Aqueduct

The Aqueduct of Aelyria Prime is actually a series of eleven aqueducts that provide running water to the Capital City. Unlike anything that had come before it, eleven aqueduct lines carry fresh water to the citizens of Aelyria Prime in quantities exceeding five hundred million gallons a day from springs in the Khardran Mountains miles away. The Aqueduct fostered the growth of an urban culture and its impressive network was built over the course of several centuries during the Age of Queens. It was the clairvoyant and enchanting High Queen Charisma who had the greatest impact upon the construction of the Aqueduct network.

Construction

Shortly after Queen Charisma came to power, she brought with her urban planners from her home city of Daltina to court at Aelyria Prime, and constructed two major aqueducts: the Aqua Charisma and Amnio Novis. In principle, the Aqueduct works simple: water seeks its lowest level and therefore one can run water down a slope from one area to another. However, the practice of creating the Aqueduct was a different proposition altogether. Aelyrians engineered their Aqueducts to approach the city on a gradual declining angle, or gradient. That gradient was just several inches every one hundred feet. The slope of the Aqueduct had to be calculated from great distances -- twenty, thirty, or sometimes forty miles -- from the source of the mountains to Aelyria Prime. This had to be consistent and could not deviate regardless of terrain. To maintain the water's precise descent through hills and mountains, Royal Engineers dug perfectly angled tunnels through them. When the pipelines reached low valleys, they were elevated on stone walls.

If the walls had to be higher than six and a half feet above ground, the Aelyrian laborers saved materials by perfecting the engineering concept of the Arch. Arches were built around a temporary wooden framework that held the stones in place until a keystone would be slated in the center. The Keystone evenly distributes weight along the arch, allowing workers to stack additional stones above it. A sixty mile column of arches carried water from the foothills of the Khardran Mountains along the Aqueducts to the Eternal City. After reaching the city, each Aqueduct emptied into three holding tanks: one for the public drinking fountains; a second for the public baths; and, a third for nobles and wealthy merchants who paid for their own running water.