An Explorer's Journal - The Cleft - Into the Cleft

As I move away from the trailer, I get my first view of the Cleft. A windmill of some sort stands still and silent next to it. Certainly enough wind here to make one useful. Hot wind. My thoughts of windmills and wind fade I climb down the ladder into the cool shadows, happy to be getting out of the broiling sun.

The ladder ends at a small landing. Along both sides of the walls are ledges and rooms carved into the sheer rock. Rope and plank bridges stretch across from ledge to ledge and a pool of clear water lies at one end at the bottom. The bridge in front of me looks a little suspect; several planks are missing in the middle of the span. The bridge to the right looks somewhat more reliable. I start across the right bridge, and as I reach about half way, the apparently brittle ropes break, dropping me a short distance to the floor. First lesson learned. Things are not always as they seem. Shaken, but unhurt, I start to explore the lower level.

Most of the floor of the Cleft is covered with small blue flowers. I can hear the low whistling of the wind as it moves across the opening above. Splashing through the pool to my left, I see a room and a wooden structure with what looks like a kind of bucket at the top. On the bucket is another of those cloths! I climb up to the right and cross the bridge, with a small jump over some missing planks to the ledge on the opposite side. I can’t reach around the bucket to touch the cloth. I see a foot pedal on the floor and step on it, thinking that maybe this will release the bucket, but nothing happens. While mulling over how I might get to that cloth, I decide to explore the room. It is a narrow space with some lengths of wood, firewood perhaps, a few clay pots in shelves cut into the rock walls. What looks like a tall stone cistern for water sits in the corner. This must be a storage room. Nothing of any immediate importance reveals itself, so I jump back down to the bottom.

Where the walls of the Cleft merge there is a tree growing up out of the Cleft and into the sun. This must be the tree Zandi spoke of. On the trunk of the tree is what looks like a door with a hand symbol just like the one on the cloths. I touch it and the symbol glows very faintly. Another mystery.

I explore the other end of the first level. Past the bridge that I broke, is another broken bridge. The planks and ropes look sturdy enough, so I climb up. At the top is another room. Inside this room is another cloth. Happy that this one is much more accessible, I touch it, feeling again the tingle in my fingers and hearing that lovely triumphant sound. Another part of the drawing lights up, a section of the palm. Hmm… two cloths, two sections of the hand. I wonder if there are more cloths. There might be five more cloths to find… four fingers and the remaining section of the palm. The one on the bucket is one, so there must be three that I haven’t seen yet. I’ll have to keep an eye out for the others.

I take a look around the room. It is obviously a bedchamber. There is a raised sleeping platform with a thin pad and blanket, and shelves and nooks are carved into the walls. A rod with rings still strung on it tell me there used to be a curtain that could be pulled across the opening to offer a bit of privacy. Next to this bedchamber, to the left, is another room, also for sleeping, apparently. This one has a pitcher and basin set near the door as well as a bed shelf. On the bed is a piece of paper. I pick it up and read the words there…

These words make no sense to me at all. Another pebble to drop into the deepening pool of questions.

Exiting the room, I see there is a plank across the narrow space between this ledge and the one on the opposite side. I carefully cross over, jump down to a middle ledge, and then climb up the other half of the broken rope bridge to reach the top ledge again. An arched doorway leads me into a large room. This looks like a study, or perhaps a workshop of some sort. Across the room from the door is a strange looking device. A button, with four symbols around it. The button does nothing when I touch it. When I press the symbols, however, they change. I try a few combinations, but nothing happens. I turn around and scan the room, looking for any kind of clue. On the wall to the left of the door is a drawing; a circle with two crossed lines. In each of the four spaces created by the intersecting lines is one of the symbols I recognize from the device behind me. I have to move a board leaning against the wall that is covering one of the symbols. I go back to the device and make the symbols there match the ones on the wall. Still nothing.

To my left is an opening in the wall with stairs leading down into another room. I walk down the stairs into what looks like a kitchen. Shelves, work spaces, jars and bowls, utensils, everything a kitchen needs. Against the wall to the left is what looks very much like a grain mill. A shaft coming down from the ceiling is attached to a millstone that would roll around the carved out rock beneath. In front of the grain mill is a lever. I pull it back and a clamp releases the shaft that goes up into the ceiling, but nothing else moves. To my right there is another door, but it is closed, and the button next to it does nothing when I press it. I go back up the stairs and out the door of the workshop and sit with my legs dangling off the ledge to think.