This city is a weapon and though the citizens have forgotten, the city has not.
Every inch of it was originally designed as a final resort against the wandering moss that had all but consumed the western regions of the continent at that time. The remaining architects and biologists combined their research to create three cities that were both a haven and a bio-weapon, utilising the wandering moss' own hyper-absorbency and the bodily toxins of every living citizen as a means of mutual destruction.
There was a time when the founding researchers deployed three thousand ignorant families into the cities while the wandering moss was at its zenith. Trembling fingers hovered over the trigger point (a single decorative glass bead in a mosaic halfway up their respective mayoral halls) and trembling hearts watched from a safe distance as the enemy drew closer and closer.
In what could only be described as one of mankind's greatest mistakes, a trigger was accidentally pressed before the wandering moss was in position. While every living being inside its walls shrivelled to calcium dust and urea, the moss froze its progress and in that one single moment the tides turned. Or so we still hope.
It retreated back to the northernmost western regions, back to the muggy heat and fetid swamplands that had somehow spawned it, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of miles of mud that was so utterly uninhabitable that the cities became legitimate havens.
Now the researchers have been sworn to secrecy, too afraid that should someone figure out the city's original purpose they may detonate one of the last sanctuaries on the continent and too busy studying the no-longer-wandering moss for the slightest hints that it may move again. Thus far it lies dormant, though strangely enough several sectors have formed craters and now seem to be cradling the remains of the ruined city.
In our attempts to destroy it, we gave it guilt instead.
Every inch of it was originally designed as a final resort against the wandering moss that had all but consumed the western regions of the continent at that time. The remaining architects and biologists combined their research to create three cities that were both a haven and a bio-weapon, utilising the wandering moss' own hyper-absorbency and the bodily toxins of every living citizen as a means of mutual destruction.
There was a time when the founding researchers deployed three thousand ignorant families into the cities while the wandering moss was at its zenith. Trembling fingers hovered over the trigger point (a single decorative glass bead in a mosaic halfway up their respective mayoral halls) and trembling hearts watched from a safe distance as the enemy drew closer and closer.
In what could only be described as one of mankind's greatest mistakes, a trigger was accidentally pressed before the wandering moss was in position. While every living being inside its walls shrivelled to calcium dust and urea, the moss froze its progress and in that one single moment the tides turned. Or so we still hope.
It retreated back to the northernmost western regions, back to the muggy heat and fetid swamplands that had somehow spawned it, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of miles of mud that was so utterly uninhabitable that the cities became legitimate havens.
Now the researchers have been sworn to secrecy, too afraid that should someone figure out the city's original purpose they may detonate one of the last sanctuaries on the continent and too busy studying the no-longer-wandering moss for the slightest hints that it may move again. Thus far it lies dormant, though strangely enough several sectors have formed craters and now seem to be cradling the remains of the ruined city.
In our attempts to destroy it, we gave it guilt instead.
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