The Paths

The Paths, also known as the far places or the Reaches,<ref name=":1">The places a Finder explores are typically categorized in two ways.  The first are termed the far places, the Reaches, or, most commonly, the Paths.  These are the places that have been explored and are mostly understood.  The key thing to keep in mind is that all have a logic, even if that logic isn’t yet known.  Finders work to codify the rules of a place, and the rules for interacting with Lost Others, and the Paths are more or less codified. The other places are entered either by misstep or after exhaustive preparation and the collection of an assortment of tools and allies.  They are known as the Lost Rooms, the Forgotten Places, the Dark Reaches, or the like.  Once a path has been walked three times three times, by at least three separate practitioners, using the rules outlined, then the greater finder community will generally allow them to be entered into record and distributed, often to the great benefit of the Finder in question.  Until this point, they are considered exceptionally hazardous. - FINDERS, document by Wildbow.</ref> are realms which have become untethered from pretty much everything - unrecoverable even by the Abyss. They may once have been a part of the Abyss, ordinary reality, or even the collective unconscious.<ref name=":2">The reaches are realms which may have been a part of reality, a part of the abyss, or a fragment of collective unconsciousness, which has come untethered from just about everything.  Without history, human attention or human logic to help pin them down, these places and their denizens unspool.  A lesser god with no connection to reality will fall to the Abyss.  When she is entirely unrecoverable, she may find herself drifting across the Paths, where sustenance is so little and so far between that she is forced to hibernate for centuries at a time, insofar as time has any meaning in those places.  Beings such as this once-god often wake only when practitioners approach. - FINDERS, document by Wildbow.</ref> They are dreamlike in nature, with fluid reality and passage of time, and filled with the sorts of wonders rarely found in the real world.<ref name=":0">Finders were originally known as Dreamers, working under the assumption that the realms they explored were dreamscapes or the dreams of now dead gods.  Many aspects of dreams run through the places and routes a Finder travels; time doesn’t necessarily have the same meaning, continuity is questionable, and areas and denizens of the far-flung realms can be sublime and fantastic in a way reality rarely matches.

This notion of dreams and dreamers is something Finders have been working hard to dispel.  In reality, it’s a dangerous sentiment, because it leads some to let their guards down, and worse, it allows Others who dwell in the far places to hitch a ride back with the unwary.- FINDERS, document by Wildbow.</ref> Every Path has it's own rules, but even knowing those rules, it's easy for them to shift and trap a Finder.<ref>The Paths are exceptionally dangerous, and for the majority of Finders, new areas are only explored by accident or with heavy investment.  Even with a set of instructions, the intersection of two areas or the passing of a Lost Other can throw one far place into upheaval.  Many a Finder has misstepped and found themselves trapped on a staircase that has ceased to have a beginning or end, in a room with no exit, or turned around to find the path had changed behind them, and that they had no way home. - FINDERS, document by Wildbow.</ref>

Newly-discovered Paths are known as the Lost Rooms, the Forgotten Places, the Dark Reaches etc, and are considered especially hazardous. To be considered among the known Reaches, a Path must have been walked at least 9 times by at least 3 Finders.<ref name=":1" />

New Finders will often be escorted on several trips by their family or circle before walking the Paths alone. A common initial and initiation Path in North America is the Forest Ribbon Trail.<ref>A family or circle that is inducting a new Finder will often escort that Finder on several trips before sending them on their first finding alone. This typically involves walking a path the family has thoroughly worked, or walking one of the more commonly traveled paths.

The most commonly recommended path to new North American Finders is the Forest Ribbon Trail, as it is the least hazardous, is very commonly traveled to the point it is well proven, and it is, by the logic that serves it, relatively straightforward. - FINDER document, The First Finding: The Forest Ribbon Trail</ref> This can help to mark them as a Finder and improve their ability to interact with the Lost.<ref>Because it is a beginner path, there is a degree of inclusion or indoctrination that comes with walking it.  Walking the path as one’s first true ritual as a practitioner is common for a North American Finder, and being a Finder makes interaction with the Lost and Lost things or places easier.  Landmarks will be clearer, the Lost may be less hostile or more open to communicating, and journeys may be shorter or less taxing.  Successfully walking the path on one’s first visit without using the prey animal escape clause for something other than the conclusion of the ritual enhances this effect. - FINDER document, The First Finding: The Forest Ribbon Trail</ref>

In addition to the Lost, the Paths can hold certain abstract beings when they aren't currently manifested.<ref name=":3" />

Known Paths

• The Forest Ribbon Trail, a initial and initiation regularly used for nascent Finders, a wood strewn with ribbons and treasures you get an animal companion but beware the wolf at the end.
• Falling Oak Avenue - a broken-up street in the middle of a clear blue sky. Intermediate path used to travel from any Path to any street named Oak Avenue, Oak Road etc.<ref>Description by Wildbow</ref>
• Stairwell Web - keep at least one foot on the stairs at all time, or something else might put their foot down in your place.<ref name=":6">“Were you there, once?  Were you a Wolf?”
  
