Mithat

The ancient ruins of Mithat are a vast arcane engine in the making. Rary believes that the latent magical fault lines running through the Bright Desert—remnants of Sulm’s fall—can be tapped to reshape reality on a continental scale. Whether he seeks redemption, domination, or something stranger is unclear.

What is certain is that Mithat is no longer merely a ruin. Under Rary's hand, it is becoming something new, something alive—with every sand-blasted whisper suggesting it may one day rival the glories and horrors of Sulm itself.

The ancient city lies atop a network of crystalline bedrock, partially fused by arcane trauma during the empire’s fall. Much of the city is subterranean, with spires and ziggurats now serving as the visible tips of vast underground complexes. What remains above the sands appears half-melted or flash-fossilized—evidence of the devastating transformation wrought when Sulm died.

• Blackened sandstone walls rise in fractured geometries, their engraved sun motifs now warped or vitrified by intense magical heat.
• Golemic statues, some shattered and others still wandering their patrols, line wide causeways and open forums littered with sand-filled amphorae and broken altars.
• Faint golden light sometimes pulses from beneath the dunes, betraying the activation of long-dormant Sulmite wards or new spells cast by Rary's hand.

Few dare approach the heart of the ruin, where Mithat's great central ziggurat rises like a cracked fang above the desert.

Atop the ruined ziggurat, Rary has established his arcane bastion, an overlapping fortress of conjured stone, glyph-warded glass, and floating obsidian monoliths. Unlike the Sulmite structures, this new citadel bears no embellishment—its aesthetic is clinical, cold, and exacting, a reflection of Rary's intellect and dispassion.

• Scrying lenses orbit the tower's peak, silently observing events across the desert and beyond.
• Rary’s apprentices, rarely seen, are said to hover within translucent spheres, perfectly preserved from the desert's heat.
• Beneath the structure, vast halls house arcane laboratories, temporal field chambers, and specimen vaults that thrum with distorted air and unstable reality.

Mithat is no longer bound by the same rules of time or space.

• Time dilation is common near the ziggurat—travelers may lose hours or days without memory.
• Mirages that mimic other places or eras appear around the city, some drawing intruders into temporal eddies or memory loops.
• Creatures within the region exhibit arcane mutations—a result of magical runoff, Sulmite curses, or Rary’s experiments. These include scorpion-centaurs, spectral jackals, and stone-skinned humanoids with multiple sets of eyes.

Rary’s personal forces are unlike any mundane army. Mithat is protected by a mix of:

• Magical constructs, including Sulmite relics reactivated by Rary’s magic, now augmented with more modern enchantments.
• Enslaved spellcasters, their minds shackled by arcane brands or temporal stasis fields, acting as unwilling enforcers.
• Living wards, such as self-patrolling zones of antimagic, temporal loops that trap intruders, and animated sandstorms imbued with sentience.

Some whisper of failed clones or warped versions of Rary himself, used to guard the most sacred chambers and keep his true self hidden even from scrying.