When the Land Goes Under the Water
by Bruno Dias (as Nikephoros De Kloet) (2015)
Genres: Fiction

The great, powerful elder empire of Atlantis has fallen, though accounts diverge on why. She will soon sink beneath the waves. But there is time, first, to sift through the ashes and catalog some of its tales. Inspired by "What'cha Gonna Do" by Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck.

action: %
response: Would you like to restore a saved game?
action: You look at the raft
response: Made of reclaimed wood. Buoyant cheap timber used for doors in the poor quarter. The mast was hardwood she recovered from the dining table of some Dúc, whose wife unwittingly gave up her silk sheets for her sails.
action: You examine the rubble
response: In some places, it was little more than mounds of dust, cobbles, and potsherds. She had struggled to find meaning in the debris, to identify what this or that mound of dust and ashes was before the land's breaking. She did not any more.
action: You examine the orichalcum
response: Orichalcum is bright green and flecked with veins of gold, a nobler marble. Until the land's breaking she had only seen it as it should be: Polished and perfect, unbreakable, eternal. The walls of the Emperor's Palace, the Oceanic Bulwarks, all shone with gleaming green that reflected its tint onto the people and streets of the City. And then they were all shattered like the tiles in the square. Were they even orichalcum at all, she wondered, or just cleverly-painted ceramic glaze? She squinted at them, and could not remember the pattern of the mosaic.
action: You check your inventory
response: She was carrying:
the remains of a novitiate's robes (being worn)
a necklace of glass beads (being worn)
an orange and blue sash (being worn)
action: You examine the robes
response: Little more than rags, the robes used to mark her as a novitiate of the god Imbelá. Their brilliant white was matted with countless stains – blood, and ashes, and more.
action: You examine the necklace
response: Each one was perfectly clear, but for a dot of black glass inside them; a reminder of impurity. She thought that it was the day she was supposed to return them to the temple, and take her priest's necklace of pure, clear beads.
action: You examine the sash
response: Her family colours, in the silk of the eyeworm that was reserved for the noble houses. Unlike her robes, they refused to fade or stain – how odd that this miraculous fabric was exclusive to those whose clothes were never soiled.
action: Go east
response: Chanting Row was one of the city's main throughfares. It was wide as four oxcarts abreast, leading from the opulence of the palace quarter all the way to the Eastern Sea Gate.

In ages past, pleasure ships would dock right up to the avenue's end, disgorging nobles riding opulent sedan chairs. She had never seen that. Before the land's breaking, the eastern end of the row had been taken over by tenements and poorhouses, a dumping ground for the city's abandoned. The pleasure ships would dock on the Western Sea Gate, instead.

This stretch used to run west to east, straight and true, so much so one could see the sea from this end; but then it had become twisted and broken, surrounded by rubble. The square was to the west. The debris formed a slope that one might climb, to the southeast.
action: You examine the rubble
response: In some places, it was little more than mounds of dust, cobbles, and potsherds. She had struggled to find meaning in the debris, to identify what this or that mound of dust and ashes was before the land's breaking. She did not any more.
action: Go east
response: The tenement, to the north, cast a long shadow over this patio. She could not tell it had been a patio; dirt and dust had overtaken the floor. Rubble and debris surrounded her, though she thought she saw a entrance to the temple of Kózh to the east. Another break in the debris allowed movement back west.
action: You examine tenement
response: It seemed unsteady, looming over her. Its white granite face had been blackened with ash and pockmarked with damage from an unknown source.
action: Go north
response: She crossed the threshold into the dark tenement.

The inside was caked with dust and given a yellowing pallor by the sharp light of the sun outside, which flattened the whole room in white. But it seemed mercifully undisturbed. The stairway leading up looked bent, but serviceable. Both the passages to south and northeast remained, though the way to other rooms in the dwelling had crumbled away.
action: Go northeast
response: She walked out to the broken street.

Named after the craftsmen who made their dwellings here, though she had only known Tinsmith Lane as a street inhabited by prostitutes and thieves; among the common folk it had a less kind name. But the land's breaking erased such distinctions: the road was barely recognizable. It was a smear of cobblestones in the maelstrom of debris. Breaks in the rubble allowed passage to the southwest, east, and north.
action: Go east
response: She found her way into a small shop.

