First Findings

There isn't much you need to know about me here, but I figured I'd explain the short story of how I found this place. So I do a little bit of travelling at times. I'm no nomad, but every few years or so I tend to find myself living in a new place. Well, I pitched a camp for myself at the outskirts of this town. We'll call it "Yore." It's somewhat of a slow-burn boomtown, and by that I mean that long ago, it was a huge, thriving city that grew rapidly. Now, though, it's declined to a sleepy little town. The people are pretty nice and all, and there's no shortage of housing, so I figured it was as good a place as any to live for the next few years. I set up camp before searching for a spot to start sinking a few little roots into. Having some downtime and not much left to do in town one evening, I went out foraging. The woods are large, but much of it is new-growth from after the boom. Every here and there is a bit of trash or the remains of an abandoned house and its overgrown homestead. Not unusual by any means, and sometimes you can find some good supplies or wild crops among the remains. If you go far enough into these woods, though, you eventually start to find organized strips of older trees and garden flowers gone wild. That was the first thing that threw me off. I soon found myself on an old, seemingly forgotten road. It was wide enough for a parade, with grasses and moss poking up between its cobblestones. I followed it for a ways and found an old, rotted wooden sign bearing a name I couldn't make out. Intrigued, I kept going, foraging forgotten. I think you can guess what the road led me to. The ruins aren't very large or extensive, smaller than most other castles I've seen. Cobblestone paths weave around its perimiter, surrounding walls that at don't go much higher than the trees at their tallest points. Five or so towers stand among the walls, only one of them fully intact. Within the crumbling walls, longer, more square buildings - or what remain of them, rather - line the inner walls and more outer edges, leaving a huge courtyard in the middle, surrounded with paths and narrow dividing strips of overgrown grass. The courtyard floor is not made of cobblestones like the rest of the pavements. Though cracked and even buckled in a couple of places, it is clear to me that it was once a single sheet of flat stone. Curious by itself, what I found even more strange was the long, wide strips of metal lying flat across its surface. Though clearly damaged in places, I could see little to no corrosion. I approached the courtyard, but stopped before touching its flat surface. There was the familar hum-buzz of magework in the air above the courtyard. I knew enough to tell that it was old and faded, but not being experienced enough to be able to tell what it was meant to do, I decided to steer clear. I wasn't able to stay much longer as evening was drawing near, but I explored what I could and came back again the next day. And the next. I've been returning to this place once or twice a week for a while now, trying to slowly pick at the mysteries surrounding it. Hopefully I'll be able to figure some things out and get my thoughts recorded here, but I'm not very skilled in this kind of spellwork (or any, for that matter, but especially this). I'll share what I can, when I have time to do it. Meet you in the Ruins.