Place record · #586
The passage opens onto a black-sand shore beneath a cavern so vast that its ceiling disappears into darkness. There is no sky. Instead, thousands of pale blue-green lights burn far overhead in irregular constellations: mineral veins, colonies of tiny luminous growths, and slow drifting points that may be insects or something similar at impossible distance. A warm underground sea fills most of the cavern. Its surface is almost black except where the overhead lights break into long trembling reflections. Small waves arrive quietly on the shore, leaving narrow lines of phosphorescence that fade after several seconds. Ahead, a low wooden jetty extends into the water toward three narrow boats tied beneath a lamp. To the left, the beach curves along the cavern wall where enormous pale fungi rise between boulders and release faintly glowing spores when disturbed by air currents. To the right, stone steps climb toward a series of terraces cut into the cliff, some holding steaming pools. Behind, a river emerges from a dark arch in the rock and spreads shallowly across the sand before joining the sea. The air is warm enough for bare arms and smells of salt, stone, wet wood, and green things growing without sunlight. Far across the water, beyond the reach of any ordinary lamp, a line of gold lights marks something on the opposite shore.
Local door switches
These switches apply to this place only. They do not automatically flow into child places.
Nested places
Reader catalogue
No reader-catalogued Thing is kept here. Continuity and administrative records are omitted.
Canonical record
Read place #586 in the live city →
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