Royal Botanical Repository Building / Landmark in Cairne | World Anvil

Royal Botanical Repository

Having originally been an offshoot of the Janus Academy of Natural Sciences , this repository was intended to be a catalogue of global fauna and a depository for seed stock for purposes of preservation and study. The internal structure is massive, a sprawling underground facility that boasted several floors and a multitude of labs, storage, preservation facilities, and records. The construction took decades and was one of the proudest pre-Blight achievements of the Empire.

Purpose / Function

The initial intended purpose was that of preservation and study, with samples of flora being shipped in from all over the globe. It quickly became a matter of pride for unique plant specimens to be preserved within the vaults of the Repository, and every culture made great effort to secure a place within, resulting in a near complete collection of known plant life stored and documented in the halls below. The entire edifice was staffed and supplied, and before long had enough people living and working within to substantiate a small, fully functioning community, capable of generating food, recycling grey waste, purifying water, and housing all of the stationed scientists, researchers, and associated staff needed to support them.

Alterations

Since the Blight, several attempts have been made to verify the contents of the Repository, as all contact with the inhabitants was lost in the weeks and months that followed. The doors, built to withstand virtually any known natural disaster, were ripped entirely from their moorings in the seismic shifting that occurred in the primary shockwave, and remain open to current day. The internal entryway has almost entirely collapsed, and while the attempts to break through into the upper layers of the Repository have consistently failed, enough of the debris has been removed to allow for entry on a smaller scale, one person at a time. The few attempts to scout the location that were braved by the teams sent all met with the individuals that made their way deeper into the structure vanishing without word or noticeable trace.

Architecture

The entire construction is a marvel of both engineering and architecture alike. A combination of stone and tempered steel reinforced the mined out tunnels and chambers below the ground, most of which were man made, while some were built into the naturally occurring cavers and cave systems that exist below the Carrig River location. The structure itself spans ten floors straight down with an additional level below that used as a recycling center for waste and runoff from the chambers above. The outlying tunnels and rooms spiral out from the central access shaft for more than half a kilometer, and while there were at one time a number of additional access and maintenance shafts that led to various radial locations, their locations have been lost to time and buried in the aftermath of the Blight.
RUINED STRUCTURE
0
Founding Date
134 AR
Type
Warehouse, Massive / Storage complex
Parent Location
Related Ethnicities
Ruling/Owning Rank

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