Zyan as Scented by Hiero's Nose

The Sunken Circle, The Temple of The Archons

Steps lead down from each of the five shrines into the sunken area at the center of the Temple of Archons. Along the wall of the depression at shoulder height, an inscription is carved, “It Belongs Not to the Pawn to Question the Intention of the Hand That Moves It”.

The bulk of the sunken area is taken up by a single immense block of red stone that has been carved into a wondrous model of a city. When one descends the stairs, the model lights up, illuminated by the same light that currently falls on Zyan above. When you first viewed the model, the streets are lit by the mottled light of sun through dappled clouds. But later, when you poke your heads in to the temple, the model is lit by silver light of the moon and phantasmagorical pools that accumulate below the city's dangling colored lanterns.

The model rises to shoulder height at its highest, and waist height at its lowest. It is stylized, with some buildings and locations of outsized proportions, and others, such as common streets and humble dwellings, you suspect not represented at all. But so detailed are its minute streets, sunken courtyards, arcades, and jeweled rising towers, that it seems no clumsy mortal hand could have fashioned it. To look at it is to be lost in the sights of the city, and to imagine its sounds and movements, the cry of the water carriers, the singing of wind chimes, and babble of bartering over rolls of richly printed fabric.

The Lay of the Land

Zyan is wider East-West than North-South. There are many changes of elevation, hills, hollows, and the like. The island rises to the west dramatically, where the buildings on the narrowest part of the isle sit on a plateau. Far to the west, a small separate island is connected to the main body by a narrow bridge.

On this island a palace rises, a majestic and elegant structure, with domes piled upon domes, and towers climbing into the sky. On the Palace's western face, a glorious stain glass window rich with iconography, six stories high, is set. Through its panes, a council chamber can be glimpsed, where a massive orchid springs, dangling over a jeweled ivory throne that sits at the head of a great table. A label is affixed to this structure which reads “The Sunset Palace”.

Moving eastward across the bridge and into the raised western plateau, the buildings here are bright and elegant. Wooded hills rise here and there between which are nestled cozy manses with sunken courtyards. At the center of the plateau, a great hollow descends gently to mossy woods through which a sparkling stream runs, to which a label is affixed reading, "Peacock Hollow". There is, on the plateau, also a great building along the northern edge of the island, with many columns, and martial statues. Piers extend from dark openings in the building out over the Endless Azure Sea. A label affixed here reads, “The Stables of the Guides”.

Further east, down the cliff that sets the western area of the city apart, seven sets of narrow steps run into the neighborhoods below that sit at various heights. Along the largest of these stairs leading down the cliff face, a series of marketplaces is carved directly into the living rock. You can glimpse here arcades that lead deep into the rock, with colorful merchants stalls offering silver pipes, little caged monkeys, and other tiny queer goods. A label affixed here says, “The Vertical Market”.

The neighborhoods at its base are hilly and uneven, with steep stairs that climb past buildings clinging to the hillsides, and numerous small bridges connecting high points. Southwest from the base of the Vertical Bazaar, a hill rises above all else. Perched atop it is a tower that rises like a crooked finger into the sky. From the top of the tower a great telescope extends into the heavens above, while another snakes downward over the island's edge to point downward towards the heavens below. Here a label is affixed that reads, “The Observatory of the Horoscops”.

Across the island to the north, the city spills down a great hill that eventually becomes too steep for homes. A wall has been set here running between tightly packed houses that lean together against the harsh winds that blow from the north. In a plaza in this tilted neighborhood there is an amphitheater with a festival air about it, with several stages, bleachers and raised platforms, with jangling bells, and instruments for performers. Leading onto one end of the central stage from the building within are a pair of great doors, fifty feet high, painted in gaudy colors. Here a label reads, "The Theater of Justice".

Beyond the walls here, where rocks spills steeply down to the edge of the island, narrow ledges jut, supporting lonely twisted trees that clings in the harsh wind to the barren rocks. Some ruined architecture, columns and ancient stairs that lead nowhere stand by the island near its uttermost edge. On the norther side of the island, the cliff face (the side of the model) is riddled with several tunnels that end in baroque gates. Past the gates, tunnels with carved tiles can be glimpsed.

Beyond the shore of the main island here, several other smalls islands float, making for a broken and irregular barrier against the biting North Wind. Here fantastical birds nest by icy pools of turquoise water. The last island is long and thin, ending in a jutting rock that rises above the island and looks out into the Endless Azure Sea. From this isle dangle cages that hang from chains spinning over the depths of the Endless Azure Sea. A label has been affixed to this island that reads, “The Farthest Isle”.

On the eastern edge of the city, the neighborhoods becomes seedier and more dilapidated. Here the crowded buildings with their network of tautly stretched clotheslines give way to sudden hollows, where groves of forlorn trees stand. An especially steep hollow cuts through the neighborhood like a gash, with a dark narrow wood winding along its base. This is labelled “Seed”. Nearby a building rises above the shabby dwellings, with outdoor altars of an evil aspect, dangling censors, and elaborate drains that empty into massive sewer grates below. A label is affixed here that reads, "Abattoir of the Fleishguild".

Amongst the very poorest dwellings, crumbling, and overtaken by nature, sits a large monastery, imposing in its modesty. Within its courtyards massive dinner tables stand at which the poor and abject receive daily sustenance. Over them presides a statue with a fat belly, its swollen limbs contorted in strange and painful poses. Through other windows one can glimpse rows of hospital beds, and penitents cells filled with instruments of self-torture. Here is affixed a label which reads, "Monastery of the Benefactors".

So the places with labels, moving west to east are:

1. Sunset palace
2. Peacock Hollow
3. Stable of the Guides
4. Vertical Market
5. Observatory of the Horoscops
6. Theater of Justice
7. Seed
8. Abattoir of the Fleischguild
9. Monastery of the Benefactors

The Treasure Biscuit!

With the treasure biscuit, Hiero scents treasure in all the numbered areas except Peacock Hollow and Seed. The strongest scent wafts from Sunset Palace, but the others smell richly of treasure.

In addition, Hiero scents a powerful scent of well-aged treasure that makes him salivate in the tumble of rocks and antique ruins beyond the wall of cusp at a cave that is easy to miss amongst the spill, with the barest hint of stairs. The same smell comes from the caves riddling the cliff face right below it.

One other thing that I didn't mention. There is a single house, one story with a tiny attic, in a cramped and modest street near the hollow labelled "Seed" (7), where there is a sharp smell of extraordinary treasure mixed with something sour. It is an anomaly in a neighborhood that otherwise has almost no smell of treasure at all, but for the aroma of fatty treasure from the Abattoir of the Fleischguild (8).