It Will Not Be Addressed In Any Depth In This Work For The Reason That It Is Unpredictable
The members of the search party all looked down at the plain in the hope that their need sufficed to convert them into accomplished trackers able to reconstruct any event from some boot prints and crooked grass. The lack of grass around the marker was a hindrance, not just to their tracking ambitions but to the townsfolk's economic aspirations.
The participant closest to the desired skill set, monster-hunting Battler Millim Takki Atsa, began to move around while maintaining her downward scrutiny. Suspecting imminent results, the others followed as she walked a path presumably informed by evidence. Soon they realized her path described a spiral with the marker at its center; when she approached close enough to touch it, she straightened up and spoke.
What she said, Dirant did not hear. He almost accepted the idea she was engaging in some manner of Pavvu Omme Os performance in which she merely pretended to speak before he realized he heard nothing at all, whether anyone's speech or his own footsteps. The others experienced the same phenomenon, to judge by the way they craned and tilted their heads. Taomenk tapped his ear and frowned even harder while Miss Bodder removed her cap in order to test the bell attached to it.
That sight amused Dirant enough that he did not succumb to the panic which inexorably pressed upon him. Instead he looked upwards for visual aberrations such as the old Ividottlofers described. Doltandon Yurvitas and Aptezor shared his idea while others decided to approach their fellows and scream at them, hoping the problem to be one of volume rather than simple capability. The group as a whole clustered around the marker, and then it was elsewhere.
“Mr. Dirant, the public will want a businesslike opinion of this unusual landscape accessible from Cowsick Point. Do you foresee success in efforts to exploit the natural resources here?”
“The more promising prospect is a retreat for the wealthy of much the same character as the prosperous town known as Asajvridz in Yean Defiafi. Consider the advantages offered by the difficulty in entering as far as controlling who comes and goes. We ourselves are unsure how we arrived. Furthermore, we are now the owners according to my understanding of the applicable laws. For that reason, you may wish to consider carefully what you report.”
“Your candor is very refreshing and mercantile. What sort of person do you hope to attract to this contemplated resort?”
“Artists who do not rely on their artistic output for their sustenance will enjoy their months of relaxed study of a world unlike the familiar. The uncanny terrain is superb for training the painter to take the minutest notice of the subtleties of light and shadow.”
“Students of geology would learn more from it,” Taomenk argued.
“How much money do they have?”
Pecuniary considerations aside, the bizarre place the search party had found, to add an element of volition absent in the actual event, had something to interest innumerable categories of people. Layers of dirt, clay, mud, iron, sandstone, limestone, and more all lay exposed side by side in stripes as if the horizontal had become exhausted and asked a vertical slice of the world to takes its place for a shift. The clouds hung low enough that an Adaban of ordinary size might stretch up and reach them, an act which none of the qualified gentlemen had so far dared. Stranger still, while Dirant lacked the terminology to classify clouds, they certainly did not belong in any sky together. One presaged a storm while the next doubtless tired from the many people who looked up on a placid day and compared it to various animals.
What made a thorough inspection of the clouds easy was their total immobility. Speaking more generally, nothing moved except for the searchers. No flora or fauna existed and no rushing creeks either. Most to be regretted, no construction crew was earning its wages by erecting palatial residences, the limits of construction marked off and signs posted to indicate the way back to Cowsick Point as a subtle hint to unwitting trespassers. As it stood, all around them was a surreal scene barren of cheer.
“My thanks for the comedy you two did to distract us,” Mr. Gabdirn said, perhaps aware that only one of the two between Dirant and Aptezor bore that intention. “It made thinking easier. I have a little trepidation to advance this theory, though. Whew. All right. We may be where the guests are before the invitations.”
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That statement stunned his fellows, some because of the implications and others because their superficial knowledge of Symbol Knights prevented them from understanding what he meant. Fortunately, Miss Bodder acted to clarify the issue by asking if she was correct in thinking that to be the term Adabans used for guests (which in that case was the Dvanj word for it). Convoluted as the situation briefly became, Gabdirn turned it into an opportunity to explain a few of the details of the Symbol Knight in lucid terms, he being a member of that class and therefore no secondary source.
With the jargon established, Miss Bodder asked, “So then, why do you think so, Mr. Gabdirn?”
