Pip's Hellsborough Diary
Welcome to my journal. Here you will find diarised entries of my field notes and research when I spend time in Hellsborough. I write diary entries frequently, but if I haven't for a while, I'm either not in Hellsborough, my work in the off-world has had to take prescendence, or something tragic has happened.
Read more about The Dark Peak Calendar
Don't forget to subscribe so I can let you know when new publications are released. Want to read before you subscribe? Visit Postcards from The Dark Peak
Pinned Diary Entry Collections:
- Stranger in a Strange Land
- The Origin of Semagrams & the First Crossing of The Hinge
- The Seven Guardians of The Hinge
When I got here -- to Hellsborough -- I was rock bottom. You really can't get any lower than I was at that point. When I arrived in this place, I had nothing. I had nothing in the off-world -- in your world -- working for a PhD is time consuming, and expensive. My debts ran into the 000's, like £80k. Don't worry, I'm honest, I didn't run away; it's all paid back now.
But I know some scum in the off-world, that wouldn't have done.
Anyway, bygones. That first time through The Hinge, I had no idea what I could bring, so I just came through in the clothes I was wearing -- much like as Van went into the wisewood, that day that he decided to leave Hellsborough. Nowt but a dirty vagrant tyke was how he phrased it, if I recall correctly. And then, of course, I nearly died -- but I've told you that before.
But as I know now, you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You can succeed in this place. It's all really simple, really. There isn't anything mythical about making ¢hits.
Making ¢hits is just about giving people what they want, and in Hellsborough, making ¢hits is what life is all about. And marketing and margins. That's all.
Don't get me wrong, I'll never be Farantees, but then I have no desire to be Farantees either, but making a few ¢hits every day by telling you about the way to make ¢hits, when you've had to start at the bottom -- with nothing -- is its own reward.
I watched an interview with Kim Stanley Robinson (Hugo, Nebula and Locus award winner for his Red, Green and Blue Mars novels) some time ago (and I can no longer find the video, sorry :(), where the conversation discussed that the landscape of Mars was one the main characters in the novels. That made an impression on me. With The Dark Peak, although the environment is incredibly powerful and a major source of inspiration, a much bigger character, and something that gets mentioned far more often, is the murk, so this Postcard from The Dark Peak is dedicated to all that is the murk -- what it is, where it comes from and what it contains (as far as is known)...
The murk is a major feature of life in The Dark Peak. Oily and thick, a dense and perpetual fog, and clammy chill -- a clinging, odourless effluent that sticks to clothing and at best provides visibility no better than ten paces ahead. The murk is the persistent fog and cold dampness that constantly covers Hellsborough and The Dark Peak; blocking out most sun and moonlight.
It is organic in a large part, due to the general foulness of the weather in the area, but it is supplemented by the nascenti constructed humidity plants dotted across The Dark Peak. These humidity plants exist for the benefit of all of The Dark Peak's denizen races including the xin, exacid, clown, dyapnid, mentiloth and cryptobite, who all prefer the additional moisture in the air.
The main humidity plant, which is mentioned in Van Hallam's Chronicles book one, is located somewhere around the vicinity of Hope, Derbyshire, but there are other sub-plants dotted about in the five main areas of The Dark Peak: The clown territories of Glossopia and Hatheran, North and South Xinlandia, and the nascenti controlled Hellsborough.
The murk makes breathing more difficult for humans, hence the use of psycmasks in the valley at Hellsborough (psycmasks also provide Augmented Reality, which is necessary due to the poor visibility, as well as nutrition), but the poor air quality rarely extends into the higher Netherlands on the other side of the great causeway, at places like Southey and Pitsmoor.
The murk maintains a fear, whether or not it is warranted; legend and myth has it that the murk contains "ghosts" -- there are (at least) two types -- syncarid -- variably sized stingray type creatures capable of enveloping and stinging anyone to death, and morivarid -- piranha type fish that suck the eyeballs and tongues from anyone who comes across a shoal of them as they swim through the murky ether. The murk also protects various other cryptids from greater exposure, including the don bog beast, barghests, boggarts and gabbleratchets. And then, of course, there are those other ghosts of the murk -- the murk wraiths -- the sight of which is never a good sign.
