For whatever reason Alexandria is it! so if you want to help build there i kindly ask that you please read the descriptions of the city, straight out of the novels.
here they are: *minor spoiler warning*
Egyptian sun shone down on Black threatening a burn. Black
tucked the map away into his box neatly, trying to will Evo’s fun facts out of
the air. Perched on an outcropping of volcanic rock they surveyed their
landing. They were confined to a ledge, hugged by jagged cliffs on three sides
and ocean on the fourth. Making effective use of his cast Black was careful to
avoid lacerations from the sharp rock as he poked his head over the top. The
promontory revealed itself as an island bearing no prospects of further
progress.
Black likened its size to about half of a ‘football field.’
Evo wrinkled his forehead, whinnied, and muttered “Terrene” under his breath.
Black heard him perfectly and for brief moment, recalling the untidy sports
store in Capriis, he wondered if there was anything like football here.
More pressing riddles begged to be relinquished and they
scoured the smallish platform for some way off. It was clearly a manmade ledge
carved into the rock but there was no sign of it having any purpose.
There was nowhere to go.
“Where are we?”
groaned Evo. “You were supposed to take us to Alexandria.”
“I did. We are, look.”
Black pulled the map back out again and handed it to Evo.
The marker changed what it said as Evo took it. There, right above the dot
where Alexandria was it read Evyndyr.
Shrouded behind igneous formations Evo wasn’t able to lift
his neck high enough to see the skyline of Alexandria. The boat-speckled harbor
of the golden city, however, could be heard now that it was at the forefront of
his awareness.
“Well,” Evo joked,
“Either we wait for some cruise ship to rescue us or we see what that map can
do.”
It didn’t work.
“Um,” tried Black, “I didn’t throw away my flying carpet.”
“Yeah, but this is a no-fly zone and Egyptian prison is my
second least favorite place to spend a night.”
“No look.” Black had started to say, pointing to a small
pile of debris cuddling the serrated shore of their little island. Suddenly
curious of what else was on Evo’s list, he wished he hadn’t spoken so soon.
Likewise Evo regretted the anecdote and took the conversational back door, away
from recollecting undesirable memories.
“Oh, I thought for a moment that it was a boat.”
“It is a boat.” Black argued.
A small reed skiff was tied to a slender boulder that had
been placed on the flat shelf.
“That’s not a boat!” Evo snorted. “It’s a pile of broken
reeds wash-"
“Oh shut up, it’s a boat and it’s even got oars. We’ll just
have to paddle our way in.”
“Not that I am trying to get out of paddling a dilapidated
life raft to shore, cause I’m not,” stammered Evo. “I honestly don’t think I’ll
even fit in that thing and keep it afloat at the same time. And we’ve got to
row through all the other traffic. It’s suicide. If we tip over we die.”
“What you can’t swim?”
“No, there’s-”
“I spent a summer one time on a boat, just do as I say and
we’ll be fine. No sudden moves horsefoot.”
Evo decided not to get into it. They were out of options and
camping on that ledge was almost as dangerous anyway. He didn’t see the need
though to pressure Black’s nautical knowhow with that information and he
conceded.
Evo’s adrenaline rushed through him as he concentrated hard
on keeping the boat steady. Rowing to shore through the phalanx of vessels was
certain doom. Swimming would be suicide. All the while Black poked fun,
unknowledgeable of the danger in the water.
Stroke by stroke they rounded the island and faced the
commanding skyline of Alexandria. The Alexandrian skyline had not rendered a
single holy cow. Their unbroken awe was a venerable reverence fit for the
Manhattan of the Mediterranean. Ancient looking, gravity defying, skyscrapers
of heavy yellow stone seemed to pierce the stratosphere. The skyline looked as
though the ancient Egyptians had built their version of New York City. It was
impossible magic that kept block after block of tall sandstone skyscrapers
standing. Like a mirage, the hot sun reflected off of a mirror sea.
The city shimmered and rippled before them, the great
lighthouse beckoning them in. Black stared in awe at a wall of unfathomably
tall superstructures that dwarfed it. Evo had been here many times, but
couldn’t help but join in the reverence when they had passed the breakers. Atop
the maritime entrance to the city, an enormous statue stood proud, a legendary
hero.
A colossus, erected in honor of Gilgamesh, greater even than
the original colossus at Rhodes, celebrated the champion of the world’s first
epic. Evo explained that the effigy in Rhodes however was the original great
colossus and more wondrous because it was built without the aid of magic.
Greater than the pyramids or the temple at Carnac, these
buildings put to shame any others he had ever seen. Las Vegas certainly didn’t
have the tallest building in the world but Black had known them to be grand.
