Thus, when traveling in the territory of Ersilia, you come upon the ruins of the abandoned cities, without the walls which do not last, without the bones of the dead which the wind rolls away: spiderwebs of intricate relationships seeking a form.
Note
A city that takes itself apart and rebuilds elsewhere is a city of tents. This Ersilia is a camp on the steppe at dawn, as Marco Polo might describe it to a Mongol emperor.
The inhabitants are lantern lights. One leaves a tent for a neighbour’s, unspooling a thread behind them: white for kinship, black for trade, grey for authority, black-and-white for agency. Touch a tent, and someone will step out.
When the threads are too many to pass between, the lights go out one by one, the tents fold, and a procession goes to found the city a little further on. On the plain the web remains, dark against the dawn.
Quotations are brief excerpts for the purpose of commentary. The full text is available in published editions. The Cities of Ottavia, Valdrada & the soundtrack are inspired by "Monument Valley" from ustwo games.