2022.04.15, Fā Boh

Report by Fā Boh, submitted April 15th

After starting the day with an amazing salad made by Castille, we left the campsite to follow the cliffside, trying to get to the river the long way around. We saw some weird marks near the cliffside where we met those cool lizard dogs the other time. We followed the cliffside until we got to the river and then some annoying screeching birds quickly flew down, looking to start some beef. Just then Worthy Friend, with Castille's help totally just fucking, killed a rock, like, I didn't know you could even do that what the hell, but no they totally just killed a rock that was maybe fifteen times bigger than them and the birds were like "woah ok let's no mess with these folks". Well ok the birds didn't talk but you could see that they were scared chicken-shit by us.

We followed the river, and as the valley sloped up near the end we saw a white building built into the side of the valley. The river itself looks like it's coming out of that white stone place. It was just so beautiful, mother of dust, such a perfectly built pristine white building. There were these large circular domed buildings at the bottom all connected by smaller buildings and there were some fuckass big stone walls with rounded arches and built stone ridges. Musta' been 150m high. There were a lot of big bronze wheels, like 30m in diameter. Listen, I know I'm not the tallest reed in the river, but I felt like a SHRIMP here. Oh, the small buildings were like, between the big wheels but not between them like below where they'd be between them if they were actually between them and not on the ground kinda thing. The wheels stick out sideways, like a shuriken in a wall instead of like a clock face.

The wheelhouses had 3 rows of square windows and small tops, and the hallway-looking-buildings between them had these little drippy things where water pooled into the river, Castille called them Sluicescapes, big word for a leaky basement if you ask me. And then, damn, it finally hit me, with my genuis cunning, was this a big stone dam?

The next thing in our way was the river, so Castille got tied to Worthy who just kinda walked across the bottom, and then Worthy found some handholds - what a legend! I swam across, using my perfect form to easily get there minutes before the rest. I snuck up to the handholds and started climbing and this thing, and lemme tell you, it is MASSIVE like you GOTTA see it yourself, the wheels are pretty as hell, I'd wear one of those wheels as a necklace if it wasn't so dusting humongous!

When we got closer I noticed that a lot of this building seemed like it was made by nerds, everything seemed full of patterns and exact ratios and blah blah blah, real overdesigned stuff if you ask me. I don't need numbers to tell me what works or what looks good, if you ask me. But anyways, I teleported inside and there was this 20ft wide wooden balcony with an shining bronze railing inside and I was doing this HILARIOUS bit where I pretended to be in trouble and didn't make noise like it was soundproof and Worthy kinda smashed through the window to join me (what a good friend) and we all laughed so hard and it was so funny and great and Castille also loved my joke. Oh uh, just so you know the broken window was by the wheel that was working so you should be able to spot it! The ladder was like, right under it ish sort of, you'll see it don't worry.

I spotted a shiny thing in the dark on the floor and we went down some stairs to check it out. The bottom floor had these cool mosaics but even more importantly had these big metal things with like, gears and tubes and pipes and stuff.

[---] I did the sickest trickshot and shot one of the waterwheels that was 50ft up, the hook swung against the wheel, wrapping around tight - a perfect shot like always [-] the incoming torrent of a captive waterfall. What a beautiful thing, a waterfall. Life-giver, ever wrathful, pourring angrier than rain has ever known. [-] The water was beating down, heavier than sorrow, and longer than mourning. [] Don't worry though, I grabbed the rapelling hook before anyone could forget it.

Then we kinda went to check out the spoke of the waterwheel and found this huge honkin' black cylinder, looked like it was made of the same stuff as the landing platform, but Worthy Friend [--] BLASTED back, almost as if lightning itself was being held inside this thing. Right after that we sound some ancient pictographs, with some writing in a language long-forgotten. There was a picture of some form of folkoid touching an object and getting hurt... Talk about timing.

I discovered some stairs on the other side of the catwalk so we went down to try and find a nice way out! The floor was made of grates and looked like it leads somewhere deeper into the island, but who knows where. By the grates we found another tunnel which, funily enough, lead back to the room we explored in the first part. Castille seemed a bit embarassed by this, but I dunno, it was fun to climb the wheel! I mean, nothing. Nevermind.

ANYWAYS! While we were here we went back up the stairs all the way to the top. I bravely snuck up the stairwell to scout it out and found a door, I then bravely and sagely went back to the group to share my wisdom before we went to check it out together, as a team! Because I LOVE teamwork! Teamwork is the best and I'm such an amazing team player. I should tell you the story about that time I led a group of 10 orphans to victory against an army of a thousand angry kin, but that's for another day.

The door lead to an incredibly fancy-schmany room with like, wooden floors which kinda suck because they give you splinters, but there were cool archways and some like pillars that were like rad and carved and all artsy and stuff so it evened out. Well, probably artsy I mean, I dunno, it's old stuff, seemed arty. The walls were pitch black stone and the ceiling was a dome which like, what the fuck who makes a dome ceiling unless you're STACKED!!! And even more, the dome was made of gold and it had mosaics and stained glass and just all that royals palaces type stuff.

That's when my cunning investigative eye noticed this glass display case with an old really fancy kinda gilded looking book. Suddenly, out of nowhere and COMPLETELY unprompted, these metal people in long black coats with bronze trim slid down from hidden pannels in the wall and surrounded us. There must have been at least 50 of them. I knew time was of the essence, so I commanded my team into action! Castille bravely and strongly with rippling muscles chucked a pedestal with Worthy's help, but unfortunately it didn't distract these cunning assassins. Luckily for us, I am the most cunning kin who will ever live or die. Silently I managed to lead my allies to safety!.. or so we thought.

Downstairs there was a mass of terrifying destructive metal claws and arms, it was a creature unlike I had seen before, something Castille called a "Row bott". We knew we were outmatched. Worthy Friend then selflessly through himself through a window about a hundred feet above the water so that we could escape. We all landed safely enough, but Worthy sadly landed least safe of all of us. After that I saw some of those bastard metal people standing at the edge of The Aqueduct, menacing us. They might have had the drop on us this time, but I know that next time when we face them, we'll be ready. Their cheap tricks won't save them again.