by TimothyMaguire | Feb 21, 2015 | Recursions
There is just one hard and fast rule in the recursion known as The City Beneath The Cloud: do not harm a Snatcher. Every inhabitant knows this rule and it colours their every action. Any recursor arriving in the city will quickly learn it, either by being told by an inhabitant or simple observation of a Snatcher in action. A few quick questions will explain why the law is obeyed with such intensity: the rest of the Snatchers will swarm any transgressor, before hunting down all those who are close to them, no matter how long it takes. The City Beneath The Cloud is a mysterious, fearful recursion whose ruler is so unknown that explaining the point of the recursion is, in itself, difficult. The great towers of the city are packed with people who live every day in fear of the Snatchers, the inscrutable lords of the City. Great winged humanoids, the Snatchers swoop down from the clouds overhead, grabbing a single victim before returning to their hidden eyries. No one, either recursor or inhabitant, knows what happens to them within the cloud layer, but they do know they never come back. Physically, The City Beneath The Cloud appears similar to any Earth city whose skyline is dominated by skyscrapers. Indeed, the only major difference is a lack of roads, replaced instead by wide boulevards between the buildings. Long pipes run down the sides of the buildings, supplying water and gruel, the only food available within the city. A thick grey cloud hides the city’s upper stories, making it seem as if the clouds are swallowing them. The image...
