See Rock City...If You Dare!

You might rightly ask yourself: surely Trey isn't seriously going to suggest that Lookout Mt., Georgia's kitschy, but slightly trippy, roadside attraction might have an analog in the world of the City (and perhaps elsewhere) that could be an adventure local?

Well, not seriously. At least, not completely seriously...

There are stories from the Southern end of the Smaragdines about a strange place atop a mountain inhabited by extraplanar beings. It's become something of a legend across the rural South. Many barns or abandoned shacks along dusty roads and lonely highways are adorned with cryptic references to its wonders, or exhortations to "see the rock city."

The Natives of the land told stories of this place, and made visits to pay superstitious homage. Early explorers from Ealderde described a natural fortress of rock, with its components arranged so as to form the semblance "streets" and "alleyways"--and then there were oblique references to reclusive inhabitants. By the time the area had been well-settled, stories began to circulate of disappearances, and strange lights and music in the city of rock. Some Old World immigrants began to whisper about entrances to Fairyland.

Scientific thaumaturgical inquiry toward the end of the last century appears to have solved the mystery. In the heart of the rock city, reached only after passing through a maze of unusual rock formations, is a cave. The cave is the domain of clan of ultraterrestrial entities called gnomes.

Gnomes are elementals of earth. On the surface, they often appear as statues, as their experience of time isn't ours, and they sometimes stand immobile for long periods of time before springing to sudden action. They travel from the subterranean depths via veins of minerals. Their purposes are often inscrutable. In the rock city, they appear to be attempting art.

The gomes look like statues of bearded little men, with often comical expressions, and have shaped some of their substance to look like human clothing--brightly color through the expression of mineral pigments. This is not unusual gnomic behavior. What is, is that in the rock city, that have turned grottoes in their cave complex into dioramas, glowing with eerie, otherworldly light. These dioramas are scenes from Old World fairytales and nursery rhymes. The gnomes, it seems, have some knowledge of their audience.

It's for these strange and whimsical dioramas that people visit the rock city. But before making the trip yourself, consider where the non-gnomish statues in the dioramas come from. Some experts hold these are gnomes, just assuming different forms. Others point to the unusually high numbers of disappearances in the area and suggest the the gnomes may sometimes need human stock for their quaint designs.