Escape Rope

Escape Ropes are a common Lost Magic Item employed by Finders.

Function

The user can tug twice on the rope to be pulled off of a Path back to reality.<ref>Practice (kind of) Four: Escape Rope
They’re providing me with this instead of teaching me it but the gist is it’s a very Lost rope and if we run into trouble I’m meant to tug on it twice and they’ll haul me off the Path. - [9.3 Bonus] Path Practicalities</ref><ref>“Bit of a pinch,” Jude said.  “I think Avery might escape with her rope?”
Avery looked down at the rope at her waist.  She didn’t want to tug on the rope and get jerked back to reality.  She reached down. - excerpt from One After Another 10.1</ref> They can also function to pull the user out of other kinds of pocket Realm.<ref>She fell, and she worked to tie the rope around her waist, cinching it tight-

Avery was right after her, trying to pull on the rope and tie it around her waist while crows held onto it at three points.

Let’s hope I did it right.

Verona hauled on the rope.

The world lurched, and she was hauled through air, through sky, and toward the window that was too small for her.

Avery was right behind her.

[...]

“Use the rope,” Avery said.  “Then take it off.  I’ll leave, get your rope, come back in.”

Verona nodded.

She tugged on the rope, and she was pulled out of the water.

She skidded, muddy wet feet sliding on the tiled floor.

[...]

She heard her ‘father’ approach, sighed, and then tied the rope belt on.  She hoped it wouldn’t tear or break.

She flexed her left hand, free of pain, then hauled on the belt. - excerpt from Playing a Part 15.8</ref> Ideally, they are paired with a destination rope; without one, they may begin to break down with repeated usage.<ref>These ropes are supposed to have a destination rope.

Verona shrugged.  Avery wrote more.

They might not hold up.

Verona’s eyes widened.  She looked at the rope, and she could tell how frayed and damaged it was.  Had that been the case before? - excerpt from Playing a Part 15.8</ref>

Finders (or at least ones associated with the Garrick family) wear them tightly tied around the waist as standard safety measure when exploring The Paths.<ref>Jude’s older teenage cousin, a girl, moved up to next in line.  Her great uncle tugged on the rope at her waist, verifying it was knotted right, adjusted the straps at her shoulders, then ran through her list of things to do.
[...]
“We dropped two more at the alley.  Rod came within an inch of his life as he pulled on the rope.”
“Excuse me,” the man said.  He reached for her belt where she’d knotted the rope and gave it a serious check, top and bottom, before giving it a firm tug.  It got frayed at the end, but the frayed threads held a fairly consistent shape.  “Rope’s good.  You packed light.” - excerpt from One After Another 10.1 </ref><ref>Then Jude walked over.  “Done.  Got your equipment?  Ear protection ready, escape ropes tight?”
Avery patted the rope that was tied around her waist. - excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.3</ref>

Escape Ropes were unable to provide an escape from The Station Promenade if all exits were cut off by damaging the wiring.<ref>“I take issue with that,” Snowdrop said.  She gripped the rope, slid her hand down to the part of it that was insubstantial, and then pulled, twice.
Nothing happened.
Avery hugged Snowdrop close, then tried her own.
“Go!”
Avery moved.  White to yellow.  She had to stop now.
Nothing.  It wasn’t working.  And Avery was stuck between the Wolf and the smiling group of Others who hadn’t fled.  Stuck for this one moment.
“Rope isn’t working!” Jude’s voice rang through the walkie-talkie.  “Wolf’s on the right side, a third of the way down, not far from Avery.  He’s not moving!  Pause, I don’t think Avery has a move that isn’t toward him!”
[...]
The old woman raised her knee and leg up, reaching down, and grasped the wires in her gnarled fist.
She tugged, pulling them out of the wall, toothy grin on her face as she turned Avery’s way.  She advanced, dragging more of the wiring out.
“Clocks stopping time is the only way a rule or something can be suspended,” Snowdrop told Avery, quiet.
Avery’s eyes went wide.
Wires to cancel out ropes?  Or more than ropes?
The train that had brought the Wolf wasn’t departing.
No exit.
- excerpt from One After Another 10.1</ref><ref>“Rope isn’t working!  Wolf’s on the right side, a third of the way down, not far from Avery.  He’s not moving!  Pause, I don’t think Avery has a move that isn’t toward him!”
The gatekeeper looked, and someone signaled.  He made a hand-chopping gesture, before reporting, “Pausing.”
“This happens?” Lucy asked, accusatory.  “There’s no escape?”
“Anything can happen,” the gatekeeper said. - excerpt from One After Another 10.a</ref> If they or any other nonstandard exit were used to escape Queen Sootsleeves' Path, her servants would follow the Finder out and haunt them forever in whatever location they travelled to.<ref>“That sounds like a path that we’d need to use that escape rope on, no offense,” Verona said.  “I can’t think of another way to make it okay.”

“Offense taken,” Sootsleeves said, voice level.

“Ronnie, please.”

