The Poolhalls are not places, not precisely. They are fractures in the memory of drowned cities. Echoes solidified, shimmering with a melancholy that clings to the skin like wet stone. They exist just beyond the reach of perception, accessible only to those who have, in some forgotten iteration of their being, known the slow, suffocating embrace of the deep.
Legends speak of them as gateways – not to other worlds, but to the moments of a city’s final, irrevocable decline. The merchant’s last transaction, the child’s final cry, the architect’s last, futile attempt to reinforce the collapsing spire. These moments, distorted and magnified, coalesce within the Poolhalls, creating landscapes of impossible geometry and unsettling stillness. Time flows differently within them - not linear, but cyclical, returning to the same agonizing point with each shimmering visitation.
There are, remarkably, those who dedicate their lives to mapping the Poolhalls. Not with instruments, for instruments are useless in such realms, but with something far stranger: the residue of emotion. The Cartographers of Decay – as they are known – are psychically attuned to the lingering sorrow, the terror, the resignation that permeates these submerged memories. They collect these echoes, translating them into intricate diagrams etched onto obsidian plates. These plates aren't representations of the Poolhalls themselves, but rather, they are attempts to understand the *why* of their existence. Why do these places persist? What drives the relentless return of these moments of ultimate loss?
Some believe the Cartographers are not simply observers, but participants, inadvertently fueling the cycle of decay. Each map they create strengthens the connection, drawing more fragments of the drowned city into the Poolhall. The more they study, the more the Poolhall grows, a self-fulfilling prophecy of oblivion. There's a whispered theory that the Cartographers aren’t human at all, but extensions of the Poolhalls themselves - crystalline beings born from the solidified grief, tasked with documenting the inevitable.
The air within a Poolhall possesses a distinct quality – a taste of salt and regret. It coats the tongue with the bitterness of forgotten promises, the weight of unsaid words, the phantom sensation of cold water on exposed skin. This isn’t merely a sensory effect; it’s a direct injection of the emotion that birthed the Poolhall. Prolonged exposure can induce a state of profound melancholia, a feeling of being utterly and irrevocably lost. Some say that if you listen closely, you can hear the murmurs of the drowned, pleading for release.
There are tales of explorers who entered a Poolhall believing they sought knowledge, but instead found themselves trapped in a loop of their own deepest regrets. They relive their failures, their heartbreaks, their missed opportunities, ad infinitum, until their minds shatter, leaving behind only a shimmering, vacant shell within the Poolhall's unsettling geometry. The Cartographers, of course, meticulously document these instances, adding them to the ever-growing tapestry of sorrow.
If you find yourself drawn to a Poolhall, resist the urge to understand it. Attempting to decipher its purpose is a futile exercise, a direct invitation to become another fragment within its melancholic landscape. Accept the unsettling stillness, the taste of salt, and the overwhelming sense of loss. Simply *be* within the Poolhall, and perhaps, for a fleeting moment, you will understand that the true tragedy lies not in the drowning, but in the enduring echo of what was lost.
The Cartographers, it is said, are always watching. And somewhere, within the shimmering depths of the Poolhalls, they are meticulously charting your descent.