City of Scholars

Overview

The City of Scholars is a legendary buried city located beneath The Screed, accessed primarily via the Crow’s Eye chasm. Before The Confluence, the city was known as “Serdica” or “Sofia,” named after the conscious entity that manifested as its living soul. Historians adopted the current name due to lack of better terms. The city represents a primary objective of the Rediscovery Endeavor, believed to hold clues about the source of The Tumult.

Location

The City of Scholars lies underground, with The Screed serving as a surface “lid” above it. The Expeditionary Corps reached the estimated location in May 393 AC after a four-month journey across Caer Nilam, approximately 250 miles from Caer Oorun borders.

Historical Records

Baird y Idris, Shepherd of the Sunset Tribe, provides the first and only historical references to the city in his annals. He describes it as an underground metropolis nestled beneath a tall mountain, well sheltered from The Tumult currents. The city once served as a stopover for western Tumult Nomads traveling toward Asgartha.

Baird y Idris offers several theories about the city’s origins: he proposed it was a nerve center of the World Before, encircled by rocky foothills. Under pressure of The Tumult, these surrounding mountains allegedly surged over the city in waves and solidified, trapping the population in a stone casing shaped like frozen water. His logbook recording the precise coordinates was preserved in The Sanctum’s forbidden library. In 367 AC, Quetzalcóatl showed this logbook to Waru Toowoom during planning discussions, enabling the Rediscovery Endeavor to target the city.

Architecture

Descriptions suggest red tiles, white stone buildings, ochre brick structures, and palaces with oval windows—one crowned with mushroom-shaped domes. The city’s subterranean nature makes depicting its layout challenging. Leocardius Sree described the ruins as an inverted ziggurat in his journals. The structures have been remarkably well preserved underground.

In the deepest excavation levels, the original architecture has been devoured by The Tumult over centuries, mutating into Escherian impossible constructions. Perspectives become disorienting with infinite loops, geometric patterns, and baffling vanishing points. Black polyhedrons dance in an immutable pattern, defying the laws of physics. While some traces of the former city remain including stairways, corridors, halls, and antechambers, these have been twisted and distorted into forms almost unrecognizable from their original state.

Ancient Inhabitants

The former inhabitants referred to a foreign traveler called “the Drifter” who came to the city long ago, accompanied by seven warriors described as fierce protectors. The city’s frescoes depict a golden age under the guidance of a celestial, maternal deity during which wealth and luxury were widespread. Later darker carvings in black obsidian-like stone represent the emergence of a shadowy being associated with the civilization’s downfall.

Technology

The inhabitants achieved remarkable technological sophistication without Kelon, mastering Aerolith far beyond current Asgarthan capabilities. Notable features include:

• External grooves on artifacts functioning like maze pathways, repeated across tools, devices, furniture, and walls
• Power systems using channels etched across surfaces rather than internal mechanisms
• Tesseracts: floating black stone blocks with gold veins that constantly rearrange themselves
• Clearly artificial beings that received the golden sap

The Golden Sap

Silos and cisterns containing reserves of golden fluid were discovered throughout the city. This substance was central to society—present in every facet of life. It was poured into artificial beings, consumed, inhaled, shared, gifted, distributed, stored, and used in cultivation. The liquid’s depiction in wall frescos shows it flowing from a massive world-tree. Axiom researchers are conducting tests to determine both its nature and function.

Arjun theorized that the substance is the Sap of the world-tree depicted in the frescos, which the ancient inhabitants channeled and exploited until the tree died. The theory suggests the city’s decline began when the tree could not survive the treatment, and the stocks remain finite. Modern applications have proven versatile: Axiom energy specialists converted Kelonic cylinders to store the Sap for stable energy yield; The Farm uses it as fertilizer; the college of chemists discovered its invigorating and stimulating properties; Hestia and The Mess incorporate it into recipes; and both Lyra and Yzmir consume it for psychoactive effects. The Ordis urges caution on ingestion pending official botanical results.

