---
layout:          post
title:           "MAG198 - ########-38 - Precipice"
date:            2021-03-11 11:00:00 -0400
episode_type:      episode
tags:            [The Archivist, Martin Blackwood, Basira Hussain, Melanie King, Georgie Barker, Arachnophobia, Scopophobia, Acrophobia, The Web, The Eye, The Vast]
statement_of:    []
recorder:        []
voiced:          [The Archivist, Martin Blackwood, Basira Hussain, Melanie King, Georgie Barker]
categories:			"tma"
podcasts: ["tma"]
title_prefix:	"MAG"
prev_categories: ["tma"]
prev_prefixes: ["MAG"]
next_categories: ["tma"]
next_prefixes: ["MAG"]
prev_episode:		['197']
next_episode:		['199']
prev_episode_num:		['197']
next_episode_num:		['199']
prev_episode_title:		["Connected"]
next_episode_title:		["Seeing It Through"]
episode_title:   'Precipice'
episode_number:  '198'
case_number:     '#######-38'
statement_date:  
recording_date:  
event_date:      
summary:         "Navigating the descent, recorded in Situ."
content_flags:   ["Heights / Vertigo (inc SFX)","Falling","Panic (inc breathing SFX)","Injury / Pain (inc SFX)","Explicit language","Discussions of: emotional manipulation","Mentions of: arguments, death, self-hatred, lack of self-preservation, paranoia, pleading, kidnapping, alcohol","SFX: wind, creaking metal, screaming & suffering"]
acast_url:       https://play.acast.com/s/themagnusarchives/mag198-precipice
formats: 
  DOCX: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EQzK_2OhtAsavNLSWVx7eZiftJH074xj/view
  PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d3UJzksMdFerHMfPvbdRchv2MNVwSGD6/view
  Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sV3P0Ej0U0Y-AEtYnT-Cse7uleJPIESmDp8Z059WFYA/edit
official:        true
wiki_url:        https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/MAG_198:_Precipice
---

##### [CLICK]

##### [FOOTSTEPS ON GRAVEL ACCOMPANIED BY SWIRLING WINDS]

#### MARTIN

So... are we going to talk about it, or...?

#### ARCHIVIST

When we get back to London. I don't -- I think we all need some time to think.

#### MARTIN

...

Sure.

##### [FOOTSTEPS CONTINUE FOR A LONG WHILE WITH THE OCCASIONAL SIGH]

I-I mean it's a pretty long walk. We could talk about something else.

#### BASIRA

Like why you wandered off with Annabelle Cane?

#### ARCHIVIST

Basira...

#### BASIRA

It's important.

#### ARCHIVIST

He can tell us when he's ready.

#### MARTIN

Uh, it's fine. It's not exactly a big surprise or anything.

Back in London, after we... uh...

#### ARCHIVIST

Had a blazing row?

#### MARTIN

I, uh... Yeah, that.

#### BASIRA

What?

#### ARCHIVIST

About what we should do with Jonah. With the Panopticon.

#### BASIRA

How, about whether you should, uh...?

#### ARCHIVIST

Yes.

#### MARTIN

Well, anyway, after that, I was coming out to look for you. But the tunnels are just all over the place, and you must have used a different way up or something, and well... she was there.

#### ARCHIVIST

Waiting?

#### MARTIN

I guess? It was so quiet. And it looked like London did before. So then I figured that she must have had the camera, which meant Salesa was probably dead, and so... well...

#### BASIRA

So...?

#### MARTIN

So I figured she had come to kill you, John.

#### ARCHIVIST

Me?

W-What about you?

#### MARTIN

What about me? I didn't really think I was important enough to kill.

##### [SURPRISED EXHALES]

#### BASIRA

Wow, Martin, that's --

#### MARTIN

Shocker, I have self-esteem issues, not the point. Anyway, she said she knew what you were planning to do, what would happen to you in there and... and then she said she knew another way, one where you'd be okay, but she couldn't tell me, she had to show me.

