Lexicon/Hirruet

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Hirruet, City of

Bal Terin, Most Meritorious Archivist of the Society of Obfuscated Antiquity, writes:

First Age maps and manuscripts show that the City of Hirruet was built during the Age of Amarnath, by the Night Caste Solar Kuzari Nefhindi. However what most of these documents hide about the city’s construction, is that its location and design were selected for the sole purpose of concealing the Quitrozin Portal into Malfeas.

The City of Hirruet had a rather contained and solid design to it. Kuzari constructed it completely of navy blue steel, for reasons known only to himself. The city walls were made of this same steel and formed a tall perfect circle around Hirruet. The skyline showed the structures evenly increasing in height like steps, building to an apex at the center of town. The lowest buildings starting on the outside of the city were only slightly taller then the steel wall at its perimeter. Each building further in from the wall grew taller, wider and more impressive. Hirruet was a marvel, even in its time, as it was laid out in perfect symmetry, something that few cities have ever achieved. Also much to the surprise of many visitors was the total lack of urban sprawl, as it was against the law to build directly outside the city walls. However, the city was surrounded by eight great citadels, each made of the same blue steel and perfectly spaced in a two mile wide perimeter around the city. For reasons we still do not understand, nothing could be built between the citadels and the city walls. During its height Hirruet boasted a population of nearly five million souls.

During the 1415th year of Hirruet’s 1423 years of existence, the god Jalan Dai took up residence in the Hirruet’s central tower. In the 1423 year a wave of whispered sorcery swept out from the central tower, washing over the entire city. In some records this event is known as “The Day of Silence”, as the entire city was robbed of its hearing. Jalan Dai paid a greater price, however, as he was stripped of his own divinity. Being a mere mortal, Jalan Dai fled the city for fear of retribution for his folly. Fleeing did not save him, however.

Two seasons after the Day of Silence, the city of Hirruet was flattened to a perfectly round, perfectly smooth plate of navy blue steel. No one living in Hirruet is said to have escaped, and no one that witnessed it lived to record how it happened. Some theories on what happened to the city say that the city was flattened to protect the Quitrozin Portal; others assert the Portal itself sucked the city into Malfeas and only left the foundation. Others still say that both of these ideas are correct, and that the city was really built so that when Malfeas moved to destroy the Quitrozin Portal, the city would invert and seal itself forever.

My own research shows that when the acolytes of the city stopped reciting the chants and prayers that kept the enchantments on the portal strong, the enchantments failed, and the fail safe activated. I believe that they stopped chanting due to their loss of hearing. They were no longer able to chant as one voice and were not getting the words just right; it was better to stop trying and flee than to stay and face destruction.

Alabrax