Zoomtown

Hustle and Bustle

Zoomtown is a low-occupancy, low reward path that has not been completely figured out. Completing it can be used to travel long distances as well as receiving a boon and a drawback.

Preparation

To enter the path the Finder must first gather some children's colored toy blocks, several toy racecars, and a matching toy racetrack. They then build an upside down racetrack in a circle around them: first upside down toy cars, then racetrack, then toy blocks built to resemble houses balanced on top. 

The Finder must then repeatedly spin the racetrack while repeating the phrase "hustle and bustle and".<ref>She connected the toy racetrack in a circle, then arranged the racecars, so they were in a circle of equal size, about two feet across, sitting upside-down in the dirt with tires pointed skyward.  She balanced the track over top of them, the bottom of the plastic track with its narrow lip resting on the tiny wheels. She gave it an experimental spin.

Snowdrop returned, the fallen car in hand, and found a place for it.

Together, they built.  Square blocks balanced on the track.  They were fatter than the track was, which meant they had to sit at diagonals, which made balancing harder.

Triangles on top of some of the squares. - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.1</ref>

<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Zoomtown</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 path consists of buildings as far as the eye can see. The buildings are the same height, some having flat roofs and others peaked, with one-way streets filled with racing cars several stories down.<ref>The horizon had an intensity to it like it was sunset, but it was teal and seafoam. Between her and the horizon, in every direction, were buildings. They were arranged in a perfect grid, all uniform in height, but some were peaked and others were flat. All were brightly colored. Reds, blues, bright yellows, green.

She walked to the roof’s edge, looked down, and saw traffic, about ten floors below. The cars were racing, kicking up exhaust and the smoke of tires. They didn’t stop at intersections, but wove past one another. All on one-way streets. The gaps between buildings weren’t far. - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.1</ref> The path is traveled by jumping from roof to roof in certain patterns of colors and roof type. Deviating from specific safe patterns is dangerous, resulting in encounters with hostile Lost or other hazards.<ref>“Good, cool. Then we need to go from house to house, ideally by a pattern. We’ll be using the best pattern we’ve figured out. I’ll shout out the instructions. Blue house with a pointed roof first, then a red house, then any blue. Do not, under any circumstances, touch a yellow house. The third house is one we ride to the horizon. It’s going to feel like we’re taking too long. Don’t freak out, and don’t panic-jump. If you start shouting at me you might miss the signal. It’s spooky enough without distracting yourself.”
[...]
“Guess. Fight like hell if you touch the wrong house. Others and crap will pop up. Don’t touch yellow houses.”
[...]
They raced away from the ongoing collapse, a metal beam from an annihilated building slammed through the yellow building right next to them. - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.1</ref> Gravity is lower, making jumping between buildings easier than it appears.<ref>Avery ran, then leaped.

There wasn’t as much gravity here, and the higher she went, the less there was. She cleared the fifteen or twenty feet with ease. - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.1</ref> Like many Paths, flight or other methods of movement not in the spirit of the path can be deadly.<ref>He nodded. He looked at the rope. “What’s that?”

“Movement trick I picked up from the Forest Ribbon Trail.”

“Be careful with those. These places might look like they’re made up of things like our world, like cities and forested trails, but they have their own rules. There’s places where trying to fly will get you killed in about two seconds, or tear open the sky.” - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.1</ref> The first movement between roofs causes all the buildings to start moving, speeding up constantly, sliding toward the horizon where they crash and send debris flying back over the rest of the path.<ref>The house moved under her, making her slide a bit down the side.

“Go, go, go!”

The entire street of houses was now moving like it was on a treadmill. Every second that passed, it picked up more speed, racing to the right.
[...]
The first street that had started moving was now reaching the end of the line. It wasn’t infinite, and the buildings were slamming one by one into a body of water. Each subsequent crash made the splash larger.

It was almost a mile away, but the first water droplets were now touching Avery’s skin. The violent series of crashes and the expansion of the splash filled up one whole side of her peripheral vision, taking over the horizon.

Jude was on the row behind her, and moving faster. He caught up, and landed on her roof.

It immediately doubled in speed.

