An Hylaria

Shimmering heart of the Vitreous Empire

An Hylaria is like a pile of broken mirrors; a magnificent spectacle of reflecting light if looked at from afar, but as soon as you step into it you want nothing more than to separate yourself from it.
Yet once you have entered it, a small part of it will always be stuck in you.

The oldest and largest of the Shimmering Metropolises, An Hylaria is the industrial and religious heart of the Vitreous Empire. It is a city of extremes and superlatives, with millions of de-facto slaves, work themselves to death beneath the shadows of the shimmering palaces of the Nobility, while swarms of angelic constructs made from parasitic glass circle the air above them.
Yet despite all the horror and injustice that take place behind its colossal walls, An Hylaria is undeniably one of the most beautiful cities in all of Cenorad. Whenever a ray of sunlight manages to pierce the thick layers of fog and smoke that hang over the city, it falls upon millions of reflective and translucent surfaces, which transform it into a breathtaking spectacle that warms even the hearts of the man-eating monstrosities that stalk the lower levels of the city.

Demographics

The overwhelming majority of An Hylaria's inhabitants are Miwa Mud- and Blotcrosses, which work within the gargantuan industrial complexes that make up large parts of the city.
The next group in size are the Miwa Shardcross, which oversees the activities of the lower casts and also fulfill a number of administrative functions within the various imperial institutions. Given that the headquarters of both the Mirror Ministerium and the Impure Cathedral are located within the city the numbers of Shardcrosses within An Hylaria are substantially increased in comparison to other cities within the empire.
Likewise the same is true for the numbers of the Educated, as the central place of their education, the Imperial Academy, is also located within the borders of the city.
While An Hylaria house the largest population of Starvein Nobels within the entire empire, their numbers are almost completely neglected in comparison to the other inhabitants of the city. Their power and influence, on the other hand, can't be overstated and each inhabitant of the cities would be well advised to always remember this.
Like with every other demographic so far even the population of Non-Miwa inhabitants far succeeds those of other imperial cities. Most of these foreigners are Yinmoujia that work within the Trading and Harbour Districts as part of their respective Trading Company.
Besides the Yinmoujia great numbers of infantile and adolescent Ausuvir can be found within the extensive sewage systems of the city, though given their general lack of sapience they can't really be counted as true inhabitants of the city.

Government

Like other cities within the Vitreous Empire, An Hylaria is governed by a city parliament, which in the case of An Hylaria is also known as the Minor Senate. Unlike the parliaments of other cities, the Minor Senate is not formed from Educated representatives of the various imperial institutions under the stern oversight of the residentiary Noble Houses but is instead a Subboard of the Imperial Senate. Due to this all of the regularly changing members of the Minor Senate are high ranking members of the Starvein Nobility that also hold a seat within the Imperial Senate itself.
While the Minor Senate is supposed to mirror the allocation of seats within the Imperial Senate, in actuality, it is seating has almost always been heavily tilted towards the members of the Blue Royalty, regardless of the seating within the Imperial Senate.

Defences

You asked me if I could lay siege to An Hylaria? My friend there is a fine line between a siege and suicide.

As one would assume for the capital of the Vitreous Empire An Hylaria is fortified to the point of absurdity. Alone the massive curtain walls that separate the living districts of the nobility from the remaining city are dozens of meters in height and a total of nine full Legions are permanently stationed within the perimeters of the city.
The Outer Bulwarks of the City are so enormous that they can be considered small cities in their own right and even house their very own subculture of Miwas known as the "Wall-Men". The main function of these Wall-Men consists of maintaining and manning the tens of thousands of weapon emplacements that are fitted into the city walls. These emplacements house a whole menagerie of alchemical weaponry, which range from small antipersonnel shrapnel guns to monstrous Annihilation Arrays that are able to vaporize entire companies with a single shot.
Access into the city and its various districts are tightly controlled by various multi-layered gatehouses housed within great fortresses that are also located at various strategic chokepoints throughout the entire city. Besides acting as strong points for the defenders of the city these fortresses also contain the control mechanism for the so-called "Purification Assemblies", which allow an operator to lockdown entire districts of the city, before cleansing them of all life by alternatively flooding them with burning alchemical oils, flesh-melting acids or poisonous gases.
While these mechanisms are primarily intended to contain a possible uprising of the Mudcross workforce, there is no doubt that they would also be used against any invader that actually managed to overcome the Bulwarks of the city, regardless of the arising collateral damage. As to the Nobility, the replacement of potentially thousands of workers is more of a logistical problem than a moral one.
Furthermore, the fact that all Starvein Miwa posses an extrasensory ability, which enables them to perceive their environment through reflecting surfaces such as Mirrors, gives the nickname of An Hylaria as the "City of a Million Mirrors" a rather sinister undertone.

