The Most Brutal Route

The other day I decided to change the voice on my GPS map device.  Scrolling through the options, I eventually selected Nihlator Blackbeak.  So now a visit to a jobsite sounds something like this:

Go forth toward the West ninety-seven chains along the ash-covered road on which your feeble dwelling stands.

To the left the path leads to that which is not your destination.  To the right is that which is to be expected.  The decision is yours.

Proceed toward the northern wastes 3 furlongs.  The bleakness of this passage may be broken by the sight of prisoners of the Ninth Empire rotting in cages that adorn this foul highway – or it may not, depending on whether you have the will to see That Which Might Be.

Keep to the left as the way branches before you.  Others will move toward the right.  That is not your path.

Advance on this new road as it winds through forested lands.  Beware the creatures that may leap from the sides of the carriageway.  For many miles you will follow this route.

A gateway approaches.  A TOLL MUST BE PAID.

The time has come to exit to the right.  The certain road is behind you now.  Ahead lies confusion and desolation.  Press on or return in disgrace.  As always and in all things the choice is yours.  No entity but the bitch-goddess Chaos holds sway in this realm.  Proceed 200 yards toward the Shell Mini-Mart.

FOOL!  Nihlator Blackbeak must return to his map-chamber and plot a new course for your wayward vessel!  How he longs for the time after the Great Unworking, when all shall bow to his will.

Turn left on Elmbrook Road.  Proceed 90 chains.  Turn Left on Trout Pond Lane.  Proceed 90 chains.  Turn Left on Frontage Road.  Proceed 90 chains.  Turn right onto the path that was originally presented to you.  Consider more rigorously your next decision to ignore the advice of Nihlator Blackbeak, master cartographer to the elder kings, court astronomer for Simeon the Gifted, and subaltern to the Seventh Chronarch – yes, the one who filled the Temporal Charthouse before losing his mind and 37% of his body to the tachyphage horde.

Ignore the distractions which litter this rural track.  Signposts, rude shacks from which the locals sell strange vegetables of questionable nutritive value, dilapidated inns calling out their vacancies – all are to be shunned.  Do not slow as you go forward another furlong and a half.

Nihlator Blackbeak can guide you no further in your mission.  Your destination is before you.

Thank you for using Garmin.

--Steve Kilian

Shrines!

Chronicles of the Proceedings of the Hall of Tumescence