Catt Zago climbed up on the roof of a shack next to the Caravan Depot and surveyed her new surroundings.
It was a beautiful morning in the cursed city of Great Bakak. The rising sun cast striking shadows on the mountains behind the city, and the sky above the vast desert was clear and crisp.
She could see big marble temples and palaces on the foothills. To the west she could see geometric patches of green, the vibrant contrast to the reds and browns of the desert were a welcome sight, although they looked small in relation to the sprawling city.
In the east she could see a jumble of distant buildings with odd archways and too many towers. This was probably the wizard university that she had heard other travellers talking about.
The rest of the space between the mountains and the desert was filled with smaller, less impressive buildings, most two or three stories tall, sun-weathered gray slums with narrow unseen streets lacing between them. Somewhere nearby over the next sand dune were numerous thin columns of smoke, and the smell of roast spiced meat was on the air.
The city was big and alive, and it looked so much better than she had hoped to find at the end of such a long and desolate road. She didn't give the desert a second look before climbing back down off the roof and slipping away from the caravan without paying the safe-arrival fee.