the stress directed to the weakest point. junctions are designated weak points that are easier to access than the underground tunnels.\n- she describes as she goes that beach doesn't let her deactivate power while she does this so it's dangerous\n- she explains the coreline energy travels through a liquid that is blocked by [hub's metal] which is why all coreline things are made with this ore, normal metals like iron would have energy leaks everywhere\n- she lifts up the metal sheet with her full-gauntlets [arms included] and replaces it with her new covering asap. there's a wave of heat and your heart suddenly rushes. your tongue goes numb and your muscles get stiff.\n- ko apologises, didn't think it'd make as big a leak in that split second. but we're done.\n- you climb back to the place. she says she's working on her own project and you should practice cutting a sheet of metal into a ventilation cover. shows you technique and directs you to 'babyline', designed to test pieces on\n- you do ok. it works out decently. you practice making pieces and slotting variations. ko's working on her own project somewhere, walking over to examine your work from time to time. \n\n[[exploration1]]\n\n[[asd9]]

- you head back\n- explore [[exploration2]]\n- come back and ko’s working out. You make dinner\n- you talk about exploration\n- you talk about day 2 stuff: “what I’m working on is a weather machine.” Disperse enough heat into the air and itll melt the snow. Probably. Spoilers: doesn’t work. We’re repairing the coreline but it won’t last forever. They’re dying and it’s getting harder to fix so we need to make it so we don’t need them anymore.\n- you remember your dream – you picked up the coreline and tossed it into the sky where the clouds disappeared.\n\n[[asd91]]

Ko does not speak until the coreline is visible on the horizon, a low-rising shadow against the grey of clouds. “Made it,” she says. “Hope Goyo left the forges intact.”\n\nA mechanical grinding sound fills your ears as you approach, a much louder and more complex rendition of Hub’s constant and low churning. Forges, stacks of metal and strange machines of varying sizes fill the area. Ko points at the twirling metal dome in the center of this ring of machines -- an imposing behemoth of a structure surrounded with layers of constantly shifting metal. It resembles a massive, mechanised rose. Straining against the layers of sound, Ko says: “That’s the coreline keeping Beach alive. A long walk, but Beach is in no danger if another tragedy like Chapel happens.”\n\nYou follow her around the coreline to a small cube-shaped shack at the quieter perimeter, stepping over pipes and around rusted paneled boxes to get there. “We sleep [[here|asds1]],” she says, prying its flimsy metal door open with her hand. \n\n

After rinsing in the water pipe, the two of you step outside. Ko labels the various metal devices around you as you head towards the coreline itself: "...That's the divider. Lets you slice large amounts of material to equal length. There's the mouldcrafter. I'll explain that later. Here's the recycler. Melts down scrap so you can reuse it. Don't mix the metals though we use a different machine for that..." You try to absorb her information but the multitude of different machines is staggering. \n\nYou reach a square machine directly in front of the mechanical rose, the coreline, where Ko rubs her hands together. She shouts, "I'm gonna pull each of these levers and listen for sounds. It's a [[stress test|asds2]]."\n\nThe machine has four different levers. Ko closes her eyes.\n\n

When you return, she leads you around the coreline site to several different locations, briefly outlining the functions of each machine as you obtain scrap metal and cut it into strips. The basic functions of each machine are easy to grasp, though Ko is having a visibly difficult time explaining without feedback or communication to confirm your understanding. \n\nThe two of you arrive at the furnace. The heat emanating from it makes you sweat. “You’re going to learn to shape metal,” she says. “Here’s a basic shape.” She dons a pair of thick gauntlets over her gloves, and using a set of prongs, holds the strip of metal inside the sweltering chamber of the furnace.\n\nKo quickly pulls the strip out after a time and grasps it with her gauntlets, letting the prongs drop to the ground. Eyes closed, she performs a series of quick and decisive bends until the metal strip has become a perfect square. Ko places the gauntlets into a pile of snow a few paces away until the steam dissipates, then passes them to you. “[[Your turn|asd4]].”\n

