THEMASULTER

An ancient city, abandoned in past centuries and repopulated in recent ones, it rises from the soft silt at the shore of the Lake of Steam and sprawls out across the marsh in haphazard fashion.

Built up upon itself, its only streets are deep canals thick with reeds, stone and wood bridges linking place to place, mist choked pyramids, vine shrouded and cracked standing hidden within, crowded by the ancient city crouched around them in the humid air.

Yet for all the languid heat and slow pace of the city, something buzzes beneath it all, like the drone of insects in the marsh, subtle, ever-present, rarely glimpsed except as a shadow on the waters.

On days when the silt is not so thick, whole buildings and streets swallowed by the marsh in some time past can be seen in the warm waters of the canals, a labyrinth of ancient, forgotten places stretching out beneath the living city above. Soon enough, that which stands above the water will slowly sink into the reedy marsh beneath, pulled down by the weights of heat and time.