Hellsborough Exposed

A Pingot is the still kind of made: a drumskin of hide stretched over a hollow of bone that rings when knocked, and — more usefully — sharpens and quickens that ring on its own when the murk nearby thickens. Trouble is it also pings for nothing and stays dead quiet through things that matter, and gives you no way to tell which kind of silence you're in until afterwards. Everyone who's carried one long enough has a story about the one time it was right, usually told by someone who'll admit in the same breath that it's mostly been wrong.

Swiftwings sleep on the wing — never coming to rest on dry land, spending whole lives darting and dancing up in the heights where the murk runs thinner. Watch them long enough through a psycmask and you might find, as I did, that the drifting specks against the mist aren't murk at all but your own eyes starting to go. Hellsborough keeps no opticians worth the name, so a failing that's an afternoon's errand off-world becomes, here, another reason to brave The Hinge.