Maybe if you go far enough, you’ll find places that either appear to be ruins of a civilization or just an empty, pristine location.

Maybe crossing out of the District to the north, you’ll run across a valley with a river at some ill-defined point, and you’ll find a ghost town near the valley’s mouth, with an empty, marbled university standing across the river.

Maybe farther north still, you’ll find an icy, windswept, walled fortress and, incongruously, a fertile green plain next door.

Maybe, veering south across some unmeasured expanse of sea, you’ll come across some henge-spotted islands, one with empty castles still bearing red dragon pennants, the other dotted with hollow hills, and across a little stretch of icy sea, there will be the sunken ruins of some gaudy city.

Maybe further south, the continent loses itself in a lifeless forest, made mostly of trees but partly of bare pikes, and more southerly still you’ll find sunny hills covered with olives and exotic fruits, and split by five rivers.

Maybe, if you go west a bit, you’ll find a series of strange castles, each more fantastic than the last, half in ruins, and veering south again, you’ll find arid steppes dotted with monumental gates and complex burrows.

Maybe, if you sweep west overland, staying near the salty sea, you’ll find the crumbling remains of brick cities, out of which rise perfect ziggurats, and further you’ll find a stretch of great walled cities and fortified islands, and further still you’ll find temples and pyramids inlaid with the faces of half-human creatures.

Maybe, if you sweep back east a bit to a dune-covered, desolate peninsula, you’ll find a thousand rotting pillars jutting out of the desert sand, and a trinket or two if the wind blows right.

Maybe, if you go far to the south, beyond all reasoning, you’ll find great stone formations jutting like teeth from the ocean floor, and a green, warm land where by all rights only ice should be, with great black mountains rising in the distance.

Maybe, if you veer north from there in the correct direction, you’ll eventually run across a tropical rainforest and an arid, rocky desert, and between them, a lifeless city on a lake, and then maybe, if you turn east and go north, you’ll find yourself back at Glass Washington, and you’ll find a dozen newer patches of land in the meantime.