Averra is a city of hills, and likely always will be, for it has been, and I hope will remain, a city without pretensions, neither of greatness nor of false modesty, unlike Teknar, once known as the city of seven hills. As Teknar grew and prospered, it filled the dales and vales between the hills, the streams diverted or paved over so that the city now encompasses a vast artificial plateau encircled and supported by towering stone walls, above which rise gilded towers, overlooking gardens so large they have their own streams fed by massive and extensive aqueducts extending as far as the Nardian Mountains some five score milles to the north.
Whatever once was Teknar, and the honesty of its being, has long since vanished beneath that plateau, along with the wandering ways, the streams, and the hills, so that what remains is a confusion of walls, buildings, and artificial pleasure gardens created not by those who have always lived there, but by those with wealth enough to ignore and override the needs and desires of those who are forced by necessity to remain, ignored by and subservient to a smaller and smaller group of wealthier and wealthier men.
Averra has its men of wealth as well, but so far they have let the city reflect all who inhabit it, rather than using their golden dohleers to remake Averra for their pleasure or merely to demonstrate that they have the power to reshape an honest and ancient place.
AVERRA
The City of Truth
Johan Eschbach
377 TE