You are at home. The river that once fed

your farm is dark and sour. Something

stale and toxic flows down from its

source high above your land. Your

crops are dying, and without them

you’ll never survive the winter.

There’s no time to wait for the dawn.

You’ve lost enough time already. In

the dark of night you leave your

home and head into the woods.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

The forest is deep and dark, and the trees are

choked with vines. No birds sing, and no

insects buzz. The only sound is the river

winding through the bare rocks. You notice

briefly that no plants seem to grow in the

water, nor directly on its banks. But this is

hardly a surprise.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

As the forest thins, you find yourself in an

abandoned fishing village. The air is thick

with the scent of rotting fish and damp

wood, yet the water even seems plagued

as it emerges from the shadow of the

high wall beyond.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

Dawn arrives as you come to a great drain

in the city’s shattered wall, through which

the river lethargically trickles. What force

could have turned the thick, cold stone to

gravel? There isn’t time to ponder the

answer, merely thank the hand of chance

that you have found a way through. A way

to follow the river further.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

The river bisects the city like a wound stitched

shut with bridges. A part of you swears that

there are eyes watching you from the

darkened windows. But that is surely wishful

thinking. You are alone, and a heavy silence

hangs over the empty streets and causeways,

broken only by the splash of water and the

flap of a canvas tent far above.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

The largest bridge is home to an open air

market. Beneath the canvas roof,

wondrous objects are laid out - tokens of

another world - yours for the taking. The

vendors are absent, but the goods and

even the money have been left in their

places. You do not peruse the wares.

You have more important things

on your mind.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

Cracked foundation and rusted drains lead

into the basin of the city’s public bath.

Though old perfume and incense still cling

to the air, refusing to die, the stale scent of

diseased water sits just below,

stinging your lungs.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

Long ramps form a zigzagging path up

the waterfall, separating the old district

above from the new district below.

Through the sun hangs in the sky, the

cliff face casts a deep shadow along the

path. You are grateful for the dim light

still cast by the lamps, despite their age

and state of disrepair. The architecture

grows less and less familiar as you make

your back and forth, higher and higher.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

The old city is dense and winding, yet you

walk its paths swiftly. The river leads you

onward as it pours into and out of buildings

made of mirror-like stone, which plays

tricks on the eye and makes navigation

a maddening ordeal. High above, the

water spills out through the open door

of a great manor.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

Water floods rooms and pours off of balconies

in a way that seems neither wholly planned

nor wholly accidental, and it changes elevation

in ways that hardly seem possible. The

obscene architecture of the manor makes it

difficult to tell if you are inside or out, or if

such a concept even mattered to the

architects. Either way, it isn’t important.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

Above the ceiling the entire river flows

through a massive pipe. Offshoots and

leaks deliver putrid water to plants that

seem to fare far better than your own.

They glisten and drip with sickly smelling

sap, the river concentrated. Any hunger

you felt - and your journey has been long

- fades in this diseased greenhouse.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

You follow the pipe to a derelict junction.

Once, water would’ve been pumped

through dozens of pipes, shuttling it off

through miles and miles of rusted, leaking

pathways. Shuttling it to who knows where.

Now, the mechanisms that drove the

siphons are all silent and cold. The sound

of running water comes from only

one pipe, up above.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

When you finally find the end of the pipe

maze, you emerge above ground and

above the clouds. How long have you

been climbing? And how high are you

now? You didn’t think this journey would

take so long, but the water which pours

down the facade is just as foul and

unwholesome as ever. A groaning wooden

elevator with a hand-crank waits for a

passenger as it sways in the wind.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

The elevator stops at a platform extending

out of a clifftop fortress. Cannonballs and

powder kegs lie scattered around the planks,

absent of anyone to use them. Strangely, the

cannons are pointed straight down. Back at

the city. Actually, maybe that’s not

so strange after all.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

The river flows beneath the abandoned fort,

lending its aged funk to the scent of dust and

old lumber. A drawbridge spans the river on

the far side, which appears to have been

redirected into a trench to form a crude

moat. Beyond the water pours sluggishly

down a staggered cliff.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

Hand over hand, you climb the cliffs until you

come to a longer, flatter stretch through

which the river wends after leaving the gaping

mouth of a cave. The light dies at its mouth,

and the stale fetid stench of the river

is heavy within.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

Lanterns which cast a strange light are hung

amongst the glistening stone spires. Details

are too sharp and too clean within their glow,

and the world beyond it may as well not exist

at all, having been swallowed up by a thick

and ravenous dark. A voice inside you tells

you that it would be a very bad idea to

wander beyond the lanterns’ light. Another

tells you not to attempt to carry one with

you. Simply follow their path upwards.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

