Diary of Pip Rippon

I had to make a map of The Dark Peak to help me understand where Van was coming and going to in his Chronicles story. It may not be that accurate, and I'm probably crossing time boundaries as well. What I mean is, is that this is my understanding of both how The Dark Peak may look today as well as how it looked back in the day when Van was out there in the wild. The boundaries, I'm sure have shifted this way and that, but, in general, it's going to be there or thereabouts.

Van and I and working hard to get the first volume of his memoirs finished off, so that's why I'm still quiet of the diary front, but rest assured I have plenty of notes from the field and I'll be adding some back-dated entries a soon as I get the opportunity. Van says Hi, by the way, he's with me now -- we're both getting stuck into a fresh pint of Ripperthroat IPA, nectar of Dunlockslyn, as I hastily scribble down these notes. I added a new map of Hellsborough junction a few days past, you can see it on the home page -- you can see all of those liminal places converging in one place: The cross-roads, the river and that ancient graveyard -- no wonder it is a SSLI: Special Site of Liminal Interest, one of the most important in the universe, I shouldn't wonder. In the off-world, there is this handy tool called what3words, which helps you locate a place very specifically anywhere on planet Earth. One of the locations close to Hellsborough junction is ///fire.frozen.atoms, which has an aptly hellish, murky, dark matter ring to it. The map on the home page forms part of a larger image, which I'll get finished and put in the gallery with the other maps soon too.

Edit: A couple of you have been in touch to note that the cemetery on the map designated as The Bone Yard, doesn't exist in the off-world -- and you are entirely correct. Here is an explanation for that: The Bone Yard doesn't exist now -- as it does in Hellsborough, which is the side of The Hinge that the map is showing -- in the off-world, because in all likelihood, it has now been built upon. That is also the case in Hellsborough -- Van's own property, an imposing baroque manse, which overlooks "Hellsborough Hole" at the very bottom of Walkley lane, is also built within the area shown as The Bone Yard on my map.

In search of the ripperthroat. I have found myself identifying with the beast more and more of late, as I use The Hinge and utter that semagram over and over, merging with the murk and scerm, and I have heard rumours here or hereabouts of ripperthroats in the area, idle chat about the odd slaughtered wooltard out on an abandoned track out the back of Dungworth, and a farmer down the local boozer talking in hushed whispers about a similar sounding attack nearby off the back of the pudding poke, typical ripperthroat modus operandi. It sounds like the work of a solitary beast, and I have been determined for a few days to go and seek the creature out. I've told no-one, not even Van, and my thinking is that if I am trying to track an animal, I should probably leave Shad at home as well, since being a predator himself, his scent in the vicinity, will not do my prospects of success any chance of spotting this semi-mythical creature. One day I hope to more than identify with the ripperthroat, I would like to live as one.

Van was in the bar when I got there.

Where you been today, young 'un?

I went out over Wadsley common, I said, and then back down to the Loxley valley and back up into Beacon wood -- passing through that desolate former industrial area on the way -- there were some strange noises going on in there and definite signs of crosslander activity.

Yeh, it figures, says Van -- Moldenke, no doubt. The bunker, did you visit it, is it still in the ascendance?

Yes, the artwork is still visible at the moment; looks fine. An Ash is growing through it though, and there's a strange tangling of wires that I'd never noticed before. I tried to trace them, but they're hard to see against the trees.

Hmmm, right. Shad keep you safe?

Yes, of course, he always does.

Good lad Shad.

Any progress?

Van is now referring to progress on his novel.

Yes, that's why I popped in here to tell you. We're now at your approval stage for the first ten chapters, so here it is -- I've created it as an ebook in a couple of formats, let me know what you think.

Nice one, Pip, I'll be back in the next couple of days having digested this to the full, I'm really excited. I really want to get this first one out of the way as soon as we can!

He's nothing if not a slave driver, Van. The man exhausts me.

An ebook in a couple of formats is now available in the My Hellsborough area of the website for subscribers.

Caught up with Van in one of the bars on the Middlewood road. Have you ever noticed, Pip, he said. When you're walking during the gloaming. Have you noticed them black flecks that spin across your visual field. Specks, could be a Backflit, could be a winger, could be a buzzer, I guess, could be anything. They're flecks of blackness. Could just be my eyesight, I guess -- I is getting old ain't I? But I tell you what I reckon, I reckon it is dark matter. Dark matter that is heading away from here, travelling towards somewhere else, somehow pulled towards another source. Something is happenin' here or hereabouts. It only seems to happen around the weirdy time of the gloaming though, that's when it fills me senses. It's the signs of Dunlockslyn, it's the signs of the three tailed venomtooth. Take care of yourself out there Pip, youse never knows who is at your back.

Sat in a bar along way off in the off-world, it’s busy, they’re playing music, some strange cacophony that I’m unused to, it’s full of strange creatures and surprises, dwarves wearing orange, bad singing in red trousers, green haired clowns, that sort of thing. The guy playing at the moment is really pretty good. There are signs here of activity, which shocks me, it isn’t supposed to be like this so far from The Hinge, but it is, I’m in Essex I remember seeing this box set in the off-world called the Essex serpent, and I’m not that far from the Essex marshes.