#aridhol

It's an abandoned city. Like. Not a living soul. Creepy asf.

There aren't even animals.

The city isn't consumed by vegetation.

How are these not big enough hints?

The place's new name is Shadar Logoth. Moiraine told them that. They just ignored what it could imply.

But wait! There's more!

They sneak out without telling anyone. Because if they tell someone, they won't be allowed to go adventuring.

They *knew* they had no business leaving the group. And they chose to make excuses about why it would be ok to completely ignore common fucking sense to go roaming around an abandoned city on their own. They work very hard to rationalize why it would be safe, which means that they know instinctively it is not safe.

If anything, Thom Merrilin dropped the ball by leaving them unsupervised once he finished with his horse duties. Which, seriously, 18 year olds need supervision? (Yes, sadly, they do.)

Bonus:

They follow some guy named More Death. Because that's not a giant red flag. Woolheads is accurate.

Mat shook his head scornfully. "Lan said they wouldn't come in here, remember? You need to listen to what people say."

"I remember," Perrin said. "And I do listen. This city — Aridhol? — was an ally of Manetheren. See? I listen."

"Aridhol must have been the greatest city in the Trolloc Wars," Rand said, "for the Trollocs to still be afraid of it. They weren't afraid to come into the Two Rivers, and Moiraine said Manetheren was — how did she put it? — a thorn to the Dark One's foot."

Perrin raised his hands. "Don't mention the Shepherd of the Night. Please?"

"What do you say?" Mat laughed. "Let's go."

"We should ask Moiraine," Perrin said, and Mat threw up his hands.

"Ask Moiraine? You think she'll let us out of her sight? And what about Nynaeve? Blood and ashes, Perrin, why not ask Mistress Luhhan while you're about it?"

Perrin nodded reluctant agreement, and Mat turned to Rand with a grin. "What about you? A real city? With palaces!" He gave a sly laugh. "And no Whitecloaks to stare at us."

Rand gave him a dirty look, but he hesitated only a minute. Those palaces were like a gleeman's tale. "All right."

Stepping softly so as not to be heard in the front room, they left by the alley, following it away from the front of the building to a street on the other side. They walked quickly, and when they were a block away from the white stone building Mat suddenly broke into a capering dance.

"Free." He laughed. "Free!" He slowed until he was turning a circle, staring at everything and still laughing. The afternoon shadows stretched long and jagged, and the sinking sun made the ruined city golden. "Did you ever even dream of a place like this? Did you?"

Perrin laughed, too, but Rand shrugged uncomfortably. This was nothing like the city in his first dream, but just the same... "If we're going to see anything," he said, "we had better get on with it. There isn't much daylight left."

these 2 go together: “Later Aridhol died, and this place was called by another name.”

Mat showing exceptional judgment of character by trusting a guy named Mordeth who won't step out of shadows. Also setting himself up for a lot of future content.

The full text for this scene takes up like a whole page so instead you get Moiraine quoting some quality lore.

Get ready for Shadar Logoth, my favourite of all suspiciously bad sounding cities. I always loved the idea of Shadar Logoth, it’s just one of those imminently cool worldbuilding setups. 

I started one of the Schoolism courses for environment design the other week so I think it would be nice to revisit this at the end of it and see how I can make it better (the scale is still a bit wrong for the book description but I keep telling myself these are learning exercises and not to get too hung up on them).