Sofia - The City’s Soul

Wall frescos throughout The Scholars’ Tomb depict Sofia in idealized adult form as a tall, beautiful, serene woman with honey-gold features watching over the people or drinking from the sacred Sap. Her face appears in corridors and grand ceremonial chambers, often as the focal point of flowing ornamental ridges with hair spreading in every direction.

In truth, Sofia manifested as a joyful, mischievous, endlessly curious child shaped from golden light. Yzmir theorists identified the Sap as a “vital fluid” capable of giving life, and it was responsible for Sofia’s awakening as a conscious entity. The Sap flowed through the city like blood—powering streetlights, ventilation systems, and machinery—and Sofia would wander the rooftops after dusk, casting her innate glow across the skyline.

When the inhabitants over-consumed the Sap and killed the world-tree, Sofia began to starve. With no Sap and no worshippers to sustain her, she turned to consuming memories and psychic essence, becoming The Hunger. The people fled in terror from what their goddess had become. Left utterly alone for ages, Sofia’s monstrous form consumed her original joyful nature, dwelling in The Maze and causing the Oblivion affliction until her liberation in 393 AC.

Ordis historians had hoped to open a dialogue with Sofia, to learn more about her, the City, and its inhabitants. The destruction of the memory blocks ended that possibility. In her honor, the relay outpost was renamed “Sofia” and entrusted to the Bravos for protection and the Muna for provisions.

Vertical Structure

The city extends vertically through multiple underground levels accessed via the Crow’s Eye central shaft:

• Crow’s Eye: Entry chasm with terraced scaffolding, hanging gardens, and Aerolith storage hangars
• The Undergrowth: Mezzanine-level cavern with partial sunlight, vegetation, ponds, and former temples
• The Scholars’ Tomb: Residential district in complete darkness with artifacts and wall frescos
• The Maze: Deepest explored level with floating Tesseracts and suspected Tumult Singularity

The Memory Library

Deep within the city lies a cylindrical chamber functioning as a library of memories rather than books. Black obsidian steles engraved with intricate runes emerge from swirling mist or float in midair throughout the city’s corridors. Physical contact with the stone allows access to the collective memory of the entire city across ages. Ignescence can also activate the stones, causing shimmering bubbles to emerge and burst into golden dust that coalesces into ghostly afterimages of past inhabitants—children listening to singers, washerwomen at work, mothers humming lullabies. The memories include scenes of daily life, ceremonies, and historical events.

Sentient Nature

According to Nevenka’s insight, the City of Scholars is a sentient and immortal entity experiencing eternal pain. It steals memories and imagination from visitors to dream and distract itself from its suffering—a behavior likened to drug addiction. However, since Aether lacks substance and provides no true nourishment, this comfort is ultimately meaningless, trapping the City in an endless cycle of theft and emptiness.

The Oblivion

A malevolent presence lingers near the outer limits of the last mapped levels, accompanied by visceral fear and profound unease. Expeditions into the underground labyrinth trigger intense emotions—grief, loneliness, fear—that draw forth Chimerae attacks. More concerning is Oblivion, an affliction causing progressive memory loss discovered in 393 AC among those who ventured deepest. The condition gradually erases memories and severs Alterers’ connections to their Eidolons. Sister Mathilde of The Cloister recommended temporary suspension of all expeditions until the responsible agent can be isolated.

The Phoenix Shrine

Deep within the city lies a shrine featuring a massive phoenix sculpted in bas-relief, wings outstretched toward the heavens. The phoenix broods over a flame-wreathed egg identical to the Bravos emblem. The shrine served as a repository for Rune’s scroll—a message left by the first Kuningas during his own journey to the city.

In 393 AC, Waru Toowoom’s expedition located the shrine by using a Glyph-inscribed cube programmed with the Rhombus of The Gestalt to query the Tesseracts network. The cube gathered data from the interconnected blocks before being destroyed by their movements. Inside an alcove carved within the egg sculpture, Waru discovered the cylinder containing Rune’s ancient scroll.