“When we felt the disappearance I thought I saw the parting. I can't be sure. Guests usually make to linger no more than a second when we show them the door, unlike the wife's relations. Heh. Oh, and the parting is the moment guests do their leaving. There is further this sense of familiarity that . . . Ah! A new ability!” Gabdirn paused a moment to interrogate his status. “Symbolic Recognition. The bearer can tell where he is between the mundane world and the guest world. There is confirmation. We are in the guest world.”
Each of his hearers had to ask himself how much gratitude he felt to be present at a historic discovery which surpassed anything that might be accomplished at Iflarent's Hideout short of a coffin which contained an Ertithan who had fallen asleep and missed the last few thousand years. Ancient ziggurats could be and had been found in many places, but if any other spot communicated with the mysterious realm of the guests, nobody had reported on it. Pondering the possible reasons for such a failure dampened the aforementioned gratitude in most cases.
Practical decision-making of course relied on factors other than gratitude and in fact attempted to excise it altogether. Noted engineer Taomenk managed exactly that. “Mr. Gabdirn. Can this 'inviting' as you call it pull us out of this world?
“It cannot.” Gabdirn hesitated. “This should be unimportant, but after the fashion of the man who is never wrong, I will do an emendation. Each guest has its invitation and none for man or woman is known. To date.”
“Ah, then it cannot be done.” Taomenk nodded. “Until you create that invitation right here. Consider the fame you will get from it with these reporters present.”
The additional incentive meant as much to Mr. Gabdirn as did a second chair to a sitting man. He had a dagger out and was scratching away at the ground before Mr. Taomenk proposed the idea, and none could say who was the more enthusiastic between the two of them. “This is not an invitation,” Gabdirn clarified. “Not yet. I did read multiple old attempts to make this exactly and will try to remember them.”
“That scratching reminds me of, no, I shouldn't say.” Takki cut off her observation which was therefore lost for all time, unless Dirant was correct in his suspicion that it reminded her of his own activities. He further conjectured she wanted to ask if he knew any helpful rituals but desisted upon realizing the answer might be an embarrassing no.
The actual answer was yes. “A Memory Fortification Ritual exists,” he announced. “It is highly unreliable. I will refrain from charging a fee in the event it is ineffective.” Taomenk clapped him on the back in recognition of a fellow problem-solver, and the engineer was not mistaken in his judgment. The opportunity was there for the ritual to solve two problems, the first being Mr. Gabdirn's porous memory and the second being the distinct if unstated lack of respect for the Ritualist on the part of his companions. Ritual Flair, Dirant's recently acquired optional class ability, caused any ritual he performed to impress all onlookers in proportion to the performer's Receptivity. If they never escaped that alien land, at least they could think highly of one another.
As for the components, Dirant's Ritual Substitution ability informed him sandstone made a good replacement for the quartz he needed. He extracted a spade from his rucksack and, tool in hand, began his personal mining operation with a dirt section in the hope of digging around a sandstone strip and popping it out. That seemed easier to him than breaking it apart directly.
Five inches down, he encountered a problem. His spade broke through the dirt and opened up a hole in, so far as what he could determine without expert advice, reality. Through the gap he saw nothing, but it was a solid sort of nothing with a quality of imperceptibility rather than a simple absence of remarkable characteristics. That was the impression he had from his brief examination, at least. His eyes watered and his head began to ache, causing him to turn away after less than a minute.
“There is an oddity here,” he yelled to the others in a voice excessive in both volume and trembling. “I struggle to explain, and neither do I recommend you look at it. Above everything else, please refrain from digging.”
“But I already did digging of a kind,” Gabdirn observed with some regret after hearing Dirant's anxious tone. He stood up, and there in front of his face thrust up a blade of metal wider than he was, and taller, too. He jerked back, someone screamed, and the enormous blade swept through the ground's strange striations without stopping. Not even for iron did it make an exception.
At the edges of the gash the gigantic weapon made, materials began to fall into the uncanny substrate beneath, widening the slit into a chasm. Taomenk dropped on top of some iron and tried to grab on, Takki attempted to plant her halberd to steady herself, Doltandon Yurvitas yelled at whatever guest wielded the sundering blade to stop, and Aptezor fell with a befuddled look. Dirant, for his part, prayed.
“Sound-footed Holzd, please help.” That was about all he estimated he had the time to mutter, but in fact he had less than that.