#### BASIRA

And you took her at her word?

#### MARTIN

Obviously not, but... if she was telling the truth, it seemed worth the gamble.

#### ARCHIVIST

Why didn't you come get me?

#### MARTIN

Because she said if I did, she'd leave without me. And then... well... we'd have had to stick with crappy Plan A, and you'd... you'd end up gone.

...

Okay, look, I-I admit it wasn't great judgement, okay? But I didn't see another choice. I figured you were safe enough with the girls, and, well...

#### ARCHIVIST

You were angry.

#### MARTIN

Yeah.

#### BASIRA

Right.

#### MARTIN

And... if I could give you another way out, it had to be worth the danger.

Even if it was kinda --

#### BASIRA

Reckless?

#### MARTIN

-- a long shot.

#### BASIRA

Hmm.

#### MARTIN

_[Nervous chuckles]_ Plus I knew you'd follow me, and save me if things got bad.

##### [ARCHIVIST SIGHS]

Look, I'm, I'm sorry I worried you.

#### ARCHIVIST

It's okay.

#### MARTIN

__But,__ it does look like I was right.

#### BASIRA

__If__ she was actually on the level.

#### MARTIN

Well... yeah.

#### BASIRA

And if she was, she went about it in a really weird --

#### ARCHIVIST

Manipulative way.

#### BASIRA

Yeah. Big surprise. But she did kinda hold up her end.

#### ARCHIVIST

Huh.

#### MARTIN

I could've done without all the webbing, though. Still sticky. Urgh.

#### ARCHIVIST

Well, it's over now. And you're safe, that's all that matters.

#### MARTIN

Not quite...

#### BASIRA

Mmhmm. We do have another option to consider.

#### ARCHIVIST

When we get back. I want to hear what the others have to say about it.

#### MARTIN

Then we should get going.

...

Er, speaking of? Um... Where, exactly, do we go now?

#### ARCHIVIST

Forward.

#### MARTIN

Uh, th-that's a cliff, John.

#### ARCHIVIST

_[Sighs]_ Over there.

#### BASIRA

Oh great.

#### MARTIN

W-- S-Ser-Seriously? What happened to the big lake or whatever Basira was talking about? I was looking forward to the lake! I-I'm fine rowing. I'm __good__ at rowing!

#### ARCHIVIST

I'm sorry. Some routes are one-way.

#### MARTIN

_[Mildly distressed]_ So, so what, this is our new path then? Some rickety ladder on a cliff edge that's so high you can't even see the bottom? Really?

#### ARCHIVIST

I'll admit it's not a subtle metaphor.

##### [BASIRA CHUCKLES]

#### MARTIN

_[Sullen]_ Yeah I get it. I don't need another lesson on nightmare geography. It was obvious as soon as I said it out loud.

#### ARCHIVIST

If there was another way...

#### MARTIN

Yeah, but there never is. Urgh, fine. Come on.

##### [CLICK]


------


##### [CLICK]

##### [FOOTSTEPS ON METAL AS THEY DESCEND THE LADDER, THE WIND SWIRLING LOUDLY AROUND THEM]

#### MARTIN

_[To himself]_ Okay... Easy does it.

One at a time. One at a time.

#### BASIRA

Careful of your next one, Martin! It's loose.

#### MARTIN

Hmm.

Right! Thank you!

Brilliant.

##### [CAREFUL FOOTSTEP, THEN METAL CREAKS AND GIVES WAY WITH A CLATTER AND SHOWER OF PEBBLES]

##### [MARTIN EXCLAIMS IN SHOCK AS HE REGAINS HIS FOOTING]

#### ARCHIVIST

Martin! Martin, are you alright?

#### MARTIN

_[Mildly panicked]_ Mmmhmm!

#### BASIRA

_[Gentle]_ I did warn you.

#### MARTIN

Mmmhmm!

#### BASIRA

Are you good to keep going?

