Background
Somewhere under the shifting sands of the Empty Land are the remains of what was once the greatest city of Pre Transcension times. Everybody knows that. What they do not know, however, is where exactly those ruins are. Very little reliable information exists as to the city's whereabouts, and the books, maps and other documents dedicated to the subject point to conflicting locations. Although all of them have been extensively searched over the millennia, no signs of the Buried City have ever turned up. There is a reason for this, but not one that any would-be treasure-seekers would suspect.
The PCs emerge from the maze of rocks, and it is like walking centuries back in time.
They have to blink against the unreality of what they now see. What most see, they cannot possibly understand.
The glaring world of a new daylight invades their aching eyes.
A cold, unreal sunlight.
And the PCs stare.
For them, the universe has once more turned over, and their intellect dissolves into a thousand more little pieces.
They are on the outskirts of a city.
City.
They see 21st century brick, stone and concrete, corroded sewer signs, showing through the basic foundations of a metropolis of predominantly white architecture, and the interior décor of a 22nd century catacomb complex scooped out of ancient foundations. Narrow streets, more like white corridors, twist and turn between buildings with windowless walls. There is an unearthly emptiness and nakedness, a lack of ornamentation and color. It is as if a world of impersonal stone has greeted them.
Are you in a city? Or a cemetery?
You can't take your eyes from the dead city.
It is a stone monster out of the wildest of nightmares.
The Mall:
The remains of a shopping mall. Elite designer brands, once sought after and treasured, are now irretrievable under tons of steel and stone.
The Fountain:
In the harsh glare of the white stone city with its atmosphere of total antiseptic reality, in the center of the incredible graveyard-city there is a stone fountain, surrounded by a central courtyard, its stone lichen-coated and decaying, the focal point.
After a long time, it steers them into an immense square. An elaborate fountain—angels with trumpets, long dry—stands in the center, Italianate dings and arcades to either side. Winding streets branch off here and there, lined with vacant shops.
You cross the square and take a narrow street. Meandering alleys deliver them into lavish piazzas, endless colonnades, stately domes and galleries: the city of their dreams.
The PCs step out into the courtyard; the flagstones, protected on all sides from any cooling breeze, shimmer with stored warmth. Brown water stains streak the lifeless fountain, fungus crusting much of the deteriorated stonework; the structure appears fossilized, as if it were the aged and decomposed remains of something that had once breathed, something that had once moved in slow and tortuous fashion, had perhaps grown from the soil beneath the flagstones.
They do not notice it until, magically, it begins to spout water. A steady, spurting stream which suddenly and gracefully begins to spiral before their eyes. The tiny rippling sounds it makes draws them like a magnet.