Pip's field note on the Loxley Overhang: count the pulse rate on any yellow-wagtail you encounter along the wall, and you'll have a rough estimate of how many reasons the path has been quietly abandoned are currently aware of your presence. If you can't catch a yellow-wagtail, the count is almost certainly higher than you'd like.

Dyapnids — large black beetles, fast-moving, hive-minded, and surprisingly useful in the right hands — have been domesticated by the xin as hunting animals, in the same way that humans once domesticated ripperthroats as barkers. Those Dyapnids that weren't domesticated maraud The Dark Peak in sizeable packs, which is arguably the more impressive outcome for both parties.

gutterballs, Van explained, don't care who you are. They care what you think, what you think about what you're thinking, and the gap between those two things — which is where the interesting data lives. Plan accordingly, said Van, and then walked away, which was itself a kind of plan.

Exacids — biologically engineered crabs with armoured shells and industrial-grade pincers, capable of bipedal form — serve as the enforcers of The Dark Peak, with licence to use deadly force and a notable tendency to appear in large numbers wherever crosslanders are expected. Created by and loyal to the nascenti, they are described by residents as "not unusual," which is the kind of statement that tells you everything you need to know about what counts as unusual.