L84.破滅的城市

Opening the picture book, you are amazed by the sight of a desert city that shone like a green jewel.

The city in the painting seems vibrantly alive. People can be seen moving about the bazaar, and the artist managed to capture the lively expressions of all the merchants. You can almost hear the bustle of the crowd.

When you study the background of the painting, it seems hauntingly familiar, as though you had seen it somewhere before.

Is this what the Sandhill Ruins once looked like? What happened that turned such a proud city to ruins, forgotten by time?

Note: Take this painting to Gertie the Ruins Keeper and try to find out what she knows.

The merchants, passersby, officials, and nobles in the painting all look astoundingly lifelike.

Standing in one corner of the painting is a group of people. Judging by their clothes, they were probably nobles or from a wealthy family.

Among them is a proud-looking little girl who looks quite familiar.

(Is it...Gertie the Ruins Keeper?)

The city in the painting looks so alive that it's hard to imagine it's the same place as the ruins you're familiar with.

Upon close examination, though all the buildings in the painting were ornately decorated, there were also many irregular cracks on the walls. Could land subsidence have something to do with this?

(The seeds of destruction had already been sown under the ornate facade... The author of this painting may have discovered the danger posed by subsidence even then? )

* Continue to the next chapter