The Build Up

The Build Up is a low-to-moderate difficulty Path where runners must scale a building being constantly demolished at the bottom and rebuilt at the top.

<infobox> <title source="name"><default>The Build Up</default></title>

<image source="image"></image> <header>Basic Information</header> <image source="map"></image> <label>Type</label> <label>Location</label> <label>Inhabitants</label> <label>First Appearance</label> </infobox>

Description

The Build Up consists of a cliff before a massive building, described as being as tall as a small town is wide.<ref>The building was as large as anything Avery had ever seen. Maybe as large as Kennet, but turned on one side. And much like a dollhouse, one exterior wall was missing. There was a section of the building that had a colossal windmill, with the blades sweeping the front face. As it rotated, it blocked out the sun, then revealed it. Avery, Snowdrop, Liberty, the Tearaway Kid and the small group of Garricks were cast in shade, then bright light, then shade again. Red ribbons a mile long trailed in the breeze, bunches tied to the ends of the windmill’s blades. - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.3</ref> The bottom floor is regularly demolished while the top floor is constantly rebuilt. The Lost on the path work their way from bottom to top, doing certain tasks on each floor, such as washing, dressing, eating, or working a job. Once they reach the top floor, they get to sleep in beds until the floor reaches the bottom of the building, which takes about five minutes, then they get up and rush to the top again. Lost that are too slow or fail to complete a floor's task are caught in the demolition or thrown off the path. New Lost are lowered onto the top of the path along with construction materials.

In one instance, the front wall is missing and the interior is visible, with massive windmill blades rotating in front of the missing wall, and a huge spiked rolling pin performing the demolition at the bottom. Other appearances include a building being destroyed by waves with birds carrying platforms, an inferno burning out the bottom floor as fire crews rebuild the top, a tower of playground structures with toy construction equipment in a vast sandbox, and an assembly of giant robot parts in a massive scrap pile.<ref>The Build Up creaked. Avery leaned into the railing that overlooked crashing seas, watching the tall building get pieced together. The top floor was built as the bottom one was washed away with sweeping tidal waves. Birds large and small carried platforms and equipment to drop off.
[...]
The Build Up was burning up, a fire eating the bottom floors while others struggled to build the upper floors. Every minute or two, the bottom floor would get too weak from the fire and come crashing down. Fire truck ladders that were supplying water were also supplying the materials for higher floors, while others came down on chains.
[...]
The Build Up was a giant play structure, with colorful panels to walk on, and a mingling of more colorful panels, plastic beams and shafts, and painted bars and pipes. Plastic power tools sawed through and wrecked the bottom floor. The construction vehicles looked like kids’ toys, in bright primary colors, with rounded edges. They carried away the debris, and they brought more in. Ropes in primary blues, yellows, and oranges lowered things down from overcast clouds. Below, instead of fire or water, it was a million-foot drop to a playground sandbox, somehow.
[...]
A sea of junk and scrap metal, car parts and other machinery that didn’t make sense… from a human perspective at least. Broken Lost machines, from other paths, filtering through her from this one peculiar angle. The building was a giant robot, shadowy and kind of creepy in the distance. Machines collected and moved debris, while pieces were moved into place. The robot’s head became the torso, became the stomach, divided to be the legs… - Excerpt from Hard Pass 22.z</ref>

The main dangers are the demolition and construction zones, and the stampede of Lost making their way upward.<ref>“Looks like it’s pretty slow moving, but dense. Can’t see any evidence of the puzzles. Big danger areas are the destruction at the bottom, construction at the top, and the mob pushing through the center. We can scale the outside, looks like a mix of climbing, and hopping onto rope-borne platforms and equipment. Can also go inside, but you’ve got to deal with more Others.” - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.3</ref> Finders can climb the outside of the building and use some suspended platforms or crane hooks, but climbing loose ropes or riding or passing through the windmill blades are bad ideas, although one of the Build Up's boons might help with some of that.<ref>“What happens?” Liberty asked. “With the windmill.”

“Touching those is more likely to end you or screw you up than help you catch a ride to higher floors,” Jude said.

“Probably don’t fly through or past them either.”

“Of course you don’t fly through or past them,” the Tearaway Kid grumped.

“Your friend knows about ropes, right?”

“See those ropes stretching down from the clouds above?” Avery asked Liberty.

“Yep.”

“Never hang onto just a rope like that. You can stand on the platform or the hook and hold the rope at the same time, but if you grab onto the rope alone and try to climb it it pretty much always just goes slack, like it’s no longer attached to anything at the top. Then you fall.”

“Unless you have certain boons,” Jude said.

“Like the one you get for riding a hook off into the sunset?” Liberty asked.