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A total of 9 full Legions are permanently stationed within the perimeters of the city and if necessary the nobility is more than willing to release the Enamel Virus into the streets of the city in order to transform the inhabitants of the city into additional troops.*/

Industry & Trade

An Hylaria is as much a capital city full of industrial complexes as it is a gargantuan factory with a few added governmental buildings. To the inhabitants, this distinction doesn't matter as for them the production quotas of the factories determine their very lives, regardless of their position within the empires social hierarchy. To the workers and overseers, the factories are all there is to their lives and to the administrators and senators it is the very foundation upon which their entire lifestyle is built.
What is actually build within the factories of the Blue Maze is only of secondary concern to them, as even members of the upper echelon of the Mirror Ministerium are regularly surprised by previously unseen products that have been produced since the very inception of the city. One of the reasons for this phenomenon is the fact that the alchemical glasses used for the basis of most products produced within An Hylaria are a highly adaptable material, which together with the right alchemical additives can either be as hard as steel or as soft as silk.

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Besides an uncountable amount of glass-based products An Hylaria also produced great amounts of drugs, and pharamceutical stimmulants?
Slaves ? --> No as captial should be left in the belive that they are free.
Given the An Hylaria is the city with the biggest industrial power within the entirety of the Vitreous Empire it is no wonder that both the Industry and the Habor District have become cities in their own right.*/

Infrastructure

There is a reason why they call this city the Blue Maze.

Given the sheer size of the city as well as the titanic amounts of resources that are consumed within its industrial complexes it is no wonder that the infrastructure of An Hylaria is of equally monstrous size in order to ensure a fast and efficient distribution of goods and personnel.
The centerpieces of this system are seven large Hyladucts, known as the "Great Arteries" that connect the various districts with each other and also serve as the main connection roads to the neighboring Metropolises of the Coreland. From each of these Great Arteries, dozens of smaller Hyladucts arise, which themselves give rise to yet more Hyladucts. This diversification continues on for several more layers until the caver-like tunnels of the Great Arteries have given rise to delicate glass pipes, only half as wide as a finger.
In addition to this vitreous ductwork, a sheer mindboggling number of roads, alleyways, gantries, and tunnels permeate the entirety of the city, some of which are only known or accessible to members of the numerous imperial secret polices. Due to this any visitors to the city are strongly encouraged to always stick to their local guides and refrain from wandering off on their own, as the complex layout of the city in combination with the reflective surfaces of its many buildings basically transform An Hylaria into one gigantic hall of mirrors that is able to remove any sense of direction form an individual within a matter of seconds.
Because of this the withered and sometimes partially consumed corpses of those that lose their way inside of the Blue Maze are discovered with frightening frequency as well as in considerable numbers. The availability of these corpses is even enough to sustain a considerable population of carrion eaters and other carnivorous beats within the lower levels of the city, most of which are tolerated by the authorities as their presence makes the organization of secret meetings exponentially more dangerous, as a small group of Miwas that skulks around within the more secluded areas of the city is a more than welcomed addition to their normally purple corpse-based menu.

Guilds and Factions

This city is so overfilled with powerful and rivaling institutions that the apprehension of a single criminal can lead to full-on street battles as they fight each other for the right to punish the culprit. While highly amusing I would strongly advise against trying this little stunt yourself as whoever wins the fight will make sure that the severity of your punishment justifies their efforts to acquire the right to enact it.
~ Shingra Li, Yinmoujia Merchant

Unsurprisingly the heart of the empire is a fierce political battleground where countless factions compete with each other in order to acquire power, money and political influence. While most of these factions are part of the empire itself, there exist also some external forces that aim to manipulate the fate of the empire towards their own nefarious goals.

