There was a bump in the road. The stage­coach jumped on its iron­clad wheels. Inside, Ewan lolled awake. He straight­ened and rubbed the crust from his eyes, swal­low­ing dry­ly.

“Morn­ing,” said a wheezy voice.

Across from him, a woman with scarred hands lounged on the pur­ple uphol­stery. A fat back­pack sat beside, bounced with every rock in the road. Ewan’s own pack lay on the floor. On it, a side­sword clat­tered in its scab­bard. 

“Morn­ing Row,” grum­bled Ewan, scratch­ing his beard. He sniffed. “Shite. What’s that smell? Bar­be­cue?”

“Just passed a cre­ma­to­ry. Edge of town.”

Ewan’s eyes widened. “You mean we’re there already?”

“Should­n’t have had that lau­danum cock­tail, mate. Ye’ve been asleep the whole way.” *

With clum­sy fin­gers, Ewan pulled away the cur­tains of the coach’s win­dow. “Blimey,” he mut­tered. Row looked as well.

Out­side, a clut­ter of wood-front­ed build­ings and spindly trees faced a choked and dusty dirt street. The throng was eclec­tic. Along­side the coach, a dozen mice clung to a scaf­fold atop a don­key’s back, each sport­ing a red buff jack­et and many long knives. Ahead of them, a blood-soaked group in maille attempt­ed to sell the leak­ing tro­phy of some bul­let-head­ed beast to a woman in a top hat. Beyond that, a man with a bun­dle of polearms was hawk­ing pikes to passers­by. Far­ther even, a fel­low in steel plate was forcibly eject­ed from a street­side bar by a bounc­er with thorns on his face. In the sparse branch­es above, a black-eyed girl waved, then dis­ap­peared into the leaves.

Ewan gawked. All about, an armed and eccen­tric all­sorts of cut­ters was made its uncouth way. “So this is Draum.” 

“Aye. Parnock, specif­i­cal­ly.”

“Row, look. There’s a clock­work man.”

“Aye. They pop up time to time.”

“And that chap’s sell­ing explo­sives.”

“Use­ful,” said Row, mas­sag­ing her squeak­ing knuck­les. ** “And her. What’s she sell­ing, buck­ets?”

“Full of chum. For beast­ies.”

“Shite.”

Row grinned. “Look at ye. Ewan: Act like a big tough cut­ter half the time, turn into a kid when shown the gen­uine item.”

“Aw, Row. You know how to show your love.”

“Shove it,” spat Row. She leaned out the front win­dow. “Oi, Dri­ver,” she hollered. “Con­sor­tium, up ahead, thank ye.” 

She returned to her seat and nod­ded to the win­dow. “Get you a look­see at this one.” 

Ewan did. At the lane’s end sat a rotund, cir­cu­lar edi­fice of brick colon­nad­ed in white lime­stone. A crush of folk crowd­ed the exte­ri­or, queued on ramps and steps. Even a hun­dred meters away, a clam­or of voic­es and clink­ing coin poured loud from the open doors. 

“Biggest bank I’ve ever seen,” said an awed Ewan, pulling back into the coach.

“Few like it. The Tiber and Fel­lowes desk alone doles out a hun­dred crowns an hour.”

The coach rocked to a stop at the edge of the con­sor­tium crowd. The cut­ters seized their packs and clam­bered out into the rau­cous air. Row tossed a gold coin to the dri­ver. He winked, cracked his switch, and ram­bled off, dust ris­ing behind.

“Come on.” 

Row start­ed through the throng, mak­ing ample employ of elbows. Ewan kept close behind. He picked his way with care, wary of the crowd’s pro­lif­ic col­lec­tion open blades. Some­thing touched his leg. He looked down. A mouse looked up, flicked him a rude ges­ture. Ewan kept going.

