Fire Pits

The Fire Pits are large pits dug very deeply into the Shadowland surface, usually in places that are both closest to the Equator and are within one of the lightlands where aeolotectonic phenomena almost never place a skyland above them. The Pits are named both for legends of 'steel spires' rising from the pits on 'columns of fire', and for the scorch marks clearly visible on the bottoms of the pits, and they are thought to be built before the Obfuscation by the Chrome Empire.

Occasionally, a Pit will be unearthed that still contains one of these 'spires'- a large, metallic, cylinder-shaped object that tapers to a fine point. Three or for fins or projections project from the sides, equally spaced around the circumference, although many of the spires that still survive have had the fins break or wear off over time. Enormous, although retractable, braces hold the spires in place. The interior of these 'spires' are hollow, and are clearly divided into floors. Inside there appear to be a massive, inverted-teardrop-shaped crystal that (from it's bouyancy readings) appears to be composed of pure high-grade Norivia, with a ceraunic cable drilled and plugged into it. Only one of these crystals survives, as the others have long since overcome the braces holding them in place and punched right through the top of the spires either from their normal massive upward force or from Floatquakes. Tracing the cables leads to a large, underground reservoir of long-storage ceraunic spirit, connected to a network of ceraunic-attractor spires (usually broken). Furthermore, there are large tanks inside, some of them full of what used to be fuel and the others empty, leading through a mass of plumbing to nozzles on the bottom of the spires. Based on the volume and makeup of the ceraunic spirit in those reservoirs and the normal bouyancy of the crystal, experts belive that if it was ever energized by the full tank of spirit then enough bouyancy would be created to push the entire spire many thousands of tonnets into the air. Some believe that the plumbing and fuel are also there to provide lift, like some kind of firework. The legends of the Pits also claim that the spires 'flew so high that they never came down', although to modern scholars this is of course nonsense.

Due to the truly enourmous number of Artifacts within the body of the spire, it is clear that the spires were built by a technology level far beyond our own, and the spire itself bears a Chrome imperial marking. This adds further proof to the theory that the Obfuscation was meant to reduce our understanding of the world so that we would be easier for the Chromes to rule.

-by Maxwell Zenith ir ven Eldritch

Existing phantoms: Floatquakes

Newly Created: Oldtech