GOME CITIES
Overview
The gome city of Barcelunda was built beneath the limestone mountains in Catalonia over many centuries it has become the center of political power for all European gomery. It is surrounded by miles of caves that are explored by humans but the connections between the cave system that humans know and the gome city are guarded carefully.
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Barcelunda is built like an enormous layer cake under the mountains near Montserrat. Each layer (or Level) of the city spreads out horizontally with acres upon acres of streets, alleys and buildings. Each Level is at least a hundred feet thick from floor to ceiling. At the edges of the Levels long stairways wind up and down through the mountain allowing connection between the layers. The main stairways are at the north and south ends of the city but other connecting stairways and ramps have also been built in the heart of the city.
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The different Levels of the city divide Barcelundan society up into separate functional areas, like different neighborhoods and districts. Here is a rough diagram of how the city is arranged:
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Level One
This is the working-class residential part of the city. Humans are tolerated but generally not welcome here. Gome workers are counted as they leave or enter at the main north or south entrance archways. Strangers are challenged if they approach. This was the situation that faced Hadley and Wullie as they attempted to enter the south entrance of the city on Level One:
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The main street on Level One starts at the southern archway and runs north. It is about fifteen feet wide and slightly curved in cross-section. It winds like a lazy snake through the mountain for over a mile before reaching the northern archway. Narrow alleys lead off the main street every few hundred feet. The ground on either side of the main street slopes steeply like stadium seating in a sports arena. These sides are studded with thousands of tiny holes, the entrances to burrows where worker gomes live. Narrow paths wind up the sloping sides leading to these homes. As the workers come and go the impression you get is of ants or bees milling around a honeycomb in all directions, and yet they all seem to know where they are headed.
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The domed ceiling on Level One is far broader than the main street. Hanging down from the ceiling are hundreds of large stalactites that are covered in luminous algae. These provide an eerie pale white lighting along the main street. The alleys are much darker. There are no shops or formal buildings on Level One. Gomes from the commercial districts on lower levels of the city bring essential items like bones, rocks, shells, cowdie and vespamead on carts to be sold to the worker gomes on the main street. It is a weary place without much joy or life unless someone interrupts the routine flow of workers trudging to and fro. It would be easy to get lost in Level One, especially down the side alleys because there are no distinctive features: all the alleys look much the same as each other.
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Level Two
This is the commercial district of Barcelunda. It is a much more lively place than Level One, bustling with activity. Humans are welcome on Level Two. The streets are straighter. Hundreds of buildings line the streets containing shops, cafes, hotels, saloons, and gambling dens. The humans who visit Barcelunda are mostly gangsters and criminals. They wear hooded gray cloaks to hide their identity.
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At the main intersections of streets large stalagmites rise up like gigantic termite hills. These are covered in luminous algae providing the main lighting. Many of the side streets, shops, and cafes also have oil lanterns or wall-mounted burning torches to provide extra light. The shops and cafes have an international flavor with curiosities and delights to amuse humans and gomes from all over the world. Large square plazas, like Plaza Bonaventure, are filled with gomes and humans sitting at tables chatting and sampling the international cuisine. In some of these plazas there are stairways leading down to Level Three, but these are heavily guarded. Barcelundan guards and police patrol the streets and prowl on the rooftops to keep order.
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Here is the first impression that Hadley had when she first saw Level Two when she emerged form the side alley connecting the city with the Segovia Borehole:
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“When she reached the end of the alley she gasped.
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“This is like a whole different city, Wullie.”
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The street was wide, flat, and swept clean. The cave roof was somewhere in the darkness a hundred feet above them. The walls were perfectly flat, like the sides of buildings. It was less crowded and less smoky than Level One, but much more interesting. Gomes and occasional hooded humans emerged from doorways carrying packages. The humans had to stoop to get through the doors but seemed quite comfortable and confident. The air was filled with interesting smells of salty food, spices, and perfume. There were no hanging stalaglights but pale white light came from near the intersection of main streets. Colored lights also shone through windows of the shops that lined the street.