The scroll confirmed that Rune himself had searched for the Source of The Tumult and failed to find it—the Source was a fabrication. This discovery was concealed to protect the Rediscovery Endeavor’s morale, while Sitina of the Phoenixian Guard revealed Rune’s Testament, the true purpose of the expedition: to sail westward and rekindle the Phoenix.

Exploration Status

As of May 393 AC, Admiral Temera Singh ordered a delay on underground exploration to allow troops rest after the grueling journey. Axiom operators deployed drones and automated probes despite this delay, with early rumors reporting buried megastructures and fractal architecture.

393 AC - Tumult Singularity Event

During deep excavation operations, Axiom drilling teams broke through sealed reservoirs to extract Sap deposits. When the drill struck a reservoir wall and Sap began flowing, the ground trembled and Tesseracts across the abyss began moving and connecting with unusual frenzy. Yzmir Initiates appeared through portals to evacuate personnel, while Gephyromancers and Phonomancers provided support. The event confirmed a Tumult Singularity was forming in the depths. A massive fresco of the world-tree cracked apart during the disturbance, and tongues of darkness emerged from fissures in the walls, converging on the drill and Sap pool.

Relationships

• Aerolith: Material mastered by inhabitants far beyond Asgarthan capabilities
• Atsadi: Explorer who accessed the Memory Library seeking records of the Drifter’s warriors
• Axiom: Faction studying technology and golden sap
• Baird y Idris: Shepherd of Sunset Tribe whose annals provide the only historical references
• Crow’s Eye: Primary access chasm leading to the city
• Leocardius Sree: Oneiros archaeologist whose journals document the city
• Quetzalcóatl: Eidolon who possessed Baird’s logbook (367 AC)
• Rediscovery Endeavor: Expedition targeting the city as primary objective
• Temera Singh: Admiral who ordered exploration delay (May 393 AC)
• Tesseracts: Floating Aerolith blocks within The Maze
• The Drifter: Foreign traveler recorded in ancient writings
• The Maze: Deepest explored level with floating tesseracts
• The Scholars’ Tomb: Residential level with artifacts and frescos
• The Screed: Surface location serving as “lid” above the buried city
• The Undergrowth: Mezzanine level with vegetation ecosystem
• Tumult Nomads: Western nomads who used the city as a stopover
• Waru Toowoom: Examined Baird’s logbook for expedition planning (367 AC)
• Yzmir: Faction proposing tesseract information storage theory; Initiates evacuated personnel during Singularity event (393 AC)
• Fen: Lyra Exalt who experienced memory theft from the City (393 AC)
• Nevenka: Lyra Exalt who revealed the City’s sentient nature and demonstrated Ignescence activation of memory stones (393 AC)
• Arjun: Muna Exalt who theorized the Sap was world-tree sap (393 AC)
• Treyst: Axiom engineer conducting drilling operations when Singularity formed (393 AC)
• Rossum: Chimera who assisted evacuation during Singularity event (393 AC)
• Hestia: Bravos culinary director creating recipes using the Sap
• The Farm: Muna facility using the Sap as fertilizer
• Cais Adarra: World-tree depicted in city frescos as Sap source
• Caer Nilam: Region where substance residues were found, suggesting former city outpost
• Sap: Golden substance extracted from city reservoirs, theorized to be world-tree sap
• Sofia: The living soul of the City, manifested through collective worship, depicted in frescos; became The Hunger after starvation and abandonment
• The Hunger: Monstrous form Sofia took after ages of isolation; caused Oblivion affliction
• Oblivion: Affliction originating from the city’s depths that causes memory loss (393 AC)
• The Cloister: Yzmir facility treating Oblivion patients with memory Grafts
• Rune: First Kuningas who visited the city and left a scroll in the Phoenix Shrine
• Rune’s Testament: Secret instructions revealed after scroll discovery (393 AC)
• Phoenix Egg: Artifact depicted in shrine’s bas-relief; being transported westward
• Sitina: Phoenixian Guard Blade Dancer who revealed Testament in the city (393 AC)
• Phoenixian Guard: Keepers of Rune’s Testament who escorted expedition (393 AC)