Hidden Gorge

The **Hidden Gorge** is a location on the Stranger. It is a narrow gorge located along the rightmost branch of the river.

## Description

### Features

The Hidden Gorge consists of dwellings that are built high above into both cliff faces. It can be accessed from the Cinder Isles by going along the right branch of the river and then taking another right turn. The Hidden Gorge also serves as the access point to the Abandoned Temple. The main way to enter the Hidden Gorge is by using the raft elevator in the center of the area. There is another elevator there that leads up to the buildings.

There are six buildings in the Hidden Gorge. On the left side of the cliffs is a slide reel theater, where two slide reels can be found. The first slide reel shows how the Stranger's inhabitants went to sleep around a green fire, while the other slide reel reveals how the inhabitants used seals to lock up the Prisoner.

* The slide reel theater
* Theater interior

Inside the residential building on the far left is a hidden slide reel. It shows the location of the hull breach caused by the explosion in the Damaged Laboratory. To enter the lower floor of this building, the light of the Scout has to be used to open the light-activated door on the lower level.

* The exterior of the residential building
* Interior of one of the residential buildings

The Hidden Gorge contains a simulation connection building that is built into the cliffs. It has a hidden doorway that goes down into the building. This doorway can be opened by removing the two lanterns from the front of the painting with the ringed planet in the sky. The building's lower room contains a green firepit and the corpses of the Stranger's inhabitants. Dozing off, meditating, or dying while holding an Artifact at the green fire in this room connects the Protagonist to the Endless Canyon area of the simulation.

* The simulation connection building
* The building's entrance room
* The Stranger's inhabitants corpses around the fire

### Damaged Laboratory

The building with the artifact on its front is the location of the Damaged Laboratory. It can only be accessed from outside of the Stranger through a hull breach. The sunward side of the Stranger has a round bulkhead that has been blown out. This leads to one of the test chambers inside the Damaged Laboratory.

The laboratory itself consists of three test chambers, each marked with an image of an artifact. In the first and third test chambers, two visions can be seen, showing an inhabitant of the Stranger going to sleep in front of a green fire. The third vision shows an inhabitant going to sleep and a flame appearing inside of their artifact.

The three different artifacts are found throughout the laboratory. There is also a slide reel that shows three experiments that were conducted with the artifacts, with the third experiment being a success.

* Interior of the Damaged Laboratory
* One of the rooms in the Damaged Laboratory

### Slide Burning Room

The Hidden Gorge contains a Slide Burning Room that is usually hard to find. A map in the Abandoned Temple shows the location of the room. It is located in the building next to the slide reel theater. Making the elevator go down opens up a path down into the building that leads to the Slide Burning Room. The room has a slide reel that reveals how to access the Forbidden Archive in the Endless Canyon. It also has a passage that connects to the slide reel theater.

* The location of the room
* Exterior of the room
* Interior of the room

### Dam

The Stranger's sails activate around seven minutes into the loop to move the spacecraft away from the impending supernova. Due to the strain this puts on the Stranger, the dam starts breaking down. 13 minutes into the loop, the dam eventually bursts. The Hidden Gorge is hit 40 seconds later. The flood wave causes most of the walkways between the buildings to be destroyed, all well as the dwelling on the right side. However, all other buildings remain accessible.

## History

The Hidden Gorge originally contained only residential buildings and the slide reel theater where some of the slide reels were stored as well. Shortly after moving the Stranger near the center of the Solar System, the inhabitants started constructing a simulation modeled after their home moon.

The Stranger's inhabitants built a building to connect to the simulation in the Hidden Gorge. They also set up a laboratory in the area, where they started testing artifacts to successfully connect to the simulation. Individuals had to fall asleep in front of a green fire, after which a light had to appear in the object they were holding.

The first experiment was with a regular lantern, which failed to light up after the individual fell asleep. The second experiment was with a metal artifact without a focus and conceal mechanism. While this did produce a flame, the fire went out of control and killed the individual holding the artifact. The resulting explosion caused a hull breach in the laboratory. The third experiment with an artifact that had a focus and conceal mechanism successfully established a connection to the simulation.

After the other inhabitants locked up the Prisoner, they used the Slide Burning Room to upload a portion of the slide reels into the simulation. Most of the reels were burned there afterwards, with the exception of a few of them, which only had specific slides burned. The Hidden Gorge was then abandoned as the Stranger's inhabitants went to sleep in the simulation forever.