Shelves long emptied of their wares. It had sold amphorae of cheap, bitter wine and even more bitter herbs - preparations of pennyroyal and silphium. A ragged drapery was hung on one corner of the room, a last reminder of homeliness left behind. The exit was west.
action: You look at the drapery
response: White, once, though a smear of blood was slashed across it, one man's attempt to debase himself before the gods, before the end. It shifted slightly in the wind.

The motion was suspicious. She gingerly lifted the dirty curtain, finding a passage into a dark hiding place behind it to the northeast.
action: Go northeast
response: She went through the hole behind the drapery.

A cubbyhole hastily repurposed to hide away the shopkeeper's few possessions. A passage led southwest, back to the shop.

A small glinting mirthstone was abandoned on the floor of the alcove, lighting up the dark space.
action: You look at the mirthstone
response: Raw mirthstone. It was worth more than the whole building it was found in. Numerous slaves would die extracting mirthstone from the bowels of the earth; at night, mirthstone gems lit the way in the richest streets in the Palace Quarter. The owner had thought to trade it for supplies, but waited too long; he could not find anyone who would trade food and water for light.
action: You go to the southwest
response: Shelves long emptied of their wares. It had sold amphorae of cheap, bitter wine and even more bitter herbs - preparations of pennyroyal and silphium. A ragged drapery was hung on one corner of the room, a last reminder of homeliness left behind. The exit was west, or through a hidden passage northeast.
action: Go west
response: Named after the craftsmen who made their dwellings here, though she had only known Tinsmith Lane as a street inhabited by prostitutes and thieves; among the common folk it had a less kind name. But the land's breaking erased such distinctions: the road was barely recognizable. It was a smear of cobblestones in the maelstrom of debris. Breaks in the rubble allowed passage to the southwest, east, and north.
action: Go north
response: Weaving into the rubble, she entered a dark temple.

Temple of Velê
Velê, god of vices, clandestine mother. A place where the poor and wretched of the Tin Quarter would have served men from the Palace Quarter and Velatine Hill.

While the walls were made of dirty stone, a gleaming gold effigy of Velê loomed over the altar, still standing in spite of the collapsing roof.
action: You examine the effigy
response: Velê was a tall woman with an impossibly generous figure, clad only in a voluminous cloak. She held the cloak open, displaying a dark cavity within her garment that was said to hold the obscene desires of supplicants within it. Her face was sharply proportioned, beautiful, though mutilated; the patriarch god Pésazh had taken her nose as punishment for her vanity. The statue itself, of course, was cast in violet gold, one and a half times the height of a person.
action: You examine the cavity
response: The opening of her cloak was an empty recess, big enough to hold a person, or perhaps two if they squeeze together. Supplicants – rich old men from the Venatine Hill – would come to the temple and see their desires appear inside Velê's cloak. Invariably, that desire would be one or two lithe novitiates of the God of Vices.
action: You enter the cavity
response: The mirthstone lit her way into the alcove, allowing her to see the inside of the recess. It smelled oddly even then, a velvety, silent space. She stepped on something soft; and walked out of the god's cloak with a smaller cloak of her own: Lurid red silk, threaded with abstract, sinuous lines of gold. It was, technically, the cloak of a high priestess; but it had been dropped to the floor by a novitiate, who had been made to stand in the alcove inside her god's cloak for a ritual. And there, forgotten, the cloak was left for the duration of the ceremony, as the lust and ennui turned to panic when the land began to break.
action: You look at the cloak
response: (the red cloak)
Lurid red silk, threaded with abstract, sinuous lines of gold. It was, technically, the cloak of a high priestess; but it had been dropped to the floor by a novitiate, who had been made to stand in the alcove inside her god's cloak for a ritual. And there, forgotten, the cloak was left for the duration of the ceremony, as the lust and ennui turned to panic when the land began to break.
action: You wear it
response: She put on the red cloak.
action: You go to the south
response: She fled the suffocating darkness of the temple.

