Melusa

🔈 (meh-LOO-sah)

Melusa is an isolated Zimka village of 400-500 people in Zeyfa’s Realm, a mist-bound place whose cliffs and floating islands resemble the Great Chasm. Its inhabitants speak Old Zimkovan and live under the fey lord Forquarion, whom they call Malquin the Vaqar.

Most of the village consists of stone houses that cluster on a broad cliffside ledge around a waterfall-fed pool teeming with salmon. Rope bridges connect the village to two floating islands: one supports grazing cattle, the other lush fruit trees and crops. A third island holds Forquarion’s palace of ice.

Life and Beliefs

Most of the time, a pale sun hangs almost motionless behind gray clouds. Rarely, it fades, and day turns to night. When this happens, the villagers believe a sacrifice must be sent into the labyrinth before daylight can return. Without a normal cycle of day and night, a gong from the palace marks the hours for sleeping and waking.

The villagers say their ancestors were brought here by Zeyfa to escape a great tragedy, and regard Malquin as Zeyfa’s lieutenant. Rumors of other Kestavo survive only as distant, half-remembered stories in Melusa. The elders preach endurance, treating their isolation as punishment for ancestral sins, while Zahara, Iskander, and a small circle of dissidents seek a way out.

The Chasm Explorers

In January 1730, Kalima led the Chasm Explorers to Melusa after their escape from the labyrinth. Strange cracks had opened in the cliff, but palace guards and a giant ice wolf barred the only apparently safe route back to the Great Chasm.

After bargaining with Forquarion for passage, the explorers later returned to evacuate roughly thirty-five willing villagers before the portal pulled away from the cliff. Most villagers stayed behind; their subsequent fate remains unknown.