Palimpsest: work in progress, public for review. The reasons on the Tower pages are an invented test fixture. The reasons on the Pyrewood pages are the plans and summaries Project 2 wrote for that story. Where a version shows “Rationale unrecorded”, no reason was written down.
Asking the Way
Version 4 of 4 · first seen 2026-10-08 00:31
- Version 12026-10-07 23:44
first version - Version 22026-10-07 23:51
rationale unrecorded - Version 32026-10-08 00:01
rationale unrecorded - Version 42026-10-08 00:31
rationale unrecorded
Types of change in this version
3 marked passages in the text, none with a recorded reason.
Rationale unrecorded.
What changed and why
Rationale unrecorded.
unlisted v4-u1 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: The Undercity lies under the ruins of Lordaeron. Poisonous sludge runs through its avenues, and the fumes make it nearly unbearable for the living of the Horde. It is built as a ring of quarters around a central plaza, w…
now: The Undercity lies under the ruins of Lordaeron. Poisonous sludge runs through its avenues, and the fumes make it nearly unbearable for the living of the Horde. It is built as a ring of quarters around a central plaza, w…
Same words: who speaks, or how it is said, changed.
unlisted v4-u2 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: The Guardians are abominations, and the Forsaken make them in the Apothecarium. Many corpses are stitched into one body and kept whole with blood and embalming fluid, which is why they drip. The builders choose the brain…
now: The Guardians are abominations, and the Forsaken make them in the Apothecarium. Many corpses are stitched into one body and kept whole with blood and embalming fluid, which is why they drip. The builders choose the brain…
Same words: who speaks, or how it is said, changed.
unlisted v4-u3 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: Percy has stood under the hooks of the Apothecarium and has not asked what they are for. It is a short walk from his question to this answer, and nobody has yet offered to take it with him.
now: Percy has stood under the hooks of the Apothecarium and has not asked what they are for. It is a short walk from his question to this answer, and nobody has yet offered to take it with him.
Same words: who speaks, or how it is said, changed.
Comment on this version. Select words in the text below to mark them. Marks are sent to the reviewer with the form at the foot of the page.
Script has not run (if you can read this, scripts were not kept).
Key to the types
- unclear
- Hard to follow: the reader cannot tell what is meant or what is happening
- thin
- Thin or flat: it needs more detail, texture or explanation
- hints
- Hints instead of saying: a small gesture stands in for a meaning the writer should state, such as he read it twice
- adds-nothing
- A line that adds nothing new, or a tail that deflates or restates what came before
- comparison
- A comparison or analogy that does not hold up when you look at it
- feelings
- Feelings, intent or sentience given to an object, a place or the weather
- knows-too-much
- A character or the narrator knows something they could not know
- repeats
- Repeats itself: the same phrase, idea or device used again
- wrong-fact
- A plain factual or lore error
- contrived
- Feels arranged to make the story work
- loaded-word
- A weighty word such as nobody, truth or never used to sound meaningful, not to say something
The text
Preview
Wednesday 7 October, 23:33. The Rogues' Quarter
The Undercity is built in rings, and I have been walking the wrong one all evening.
The lamps are green and hung too far apart. The walls sweat. Sludge runs down the middle of every avenue and bubbles where it pools. The air tastes of rot, and I do not breathe, as far as I can tell. It finds me anyway.
The Undercity lies under the ruins of Lordaeron. Poisonous sludge runs through its avenues, and the fumes make it nearly unbearable for the living of the Horde. It is built as a ring of quarters around a central plaza, with canals between them. The Forsaken do not seem to mind.The Undercity lies under the ruins of Lordaeron. Poisonous sludge runs through its avenues, and the fumes make it nearly unbearable for the living of the Horde. It is built as a ring of quarters around a central plaza, with canals between them. The Forsaken do not seem to mind.
