About this 3D model

The first weirdness for February. One side-effect of the air density being higher on Alwyd, so we can have cool airships, is that also means sound travels further.Traverse Acoustic Lattice The Traverse Acoustic Lattice is a passive sound-gathering apparatus intended for use in forward trenches and covered traverses where visual observation is unreliable. The device consists of a forward-facing array of adjustable directional horns mounted to a rigid lattice frame sized to enclose a single operator. In still air, and especially at night, activity in opposing trenches can be heard well across no-quar’s-land. Trained Listeners are capable of distinguishing routine movement from preparation, and absence from deception and if the enemy isn’t careful even quiet conversations and scuttlebutt belong to the listener.The Listener is seated within the frame to reduce interference and maintain consistent contact with the structure. Well trained Listeners sit many hours with barely more than a breath and the occasional scratch of a pen. The Listener of Traverse Twelve The Crymuster called them Gwrandawyr, Listeners, though the official designation was "Sound Ranging Section, Forward Observer." Rhyfler Oswy didn't much care what they called it. He just knew that while everyone else was trying to see in the dark, he was trying to hear through it. His post was a dugout barely wider than his shoulders, wedged into Traverse Twelve with a good view of nothing but that was the point. Oswy sat in the dark with his eyes closed, one hand on the wooden frame of his TAL, the other making notes on waterproof paper by touch alone. "You're wasting your time," Yawdryl Madoc had said when Oswy first volunteered. "We've got perfectly good periscopes." "Periscopes don't work in fog," Oswy replied. "Or smoke. Or at three in the morning when there are no moons." Oswy knew the soundscape of no-quar's-land as well as he knew the rhymes of a young kit. The wet slap of boots in mud was a patrol, probably four or five quar, moving cautiously. The metallic scrape of a tractor tread was a Crusader Ailthean, by the pitch, maybe two hundred yards out. And the lanterns. You could hear those too, if you knew how to listen. The hiss of burning oil and the faint tink of expanding metal as the heat built up. The soft footsteps of the lamplighter making the rounds. Oswy had been listening to the Crusader lamplighter for months now. Regular as clockwork, every night between the second and third watch. His slow, methodical steps different than the other lighters. He paused at each lamp for thirty seconds, never more, never less. Professional and careful. "Got a name for him yet?" asked Rhyfler Dai one night, bringing Oswy his ration of lukewarm tea. "Gareth," Oswy said. “Everyone greets him along his route.” The night the Coftyran artillery opened up Oswy heard it first. Not the shells. Those came after. He heard the Crusader lamplighter. Three lamps into his round when the first ranging shot went over. Oswy heard the footsteps stop. Heard the oil can set down, heard the striker being turned down on the big storm lantern they called... something. Oswy had never quite caught the name. Then the barrage came. Oswy sat in his dugout through the whole thing, hands pressed over his ears, listening horns knocked askew and useless. When the guns finally stopped and the dawn came, he climbed out and looked across no-quar's-land through the periscope. There were new craters. Collapsed trenches. The usual devastation. And there, just visible through the smoke, still burning steady in the wreckage: one storm lantern. "They hit the lamplighter," Oswy said quietly. Madoc, checking the traverse for damage, glanced over. "How do you know?" "Because the lamp's still lit. He wouldn't leave it burning if he could help it. It's a waste of oil." That night, when Oswy started his shift, he heard the Crusader lamplighters still making their rounds. Different footsteps now. Younger and less certain. Oswy made a note in his log: "Enemy lamplighter, KIA, Line 34A. Replacement assigned. Enemy lamps maintained." Then he added in the margin: "Gareth. Proper Lamplighter."