“I came out of the corridor and the ceiling was gone. The columns, I don’t know how many, I counted them late, when I was already getting lost.”
A great hall is a region 48 to 96 meters across. It is the counterpoint to the narrow corridors of Level 0. Here the space opens up and the wanderer feels small. Landmarks are the reference points scattered across the map, the only thing that helps you keep your bearings.
Hypostyle
A forest of columns under a ceiling 6.5 to 9 meters high. There is one lamp per span. Six in ten have a mezzanine, and in four in ten of those a walkway with a short railing crosses over. The columns fade into the distance and it is easy to mistake one row for another.
Void
A bay 9 to 13 meters high, almost dark, with an island of light and monoliths 22 to 30 meters apart. The monoliths are the only reference. Anyone who strays from the island loses their orientation.
Landmarks
Hole, gap, stairs, echo, ramp, pilasters and skirts. You recognize them by their silhouette or by their sound. The gap and the stairs by their cut-out shape, and the echo by the voice that comes back late. On maps they are noted as “Landmark: …”.
How to survive
- Count the columns. When you leave the hall, go back along the same row.
- Don’t walk away from a monolith without knowing which one you’re heading for.
- Speak low, because sound travels and in these halls it comes back to you.
- Use a paper map to note the landmarks. It gives you your bearings back when the ceiling stops being a reference.
What people say
- Someone crossed a hypostyle from end to end without seeing anyone, though nobody knows how often they appear.
- People who have been in the Void talk about a silence different from the rest of the place.
- How many monoliths there are changes with every mouth that tells it.
See also
Level 0 Anomalies, The Building and the Descent, Pits, Rooms That Repeat.