Aethyr - WordJam, Day One
An Excerpt From Magister Arazlam's Journal: The Geography, Climate, and Landscapes of Arrat pt.1
"...and therefore is truly bleak during the late summer, a time where the earth itself seems to turn against its inhabitants, becoming almost likened to a desert but without quite so much as the barest hint of life. The soil becomes dusty, parched, and cracked, without even insects or worms left behind to till it. The pool in the center of the Gorge, where during the other nine and a half months of the year it is filled to abundance with water and the elementals that inhabit it, quickly drains such that not even a hint of its former presence can be detected more than three weeks into the month of Ko. Whereas during the rest of the year the Gorge is a wild, lush field home to many of Arrat's most exotic creatures - elemental, animal, or otherwise - once the summer begins most of them depart for milder climes, disappearing into the mountains to the West and East, or going south to the ocean, as do most of the water's inhabitants.
That is not to say the Gorge goes entirely without life, for for those two months there is a different kind of presence there. The desolation brought by the heat and the dry brings out from the parched ground some of the Wraiths that are normally only found in the most dangerous of the subterranean regions. The Aethyr produced by their presence compounded by the surrounding canyon walls makes for a rather fantastic - and terrifying! - phenomenon. The Gorge becomes, for lack of a better description, a large, perpetual dust storm. The winds there during this time are the fastest recorded anywhere in the world, and that's compounded by the near-nonexistent visibility and danger posed by the Wraiths, which I will remind are not so much as touched by the wind or dust, this makes for quite possibly the most hostile region in all of Arrat. Nevertheless, there are still those brave souls who seek to harvest the Aethyr from the Wraiths, due to it being quite potent and having unique properties unable to be found elsewhere.
To the south of the Garum Gorge, past the remainder of the Garet Mountains and the pass leading into it, lies the tail end of the Solse River, cutting across the road to the pass, curving southeast to empty into the sea. The delta of the river possesses some rather odd geological qualities, making it a natural wonder in its own right, and encouraging the mining operations that spring up once every few decades. As I mentioned previously regarding the Garet Mountains, the sediment brought down through their rivers is infused with no small amount of Aethyr from the cloud dwelling elementals, and in the delta of this one particular river it coagulates into the only naturally occurring solid Aethyrcite that has been found aboveground in the world. Though it is not a particularly powerful or useful Aethyrcite in its raw form, it is still Aethercite that is created without the extensive process of manufacting and can be converted through much simpler means into differently focused uses. As a result, of course, this area has been highly contested ever since the discovery of Aether's many commercial and military uses. I, however, digress...
Further south of the Solse Delta, the coast comes around to begin heading west, and not further along before the abberant jut out of the coastline marking the small peninsula upon which the city Argus rests. I lived there for quite a few years in my youth, and at one point aspired to be a merchant, it being the largest port city in the world, but I'll leave that for another time. Around this peninsula, a good distance out into the sea, is the Coral Reef. And what a wonder that is! It is a shelf that extends out for miles, upon which there is a literal forest of this coral. A delightfully colorful type of rock in many varieties among which all manner of creatures live. Not much is known of it, as it is a bit of a distance and the shellfish divers and hunters have only seen parts of it, but I have had samples of both the rock and some of the creatures brought to me, and what I've seen is truly fascinating. A shame that I'm too old to go see it myself! But in writing of great forests, I am reminded to continue, regarding the great expanses of trees further to the West..."