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Today I will meet with a team of engineers and builders. I needed to talk with them to make a necessary device for our expedition into the Graylands.

Within the Graylands no conventional navigation techniques or devices work. The stars do not shine to guide, and there are now known notable landmarks to follow, even a compass does not function in that place.

So, following in the footsteps of scholar Jax, who made a journey into the Graylands a hundred years ago, I prepared for this inevitability. The thing I sought from these craftsmen was a…rope. Yes, a most primitive technology, but necessary. I intend to leave behind a large rope as we travel the Graylands, using it to help find our way out, as Jax had done.

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Since there is no normal way to navigate the Graylands, this rope will be our group's lifeline, the thing that will guide us out of that place. As such, It must be flawless—impervious to any strain that might seek to sever it—and of a length sufficient to plunge deep into the Graylands.

It will also need a machine capable of deploying and reeling in that rope. I assume this machine will have to be of substantial size and mechanical power.

I realized as I write this. In a manner most uncanny, this rope would serve similar to that of a cable for a diving bell of old, which once bore intrepid souls down into the unexplored depths of the ocean. It is somewhat poetic.

I will update my journal tomorrow after I speak with the engineers.