#### MARTIN

Yeah, just... just... Yeah.

##### [METALLIC SOUNDS AS DESCENT CONTINUES]

#### ARCHIVIST

Martin, would it help to know that if you do fall, you'll be okay?

#### MARTIN

_[Suspicious]_ Define "okay".

#### ARCHIVIST

I, uh -- You wouldn't die.

#### MARTIN

Yeah, but it would still hurt, wouldn't it?

#### ARCHIVIST

Uh, yes.

But not as much as th--

#### MARTIN

And, crucially, it would still __feel__ like I'm falling an incredible distance. Wouldn't it?

#### ARCHIVIST

I mean, you __would__ still be falling an incredible distance.

You just wouldn't die when you hit the bottom.

#### MARTIN

Yeah, and there it is.

#### BASIRA

Oh, I have missed your pep-talks.

#### ARCHIVIST

I'm afraid it's the best I can manage.

#### MARTIN

Yeah, well, thanks for trying.

#### BASIRA

Can we just keep going?

#### ARCHIVIST

Right.

##### [LADDER DESCENDING CONTINUES FOR A WHILE, THEN...]

Ah.

#### BASIRA

What?

#### ARCHIVIST

Right.

#### BASIRA

"Right", what?

#### MARTIN

Guys, what's going on down there?

#### ARCHIVIST

The, uh... The ladder ends.

#### MARTIN

What do you mean it ends?

#### BASIRA

I'm guessing you're not talking about the ground.

#### ARCHIVIST

No. No ground. And... no more ladder.

#### MARTIN

So what do we do?

#### BASIRA

What do you think? We jump. And we fall.

##### [MARTINS CHUCKLES IN DISBELIEF]

#### MARTIN

What?! No! No, no. I'm not, I'm not doing that. This is, this is obviously like a wrong turn or something.

#### BASIRA

It's a ladder, Martin.

#### MARTIN

Yeah, I know, Basira, but somehow we've still managed it!

#### BASIRA

You said it won't kill us, right?

#### ARCHIVIST

Right. We'll just need to try and --

#### MARTIN

_[Babbling to self]_ Jesus... Seriously? Hah! If, if all your friends jumped off a cliff would you join them? No! No, I wouldn't! cos it's stupid!

#### BASIRA

_[Sharp enough to snap Martin out of it]_ Martin! Enough!

#### ARCHIVIST

We just want to make sure we separate out so we don't hit each other on the way down, or -- Oh! Ah.

#### MARTIN

Oh, Christ, what now?

#### ARCHIVIST

Sorry, I, uh... hah.

#### MARTIN

Are you serious?!

#### BASIRA

You couldn't have made a statement __before__ we got on the ladder?

#### ARCHIVIST

That's not how it works!

#### MARTIN

Oh c--

#### BASIRA

Fine. I'm out, then. You coming Martin?

##### [THE LADDER CREAKS PARTICULARLY OMINOUSLY IN THE WIND]

#### MARTIN

Oh... S-So my choices are jump off a cliff, or cling to it while John does a statement?

#### BASIRA

And then jump off it. Yeah.

#### MARTIN

_[Distressed]_ For fuck's sake...

Fine.

#### BASIRA

Okay.

#### MARTIN

Mmhmm.

#### BASIRA

On three.

One...

##### [METALLIC CREAK AS MARTIN LEAPS WITH A GRIMACE AND A SHOUT THAT IS SOON SWALLOWED BY THE WIND]

_[Sighs]_ Or just go then, I guess.

##### [BASIRA JUMPS WITH A NOISE OF DETERMINATION AND IS SIMILARLY GONE]

##### [THE ARCHIVIST EXHALES AS STATEMENT STATIC BRIEFLY RISES]

##### [SOUNDS OF LADDER CLIMBING, LOTS OF HEAVY BREATHING AND OMINOUSLY CREAKING METAL, LOOSE ROCK DUST AND HEAVY WINDS]

#### ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)

Down

And down

And down again

Rung after rung after rung to run down a long forever way to nowhere

A simple path, a line that was defined before we first stepped off the edge

We beg to find another way but all around despair is only empty, hollow air

Don't look down.

