The amount of time since someone last walked the streets of Akmetan is no doubt in the thousands of years. Some of the buildings are nothing more than piles of rubble. Others remain standing, but appear ready to collapse at any moment. Thick layers of vines, trees, and other jungle plants cover all of them. I assume these plants, in some cases, actually keep the structures from collapsing under the effects of time.
We managed to find an entrance to the tower, the tallest structure in the ruins. Krista’Mil had to burn through the thick plants, but we finally went inside. It was cool and damp, and long plant roots dangled from cracks in the ceiling. Dirt covered the floor, as thousands of years’ worth of accumulated decomposed plant material is apt to do. There were a few pieces of pottery, but anything softer had decomposed years before. It was nice to learn the inside of the tower was more structurally sound than it appeared from the outside. Most of the rooms in the tower were like this. Some of the stonework was also impressive, with decorative friezes of ancient scenes and designs carved into the walls.
The farther up the tower we explored, the more ornately decorated the rooms were. Pelmarco found an unbroken pot, and dumped out the contents. It was mostly dirt, but several ancient coins rolled onto the floor. The writing on the coins identified them as minted during the reign of the Great King Emanpugnikam. We assumed these effectively date the demise of these ruins. In the top of the tower, or at least the highest level we could reach, the room was open to the jungle since everything above it collapsed. We discovered a number of interesting things on this level. The first was broken glass scattered beneath the mounds of dirt. Elendra’Tel believes the tower was once a beacon to guide ships to the city long ago. The second was an oddly shaped pot containing quite a few untarnished dinner forks. Elendra’Tel cannot guess the origin of the pot, nor why the pot was stored at the top of the tower. Perhaps we’ll never know.