They were racing toward the same horizon where the crash was happening. The droplets became a drenching. Flecks of wood bounced off of her. - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.1</ref> The end of the path is an arched bridge, which remains stable while the rest of the path continues to zoom. From there, a runner can seemingly exit to any location they want, though not necessarily exactly where they expect. This may include exiting on other Paths.<ref>Jude smiled. “Come on. This is your exit. Mine is another two paths away.”

The exit was a ladder, leading down from the side of the bridge into the mist.
[...]
The bright blue-green horizon had turned to black. The black, she’d thought, would become the night sky in Kennet. It didn’t. As it happened, the ladder took her into a storm drain. - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.1</ref>

Boon

Zoomtown can be used for long distance travel to a specific location, but each time you complete it, subsequent runs on it will be harder, for example the buildings will move faster. You also become better at dodging incoming traffic, whether as a driver or pedestrian, at the cost of being annoyed when a passenger. The boon doesn't make you completely immune to the dangers of traffic, making overreliance a risk.<ref>“This path is low-occupancy, low reward, at least boonwise.  But getting through it comes with a perk.  Slight drawback, too.  Well… two. Three.

Avery raised her eyebrows.

“Two of them aren’t really drawbacks, exactly.  More stuff to be cautious of.”

“What perk?”

“You’ll find you’re really good at racing through incoming traffic.  I’m talking driving on the wrong side of the road, driving through a red with cars in the way… running and biking too.”

“That sounds like the stupidest thing ever,” Snowdrop said.

“It sounds pretty cool… and niche,” Avery said.  “I have a hard time imagining myself using that.”

“It’s a niche path.  Drawback one is that you’ll be kind of annoyed when you’re not the one driving.”

“I’m thirteen.  I won’t be able to do my own driving for a while.”

Jude frowned.

“That could be a bigger drawback, when my parents have to drive me places a lot.”

“We could back off.  I can show you how to exit.”

Avery frowned.  “What are the other not-quite drawbacks?”

“This is a path that can get you from one place to another, but every time you do it, it gets harder.  I’ll have to follow you, or I’ll get in your way.”

Avery nodded.  A good thing to be aware of.

“And that perk?  It doesn’t make you perfect at driving into incoming traffic.  It makes you really good, but if you lean too heavily into it, you will end up smeared on the pavement eventually.” - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.1</ref>

Residents

• Guilt-trip lady<ref>By the time Avery stopped skidding, a woman had emerged from a window set into the roof.
  
  “You’ve killed me,” the woman said, eyes wide. “You set them moving and now I’m going to crash into water and die. What have you done!?”
  
  “Ignore her!” Jude called out.
  
  “Do you know how many thousands live in these buildings? How many you’ve murdered?” the woman asked.
  
  “Yes!” Snowdrop answered.
  
  The woman seemed disconcerted by that. She found her bearings. “Senseless, you don’t think about what you’re doing. You humans leave destruction in your wake.”
  [...]
  “Please! Save me! Don’t let me die!” the woman begged. “Do one good thing in all of this senseless killing!”
  [...]
  “I almost had you!” the woman on the house shouted, before laughing maniacally. “You believed me for a second, hahahahaha!”
  [...]
  The woman hopped over to another house, then hopped to the house adjacent to their own. She bared her teeth, face stretching into something at the very limits of humanity, and then she jumped.
  
  Jude shot, putting a bullet in the woman’s face. It took most of the face and head off.
  
  She hit the roof, went limp, then immediately started moving again, scrambling forward, mostly headless. - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.1</ref>

History

The Garricks were working on learning safe routes on the path, brute forcing some.<ref>“The seven-eight bridge is one we haven’t figured out. We’re trying to brute force it.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Every time we pass through, we try a new possibility, until we work out a way through Zoomtown. Today we’ll do one I’m reasonably sure we know what will happen. There’ll be an Other on house eight. Minor. They range from mind-screws to aggressive types that don’t really have much going for them in the flight department. Stay safe, fend them off, I’ll shoot them when I’m close enough.” - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.1</ref> Her second Path after the Forest Ribbon Trail, Avery used Zoomtown to get back to Kennet after visiting the Alabaster Doe, calling in a favor from Zed, resulting in her first contact with the Garricks and first meeting with Jude Garrick.

References

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