Named after the craftsmen who made their dwellings here, though she had only known Tinsmith Lane as a street inhabited by prostitutes and thieves; among the common folk it had a less kind name. But the land's breaking erased such distinctions: the road was barely recognizable. It was a smear of cobblestones in the maelstrom of debris. Breaks in the rubble allowed passage to the southwest, east, and north.
action: Go southwest
response: The inside was caked with dust and given a yellowing pallor by the sharp light of the sun outside, which flattened the whole room in white. But it seemed mercifully undisturbed. The stairway leading up looked bent, but serviceable. Both the passages to south and northeast remained, though the way to other rooms in the dwelling had crumbled away.
action: Go upwards
response: She clambered up the decaying stairs.

The walls of the upper floor had fallen away, clearing out the constrained space of the tiny quarters above. Even then, this place felt cramped, the bent walls threatening to collapse in on her. What remained of furniture was just mismatched piles of wood and splinters. A staircase led back down. Only one window was left, overlooking a neighbouring roof to the east.
action: You look at the wood
response: Much of it had been salvaged for firewood; the rest rotted.
action: You look at the window
response: An arch of dull stone, its curtains long ripped off, its shape distorted by the crumbling of the building.
action: Go east
response: She stepped outside through the window.

The dirty mortar that used to cover this flat stone roof had crackled and flaked to dust, leaving only a dirty roof battered by the sun. The house below was half collapsed; the roof drooped menacingly towards one edge. A window led back west.

A tent, someone's erstwhile shelter, had collapsed there.
action: You look at the tent
response: Little more than rags and sticks, the fabric for the tent was a scrap of a heavy tapestry. Its occupant could no longer sleep indoors, for fear of buildings collapsing on him; he had cast himself to sea, a day prior, having realised that the building might collapse beneath him. No other sign of him remained.
action: You take the tent
response: She pulled at the remains of the tent's fabric, leaving the sticks behind like so much trash. She examined the scrap of fabric: It depicted a devotional scene of the goddess Velê. A supplicant is led to the temple by an... interestingly clad priestess; his walk into it is on the back of prostrate temple-slaves, who would serve as the stepping stones of the temple's reflecting pool. The tapestry was torn just before the point where it gets graphic, however.

Beneath the tent, she found a jewelry box.
action: Examine box
response: Oval and made of black bronze. It belonged to a lady, who had it stolen from her by a servant in the panic, after social graces had fallen away but before despair had quite set in. The lid was coral, and featured a cameo carving.
action: You examine the carving
response: The coral accreted in alternating layers of black and turquoise, allowing a clever artisan to carve contrasting designs in the material, which is then polished to a high sheen. It depicted a lonely rock on the ocean, buffeted by waves, a nude woman standing atop the stone. If one were to turn the box this and that way, depending on the angle, the woman would look either desperate, or defiant. She was Celephais, God of Exile, who cast her name to the sea and took a foreign one.
action: You open the box
response: She opened the jewelry box, revealing a topaz bracelet.
action: Examine bracelet
response: Clear, orange-gold crystals of enormous size came from mines in a distant and hostile land far to the southwest. The interlocking trapezoidal stones that surrounded the silver periphery of this bracelet were cuttings from one such stone; on its way to Atlantis, it had broken the back of a slave and killed a mule with its sheer weight. The cuttings were scraps, remains after the enormous original stone was cut into a shape pleasing to its owner.

This bracelet had been a lover's gift, and invitation – its recipient laughed, and never wore it, finding it at once gaudy and pedestrian; but the gesture was taken as it was meant, and the two of them were happy, for a time, until the tides had separated all lovers on the island.
action: You wear it
response: (first taking the topaz bracelet)
She put on the topaz bracelet.
action: You take box
response: Taken.
action: You check your inventory
response: She was carrying:
a jewelry box (open but empty)
a topaz bracelet (being worn)
a torn tapestry
a red cloak (being worn)
a raw mirthstone (tied to her sash) (providing light)
the remains of a novitiate's robes (being worn)
a necklace of glass beads (being worn)
an orange and blue sash (being worn)
action: Go west
response: She returned indoors through the window.

The walls of the upper floor had fallen away, clearing out the constrained space of the tiny quarters above. Even then, this place felt cramped, the bent walls threatening to collapse in on her. What remained of furniture was just mismatched piles of wood and splinters. A staircase led back down. Only one window was left, overlooking a neighbouring roof to the east.
action: Go downwards
response: She clambered down the broken steps.

