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The Descent of Pirithous III
The sailors, after some time of chaos, gathered themselves and set about breaking up the ice. They took care to free the ship without sending it to the same fate of the Orpheus. They eventually freed it and began their somber journey in the opposite direction until they escaped the ever-pervading fog. The navigator found that they had actually floated past their native continent and to the far Western part of the world. How they had travelled such a distance in record time is unknown. Nevertheless they made their way home and relayed their story to the King.
Emperor Richard III was elated by the news. He paid the surviving men handsomely for their contributions. He promised that they had made a great discovery, and proclaimed that they would be celebrated and rewarded for their journey. He clothed each man in the finest garbs of the Empire, granted them a full plot of land, and provided servants to work the land. Each sailor, though seemingly content with their new lives, did not set foot in the ocean again.
Emperor Richard III saw great value in the edge. He saw its exploration and existence as a greater object of interest than any knowledge that could be found on the other continent. He also now knew a way to get to the edge along the Western coast, which would avoid the turbid waters of the Eastern Sea. He immediately began building new ships and hiring crews to visit the edge. The first surviving crew were hesitant to allow others to visit the edge. They warned the virgin crew of the perils, but they could not be stopped. They would be equipped with the knowledge of what to expect, and desired fame in the eyes of the Emperor. Over the years, the Emperor secretly sent out parties to the edge of the world along the Eastern Sea. The voyages revealed much about the nature of the edge and the world itself, far more than was available by word of God—indeed many of the predictions made by Church astrologers and great thinkers seemed incompatible with observation.
The world, as it seemed, was a disk of a circular or oval shape. It seemed to float in the air, or more specifically appeared to be floating upwards at a constant rate of acceleration. This, they hypothesized, accounted for gravity. The force of this acceleration, of course, is propelled by divine will. The cosmos, it seems, appear to rotate around the disk. They move relatively fast around the disk, for the disk itself cannot be rotating, and so the stars are either very large objects far away moving at very fast speeds, or are smaller more local objects like the Sun and the Moon, which appear to be local celestial spheres. Since the Moon only shows a single face to us, and the Sun is unobservable, it could be valid though unproveable to say that the Moon and Sun are disks as well. Their rotation and oppositely directed acceleration from their face however, would make them unable to stand upon unless you stood on the other side of them. This is, however, speculation.
The air and water seemed here to merge with the sky. Water flowed freely off the edge of the world like a large waterfall. Its sound in some places was deafening. By the sheer volume of water that fell off the world, it is any wonder that the oceans are not immediately drained. Due to the generally colder temperatures along the edge however, much of the water is ceased from flowing due to a frozen barrier of ice that is in some places a hundred meters tall, perhaps suggesting at one point a much larger and deeper ocean. In some places along the perimeter of the world the ice is supposed by some to be half a kilometer tall and just as wide. The observations uncovered here were stored away in special libraries, and studied only by the most trusted scholars of Richard III. The sailors, who had completed the journey and survived—accidents still succumbed men to the sea and to the edge—were paid handsomely both in appreciation and as a promise to stay silent. The information found here was deeply heretical to the church. It directly disagreed with canon doctrine, and posed certain questions about the nature of the world. What was the edge? What lay beyond it? Why did the expanse, which sat so forebodingly along the edge of the world, seem so vast in comparison to our meagre circle of life? And what did it mean for us?
After a time the expeditions to the edge became more precise in goal as the sailors excelled in navigation and the journey became easier. A ship was created that bore a large crane that housed a giant spool of chain. It was a special chain, made by the best craftsmen in the empire to uphold a great weight. It was made of a hollow steel that maximized tensile strength and minimized weight. This was then interwoven with hemp fibers and silk crafted from the strongest sources to aid in the ropes flexibility. The men who crewed the ship, similar to the sailors, were paid well and sworn to secrecy. There was no chance that the Church would know of Richard’s activity. The chain was spooled up onto the ship and on its end was fashioned an observatory of steel. It bore similarity to the primitive diving bell, and indeed its purpose of descending man safely into the unknown was an inspiration in design. The vessel could be occupied by three people and stored food, water, and equipment for documenting their journey. It could be lowered hundreds of feet into the void. This ship was dubbed the Odysseus and at once set sail for the edge.