The Blue Royalty

Undoubtedly the strongest faction within An Hylaria, the various Noble Houses of the Nonex have held the city within their iron grip since the inception of the empire. The reason for their supremacy is the simple fact that most of the city is their private property, given that they own nearly all industrial complexes within the city. Additionally, they also occupy the highest ranks within the Impure Cathedral which adds considerably religious authority to their already impressive earthly authority.
Yet where there is power there is envy and the Nonex are a rather infamous example of this saying, given that they nearly exterminated themselves in their struggle to usurp the Imperial Senate and replace it with an absolute monarchy. As there can ever be only one absolute regent the various Noble Houses are hopelessly divided and fight constantly between themselves. Ironically a united front of the Nonex would have been able to archive their goal long ago.

The Purple Aristocracy

While the influence and power of the Nogria within the overall Empire are steadily increasing; within An Hylaria they are their weakest, given the fact that the city is practically owned by the Blue Royalty and that the sources of their power are located in the far off colonies of the empire. Due to this, the various Noble Houses of the Nogria are untypically cooperative while inside of the imperial capital as their own differences pale in comparison to the joy they experience when teasing the Nonex within their own city.
The only place in the city where their authority reaches that of the Blue Royalty is the Harbour District, given their almost complete monopoly over the sea trade and the fact that their colonies are the ones supplying the resources required to feed the ever-hungry industrial complexes of the Industrial District. Due to this, the Harbour District is also known as the Purple Port, a fact that the Nogria just recently emphasized by ordering the construction of a massive cathedral dedicated to the Purple Lord, the imperial god of seas and marine trading.

The Impure Cathedral

While largely under the control of the Nonex, the Impure Cathedral remains a powerful faction in its own right, given the great religious authority even low-ranking members of the organization hold. While officially only possessing authority over the religious affairs of the empire, the fact that the agents of the Cathedral are able to simply label most individuals that made the error of crossing them as blasphemers and heretics allowed them to significantly broaden their influence.
Out of all Nonex, the ones in charge of the Impure Cathedral are the most insufferable ones, given that their usual hubris and ambition is mixed with religious zeal and fervor, which in the past resulted in them regularly attempting to claim the imperial thrones not out of their own volition, but instead out of a perceived religious duty to do so. This all the more perplexing if one realizes that the state religion of the Vitreous Empire is in actuality a fabricated religion, whose primary function is to manipulate the masses into adhering to the current power structure.

The Mirror Ministerium

I am terrible sorry my lord but due to an internal error the requested funding has been misdirected into the Outer Colonies. We are currently working as fast as possible to correct this mistake.

The main administrative institution of the Vitreous Empire, the Mirror Ministerium is a bureaucratic monstrosity that acts as the judicial arm of the Imperial Senate and takes care that each law passed by the empire's highest legislative body is vigorously enforced. In addition to its sizable police forces, the Ministerium also oversees the "Lone Brethren" the largest state security organization within the entire empire.
While the Ministerium generally acts more on the behalf of the other factions within the capital it is still highly influential, simply due to the fact that nearly all administrative requests have to sooner or later pass through its hall in order to be granted the necessary monetary funding and resources. And while the employees of the Ministerium would never dare to openly oppose the representative of the Impure Cathedral or the Nobility, bureaucratic processes tend to "regrettably" take quite a lot of time and during the processing of thousands of applications, some might be "unfortunately" lost or misplaced.

The Mirror Thrones

Originally intended to only act as a symbol of national identity, the Emporer and Empress of the Mirror Thrones greatly benefitted from the constant infighting of the Nobility, which allowed them to accumulate more and more power until they had become the primary rulers of the empire in all but name. The final step that fully solidified the power of the Mirror Thrones was the passing of the "Captial Protection Law" in the wake of the Nightskin Rebellion, which allowed the deployment of five additional Legions of Effigy-Warriors within the boundaries of the City, two of which constantly guard the Shimmering Palace.
Additionally, the Mirror Thrones also possess their very own secret service in the form of the Unseen Guard. While relatively small in numbers when compared to the Lone Brethren or the Radiant Inquisition of the Impure Catherdral, the Unseen Guard nevertheless hold immense power in any matters, which involve the Security of the Thrones.

