BlackSand: The City That Once Was

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“This has to work” Azazel thought. “BlackSand needs it; BlackSand deserves it.” It had been several years since Azazel had been commissioned by the Order of Historians to do something, anything about the city that once was. Yet nothing had worked. His efforts to attract farmers or merchants had been futile. Investors could not be convinced to fund new infrastructure. No citizens from nearby cities could be persuaded to move. It was all extremely infuriating.

Azazel was an historian, a shaman of the arts. His love for the history of BlackSand was what had pushed him to work day and night in trying to bring the city back to its former glory. For BlackSand used to be one of the most glorious, rich and lavish cities the Runiverse had ever known. At a time when its name was not yet BlackSand. A time when its name was Imperium.

Located between the Salt Sea and the Mountains of Light, Imperium had been a flourishing hub of trade and culture. Merchants would bring their precious goods to the Imperium Port from lands far and wide. Scholars would travel to the City Keep to study ideas and philosophies. Pilgrims would journey to submit their offerings to the Temple of the True Gods. Wizards would convene in the Obsidian Tower to share their powerful magic and technological innovations. Art and music would spark from this melting pot of cultures, colliding in what felt like the pulsating heart of the entire Runiverse.

But all of it abruptly came to an end. Azazel’s eyes swelled and watered every time he reminisced of that tragic day.

Imperium laid at the bottom of Sceena, the largest sleeping volcano in the Runiverse. Rich with resources, Sceena had been key to the success of the city. But it also became the very cause of its downfall.

One night, while Imperium quietly rested, Sceena suddenly erupted. Lava streamed down from its peak flooding, burning and destroying everything on its path down to the Salt Sea’s shores.

No written report remains of that night. But the few stories that survived speak of citizens’ inhumane screams of horror and pain as they succumbed to the unstoppable wrath of Sceena. For months walls of fires and smoke would rise from the incinerated land, making it impossible for anyone to aid the city.

In disbelief, Wizards from all lands tried to salvage the possible, conjuring magic and deploying technology. But nothing worked. Nature had willed the end of Imperium, and Sceena had carried out the task.

Years later, Sceena’s rage finally stopped. Left was only black sand running from the mountains to the seashores. Dusty, barren land that would be impossible to farm. Land that would bear no harvest or feed no cattle. Nothing left to remind the world of the glorious days of Imperium.

Merchant stopped trading; Scholars brought their studies elsewhere. Pilgrims sought their gods in other, far lands. Wizards left. Imperium slowly vanished from the world map, leaving behind only its BlackSand.