The Below
The Below is a massive, highly classified water-processing facility located at the very bottom of the Newfris infrastructure, suspended deep beneath The Under. Built by the Cothellon (the Planners), it serves as the hidden heart of the flying cities' survival, secretly generating the millions of gallons of water required to keep the oblivious Citizens above alive.
The existence of The Below is a closely guarded Cothellon secret, unknown even to the vast majority of underkids. It serves as the primary setting for the spinoff novel The Drowned Below.
Geography and Architecture
The geography of The Below is physically impossible without the use of advanced Prime Magic. To reach the city, one must travel down a rickety elevator shaft through the deepest depths of the Under, eventually dropping out into mid-air and plunging through the surface of a vast, subterranean lake.
The Below is situated directly underneath this lake. The millions of gallons of water are held back from crushing the city by a massive, city-wide forcefield seal. Because the artificial sky is made entirely of water, the entire city is bathed in a constantly undulating, eerie blue luminescence.
The architecture is brutal and utilitarian, yet strangely fluid. The buildings are incredibly tall, windowless cement cylinders that look like giant organ pipes stretching up toward the water above. Because the forcefield above is slightly permeable, a constant mist fills the air, and water perpetually drips down the walls and slick pavement. The city smells faintly of wet cement and healthy algae, standing in stark contrast to the sewage stench of the Under.
Society and Control
The Below is populated almost entirely by enslaved transmuter mages who have been captured by the Department of Civil Service. Because the city's original water-supplying gate failed centuries ago, these mages are forced to transmute raw waste—including sewage, garbage, and even human corpses—into clean drinking water and Synthbeer.
To keep the population docile and compliant, the Planners employ two horrific methods of control:
- Addiction: The Planners intentionally addict the mages to corrupted darkprime birch. The mages rely on weekly drops of the wood to feed their addiction; without it, they would suffer fatal withdrawals and violently riot.
- The Wavelight Church: The Cothellon fabricated a fake religion to give the despairing slaves a sense of noble purpose. Led by figures like High Priestess Glimmer, the Church uses armed guards in storm-blue robes and strict water-worshipping rituals to maintain absolute order.
The citizens of The Below are gaunt, hollow-eyed, and severely malnourished, shuffling through the perpetually damp streets in tattered gray raincoats. Their only joy is the euphoria of burning darkprime magic and drinking at the local bar.
Key Locations
- The Machine (Gate Control): The largest building in The Below, located at the northern edge of the city. Built with Brutalist, castle-like architecture, it houses a massive, dry chamber filled with scaffolding, wires, and an empty water channel. It contains the Echoes—ancient magical devices designed to hold a permanent water-supplying gate to the Earth's surface.
- Transmuter 2 (T2): A sprawling, windowless, single-story building that stretches for nearly a mile. Inside, thousands of enslaved transmuters sit at brown office desks positioned over open water channels. Here, they endlessly burn birch wood to convert raw waste and human bodies into water.
- The Sanctuary: The headquarters of the Wavelight Church. A dark, wet cement room featuring a massive, fifteen-foot-tall glowing crystal statue shaped like a crashing ocean wave.
- The Copper Pipes: The Below's only bar, and the sole place of brief respite for the enslaved mages. It is beautifully decorated with gleaming copper pipes, teal ceramic tile, and oiled walnut, serving heavily consumed, metallic-tasting Synthbeer.
History and The Water Crisis
For 270 years after The Ascension, The Below operated smoothly using a massive gate that piped fresh water directly from a river on the Earth's surface. When the aging Cothellon technology holding the gate failed, the Planners covered up the disaster by drastically increasing the quotas for the transmuter slaves.
Four years after the events of The Metal Wood, the aging pipe infrastructure of The Below finally began to fail, causing a catastrophic water shortage throughout the sky cities above. The Cothellon assigned a mergemelder named Alluin to manage the failing plumbing. Alluin fell in love with Glimmer, discovered he possessed the rare ability of Gatesending, and successfully created a new gate to save the city. However, before he could permanently anchor it, he was attacked by unknown assailants and banished to the surface, losing his memory and eventually becoming the ragged Under wanderer known as Glint.
Years later, the water crisis reached a breaking point. Guided by the amnesiac Glint, Phoenix and her son Rylan used a firebubble to descend through the toxic lake and infiltrate The Below. They arrived in the midst of a violent uprising led by the vengeful Alluin (who had regained his memories and sought to destroy the city that took his family). After a brutal magical battle involving Lorelei and the Wavelight Church, Phoenix successfully repaired the failing lake seal with forcefinding magic, and Rylan's innocence convinced Alluin to permanently anchor a new water gate, saving both The Below and the sky cities from dying of thirst.