Stone Noodles

Centaur Squirrel 2 by Corvo Branco

      Moving East on Main Continent, as close to the North Sea as the mountains of Ice Bridge allow you, you shall avoid the treacherous path that leads north, to Mandallu, and beyond that to North Pole Continent where lays Urshawa, the Mage City. Do not go there, look for the green valley of fertile lands between the mountain walls that are the West Side of Ice Bridge at your left and are the West Picks of White Mountains at your right.   
      In the Middle of this exuberant corridor you will find on the horizon ahead what seems to be a line of mountains. You could call it that way, but that is imprecise according to the Geographer Castes of Sharitarn. 
     What you are looking at is the Stone Maze, Grey Snakes, or as your Earthling fellow called it "Stone Noodle".
    The maze can be described as a huge macaroni made of stone. That reaches hundreds of miles bellow sea level and hundreds of miles above it, the macaroni has a few miles of diameter and covers a territory about as large as the territories of France, United Kingdom and Germany put together. All the way between the place where you stand and the East Coast is covert by this peculiar structure.
     There is forest and cities in the middle of this chaos. 
     Crystals and some plants whit mirrored leaves cover the grey stone, creating a kaleidoscope that carries sunlight trough the openings between the higher layers of stone. That allows light to reach lakes and rivers unimaginably distant from the sky, and sometimes miles bellow sea level, coming from unusual angles in uncanny patterns.
     Is impossible to say where land ends and ocean begin, or where the planet surface ends and underground caves begin.
    The spectacle became amazing when you notice that the Stone Maze is moving, always. It’s not obvious at first, but mark points of reference on the rocks above your head and bellow your feet and after a day or two you will notice they are either closer or more distant.
    Usually is as subtle as that, but sometimes the entire formation accelerates and cities that where facing the sky move to miles bellow, with several layers of stone above them. Or vice-versa. There is no way to predict those fast movements, and they may continue for seconds, minutes, hours, or even days.
     All plants on the Maze have roots deep enough to be protected from the friction between the stones, and they grow back fast as soon as they can to prepare themselves for the next destruction. Cities and villages do the same, with structures build to be destroyed and rebuild, as many times as needed; and deep roots inside the stone where the population can stay safe until the time for normal life came back.
      All moving being living here must learn to keep attention to the nearest caves where they can hide if the Maze starts moving faster than normal. Those caves must be deep, but not as much as you would expect. The heat produced by friction is huge, but it does not seems to penetrate the rock more than a couple of foots after the first curve of a cave.
      Some theorize that this solid formation came to Sharitarn from a Universe where all rock behave in the same strange way, before the first live forms evolve on Sharitarn. During the period when only lifeless structures where brought by the Vortex. Others believe that the Stone Maze is itself a living thing, possibly still growing but so slowly that is impossible to notice. Divination Magic was unable to determine the true in that debate, but if there is life in the rock it is a kind of live magic does not recognize.
     Incidentally, the populations that consider the Maze home know little magic, and do not use it as often as the rest of the planet. 
     The Stone Maze isn't a Xar-Scar, magic is possible up there. Broadly speaking not harder to make than it is on most parts of Sharitarn. Most societies here ignore magic however, as completely as possible, and most users of magic from other regions are happy to ignore the odd and dangerous region in return.
      People of the maze do deal with magic in one form. Magic beasts. There is a huge variety of dangerous monsters with magic powers, a fair number of non-human races similarly gifted as well. Being common to find weapons that have magic properties not for being enchanted but for being made of magic bones and fur. Such weapons don't last long, but can be decently effective.   
       One thing most people born in the Maze don’t deal unless they can’t avoid is travels. Their vicinity are impossible to map, and walk as far as a day far from home may became a live in exile in the blink of eye. Not to mention that you must always go from one cave to the next, ready to run to the nearest shelter. All the way, you will be without a trustworthy map to tell you where the caves that can save your life are.
       Since you will enter the maze and risk travel inside it all the way to the East Cost (I know you well enough, don’t even try deny it!) you will find amazing things. 
       Like cities hanging on vertical walls or upside down; warriors mounted on squirrels as large as buffaloes, sometimes even larger than elephants. Those "squirrelmen" are the higher elite of Warrior Caste inside the Noodle.  
         

     However, I must warm you: not all men who mount a squirrel are squirrelmen. That status has to be earned, and the locals take feel seriously insulted if you mistake that point.

      

     You will also find centauroids with the low body of squirrels. Who in some cases happen to be squirrelmen themselves, but not as often as you could imagine. 

     And you may find many other things. 
     Forests where the trees transform radio waves in sound, for instance, are not rare. 
     There is no radio transmitter build on this Universe as you know, except for a sporadic experience made by a stupidly bold mechanic living inside a Xar-scar. However, you can make a creative use of divination spells to find out what those strange sounds are. From my part, found one intelligent fellow on the Maze who uses radio waves for communication same way we use sound. A metallic humanoid taller than most human sub-species. He isn’t exactly sociable, and even seems to be very depressive, but after we achieved some level of communication was possible to have several pleasant conversations about his experiences before and after the Vortex.
      The chances of find this same fellow are so small that make no sense to consider them. However, I am sure that you will find people just as interesting in your passage through Stone Maze.

Type

Rock Formation