\nThe gauntlets are somewhat uncomfortable and heavy. The layers of interlocking metal and cloth give them a surprising range of motion, but these layers also make the gloves exhausting to grasp with. \n\n“Now’s the time to learn what you’re made of.” \n\nShe passes you a set of prongs and holds up another strip of metal. “Hold it in the furnace until you see it glow, then bend it into a square. Take your time bending it. With patience it’ll yield.” The strip starts to glow a dull red, so you pull it from the heat and hold it with your gauntlets. You hold your breath and push as hard as you can to bend it. \n. \n. \n. \nThe first bend is somewhat successful, though it doesn’t quite reach a 90 degree angle before becoming too cold to move. You attempt a second bend but the metal refuses to shift. “You didn’t hold the metal in long enough,” Ko says, “And you gave up before the metal cooled.” She passes you another strip of metal. “Get this bent into a square shape, but do it however you want. Be creative.” You could bend it by pressing it against the corner of the furnace, or you could bend the metal around ko’s own square shape. \n\nYou calculate you’ve been holding the strip in a few seconds longer than last attempt, so it should be more pliable. You reach over towards ko’s square and begin bending against the contour. \n\n[You immediately notice the mistake of bending the strip around the square – your squares sides are considerably larger when wrapped around ko’s, which leaves a corner unfinished.]\n\nKo raises an eyebrow. “…OK.” She passes you a new strip. “Try going by instinct. It’s not just guessing – it’s opening your senses. Feeling the right time and place to act.” You place the metal in the furnace and try to open your senses. You feel hot. The gloves are heavy. The metal is red. Your legs still hurt. You feel like you should wait longer, so you hold the metal until you feel it ready. When you pull the strip out, you immediately drop the prongs and bend it with your gauntlets. The metal strip quickly becomes a twisted abberation and snaps into two. \n\nKo scratches her arm. "You're pretty bad at this. Keep practicing. I'm going to build the replacement plate. Keep working with the scrap you have. Remember: Strength and patience, creativity and calculation, or sensing and instinct.” \n\nShe turns and starts walking away. “Work on developing one of those [[paths|asd5]]. I’ll be at the cylinder moulds.”

Your day passes with little event. Ko periodically comes by to check in on you and guides you through the process of melting down your bent scrap into new strips of metal until you can perform the process yourself with minimal burns. Bending the scraps of metal is exhausting and somewhat tedious, but your practicing had made the day pass surprisingly quickly. \nYour square-bending prowess has improved by the end of the day, though you are still unable to replicate Ko's perfect shape. \n\nEventually Ko calls you over. "Finished the plate," she says. "Should be finished cooling by tomorrow. It's Keppite so it takes a while. Anyway, go [[rest|asd6]]. We'll work more tomorrow."\n\n

The two of you are inside the shack. You're lying on a pile of thick rough cloth. Ko is staring into the fire, absentmindedly twisting a piece of silvery metal into various shapes. "By the way," Ko says, "Feel free to explore the area. We'll eat when the sun sets." \n\nHowever, your legs refuse.\n\nKo stretches after a time, evidently bored. "I'm going to build a gym. Can't sit around." She leaves you alone in the shack as you rest on your set of blankets. \n\nYou blink.\n\nYou're standing at the foot of a talim. The angle is steep, but you can climb it. Wind howls around you but you feel nothing. Jek says, "What are you [[waiting|asds7]] for?"

When the two of you are finished eating, you rinse out the dishes at the waterpipe while Ko puts away the soup powders and spices. When you sit back down at the fire, Ko gazes into your eyes. The two of you stare at each other for some time, silent except for the muted churning outside. She eventually says, "I'm gonna ask you questions. I know you can't answer. But I'm gonna ask anyway.\n\n"Do you know who you are?"\n\n"..."\n\n"Do you know my name?"\n\n".."\n\n"Do you know who Gekim was?"\n\n"..."\n\n"Before meeting us. Did you know what Hub, Beach or Land were?"\n\n"..."\n\n"Do you know what Jek and Mekki look like?"\n\n".."\n\n"...I see." Ko raises her arms in a stretch. "I'm trying to read you. Looks like you don't know anything before coming to Hub. [[Not even your name|as8]]."

Ko gazes at you while she sips. "You look at everything like you've never seen it before. I saw you at Beach. And at Hub. You know how doors work but not where they go." She places her empty bowl down and rubs her chin. "You lose your memory? Forget who you are?" \n\n"..."\n\n"Forget how to talk?"\n\n"..."\n\n"We'll figure it out. Learn where you belong." Ko scratches her arm. "We'll try, anyway. Either way -- you need to find your paths."[[asd7]]\n

"Iron," Ko replies.\n\n"Yes, I hoped as much from your clothing. Very practical! No nonsense with you, hm?"\n\n"No."\n\n“Ah, er. So I have glass, as you would expect, but perhaps you’d like food as well? I happen to carry some soup powder on me. Another Hub innovation, correct? Ingenious, powdered food! Even Land hadn't thought--” \n\n“I want food. And I have four blocks.” Ko reaches into her satchel and eases four fist-sized bricks onto the glass table.\n\nThe white-haired stranger blinks. “Ah, you’re a strong one…” They open one of their satchels and show Ko the sandy powder inside. “Bone and salt. Animal bone!” \n\nThe transaction continues without much event. Soon Ko is lowering a large bag of powder into her satchel while the white-haired individual tries to fit the blocks of iron into one of their satchels, struggling with their weight. “Let’s go,” says Ko. You [[follow|be4]] her from the circular room through one of the archways as the stranger yells, “Thank you!”

