#i also got a better sense of Vish's voice as i went along | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

meolcwifes · 5 years

Text

I played Alone Among the Stars and had a nice time!

//BEGIN RECORDING: 20:24 SSC 15/03/35

//THIS IS THE LOG OF SOJOURNER KESTREL VISH.

+ Made planetfall as the suns set; after making camp, I set out under the light of the close-orbiting moon to investigate bands of phosphorescence visible 1.5 miles off, over hard terrain (dry, rocky bluff interspersed with 'hoodoos' eroded by wind). After ascending nearby escarpment, it becomes clear that phosphorescence is a property of certain strata of the rock formations themselves.

+ have followed river from its headwaters in the bluffland, and established base of ops. in high-sided canyon. Where higher elevations dry, lifeless, this area thrives; thick stands of fleshy plant life, fern-trees upward of 20' in height. Veins of sap seem to carry residual phosphorescent properties found in minerals deposits, river silt.

+ Caught my eye as I stopped for meal. further downriver I have found the remnants of some kind of construction: a low dome-shaped structure topped by a platform, reachable by stairway. All built of dry red-veined stone (abundant around river). Platform dominated by stone ring, roughly human-height in its aperture; study reveals its opening to align with the rise of the moon.

+ On leaving my leafy canyon, I find myself in dry hills again. Rounding a bend, I am faced suddenly with another ruined structure: carefully designed to blend into the land around it, a ciruclar area paved in stone bricks, surrounded by what appear to have been towers. The complex strongly reminiscent of small spaceport.

+ The weather has grown hot, and I have retreated to another river-canyon. This is forested with 'trees' like huge, swaying, coiling rosemary bushes. After much difficulty I manage to climb the ropey branches to harvest the fruit I see growing in the upper canopy. Thick and oblong, edible, something like a fibrous cucumber in texture. Sweet, somewhat peppery flavour.

+ Planet listing entered into Ekumenical Database as planet 'Sapsorrow' - name pending ratification. __________

+ Planetfall; fierce windstorm makes landing difficult. I make contact with small outpost of genemod settlers. Their aircraft shepherd me through storm, and the community gives me hospitality.

+ My first venture out of my hosts' territory cut short; their homestead is located on a volcanic 'island' in the middle of a hot sulphur lake.

+ After breakfast and tending to repairs on the ship, I catch my first sight of native life on the planet: an airborne plantform, something like a vast sail of kelp suspended in a 'rigging' of roots and held aloft by this world's forceful air currents.

+ Planet registered in Database under inhabitants' name: planet 'Ciuciush' - indigenous identification, ratification unnecessary. _________

+ Touched down on a black outcrop of rock near the equator - planet distant from sun, largely icebound - made camp on ridge overlooking the rough blue field of a glacier. From out my viewport as I made tea, I spotted the blackened wreck of what looks like an old transmition aerial, projecting from the ice. No signs of construction around me otherwise.

+ Surveying the glacier; I didn't see them at first - my snow goggles limiting the range of my vision - but I heard the whirr of their motorsledge. A research team from the Polis-Worlds. They crewed the station whose aerial I saw yesterday, before a fire consumed it and much of their assembled data; they make for another station on the far side of the mountains.

+ I am travelling with the researchers now; I haven't room in the ship to carry them, but the sledge moves faster now we've moved what supplies we can onboard. Progress impeded today by an unexpected ice barrier - the glacier's surface is variously pitted and upthrusting into weird daggers many storeys high. Tove - a geologist - and I climb one to get a better view. We'll have to go around the rough ice - at least a half day of travel.

+ As we progress along the spine of ice, we find that some of the pits contain liquid water - unusual! We refill our stocks.

+ Scouting ahead, Tove and I find the bare framework of another transmitter. 'The original survey team put down around here', she says. 'I thought they were further from us, though'. Ekumenical contact was apparently first made 20 SSY ago; Tove and her team are part of the ratification effort.

+ The descent from the glacier is exhausting. We are forced to disassemble the sledge; I ferry goods down in Penelope's Loom, but much of the journey is still a hard, dangerous climb. We are successful. Two days later: we have reached the research base. I manage a goodbye to Tove and my comrades of the past several days before they are consumed by a series of debriefings.

+ Planetary designation: Mahler. Ratification ongoing. __________

+ The skies here are thick with swarms of insects, hovering like flocks of starlings. They coat every surface with a tarry substance, which has found its way onto the Loom's exterior almost immediately. I have spent the morning attempting vainly to clear the viewports of the stuff.

+ Scanners reveal something on the lakebed; with great difficulty I fight through the thick skin of swarm-secretion which floats on the surface. It clogs my breathing apparatus, clings to my limbs. Not until get below it can I clean myself off, relying on oxygen backup. I am rewarded with the sight of a majestic stone sculpture: an enormous, beautiful face, its features human but made uncertain by erosion. Patches of mosaic scintillate under my searchlight.

+ The waters of this world hide such beauty. In a caldera lake, the surface clear of the omnipresent bugs of the lowlands, I find another statue. Tiled in long red oblongs, a huge human figure; the position of their arms evokes something ritual, prayerlike. The people of the world were or are truly wonderful artists.

+ Took water samples from a channel cutting through the highland rock. As I take a break from rowing, I spot through the water a trio of tiled figures, deep at the bottom and surrounded by a garden of tissuelike vegetation. I will miss this place.

+ Listing entered into Ekumenical Database: planet 'Monumence' - name pending ratification. ___________

+ Planetfall at mountain peak - atmosphere at lower elevations dangerously thick. A low stone wall rings the area, hemming in the mountaintop like an ancient fortress.

+ Pausing during the preparation of my landing and camp site, I see dark outlets carved into the cliffs above me. Perhaps the mountain *is* a fortress?

+ At night, the snow turned green under the hazy light of the moon as it filters through the atmosphere, the Loom is rocked by something outside. A small herd of animals: quadrupedal, avian, long-legged. At least 10' at the shoulder. The nuzzle the warm ground around the ship, perhaps for food.

+ I inspect something which I took initially to be a flying creature, but which has hung in the same place the last three days. It is an aerial structure; no sign of habitation - merely a lonely metal shell, a bunker in the sky. Its engine and means of staying in the air are opaque to me.

+ Though my record of this world is incomprehensive, I feel deeply uncomfortable here and have decided to leave. There is a presence that I do not like, and feel to have intruded upon.

+ Planet logged in Ekumenical Database: designation 'Broch' - name pending ratification. This article lacks physical data. __________

#it's neat to see how different my log is from ghoul's #i also got a better sense of Vish's voice as i went along #i recommend this game!#i couldn't come up with an original term i liked so 'ekumen' is borrowed from ursula leguin

3 notes · View notes