A twisted spire of gold chrome on the ridge, polished daily by workers who cannot afford to live within six districts of it.
Mapped The streets and the spire are laid out in the build. The Tribunal, the vendors and the quests are the game's design.
The Coil is Meridian's headquarters, a helix twisted like a drill bit or a strand of the alloy the company profits from. It shows from most of the walkable city.
Meridian runs it and nobody else does. Inside are the Licensed board, the audit halls where Ledger works, the Licensing Tribunal, Cascade Media's newsroom, Bastion Mutual's claims office and the Counting House's liaison desk.
Eight avenues run straight at the spire and end at the Chain Gates, where the apron begins. Flyers on Skybreak learn its venting schedule and let the city lift them.
An arch stands where each avenue reaches the apron, with a checkpoint bolted onto it, so the base of the spire is ringed in paperwork. Officers posted here police customs and leave people alone. It is the easiest posting in Meridian Security. How the checkpoints work has the rest.
The spire's south face drops away as an escarpment down to the river, with a waterfall on it. The Catena Cut runs past its foot on the way to the Junction. Four setback galleries on the spire make perches with the best views in the city.
The queue at the renewal windows has its own rules. People hold each other's places, nobody jumps the line, and nobody says what they are renewing. News moves fastest in it, because people stand there for hours, sorted by district, with nothing to do but talk.
Its clerk is known to be kind. The queue there is always four times longer than at the other windows, and Meridian has never asked why.
Real plants, in beds you may look at and may not sit beside.
SIX BEDS · LIVING SOIL · SEATING IS NOT PROVIDED.
Designed The dome and its alignment rules are the game's design.
The Coil's anti-air dome is meant to wave Licensed Legends through, warn Ghosts and punish the Blacklisted. Flight itself is legal in the Coil's shadow. The suppression lattice damps hostile discharge and leaves movement alone. Above the dome the air is legally nobody's, so a Legend can perch on the crown of the building whose basement processes them.
Almost nobody lives in the Coil, for the size of it. The cleaners are bussed in from districts far out, and lunch is eaten standing on the apron because the benches are decorative. The lights in the audit halls never go off.
The murals stop three blocks out. They went up where the work was, and the work was never in the Coil, because the Coil had generators.
We're the reason there's a city to complain about.
WINDOWS 1–8 · GENERAL RENEWAL — WINDOW 9 · GENERAL RENEWAL.
Waiting times are not posted, as they are not measured.
HOLD PLACES. DON'T JUMP. DON'T ASK WHAT ANYONE'S RENEWING.
Annual renewal is assessed against declared Chassis budget. Larger declarations carry a larger assessment. This is risk pricing and is not a penalty.
SIX DISTRICTS OUT. IN BEFORE DAWN.
9
TURN IT UP OR TURN IT OFF
Designed
Meridian Combine hands out its quests and alignment work here. The Licensing Tribunal sits here, along with the insurance counter, a hardware vendor and a contract annex that posts reconciliation contracts.
The Circuit, Meridian's sanctioned venue for duels, is here, and so is a penthouse door for a Legend who wants a den above the city.