The ship pulled alongside the shore with a shuddering jolt.
The lake waters rose and fell without pause. They waded into the water and secured the ship in a safe spot with ropes and iron spikes, making sure an unexpected wave couldn't carry it off. Then they carefully set foot on this "island."
Beneath the toppled Giant Pillar, which pressed down on them with an oppressive weight, the surrounding rubble felt like loose soil gathered around the stalk of an aquatic plant—unstable and insubstantial, ready to be washed away and collapse at any moment.
Several broken stone ridges extended into the water, suggesting that this might once have been a small dock. Yet even a flat-bottomed boat had trouble making its way in through the shallows, making it hard to imagine what kind of vessels had once moored here.
The oddly shaped buildings clung to stone foundations like barnacles, and were half-collapsed.
They belonged to no known style—or perhaps they could be called "Dunling Ruin style." Their defining trait was a lack of distinctive features or unique details, despite their remarkable craftsmanship, which had allowed them to endure even under extremely harsh conditions.
Built from locally sourced materials, the carefully smoothed stone blocks fit tightly together, forming walls and vaulted ceilings that weren't particularly tall but were sturdy enough. The construction was just like that of the Sewer, revealing the builders' exceptional command of spatial geometry.
They were the sort of things that appeared in certain monotonous, repetitive nightmares. Once they reached a certain degree of regularity, they became all the more unsettling.
There was no sign of life or artistic expression, not even the slightest hint of culture—or anything that could be called "human." These were simply buildings, with no meaning beyond their function.
If a region and its