the Sundering Deeps

The Sundering split the world's middle in the convulsion that broke the old age, and the Deeps are the way through it: a descending pass of switchbacks and galleries cut into the wound's own wall. Nobody governs it. The crowns post warnings, not wardens, and the pass's law is the old climbers' law: leave the ropes better than you found them. The deep surveys say the rift is not empty, and the pass's oldest graffiti, scratched at the halfway shelter, says it shorter: THE BOTTOM HAS A BOTTOM. DO NOT KNOCK.