Don't see how far it is to fall.

And still we do not know what lurks so far below and waits upon the ground

The only sound the howling gale that tries to break us and the tinny click and clack of rusted rungs begun so far above

Or below.

Which way we move is but a distant glimpse of what might once be hope

But now is only only vertigo

As metal creaks and screams the beams of this iron thin and dying skeleton we hold to spite the sky

We don't want to die

But what else is there to do but climb

Don't look down

Don't look up

The rung above is smooth and white and cool as aged bone

Slick and brittle as the future

Dead and silent as the past

The rung below is eaten through with rust

And creaks and snaps to amber dust when we try to place a foot upon it

##### [A RUNG BREAKS, SENDING METAL AND STONES FALLING]

Fall away, rotten thing

And leave us to grip with stiff and frozen fingers as we try to linger here and

Not look down

Not follow in your path

Not surrender to the air

##### [SCREECHING STARTS, FAINT THEN DRAWING NEARER]

There is another noise

A screeching cry from out the sky and lost as fast within its wide embrace

It is a body, no, a pair, a dozen panicked flailing shapes their mouths agape

With all the terror that we keep within our heart and try to swallow

As the void that claims these souls will swallow them

##### [SCREECHES TURN TO DISCORDANT SHRIEKS AND THEN TO SCREAMS]

It's raining

Cadavers that do not know they're dead

Or do they

For from their ragged throats they seem to have no doubt as to their fate

They shout and plead and bargain for gravity to wait and give another chance to hold the ladder close

Then they are gone

Abandoned by all but the indifferent pull

Of the waiting ground below

But they fall slow enough that maybe we may see within their faces

Us

In feature or in name there's no reflection but the dreadful pained inflection of their fall

We see our end

And when they pass so fast it seems perhaps they were not there at all

We pause and sweat and shake and swear

It will not be us

And we don't look down

The wind returns to shake the rails to which we bind our path and bids us to continue but

Something has changed

We reach up with a shaking hand

No

We reach down with a nervous foot

No

And all within an instant comes the gut-felt blow that we no longer know which way we were directed

A moment comes to mind from tinted memory of finding that the sole escape for us was down

Beyond the crumbled precipice to descend upon this shaking metal thing

And find a solid earth below it where we might be free

And yet there is another other coloured but no less in focused clarity or recall

Of a muddy foetid swamp that clings in cloying clumping damp

And tried to pull us to itself and claim our last breaths within its awful depths

So in the dread of our extremity we grasp the slick and filthy rungs

To pull us up and out

But now the air is all we see and there may be no cliff or swamp to flee

Or imagine as salvation from this ladder that is all we know exists

All else is empty

And so we wait

Our breath held close within our chest

As we wait for a sign of what's to come

Where we might go

We look up at last

And see its twisting stretch that pulls away in all infinity to nothing

And we retch to think of all that way to climb to find nothing but a waving orphaned tip

Surmounting all our fears

We look down at last

And the space below us is not endless

But far worse the ground is there so bleak and bare and hard and waiting hungry for our fall

How many miles we cannot count for as we try to think about such measurements

It seems to move away

Any yet such distance does not dim its need to feed upon our shattered broken form

And so we cling

Desperate

Unmoving

Holding out with all our might against the smouldering fire of that awful dark desire to surrender

To the open arms of empty air

As the bodies start to fall around us once again

##### [STATIC RISES AND THEN FADES]

#### ARCHIVIST

Right. Well. I guess that's it, then.

A one...

##### [EXHALING, HE RELEASES HIS GRIP AND FALLS]

##### [CLICK]


------


##### [CLICK]

##### [THE ARCHIVIST GROANS IN PAIN]

#### MARTIN

John?