In the lexicon of The Dark Peak, the murk assumes various guises, echoing the diurnal rhythms of the ethereal murkrise at dawn, to the concealed whispers of murkfall at dusk, and the clandestine murkneet that engulfs the nocturnal hours -- the murk etches its presence into the temporal fabric of The Dark Peak. Weather is a huge feature of life in The Dark Peak, with many names for types of weather than you don't have in the off-world. Naturally, the murk is also therefore, part of the year naming system, more details you can find out about here.
The murk is not just an atmospheric phenomenon but a living, breathing entity, and a true character as important as any other in The Dark Peak.
Got out today on a route that I take about once a month, murk permitting. It's around a six mile circular walk, so nothing too taxing, but the murk must have been light, as I progressed rapidly, and more rapidly than I have ever before. I'm not sure why this would be, but I shaved a massive 2 and a half minutes off my average time for a mile. Normally, I'd average 20 minutes a mile over all terrain. Today I took that down to 17 and a half. Unprecedented. I have an idea that it might be because I have off-loaded some pressure from the off-world -- some assets that have maybe been causing me some background stress -- whether I knew it or not. A result of my expulsion from the university of Hallamshire maybe? Whatever, if it was a weight off my mind, it was also a weight off my body.
Yesterday Shad and I made a trip out to Mam Tor -- the murk was exceptionally light, and it seemed worth the risk. I was most surprised by the number of folk out there for the time of year -- we're well into Windstrom, but the humidity plants have been all over the place of late.
The visit backed up my position that I mentioned in Chronicles book one, about The Dark Peak being opened up to the populace by the DPDC (and likely the nascenti), yet still being a dangerous place to go, if you were to step outside of the artificial boundaries that have been established.
This is a DPDC ad, that's all over the-hivemind, all of the time:
Background music: Uplifting and adventurous tune. Aerial video, moorlands, rolling hills of The Dark Peak.
Escape to a land shrouded in mystery, where rugged beauty and untamed wilderness collide.
Image: Hikers on scenic trail.. waterfall.. wildlife..
Welcome to The Dark Peak, for nature lovers and adventure seekers.
Image: Climber on rocky peak.. cyclists..
Unwind and indulge -- where comfort meets nature.
Image: Murkrise over The Dark Peak..
The Dark Peak. Discover the magic. Experience the adventure.
This was a public utility broadcast by The Dark Peak District Council.
Sounds great, eh?
Forget that advertisement, The Dark Peak is a dangerous place, at least so I am led to believe. But the nascenti overlords are obviously keen to share the impression that it is something of a leisure space for their unsuspecting human slaves to enjoy, despite the risks. Maybe they're correct, I suspect they have it pretty well segregated so that if you were to visit the Winnats Pass or the Ladybower lake, or you were to hike up Kinder Scout or run along Stanage Edge, you would not see a single xin or dyapnid, or any other of the warlike denizens that live out there. They will have had some fenced off reserves constructed, I'm sure, just to provide some semblance of normality -- but rest assured, should you cross the fence, or wander off the track well trod, you would be taking your life into your hands.
This photograph from my psycmask is a view from between Back Tor and Lose Hill, across the Edale valley towards the Kinder plateau, and shows what I've talked about in the book perfectly -- see that fence in the foreground?
Signs say that the fencing is to "keep animals out, rather than you in" -- you can do what you like, feel free to roam, at your own expense, obviously; you really don't want to cross that barbed wire fence, better stay this side, where it's safe from those nasty unknowns that lurk out there in the murk.
We were heading for the Edgefield Obelisk, a construction on the other side of Ugg Hill Height, to the side of the Damflask. I had to walk along almost the full length of the Loxley river from before the confluence of it and the Rivelin, along it banks for several thousands of paces. The adventure begins after you cross the Rowel bridge -- where that huge bunker is, and head along the long and lonely lane. This time, as I approached the lake alongside the ruins of enterprises long forgotten, the murk smelled vile, like something had died, and in the near distance, I could hear strange noises: laughs and howls, screams and an awful strained lowing -- sounds that made me think of strangulation and other heinous things. I worried past with Shad at my side, I'm not even sure that he was comfortable with that cacophony.
