Moon Tome

Purpose / Function

The moon base is apart of the Triple Tier Temple of Tonatuih that serves as: 

• the heart of the city's water management
• a holding place for criminals

Design

The design of the great temple has taken inspirations from the great structures and traditions of the valley. Construction is divided into three tiers: -

1. The Pyramid
2. The Columns
3. The Foundation

The base is of a circular limestone base that forms the foundation to the tiers above it. Standing seven stories above ground; it is extraly braced by columns and wedges of basalt and granite against an ever-growing mound of black sand, porous rock and sharp gravel. During the construction phase; this rising island pushed up and out, helping to aggrandize the Moon Base by necessity and by itself become a pricy project.
There is little room left for an interior; except for long, winding and narrowing passages, for both men and water, and maze through restricted treasure rooms and hidden prison cells. It stands 200 feet and partly submerged between three stony islands that help in stabilizing the base for the additional tiers.

Entries

Water Channels

There have been a few instances where water mice have been sucked in by the changing currents through the ducts connecting to various wells. The most powerful is the well that the great temple was built over. The wardens do often find the bodies of the drowned child slaves in random passages and rooms within the Moon Stone. Rarer; a mouse might find an air-pocket and not be carried away until the water levels lower.

Court Entrance

Off the side of the speakers' hall and in a non-descript room, all to itself, is a descending staircase that turns at a right angle into the bowels of the moon base.

Sensory & Appearance

Sanitation

The nightly scrubs of heated water that rise from the drains ensure the moon's dark corridors are always squeaky clean. The steam, simultaneously, sterilizes the walls and ceiling but also displaces breathable air. Many past inmates, besides being boiled alive, have been suffocated in this way and their bodies remain uncleared by the jailers. These corpses, left to float and boil through many cycles, become tender and are the only source of sustenance available to the next prisoner.

Denizens

Unknown to most, serious prisoners unworthy of sacrifice or a clean death are kept here.
That being said, the cells that make up the dungeon have never been full all at once. This is due to the shear rarity of having broken a serious enough law to warrant it.

Sangsalgu is a place where roaming priests look for any excuse to line persons to the sacrificial alter. It boggles the mind what sort of action can lead to imprisonment.

Being confined in the moon for longer than a week is almost a death sentence. A slow one. Not all the prison cells have doors. The Heart Spring that forces water through the city's water channels, and the very cells in the base, is also naturally boiling. Over the course of days, the water level rises ever higher which leads those left inside to climb to higher shelves at night and endure the suffocating steam until day break when the water recedes.

Valuables

It is rumored that a hoard of cursed gold is stashed in the temple's bowels. Storied as the Blood Gold, it grows just a little more when touched by any life form.

Hazards & Traps

In the depths of the foundations of the Moon Stone is a bubbling spring that pushes foams of water through the narrow halls and obscure cracks. This wellspring is one of the few fresh water sources that exist as apart of the Mixed Lake.
Jailers and guards take it upon themselves to keep track of the water levels that rise and sink every day; and report to the Water Warden who would then open extra reservoirs, spill ways and aqueduct reroutes.

Those who regularly traverse the dark halls have noticed that they can only walk around the circumference of the base. Of course, since it is mostly filled in, then it makes sense. What unnerves the denizens are the irregular quakes that are focused on the Moon Stone.

Special Properties

This foundation layer got its name from the coloured, refractive material that tiles the façade of this tier, and adds a certain luminous quality at night.

Alterations

Glass Façade

The base's rock and stone construction is covered in black glass tiles forged by the glassmakers in Ocumtit from the moon pieces of condemned buildings and the torn ground. It is from this glass that the foundation gets its name; and has the effect of drinking the sunlight during the day and releasing it at night in a menagerie of brilliant but subtle colours.

Architecture

Talud-Tablero

Consists of an inward-sloping surface called the talud, with a structure perpendicular to the ground sitting upon the slope called the tablero. To maintain the ingrained angles, those panels rest on crushed boulders, with gravel and sand filled in-between to form a solid, sturdy mass.

History

At the centre of the Sacred Precinct sits the great temple's predecessor. A spiral and stepped building filled with ash where people followed the spiral to the top which serves as a platform to crowds. Though not the most imposing; the uniqueness of its design makes it more memorable to the ordinary citizen. So, its layout was copied for the Moon Stone and scaled up considerably.

Maps

• 

  Moon Tome Layout

Alternative Names

• Moon Base
• Moon Stone
• Moon Stone Base

Type

Architectural Element, Dungeon

Parent Location

The Great Temple of Tonatuih

Connected Rooms

• Mixed Lake
• The Great Temple of Tonatuih

Owning Organization

Triple Alignment

Related Materials

• Moon Glass

Related Plots

• Prisoner of the Moon