Now his memory of them seemed pathetic. Just a few weeks ago modern engineering
was king. Now magical superstructures trumped over Terrenean technology.
Black wondered how the tallest of these would measure up
against the twin towers brought down in 2001. Those were the tallest buildings
Black could name, but even if these weren’t as tall they certainly were just as
imposing. Black nearly lost his balance and tipped the skiff. Evo shrieked like
a small child but regained proper footing. He strained himself working superior
levitation magic. Nearly exhausted and panicky his breathing was too heavy to
reproach Black, who laughed jovially and ignorantly.
Black was absorbed into getting the most out of his oar
strokes that he failed to see where he was going. The bow shot up out of the
water and sea spray coated their front sides. A fearful moment of near
capsizing in the crossing wakes of larger boats Evo pleaded for passage with a
nearby by garbage barge. It was empty and on its way toward the city.
‘Watch where you’re going!” Evo roared as the barge slowly
approached.
“Me? I’m the one doing all the work.” Black shouted back.
“So, you think you’re the one keeping us afloat?”
“Like you are. You’re the one just standing there
complaining.”
“I’ve been levitating this rotting piece of junk the whole
way. And all the while keeping the eels distracted.”
“You-” Black stopped short. “Wait, what?”
But before Evo could explain the barge had approached. The
solid mass underfoot was welcome despite the reeking stench. They deflected the
curious pilot’s puzzlement well enough after they boarded and slowly floated
nearer the shore.
Their argument was dropped and sank like a heavy stone into
the harbor just as quickly as their little reed boat had done. In its place Evo
put on a false voice and guided their tour.
The barge’s horn hollered a low welcome as they passed
around what Evo explained was a massive boat station. Rather than subways they
had underground canals with ferrymen guiding long reed boats with poles. It
seemed to Black like a cross between a singing and dancing theme park ride and
Venice. But Evo didn’t understand a word or what Black was talking about. Black
couldn’t help but sing “it’s a small world after all,” the rest of the way in.
"Wow what’s that building?" asked Black after they
hopped ashore and thanked the garbage man.
"That,” Evo speculated, “looks like a huge glass, wait
a sec. That the new addition to the library. Wow is right. It’s incredible. I
heard it was neat but this is amazing."
Towering out of the ocean was a triangular shaped glass
wall, pointing to the sky. The entire structure looked solid, like it was one
gigantic piece of glass or crystal. The absence of individual panes and
supporting crossbeams gave it and unusual and ghostly appearance. Black thought
of a giant moon-sized diamond exploding in space and a chunk of it falling and
nestling itself into the Alexandrian coast.
"It looks like a-"
"Yeah it's a glass pyramid turned on its side, look you
can see inside. There on the far end, there’s where the top of the pyramid
would be if it was right side up." Evo pointed to water where it gently
lapped against the side of the crystal clear wall. "It goes down just as
far.
Through the wall Black could see there were numerous
balconies inside stacked with countless shelves and display cases, all glowing
slightly of an ethereal sky blue. They followed the boardwalk along the coast
towards the building.
“So that’s it then,” exclaimed Evo.
All Black could muster by way of reply was a fairly
disjointed double “whoa.”
“That’s the ethereal section. It’s new, just finished about
a year or so ago.”
“What’s that mean, ethereal section?”
“It’s a new concept. I read an article about it. It’s
supposed to replace all the current library systems. No more damaged, lost or
stolen books. No more late fees. No hungry books eating your stuff either.”
The blank stare from Blacks face still had questions written
all over it and Evo noticed.
“All the actual books are now kept in sealed glass cases.
When you find a book you want you simply touch the case in front of the book
and an ethereal copy will emerge for you to take.”
“Sounds cool but what’s ethereal mean?”
“Oh, it’s like, like a ghost only backwards. Typically
ghosts are not usually visible or palpable but they’re real, something ethereal
is something you can see and touch but it’s not real and will soon fade.”
“So it’s like a hologram then?”
“A hollow what?”
“A hologram you know, as in an illusion.”
“I thought you were talking about crackers, isn’t that what
a graham is?”
“Not hollow, holo, h-o-l-o. And a different kind of gram,
not like, oh never mind, just forget it.”
“Ok, easy enough, you weren’t making any sense. Anyway when
you take an ethereal book you can have it as long as you want, or well as long
as it lasts before they run out of chi. They fade after time or if you take them
far enough away from the library and source of power.
“Ah here we are.”
They stood on the pier, the glass pyramid towering above
them. It was unlike any glass Black had ever seen. It looked so thin and clear
and astonishingly it was made of one solid piece, not just each side but the
whole structure was solid and seamless. The building was remarkable but partly
due to its transparency, subtracted nothing from the many other buildings on
the site. As they walked around the ethereal section they saw it was connected
to the back end of the central edifice, the library proper.
