Travel Log: Entry 47 – Broyoto, Jewel of the North

Date: 162 AtB
Author: Maelis Thorne, Scholar and Cartographer of the Celestial Arcadia
Location: Skyreach Plaza, Broyoto

I arrived at Broyoto after a harrowing six-day journey through the fractured wilds of northern Vashkelholme. The roads were dusted with snow, flanked by silent forests heavy with frost, and shadowed by distant shapes I would rather not name.

At the crest of a steep mountain pass, I glimpsed Skyreach: a stone crown built into the face of the world itself, smoke from forge towers coiling into the pale sky like black ribbons. It was cold enough to freeze breath mid-sentence, but dwarves bustled about without pause, wrapped in heavy furs and industrious intent.

Skyreach – The Mountain's Crown

Skyreach is the Upper City, a triumph of angular precision and symbolic grandeur. The buildings feel grown from the stone rather than built upon it—fluted buttresses, inlaid metal runes, and murals carved into walls with such depth and detail I spent hours just staring.

My first stop was the Skyforge Plaza, where merchant clans hawk beautifully wrought tools, weapons, and machines, all crafted in plain sight. Dwarves haggle with stern, matter-of-fact efficiency, and outsiders like myself are watched with cool curiosity—never unkind, just... measured.

The Shrine of Alathor is hauntingly quiet. Unlike the flamboyant shrines of other city ships, this one is carved deep into a sheer wall, accessible only by a narrow stair. Inside, a forge is always burning, tended by a silent priesthood of stone-robed dwarves. No songs. No chants. Just the echo of hammer on metal, an act of prayer in itself.

Heartdeep – Beneath the Stone

One must descend a Crystal Conduit Rail, a gleaming mechanical lift, to reach Heartdeep, the undercity carved into the bedrock. Here, the air is thick with mineral warmth and the smell of old metal. The Deepforge Network crackles with heat and rune-light. You can hear the labor of centuries in every corridor—metal groaning, echoes of distant chisel, whispers in the steam.

The Vaults of Memory are more than archives—they're soul-chambers. Dwarves commune with their ancestors by meditating in echo halls where voices are preserved in stone resonance. It is said the rock "remembers" what was spoken, and some dwarves claim to still hear the words of the first kings.

I was honored with a short stay in the Emberhalls, a residential quarter where homes are crafted in radiant obsidian and warmed by natural heat vents. Children learn to chisel stone before they can write, and every home contains a personal forge—more hearth than heat source.

A City Suspended Between Roots and Ash

Tourism here is not common—most travelers are BRASC personnel, smiths on pilgrimage, or desperate scholars like myself. But those few of us who make the trip are changed. Broyoto is a place that wears its past as armor, where every stone is laid in defiance of the Bloom that devoured its southern reaches.

The dwarves speak rarely of the fall of the lower districts, but they carry the memory in ritual: a simple hammer left in snow outside a forge, a black thread tied to a belt loop, a toast left unfinished.

And yet, the forges burn on.

Notes for Future Study

• Investigate bioluminescent moss farms in Heartdeep—potential spore-resistant compounds.
• Commission a Purifier Blade—local smith claims it retains memories of the metal's forging. Curious.
• Secure a private viewing of the Runestone of Tharkun-Bel, an artifact predating the First Bloom.
• Avoid discussing the city ships with older dwarves—they call them "floating crutches."

Final Thoughts

Broyoto is not just a city—it is a wound that refuses to rot. A monument to persistence, to stoicism, to the belief that stone may fracture, but it never forgets its shape.

I leave tomorrow at dawn, heavy with knowledge—and a little regret. I suspect I will never be welcome here again... but I was, for a moment, allowed to see the heart of the mountain.

And it beats still.