As you crest the top of the hill, you see a plain of large flowers stretching out before you, something like sunflowers but taller, with droopy blue petals and umber pistils. The flowers sway slightly, in unison, despite there being no wind.

Dotting the field are the ruins of a once-great great city. The ruins are mostly destroyed, little more than rubble or portions of walls, but a few of the larger buildings have left behind some intact structures of pearlescent stone. Perhaps a mile off, towards the center of the city, you can see a particular building of strange, proto-Elven architecture, a twist of nested spires and spherical chambers.

As you approach the building you can see that most of it is destroyed, walls crumbled and floors being reclaimed by the wildflowers and grasses, but one of the larger spherical rooms, perhaps 100ft in diameter when it was whole, still stands, and is accessible through a break in the stone. Inside you can see that a third of the sphere has collapsed, but a long bookcase enscribing a portion of the perimeter still stands. A number of books are strewn about, some still on the shelves but many scattered over the broken stone floor. At what would have been the center of the room stands a large stone statue depending a figure holding a lantern in one hand; the other hand is a closed fist held before it.

Next to the statue is a life-sized wooden cutout of a smiling elf in formal robes and a wide-brimmed adventurer’s hat connected to a display stand. On the stand are two books bound with green leather, bearing the titles Return to Cania and How to Survive Stygia on 40000 Gold a Day, both by Voruhidu am Amouradiath. There are 7 more with similar bindings scattered nearby. All together the titles in the set are:

Avernus: Land of Opportunity

Maybe Not Maladomini

Evenings in Minauros

Phlegethos Follies

How to Survive Stygia on 40000 Gold a Day

I Left My Heart, Liver, and Spleen in Malbolge

Return To Cania

Leaving Dis

Nessus Nights, Nessus Days