The Warden of Veins

The Wardens are tasked with ensuring the Vein-Purity of all imperial citizens and the containment of every and all "Abominable Veins" that arise due to a faulty birthing process. While they are one of the smallest imperial institutions, they possess a level of power and authority that rivals that of the Imperial Senate itself and within the narrow frame conditions of their function they even hold absolute authority, which enables them to overrule both the Senate and the Mirror Thrones.
This insane amount of authority gives one a good indication of the extent to which the Miwas fear the Voidborn monstrosities that arise from the mixing of impure or unstable Veins.

The Seven Alchemist Guilds

While they generally don't meddle in the politics of the imperial capital, the power and influence of the Alchemist Guilds can't simply be overstated. While most rightfully see them as little more than a bunch of mad scientists and insane geniuses, the simple fact that these mentally unstable individuals possess access to a wide variety of weapons of mass destruction, is more than enough to add substantial weight to their every word.
Due to this every time one or even multiple of the Guilds decide to make a move, all inhabitants of An Hylaria, including the Emporer and Empress pause in anticipation, while simultaneously searching for the entrance to the nearest blast shelter.

Yinmoujia Trading Companies

While it pains me greatly to speak about matters of business so soon after the tragic passing of my valued business partner, I want to affirm my hopes that all future dealings with House Julama are gonna remain as...agreeable as those made with the late Senator.
~ Jiahua-Miji, High-Trader of the Xique-Company

Originating from a culture build on the concepts of deceit, manipulation, and calculated murder it is no wonder that the various Yinmoujia Trading Companies which possess one or more Shiwusuo ("Branch office") within the city's Harbour District have managed to gather far more influence and political power than a handful of merchants should ever be allowed to possess.
While they generally only influence the inner workings of the empire with a great deal of subtlety and surgical precisions using various underhand tactics such as bribery or blackmailing, they are nevertheless capable of using far more drastic measures. The list of imperial citizens that passed away due to tragic "accidents" or that lost their entire fortunes due to a series of unforeseeable "mishappenings" is as long as it is terrifying. And if these sterner negotiation tactics still don't offer the desired result the agents of the companies are more capable of assassinating even members of the empire's nobility in broad daylight.
The reason as to why the Nobility of the empire even tolerates these throat-cutting companies within An Hylaria is the simple fact that they deal in the single thing that the nobility craves above anything else: Information, or to be more precise Information on possible rebels and insurrections that hide within the deepest shadows of the Vitreous Empire. While this function is already fulfilled by the various secret polices of the empire, the paranoid minds of the nobility generally act on the premise of better safe than sorry in regards to potential internal dangers.
The fact that they Yinmoujia also provide the nobility with every conceivable type of luxury no matter how exotic or how debauched certainly doesn't hurt their relationship with the high society of the empire. Many Nobles that initially spoke rather critically over the companies and their actions, very soon changed their opinions after visiting one of the Companies' high-end brothels, which are staffed entirely by bound Daemons of Lust and Pleasure.

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Besides their immense monetary resources, they also trade-in deals and favors Masters of Positions of the body and the mind a knife in your back is one of the best outcomes While officially only valued trading partners of the Vitreous Empire, And should these more "softer" diplomacies don't lead to a desired the Yinmoujia have access to some of the best covert agents in Cenorad that easily can arrange for a number of tragic "accidents" to take place. Yet the privilege of a swift death is only reserved for those that are either too insignificant or too unimportant to warrant more extreme punishments. Those manage to draw the ire of the companies have their very lives turned into a hell on earth and that is long before the companies unleashed the actual demons under their control. find themselves exposed to a hell on earth exposed to whole campaigns of psychological terror Yet despite their Machiavellian scheming and covert operations, the Yinmoujia are surprisingly foreseeable as they revere profit and monetary gains with outright religious zeal. Blackmail, bribery, kidnapping you name it the Yinmoujia have done something worse. Indirect influences, simply owing to their wealth and the countless favors that they own from the smallest of workers to members of the Imperial Senate.
The XXXX An XXX faction created by the Mirror Ministerium to act as the primary scapegoat for all of their mishaps. Actions against the X Blue Nobility: Stronghold and seat of their power. Own industry and The Impure Cathedral also holds considerable power. Fierce fights between the various Noble Houses of the Nonex.*/

History

And once the cleansing storms subsided the gods gifted the Twins with a shimmering seed of blessed glass. From this seed, our most beloved Founders would sculpt the sacred city of An Hylaria, which itself would serve as the seed for our marvelous Empire.
~ Excerpt from the Truth of Founding

