Races

A race carries you and gives its current to the place. Step in and it carries you along, faster than running; jump into it even from an island — it catches you and holds you. Crouch and you go slowly; the movement keys steer across the flow — that is how you step out sideways, and jumping lifts you toward the edge. Inside you cannot fall: weight fades away. Races carry items, creatures and arrows too. By a race its current is the current of the place: by a race of Ember the Flux Workbench sees Ember, and Current Seeds grow by a race of their own current — any of the forty-two.

Neighbors on the Wheel merge: races of Tide and Gale flow on below their confluence as one race of Drift. Opposites never merge: where Tide and Ember, Strata and Gale, Lattice and Fray would meet, there is a clash — rough water that throws everything out and gives birth to Clashers. Races rise from the sea of quickwater and fall back into it; the riverbed by a race is 200, between races 30, deep inside the islands 16. Murk cannot settle here: the stream carries it away.

Where races meet there is nothing to choose: at a confluence the tributaries flow into the main race — their threads braid and swirl into an eddy, and you cannot go up a tributary, the stream brings you back to the confluence. You choose at a fork: halfway along, a main race lets out an arm, and both ends flow away from the fork. As you come up to the fork, press the movement key toward the arm — a short press is enough — and the arm catches you; press nothing or the other way and the main race carries you on. At a fork the sideways keys only choose: they never throw you out of the race there. The arm, like the main race, falls into the sea.