The Undercity lies under the ruins of Lordaeron. Poisonous sludge runs through its avenues, and the fumes make it nearly unbearable for the living of the Horde. It is built as a ring of quarters around a central plaza, w...
The Undercity lies under the ruins of Lordaeron. Poisonous sludge runs through its avenues, and the fumes make it nearly unbearable for the living of the Horde. It is built as a ring of quarters around a central plaza, w...
Every passage in the Rogues' Quarter is the same. I have passed the same lamp twice.
We have passed that lamp twice, said Mezzlos. I have counted.
I did not tell him I had counted too. I do not tire, which is the worst of it. A living man would have sat down by now and been found.
I smelled the guard before I saw it. A butcher's yard in summer.
It stood against the wall as if it had been leaned there. It was enormous. Its belly had been stitched shut and had come open again, and what was inside hung out and moved when it breathed. Blood ran off its hooks and its ribs and had made a floor of the stone beneath it. Flies walked on the sores on its arms.
Twelve places were offered. I wanted the inn. [Picture description: Percy in a yellow and purple robe stands before a huge pale stitched figure with hooks for hands, a directions menu open at the left and a blue voidwalker behind him.]
It smells, said Mezzlos, from ten paces back. I did not know that I could mind.
I held a sleeve to a face that did not need one.
It is a thing I know without having been told, that one asks the way of a Guardian. It turned its head. The question it puts is the only one it has. What are you looking for? A list opened. The bank, the bat handler, the mailbox, the inn. Nobody had put out on it. A drop fell from its chin and struck the floor. I took the inn.
It pointed with one hook toward the tunnel I had already rejected. It never looked at me again. I thanked it anyway. It is polite to thank the dead, and I was not sure which kind it was.
The Guardians are abominations, and the Forsaken make them in the Apothecarium. Many corpses are stitched into one body and kept whole with blood and embalming fluid, which is why they drip. The builders choose the brain with care and cut away the parts that think, so that nothing in it can grow a conscience. What is left is slow and loyal, with a vacant, smiling face. It craves flesh, the living and the dead alike. The smell is disease, and in the old accounts the sickness hangs about it in a cloud.The Guardians are abominations, and the Forsaken make them in the Apothecarium. Many corpses are stitched into one body and kept whole with blood and embalming fluid, which is why they drip. The builders choose the brain with care and cut away the parts that think, so that nothing in it can grow a conscience. What is left is slow and loyal, with a vacant, smiling face. It craves flesh, the living and the dead alike. The smell is disease, and in the old accounts the sickness hangs about it in a cloud.
The Guardians are abominations, and the Forsaken make them in the Apothecarium. Many corpses are stitched into one body and kept whole with blood and embalming fluid, which is why they drip. The builders choose the brain...
The Guardians are abominations, and the Forsaken make them in the Apothecarium. Many corpses are stitched into one body and kept whole with blood and embalming fluid, which is why they drip. The builders choose the brain...
I walked the tunnel. It was the right one, and I resented that. The smell came with me the whole way. Somewhere in the second turning I noticed that the Forsaken I passed were not wrinkling their faces at me, and I did not like what that meant.
I have been lost among the living, and I have been lost among the dead, and tonight I found a third kind, which is to be lost among those who were made. In the book I wrote left, and underlined it. Below it, smaller, Do not stand downwind.
Percy has stood under the hooks of the Apothecarium and has not asked what they are for. It is a short walk from his question to this answer, and nobody has yet offered to take it with him.Percy has stood under the hooks of the Apothecarium and has not asked what they are for. It is a short walk from his question to this answer, and nobody has yet offered to take it with him.
Percy has stood under the hooks of the Apothecarium and has not asked what they are for. It is a short walk from his question to this answer, and nobody has yet offered to take it with him.
Percy has stood under the hooks of the Apothecarium and has not asked what they are for. It is a short walk from his question to this answer, and nobody has yet offered to take it with him.
Set down in the Undercity, Wednesday 7 October 2026, 23:33.
Pictures
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