Chapter Three - Homecoming

Rain fell across the gothic spires of Ulgotha, home of more than two million souls and as many people, give or take a few thousand. Agnes Helmsman had once enjoyed the rain, but in recent years the smoke from Slag Valley had given the city's precipitation an unpleasant smell. She stood on the covered entryway to Chimaera Estate, while the water syphoned out through a half-dozen gargoyles in the shape of the building's namesake. A coach she recognised as belonging to her husband had pulled in a few moments earlier, though its side had been painted white, completely erasing the Chimaera Laboratory logo.

"I really don't see why I have to be here, mother." said her son, Roger Blithe. Roger was Agnes' child from her first marriage, and hadn't held a job since his mother had married the wealthy Savant. Viggo couldn't stand the man; the feeling was mutual.

"Because he's your father." said Agnes.

"My father is dead." said Roger.

Agnes was about reprimand her son when a pair of figures came out of the coach. Agnes recognised the shorter of the two as her husband and the other as William Rainsford. Viggo wore a large cloak over his usual work coat, an unusual thing indeed.

"Mrs. Helmsman." called Rainsford. "I have some bad news to report."

"The bastard's still alive, how bad can it be." muttered Blithe.

The two men ascended to the covered entryway. Viggo remained silent, not even making eye contact, far from his usual greeting of a warm hug to his third wife and a gruff scowl at his stepson.

"Perhaps we could go inside." said Rainsford.

"Of course." said Agnes. "Viggo?"

Helmsman merely nodded. Agnes could see that he was wearing the red scarf she'd given him over his face.

They retired to the front room of Chimaera Estate, but Viggo didn't remove his cloak, hood, or scarf. Blithe seemed maliciously curious about what had gone on in Geon that had left his stepfather so visibly broken. At threshold to the room, Viggo put out his arm, barring Blithe's way.

"No." said Viggo. "This is not information for you."

Blithe stalked off with a snort and Viggo shut the door behind him, taking a seat next to Rainsford.

"Mrs. Helmsman," Rainsford began. "This is going to be difficult to comprehend. To be sure, it is a very complicated matter.

"It seems that King Rarc had plan for Geon, only some of which we were told. He desired for his capital to be impregnable, and had heard about your husband's defensive engines that had been installed in Ulgotha. He sent the communique to Ulgotha that he solicited the Savant's services, offering a very generous wage for overseeing the installation of the same engines at Geon."

"Yes, I know." said Agnes. "He also said that part of the pay was with the stipulation that Viggo appear personally. That's why the two of you left. Mr. Rainsford, I dont' know if you're aware that he asked me to accompany him, but I stayed here because my arthritis bothers me on long trips like that."

"Be that as it may, his reasons for requesting the Savant's personal presence were never explained, but in the face of such a lucrative contract the stipulation seemed acceptable. Little were we to know what would unfold in Geon. We spent three weeks installing the apparatus. The day they were finished, we learned of King Rarc's true goals.

"When Rarc decided to make his city invincible, he knew that the Savant understood how to wreck the engines he was installing. Rarc's solution to the problem was to have the Savant assassinated. Nine days ago, your husband was shot with a single bolt, straight in the chest."

Agnes was taken aback. "Well, Viggo, it looks like you're recovering quite well."

Viggo's shoulder's slumped, though no sigh could be heard. "That's just it, dear. I only look like I've recovered."

Rainsford hesitated under Agnes' inquisitive gaze, then continued. "You see, Mrs. Helmsman, the shot was fatal. I saw the Savant fall with my own eyes. The bolt went straight through his heart and came halfway out again. He was dead practically before he hit the ground."

"--But he's right here!" cried Agnes.

"--Let me finish, Mrs. Helmsman. With the Savant dead, I was in command of the employees of Chimaera Laboratory. Because he was clearly dead, I had your husband's body mummified in Geon, with the idea of keeping it preserved long enough for a public funeral back here in Ulgotha. To keep the body safe, I had it temporarily interred in a mausoleum and posted watchmen for the night. We had planned to leave the next day."

"That's when I woke up." said Helmsman. "But I wasn't the man I used to be."

With that, he lowered the hood and slowly undid the scarf. His face was the same it as it had been when he left, but pail as, well, death. Only then did Agnes notice that Viggo's chest didn't rise and fall. Though he sat right there, clearly conscious, he took no breath.

"I...I..." stammered Agnes. "I don't understand."

"Neither do I." said Helmsman. "I don't even remember dying. I was just standing in a market square, and the next thing I knew I was lying in a mausoleum vault."