Previously I have reported along this route that I had been shouted at by automated devices that must be something to do with the fungai / organic network, but today they were silent -- but then there were no moldenke about today, it being a weekday and not a Spand'y as it had been last time I visited. I recorded some images on my psycmask on the way through though, for future reference.
From there, it is still quite a hike to the obelisk -- originally constructed in 1832 in memory of a child who drowned in the roadside spring that now runs beneath it. It is an impressive building, sat out there all alone, an isolated but majestic monolith emerging from the murk like a needle of vengeance.
I was up on Wadsley common last weekend, walking through the bracken dunes, my bare legs scratched by the course bracken, the gorse and the briars. I got to thinking about change, and the way seasons bring on so much variation in the landscape -- it is the vernal equinox after all, and this season is my favourite. You call in Autumn. Here in The Dark Peak they call it Windstrom -- the time of the howling, the vicious, biting wind that infects the murk and drives folk crazy with its high pitched whistle.
It is easy to see how legends come about, here's an extract from Hellsborough Chronicles Book 1, where Van is trapped in the Wisewood:
And my mind that night, it played the worstest of tricks on me. Many a time I thought I'd be eaten alive by that beast in the shadows. I was awake and could hear everything, yet my body could do nowt to escape, or even move. I'm sure I might have died of fright only to be resurrected as some revenant, to forever stalk the Wisewood. I imagined mesen with my arms of twisted sharp briars, with legs of bandy Ash and a scream in me throat.
And this monster - this me of my murknightmare - carried a big old knife in its bloodied and broken hand of thorns.
I'm listening to Van telling me this, and my first thought is of an ancient poem: "Brackenman of Wadsley Common". The common is not so far distant from the Wisewood as the corvid flies, and Van's description certainly bares a distinct resemblance to the creature of the poem -- a cryptid from here or hereabouts:
"Bracken Man of Wadsley Common". I researched it in Hellsborough library. Decide for yourself, but to me, it sounds very similar to what Van is talking about:
The Common at Wadsley was ever dark, ancient and sinister.
Its man of bramble, thorn, bracken and briar;
And no one scrambles over the sliding gannister
Bowed legs of ash, four arms of yew and perishing juniper
Down the precipices of its sides, with tangled roots
Swirling fronds of green and purple heather shoots.
So the old poem goes. "Witnesses" of the creature, according to the ancient legends, at least had the Brackenman of Wadsley Common with his half dozen arms and legs made from twisted and bendy tree stalks with his body as a tangle of bramble and briar.
In an account that I read doing my research, a middle aged chap -- he'd been quite wealthy and of high standing, something of an engineer by all accounts, so a trustworthy type; not some fly-by-night who was likely to profit from some sort of supernatural tale. This engineer had been out for a few beers (and, if he's like me and Van, likely several more after that) at the Star Inn on Fox lane and had taken the Coal Pit lane back across the common, heading for his home somewhere off the Stubbing.
It is extremely dark up there on the common, and this was a late Windstrom evening, so it had been dark for some time that night. The murk hung low and heavy, making it hard for this chap to keep to the path and avoid the rocky outcrops, of which there are many. He had fallen several times, bruising shins and other limbs, but had still managed to get as far as the standing stone circle, at which he paused for a while to catch his breath; he'd ascended to quite some height by that time.
The legend has it that whilst resting against one of the great stones of the circle, he was attacked by a beast that came forth from the centre of the circle.
The beast had a body of a thistles and thorns, legs of bandy ash and arms formed of twisted briars. Its head was a gorse bush. Its eyes were the orange of burning coals.
The bracken man beast enveloped the exhausted engineer where he stood and encased him in those spiky arms of briar.
The engineer's skin was punctured many times, causing him to almost to bleed to death.
He was found sometime after dawn by a passing knife grinder. The engineer lay in the undergrowth in a sorry state, barely alive. His body -- but not yet his corpse -- had been picked over by scavenging slyfluffs and grizzlers through the night, and corvids during murkrise.
But that's just a legend.
