Prairie

> *Lore of: **Lasta-Tir***
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**Prairie**, crowned the **Layered City**, is the largest duaclan city of Lasta-Tir. Built within an expansive field, far removed from the grounds of battle between duaclan and halfbeasts, it thrives on its lack of interspecies conflicts, superior technological and magical development, and high concentration of talented individuals.

The title of “**layered city**” comes from its unique construction, even among other cities: due to difficulties regarding constant lateral expansion, Prairie has instead expanded vertically. At 5,873 m (19268 ft 4 1⁄2 in) Prairie’s tallest point is the tip of the central tower, a building responsible for overseeing many of the city’s tasks, providing structural support for branching infrastructure, as well as the generator for the city’s spectrodome, which protects the city from sunlight as well as possible threats, together with its large and imposing walls.

## Infrastructure

Due to its immense size, the main infrastructure of the city consists mostly of gargantuan pillars built at different angles, as well as using the larger buildings, some of which almost match the central tower in height, as slightly less important infrastructure.

Nearly all of Prairie, save for a small amount of old buildings and houses in the Old City, is built out of asbios, allowing for architecture that almost defies the laws of physics. This also gives the entire city a deep dark blue aesthetic, causing some of the unlit sections of it to blend with the darkness of the night and day.

### Pillars

The pillars of prairie can reach over 1 km (0.62 miles, 3,280 ft) in diameter, and stretch all the way to the lowest region of the New City, making them approx. 4 km (2.49 miles) tall. The center of the city has the thickest pillars, while the ones on the outskirts rarely reach diameters over 1 km.

No pillar is straight; angles can vary from extremely steep to nearly 45°.

They are solid constructs, save for the occasional facility carved into one, and serve solely as supports for the rest of Prairie. Because of their immense capacity for support, neighborhoods tend to be built around them, featuring stacked houses at different elevations, making travel by rooftops commonplace.

### High-priority buildings

Tall buildings, whether residential, commercial, or for other purposes, which stretch from the ground of the Old City to the lowest part of the Neon City at least, are deemed as high-priority and can be used for the same purpose as pillars. Unlike pillars, buildings like these are spread out organically within the city, giving even the outskirts a good enough foundation for further construction.

To become high-priority, buildings **must be built on the ground.** This means that only buildings which have their foundation built on or within the ground of the Old City are eligible. Buildings built upon platforms, or branching off of pillars of off of other buildings, high-priority or otherwise, cannot be treated as high-priority buildings, and can serve as foundations only to a specific extent.

### Transportation

Due to the three-dimensional structure of Prairie, there are many streets and roads that are built slanted, carrying the drivers and pedestrians to different elevations via their own vehicles or via public transport: vehicles for hire or an elevated monorail system built on the bottom of the streets. Aside from that, the city features many stations which can be used as fast travel between each other.

#### Streets

By far the city's most defining feature, the streets of Prairie take its people in all three spatial dimensions. There are just as many roads that go up or down as there are flat roads. This creates an almost yarn ball-esque image of Prairie, with many roads weaving around each other, carrying drivers and people to multiple destinations on multiple elevations.

Special grade asbios is used to create its roads, allowing them to seem like they're floating, while still able to withstand large amounts of weight. The sides are fitted with long neon glowing strips, which, in spite of their thinness, are perfectly solid and prevent vehicles from falling off a road.

Every street in Prairie is also built with a railing on the bottom, which serves as the rail for an elevated monorail system that goes through the entire city. The monorail is the most utilized public transport system, even going between layers. All that's required to use it is a small fee, and to know which destination one is heading towards, which is easier said than done.

#### Elevators

Simple platforms that move up and down in select places, transporting people vertically. They are treated like sidewalks, and don't need any payment to be used.

#### Shifting Pads

Usually built in dedicated places, the Shifting Pads offer nigh instantaneous travel between the other Pads in a network. This is a recent addition to Prairie, created specifically to simplify travel on foot, due to the ever increasing complexity of Prairie's streets and districts.

The method in which they transport its users from one place to another is magical in nature, but the specifics are a highly guarded secret by Division 77, the company which owns the patent and oversees their construction. Even so, it has been made public that the method is specifically **not** instantaneous teleportation, but rather a more modular approach.

#### Other infrastructure

Other types of unremarkable infrastructure built to allow better on foot transportation. These include, but are not limited to: external stairs, tunnels, ladders, smaller bridges, ziplines etc.

## Layers of Prairie

The three layers of Prairie are the Old City at the bottom, the Neon City in the middle, and the New City at the top, with a clear view of the sky. Each layer is slightly less than 2 km (6561 ft / 1.24 miles) in height; however, the New City only reaches these heights close to the central tower, as its other regions are still being built. There are no solid floors/ceilings separating the layers; instead, a notable change in atmosphere and environment occurs at each threshold, each layer being different and serving its own purposes.

### The Old City

Serving as the ground floor and containing the only plants in Prairie, the Old City was the first section of Prairie, built hundreds of years in the past. Presently, it is comprised of equal parts houses and apartment blocks, with high-rise buildings becoming more common closer to the center of Prairie, and houses becoming more common closer to the walls of Prairie. The Old City contains the only patches of grass and naturally growing flowers in the entirety of Prairie, with the necessary sunlight being transported from outside through the use of portals, which are built as large rectangular structures with a flat roof, out of which sunlight pours down, held up by supports in each corner.