"As it turned out," said Rainsford. "King Rarc found out about the Savant's return fairly quickly. We managed to escape the city without incident, but by the time we reached the borders a few days later they were looking for us. We'd painted over the coaches to hide the Chimaera insignia, but even so we lost four men and a coach to the Bellaraphonian authorities before we were safely back in Sardipan territory. Turash only knows what's become of them."

Rainsford stopped when he noticed Helmsman clenching his fist in anger. " I don't know what's happened here, but I do know one thing--Rarc has to pay. I say we should burn his god-forsaken country to the ground."

"I've already made an appointment with the Imperator for tomorrow." said Rainsford. "His schedule was full, but being a national hero like your husband makes for special allowances."

"So the Imperator knows about this...condition?" asked Agnes.

"No, not yet." said Helmsman. "It will become public knowledge then. I only hope that being chaired by a dead man doesn't drive Chimaera Laboratory under."

Outside, the rain picked up.

Second Interlude - Strangler's Bridge

The city of Ulgotha was separated into nine boroughs, each of varying quality of life. The general rule was that the further down the course of the River Leshrac, the worse the neighborhoods got as even the water supply became rebellious. Only one borough lie beyond the industrial district known as Slag Valley; by the point the River Leshrac made its way through the borough called Specter's Barrow, it didn't so much flow as ooze. The economic output of the budding factories was more important to the city as a whole than keeping the water potable so far downstream, and so nothing had been done about the industrial dumping that made the River Leshrac undrinkable for the rest of its span.

Not that the denizens of Specter's Barrow particularly minded. It was said that the Middle Barrens was the best part of Ulgotha to raise a family in. It was simply known that Specter's Barrow was the best place to raise the dead.

A tall, gaunt figure strode through the night, trailing white hair. The only noticeable eccentricity about him was that his skin was just a bit too gray. The man walking next to him was decidedly short on skin.

"It's disgusting. It's like they think we're not human!" muttered the gray one.

"Daniel, I've had to put up with their attitudes for nearly a hundred years, and I'm telling you, no amount of diplomacy is going to give us social acceptance." replied his decayed companion.

"So what should we do, start killing them all and eating their flesh? Just what we need, more stereotype reinforcement!"

The pair were Daniel Talon and Roger Maize, two of the top-ranking members of the Sardipan Alliance of Extended Humanity, the premier advocates of undead rights in Sardipa.

"Well, it gets 'em moving." chuckled Maize, his bare jawbones rocking.

"Not funny." he said, crossing a small stone bridge and crossing into the Lower Barrens. A small city-issued sign next to it read "Strangler's Bridge." No sooner had Talon's boots touched the cobblestones then he heard a derisive call directed at him.

"Hey, rotwalkers! Get back in the ground!" yelled a young man standing in front of several others. "Rotwalker" was a slur for the corporeal undead.

"That's uncalled for!" hissed Talon, approaching the men. "If you have an issue with me, you'd best raise it now."

The man pushed Talon back. "My issue is that you don't belong up here. Get out of my city and back in the graveyards where you belong!"

All corporeal undead exhibit the strange phenomenon known as the Strength of Undeath, wherein their decayed limbs show superhuman strength. If he had wanted, Talon could have cracked the insolent bastard's head in half with one strike. However, Talon knew this would only reinforce the idea of undead as monsters, an idea Talon fought against every day.

"So, in other words, you're entirely full of shit. As I thought." Talon turned on his heel and started to walk back to Specter's Barrow. Suddenly, he felt heat on his back.

When Talon turned, he saw the gang of thugs had a pair of torches they had just lit. Being very dry and unable to heal, there were few things the corporeal undead hated more than fire. Refusing to be intimidated, Talon moved quickly for the bridge. Seeing what was unfolding, Maize retreated back across the bridge.

"Hey!" called the thug. "I ain't done with you yet, rotwalker! Get back here!"

Talon heard them approach and quickened his pace. He was nearly across the bridge when they began to run. He stepped onto the cobblestones of Specter's Barrow and waited for his ace in the hole to kick in. They called this place "Strangler's Bridge" for a reason.

As the thugs were halfway across the bridge, a monstrous, waterlogged hand splashed out of the river. It loomed over the startled men for a moment before sweeping down and clutching them all, then dragged them below the surface.

"Interesting fact," said Maize. "No one knows where that Wight came from or why it hates the living so much. Most of them would just as soon go after the undead, but this one only likes 'em warm, only at night, and only if the stars are out. Funny, eh?"