The inside was caked with dust and given a yellowing pallor by the sharp light of the sun outside, which flattened the whole room in white. But it seemed mercifully undisturbed. The stairway leading up looked bent, but serviceable. Both the passages to south and northeast remained, though the way to other rooms in the dwelling had crumbled away.
action: Go south
response: She stepped outside.

The tenement, to the north, cast a long shadow over this patio. She could not tell it had been a patio; dirt and dust had overtaken the floor. Rubble and debris surrounded her, though she thought she saw a entrance to the temple of Kózh to the east. Another break in the debris allowed movement back west.
action: Go east
response: She slipped into the dark temple through a crumbling archway.

Temple of Kózh
Kózh, god of slaves, father of chains. The slaves of the Tin Quarter, as well as those destitute enough that they were soon to be slaves, would come to this simple temple to be preached at by the fettered brothers. Officially, the fettered brothers preached obedience, love of one's master, meekness. But there were always whispers – would the slaves really come to this place to hear that? The secret died with the fettered brothers. No light entered the temple from the outside. No pews – slaves were expected to stand. The only exit was west.

An altar to the slave-god remained.

The walls were covered by a mosaic of rough tiles.
action: You look at the mosaic
response: It depicted a long line of slaves chained together by their feet, or upon closer inspection a single slave's progression through life. He (She? The figure is stylised, faceless, identityless) waits on their master hand and foot, suffers terrible abuse, and then dies – perhaps of some ailment relating to the removal of their ears, nose, and lips. But then they are reborn in the Basalt Galleries, Kózh's version of the afterlife, where they become slaves of Kózh himself for all eternity. An image of the god dominates that end of the mosaic.
action: You examine God
response: (the depiction of Kózh)
Kózh: Always shown as a gaunt man, his head shorn, his eyes downcast, his body wrapped in chains from which hang the bodies of slaves, tiny and doll-like relative to his godly frame. His mouth was a vacant hole through which shines a permanent grin; Pésazh had taken his lips as punishment for a forgotten crime.
action: You examine the altar
response: A squat stone block, carved with the same omnipresent chain motif. Deep dark stains covered it.
action: You examine the stains
response: Blood, of course.
action: You examine the motif
response: Kózh was not known for subtlety.
action: Go west
response: She walked out into the sunlight.

The tenement, to the north, cast a long shadow over this patio. She could not tell it had been a patio; dirt and dust had overtaken the floor. Rubble and debris surrounded her, though she thought she saw a entrance to the temple of Kózh to the east. Another break in the debris allowed movement back west.
action: You go to the northwest
response: Chanting Row was one of the city's main throughfares. It was wide as four oxcarts abreast, leading from the opulence of the palace quarter all the way to the Eastern Sea Gate. This stretch used to run west to east, straight and true, so much so one could see the sea from this end; but then it had become twisted and broken, surrounded by rubble. The square was to the west. The debris formed a slope that one might climb, to the southeast.
action: Go west
response: Besides the creeping dirt seemingly emerging from between the broken tiles, signs of ruin were around her. The land's breaking has reduced the gilded façades of the shops that surrounded the square to rubble and ashes. Breaks in the surrounding ring of debris were open to the northwest and east.

A tide of rising water had blocked access to the northwest.

She could also see her makeshift raft here.
action: You look at the raft
response: Made of reclaimed wood. Buoyant cheap timber used for doors in the poor quarter. The mast was hardwood she recovered from the dining table of some Dúc, whose wife unwittingly gave up her silk sheets for her sails.
action: You examine the entrance
response: On closer inspection, the carved columns showed the unmistakable motif of Kózh, god of slaves. Made of orichalcum (distinctive among the granite that formed most of the rubble in this district), they were carved to look wrapped in chains. Together, they formed an archway, though the arch had crumbled; the interior of the temple itself was dark.
action: Examine box
response: Oval and made of black bronze. It belonged to a lady, who had it stolen from her by a servant in the panic, after social graces had fallen away but before despair had quite set in. The lid was coral, and featured a cameo carving.
action: You look at Celephais
response: She was emaciated and hateful, or frail and wronged. She was a victim, or a perpetrator. There were crimes. She was impure. Precious little more was known to Atlantis' people: her worship was a crime. Her followers were cast into the sea, exiled to the deep. The ladies who had her effigy on their dressers were at times traitors, at times dilettantes. The box had been a symbol of hushed rebellion, youthful defiance, affluent irony. And then it was used by a survivor to store the last of his food, for three days, until he threw himself to the sea.
action: You enter the raft
response: [You have seen all 12 stories of Atlantis.]

