The Black Earth

With the ending of that years' awakening ceremony the gates of the council building opened and the nobles and commoners left through separate gates .

Kei also left the building . He tried to remember his (Kaiser's) home and found himself knowing the route as if he had walked this way several times .

As Kei walked along, his inherited memories from Kaiser, started synchronizing in his brain and he started to get the lay of this land .

This layer of the abyss where the Rakshasa clan dwelled along with other abyssal creatures was known as the Black Earth . This 500th layer of the Abyss was shaped like a horizontal oval basin.

The eastern part of the basin was surrounded by a blood red sea, infested with undead creatures and only a few infernal aquatic lifeforms, residing deep underwater . As one would approach the sea ,nefarious screams of various voices could be heard coming out from underneath the sea, thus giving it the name, The Screaming Sea . Small islets were present on the sea floor .

On the northern part, the basin was covered by mountains ,hills and valleys . Due to lack of any plantation and vegetation, this region had developed a rough, rocky terrain often causing landslides and rock avalanches.

This had resulted in uneven undulating mountains to be formed which have been named as The Jagged Mountain Range .

The western part of the basin was covered by a dense topical forest with blood red vegetation known as The Cruentus Rainforest.

Diverse varieties of abyssal life -threatening flora and fauna housed themselves in the rainforest. The forest was currently divided into three portions based on the threat levels and dangerous beings at each portion. They were named as Cruentus Mouth (the outer forest) , Cruentus Heart (the middle forest) and Cruentus Mind (the inner forest).

Expeditions of the rakshasa clan have given birth to a speculation that beyond the inner forest, there lay another mysterious area called Cruentus Soul . But none have been able to cross the inner region so far and return to prove the validity of this speculation.

The southern part of the basin was infested with dense swamps ,bogs ,mires and tidal marshes overgrown with red vegetation and poisonous abyssal creatures . These wetlands were formed due to ingress of the blood red water from the screaming sea , so in some parts of these wetlands , undead beings also can be seen.

This region was named as The Black Bowels.

On the borders of these marshlands ,well under the protection of the enchanted walls, the settlement of the commoners was located .

They were mostly entrusted with menial labors, either as labor for hire by nobles or were in eternal servitude of noble houses acting as shopkeepers , house help, caretakers ,concubines, innkeepers etc. No commoner was permitted to start an independent business , the authority always lay in hand of the nobility.

The buildings of the commoners in the village were made from blood red reeds, growing in the marshlands . They were uniquely shaped buildings made through simple effort.

At first, the reeds were bundled and woven into thick columns , larger and thicker reeds were bent across and tied to form parabolic arches which acted as the spine of the building.

These arches were then strengthened by the pre-stressing of the reed columns, as they are initially inserted at opposing angles easily into the saturated wet soil , caused by the surrounding marshlands. A series of such arches defined the building's form .

Long cross beams of smaller bundled reeds were then laid across the arches and tied . Woven mats of reeds ,with mesh like perforations, formed the buildings' envelope with the perforations acting as mini windows for light and ventilation. The front and back walls were attached to two large vertical bundled reed columns and are also made from woven mats

These red reed buildings varied from single room dwellings to tunnel shaped structures with entrance at both or one end used for family dwelling or other commercial purposes respectively. Thus, the village was named Redweed.

The Central part of the basin ,occupied by the Rukhs (the royals) and the Ramiz (the nobles) , formed the core of the basin where the capital city of Vitium was located .

The capital city had marketplaces , military garrison, gambling and fighting dens, council buildings ,royal temples ,noble residencies , palaces , inns and so on.

The city was surrounded by three layered gigantic, enchanted spiked walls on all four sides and to abate any outside attacks .

The commoner settlement was connected to the southern gate of the capital via a long winding road with some guard outposts and small merchant shops in between .