Kralchester

The capital of the Krajina, Kralchester was built on the ruins of an ancient city, built in the nexus of Dark Watcher activity on the Slivers – possibly on the entirety of Mundus.
The city was built on a gargantuan stone circle, which was first built by druids in ancient times as a ritual place of protection against evil. Since those days, any structure built outside of the circle has been obliterated each Eclipse. Only those within the circle are safe.
Yet this is the most strategically important port in the country, and the center of trade and commerce for the entire island chain. So, what is to be done, if it cannot be expanded outside of a relatively small area?
The nobles took the first move. They built great towers that extended up above the filth of the city, and then built bridges between the towers, allowing them to traverse between their properties without deigning to enter the filth and mud of the streets. Eventually the guilds started building their own towers, to cater to the nobles by requiring less of a walk between them and niceties.
Merchants and wealthy peasants built their homes above the filth of the street, on stilts or simply on top of older buildings.
Soon however even the peasants were building their own meagre shacks on top of the old, and the merchants had to move upwards, raising their dwellings or building new ones.
Eventually they came to meet the towers of the nobles – who compensated by building further up.
Kralchester Tower, which is built on a cliff overlooking the town, still towers over all, but the upper limits of the city itself have almost grown up to its base.
Fifteen stories of city, layered atop each other, make up Kralchester Proper. The bottommost levels are still inhabited, but are totally lawless. Only the bravest of the Kralchester Black Guards are sent into those depths to patrol. It is said that Inner Kralchester is larger than it is on the outside. That sometimes one will find cavernous spaces that could not possibly exist, yet which clearly do. Some say the interior of the city changes every night.
Some say that entire patrols go missing for months at a time, only to emerge from the closet of a tailor's shop, covered in blood and shouting for the door to be nailed shut behind them.
Whenever someone enters Kralchester, it is mandatory that he either turn in his arms, or agree to have the point of any knife he has broken off, so that he cannot stab anybody. This has made the town much safer, the Black Guard agrees.
It is a city that has grown steadily upwards over time. The city is regularly flooded, and most buildings were supported by large pilings to elevate them over the water. However, these pilings are public property, and extend far above most of the original layer of buildings, and thus could be built upon without permission from those living below by anyone with money to purchase ground. Over time the pilings have been raised, and at this point, Kralchester extends nearly a hundred feet above the ground. Most of the upper levels are crudely built shanties, connected by rope bridges or planks, and only recently has a new "top" level been reserved for the building of respectable establishments by the local government.
The lower levels have become increasingly difficult to navigate and sanitize, a patchwork of ever-shifting ropes, lean-tos and shanty-buildings, populated by uncountable masses of criminals, vagrants, and worse--Zells.
This territory, below the gleaming surface, is called "Old Kralchester." The Kralguard rarely venture into the miserable underground, preferring to hire local criminal gangs to patrol it for them and keep some semblance of order. Recently, however, word has come that parks of Old Kralchester have "gone dark." They have simply ceased to exist, replaced by emptiness. A black pit with no bottom. Parts of the lowest levels vanished first, but it has slowly grown. People light torches on the outskirts of the pit, and watch them for whatever dark forces is excavating the heart of the city, but every so often an outpost vanishes, and the darkness spreads.
Over it all, Kralchester Tower looms, hundreds of feet above the town. Queen Dahaka has taken a personal interest in the corruption of her city, and has put calls out for investigators skilled in the study of the paranormal...