"Funny how they never learn, maybe." spat Talon.

Chapter Two - Late Night at the Bluebird Inn

There were three knocks on William Rainsford's door, waking him from a fitful slumber. He crawled from the unfamiliar bed and came to the door to see a very shaken coachman before him.

"Powell, what are you doing here?" he said. "You're supposed to be watching the Savant's body."

"I...I am." said the boy, nervously tugging his hair. "He came with me."

Rainsford's sleeply mind tried to make sense of what Troy was saying. "Did you...exhume him?"

"No." said another voice. "I exhumed myself."

Standing in the gloom behind Troy was the earthly remains of Savant Viggo Helmsman, still wearing the dress uniform he'd been buried in. Rainsford retreated to his room, lit a lamp and returned to the cold, dark hallway. Holding the lantern up to Helmsman's face, he saw that it was indeed the Savant.

"Viggo, you're alive!" said Rainsford.

"Bill, look at me." said Helmsman. "It's cold in here--you can see Troy's breath and your own. Would you care to guess why mine is curiously absent? Now come on, let us inside and we'll try to work out what's going on here."

Troy lit a fire in the room's fireplace while Helmsman and Rainsford pulled the room's two chairs up to the table. Rainsford was fifty years old and had been in Helmsman's employ since the founding of Chimaera Laboratory thirty years ago. Rainsford had initially been a machinist, but had proven to be more valuable as an administrator, handling most of the public relations of Chimaera Laboratory. He still ran his lathe from time to time, and was in excellent shape as a result of operating the physically demanding machine for so much of his life. Rainsford had a full head of hair that had gone gray before he was thirty but had stuck around, crowning the leathery skin of his face. Though he looked to be purely a muscle man, his pale blue eyes hinted at the intelligence that danced behind them.

"Viggo, I saw you shot down this morning, but now you're here, walking and talking. How is this possible?" asked Rainsford.

"I don't know. I think that...that I am dead. I'm not breathing, I don't have a pulse. I can feel that it's a cold night, but the cold doesn't bother me. I can smell the embalming fluid, and Troy tells that I was mummified...and I don't think I could have survived that. I think I've become one of those dregs from Specter's Barrow." Helmsman's shoulders shrugged as if to sigh, though no air moved.

Rainsford's mind spun. "You may be right. I'm sure we can consult a necromancer from Specter's Barrow if we can get back to Ulgotha, but I'm worried. You were assassinated, Viggo. That much was clear--one shot was fired, and it killed you. Whoever did it knew exactly what they were doing. I'm afraid that whoever decided you were worth killing will try again if they find out that death hasn't stopped you. I think we should wake the others and sneak out of Geon tonight, and make for Ulgotha."

"You want to just run away?" asked Helmsman, his voice indignant. "Somebody bloody well kills me and you want to let them get away with it?"

"Viggo, we are in the hornet's nest. You're a national hero--the Imperator will not react kindly to you execution. I say we head back to Sardipa and convince Imperator Meadows to launch an investigation into what happened here."

"Damn...I hate it when you make sense." Helmsman turned to Troy. "Troy! Go wake the others, tell them there's an emergency and we're leaving the city right now."

"Yes, Savant." Troy picked up a lantern and left the room.

"Now, how do you propose to smuggle me out?" Helmsman asked Rainsford.

"Simple enough. They're expecting us to be bearing a dead body. Let them be right; just hold still and stay silent, and they'll have no idea you're more than they expect."

Helmsman scratched his chin. "Something...something doesn't seem right...there's something important I'm forgetting."

Rainsford thought for a moment. "Did anyone see you like this?"

Helmsman smacked his forehead in frustration. "Yes! Dammit, that was it! There were Guardsmen at the crypt wearing Bellaraphonian insignias! The King must know about it by now. That should ease our progress."

"No, it won't.." said Rainsford. "The assassin shot you in broad daylight with a single bolt. That tells me that someone had to see him and do nothing. They didn't catch him, either. I suspect King Rarc had a hand in this."

"The rat bastard..." muttered Helmsman. "I wouldn't put it past him. Come on, pack up what you have to, we need to move, now!"

"Agreed." said Rainsford, hurriedly dressing.

"I'll meet you at my coach. I'll play dead until we're clear to keep any of the men from getting hysterical." said Helmsman, heading for the stables.