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There were strange and exotic things on display in every window. Crystals and rocks in all colors, shapes and sizes; rows of tiny glass bottles with strange symbols on them; teeth, horns, tusks, and antlers, sorted by size and species. Some stores sold tiny ropes and tools; metal knives, hooks, spears, shovels, and picks. Others offered feathers and cloth fashioned into tiny cloaks or head dresses, leather belts, straps and bags made out of reptile skin. Through one window Hadley saw a shelf of tiny leather books that reminded her of Bluebeard’s little black book that had caused them so much trouble last summer."
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Gomes from the business and commercial classes live in neighborhoods off the main streets of Level Two. They tend to stay near gomes of their own class and rock type. So Jade-Tsi-Dong sets up his shop in the Chinatown part of the international district where many other yellow and green jade-based gomes live.
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Level Three
This is the political and financial district of the city, the center of bureaucracy and power in Barcelunda. The streets are very wide and grand, paved in marble with gold inlay. The buildings are set back from the streets and are built from ornate marble and granite. Long broad strips of luminous algae line the walls creating a ghostly even light everywhere. There are no flickering smoky lamps here. Level Three is well ventilated. The air smells of citrus and pine. The streets here are rarely crowded. All the important work of banking or committee meeting and political scheming goes on inside the elegant buildings. Only humans with important business are allowed on Level Three. They must wear pale blue silk ceremonial robes and be part of a gome delegation.
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High above the pale white streets of Level Three are the famed Skies of Barcelunda, considered to be one of the Great Wonders of the Ancient Gome World. Jet-black in color the ceiling is studded with thousands of jewels sparkling in all the colors of the rainbow. Although large, fierce, Barcelundan Guards can be seen, acting as sentries, at the entrances to all the main buildings no police or guards patrol the streets of Level Three. But crawling silently across the surface of the ceiling like evil scorpions or stag beetles are dozens of jet-black Spies of Barcelunda.
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In the center of Level Three is a main square lined by massive banking and administrative buildings. One whole side of this square is taken up with the Justice Building. Broad steps lead up to massive tall doors surrounded by gome symbols engraved into the marble. The expansive and windowless flat wall on either side of this door is used as a massive public bulletin board. This Justice Wall is divided into sections announcing important events, disputes, and recording the results of battles, trials, and ceremonies. Worker gomes crawl across the surface writing new announcements and erasing old ones under the careful guidance of the pompous bureaucratic gome called Notarius.
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Level Four
This is the industrial heart of the city. It is a dangerous and scary place with no effort made to provide comfort for either humans or gomes. Here in the deepest, darkest, smokiest recesses of the mountain are the factories and blacksmith furnaces, the fish farms, vespamead breweries, apisinthe distilleries, bone stores and metal forges. It is here that the luminous algae are cultivated in huge slimy caverns, here that magicians and translators sort through jewels, spices and petraglifs. Humans enter Level Four at their peril. There are prison cells down here where humans and gomes can be locked away and left to rot. Barcelundan Guards, prison wardens, soldiers and factory workers congregate in the Hell Hole Tavern to drink and fight. It is down on Level Four that the feared Rock Pit of Torture and Justice dominates the mind and the landscape.
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Physical Infrastructure
Lighting System
Many gomes can see well even in low light but most of the city is so far underground and away from any natural light that artificial lighting is needed. In some locations they use torches that burn coal, tar, and oil, but the Barcelundan gomes have also developed a much more elegant solution to their lighting problem. They cultivate a rare form of algae that lines deep underground cave walls and gives off a pale white light. A supply of these luminous algae is grown in large cave funnels deep inside the mountain. The algae are scraped off the cave walls and are replanted in strategic locations throughout the city. When fed the right chemical nutrients and kept moist the algae will give off light for days at a time. One of the most important and yet one of the most despised jobs for gomes in Barcelunda is to farm and tend the algae. Hundreds of algae workers roam the city feeding and watering the algae. If the light from a patch of algae begins to fade an algae worker can refresh it by bringing torchlight close so that the algae can absorb the light energy. Failure to keep the luminous algae bright in all the important parts of the city is a crime punishable by death by stone crushing in the Rock Pit. Gomes are not forgiving creatures.
