The Drowning of Vertixico

Once mighty, now nothing remains but darkened bones.

The city-state of Vertixico was one of the seven prominent city-states that remained in the Age of Darkness, often the first among equals. When the sun shattered, the people there had the good fortune of several grand sunshards landing near them, creating a perimeter of blazing light. While others perished by dark, the people of Vertixico instead had to contend with this new light - staying close enough to avoid the darkness, but not so close to be twisted and burned by the sunshards.

by Midjourney by Q

Vertixico was built upon this razor's edge - a great city, sprawling out in several conjoined circles around the sunshards that shielded them. It weathered the first Age of Darkness and survived the second, growing mighty as those around it suffered and dwindled. At the height of its power, its people grew certain of their place in the world and feared neither human nor hungry dark.
Safeguards that should be kept were neglected, and redundant lights were ignores. After all, they had the shards of the sun as their wall and shield.

The Third Age of Darkness is often marked with the Drowning of Vertixico. Unexpectedly, the sunshard's flickered and went dark, and in an instant the darkness around the city crashed down upon it like a tidal wave. Bereft of light, the dark became an unstoppable force, flooding the city state and dragging its inhabitants into its depths, crawling into them and drowning them in darkness. When the sunshard flickered back to light only hours later, nothing remained of Vertixico but a cautionary tale - every structure leveled to the ground, every soul lost. But not a single body was found by those who ventured to those haunted grounds later. All had disappeared into the darkness, for reasons none care to venture.
With the dawn of a new age of darkness, with every light in the world growing dimmer, humanity knows something has to be done.

by Midjourney by Q