This will end the story. Are you sure?
action: Y.
response: She had found as much as she could of the world she was leaving behind. She carried a small history with her away from that place, but could not tell if that history deserved to survive; if it should be told. Still, she climbed onto her raft, with the trinkets and memories she could take, and waited for the water to rise and take her away, a small reminder of a dead world floating in an Atlantic current.
action: Go northwest
response: Gilded Lane had been paved with gold, and when gold proved too soft, it was paved with orichalcum. But then, orichalcum proved too soft, too. She saw a mess of green-gold tiles, stopped mid-spin, where the street used to be. All around her were the husks of crumbled buildings, like the limbs of buried giants breaking through the ground. The maw of a tunnel opened up to the southwest; the square was back southeast.
action: Yes
response: cheapglulxe quit with exit status: 0
action: Go southwest
response: She descended into the tunnel below.

The land had contorted this section of street into a spiraling vortex of cobblestones and dirt, dead grass poking incongruously from the helical ceiling. The passage ran northeast and west.
action: You look at the ceiling
response: Like a great rolling ocean wave, stopped just before the break. Cobblestones and tiles flecked with gold, dirt and grasses, dead flowers, all were caught in the movement of the dried, cracked earth; some hung overhead like curious, inverted vines.
action: Go west
response: She emerged from the tunnel.

This had been a formal garden, a gathering place for aristocrats. But she found within it only a dried fountain, and a lawn that had become overgrown with grass. The grass, in turn, was a matted patch of drying hay, caked with dust and ash, waiting to catch fire in the constant sun. A breach in the land was still open to the east; to the north, she could see a jagged passage into the remains of a palace.

The fountain was long drained of water, but it still stood.
action: You examine the grass
response: Dead or dying, whitening at the edges, as though they turned to salt in the harsh air.
action: You examine the fountain
response: A simple square of grey stone. It had been cunningly designed so that the water would come at the top of the fountain in spurts, creating roiling waves on its surface. The artisan who designed it had been exiled from Atlantis, so that he could never craft a similar wonder for another noble house. Its bottom was a mosaic of Lonkê, god of the ocean.

Half-hidden among the mosaic tiles was an obol.
action: You examine the mosaic
response: Lonkê was a foreign god, a deity who washed upon the shore of Atlantis for a distant land. He had the upper body of a man, the lower body of a shark, and the head of a moray eel, which in the fine mosaic would sinuously peer at the viewer through the water. Pésazh had taken his left hand as a punishment for his hubris – that effigy showed it replaced with a jagged harpoon tip.
action: You look at the obol
response: A heptagonal token made of steel, with a border in orichalcum. One side depicted an eye; the other side, a right hand. The god Pésazh collected a toll on the dead, taking from them parts of their body as repayment for their sins; these coins were struck as surrogate offerings, so that the wealthy dead could remain whole in the hereafter. Symbolically, this one was struck for a man of envy (the eye) and greed (the hand); he did not get a chance to be buried with it.
action: You take it
response: Taken.
action: You go north
response: She walked through a passage into the remains of a palace.

