The Fifth Peak

       Kelekemoleke, City of the Skies, is the birthplace of Avian culture and remains their largest city to date. Constructed across four mountain peaks within the Spine of the World, the city weaves in and out of the mountains, using vast tunnels as shelter from the elements while also building structures that lace around the exterior of the mountains. Connecting the four mountains are long, incredibly durable ropes to aid in travel between the peaks, with the longest stretching almost two miles across open air. Each peak has been carefully constructed, allowing the city's population to grow steadily over the years, and eventually plans were drawn up to incorporate a fifth peak into the city. A mountain was carefully chosen, and tools and instruments were brought over to begin excavating the first layer of the city's new addition.         The First Calamity struck quickly, although it wasn't to be named as such until years later. Evidently, the mountain chosen had been the prison of a terrible monster, sealed within the stone and awoken by the diggging and excavation crews. The creature emerged with little warning: a flying behemoth from the Far Plane with writhing tentacles and an incredible grasp over foreign magic, and began terrorizing the populace. Through a tremendous effort, and a not insignificant cost in lives, the Avians were able to defeat the monstrous behemoth and save their home. Yet amidst the destruction, efforts to create the Fifth Peak would have to be restarted, and there were other matters to tend to in the wake of the Calamity.         The Second and Third Calamities were no less disastrous, as years later the second attempt at settling the peak would be carried out. Although the construction managed to progress much further than the prior attempt, it was discovered in dramatic fashion that the mountain was in fact a long-dormant volcano, and between the monster's awakening and the continued work performed on the mountain, pockets of gas were uncovered and the entire top of the mountain erupted into the sky, raining superheated rocks down onto Kelekemoleke as lava poured down the chosen mountain. The third attempt at constructing the Fifth Peak were decided to begin on an entirely separate mountain, but it was only a few weeks into the construction that an unfortunate fault within the rock caused a landslide, burying much of the construction crew and their equipment.         By the Second Calamity people had already begun to question as to whether there could be another reason behind their failed attempts at expansion, and whispers of the mountain being cursed began to spread. While these were quashed when possible by the Elders of Kelekemoleke, superstition spread and the third attempt was nearly denied. Surely, it was successfully argued, the problem was choosing such an unstable mountain in the first place, and moving the construction wouldn't require too much of a change to the initial plans anyway. After the Third Calamity struck, the argument to stop all future plans of expansion gained significant traction, and almost three full generations went by before talk of a fourth attempt were brought up in any significant fashion.         It had taken almost a full year once construction began to bring the Fifth Peak to near-completion, and every setback from resource supplies to workplace injuries were decried as heralds to the Fourth Calamity. Yet as the structures were made stable, tunnels were reinforced, and preparations were put in place to begin work on the massive ropes to connect the Fifth Peak to the city properly, hopes were high that this time would finally break the "curse", and Kelekemoleke could put the Calamities behind them. Unfortunately, the Fourth Calamity arrived not from the land this time, but the sky. Alcidrun, the flying city built by the Cloud Giants, constantly drifted across the skies of Endrun, carried aloft by enchanted clouds. Tensions between the Avians and Cloud Giants had always been high, each claiming superiority of the skies, and while there had been skirmishes between them before there had yet to be a full on assault on either sky fortress.         This all changed when the Cloud Giants, impulsive and capricious by nature, saw a chance to thwart the Avian's project at the cusp of completion. They conjured an unrelenting thunderstorm upon the Fifth Peak, causing torrential winds and rain unprecedented for the region to smash against the construction and flush out the carved tunnels, once again ruining the the city's attempts at expansion. While the resulting outrage saw the Avians assaulting the giant's cloud city itself and forcing the floating bullies from their lands, the Fifth Peak was once again in shambles and the Avians disheartened.         Since Alcidrun's intervention, plans for the Fifth Peak have been halted for the foreseeable future.