A ring of stones – believed to be all that remains of the temporary fort built by the first settlers – stands atop the north core. For centuries, the north core has been the heart of Tower Valley, the place where citizens gather or take refuge in times of crisis. Two of the most important buildings in the town – the Cathedral, and City Hall itself – stand on the lower slopes of the hill. The streets in the shadow of the hill are home to the city’s major newspapers, as well as the town’s bureaucracy and administration.
The slopes of the hill exaggerate the vertical height of these buildings, turning them into cyclopean canyons of concrete, which loom monstrously over the insignificant citizens. Other than a few lonely houses and the transmitter tower, that side of the north core is unoccupied and unwholesome. Even the streets intersecting with the courthouse square, designed by the town’s first inhabitants over a hundred years ago, mirror the cosmic causeways in their north-south trajectories. The transpatial archeometry of the buildings and the streets intersecting with the courthouse are designed to mark the town as a stronghold for cosmic powers.
The eerie silence of the north core is a striking contrast to the bustle of the western slopes, and it is strange to be able to go from the busiest part of the town to an almost lunar solitude, with only a few minutes’ climb over rough ground.