Story Seed - The Golden Keyhole

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The city's wall was unbelievable to the eye. Two thousand vertical paces of worked stone running nearly ten leagues in length to encircle the great fortress of Kel'za'moon. As if sheer size was not enough to impress and earn the Unbreachable City its name the design of the massive edifice was even more cunning. The walls sat flush with a great circular chasm cut into the bedrock of the plains themselves. Dropping a thousand paces straight down and nearly five hundred across the cut made it impossible for attacking forces to approach the city in any way but for the found great causeways.

The narrow causeways each entered the city at a tall gate that looked much like a keyhole, and the people had taken to referring to them as such. The Golden Keyhole exited the city to the southwest and each evening was bathed in the golden light of sunset as it washed over the plains and painted the walls the color of ripe wheat.

Jeddika crossed the causeway, approaching the gate as the sunlight lit it in a great slash of bright color. She was suitably cowed by the view over the edge of the stone walk and the imposing height of the gate and the walls. Up close Jeddika could see that the walls were not simply stone, but were cunningly painted and worked with shallow carvings that lent texture and color to what could have been a featureless fortification. She clutched at her meagre possessions; a book that she could not read, given to her by the village seeress, a staff of maple, spalted through with black lines like some kind of mystic writing, a gift from the magister, and around her neck the simple amulet that her parents had given her. Aside from a small pack of extra clothing and some travel rations she was all but penniless.

She paused, looking back, across the causeway, across the plains, into the golden aura of the setting sun. Jeddika knew not what lay for her beyond these walls. She took a deep breath, and turned back to the city, turning away from her old life and striding forward to an unknown future.