Breathless, inexpressible wonderment.

I was on a hillside looking out across a million sun-drenched rooftops, more konkreet buildings than I could fathom, from here to the horizon and beyond.

Towering over the buildings were a dozen shining steel rods a hundred yards tall, each encircled in crackling, dancing bolts of lightning that arced and sparked and snaked across the yellow sky with wild abandon.

Everywhere across Generatia was a dizzying mesh of tangled cables, a spiderweb of swaying metal embroidery draped over the city connecting every building to every other.

I saw innumerable rust-colored vessels shaped like giant eggs hanging from the cables. People were visible inside, behind windows, riding along to and fro under the labyrinthine network like ants in an enormous colony.

Everything was brown and red and orange, so different from the green forests of Harken. In fact I couldn’t find a single tree anywhere.

It seemed like hours before I could breathe again. This was the world of the ancients.