This rich foyer had been floored with brilliant marble tiles and draped with silks. One of the grand columns along its side had toppled, preventing movement into most of the palace complex. Holes in the wall – hard to tell if they had been intentional passages – led north and south, outside. A hidden door in the west had become a jagged hole. And a collapsed staircase still allowed an unsteady climb to an upstairs room.
action: You examine the silks
response: Little remained; jagged strands flapping in the twisting wind, goldenrod speckled with dirty white.
action: You examine the tiles
response: Pristine marble from the east, each tile individually carved into the likeness of a condemned man. The villa had belonged to a magistrate, who made his guests walk on the faces of the men he had sentenced to death or exile. She found their broken visages littering the floor, crunching under her steps.
action: You go upwards
response: It was just barely perceptible that at the top of the stairs, passages would splay out in all directions, leading into various wings of the palace. Most of them were gone, as was the palace's roof, ripped away. All that remained of the upper floor of the villa was a curious island of orichalcum-flecked ceramic tiles, cracking in the sunlight. Even then, this little patch of opulence had been ransacked, more than once, by various desperate bands – and later, desperate individuals.

A pile of ash, the remains of a campfire, marred the tiles on the floor.

The only furniture that remained was a lectern made of gold, rendered worthless by the calamity.

She could also see a tarnished lantern here.
action: You examine the ash
response: (the pile of ash)
The grey-black ash betrayed scrolls and furniture; someone's attempt at staving off the wind and cold of the nights, the roaming feral dogs, the hunger. For four days and four nights they were tended by a desperate man, a lesser servant whose master chose to leave behind. Until he went out into the ruins to seek food, and did not return.
action: You examine the lectern
response: As it could not be eaten or burned, it was left alone as its companions were ransacked, a silent witness to the chaos. Its base is sculpted into a vaguely human shape, a stylised depiction of the slave-god, Kózh. But its surface rarely held scrolls; the master of this manor had used it more as a pillory.
action: You examine the lantern
response: A cage of silver, blackening at the edges. Inside, ensconced safely from errant fingers, is an illuminated mirthstone, a facet-cut piece of hell. The silver lantern is shaped into an angular, polyhedral form that makes it uncomfortable to hold, though the stone emits no heat. Instead, one holds it by a leaden hoop attached to the top.
action: Go down
response: This rich foyer had been floored with brilliant marble tiles and draped with silks. One of the grand columns along its side had toppled, preventing movement into most of the palace complex. Holes in the wall – hard to tell if they had been intentional passages – led north and south, outside. A hidden door in the west had become a jagged hole. And a collapsed staircase still allowed an unsteady climb to an upstairs room.
action: You go west
response: Most walls had crumbled into impenetrable piles of rubble; all she found in this wing of the palace was a shaded, closet-sized room. The plaster on the walls had cracked into spiderwebs of grey-white flakes, showing the smooth stone beneath. Though once this wing of the palace had been a maze of passages, the rubble and damage meant she could only exit to the east, west, and north.

Most furniture had become firewood, but she could see the collapsed remains of a bed.
action: You examine the bed
response: A pile of dirty hay on a pile of rotting wood.

A speck of grey was visible among the hay, some kind of token or amulet made of iron.
action: You examine the token
response: (the obol)
A heptagonal token made of steel, with a border in orichalcum. One side depicted an eye; the other side, a right hand. The god Pésazh collected a toll on the dead, taking from them parts of their body as repayment for their sins; these coins were struck as surrogate offerings, so that the wealthy dead could remain whole in the hereafter. Symbolically, this one was struck for a man of envy (the eye) and greed (the hand); he did not get a chance to be buried with it.
action: You examine the iron
response: Cast as a profile cameo of the god Azh. It was rusted around the edges. The amulet was a chambermaid's, a symbol of something she yearned for as she prepared for a life regimented by the path her masters had set before her.
action: You go to the west
response: She left the palace through a side door.

One of the Palace Quarter's particular jewels was, upon a time, a long promenade flanked on both sides by spindly columns of pure silver, carved to resemble the ghost ash trees that used to blanket the island. This patch of the street endured, for a time; though the street rose sharply to the north and south, as though the whole wayfare was peeling off the earth at its ends. The back entrance of a grand villa was east; to the west, a temple remained.
action: You examine Temple
response: All but unrecognisable – soot had covered the pristine white façade. Imbelá's temple was unadorned on the outside; its simple entrance somehow endured, to the west.
action: Go west
response: She stepped into a familiar, broken temple.

Temple of Imbelá
Imbelá, god of purity. Here the first daughters of noble families would come to be preached at by third and fourth daughters who had been promised to the temple as initiates. It was their virtue and purity, they were told, that sustained Atlantis. When the land cracked, blame was put upon all daughters of the great houses; blood was spilled over perceived slights against the gods.

