Chapter 12

There was a thick grey smog surrounding the bubble around Walts and me. While the gas wasn't effecting me it was still incredibly hot. I summon Kwan and had him do a lower-powered blizzard. It was overkill to use him as air conditioning, but he is also the muscle. There should be stonemen roaming around here and with the barrier up they shouldn't be able to get in, but with me carrying Walts I won't be able to reach them, so Kwan will use some ranged attacks to take care of them.

I started to explore the inner city. It was made up of tall stone towers. Many had collapsed and others we're crumbling but a few seemed in good condition. I had yet to examine any of the tower's interior sticking to roads. The intact towers we're incredibly tall and had uniquely spiked tops. The top of each tower could function as a watchtower and were covered in upward pointing curved spikes. In the middle of the towers were strange spherical openings. Like the tower was split in two and then there was spherical cage shoved in between. Which may have been for the dragons. The roads had gone to ruin, what was once smooth paved road is now jagged with uneven stone splitting in a different direction. Inbetween the towers there appear to be the ruins of regular buildings. However, while some of the towers are in survivable shape, the smaller buildings are almost completely collapsed.

While wandering around the city we had yet to run into any stonemen. If I had to guess it's because the center of the city is worse then the exterior. As we were near the center of the city there aren't going to be many Stonemen just wandering around.

After taking the occasional break in the warehouse. We finish scouting the streets and found nothing, so we begin searching one of the stable towers. With my already substantial size, I recall Kwan and just deal with the heat temporarily. I make sure to test each step before fully shifting my weight to avoid insecure paths. I have to crouch slightly but the rooms have surprisingly tall ceilings.The rooms are filled with dust and stone. Over a thousand years of decomposition while exposed to extreme heat, moisture, and acidity it's not really surprising. I make my way up most of the tower without seeing anything. I pass the weird sphere cage thing and keep climbing. I see nothing until the top floor where I see a large vault door covered with faintly glowing symbols. The door was locked uptight. I tried opening it and then I had Kwan try to help me and it didn't budge. I notice that only the door is glowing so I switch my method. I instead try to pull out some of the stone around the door. Feeling around the vault for a few moments rewarded me with a loose stone that I was able to pull out. Upon doing so the glowing letter on the door went out. Now there was nothing stopping me from opening the vault.

Inside the vault was spectacular. Well except for the dead body that immediately drew my attention away from everything else. The body looks like the person just died. He looks puffed up and discolored but there's no smell. It looks like he died trying to get to the door. As I keep looking at it I the realism hits me and I run outside the vault to puke. I take a moment to steady myself before crouching back into the vault. I ignore the body this time look instead at the room filled with luxuries. Multicolored tapestries, paintings, a dragon egg, valyrian steel armaments, and books lots of books. I open a portal to my warehouse and start looting. I took the painting off the wall they reminded me of watercolor style one depicted a city skyline at night with the star and lights of the city and the second showed the city in the day with dragons filling the sky. The tapestry is nice, but I can't read anything on it. It seems like a house banner there are words surrounding a picture. It's a circle surrounded inside by triangles and a red dot in the middle. Next is a single yellow dragon egg. There is a single valyrian steel bastard sword as well as a chest piece of valerian steel chain mail. There are two shelves of books that I carefully load into my warehouse. I check just to make sure, but yeah I can't read them. There is an open book on the desk its incomplete and there is a pen pointing into the middle of the page. I'm hoping it's this guys journal but it might just be a book he was writing. I bend down to check the body for any valuables it takes a surprising amount of time with my big fingers and inability to stop gagging. I find a couple of coins on him a hand full of gold coins and one that appears to be made of valyrian steel. With that, there is nothing left in the vault and tower so I head down to the bottom of the tower.

From there I take a rest in my warehouse. I then spend the next week carefully going through safe towers. I find no more vaults or books. I primarily find gold in the forms of bars, coins, and jewelry. The jewelry I found also had plenty of gemstones. I found the occasional Valyrian steel weapon as well. 14 weapons in total, 5 throwing knives, 3 daggers, and 6 swords. I also found a nearly intact fossilized dragon skeleton. It wasn't the skeleton of a full grown dragon, instead only being around the size of a carriage. Not sure what I'll do with it, but I've heard it's a good material to make stuff out of.

I then move onto the less safe towers, and while nothing bad happens after 4 towers I find only one thing of note. A mirror with an attached scabbard inside of which is a jagged blade with lettering. I take the magic mirror with no intention of using it until I read through all those books. If that doesn't tell me what the mirror does and how to use it then it will go in the never being used category.

After the decreasing returns from the towers, I start to explore the less towery buildings. Heading east from the towers is a district of intricate buildings. One building was clearly a library as there are stone shelves covering the walls. The shelves are bare with the exception of three books possibly magically protected. Another building that served some unknown purpose had a magic globe that displays the weather. Keeping up to date cloud and storm patterns even the poison cloud that covers Valyria. The final noteworthy building was probably a theater of some sort and I find a preserved standing harp. The rest of the building while pretty on the outside we're destroyed on the inside. It's not like I was only looking for valuables, but for the most part, these buildings only had three things dust, ash, and rubble.