First Interlude - The Power Behind the Throne

The Sardipan Throne Room was different from most Throne Rooms in that it had three thrones. Two were noticeably more ornate and were set back from the floor. They were made of gold and satin, the thrones of King and Queen of Sardipa; figureheads with no more power than a rural peasant. They technically had a great fortune, but were restricted from using it, designating the wealth as an important relic, much like the crown jewels. Closer and lower to the audience chamber sat another throne, this one made of silver and carved ebony--the Throne of the Imperator. On the Western wall was a balcony with seats reserved for the Supreme Administrator and the Chief Consul.

Of the five seats of honor, only two represented any real power. The Supreme Administrator was an impressive title with an extravagant wage that had no actual duties--the position existed so that the ruling Imperator had a position to use as a reward to those who had helped him to achieve power. Due to the relatively rapid overturn of the Imperator's office, this kept the entire system of government from collapsing.

The Chief Consul, however, was the second-highest ranking position in the Sardipan government. He acted as the Imperator's right hand and chief advisor, and only the Imperator could veto his orders. Of the five seats, only the Chief Consul's chair was currently filled.

Nathan Cross, Chief Consul to Imperator Michael Meadows, was accustomed to working nights. Meadows had been fiercely intelligent when he'd come to power fourteen years ago, but had since been worn down by his experiences and was rapidly losing his touch. Meadows was seventy-four years old, and Cross, himself a mere forty-two, was growing increasingly concerned that the old man would die soon, by assassination or no.

Gradually, Cross had taken control of most of the Sardipan government, much to the chagrin of Grand Marshall Victor Holland, head of the Sardipan Army and the number three man in Sardipa.

"I believe I've worked it out." said Cross to his secretary. The secretary looked tired. "The economic slump continues, but I believe I can fix it. All we need is something to create a demand for anything we can manufacture--tools, housing, weapons, it doesn't matter. Anything to increase demand on Sardipan goods will get the money flowing again, and bring the economy back where it belongs."

"Yes, sir, I'm sure it will." sighed the secretary.

"A war will be the easiest way." Cross continued. "A quick one that we can win easily, ideally against one of the Broken Kingdoms...the trick will be to invent a reason that seems justified, so the other Kingdoms won't retaliate."

The secretary yawned. The bell tower of the Stronghold struck two.

"Very well." said Cross, looking at his exhausted secondary. "I suppose I must continue along this train of thought tomorrow. You may go."

"Thank you, sir." said the secretary, shuffling off.

Cross leaned back for a moment, considering the possibilities. The Savant Viggo Helmsman had been sent to Bellaraphon recently...perhaps securing an alliance with a few Broken Kingdoms before instigating a war would give Sardipa the edge it needed to frighten the rest of the Kingdoms into inaction. The last thing Cross needed was to start a full-blown war--no doubt the Palosian devils would take action against Sardipa if that was allowed to happen.

No, he'd have to be more subtle...

Chapter One - The Rudest of Awakenings

The Sardipan Savant Viggo Helmsman woke up with a start, smacking his head on the stone ceiling.

"What the hell..." he rasped, rubbing his forehead. He was surrounded by darkness, lying on a cold, flat surface. His voice didn't echo, suggesting he was in a relatively small space. "Where am I?"

He felt around the chamber. It was a small space, not even big enough to be considered a room, that seemed to be made of marble. Whatever it was, it was flat and cool. There didn't seem to be a way out.

"Dammit, don't they know I won't be able to breathe in..." The Savant's sentence trailed off as he realized this was already the case.

"Strange." he said, feeling around his wrist. "Hm, no pulse, either. How odd."

The Savant had primarily concerned himself with machines for most of his life. His medical knowledge was limited at best, but he thought there had to be something wrong with his pulse and breathing not being present. He quickly reasoned that it must not be lethal, since he was still moving and thinking. He assumed they would eventually resume on there own.

He realized that, to the casual observer, he would appear quite dead until he started moving. Only then did he realize what must have happened while he was unconscious.

"Damn, they buried me." he said. "Well, I guess there's nothing for it."

With that, he pushed the marble slab above his head. He hadn't expected any results, and was understandably surprised when it cracked open and lifted upwards. Something dry and foul-smelling filtered down onto his face. When he heard what sounded like bits of polished wood clattering down the makeshift ramp, he replaced the slab.

"Damn, that's right...coffins are wood. This must be a crypt." Helmsman braced his hands against the wall behind his head and kicked the opposite panel, beneath his feet. It came off and slammed to the floor. In the silence of the mausoleum, the sound was deafening.

"Oops." said Helmsman, sliding out of the opening and stepping into the moonlight beyond. He was most definitely in a mausoleum of some sort. It was then that he noticed the smell. He sniffed the air hard, trying to find its source. Finally, he identified it as his own skin.

