The inhabitants of The Deep End, being so far beneath the surface, have little use for eyes. Their optical nerves and eyeballs are atrophied, looking like small, cream-white marbles set in their faces. They rarely speak aloud in their laregly rudimentary language - rather they perceive the world around them and communicate using a complex form of echolocation. This communication allows them to pass along complex "visual" experiences, statements of actual experience - for example, they can show another person exactly what they saw over the next rise, and can even highlight the aspects they see as important - but concepts are struggled with, at best.

This is one of the many reasons that Etude has had difficulty explaining his theories to the people. The reasons the other Cliometricians disregard his ideas is wholly different.

The Cliometricians are the single segment of society that still makes regular use of spoken language. They use it to pass along their predictions of the past to one another, to do their duty and birth the past. The Cliometricians have always disregarded the Uhlan Werresker, thier organization that attempts to analyze the events they know of the future, to ensure their present. The Uhlan Werresker has refused to issue a statement of support for Etude, fearing such fearmongering would drive an even larger rift between them and the Cliometricians. The signs grow ever more worrying and hard to ignore, however.

The swiftest method of transport in the Deep End is the glider, fashioned of bone and oil-cloth, soaring on the thermals that rise from the depths. Most glider pilots risk only short hops, traversing the edge of the shaft a few stadia at a time. The most courageous pilots dive from one side of the Deep End to the other, but such straight flights are perilous in the extreme; out of reach of echolocation, the pilot must trust to instinct and dead reckoning.

For many years, the secret of glider construction was known only to the messengers of the Cliometricians. Of late, though, petty warlords have begun to use gliders as bombers or fast cavalry. The origin of these new gliders is a mystery.

Amidst the growling noise of the extractor engines and the dim light of the lamps that dot the lowest alleyways of the bottom-most terraces the spartan chambers of Scarna dam-Fura ap-Mordia 27.18.36. She has many visitors, both men and women, for what she gives is more than sex - it is an escape into another world.

Enter into her chambers and you do not see the barren, stained walls and plain drapes and floor coverings. Your mind is transported to another place of oppulent splendour. Silks caress your feet, rich perfumes assail your nose and your eyes are greeted with the most wonderous gift of all - light. You stand, at a balcony, looking out over a vast green vista of rolling hills, lush forests and scampering wildlife. With Scarna pressed against your back you can feel the sun beat down on your naked skin and feel the fresh breeze of a spring zephyr as it runs across your chest.

What follows is an assault on your senses. Tastes and touches long forgotten awaken a base set of memories that fire your lusts into ever higher fury. You never want to leave but when the time comes you can, with a promise of a sweet return in the future. The services of Scarn are not cheap but many are more than happy to pay for them, simply to experience somewhere other than The Deep End.

Scarn is a whore, a telepath and a collector of experiences. She has slept her way across the space lanes collecting the memories and experiences of her clientele as well as their secrets and lies. She knows to much and has been forced to hide in The Deep End. Now she has chiseled a niche in the depths of Deep End and she has a wall of almost addicted clients who will protect her when they come to collect on what she knows.

However, things are not all they seem. There is a side effect of Scarn's vision sex slowly bubbling under the surface in The Deep End. When you have seen the outside and experienced the wonders of nature and you then have to return to the dank servitude of our ongoing struggles with the machines .... it changes you. You are more aware of the depths, the noise, the clammy warmth, the oppressive atmosphere.

In a society like the Deep End, claustrophobic riots could trigger the end and each day another client develops that desperate feeling that they need to escape ... whatever the cost.

Neil

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

In the blood factories of Upperleft, mere mention of Espa dam-Espa ap-Espa 23.34.5 is punished by severe excoriation, if not worse. Years after her execution by factory comptrollers, her philosophies continue to inspire, though the original message has been twisted.

Espa (born dam-Yed ap-Elth 23.34.5) worked on the looms along with a thousand others. To this day, it is not known how she gained access to the Books of Incorporation. But long before her contract ended, she discovered a loophole in the company's legislation. While it was common knowledge that anyone could marry out of their contract, Espa realised there was nothing to stop one from marrying oneself!

This peculiar gap in the law was perhaps a throwback to the customs of the company's founders, the Ruby Nomads of Chasm 47.1.7-12. These deep-delving folk were, as any scholar knows, the basis of many incorporate laws throughout The Deep End. Many of which were, as Historian-Accountant Sko dam-Egey ap-Lolo 27.34.6 so famously described, 'Somewhat quirky'.

Espa erased her maternal and paternal names, taking her own names as both, in the fashion of the Nomads. On the steps of the Austral Mill, she scandalously declared 'An unmarried contractor is both free and individual!' and in doing so, drew dozens of young, contracted idealists to her side. Her small, commutual uprising lasted but a few months.

At the turn of the year, Espa's band were captured and imprisoned. While the others were thrashed or branded and returned to normal duties, Espa herself was executed by gradated hanging. Nine days later, her body was stolen by sympathisers. Some say it was secretly interred in the Ossuary of Heroes. Others insist the body was cremated and the ashes were scattered near Espa’s favourite turbines on The Knife.

In the last few months, a shadowed organisation calling themselves Espans have claimed responsibility for a host of minor glitches, errors and miscalculations in the looms of Upperleft. Their missives have been hushed up by comptrollers, but local rags have reported demands for mass dissolution of contracts. The factories are unlikely to respond to such demands as mass dissolution would throw the economy of the region into chaos. But should the loophole become widely known, the incorporates may have no choice.

The inhabitants of The Deep End live in constant fear of lightning raids from the giant silver arachnids they call El Hajim-Nok. The Devil spiders.

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JoE
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