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Ventilation System
Although gomes can function without oxygen or fresh air, even in their unpetrified state, they have developed an elaborate ventilation system in Barcelunda because of humans. They don’t want nosy humans discovering their city because of the smoky smells created in Barcelunda. But they do want selected humans to be able to walk in certain parts of the city when invited to do so. To make that possible gomes have dug a connecting honeycomb system of ventilator shafts that allow warm, smoky, foul air to rise up and escape through cracks in the cliff walls above the Mediterranean Sea. At the same time fresher air is sucked in from caves that connect to the outside. When Hadley, Alina, and Wullie escape from Barcelunda they make use of some of these ventilator shafts.
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Food, Drink, and Waste
A society as large and complex as Barcelunda needs a plentiful supply of food and drink for its inhabitants (and for the human guests who visit). A large society also creates a lot of waste. In the case of gomes, however, their needs are quite limited and they make use of every tiny piece of gravel and so create much less waste than you might expect. The gomes themselves eat rocks, bones, and shells. These are gathered from the countryside, beaches, and sea beds nearby. For gomes who prefer the shells of shellfish the gomes have built lobster and crab farms deep inside the mountain. The unnecessary flesh of these fish is either used to prepare food for human visitors or is ground up and fed to the luminous algae.
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Most gomes can survive without drink for weeks or months at a time but they do enjoy both vespamead and apisinthe. Fresh water is kept on hand to help prepare food for the humans and to keep the luminous algae moist.
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Apisinthe and Vespamead
Apisinthe is a potent distilled brew of hard liquor that gomes make in many societies around the world.
Here is how Wullie describes it to Hadley:
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“It’s the main grog made by gomes around the world. They collect the poisonous stings from thousands o’ bees and wasps, mix them up wi’ liquorice roots, ferment it and then distill it down tae a potent brew. It’s got quite a kick, has the apisinthe; a real sting in its tail. It muddles the brain something terrible, though; makes ye forget who ye are, what you’re doing, and where you came frae. Nasty stuff.”
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Vespamead is less strong and is a sweet wine that is drunk widely in gome circles.
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Political Infrastructure
Organization of Barcelundan society
Gomes are argumentative, suspicious and territorial by nature and so disputes occur among them all the time. Because of this they have a very hierarchical structure to keep order. They organize themselves into Clans based partly on geographical region and on the predominant geological rock type that makes up their bodies. Each clan selects a Chief who is stronger, wiser or more cunning than the others in the clan. These chiefs scheme with other neighboring clan chiefs to dominate larger geographical regions. These regions select Prefects who form councils to resolve local disputes. If those Prefects wish to rise up in political power to gain more influence in gome society they must apply to be selected onto the Council of Regional Ascendancy Prefects (or CRAP). This may make them eligible sit on one of the more powerful central committees in Barcelunda, such as the Committee for Oversight of International Grievances (or COIG). The dominant gome from each geographical region (who will often be a member of COIG) may be selected to become one of the Supreme Pronouncers. This is the governing body for all European gomery. The Supreme Pronouncers on International Transgressions (or SPIT) rule on all major disputes between gome clans in different countries around the world. SPIT can declare war; can decide the fate of individual gomes or of entire clans. SPIT represents the sixteen geographical regions of power in Europe. These sixteen select an additional gome, The Grand High Illustrious Pronouncer to preside over them and set the agenda. All seventeen members of SPIT have equal voting power so there is never a tie.
