Haestus (Hay-Stuss)

Write about a city or town in your world which is unusual or unique in some way.

Not even the boldest merchants of the world would dare travel through the mountain ranges in the northwestern lands of Eskondar.  Barely a couple hundred kilometers east of the Ravan capital lies a sequestered segment of land unexplored.  Permanently enveloped in furious blizzards and surrounded from all sides by ferocious natural barriers, this geographical enigma is wondered by few and known by fewer.  To it's west there is a raging river at the base of a peculiar cliff face that reaches into the sky, reports of people approaching say they can hear the screams of the frozen wastes come from far above.  The top reaches out further than the base, as the entire cliff towers over the physical river at the base.  Scree lines the riverbed and is reportedly worse than walking upon piles of knives.

To the other approaches there are only steep mountains and shockingly cold temperatures.  Farther to the north and east, beyond the mountainous terrain lies hundreds of kilometers of a desert wasteland right until the ocean.

Were someone to somehow climb to the top of the cliff, they would find 10m high sturdy stone walls awaiting them.  Rather than a gate for an entrance, they would find a steel door with no discernable way of opening.  The more discerning eye would notice strange devices atop the walls, and were they to get too close, they would be hailed by a barking voice with the inflection of a steel rasp grinding into an anvil.

Getting close enough to the city to see it through the harsh snowstorm would be no small feat, and few have achieved it.  But the tales of wonder are what come from within the walls.  Of the few who have made it this far, fewer will ever see what's inside the walls.  For most, their journey ends here, trying to scale the walls results in a rapid death from the devices lining them.

One man however, after losing the rest of his companions along the journey, passed out within a few feet of the walls, not even knowing he'd made it so close.  His vision was severely compromised after losing one of his eyes in a fight he barely survived with a mountain wildcat, one that had killed his last friend and nearly him.  His remaining good eye had unfortunately become snowblind.

After collapsing into the thin layer of snow covering the hard ice beneath, he was seen and taken in.  Patched up and released during a weak point in the storm, he managed to make it back to society with his one good eye.  

His tale is blurry, as for the duration of his stay he could barely see, the people seemed very small there.  Strange humming sounds punctuated every moment of his visit.  He was fed incredible food, and he was kept comfortable the entire time.  The blindfold they told him was necessary to heal his eye was removed and just as he was sent out the door he managed a glimpse back through.  Some kind of creature in a suit of armour, or maybe it was the armour, had shoved him out, it held in it's hands some kind of metal weapon somewhat resembling a dwarven rifle.  That was all he managed to catch sight of as the door closed however.

Type

Citadel