The Roof of the Neath

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"The stalactites drip down all around. There is nary a bat, nor the faintest wind. Here is a peace which one can never know in London, where there is always the maddening crowd bustling by, or hawkers screeching the virtue of rotten meat, or marsh-wolves interrupting your afternoon picnic."

The Roof of the Neath is the boundary that separates the Neath from the Surface.

Lofty

"The ceiling grows ever closer. The false-stars shine ever brighter. You are among stalactites which glisten with iridescent shine, and the unknown wonders of the upside down world!"

Probably a coincidence.

The roof of the Neath is made of rock said to be "unfathomably" deep. Its underside is dotted with stalactites, many of which are large enough to accommodate entire communities. Stalactites often fall from the roof to the lands down below; Godfall was one such stalactite that landed in the Unterzee. Falling stalactites are a known hazard in London, with Smashtile Alley and Stonefall Copse in the Forgotten Quarter being particularly infamous for this.

The roof can be accessed via dirigible, though London's dirigibles are managed by Mr Fires, and unsanctioned trips to the roof are forbidden. London's contact with the roof is largely minimal barring enterprising academics and failed expeditions; London's only known holding here is New Newgate Prison. While the roof is extremely resilient, it has a few breaches: the Travertine Spiral and the Cumaean Canal can be used to travel to the Surface, and Aestival is an island in the Unterzee lit by sunlight from a hole in the roof above.

Inhabitants

"Bats flock around the dirigible as it rises toward the roof. The glimmer of the False-Stars becomes a glare. Stalactites hang like icicles of bone, the citadels of the Starved Men carved into them, empty windows like yawning eye sockets."

A shard of glim.

The roof may seem barren and remote, but it is in fact teeming with life. Moon-misers are large insectoids that emit a bright glow seen from the ground, known in London as "false-stars." They travel across the roof by digging their legs into rock, and shed their carapaces in a process called "glim-fall," raining down shards of glim for gatherers to collect. The roof is also inhabited by Starved Men, who use the Shapeling Arts to warp and transform themselves. They travel the roof via blimps, rope bridges, or by climbing "spider-like," and they carve and tunnel through stalactites to form massive citadels to reside in.

A Starved Man.

During the events surrounding the London Horticultural Show, a massive stalactite was dropped onto London by invading Starved Men, who sought to reshape the city to survive the Fall of the Sixth City. After these Starved were forced to surrender, the Starved Lithologer revealed that another group of Starved were planning on boring a hole in the roof to direct sunlight onto London. Their weapon was an oculus of shaped flesh through which they would focus sunlight, and though the roof was successfully breached, the weapon was ultimately thwarted. In the aftermath, Starved Men worked to repair the gap using the Shapeling Arts. However, according to the Lithologer, the roof would have healed on its own anyway; in their words, this is because the roof, and the Neath itself, are alive.