At the tunnel’s end you see light that isn’t

cast by the lanterns. Beams of warm grey

light stream from the ceiling of the

chamber beyond. As you stumble towards

it, splashing through the polluted waters,

you notice the scenery changing. The

stalactites look wrong, and their color

is almost that of old bone.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

A thin gutter flows through a work site. The

ancient bones of great sea beasts seem to

have been carved out of the wall, smashed

to shards, and driven away into the

cavernous dark for a purpose that is

unfathomable to you. You alternate between

pondering that, and whether or not these

ancient leviathans once swam in the same

river that you now follow.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

Deep within the mine, vile water spills out of

a massive stone statue of a desiccated

human head. At least you think it’s a statue.

You hope it’s a statue. You say a silent prayer,

gods let it be a statue. Somehow that payer

echoes around the chamber as if you shouted it.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

It takes you longer than you expected to

work up the nerve to walk through the

mouth. The mouth of the first human face

you’ve seen since you started climbing.

Within, you find a pile of stone organs.

They don’t look human, but you aren’t a

doctor. If you can’t find the source of the

river’s blight you may not even be a

farmer anymore.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

A cold wind blows through a darkened field

of chimneys which radiate outward until your

eyes fail you. The wind is strong, but it does

not disturb the dozens of falling streams of

water, pouring from the chimneys above to

the chimneys below. At this distance you

can’t tell if the others are as polluted as your

own. But it hardly matters.

They aren’t your river.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

You slowly pull yourself up the chimney, the

rocks slick with falling water. The knotted

rope cuts into your hands as you go, but it

gives you a chance to rest your legs. You

wonder why there is a rope attached here

at all. Who put it here? And where is here?

Foul water splashes into your mouth and

eyes, refocusing your mind.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

At long last, you lift yourself out of the

stone shaft and for the first time in what

seems like ages, the sky hangs above

you instead of stone. Familiar stars

shine down, but the reflections that

bounce out of the thin pool of fetid

water that fills the floodplain are

strange, and seem to trace bizarre

sigils and arcane marks rather than

the forms of ancient heroes. You

try your best not to look down

as you walk on.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

Jammed in between the rocks where the river

enters the floodplain is the broken corpse of a

tall ship. How did it get to the top of this

mountain? The though tis pushed from your

head by a forlorn concertina on the deck.

For some reason the sight of this abandoned

instrument makes the loneliness of your

journey sink in. You’ve walked so far, and for

so long. Completely alone.

But you must keep going.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

Behind the boat, there is a ravine, cut by

years and years of the river’s current.

How are there still cliffs above you? How

can there be anything above you? You’ve

climbed so far. But there is no sign of the

river’s contagion here. Press on.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

The ravine is far behind you and you find

yourself in a bog where the river cuts

thin, winding pathways through dark,

hungry-looking mud. Dozens if not

hundreds of bootprints have been

pressed into the muck. Are there other

people following this river? They could

be just ahead of you, just out of sight.

You want to run ahead, to catch up, but

the burning exhaustion in your limbs

and the sucking mud keep your pace slow.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

You find yourself on a long and gently sloping

expanse, which allows you to see far into the

distance. Unfortunately there is not a soul in

sight. Only a roughly constructed wall built

out of stacked hovels down which the river

falls. Lights twinkle in a few of the windows,

but you feel certain that there will be no

people sitting in their warm glow. You are

alone. You’ve been alone for so long.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

You walk through the streets of the village

above the falls and feel an unusual calm.

The shops and houses remind you of your

own home, far far below. You miss it. But if

you can’t find the source of the river’s

blight, there won’t be much sense in ever

going back. There is no going back.

Only forward. Only up.

The water flows down

and you must climb.

The skin of rotting gourds bubbles and

pops next to rows and rows of dried and

splintering stalks. The bleached and

dusty soil is suffering from a blight you

know all too well. A grim realization

begins to dawn on you. You know this

blight. You know these fields. And you

are tired. So deeply, deeply tired. But

there is no rest in sight. Not for you. The

water is plagued. You’ll starve if you can’t

find its source. You must find its source.

The water flows down

and you must climb.