Though it had toppled to the ground, Imbelá's heavy stone effigy still seemed to judge her.
action: You examine the effigy
response: Imbelá, whose statue was made of simple soapstone, whose head was depicted as a featureless orb because she gave all her features to the god Pésazh to atone for her temptations. The god of purity, who had judged the novitiate's every step, like others before her. Even from the ground, it still seemed to judge and weigh her heart.
action: Go east
response: She returned to the sunlight outside.

One of the Palace Quarter's particular jewels was, upon a time, a long promenade flanked on both sides by spindly columns of pure silver, carved to resemble the ghost ash trees that used to blanket the island. This patch of the street endured, for a time; though the street rose sharply to the north and south, as though the whole wayfare was peeling off the earth at its ends. The back entrance of a grand villa was east; to the west, a temple remained.
action: You go to the east
response: Most walls had crumbled into impenetrable piles of rubble; all she found in this wing of the palace was a shaded, closet-sized room. The plaster on the walls had cracked into spiderwebs of grey-white flakes, showing the smooth stone beneath. Though once this wing of the palace had been a maze of passages, the rubble and damage meant she could only exit to the east, west, and north.

Most furniture had become firewood, but she could see the collapsed remains of a bed.
action: Go north
response: The weapons to fight Atlantis' enemies would be stored in armories like these, each noble house fielding its own gleaming-armoured soldier-slaves. When an enemy came that could not be fought off with weapons, their arms spilled out onto the streets. The armory seemed empty for its size, an arched stone gallery meant to supply a hundred fighting men. A passage led back south.

She could see a broken spear here.
action: You look at the spear
response: (the broken spear)
The weaponry of Atlantis comes in two classes: The vast bronze behemoths that stride over the ocean to bring fear and awe to the colonies to the east and west; and the arms of palace guards, the tools of enforcing order. This spear was the latter; stout and weighted, it was made as much to beat as to pierce, punishment as much as weapon. The ebony haft had been broken in half, perhaps an ill-thought strike. The spear point had a curious shape.
action: You examine the point
response: Shaped like the body of a squid, eight arms joined together into a barbed point, two arms outstretched like the spars on a boar spear. A bright bronze alloy polished to an imitation-gold sheen, two beady eyes inset with onyx. Part of a set of dozens, all of which would eventually be swallowed by the earth. All, but this one.
action: You take the spear
response: (the broken spear)
Taken.
action: You go north
response: She found herself leaving the palace for the remains of the western quarter.

The Palace Quarter did not so much have streets as extremely long plazas, promenades flanked by rows of gilded fountains that would stretch on towards the horizon. It had no alleys – servants and
slaves
would instead scurry between palaces and villas in tunnels beneath the earth, out of the sight of the nobility. The tunnels had burst into the surface when the land broke, cracking open the meticulously tiled squares, isolating each villa into an island. She found herself in an oddly preserved stretch of the quarter, surrounded mostly by unnatural chasms, connecting buildings to the south and northwest.
action: Go northwest
response: She wandered into a dark temple.

Temple of Pésazh
Pésazh, king-god, father of god-kings. All that remained was a fraction of his temple complex, a windowless antechamber that lingered after the earth swallowed the rest of the temple. Sunlight filtered in from the southeast.

A wooden altar, used for preliminary prayers, still survived in the antechamber.