Queen Sootsleeves went on, “The path must be walked.  The exit is through.  Any other route invites a bane, a tide of my soldiers and spies following you to confound you in whatever world you decide to move to.”

“For how long?”

Avery climbed over the side of the car, grabbing her bag.

“For as long as you reside there, whenever you return there.”

“So if you came to Earth?  Rats harassing you for as long as you’re on Earth?  And if you leave and come back, they’ll come back?”

“Not only my smallest followers.  It might be the orphans to steal and move your things, or the sickly, to cough on you and spatter you with mucus.  Or some combination.  The rules must be respected.  It is good for my servants to be able to steal the food, reside in attics and walls, and there is justice in it.  A kingdom’s laws should be obeyed.” - excerpt from Playing a Part 15.7</ref>

Creation

The ropes are created using a complex diagram including Argumentative<ref>It was an argumentative diagram, calling out to outside forces.  The number 12 was emphasized in roman numerals, the number, and written out at three different points.  Then around the border, there were letters, a phrase yet unfinished in what was supposed to be a connecting circle, two blanks.  Short one or two letter blank, PETHEH, blank, DMANSR, then the first blank again. - excerpt from Playing a Part 15.8</ref> and Heraldic elements.<ref>The lines at the edges were heraldic fortification.  Embattled.  The symbols and patterns that looked like they belonged on an old shield or flag were Heraldric practice, suggesting enchantment. - excerpt from Playing a Part 15.8</ref> The diagram is a circle<ref>The circle was four fifths done, and the final fifth had been erased by ongoing remodeling.  It also looked like there was a void on the inside, where something was yet to be written. - excerpt from Playing a Part 15.8</ref><ref>There was no sun, moon, or stars, there were no coordinates, nothing to suggest there was a specific outer power, and the contents of the circle were vaguely key shaped, with symbols around the edges. - excerpt from Playing a Part 15.8</ref> and employs embattled borders at the edges.<ref>The lines at the edges were heraldic fortification.  Embattled.  The symbols and patterns that looked like they belonged on an old shield or flag were Heraldric practice, suggesting enchantment. - excerpt from Playing a Part 15.8</ref> It includes the number 12 three times - once as the numerals 12, once as the word "twelve", once as Roman numerals.<ref>The number 12 was emphasized in roman numerals, the number, and written out at three different points. - excerpt from Playing a Part 15.8</ref> It also includes a large key-shaped space in the center with three symbols around the edges, in which is placed the ropes to be enchanted. The symbols are a parachute, some lockpicks, and a door, all pointing away from the center.<ref>Key made sense if the plan was to escape.  Then the three symbols.  One like an open umbrella, but with three lines extending sideways to the blank spot.  One with four lines in parallel, one ending in a squiggle, one in a zig-zag, one in a hook.  One with an elongated rectangle, the space filled in.  There was meant to be something at the side of that rectangle, but it was mostly erased- only two lines stuck out at an angle. - excerpt from Playing a Part 15.8</ref><ref>Ropes.
She placed them in the blank spot.
This was a ritual to quickly create escape ropes.  Like the ones used on the Promenade.  Or that they’d tried to use on the Promenade, before the Wolf had locked them out.  Tug to get yanked out.
Verona hurried to put the ropes into position, coiled in the center, so the lines of the ‘umbrella’ connected.
She knew the starting point now, she knew the desired endpoint.  If the objective was escape, forcing their way free, then what were the symbols.
The rectangle was an open door.  She finished the symbol.  The lines with squiggles and hooks were lockpicks.  The umbrella with lines-
Parachute.

- excerpt from Playing a Part 15.8</ref><ref>She fixed up the border, sorted the ropes so they both touched the base of the door, the base of the lockpicks, and the tethers of the parachute, then paused. - excerpt from Playing a Part 15.8</ref> Ideally, the ropes are coiled in patterns, varying based on the number of ropes to be enchanted; but this isn't strictly necessary.<ref>“I sure hope it does!  Did the ropes need to be in a certain configuration?  I coiled them!”

“The papers strongly recommended certain configurations for differing numbers of rope!”</ref> Around the edges of the circle, forming an unbroken loop, are the words "The Hanged Man's Rope" - THEHANGEDMANSROPE.<ref>Then around the border, there were letters, a phrase yet unfinished in what was supposed to be a connecting circle, two blanks.  Short one or two letter blank, PETHEH, blank, DMANSR, then the first blank again. [...] She paused, considering, then filled in an ‘o’ for the short blank and ‘ange’ for the longer one.  THE HANGED MAN’S ROPE. - excerpt from Playing a Part 15.8</ref> The diagram requires an infusion of power, and glows when activated.<ref>She needed power to make this argument.
“I know you’re strained, I know you don’t have a lot to spare, but I need something from you, Kennet,” she murmured.  “From spirit, from Other, from people above and people beneath, from warren, faerie, and from ruin.  Power this.  I make my request, I bid you-”
[...]
“-Power this.”
The diagram glowed white, in that way that was harsh against her eyes in this sketched out, coffee-painted landscape. - excerpt from Playing a Part 15.8</ref>

References

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