Given that An Hylaria is both the capital and the oldest city within the Vitreous Empire it is no wonder that the history of the city is heavily intertwined with that of the overall empire.
Similar to the origins of the Vitreous Empire, the origins of the city are also very mysterious and buried under a literal mountain of propaganda. According to the official imperial records, the city was grown from a seed of bluish glass that was gifted to the Founding Twins by the six main gods of the imperial pantheon (the 7th God, Sendam allegedly still walked the earth during this time and therefore couldn't attend the gifting ceremony, very much to the relief of anyone present).
As the Empire further and further expanded during the First, Second and Third Expansion War so too did the city grew in size and industrial output until it had reached its modern size. While always having been a formidable defended city, the Nobility decided to greatly expand upon its already existing fortifications in the years following the Nightskin Rebellion, even though the rebels had failed to even reach the outer walls of the city. This request was gladly followed by the Alchemist Guilds as it provided them with an excuse to create even more weapons systems and ammunition types.

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Formed overnight: As the more virulent strains of the Miwas that arose during the Great Uprising fused together in order to form the heart of what would later become the Blue Maze.*/

Architecture

Each and every building within An Hylaria is constructed from a huge variety of alchemically created glasses. The material properties, shapes, and colorations of these glasses can be further amplified by a plethora of alchemical additives, which allows for a great deal of artistic and architectonic liberty normally impossible with more traditional building materials such as wood or stone.
While these possibilities are rarely used to their fullest potential a general rule of thumb is that the more elaborate and reflective a building is the more important are the individuals residing within it.

Notable Buildings & Locations

The Shimmering Palace

The largest and arguably the most beautiful building within the entire city, the Shimmering Palace serves as the residency of the Emporer and Empress of the Vitreous Empire. It is located at the very center of the city and surrounded by massive curtain walls, known as the "Mirror Walls" that separate it from the rest of the city. Like the palace itself, these walls are constructed out of glass-bricks, which have been fused together via Alchemy in order to create a continuous, highly reflective surface.
Small openings near the top of the palace walls allow the rays of the morning or evening sun to shine into one of two so-called "Prismatic Halls", which are located the base of each of the two central towers of the palace. Within these halls, the light is picked up by thousands of glass crystals, mirror prisms and optical lenses, which refract and reflect the light upwards towards the top of the tower, which creates a marvelous light show that gives of the impression that the tower is alight with the flames of a second sun.
During special occasions such as the coronation of an new Emporer or Empress this spectacle is further amplified with the aid of various high powered "Lightthrowers" developed by the Amethyst Guild, which result in two pillars of birth light to burst forth from the palaces towers that bathe the entire city as well as the surrounding area in a mix of purple and dark blue colored light.

The House of Vases

I have seen funeral parlors that looked more homely than this and you are telling me this is where you hatch and raises your young?

Located inside of a separated and heavily fortified sub-quarter of the Scholarly District known as the Cradle Ward, the House of Vases is the central Birthing Factory of An Hylaria and the oldest and most advanced facility of its kind. Within its numerous production halls, seemingly endless rows of Birthing-Vases are stacked on top of each other, inside of which the future generations of the Miwa workforce are grown. Each of the vases is filled with an iridescent alchemical concoction, unofficially known as the "Birthing Soup", whose exact compositions and production requirements are only known to the current Mistress of Births and her assisting High-Creators.
Besides the large production halls used for the mass incubation of Miwa Crossveins, the House of Vases also contains the "Star-lined Wing", which is equipped to grow Starvein children inside of specialized Birthing-Vases and also aide in the natural birth of previously authorized noble children. Following their births -regardless as to how it took place- these children are then transferred into the "Masked Wing", where they will spend the largest part of their childhood before being auctioned off to the various Noble Houses. In the case of children born via the natural route, the biological parents have an exclusive first pick right.
Directly attached to the eastern side of the main production hall lies the so-called "White Wing", which serves as the headquarters for the "Wardens of the Veins", whose agents regularly take samples from the countless Birthing-Vases in order to analyze the Vein-Purity of the fetuses growing within in them. Based on the results of their various tests they make the decision to cull specific individuals or even entire batches of unborn Miwa.
In addition to the various analytical laboratories of the Wardens, the White Wing also contains various holding cells for genetic anomalies and the results of the various crossbreeding experiments performed within the Research Wing, which includes a handful of cells lined with Inverted Mirrors that were specifically designed to hold Voidborn Miwa.