Evo explained that the original word for the library,
bibliotheca, referred to the collection of scrolls itself not to the buildings
housing them but in Atlantean and most other modern Gaiean languages the word
was like the English library. He went on to tell Black that over time the
library had grown as a center for learning and the arts of magic and thus
became more of a university than a just a house for books. It was now also sometimes
known as the great university of Alexandria.
“In fact,” he
continued, “it’s got a lot more names depending on where in the world you are,
but they’re all more or less the same thing. Most of the world’s greatest
thinkers have once studied here.”
The entrance to the library was more inland and the turned
off the boardwalk. Evo led Black onto the complex and around the corner of an
archaic sandstone building and under a great hallway of columns. They entered
an open courtyard, the ancient library façade on the north. Another colonnade
like the one they had just passed through was opposite them on the far end.
That left a huge circular building or cistern of some kind occupying the
remaining side of the square.
Black was sure Evo was about to spit out another interesting
fact but for the moment the grandeur of the original structure, the Great
Library of Alexandria had the floor. The library, like most of the city was
built primarily of the yellowish stone. Various other stones used in the
carvings, inlays and reliefs gave it a high level of detail. It was ancient but
sturdy.
“Not bad eh?” chirped Evo.
Crowning the steps that led up to the entrance, Black gazed
at the white marble artfully set into the threshold. The stone looked as if it
were spilled milk, leaking out from inside the library. Large twin statues of
Atlas stood on raised platforms on either side of the stairs. Instead of the
celestial sphere on the titan’s shoulders Atlas held big brass braziers blazing
with pure white flame.
“They symbolize that the weight of the heavens is lifted by
knowledge. Don’t tell Atlas though.” Evo laughed. “Those braziers still look
plenty heavy.”
“Not bad at all,” Black proposed as they moved up the steps.
“I mean for a library.”
Monstrous doors gaping wide were open and inviting. They had
been coated with gold leaf giving way to the white floors inside. It probably
had some sort of symbolic tie in to Atlas’s heavenly flames. Black rushed in,
nearly leaping. He considered for a brief moment becoming an architect. At this
he shuddered, made the kind of face one makes when biting into a fruit that’s
entirely unripe and stripped himself of the thought. He let himself become
distracted by all the people there.
Most people moved lazily around a vast circular entrance hall,
taking it all in. It was bright but the musty waft of old deteriorating
parchment and preservative ointments dominated the air. Streams of incense and
other fragrances mingled delightfully with the ancient book smell and periodically
the breeze from the sea would come in like waves to freshen the senses
temporarily.
Every particle in the air was laden with aroma. Each one had
somewhere to be. Mixing perfectly in a grand chaos, like ants when you kick
their hill.
Spears of near tangible light bore down from a dome into the
room focusing in the center of the floor.
Black made to swipe his hand through one and was surprised.
Minutely the air was different, it was thicker. Tenderly he ran his fingers
along the edges of the light. He easily passed his hand through it but it
reminded him of holding his hand out of a car window, hand cupped like holding
an invisible ball.
Nestled in the crest of the circular ceiling a fresco smothered
every inch of the cupola. At the center of that was a diamond or some other
crystal larger than any Black had ever seen. The mural was definitely a grand
myth or epic of some kind, one Black didn’t recognize off hand. It reminded
Black of one of those ninja turtle named renaissance artists, except instead of
naked babies everywhere there were pegasi and mermaids.
From the elephantine jewel projected the pillars of light
that illuminated the spacious rotunda. Black moved around and fondled the 3D
image that they cast onto the ground.
“The world’s largest crystallight calendar.” Although Evo
was in no way responsible for its existence his voice carried an air of pride.
The rays from the gem created translucent statues of light
arranged in several rings on the marble floor. Displaying the Date, time,
season, month, moon phase, and a few other things Black didn’t understand.
It was spectacular.
Black began to
mentally compare it to every image of any library or museum he had seen, none
of which could measure up to the grandiose of Alexandria’s great library. This
was majestic, it was amazing. The ceiling seemed to be ridiculously taller than
it had been on the outside, a building quality that he was getting used to. The
stonework was intricate and detailed beyond normal human ability. The materials
were exquisite and perfect. Black had no doubt that the magic enchanting the
buildings’ size and the great crystallight calendar, were world class. Black
found out it was the year 1467 after the rule of the thirteen houses. The moon
was somewhere close to the first quarter and Libra was the current zodiac being
passed by the sun.
more to come....
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