"That smells like...embalming fluid...but...that can't be right." Helmsman stood and scratched his chin. If he was dead, he wouldn't be moving around. But he knew that embalming was fairly invasive and probably wasn't survivable. He was willing to dismiss the lack of pulse and breath, but he was fairly certain that he couldn't have slept through being embalmed.

Just then a pair of men with halberds appeared at the door to the mausoleum. They surveyed the scene and promptly ran screaming from the door.

"Well, what the--" Helmsman looked down at his own body. "Oh, I see now."

Someone had dressed him up in an ornate dress uniform. He felt almost naked without his leather lab coat and its myriad tools. Like many Sardipans, Helmsman was a practical man; he'd never liked stuffy formal attire, and now was no exception. At least whoever had dressed him had had the decency to give him an overcoat, but it wasn't his usual one. He checked the pockets...there it was. The scarf his wife, Agnes, had given him before he left was tucked into his inner coat pocket. He was glad to find the momento had been left with him. He tied it around his neck and strode out of the mausoleum.

Picking his way through the tombstones, Helmsman saw the Old Imperial style buildings beyond the graveyard and knew he must still be in Geon, the capital city of the Broken Kingdom of Bellaraphon. At the cemetery gate, he saw a cart that bore the insignia of Helmsman's Chimaera Laboratory.

"Ah, good. Now I can find out what's going on here."

As he approached the cart, the pair of horses grew noticeably distressed. The man seated behind them tried to calm them, but they were inconsolable.

"Hello!" called Helmsman. "It's me, the Savant! Which of you is out there?"

The coachman's attention was suddenly focused on Helmsman. His face was frozen in disbeleif.

"Ah, Troy, it's you." said Helmsman, smiling warmly. "What's wrong with the horses?"

"S-s-s-savant?" stuttered the coachman.

"Of course, boy, it's me!" Helmsman looked down at his attire, then turned back to Troy. "I know this getup is unusual, but it's me, I swear. I'm not quite sure what's going on, to tell you the truth."

Helmsman reached the cart. The horses seemed nearly ready to panic.

"It--it is you." said Troy. He looked to be about seventeen, with dark eyes and thick, black hair. "I--I can't believe it!"

"Believe it. I'm here, and I'm very confused as to what is going on."

"Savant...I'm not sure how you can not know this but...you're dead."

The Savant thought for a moment. "No, that can't be. I'm still walking and talking, aren't I?"

Troy gulped. "Savant, this morning we were leaving Geon, when a man shot you through the heart with a crossbow. You...you were dead before you hit the ground."

Helmsman stood, dumbfounded. He remembered seeing the gates to the city opening...

"We had you mummified after you went cold, so you'd be in presentable condition for a public funeral back in Ulgotha, then Rainsford had you interred in there for safe keeping. We were going to leave tomorrow. I...I was supposed to keep watch over the cemetery so that nobody tried to do anything to your body."

Helmsman felt inside his shirt. Sure enough, there was a hole in his chest, stopped up with wax. Feeling behind him, he could feel it coming out the other side.

"Well, I'll be damned." he said. "I am dead!"

Introduction: The World is Flat

Pantheom drifts through space, forever fragmented into five pieces. It is said that it was once a whole, but it is no longer.

Pantheom itself is a flat disk, hundreds of miles thick and thousands across. It's five realms lie stacked on top of one another as Pantheom sails through the void of space, orbitted by its small sun and smaller moon.

At the center of the stack is the disk itself. The disk is hollow; dozens of miles beneath its crust, the layers of minerals give way to Apollyon, Pantheom's Hell. Inside the gigantic chamber dwell all manner of demons. The upper portion of Apollyon, called Abaddon, has a force of gravity that pulls upward, making its inhabitants inverted to the mortal realm above. Abaddon burns with the fury of magma and fire, a constantly shifting web of anger and chaos. Across Apollyon lies Feng'Di, the frozen wasteland. Here constant winter has created entirely different demons. It's gravity pulls in the opposite direction from that of Abaddon. Between the two lies the twisted landscape of Torkimond, a jungle-like region that inhabits the walls of Apollyon; in Torkimond, gravity pulls outward. Apollyon is collectively ruled by the Seven Dark Lords, demons of immense power. The premier among them is known as The Darkest One. His name is known to every demon in existence, but so dire is his power that merely speaking it aloud can have immeasureable consequences.

