Ambiguberg

On the western coast of Annulus, there is a magnificent city. It is like any other city except for one rather extraordinary feature, it could move itself. You see, once construction on the core of the city was completed, the founders dedicated it to liberty and freedom. They required no moral code for the city dwellers save that they do what was right in their own eyes. This gave the city no foundation.

Soon after the founding ceremony, the city blocks began to shift. The city was rearranging itself. The inhabitants thought this phenomenon wonderful. Their city should be able to decide for itself where it wanted to be. The inhabitants knew there was no city in the world that could compare to theirs and proudly determined never to leave it.

Soon the city was rearranging itself so much that none of the inhabitants knew where they worked, where they lived, or where they could find anything specific. However, this inconvenience didn’t disturb them. They adapted by becoming very fast and efficient in order to cover the most ground in the least amount of time.

After a time, the constant shifting caused a tiny hole to open in the center of the city. The hole became known as the “anomaly”. Though the founders and all the brilliant engineers tried, they could not seal it up. Instead, they warned the inhabitants to avoid the area. The anomaly increased in size because of the grinding effect of the shifting. To compensate for the loss of land and infrastructure the anomaly consumed, they expanded the perimeter of the city.

One day, a visitor arrived. He noticed the inhabitants running around anxiously looking for their homes, places of work and family members. He examined the hazardous streets. When the city shifted, the anomaly would swallow up entire buildings with all their inhabitants.

The visitor asked the founders why they did not simply build a foundation for the city to stop the shifting. Their reasonable response was to throw the visitor into the anomaly.