“Possibly. It would fit. But you know, we don’t usually push our luck with that stuff,” Jude said. - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.3</ref>

Boons

There are several known boons that can be acquired from the Build Up.

One is acquired by catching a dangling object high up on the path, such as a rope or chain, and be carried off by it. Afterwards, the Finder will often be able to find dangling objects in convenient places such as outside windows, helping them with escapes.<ref>“I think Jude picked something he thought might suit me. Good guy. Rewards are an option, depends how you want to leave the Path. Gotta stick it out and keep climbing until you see a window. Or the window if you want one perk. Perk one is a boon, a tendency for ropes, cords, chains, pipes, draping flags, curtains to be beside windows and other unconventional ways of leaving a place. Longer you go without using it, the better the chance and the better the moment. Kinda fun. Might get messy, though, imagine being forty and your Christmas lights are always dangling by the window or something. Gotta get super high up, catch a crane hook or something dangling, let it carry you off.” - Excerpt from Fall Out 14.4</ref>

Another is obtained by rescuing and safely escorting a Lost along the path, and gives the rescuer a weekly reward of minor items related to the Lost.<ref>“Perk two is junk, looks like. Rescue an Other from falling, shelter it and escape with it past the ongoing demolition. You’ll get a weekly reward, I guess, of something relevant to that Other.”
[...]
“Could be coins, shiny things, could be food, yes, though I think that’d go bad. Uh, could be red things, could be dice, could be socks. And it gets dropped off in the nearest blue container outside of the building you sleep in, every Wednesday. If only one item gets dropped off, pure chance, it’s a super minor magic item. I think it’d get annoying to get a plastic pail full of Lost food that’d go bad if you forgot about it, Snow.”

“Right this moment, I’m glad I became your familiar,” Snowdrop asked. “You’re so wise sometimes. I like the idea of getting the magic items. Works for Clem.”

“I think they’re minor enough it wouldn’t be a disaster. I think,” Avery replied. - Excerpt from Fall Out 14.4</ref>

The last boon grants resistance to things like weather, temperature, noise, and smells, but also makes those things more likely to occur around the Finder at a randomly decided probability. The probability can be reset by rerunning the path and reobtaining the boon, which is gotten by greeting five Lost with a shared trait, complimenting the last three, and hugging the last one. Getting this boon causes the whole Build Up to quickly collapse, leaving the resident Lost unharmed when it reforms, and dropping the Finders who got this boon in Kickcan Alley, though any Finders on the path who haven't gotten this boon will have to find another way off the path.<ref>“Last boon option is another perk. Makes you twice as good at bearing bad weather, heat, cold, some smoke, fog, some noise, mold, some smells, and, hassles like babies crying next door, construction noise, loud music… there’s a whole list of testimonials.”
[...]
“It’s a pretty huge thing, actually, but, drawback one, is all those things become between fifteen percent and a hundred percent more likely to happen around you. Or to you, whatever. Number’s decided once when you run Build Up, you can change it by getting the same boon again, no other benefit for your hassle.”
[...]
“It sounds like Jude wants to do that one. Which is why he wants company. You need to find and greet five different Lost with something in common. The last three you need to compliment them on that something. While you’re climbing the building and everything. And then you hug the last one and everything collapses around you. Which I guess complicates the partnered part. Unless we pick the same Others.”

“Can you pick me?” Snowdrop asked.

“I dunno. I think it’s mainly Others in the building, but you could be right. It looks like going that way puts you on another Path. Kickcan Alley. I think the document is incomplete… or no.” - Excerpt from Fall Out 14.4</ref><ref>They only had a few minutes before Jude got close enough to the bottom that he’d have to wrap up his part of things. A hug for the last Other, then holding on to ride things to the bottom. Which would be a fast ride, because the Build Up would collapse, doing no damage to Jude, Finn, or Luca, only to re-manifest with no harm to the inhabitants.

They had to get out before the collapse. - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.3</ref>

Residents

• Various human-looking Lost
• Man with a rotating upper body and a face on either side
• Bipedal cow that produces high-pressure milk
• Trio of janitors that share two dice for heads between them
• Wide woman with cleavers

History

Avery Kelly, Liberty Tedd, and Jude, Luca, and Finn Garrick ran the path together. The Tearaway Kid hadn't previously visited, but he was able to provide "common sense" guidance about dangers.<ref>“You familiar with this one, Tearaway?”

He shook his head. - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.3</ref> Avery also negotiated with the Garricks to release Edeline and the City Bird on the Tearaway Kid's behalf.

Avery returned to the Build Up after being shot and playing dead, looking for something to bring to the fight against the Carmine Exile and his allies. Using her Loser’s Jounce, she was able to drop a powerful magnet from the Build Up's construction equipment near Maricica and remove the Abyssal spike empowering her.<ref>Hard Pass 22.z</ref>

References

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