#### ARCHIVIST

_[Pained]_ Mmhmm. I'm here.

I am here.

#### BASIRA

Come on, even Martin didn't make this much fuss.

#### MARTIN

I resent that.

##### [COUGHING SOUNDS]

#### ARCHIVIST

_[Wincing]_ There is a big difference between knowing pain and experiencing it.

#### MARTIN

Don't worry, it passes pretty quickly.

#### ARCHIVIST

I know.

#### MARTIN

Of course you do.

#### ARCHIVIST

But it hasn't passed yet.

#### MARTIN

Nope.

#### BASIRA

Alright, let's get you up.

##### [ARCHIVIST IS ASSISTED UP WITH SOME PAINED EXCLAMATIONS]

#### ARCHIVIST

Okay. I'm okay.

#### BASIRA

Martin says that's London up ahead.

#### ARCHIVIST

Yes.

#### BASIRA

Looks even more messed up than usual.

#### ARCHIVIST

Yeah. We, uh, we should be okay, but best be careful.

#### MARTIN

Yeah keep an eye out.

#### BASIRA

Was that a joke, or...?

#### ARCHIVIST

Come on. Let's get home.

##### [FOOTSTEPS AS THEY START WALKING]

#### MARTIN

You mean the tunnels?

#### ARCHIVIST

I suppose. I don't really know.

##### [CLICK]


------


##### [CLICK]

##### [FOOTSTEPS AND VOICES ECHO AS THEY PROCEED THROUGH THE TUNNELS]

#### MARTIN

Hello?

#### ARCHIVIST

Georgie? Melanie?

#### MELANIE

_[Muffled]_ In here.

##### [STEPS AS THEY MOVE INTO THE INDICATED ROOM]

#### MARTIN

Hey, what happened here? Are you both okay? Where is everybody?

#### GEORGIE

_[Upset]_ They came for them. Took them away. Like before.

#### ARCHIVIST

Oh, god.

#### MARTIN

Who's 'they'?

#### GEORGIE

The... things from the city. You know, the, the ones that serve that big eye.

#### ARCHIVIST

Because of me?

#### MELANIE

Probably.

#### GEORGIE

W-- It doesn't matter. _[Sighs]_ It's the same as last time. We thought maybe keeping our numbers down might help, but... No, it was always borrowed time.

#### MELANIE

W-We tried to stop them, but --

#### GEORGIE

There, there were just too many. We... we couldn't do anything. Just had to listen as they were dragged off.

#### MARTIN

I'm so sorry.

#### BASIRA

Damn.

#### MELANIE

Ha-Hang on? Basira, is that you?

#### BASIRA

Heya, Melanie. How, uh, how are you?

#### MELANIE

I'm fi-- I mean... fine compared to -- You know. Anyway, come here.

##### [MELANIE AND BASIRA HUG]

Where've you been?

#### BASIRA

Just wandering. I'll tell you about it later.

#### GEORGIE

You got Martin back, then?

#### ARCHIVIST

We did.

#### MARTIN

I was actually doing alright until you showed up, and then Annabelle started acting up for company.

#### BASIRA

At which point we rescued you from certain death.

#### MARTIN

_[Grumbling]_ Well, hardly *certain* death.

#### GEORGIE

Well, it's good to see you in one piece. I assume the spider-woman is, um...?

#### ARCHIVIST

Actually, no, it's a bit more complicated than that.

#### MELANIE

No, I'll have a real answer, thanks.

#### MARTIN

Annabelle wasn't trying to kill anyone. She just wanted to offer us a choice. Sort of, tell us about another option, I guess.

#### GEORGIE

That sounds... ominous.

#### MARTIN

Hmmm.

#### BASIRA

It is.

#### ARCHIVIST

Yeah.

You got anything to drink in those supplies of yours? I think I could really do with one.

##### [RATTLE OF GLASS]

We need to talk. All of us.

##### [CLICK]