Zafforza Trench

Zafforza Trench is a slightly curved trench that is 863 miles long and 173 miles at the widest part with a maximum depth of about 5 miles (The Shinkai Rift is the exception, being deepest location within the Trench). Its walls are sheer, spiraling slope of basalt, obsidian-veined stone, and ancient coral growth, layered by a millennia of tectonic shifts and slow biological accretion. At the narrowest points, the trench walls loom so close that light from above is reduced to faint, wavering ribbons. At its deepest points, natural light is entirely absent.

At various depths, the trench open into pressure-stable vaults, natural hollows where the rock has compacted into smooth, resonant chambers. Many of these spaces have been turned into cellarettes, archives, ritual halls, and fortified residences that have become a part of Zafforza City. Literomantic barriers are in place in some areas to hold the ocean back. The Tomesmas Reef has been built just outside Zafforza City, growing larger as new sections are added every year.

The deepest regions of the trench remain unmapped. Molluscan charts end abruptly at the end opposite from the City, at what has become known as Still Drop. The Asteri has highly discouraged exploration beyond this point, citing 'geographic instability.' Whispers say the trench doesn't end there. It opens. The Asteri do not confirm or deny these whispers but the Shinkai Rift is here, guarded by The Cosmic Kraken Striker.

When the first Cosmic Kraken came to Earth, sometime during the neolithic era, they decided to make their home in the Pacific Ocean, near what is now known as Japan, because there they could hide from the view of regular humans, and it was large enough to contain them in their original, nascent capacity. So they found a trench, already of considerable size, and expanded and reformed it to become their home. Eventually, this would become known as the Zafforza Trench.

Because of their loneliness and the face that they liked humans, they brought some under the sea. Their first attempt wasn't successful. After giving it some thought, they found a deserted underwater city out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It was big, beautiful, and perfect. The Cosmic Kraken decided to move the abandoned city to the Zafforza Trench, and rebuild it so that humans could keep them company. Inscriptions that still exist in the city today, name it Atlantis.

Over the millennia Zafforza Trench has been explored and populated. With Zafforza City as we know it built on top of the ruins that are now being excavated, and which extend beyond the city limits.

Zafforza Trench is open to those who'd like to explore it, with option for tours outside the city as long as one is willing to be escorted around in an air pocket. The only time tours are expected to cease is during the The Word Wars in November, for safety reasons.