The Floating Cities of Yulithar
Deep in the western jungles and wild hills of Enor Daeg, where the Silver Sea kisses the pebble coasts covered in seaweed and crabs, lie the tan, sun-bleached ruins of titanic cities.These ruins lie disorganized and folding on themselves. Various obelisks and keeps jut out like broken teeth from the green and overgrown skull of long forgotten and dark civilizations.
The ruins span the length of some thousands of square miles, with some miles between each major ruin. No matter how far apart the cities are, curious bricks the size of cloud giant boulders can be found lying in the damp earth, covered in vines and lizards. Insects buzz around statue heads semi-submerged in fetid water. Pseudodragons play on the backs on once proud and tall and lofty officiating buildings, now broken inward, the furniture and non-stone material melted or disintegrated away after millennia of waiting for excavation.
Huge craters that could house a small city hold puddles of rank water and microcosms teeming with non-humanoid life. At the center of these large scoops of earth, now barely recognizable since the jungle has overgrown it all, rests some curious and impressive stoneworked throne of immense size. The valor-hearted kings and queens and emperors of the bygone and powerful peoples now lie in the faded friezes and bas-reliefs enshrouding the base and back of the throne itself. Hundreds of these craters exist, though they now appear as curiously bowl-shaped valleys to the traveler. Any persons flying overhead, or any birds with half a brain as the brilliant avian subspecies of Samba Ka, would notice the supposed hills and valleys are too round and uniform to be anything natural.
In one of these ruins, hidden away from sunlight by a combined effort of vines, giant-leafed trees casting obtuse shade, and a feeling darker than the cloud-covered night, something slumbers. Past the tumbled stones and broken idols, which served as entry to this city, the sunlight is hesitant to shine. There is a clear line definition of shadow and light. That shadow is darker and blacker than the depths of the Chaos Rift in the Abyss, and presses against all creatures, even the smallest spider or beetle, from entering. A severe will is needed to pass the barrier, but once passed, the darkness seems to be not so dark, as if it were only a night-black curtain pulled over.
Here, the fallen stones and further in make absolutely no sound. There is no wind that stirs the dust that has slept longer than the kings of old, no trickle or drip of water that hundreds of centuries must have made through here. The air is sticky and wet, a slick moisture on the floor and walls of the large chamber. The stones sit jagged and upturned, their sharp points worrying whatever asinine travelers made it this far. There is no protection from them, for the ceiling and walls and floor all have these razor-stones, and it's best to not use magic in this place for magic behaves differently and uncontrollably here.
Deeper still until the sunlight is but a memory does the city crawl. A laborious crawl indeed is needed to attain further down. After hours the city drops deep into the earth, hollowed sections where the large markets would bustle with business and buyers bold with earnest spending. The once sun-laden stalls lie broken hundreds of feet down in what is now a large cavern chamber, though some tan flagstones still hold themselves against the floor. Unlit openings yawn like eyeslits to buildings further out, to homes and other businesses selling, buying, living, dying, and sleeping. Ropes are necessary to achieve the bottom, which is a smattering pile of rubble.
Further on a sharp upturn and downturn zigzag on sideways steps of some grand stair that no doubt went up to the ruler's plateau. The slick stone make climbing near impossible and the dead silence stirs up long-dead tales of some malevolent things lurking deep in the darkness just out of sight. The gray-tan stone, after countless years of being in the sunlight, now ironically grow cold. At the top of the stair the moisture turns to ice, transparent and slick as Taggit's oil.
At the summit of the stair are large, cracked braziers, their contents long gone, but suggestive of rituals and rites, especially by the faint, dark stains on the outer shells. Beyond these is a fallen temple to an unknown deity. Pillars, friezes, sculptures, statues, still stand, those that are intact. The doorway grins menacingly, invitingly open and warmly welcoming, a charm applied since its inception.
In this chamber, the largest built chamber in this whole city, a solemn white light source hangs on a back wall. It shines only 30 feet, keeping the darkness at bay and blinding any who have so far traveled this far. The inside of this place is complete and untouched by the calamity that sent it hurtling downward those long, long years ago. Nothing has been dislodged or broken, though everything is sideways or on its back. The ice-chill stops here, a warmth and gentle breeze flowing from somewhere else deeper still.
At the back under the light, an aperture ringed with white stone about twenty feet by twenty feet wide beckons. The gentle breeze and warmth flow from here. Going through this reveals a deep shaft straight down into the world, further than any shaft should. At the bottom the world rights itself and dim lights of distant lava floes illuminate the scene, ghastly as it is.
There, surrounded by high walls of lined stone, carved or natural it is impossible to tell, but old, even older than the cities ruins above, lies a sleeping giant of unknown origin, species, or temperament. Its breathing is the breeze that flows like a bellows above and no doubt further down into the floes of lava. The thing, horned and dark, sleeps for however long it needs to before its mind-numbing size shifts and its large forelimbs clamber out of the dark hole it has remained all these years. Drowsy sleep leaves one hungry and the thing must indeed be fiendishly famished and who knows what sort of appetite it will crave when it decides to end the world.
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