The sun sank lower toward the jagged western horizon. Then, painting the underbelly of the clouds in fiery bands of tangerine, apricot, and deep violet, the true visual grandeur of the Eternal Cedar Bathhouse came into sharp focus.
Perched on the highest eastern cliff of the Floating Mountain, the site occupied a natural promontory that thrust outward into empty space like the prow of a huge sky flagship. Two thousand meters below lay nothing but a vast, waving ocean of white clouds that stretched uninterrupted toward the ends of the world.
To fully embrace this boundless vista without sacrificing comfort, the stonework couldn’t rely on heavy, claustrophobic stone walls. It needed to breathe.
Da Shi stepped to the edge of the cliff edge. The Basalt Golem Sovereign stood ten feet tall, his body composed of polished fiery black glass and veins of radiant sapphire crystal that pulsed with underground life-force. Beside him, six black glass golems hauled massive four-foot-thick beams of seasoned storm-cedar, maneuvering the huge timbers with the easy grace of gardeners handling flower stems.
“Anchor point alpha-nine engaged,” Da Shi’s deep, earth-shaking voice shook through the rock, sounding like two land-wide plates grinding in peaceful harmony. “Counter-weight dark rock pins sunk thirty arm-lengths into bedrock. The deep pit holds no fear for the earth.”
