Inside a massive tent at the Giant Pit Fortress, a map of the surface was laid out before Charles. Pinned to it were several photos of anomalies captured by the Explorers with their cameras. These images gave Charles his first preliminary understanding of the unfamiliar surface.
Surrounding the Giant Pit Fortress in all directions was the Gobi Beach; the pit seemed to be at the center of the Gobi. Besides the desert Charles had explored in the eleven o'clock direction, other types of terrain existed on the surface.
If the pit were a clock face, a mass of hazy black fog stretched from the two o'clock to the four o'clock position. The black mist was not toxic; humans could breathe inside it. However, the terrain within was a muddy, gray swamp teeming with all sorts of living things. The one-meter-long worm they had found earlier had come from this very swamp.
