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On the other side of the gate, the entrance hall of a grand cathedral looms high overhead. Countless rows of pews decorate the ceiling, and iron chains holding chandeliers and lanterns rise from the floor as if the pull of gravity had been reversed. Further in, you can see that even water holds this course, for upon the altar at the cathedral's heart, water pours off the side of a fountain and into a baptismal pool upon the ceiling. Just as the lanterns hang upwards, the waters flow towards the sky as if that were the true "ground".
The stone monolith stands behind you, planted upon the ceiling that you and Bran now use as the floor. Within it, you can see the distorted picture of your anchored ship beneath the slowly churning whirlpool upon its face.
Stained glass windows decorate the walls of the entrance hall. Each side depicts a familiar sequence of events whose records can oft be found among the engravings and painted halls of the old world's ruins, be they manifested by dungeons or found on the surface.
On one side, a great whale. A majestic beast native to the primordial waters from which all things are born and to which all things return. It carried the pillars of creation from the bottom of the deepest sea and used them to lay the foundations of the material world. In its creation of the world, the great whale divided the primordial waters between the warm celestial waters that formed the dome of the sky, and the cold abyssal waters upon which Bhardas did float. In dividing the waters, it divided itself, becoming Sun and Moon and assuring the world that it would always stand beneath his light.
That record lines up with books that survived the cataclysms which brought the old world to the end.
What is shown on the other side is up to interpretation.
A woman sitting upon a throne, nude but for her crown. In her hands, a cup of wine that she pours out, the wine becoming a river of reddish-purple that engulfs the people below her. Most scholars agree that their hands are raised in terror, though some say they instead rejoice at the wine that rushes over them. The seas, stained the purple-red of the wine, birth a seven headed dragon that devours a city of white marble stone. People flee the fire in terror... or dance among the flames. Then at last a castle in the sky sends down a rain of seven spears, that slay the dragon and pin its heads to the the earth.
Most scholars agree that this depicts the cataclysms that brought the old world to an end. A terrible tyrant that brought ruin to that empire, a calamity of dragons that invaded whilst they were weak, and a series of meteor strikes that wiped out the dragons and scoured clean the nations of old.
"If you're done admiring the glassworks, I think I've found the core," Bran calls you over to his side. He's taken a seat on the ledge at the edge of the ceiling that's serving as your floor. "There's just a wee bit of a problem..."