The ship, upon reaching the shores and navigating the mist, came upon the edge; It was noted by its distinct roar of noise that grew louder as the ship came closer. The captain carefully beached the ship against a large set of ice and engineers went out to support the ship. Once in place the crane was positioned over the wide abyss and the men were lowered into darkness, lit only by a lantern flickering through a small circular window.
The progress was slow, as much a scientific mission as a mechanical stress test. The spool at this time was heavy, and had to be operated at all time by large groups of men who manually hoisted the chain up and down. Communication could be done by shouting, though beyond a certain depth this became impractical.
Earlier designs had been tested before this current one, and each approach had ended costly. It seemed as if an active force pushed against the voids exploration, where the forces of air, water, ground, and fire all came to mingle. The first simple vessel was lowered by simple hemp rope over the edge by hand. It stored one occupant, and did not descend even to the natural depth of the disk. These celestial sailors, euphemistically referred to as astralnauts, could see that the great waterfall eventually fell into nothing and the water dissolved naturally into a fine mist. It is this mist that is theorized to be carried by celestial currents back up to the edge, which creates that perpetual fog and rejuvenates the ocean. When the water has cleared and the side of the world can be viewed, it is seen to descend at least five hundred feet into the ground. Due to the descent the sun is eclipsed by the ground itself, and the light is vacant as it is if one descended into the ground itself—only darker. A light source must be brought with to view anything, unless the Sun appears to be rising and its rays strike the Eastern side of the world. It is theorized that if a vessel were lowered below the world, it would be as if the day occurred while night reigned above, and when it was day the stars would retreat to below the disk. Another thing, since the mines of the mainland appear to descend far into the Earth, much deeper than the edge of the disk seems to be, the disk perhaps curves much like a hill towards the center and thickens, which would explain the heightened mountains and lands of the disk which make up the main continents; It is no wonder that this behavior would be mirrored on the reverse side of the world, and it is quite possible (though infeasible) that a diligent miner might dig through the world itself!
This first vessel soon appeared to be impractical. On one descent the hemp rope was not properly accounted for. It was allowed to rot and so its structure was dampened significantly. When the vessel was lowered just over the edge, the tension in the rope caused it to snap, sending the poor denizen plunging into the depths far below. His harrowing screams seemed to carry up to the sailors above until he was drowned out by the sound of rushing water and then an ever pervading silence that rang like an ominous hum.
At another instance, a vessel of a similar design had descended so deeply that the men on top could not hold the rope any longer. The weight of the rope at this distance outweighed the vessel and its occupant itself, and the rope began to slip through the men’s fingers. It moved so fast that those who tried to grip it had their flesh ripped clean off and suffered burns, and one of the last men who so valiantly tried to save his fellow man was caught by the rope and pulled down with it into the void.
With each disaster came improvement. Special locking mechanisms were invented to hold the weight so it did not fall upon active men, and pulleys were devised to hoist the rope up and down efficiently. For communication at significant depth, a special rope of steel was devised that snaked through the weight bearing cord, and this was kept always under tension. A system of communication was established through the cord through a manner of tugs and waves, which technicians could be trained to understand and operate. Simple messages could be conveyed, such as when to stop, when to pull, and when to let down more rope. The vessels similarly got more complex. They became larger, lighter, and more accommodating. They had beds and washing bowls for trips of longer duration. Storage was made for samples of rock and for parchment upon which to make sketches and observations. The hull of the vessel was insulated, as the void below the world grew extremely cold with depth. The ropes as well were eventually replaced for stronger chains of steel, even though this increased the weight significantly. Still the Emperor paid no expense, and devoted a significant portion of revenue into the study of astral descent technologies. Discovery after discovery was made, each one getting closer and closer to explaining the true nature of the world. With each discovery came newfound enthusiasm and funding, which enabled more expeditions and bolstered industry. This had an effect on the economies of the land as well. Some of these inventions of mechanics found use elsewhere. There were aids from the advanced mechanisms built for farming and for building new ships. Fiber technologies were used in the manufacture of sails, clothing, and armor that was both light and durable. New types of steel were created that was stronger than traditional steel. The state of Jonasburg became one of the richest in the land. And as with any good thing, others soon came to wonder what was the source of this renaissance.