Location from Cradle by Will Wight
Northstrider's pocket world — a collapsing research facility where he experimented with dream madra, hunger aura, and the limits of what a sacred artist's mind could become.
Ghostwater was Northstrider's greatest research project: an isolated world where he could experiment with hunger madra integration and dream-madra computation without interference. He built it, stocked it with specimens and resources, and then abandoned it when his research shifted directions — leaving behind an ecosystem of cultivated creatures, failing containment systems, and one accidentally sentient mind-spirit. The world is collapsing — its spatial anchors are degrading, the creatures inside are evolving without oversight, and the resources stored here are being consumed by the system's failure. It's a treasure vault and a death trap in equal measure, which is why Northstrider sent promising young sacred artists inside as both a test and a salvage operation.
An artificial world contained within a spatial pocket — lush tropical islands floating in an impossible sea, with research facilities hidden beneath the surface. The sky is artificial, the climate is controlled, and the boundaries of the world are visible as shimmering walls of compressed space. The facility is in decay — systems failing, barriers breaking down, cultivated creatures running loose. The central laboratory contains the dream well where Dross was born.
Also known as: Ghostwater, Northstrider's pocket world