Great Cathedral of Kyr

Sitting in the center of the Industrial District of An Hylaria, the Great Cathedral of Kyr is a magnificent building constructed from sheets of hardened alchemical glass that have been stained in a light golden hue. Befitting for a Cathedral dedicated to the Goddess of Industry the cathedral is as much a place of worship as it is a factory. Besides various mundane objects such as lucky charms or high-quality tools that both bear the symbol of the goddess the cathedral also serves as a production site for the weaponry developed by the Pyrite Guild, including the heavy siege cannon that is commonly referred to as Kyr's Fist.

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"Heart of the City/Glass": The architecture is able to regenerate. The XXXX of the Impure Cathedral Food Plant The Palace of the Imperial Senate The Imperial Palace, which houses the Mirror Thrones. The XXXX, Production Center for the Effigie-Warriors. Houses the Imperial Senate and the Mirror Ministerium */

Geography

Located in the very center of the Corelands, An Hylaria was initially surrounded by miles of alchemically polluted swampland in every direction. This was drastically changed during the Second Expansion War when the Imperial Senate ordered the construction of the aptly named "Great Canal", which nowadays connects An Hylaria to the Sea of Fog.
Given that this project was enthusiastically supported by the current Grandmaster of the Ruby Guild the building process was quite a bit faster and a lot more reactive than the Senators had initially anticipated, as the demolition "experts" of the Ruby Guild simply blasted their way towards the Coast of Thorns by using an unholy amount of high explosives in combination with stone-melting acids provided by the Azurit Guild.
While the Truthspeakers of the Impure Cathedral most definitely tried to glorify these events as part of some great divine plan, the "Years of Thunder" as the four-year construction time of the Great Canal is commonly known, still, remains one of the most infamous examples of the Guilds sheer lunacy as well as a strong reminder of their terrifying destructive potential.

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they very soon gave up as even their expertise in the creation of propaganda was not enough to rationalize the blatant insanity of the Ruby Guild. In the end, the Senat received their grand canal though it was more a water-filled sequence of craters than
Surrounded by the Corelands on three sites. The fourth side leads to the Bay of XX, which connects the city to the XXXXX Ocean.*/

Natural Resources

Each and every resource that could be found in the proximity of the city has long since been used up or buried beneath layers of industrial waste. Therefore the city relies on its massive harbor to import the resources necessary to satiate its neverending industrial hunger.

Alternative Name(s)

Heart of the Empire, The Blue Maze, City of a Million Mirrors, The Vitreous City

Type

Capital

Population

In the tens of million

Inhabitant Demonym

Corelanders, Heartlanders or Capital-Born (Nobles only).

Included Locations

• Glass Gardens

Owning Organization

The Vitreous Empire

To Feed a City

In addition to the thousands of tons of raw material that An Hylaria requires to fulfill the demands of its numerous industrial complexes, the city also requires an equally enormous amount of food in order to prevent its inhabitants from starving to death.
Given the sheer size of An Hylaria's population as well as the fact that the closest chunk of arable land is located hundreds of miles away, it would be all but impossible to supply the city through mundane methods.
Due to this, the city is instead heavily reliant on so-called Paste Production Plants (often shortened to PPP or Pa-Pep) in order to meet its tremendous food requirements.
These city-block factories utilize a series of complex alchemical reactions in order to transmute widely available but normally inedible materials such as sand, stone or metals into various types of nutritious pastes, which serve as the primary sources of nourishment for An Hylaria's citizen.

You call it food; I call it gustatory desecration.
~ Lingura "Razortongue", Agsimer gourmet

While lower class citizens generally consume these pastes without any kind of taste-improving additives, the pastes served to the cities middle class commonly contain various spice-concentrates and flavor enhancers in order to improve their rather "repulsive" taste.
Given An Hylaria's exalted position as the capital of the Vitreous Empire, the "Flavor Packs" utilized within the Pa-Peps of the city are generally of significantly higher quality than those used in other Metropolises and frequently even contain a few grains of fresh spices.
Members of the cities upper-class generally only consume the paste-products of the Pa-Peps for religious and propaganda reason and instead dine on a plethora of imported high-quality foods, which have commonly been coated with a fine layer of alchemical glass to better preserve their flavors during the often month-long shippings.
In order to remove this vitreous coating, the food items have to be dipped into a specially designed de-packing acid based on the "glass-eater bile" of infantile Black Goannas, which rapidly dissolves the glass coating.

