The Ancient Lighthouse

I'd been decorating for the Christmas season at Valis, and went off in search of ice skates for skating on the pool at the base of our waterfall. But as so much in SL is transitory, I was not surprised the link I followed to a skating rink in Wollaston lead me now to an open field. I was about to turn back when in the distance, against the night sky, I saw an Ancient Lighthouse on a rocky promontory. Not being a girl to shirk off an adventure I figured I had to explore it.

After and arduous climb over rocks and across tumbled pillars I made my way to staircase on the side of the mountain. Treacherous and steep, I slipped, and found myself falling through a crack in the rock into a subterranean cave. It was a beautiful grotto with a tiny waterfall, but to my horror I found I could not get out. the only staircase in there led to sheer rock walls. Then in a back corner I spied the trunk. No treasure, unless you could count a landmark that led me out as treasure. The night was past and dawn breaking by the time I made my way back to the stairs and began again the long climb to the top of the light house.

I made good time to a balcony about halfway up the towers. Some kind soul had left a bottle of wine and two cups there, so I fortified myself while I took a breather to look at the scenery. Back across the fields I had traveled I could see great statues of mythical beasts in the distance. To the north was a huge cathedral floating in the sky. Something to explore another day, I thought. To the west of the Lighthouse were some ordinary SL bungalows, and nestled at the eastern base of the Lighthouse itself, just on the other side of a waterfall that spilled from unknown springs at the mountain top, was a small shop (of course, there is always a shop, this is SL after all!) built among the beautiful Grecian ruins.

An iron-bound door led me to an interior room of lovely mosaic floors with a map and an impressive globe. This room opened onto a balcony where lovers (it was clear by the pose balls) must have sat to enjoy the view of the ruins below. But who were they, those lovers who built this place? I continued my explorations in the hope of finding out.

Twisting stairs took me past a room with an astrolabe and beautiful dolphin mosaics on the floor lit by the once again setting sun. Then up and up higher to the topmost room, where I sat and rested my feet and my mind. This lovely place, this seat, was meant for two and I could only wish that my beloved could be there with me. A peek at the architecture gave me the builder's name, Hacker Jannings, jewelry designer, and that of his lovely wife, Lillyanne Lustre, fashion designer, it is their shop in the ruins below. Ironic, I thought as what they had built so paralleled my own life and place in Valis.

I sat for a while and watched the growing dusk, thinking of all the SL lovers, all those who build fantastic places for their beloveds, and those who walk with their lovers in search of such treasures to share. With a smile I let my teleport carry me home.