Most of the personal houses are in some level of disrepair, getting more and more severe closer to the walls, due to the inherent poverty of the layer. Because of the sheer amount of jobs available in the Neon City, as well as because of the industrial aspects progressively being moved to the New City, the Old City suffers from reduced workplaces as well as reduced income. Still, it remains indispensable as a historical landmark, managing to offer entertainment in old, traditional ways, preservation of culture, as well as for its waste disposal systems and foundations for Prairie's infrastructure.

### The Neon City

By far the most populated and developed layer, with a reported 62% of Prairie's population living in it, the Neon City is the first thing people think of when talking about Prairie. The types of buildings and activities contained within it range wildly, from stacked neighborhoods built around a pillar, to commercial districts spanning multiple rooftops and featuring buildings branching off of pillars and other buildings, to a red light district, and even small amounts of industrial districts.

The Neon City is the first layer to lack a solid floor, and has also been the subject of organic growth. Streets built within it, especially those close to the center, tend to sprawl and sometimes seem laughably inefficient. The same can be said for buildings: being able to simply walk from one to another via a short connected walkway is the norm, as are bridges built between two high-priority buildings, which can serve as platforms for smaller constructions and/or workplaces. Parks and entertainment buildings are usually built upon such platforms, with two or more buildings, sometimes even a pillar, serving as the required foundation.

The reason for its somewhat inefficient growth is its organic development. Due to having no precedent and due to the failure to anticipate the sheer scale of present day Prairie, the Neon City, when it was first planned, did not account for hundreds of years of further growth. This led to a lack of synchronization between the city plans over the years, causing buildings and streets to be built "where necessary" at a given point in time, without much foresight regarding the future. This is an issue that the city's administration is well aware of and is planning to rectify with the construction of the New City.

Notable locations include:

- Aspera Riven, Teliari Edri Riven, and Prie's neighborhood

- Surge's apartment block

- Casino Gold Star

- Gant Leighton University

- Prairie Megastadium

### The New City

The New City is Prairie's most elevated layer, beginning at just under 4 km (2.49 miles) from ground level, and only limited by the central tower's height.

An attempt at blending the eye-pleasing designs of traditional architecture and materials with the advanced technological and magical techniques of present day, the New City is meant to be not only an expansion in industry, housing, and economics, but also in art. Freedom of expression has been furthered in the New City, with parks, sculptures, graffiti, and open air stages being spread throughout the layer.

While the scope of the New City is grander and more ambitious than ever before, and the materials, manpower, and willpower all exist, it's a relatively new addition: the central tower's vertical expansion only happened about a century before present day, and during the timeframe of a hundred years, the development of Synthetics as well as the soon-to-follow Synthetic Liberation Movement had slowed down many industrial developments. Only recently has the construction of the New City reached peak performance again. Because of that, only the regions closest to the center are fully developed, with the exception of Synthin, a district that has been deemed top priority to please the Synthetic population demanding for equal treatment.

Aside from that, the New City contains almost all of Prairie's industry, giving birth to the industrial district: a massive, sprawling, almost labyrinthian gathering of factories, assemblies, silos, hangars, and large pipes. Many of Prairie's delinquents and troublemakers prefer that zone, due to how easy it is to get lost in it, and how many hiding spots exist within the unfinished warehouses and pipe chains.

Notable locations include:

- Kelter's mancave

- Synthin

- The industrial district

- Artistically inclined spots, including graffiti walls, art expositions, small public stages etc.

## The central tower

The central tower is Prairie's tallest construct, standing at 5,873 m (19268 ft 4 1⁄2 in), as well as its most resistant construct. The space inside the tower is deceptively small, to allow for extremely powerful reinforcement of its exterior, only consisting of a highly guarded area in the lowest section, and checkpoints at specific heights to allow for quick travel to the area on the ground; these checkpoints are also heavily guarded.

The central tower, together with the walls at the edge of the city, are responsible for the deployment of Prairie's spectrodome, with the tower acting as the emitter and the walls acting as receptors.

## Defenses

Prairie's only defenses are its walls and spectrodome, the former of which have been proven to be nigh impenetrable, and the latter of which has yet to be broken in any capacity.

The walls of Prairie surround the city in a circular fashion, wrapping around it. They are multiple stories tall, their exact height varying from place to place, and provide exit and entry points for both vehicles as well as people. These checkpoints are guarded, but the security there isn't very strict.

The spectrodome is a translucent, dome-shaped shield that envelops Prairie during the day, or during both day and night in case of attacks. While it itself is not magical in nature, the generators that create it are, allowing for a shield that isn't bound by the laws of nature while also not being able to be easily dispelled. Furthermore, the spectrodome blocks out all natural sunlight, plunging the city in eternal night. The only difference between the sky during the day and during the night is the presence of the moon and stars during the night, otherwise the sky is always dark.

## The slums

The slums are the areas outside of Prairie's walls that still fall under its jurisdiction. They are almost exclusively inhabited by halfbeast deserters (those who abandoned their united cause and sought refuge close to the duaclan) and their descendants. They are characterized as being filthy; having houses often lacking basic living necessities, sometimes even doors or windows, being built out of cheap and recycled materials; lack of sanitation; lack of clean drinking water; poverty etc.

While mostly peaceful, tensions between the duaclan and halfbeasts are still prominent due to their innate distaste for one another. Because of this, halfbeasts are not allowed within the confines of Prairie's walls, and any attack on a duaclan coming from a halfbeast that resides in the slums, regardless of place or time, will be punished by excommunication or even death.

Synthetics do not suffer from the same natural fear of halfbeasts that duaclan are seemingly born with, and as such have developed charities to help the halfbeasts in the slums.