Conversation · Project Dread Board

Your flashlight slides over an old green chalkboard covered in scribbles, sketches and schemes like some ancient cave mural.

Some of the writing has faded with age, but you can still make out sections here and there; photos and drawings have been pinned to the board.

Inspect the notes.

The handwriting is only partly legible, but you can still make out three slogans: 'Call in, tune out!', 'WIRRÂL UNTETHERED', and 'Heat death of the Universe'...

The full text reads: 'Heat death of the Universe is the new black'. Another note says: 'The biggest advancement in role-playing systems since the Thirties'.

Outside, a cold wind wraps the building in its bosom. Snowflakes in the wind. An old woman passes what the locals call the Doomed Commercial Area. She tries hard not to look at the bookstore windows. It's unwise.

Inspect the photos.

The photo collage depicts barren, icy landscapes wrapped in perpetual night. You see permafrost and glacial landforms, dead trees groaning under the snow.

Entire oceans have been frozen from shore to shore. There are pictures of settlements on dried up riverbeds, abandoned in a storm. Animal corpses in the dark, carcasses and bones.

You see primitive oil rigs built into glaciers -- by boreal dweorg -- yurts under the snow, great mammoth-like beasts of burden...

Albeit dark and cold, this vision also feels cosy in its own way. Like eggnog, or morphine! A much needed respite from our own world.

A pinned postcard reads: 'The heat death scenario -- a desperate fight for geothermal energy engulfs the world as Wirrâl becomes untethered from its sun, drifting through the Universe.'

[Leave.]

Inspect the drawings.

These lithe, pointy-eared creatures appear to be different types of welkins. You make out autumnal candle-welkins casting wax-based magic...

Translucent welkins with organs shining under their skin, and even aether welkins -- hailing from the vast emptiness of sidereal space.

This looks like an enormous improvement on the classic Wirrâl setting. Much more advanced. Light years ahead.

If they put this much effort into making welkin cooler, imagine what they did with the dweorg and the humans?

You should adopt one of those welkins as your persona. No longer a mere man -- but a welkin...

One of the welkins -- towering among the rest -- appears to be different, however.

Examine the welkin -- this is important.

It's Vaarahamira, a high welkin -- his face white and scarred like cracked marble. This is clearly a welkin supremacist. The note says: 'All non-welkin races will be purged.'

The huldur, the dweorg, the humans, and even headless men... all of them. Purged. Imagine a world filled only with welkin! Green welkin, dread welkin... and the high welkin to rule them all.

The lieutenant can't help but comment: "An inordinate amount of time has gone into drawing these little welkin creatures..."

"Well. This has been educational -- let's move on from the welkins."

"Just look at those details. So much effort..."

...and for what? All gone.

"Who are these creatures? Who drew them? Are they real? I have so many questions..."

"This looks like concept art for a project. It's not really real."

"Why would anyone spend so much time on this?"

"Some people really like building a world, I think. Even if it's just for a game."

(Whisper) "One of them is a welkin supremacist."

"Mhm... political commentary. That one has a great beard too..." The lieutenant nods at the welkin's facial hair.

I don't care -- step back.

Your eyes glide over four sections of the imposing green chalkboard...

Who are all those creatures? Fantasies of a tortured, feverish mind?

Inspect the schedule.

This is a monthly calendar from the year '50. Cryptic words like 'sprint', 'daily minime', and 'GPI' span the marker-drawn grid -- the grand scheme of production and money.

It looks a bit like an academic calendar. Only much more brutal.

Everyone is constantly teetering on the edge of the abyss. An abyss of production. These squares look orderly but beneath them is chaos, worry, pain...

So much pain. Back pain, neck pain, headaches, carpal tunnel, chest pain... no gym membership can make up for working in this manner.

'Minime' stands for a 'mini-meeting'. It's part of a bigger framework for managing work called R.U.N. Station 41 tried to implement it a few years ago, but failed.

Keep reading -- what happened?

As time goes on, the numbers in the boxes grow rarer and rarer. The board becomes an empty snowfield in the final days... Only failure and regret dwell in this region.

"Looks like they didn't make it." The lieutenant looks at the frigid ice field of nothingness.

A note in the bottom left corner of the chalkboard says: "SEE THE PROD. SCHEDULE FILAMENT FOR DETAILS."

Looks like they didn't make it.

Step back and look at something else.

This old green chalkboard is covered in scribbles, sketches and schemes like some ancient cave mural.