"The gates opened onto a large oval surrounded by high walls. In the centre of the site stood the grey decaying skeleton of what had once been a substantial building. Here and there a wall was still standing in mournful isolation. Pathetically deprived of any function, they were punctuated by small gaps where their windows had once been and terminated rudely in jagged edges. Most of the uprights of the building had vanished, however, leaving only the lines of their foundations. The rest of the site was a mass of shattered stone, debris which varied from huge slabs of masonry to dense beaches of pebbles. Groups of builders were scuttling around the site. One gang were fitting grappling irons and ropes onto a wall, preparing to pull it into oblivion. Closer to Kenner and Calli came the jarring cracks another gang methodically shattering boulders with their pickaxes.
""It was the largest magical workshop outside the Academy itself, did you know that?" Calli continued mournfully. "And now it's all gone. A crying shame."
"Kenner didn't comment at first. He shared the more common sentiment, which was extreme satisfaction seeing the Serpent Laboratory reduced to a pile of rubble. He could mentally picture the appearance of the laboratory; a tall, conical central building, surrounded by smaller structures which were small and domed like icehouses, all linked by a network of covered walkways. The stone was rumoured to be reinforced with lead, colouring it almost jet black. Unlike the Baelan the Serpent Laboratory did possess windows but all heavily barred; the doors were always shut and the whole compound was closed to outsiders. Kenner had never seen it while it was still operational but had acquired images from numerous pictures and sketches. These had proliferated in his youth because the Serpent Laboratory had become a symbol for everything wrong with the Academy.
"There had been an outcry when Forgar Council first agreed to let the Baelan build the laboratory in the 1200's. With relish the wizards had announced it to be a centre for testing and constructing magical items, a groundbreaking site of sorcerous innovation. The people of Forgar certainly didn't think they wanted that sort of thing on their doorsteps. For the first few decades it seemed innocuous enough, but then an increasing amount of bizarre events began to surround it. At first these were disturbing but harmless. For several days of each year it whined at a frequency which set every piece of metal for miles around vibrating gently. Sickly fogs occasionally sneaked out and engulfed the neighbourhood. One night a pillar of light suddenly shot out of the roof of the central building, shining hundreds of feet in the air. The nearby River Brulos was once dyed a vivid pink, though the Baelan argued with some justification that Forgar's workshops spilled so many natural pollutants into the water that it hardly made a difference. More serious was the growing number of babies born with physical deformities close to the Serpent Laboratory. Then in 1321 a row of houses facing the laboratory were vaporised. It happened in an second; the stone was transformed into running lava, instantly killing the dozens of families living in them. The Baelan wizards only pacified a hastily arranged lynch mob by declaring the Serpent Laboratory closed, pending an investigation. Huwdone House ensured that it would never re-open..."
"...For a decade after its closure the Serpent Laboratory had stood bricked up and abandoned. The whole site was said to be too contaminated by magic to be approached safely but the wizards and the civic politicians were too busy bickering to release it from its limbo. Locals sometimes gathered at the gates, to chant or throw stones or just to gape at the eerie spectacle. The problem might have been solved by "democratic demolition" - storming it and burning it to the ground - but fear caused people to keep their distance. Kenner remembered having a ogle himself one day. The silent, forbidding structure had reminded him of the 'spirit huts' of Torgun legend, dwellings which are sealed up to trap the ghosts inside. Finally the Baelan agreed to give the Serpent Laboratory up as lost. They began a decontamination process, which lasted up to the end of 1334, then sold the site back to Forgar Council.
(from A Shining Light)