=Traveling Allegheny=
At the dawn of the 24th century, the world went mad. I suppose it was coming, surely there had been signs? It was such a promising time I was told- 100 years of the planet gravitating towards global unity, androids to free of of hard labor, power broadcast from stations for miles, and even the ability to restore the dead to the living. I was told it was a golden age, but looking around I wonder how I believed that. Something wasn't right- people don't just lash out at each other for no reason. They don't try to destroy the world with weapons of mass destruction left from the prior century- and a government establishing peace surely would have disbanded those weapons long ago. Perhaps the world was held captive by that state, perhaps people where bored?
Maybe that's just how life is- we get bored and kill each other. Maybe Humanity needs more then a promise to live on, but results. Perhaps simply living isn't enough. I wouldn't have thought about any of this 40 years ago but when people start asking you why you think what you do well you either get frustrated and knock them down or you answer. Here in Mamon we're rather civilized folk, but that don't mean we can't kick some teeth in. Since loosing the dream, and seeing how placid our folks in Salem had become well- we realized neither life was for us.
A broad shouldered man was leaning his back on a counter in the old 'Amerikan Trade Post' listening to the elder trade keep speak. The man was taking a drag of some purple weed, creating a faint blue smoke in the air. Outside, if one where to look out from this mountain side trading post, was the village of Mamon. It was nestled in some hills with a trail leading up into the Appalachian mountains. The trail extended down into forests next to a lake- the ruins of Pitz Burke could be seen from here- the buildings in ruin on the horizon. The village had a market place around the 'Amerikan Trade Post' which had been some cabin before the Social Wars, the violent conflicts that destroyed the world that was. This market, which branches extensively for about 60 meters in all directions, consisted of venders with stands and venders on skins or cloth upon the ground- all paying the Trade Keep for use of the grounds. In the middle of this market was an area 2 x 2 meters marked off by pegs in the dirt for some purpose. On the hills over looking the post are the homes of the people who live here- all 180 of them.
Having come with great difficulty down the mountain trail from the East where two wagons parked at the outskirts of this market. It is here, in this town at the edge of what was Pennsylvania that our story begins....