Black Brine

The Black Brine Library is where the city pretends to remember, and quietly hopes to forget. A monument to knowledge carved from the bones of older empires, it serves as a public archive, schoolhouse, and refuge for the ink-stained and mad. Scribes, scholars, and charlatans rub elbows under its vaulted ceilings, all chasing truths sharp enough to cut. It’s the only place in Black Brine where questions outnumber weapons. Classes are held beside reading rooms, street urchins scribble beside philosophers, and the scent of wet parchment clings to every robe and cloak. Beneath it all lies the Deep Locker—warded, sealed, and whispered about—a vault of tomes too cursed, dangerous, or divine for daylight. In a city ruled by coin and superstition, the Library is the only temple that worships thought. But knowledge here is never free. And some pages, once turned, won’t let you go.

Shining in the Black Mire district like a jewel discarded in a mound of cow dung. Stone and coral fused by time and stubborn will, the Black Brine Library looms across the square—part cathedral, part keep, part something older still. Ivy creeps up the buttresses like it’s trying to remember its place. Lanterns burn low behind arched windows, casting long shadows over the cobbled promenade that leads inside. The doors are thick oak, iron-banded and always slightly ajar, as if daring the curious to test their nerve. Step through, and silence swallows you whole. Dust motes dance above worn volumes stacked like fortifications. Statues of forgotten sages stare down from alcoves with judging eyes. Somewhere deeper, behind locked gates and whispered warnings, the Deep Locker waits, bloated with secrets no sane man should chase. It’s a place where knowledge has teeth. And where every answer begs a better question.