Deep beneath the oldest districts lies the Heart.

The Heart pulses with a warm amber light that travels through veins in the crystal like blood through a body. The inhabitants tap into these veins, drawing heat, electricity and light. Every illuminated window, every lift, every cable suspended between crystal peaks ultimately draws its power from the Heart.

No one knows whether the Heart is a machine, a star or something alive.

The oldest law simply states:
Take only what is needed. The Heart remembers.

No one knows what surrounds the city. Beyond its edges stretches a darkness without horizon. An endless void untouched by wind, unmarked by stars, and unbound by any sense of up or down. It is a place where direction loses meaning and distance cannot be measured.

Anything that falls from the city is swallowed whole, vanishing without a trace, as though it never existed at all.

And yet, the darkness is not entirely empty. From time to time, something drifts past the city’s edge. A lone crystal, catching what little light remains. The crumbling remains of ruins. A bridge extending outward, only to dissolve into nothingness.

Sometimes, something far stranger appears. Entire abandoned cities, gliding silently through the void. Their windows still glow, as if life continues within, frozen in a moment that refuses to end. Centuries may have passed, but their lights endure.

No one has ever dared to board them.

Every citizen eventually visits the Edge, where wooden platforms stretch beyond the crystal, suspended by cables anchored deep within the city. From here, volunteers known as Descenders lower themselves into the Darkness. Not to explore, but to listen.

They descend for hours, until the city’s lights shrink into distant stars above them. They record temperature, silence, and the faint vibrations running through the cable, along with the persistent sensation that something vast occupies the emptiness below. Yet no Descender has ever reached anything, and no cable has ever found the bottom. The oldest have been lowering for centuries without ever going slack.

When Descenders return, they rarely speak of what they experienced. Not out of obligation, but because language seems insufficient. Many resign soon after. Some spend the rest of their lives at windows, staring into the Darkness. A few claim that, during their descent, they felt the pull of the city vanish. Not because the cable failed, but because something beneath had begun to pull back.

No one has ever proven this. The Conductors continue lowering new cables anyway.

Neighborhoods cling to sheer crystal walls, their foundations carved directly into the quartz rather than built upon it. Structures do not follow a plan but emerge from the mineral itself. Rooms hollowed out, staircases cut inward, corridors bending along natural fractures in the stone.

Stone steps wind both outward and deep within the crystal, disappearing into dim passageways where the walls grow translucent and light bleeds through from other parts of the city. Platforms and balconies are anchored into the facets, supported by beams and rivets where the crystal cannot be shaped further. Rope lifts and suspended walkways connect distant sections, swaying gently in the open dark.

On top of the crystal, crooked power poles are driven into the highest spires, their lines stretched across sharp ridges. Cables glow faintly, humming as they carry energy between districts, tracing the outline of the city like a fragile web.

From a distance, the entire structure resembles a lantern: a fractured crystal filled with thousands of small, steady lights, each one marking a place where someone has made a home.

Coming soon.

Coming soon.

Coming soon.

Coming soon.