| The Way it Used to Be?
The pit was unbelievably large- or perhaps it was more of a crater? A titanic hole, a horrific gouge out of the face of the continent near its Northern edge. Frost rimed the scar, an endless Fimbulwinter binding the land around it into eternal stasis. Not a thing moved near that frigiid depression, and still less within it. Even the air, there, held a sense of impermeable stillness.
On the Northmost edge of that hole, the remains of a massive plateau ran the distance from its crumbled precipice to the seawall cliffs. It had been nigh twice as large, one could estimate- but for this unbelievable pockmark.
Miles deep sank the pit, a wierdly ovoid tear out of the flesh of the continent. Light reached into its depths, but was tainted by a faint haze of airborne rock and dust. What could have caused this? Some unimaginable titan, striking down with a fist in wrath? A ridiculous creature, taking a small bite out of a passing world? Or... maybe something more foul.
The air in the depths was putrid as well as hazy, the earth there blackened and powdery. It should not have held its shape, but something- some ineffable force- made it do so.
It was a stinking, rotten wound on the world- and would remain so. Still, the sense of lingering wrongness told of something far worse that had been, before.
And off to one side, far, far smaller- in a snowy field where, paradoxically, no snow fell at all- a staff. A simple, gnarled shaft of oakwood, scorched nearer to the narrow end. The thinner tip of it away from the crater, the broader towards it, like some kind of compass needle.
...but, pointing at what? |