Pantheom is a place made of Aether. Every living being contains Aether of up to three types--black, white, and uncolored. The demons of Apollyon are made primarily of black Aether, though none are purely so. As such, they are at constant war with the nearly-perfectly white angels of Celestia, Pantheom's heaven. Celestia lies above the mortal realm, Chona, at one apex of Pantheom's structure. Celestia is build above the clouds of Chona; it takes the form of a continuous plain made of rolling clouds. Celestia is divided into seven regions, each ruled by an angelic lord, much like it's dark counterpart, Apollyon.

On the far side of the disk from Pantheom lies Vertigo, the realm of mystery. While passageways exist, in one form or another, between the various other realms, none are known to have ever entered or left Vertigo. It is unknown what sentient beings reside in there, if any at all. Vertigo resists intrusion by magical means, and so little is known about this strange place, only that it appears as a drifting archipelago of crystal islands and auroras far above the skies of Kalendra, the land of the dead.

Kalendra itself lies between Vertigo and Apollyon, on the underside of Pantheom's disk. Kalendra is the most fragmented of the realms, with most regions utterly closed off to one another. Once a soul in Chona dies, that soul is shuffled to Kalendra by Pantheom's Soul Lattice, an intricate structure that ensures the five realms interact properly. Depending on the life lead by that soul, he or she is sent to a corresponding region of Kalendra; sometimes a verdant paradise, other times a nightmarish purgatory. Eventually, the soul will return to Chona and be reincarnated; this process can take seconds, millenia, or anywhere in between, as the needs of Pantheom dictate.

Finally, there is Chona, the mortal Realm. Chona is the most dynamic and vibrant of the realms, mostly due to the comparitively short lifespans of its primary inhabitant, the human race. While there are countless islands dotting the far seas, there are only two of what could be considered continents, Eluria in the West and Belgrada in the East. The two continents are joined by the long but narrow Plain of Pearls, so named for the rich oyster crops found on its northerm coasts. The Angaren Ocean separates Eluria and Belgrada by some 2500 miles with only small islands between, making the passage across the Plain of Pearls the only land route.

In the year of 1330 SR (Sardipan Reckoning), there were three major powers in Chona. To the west were two large countries, Sempershire in the far West and its Eastern rival, Palosia. The Semperese were a proud nation of holy crusaders, known for their strong military and relentless devotion to their god, Turash. They shunned the magic that was the signature of Palosia, instead relying on native human furor. Their leader was the strong and charismatic Emperor Gallenbrad V, a righteous Paladin who had ascended to the throne at age seventeen. Now in his late thirites, Gallendbrad V had fathered three children; 8-year-old Mileena, 5-year-old Ashra, and, most importantly, 7-year-old Gallenbrad VI, heir to the Semperese throne.

Sempershire's Eastern neighbor was Palosia, a land of sorcery. It's capital, dubbed simply "Palosia City," was a shining marble metropolis on the coast of the Angaren Ocean, known for its many schools of magic and philosophy. Ruled by King Memnos II, Palosia was a flourishing nation, with far flung territories going as far south as the Outlands, a collection of large islands in the Southern Ocean, and as far east as Central Sea, the halfway point of the Plain of Pearls.

The remaining world power based itself in Belgrada, the sprawling country called Sardipa. Sardipa had once been a province in a larger empire that had eventually collapsed under its own weight. Sardipa had recollected most of the original territory, in some points stretching from shore to shore of Belgrada, all the way to the easternmost ocean, called The Deep. To the South of Sardipa stood the Broken Kingdoms, a loose confederation of states, themselves remnants of the Old Empire. They had banded together to prevent annexation from Sardipa. Sardipa's government was headed by a dictator with the title of Imperator, which currently belonged to an abnormally competent man named Michael Meadows, now in his fourteenth year of power (the average time of office for an Imperator was about twenty-seven months). Imperatorship had no clear-cut rules of succession, but there was never a short supply of those willing to take the office. The Imperator's Stronghold, the center of the Sardipan government, stood on Imperium Street in the Upper Barrens district of the capital city, Ulgotha. Ulgotha, the largest human city on Pantheom and the leader of the Chonan industrial revolution, was situated on the delta of the River Leshrac where it meets the Magginoth River before running into the Bay of Belgrin some 800 miles downstream.

Our story begins some 300 miles souteast of Ulgotha, in the city of Geon, Bellaraphon. Bellaraphon was one of the many Broken Kingdoms, and had recently been paid a visit by the Sardipan inventor, Savant Viggo Helmsman, age 62.