The god's stern visage stared north into a temple hall that was no longer there.
action: You examine altar
response: The altar was a softly curving parabola of wood, supported on legs of gold, upon which offerings would be laid. And as the stern god's chastisement of his pantheon sustained the world, so did symbols of his justice – almonds for eyes, ginger for hands, carrots for noses
–
become burnt offerings to him. And on bad years, the symbols would be altogether more direct.
action: You examine the visage
response: Pésazh was tall and severe, cast in a statue of white gold. He was the namer of sins, and as such, he was the only whole god; every other deity had given something of themselves as punishment, when the god-father identified their crime. He was wrapped in fine cloth and burdened by a heavy crown, his bearded face almost hidden under the finery.
action: You examine crown
response: Cast in traditional black bronze, the crown resembled a bulbous limb of a baobab tree that deigned to twist itself upon the god's head.
action: You take it
response: That seemed to be a part of the effigy of Pésazh.
action: You look at the mirthstone
response: Mirthstone is almost always clumsily cut; the hazards of working with the material prevent anyone from accruing enough experience to become a true master. The artisan who made this one lived longer than most, and his family was compensated well for this beautifully cut piece; with its impurities severed, the faceted sliver inside shines with a harsh white light.
action: You look at the amulet
response: Cast as a profile cameo of the god Azh. It was rusted around the edges. The amulet was a chambermaid's, a symbol of something she yearned for as she prepared for a life regimented by the path her masters had set before her.
action: You look at Azh
response: Pésazh had plucked out the blind god's eyes for the crime of misplaced compassion; of tempting the poor with abundance. The iron amulet depicted Azh with the unmistakable hollow eyes. And thus the compassionate god had learned the proper place of compassion; that it should be measured, just so, that no-one thinks to rise above their station. Such tokens were reminders of the order of things – as much as they were promises of prosperity, or at least subsistence.
action: You go to the southeast
response: The Palace Quarter did not so much have streets as extremely long plazas, promenades flanked by rows of gilded fountains that would stretch on towards the horizon. It had no alleys – servants and
slaves
would instead scurry between palaces and villas in tunnels beneath the earth, out of the sight of the nobility. The tunnels had burst into the surface when the land broke, cracking open the meticulously tiled squares, isolating each villa into an island. She found herself in an oddly preserved stretch of the quarter, surrounded mostly by unnatural chasms, connecting buildings to the south and northwest.
action: Go upward
response: It was just barely perceptible that at the top of the stairs, passages would splay out in all directions, leading into various wings of the palace. Most of them were gone, as was the palace's roof, ripped away. All that remained of the upper floor of the villa was a curious island of orichalcum-flecked ceramic tiles, cracking in the sunlight. Even then, this little patch of opulence had been ransacked, more than once, by various desperate bands – and later, desperate individuals.

A pile of ash, the remains of a campfire, marred the tiles on the floor.

The only furniture that remained was a lectern made of gold, rendered worthless by the calamity.
action: You examine the kozh
response: Kózh is emaciated, scourged, his lips taken away by his master, his body wrapped in chains from which would hang the bodies of mortal slaves. This depiction's presence in the apartments was unusual; it suggested a man who was greatly invested in the discipline of his slaves. Over the years, the lashing of slaves to the lectern had made it a focus of fear and loathing for the servants in the manor; the master had liked to keep such a reminder close to him. Leather straps, bloodied and rough, still adorned it.
action: You go to the south
response: This had been a formal garden, a gathering place for aristocrats. But she found within it only a dried fountain, and a lawn that had become overgrown with grass. The grass, in turn, was a matted patch of drying hay, caked with dust and ash, waiting to catch fire in the constant sun. A breach in the land was still open to the east; to the north, she could see a jagged passage into the remains of a palace.

The fountain was long drained of water, but it still stood.
action: You go east
response: The land had contorted this section of street into a spiraling vortex of cobblestones and dirt, dead grass poking incongruously from the helical ceiling. The passage ran northeast and west.
action: You go northeast
response: Gilded Lane had been paved with gold, and when gold proved too soft, it was paved with orichalcum. But then, orichalcum proved too soft, too. She saw a mess of green-gold tiles, stopped mid-spin, where the street used to be. All around her were the husks of crumbled buildings. The maw of a tunnel opened up to the southwest; the square was back southeast.
action: You examine the tunnel
response: The land had twisted, sucked streets and buildings into itself. She could see an entrance into one such tunnel, to the southwest.
action: You go to the south-east
response: Besides the creeping dirt seemingly emerging from between the broken tiles, signs of ruin were around her. The land's breaking has reduced the gilded façades of the shops that surrounded the square to rubble and ashes. Breaks in the surrounding ring of debris were open to the northwest and east.

A rush of turbulent water prevented passage to the east.

She could also see her makeshift raft here.
action: You enter the raft
response: [You have seen all 13 stories of Atlantis.]

This will end the story. Are you sure?