Outlook

‘Well… I don’t think THAT was here before?’ Keyren scratched is head, as he looked at the picture he had sketched the day before, then looked up at the view from the plateau in the cliff that he had managed to lever himself up to. Sure enough, one of the small ruins he had drawn yesterday, stocked with vending machines, had been pushed along a good distance down the old track it generally rested on. Under his breath, he cursed the ancient AI that likely had a sudden memory that it belonged elsewhere- then quickly countered that with a prayer of apology for his doubt to the Voice of Writing in his Ka and the greater AI that stood behind it, making a circular motion with his hands. Best not to annoy his personal divinity whilst he was up so high, lest it encourage bad will against him. But that did leave him with an incorrect map... With a moment’s thought, he got out his knife, and slowly excised the shape of the ruin from the map, cutting it out like a puzzle piece. Then, with a dramatic flourish and a smirk, he pinned it into another place in the map with a flourish. ‘Theeeere you go!’ He said, feeling proud with himself… before realising the hole he made in the map. ‘Hmmmm… That’s not ideal... Well the clear stuff acts as glue, right?’

Nature of The Outlook

The Outlook is a crater-like canyon, surrounded by high cliff faces. It stretches on for around 70 miles in a circular shape, and is about half a mile deep. People do climb the cliffs, and indeed the Seil Tribe are known for their travelling rope settlements that crawl around the outsides of The Outlook. There were clearly once more efficient ways of climbing the walls of The Outlook, including boxes attached to the sides with snapped wiry ropes, as well as great staircases- but most of these are damaged, impassable, or guarded by very dangerous AIs.

Above the crater, there are various ruins that stretch around, observing down into the canyon. Some of these are filled with books in Citadel script, others strange brackish indoor pools, even more with flickering, once fluorescent lights and abandoned beds. To the East there exists the Flats. Here, nature seems to have broken through a construct of the World Before, spires that seem like (very) miniature Citadels, and large metal tubes with sails on the side. If people visit, it is to marvel at what once was, rather than to learn or discover new things; though it would be wrong to say there aren’t still undiscovered treasures in the off-white towers.

The Citadel

One of the things that you will always see in the Outlook is the Citadel. Some people have numerous open walls in their huts, so they can always see the comforting glow of the Citadel, even at night. It is a large and wide spire, sleek in design, with various rings and levels that seem to shift from time to time with languorous slowness, like a puzzle that stretches itself into the skies. If one was to estimate, it is likely around the size of a large forest in terms of diameter, and it stretches to just above the head of the canyon, meaning the top is very difficult to see. Going close, the white material gently hums, seemingly what has repelled the years of dust, storm and dirt that felled the lesser ruins. At the base, there is a circular wall that seems to stretch back into the building- to the South is a gate, which is usually guarded by AI constructs. The wall is almost seamless, and its sheer surface makes it impossible to climb.

The Citadel is the centre of all mappings, and all Cardinal directions are based on the four prongs that ring the apex of the Citadel. The area directly under the Citadel is not very populated, due to the fact it is a more sterile landscape. It has a number of vending machines and other such dispensing units that are fed with Citadel Tokens- these have been primitively connected into ‘districts’- clothing, accessories, technology and food. However, the technology is mainly broken and faulty- best for creating personal mediums- and the food is either canned or massively spoiled. If someone were to discover a way to purify decayed delicacies, or repair broken technology, they would be seen as a saviour.

Habitation in the Outlook

Most habitation is in the fertile ring around the Citadel, broken up by the Southern Road. Here, there is enough plant growth for harvesting food, but also flat lands for building temporary settlements, before moving on. The Western and Southern areas are the most dangerous, for different reasons- to the West for creatures, and to the South for the possibility of malfunctioning AI from the road. Heavily Dead Strain tribes often locate themselves closer to the Inner ring, so that they are nearer to the Citadel and the AI that can often be seen drifting around it on the flat lands.

Most settlements are temporary and movable- there is no need for permanent settlement, when resources are so abundant wherever you move. For example, the Quilt are a travelling tribe of storytellers, who weave their sleeping arrangements into the trees through hammocks and other cloth hangings, and move on when they need to by pulling these down and searching for a new place to put up camp. Things are, in theory, carved out into vague ‘areas’, but realistically as long as two tribes do not live on top of one another without mutual consent, boundaries are more or less accepted. Some tribes highly connected to their past and their dead, such as ‘The Diamonds’, have a general connection to an area which they claim as their ancestral ground . Indeed, their ‘Tombs of the Servers’ are a well known permanent area, a cave complex to the South West where the black boxes of generations past are enshrined in honour. Other permanent areas of the Outlook can be found here.