The shack is essentially a hollow metal cube, reminiscent of Hub architecture. It consists of little but a fire, a bed, a water pipe, and blank metal floor. \n\nThe two of you open your bags. Your bag was primarily cloth, with glass bottles cushioned between the folds, while Ko's bag held metal tools and a massive amount of powdered food.\n\n"Want to cook or unpack?"\n\n"..."\n\n"...Right." Ko strokes her chin. "Here. You can cook, right? Pour some water in, boil over the fire, add powder." She passes you a bag of powder and bottle of water, then proceeds to unpack. "Probably want to sit down to cook."\n\nYou are suddenly aware of the ache in your legs. \n\nSitting down, you prepare the soup. Ko speaks while she unpacks: "First we'll perform a diagnostic test on the coreline. Then I'll show you how to forge. That's what we'll do today."\n\nYou had put too much powder to the soup. It comes out tasting painfully salty. Ko takes a sip of her portion and winces. "Let's not waste powder."[[asd2]]\n

Ko pulls the first lever. You don't hear a change in sound. She lifts the lever back up.\nShe pulls the second lever. You don't hear any change. She lifts it back up.\nShe pulls the third lever. You don't hear any change. She lifts it back up.\nShe pulls the fourth lever. You don't hear any change. She lifts it back up.\n\nKo nods. "You [[hear|asds3]] it? Third lever. Means an output issue. Not giving the energy it should be. So I pull the third lever back down and listen again for the others."\n

With the third lever down, she pulls the first lever down and up. No noticible change in sound. \nShe repeats this with the second lever. No change. \nWhen Ko pulls down the fourth lever, you hear a high-pitched ring emanate from somewhere behind you. "Powerline at second junction," Ko grunts. "Not bad. We're not in danger, and it should be fast."\n\nShe starts walking away. "Let's see how bad it is."\n\nYou follow her back into the snowscape. Your legs hadn't fully recovered from your hike out to the coreline and begin aching almost immediately. Luckily, Ko's pace is slower this time, her hood down and head slightly turned as if listening for a specific sound. [[asds4]]

Ko glances at you. “Feel the humming below?”\n\nYou close your eyes. You feel only the piercing cold of Beach’s air. You hear only your own breathing.\n\n“You’ll learn,” says Ko, walking with a deliberate, slow sweeping step. Eventually she crouches down, evidentally hearing something important. She presses her hand against the frozen snow for a moment before standing and breaking out into a jog. You try to keep up.\n\nKo is waiting for you at the edge of a ravine. You notice a metal ladder is attached to the wall of this ravine, lined with cloth rungs. “Keep your gloves on,” she says. She climbs down the ladder, and you [[follow|asds5]].

While you do not hear anything, you feel the air is thick with energy. \n\nA thick pipe stretches across the ground perpendicular to the ravine. It’s inlaid with glass prisms and layered with interlocking metal plates. One of these plates seems slightly warped. Ko, very slowly, walks up to the pipe and compares the dimensions of the warped plate with her forearm. She stares at the pipe for some time before nodding and slowly stepping back towards you. “Easy fix. [[Let’s go|asds6]].”

<<if $j eq "t">>You've just started your life in this unfamiliar world as a trader. You don't remember where you came from, or who you are.<<else>>You've just started in this unfamiliar world as an engineer. You don't remember where you came from, or who you are.<<endif>>\n\nYou're on a transport, heading towards <<if $j eq "t">>Land.<<else>>Beach.<<endif>>\n\n[[Confirm|pok]]

You wake up. Ko's cooking a bowl of soup in her underclothes, skin slick with sweat. "Just finished dinner. Come eat."\n\nLegs stiff, you half-crawl over to the fire in the center of the room while Ko pours you a bowl of soup. "Made the gym," she says with a proud grin. "I'll show you how it works if you want to use it too."\n\nThe two of you drink in silence for a time. It's a thin soup with hints of sage and some other herbs. \n\nKo finishes her soup before you and pours herself another bowl. "We're lucky we can eat as much as we want. Engineer perk is we always have enough trade to get by."\n\n"[[...|asds8]]"

Enter your code here.\n\n|<<if $fsongs eq 2>>1<<else>>7<<endif>>\n\n[[1|code1]]||[[2|code2][$alc = "yes"]]||[[3|code1]]\n[[4|code1]]||[[5|code1]]||[[6|code1]]\n[[7|code1]]||[[8|code1]]||[[9|code2][$alc = "no"]]

Enter your code here.\n\n|<<if $fsongs eq 2>>1<<else>>7<<endif>><<if $alc eq "yes">>2<<else>>9<<endif>>\n\n[[1|code2]]||[[2|code2]]||[[3|code2]]\n[[4|code2]]||[[5|code3][$j = "t"]]||[[6|code2]]\n[[7|code2]]||[[8|code3][$j = "e"]]||[[9|code2]]

Enter your code here.\n\n|<<if $fsongs eq 2>>1<<else>>7<<endif>><<if $alc eq "yes">>2<<else>>9<<endif>><<if $j eq "t">>5<<else>>8<<endif>>\n\n[[Wake up|starter]].

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