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We prepared our equipment and notebooks to set out on our first
day of observation of our lost city. After several hours past dawn I remarked that
the sun's rays were still run as if it were still dawn. On my noting this our host
bade me to ascend a ladder to the roof. As I ascended I saw the sky was a steely
grey and on mounting a small platform atop the house we looked out over the city
which extended in all directions save that toward the mouth of the great tunnel.
Under the instruction of our host I looking toward the sun.
It formed a very dull red disk with a strange hallow many times it size an even
fainter tone. After a moment of confusion, I noticed that the hallow was not
concentric with the sun and the sun was much too high in the sky to be near the
horizon. I though I was be observing the sun through a great dust storm. Looking
behind me to assess the surrounding weather I saw that more then half the dome
of the sky was dark, almost as night but devoid of stars and above me a large
faint orb. So large was this orb that I ducted as if to avoid it be struck.
It was a dull mid gray only slightly lighter then the surrounding sky. I could
make out no features on its surface despite its colossal, size. My host grabbed me
by the arm to steady me as my brain swam with confusion. Why was this object not
drawn into the Earth. It seemed not to move at all despite the passage of an hour.
and the sun's hallow grew ever more eccentric.
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I summoned the rest of the party
as I could no longer trust my observation. As each toke his turn on the roof top
platform and returned in confusion. On returning to the platform I now noted
no change in the great orb, but that the disk of the sun was now occulted.
It appeared as a three quarters Moon very near its setting. Its disk seamed
cut by the edge of its hallow as it had grown so eccentric that the sun's disk
now rested at the hallows very edge. As I watch the sun's disk grew ever slighter
until it disappeared entirely leaving only the hallow. I returned my chamber
in a stupor of confusion.
asked my host if some great storm or disaster was imminent, but he reassured me
that all was perfectly normal. He when on to explain that the great orb remained
perfectly still in the sky, although it did from time to time grow with fire
on its surface. The sun would return the nest day and shine through what I had
mistakenly taken to be a hallow. He assured me that the feature was an oculus
through which the sun shown. In my confusion I asked if we were within the
great dome of some mountain, but instead he explained we were in the hollow of
the very Earth itself.
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