The city of Bestat has long been something of a conundrum for cartographers. The home of the stone folk cannot be reached through conventional means. No compass will point its way, no star bears direction to it. The landscape which surrounds Bestat bears no resemblance to any known portion of the mortal realm. One could walk or fly the world full over, and never find Bestat. There is only one clear indicator as to the location of the city.

All roads lead through Bestat, proper roads at least.

The sorts of roads that a person can look at and go, ‘yeah, that’s a road.’ All such manmade conventions of travel lead through Bestat. Game trails and meadow lanes, ill kept mountain track, and the like, do not lead through the city.

It is unclear why or how.

The answer, most likely, is magicks. However, as this is the sort of answer that makes the Crag terribly upset, it is generally not talked about.

Where is Bestat? It is on the road. Where else is Bestat? Nowhere. How can this be? That is one of the many mysteries of the world.

A traveler on a quick trip, perhaps walking down a country road from town to their grandmother's house out in the woods, might only barely notice Bestat. They may glimpse it in the shape of a strange stone door, elaborately decorated and strangely out of place. The traveler could walk by quickly, passing unmolested on in their journey, or they might open the door and find themselves in the heart of Bestat’s central square, at the foot of a mountain surrounded by rolling gray hills riddled with marble.

A traveler on a longer journey down a road would find themselves passing through the city directly. Travel from Rej’tak, capital of southern Lorn, to Klep, the worlds’ most northern city, and somewhere along the way it is guaranteed that you’d find yourself walking through Bestat.

All roads pass through Bestat, but no roads lead there. A person may not set out to Bestat without another destination in mind. If one attempts to travel directly to Bestat they would simply find themselves going to wherever the road actually led.

Merchants who seek to profit from the city's crossroads nature must undergo meticulous mental training to ensure that they can trick themselves into heading to somewhere other than their actual destination. Other merchants, who wish to go where they are headed directly without accidental forrays, must train themselves to always think of the city as they journey, to lie to themselves about their destination in order to avoid it.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Due to Bestat’s nebulous location it is something of a melting pot. With each travel bringing their own locale and location along with them. Everyone in Bestat still remains wherever they have come from. A man on the road to Qae who is passing through Bestat is still on the road to Qae. When he enters the city and steps off the road, he has only to take the main road through the central square, out of the city, in order to find himself back amongst green rolling hills and gentle plains. For even if Bestat is nowhere else in the world, everyone in Bestat is on the road to somewhere.

It is therefore common for a person in Bestat to ask others upon meeting, along with their formal address, where they are.

For example, “Well met stranger. I am Karlen of Lorn, they who slew a wilderbeast, and I am on the road to Ret’jak. Where do you find yourself?”

“A pleasure Karlen, I am Jayce Henning, he who wrote the Codus Arton, and I am on the road to Klep.”

And so on.

Now, careful consideration of the maickal geographic properties involved might lead one to quickly grasp the strange position this creates for those born in Bestat. A person born in Bestat has not reached it on the road. They are on the road to nowhere, coming directly from the city with no location to speak of. Those in such positions are therefore capable of heading anywhere.

If a person who is born in Bestat chooses to leave, taking the main road to walk out of town, they could, once and only once, take this road anywhere. The Crag born of Bestat were given the potential of the world as their birthright. A wonderful idea in concept, and logistically an absolute nightmare.

Say a Crag family in Bestat decided to move, well it was damned hard to do so when everyone was on the road to somewhere different. You couldn’t have Auntie walking off to the pleasure courts of the thousand isles while Uncle headed thousands of leagues away through the many hills.

Out of this was born an old tradition, meant to fix the problem. When a Crag child is old enough to take the road somewhere (instead of being taken somewhere, which didn’t really count), their parents would go out on the road with them. Together they would both head to Somewhere Else, the only other city of the Crag, which existed `comfortably, and definitively, in the endless plains. Thus it was ensured that most Crag in Bestat were in the same place, on the road to Somewhere Else despite not having been born on the road to anywhere.

This ceremony had been denied of Naeris Farken. Crag children who had been found to be irregular were not permitted to partake in such ceremonies. The fear being, of course, that their minds would wander. Denied ceremony, they could not officially mature to adulthood in the eyes of the Crag, and they remained as youth until such a time as they could be trusted.

To be granted the seal of approval from Authors on the mountain to walk the road was to be granted clemency from the crimes of youth. It meant that a Crag child was ready to enter the greater world, to be trusted on all roads as a representative of their people.

It was a great and terrifying thing. Particularly since Naeris Farken was a rotten liar.