Location from Cradle by Will Wight
A beautiful mountain valley hiding a terrible truth — its residents live under a suppression field that caps their advancement at Jade, and none of them know it.
Sacred Valley feels wrong to any sacred artist who enters from outside. The aura is thin, cycling is difficult, and advancement grinds to a halt at Jade — a stage that the outside world considers barely above civilian. The residents don't notice because they've never known anything else. They hold tournaments, maintain clan rivalries, and treat their Jades as mighty warriors, completely unaware that a single Gold from outside could destroy every fighter in the valley. The suppression field exists to contain Subject One in the Labyrinth beneath the valley. It's been active for so long that the clans have built entire cultures around the limitations it imposes, treating the ceiling as natural law rather than artificial constraint. The valley smells like mountain flowers and old stone, and the training grounds echo with the sounds of artists practicing techniques that would be considered beginner exercises anywhere else.
A lush valley ringed by towering mountains, with terraced rice paddies, training grounds, and clan compounds nestled among ancient trees. Mount Samara rises at the northern end, its peak wreathed in perpetual clouds that glow faintly with vital aura. The valley looks idyllic — peaceful, pastoral, untouched by the conflicts that rage across the rest of Cradle. It's a cage that looks like a garden.
Also known as: Sacred Valley, the Valley, SV