Unquenchable Thirst

Similar to its vast food requirements An Hylaria possesses an equally monstrous thirst for drinking water, which the city quenches through numerous Filtration Factories that clean the toxic waters of the surrounding swamplands to an acceptable level.
Given the peculiar taste of this so-called "Swamp-Broth", the middle and upper classes of the city generally refrain from drinking it and instead satisfy their thirst with more tasteful alternatives such as "Bitter Water" or "Mellow Ice", which are imported from specialized Well-Colonies or offshore water mines.

Would you like to have some sour-tartrate for your Bitter Water or do you prefer to drink it with a lacing of Blueleaf sap?
~ Maxillian Bruton, Bitter Water Connoisseur

Moving through the Maze

While the labyrinthine layout of An Hylaria certainly poses a severe danger to any outsider that happens to lose its way within the city, there are nevertheless various methods and items that allow one to navigate the shimmering paths of the Blue Maze with relative safety and accuracy.

Blotcross Cicerone

Cicerones are a subtype of Blotcross Miwa that have been purpose-bred for increased memory capacity and a highly proficient sense of direction, which enables them to safely guide other persons through the confusing paths of the Blue Maze.
While their abilities theoretically would allow them to fully memorize a substantial part of the city's layout, most Cicerones are confined to a small sub-area of the city to prevent them from acquiring further knowledge about the layout of the city.
In order to enforce these area boundaries, the Cicerones are equipped with an explosive collar whose timer has to be regularly reset by authorized personnel stationed at the assigned Guide-Station of an individual Cicerone.

Kartey-Class Effigies

Based upon the Taigrieye-Effigies, which serve as the primary recon troops of the Glass Legions, Effigies of the Kartey class fulfill a similar function to the Blotcross Cicerone, though in contrast to their mortal counterparts they are allowed to possess a far more extensive cartographic knowledge, which also includes the location of various secret passages and clandestine facilities. Due to this, only employees of the Empire's secret police or members of the Starvein Nobility are allowed to use them.

Sign Plaques

Small plates located throughout the entire city, which when illuminated reveal a complex refraction patter, that offers those that know how to read it various information about their current position. Besides general information such as the district and quarter name, a plaque also contains information about other plaques within its surroundings, which include detailed location plans that enable an individual to traverse the Blue Maze by moving from plaque to plaque.

Non-Visual Perception

Given that light-reflections and refractions are the primary reason for the disorientating nature of the Blue Maze, individuals that either don't rely on their sense of sight or that are able to sufficiently enhance it via arcane means generally have a far lower chance of getting lost within it. Yet at the same time, these senses are by far not a guarantee of total safety, as the stenches and sounds that emerge from the industrial complexes create their very own olfactory and acoustic mazes.

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Native Beasts

any individual traveling within the city, Given that the labyrinthine layout of An Hylaria is a X environmental hazard that potential could severely impair the trade and transport within the city, the Imperial Senate Given the of the city, Guiding Lights

by msandersmusic

Special Effigies/ "Ta'hals?" modified the type of Blotcross, with enhanced regularly supplied with memory-enhancing substances, that serve as guides through the city. Assigned to a specific subsector of the city. Various types of guides. Some only direct along a predetermined path, others navigate more freely. Most normal inhabitants don't require them as they work and die within a small part of a larger factory.
Whispers Beyond the Mirrors
A growing metropolises "The city is alive, repairs itself and slowly grows outwards, similar to the Garden of Gems, though to a far lesser extend" Shaman-enhanced agriculture, Flesh Gardens, Drinking water for the lower classes is X through large filter plants that clean the toxic waters of the surrounding swamplands to an acceptable level. Middle and higher class citizens usually drink water imported from the Outer Colonies or offshore water mines. These so-called Well Colonies belong to the few numbers of colonies that are under the control of the Inner Powers of the Empire. */