From above, this area had looked like nothing more than rocky desert

From above, this area had looked like nothing more than rocky desert, hidden in shadows and mottled moonlight. But from the ground, the scale of it all was staggering. Jagged stones loomed over us. What from above had appeared to merely be textures of the earth were revealed to be pieces of old buildings—stone beams and broken columns protruding from the sands, long-buried glimpses of some version of this society that had fallen long ago, worn down by time.