The City of Shifting Stones: Part 1

Part 1

Thrak grunted and swung his pick into the pale gray stone again, dislodging a small chunk that tumbled to the ground. His meaty hands were calloused and strong from years of pounding rocks into submission. But despite his brawn, Thrak's back ached from hours spent bent over, chipping away at the massive foundation stones that formed the base of the Manycliffs District.

All around him, other stonemasons toiled away under the blistering midday sun. The clanging of metal tools against rock echoed through the canyons between the colossal stone pillars that supported the weight of the upper city levels far overhead. Thrak straightened up and wiped the sweat from his brow with a grimy forearm, squinting up at the underside of the district looming above.

The heights made him dizzy just looking at them. A vast network of homes, businesses, and twisting roadways had been laboriously constructed atop the broad backs and upturned faces of a convoy of ancient giants who had wandered into the valley untold ages ago and mysteriously rooted themselves to the spot, frozen like petrified monuments. 

Over countless generations, the tiny ancestors of Thrak's people had slowly built outwards and upwards, expanding their rudimentary cliff dwellings on the napping titans into an entire multi-tiered metropolis supported on a forest of gigantic arching necks, slouching torsos and extended arms locked in eternal poses. 

Now known as the Hunchback City, it was a dizzying, gravity-defying maze of teetering architecture unlike any other in the known world. Thrak was damn proud to be one of the skilled craftsmen maintaining and expanding the foundations that supported the spiraling, vertigo-inducing upper levels.

He retrieved his waterskin and took a long draw of the tepid fluid, then turned back to find the drill-sergeant figure of his boss Kubelka looming over him like an ominous storm cloud.

"Oi! You lazy lump!" The short, wiry woman's voice was a nasal whiplash. "This ain't break time! My grandmam could make better progress peckin' at that stone!"

Thrak hung his head, suitably chastised as always by Kubelka's acidic tongue. "Yes, boss."

The diminutive taskmaster narrowed her beady eyes at him. "You need to put some real muscle into it, ya lummox! I need this section prepped for the valley-menders by next week or we'll be behind schedule!"

Thrak grunted again and obediently returned to chipping away at the stubborn foundation rock with renewed effort. The valley-menders were an elite sect of shapers and rune-scribes capable of magically re-forming and fusing the stone itself as though it were soft clay. Their arcane abilities were instrumental in reinforcing and expanding the lower levels to support the ever-increasing weight of the upper districts as the city slowly grew taller and more densely populated over time.

But their services didn't come cheap, and as a lowly grunt Thrak knew his own job depended on getting flat, smooth surfaces properly prepared beforehand to allow the valley-menders to work their stonemagic unimpeded. He increased his cadence, sweat soon drenching his coarse work clothes as he pounded away.

Kubelka nodded in satisfaction and waddled off to harass some other poor bastard working the quarry face. At least he knew the hot-tempered little shrew of a woman pushed them all equally hard. Thrak sighed and shifted his grip on the rock pick, resigning himself to several more grueling hours of mindless labor.

But suddenly a hairline fracture in the partially-cleared stone face caught his eye. He paused and leaned in closer, brushing away the scattering of stone shards and grit to better see...yes, there did indeed seem to be some sort of geometric pattern inscribed beneath the outer layer of rock. How peculiar. 

Intrigued despite himself, Thrak inserted the chisel end of his pick into the crack and gave it a solid whack with the sledge end, flaking off a larger slab. More angular lines and shapes were revealed, clearly not natural fracture marks at all, but deliberately carved...

Glyphs of some kind? Could it be the fabled script of the Ancients rumored to have first shaped the valley floor and its slumbering titans? Thrak frowned and struck the stone again, taking care not to obliterate whatever secret lay hidden within as more and more of the strange inscriptions were exposed.

Before long, he had carefully cleared away a large patch of the rock face to reveal what appeared to be a ornate but weathered mural of symbols and pictograms etched deep into the foundation itself. He whistled low through his teeth. This was no mere natural rock formation, that was for damn sure.

"What're you gawkin at over there?" Kubelka's gruff voice made Thrak start, and he quickly stood aside, pointing with his pick.

"Bit of a mystery, boss. Seems these foundations got some kind of...well, see for yourself."

Kubelka's already beady eyes narrowed to slits as she waddled over and ran a grimy hand over the strange glyphs, muttering under her breath. After a long, tense moment, she straightened up and jabbed a finger into Thrak's chest.

"This...this could be big, you nitz! Bigger than both of us put together! I want you to stop whatever other fool job you're doin' right the hells now and concentrate on exposin' the rest of..." She waved her hands vaguely at the inexplicable stone carvings. "The whatever-this-is. The whole blastin' thing, ya hear?"

She turned and cupped her hands around her mouth. "KORSK! VELIT! GIT OVER HERE, YA DUFF GITS! Got some real work for ya louts!"

Bemused, Thrak complied and began carefully chipping away at the remaining stone encasing the glyphs and shapes while a couple of the burlier masons joined him, taking direction from the increasingly excited Kubelka.

What in the hells had he uncovered? What did it all mean? Countless questions spun through Thrak's thick skull as he toiled to unearth the rest of the bizarre stone inscriptions, bigger section by massive section sloughing away to reveal more of the intricate, alien designs.

By the time the long shadows of early evening began creeping across the quarry, Thrak and his crew had stripped away enough rock from a broad swath of the foundation's base to expose a breathtaking mural that stretched on as far as the eye could see. 

Rising from the chaotic spiral of symbols and alien pictograms, a series of larger carvings seemed to depict beings of immense stature striding across vast expanses of land and water, scenes of what Thrak could only describe as...continent-spanning giants? Surrounded by even more mysterious glyphs and ideograms, whatever message the mural was intended to convey was utterly lost on the exhausted but captivated stonemasons.

To be continued...