  “No,” Miss said.  “I was by the wayside.  A memory without anyone to have it, or a person forgotten even by the Abyss, or an echo forgotten even by the Ruins.  I waited by a place called the Stairwell Web.  Someone made a wrong turn, they panicked, they ran, and for a moment, neither of their feet touched a stair.  I put my foot down before they did.  I took their place, they took mine.  I walked the various Paths for a long time before I made my way to this world.  I was trapped for a long time in the Yellow Flower Spiral, and I walked the Forest Ribbon Trail by instinct alone.” - Excerpt from Stolen Away 2.8</ref>
• Yellow Flower Spiral - details unknown. Visited by Miss.<ref name=":6" />
• Zoomtown - a path where one jumps from house to house as they zoom towards the horizon, used primarily for travel.
• The Amaranthine Conundrum - A place where everything's purple and one has to paint themselves purple to enter, which was used as a prison for tricky or problematic Others.<ref>“The Amaranthine Conundrum.  Everything’s purple.  Purple place balanced on a purple animal’s back.  We’d have to paint ourselves to blend in,” Avery said.
  
  “Doable with glamour,” Verona said.
  
  “The place was used as a prison for some Others that aren’t strong enough to break free, but are tricky or problematic.  Stuff like close this one door, another two open.  Move an object and doors disappear, and things move, accordingly.  They filled it up, then sold the instructions for visiting, with specific instructions.  Looks straightforward.” - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.10</ref>
• Stuck-In Place - A place that Miss was nearly "defined" in. Consists of a building and a large field.
• Mug Mile - A footpath made of heads and faces of a bunch of people crammed in. There are redecorating crews on the path which one has to walk between, with a few spots where one can ask certain faces certain questions.<ref>“Mug Mile.  The footpath is heads and faces, from a bunch of people who are all crammed in, shoulder to shoulder, chest to chest, back to back.  You walk on their up-turned faces.  There’s a system for timing it.  Apparently a redecorating crew sits a certain distance up the path, and a crew sits behind. You don’t want to get redecorated, so you have to stay between the crews.”
  
  “I like how casually that’s said,” Verona said.  “Get redecorated.”
  
  “A lot of the time you get Lost.  Other times, you might get transformed.  Depending on the crews, a lot changes.  One puts masks on every face and paints the walls red.  The masked faces try to bite you while you walk.  Another washes the walls and drowns a lot of the faces, giving you really limited time because the water level rises faster if you’re far enough back.”
  
  “I don’t know why you like these,” Lucy said.  “I get crazy anxiety imagining this.”
  
  “There are a few spots where you can ask certain faces certain questions.  The treatments of the redecorating crews change how they behave.  If you can deal with the hazards and bystanders… it looks like Mug Mile has a lot of bystanders, huh.” - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.10</ref>
• The Shining Bridge- Takes one from their world to an adjacent reality. Light in the Path is elastic and tactile, allowing one to walk on it. There's no ground below, but a lot of things to grab onto if one falls.<ref>“The Shining Bridge.  Apparently it either takes you from our world to an adjacent reality, or an adjacent reality to our world.”
  
  “Not exactly what you’re looking to do,” Zed said.
  
  “Share the grisly details,” Lucy said.
  
  “Light in that area of the Path is elastic and tactile, at least for visitors.  There are a few paths to take, but they recommend the one where you tightrope-walk on the thin beams of light.  It’s apparently very kid-friendly, except for the part where you kinda have to get there by going through some scarier places, or it dumps you in one of those scary places, and there’s always some Lost hanging around.” - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.10</ref>
• The Station Promenade - Path with around 200 Lost on it, trains regularly arrive and take them onto other Paths. The floor is tiled and Lost move from tile to tile based on the time.<ref>9.3 Path Practices</ref>

References

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