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When all of this is explained to Wullie at the south entrance to Level One of Barcelunda by a pompous bureaucrat he is unable to hide his disdain:
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Wullie said, “Now let me get this straight. If Ah’ve got a grievance against Bluebeard I need tae wait for mooncycles on end tae make ma case to COIG and then they’ll pass it on up to SPIT. And, by the way, in order to be eligible to sit on SPIT, like Bluebeard does, you have to be full of CRA…”
Hadley interrupted him. “Wullie! I really don’t think this is helping.”
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“You’re right there, lass. It’s true the world over; sarcasm is wasted on bureaucrats.”
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All of the big decisions are made by SPIT in public hearings that are held in The Justice Chamber.
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The seat of all political power in Europe is here in Barcelunda in the heart of the Justice Building. The Justice Chamber is a large rectangular room with polished white marble floors on which stands the Pronouncement Bench. There is a high bench in the middle where the Grand High Illustrious Pronouncer stands with the four next most senior Pronouncers next to him, two on either side. There status is marked by the wearing of multicolored robes and fancy hats. Two lower benches curve out on either side ending in carved crab claws. Six Pronouncers stand on each of these lower benches. Seating for hundreds of human and gome observers surrounds the Pronouncement Bench on the main floor and on a surrounding balcony above. All of the entrances, exits, aisles and corridors around the Justice Building are heavily guarded.
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The Rock Pit of Justice and Torture
This scary place is like a cross between a Roman-style amphitheater and a gigantic bowl for grinding and crushing rocks and spices. The pit itself is surrounded by steeply sloping sides too slippery to climb up. Tiered seating allows spectators to look down as gomes battle each other to resolve disputes, or prisoners wait to be crushed to death by the Petramax, a massive round boulder three feet in diameter that is released high up and far away in the tunnels of Level Three. The Petramax hurtles towards the Rock Pit where it drops down from fifty feet above the pit to pulverize anyone or anything in the base of the bowl.
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Interaction of Humans and Gomes in Barcelunda
The relationship between gomes and humans is a complicated one. As a general rule gomes hate humans because humans dominate the planet and dig up and destroy ancient rock formations. Humans treat rocks like an expendable commodity that they can use or throw away at will. Gomes are also jealous of how easily humans can reproduce and how clever they are at creating machines and weapons that can destroy each other and cause great harm to gomes. For all these reasons gomes stay hidden from humans, a lot of the time. But gomes do like to stay in some contact with human society in order to feed off the emotional energy that humans impart to rocks.
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Over the millennia gomes have been careful observers of human behavior. They have become skilled at identifying which humans can be used and manipulated to the advantage of gomes. Greedy and unscrupulous criminals are easy to work with. Older humans crave the youthful energy that is failing them. Gomes can make use of those human beings by promising them potions to regain their youth in return for help in bringing large and important petraglifs to the gomes or in helping them find and capture a potential vas animi. Most of the humans who spend time in underground gome cities like Barcelunda are unsavory characters.
Here is how Wullie describes them:
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“It’s gangsters and thugs that associate wi’ gomes, moistly; Mafia gangs and sic like folk; evil, wicked, schemers that are on the make, looking for easy money. There’s no’ a decent human being down here, except fur yoose two.”
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Loyalty Branding
It takes a certain type of human to want to associate with evil groups of gomes, such as those that rule Barcelunda. Some might be reckless adventurers and thrill seekers, but mostly they are gangsters and thugs who want to profit from their association with gomes. They steal and bring petraglifs to the gomes and are rewarded and paid with jewels or barrels of apisinthe or other things that can be sold to humans on the black market. Because the gomes take a great risk by allowing those humans to enter their secret world they require that all these humans swear lifelong allegiance to them by being branded on the inside of the wrist with a red-hot gome poker bearing the symbol of that group of gomes. The humans must show this whenever a gome asks them to see their Loyalty Brand. If a human fails to show the Loyalty Brand then he or she can be arrested on the spot and thrown in gome jail.