Clockmakers are those who enter the Cursed Field under the influence of protective substances and expanders. Most do not descend far. They seek treasure in deserted manor houses and little towns swallowed by the Field. Others go deeper to gather Field Dew and seek caches at the sites of tragedies. A handful go further still, down into the Pit beneath the Wall of the Void: where Dew is beyond counting; where not a particle of dirt exists; where everything, down to the last crumb of brick, down to the tiniest chitinous husk of a dead dragonfly, is pristine. Where the wind creeps like an invisible snake, crunches the bones of branches, rustles shadows like dresses. Where the air is so pure that, when you emerge, for a while you seem to be breathing the greasy broth of the old, sweat-soaked, smoke-blackened world. Where, through the searing blue of the noon sky, all the stars are visible beneath the dome of the Void. Where it is easy to return a monster—or never return at all.
An acid suit is used for descents into the greater depths of the Cursed Field. Its chief protection is against the inner distortions that disfigure an acid-diver in the Field, rather than against external harm. The suits are made in an Exodist’s workshops, individually for each diver, according to their attributes, abilities, and sense of beauty. There are light suits for reconnaissance at the Field’s edge; research suits fitted with additional equipment; heavy suits for gathering dew at middle depths; and, rarest of all, cobweb suits, extraordinarily light, thin, and fragile as an old spider’s web. In these, the most desperate acid-divers dared go to the very bottom, beneath the Wall.