“Oi!” shout­ed Row, waved up the steps at a bank offi­cial in a green waist­coat with a Tiber and Fel­lowes pin. “Stand­ing three, here! Stand­ing three!” †

The offi­cial pushed through. “Licens­es?” she hollered above the hub­bub. Dox­bells fled from the lit cig­a­rette tucked in her lip. Ewan and Row prof­fered a small leather folds each. The offi­cial checked them both, seek­ing the “III” embossed on the pink paper, and, sat­is­fied, waved them through a rope stan­chion bar­ri­cade. “Very good. Tiber and Fel­lowes wel­comes you. Please come ahead.”

As they cut the crowd, Ewan and Row earned sour glances. A bunch of spot­ty cut­ters with rude pikes, like­ly no old­er than six­teen, watched him hop the bar­ri­er, lips curled with dis­dain. A beard­ed fel­low with a ban­daged head mum­bled to his com­pan­ion, a brown mouse, and point­ed at Ewan. Though their exchange was lost to the volu­mi­nous crowd, the words “stand­ing” and “prick” were leg­i­ble on his lips.

Row’s wheezy voice cut through. “Don’t be dawdling.” She tugged on his sleeve. The T&F offi­cial lead them to one of three sets of high, open doors flanked by pil­lars.

They stepped into the con­sor­tium floor. Ewan was bedaz­zled. A hun­dred or more cut­ters and armored bank staff fer­ried incred­i­ble heaps of trea­sure about the many-pil­lared gape of the place. Piles of ancient coin graced scales and worn coun­ters. Pal­lets of relics and sal­vaged materials—gold, lapis, and ivory—were cart­ed through rear doors by team­sters. Cut­ters clutch­ing fat coin purs­es emerged from the bus­tle, set­ting off hap­py for inns and bath­hous­es. And though the occa­sion­al moan­ing stretch­er or dot of blood showed on the brick floor, noth­ing dulled the buzz of incred­i­ble wealth.

A crooked smile split Row’s face. 

“Wel­come, Ewan my lad,” she said. “To the gold rush.”

The Gold Rush

In recent years, a pecu­liar ague has struck the Coast. Its symp­toms appear in the young, the dif­fer­ent, and the rest­less. It has them flee­ing civ­i­liza­tion en masse, tempt­ed by some sweet pos­si­bil­i­ty in the dread­ful wilds. This pos­si­bil­i­ty, while fatal­ly illu­sive, is no illu­sion, and the cause of the fever is entire­ly real: Ancient gold.

Any giv­en coun­try­side hosts its share of ruins. These are small pick­ings. They have long ago been plucked clean or deemed unwor­thy of atten­tion.

A land of plen­ty is anoth­er mat­ter. A wilder­ness rife with tombs and ancient com­plex­es draws the atten­tion of banks, who in turn lure set­tlers and ver­i­ta­ble armies of cut­ters to delve the earth. †† Once gold begins to flow, rumors of prof­it draw a crowd. A nowhere set­tle­ment becomes a ven­tur­ing town. A set­tle­ment becomes a des­ti­na­tion. A ven­ture rush begins. 

Draum

To many, the ven­ture rush is syn­ony­mous with a par­tic­u­lar fron­tier: The rolling wilder­land of Draum. This vast and knob­by plain, spot­ted with odd copses, gran­ite out­crop­pings, deep forests, and black bogs, was once the domain of an ancient race of sor­cer­ers.

Draum is a land rich in ruin. Every square mile of mun­dane scrub holds antiq­ui­ty in abun­dance. Any old hill may be a bar­row. Any stand­ing boul­der a por­tal tomb. Any hol­low oak a hid­den climb, a  deep gate into pas­sages unknown for ages.

Many a ruin is yet alive, despite the mor­tal ages. The sor­cer­ers who once ruled Draum, the Beau­ti­ful Idrans, were awful and inge­nious in their art. ‡ Kept func­tion­al by churn­ing gut-engines and hun­dreds of gen­er­a­tions of pur­pose-made beast-men, Idran com­plex­es are still guard­ed and alive. 

These non-ruins, still stuffed with dead sor­cer­ers’ wealth, are as valu­able as they are for­ti­fied. A ver­i­ta­ble army of cut­ters is often required to breach and clear the larg­er com­plex­es. ‡‡ Only by the quick and fatal employ­ment turnover gen­er­at­ed by these large-scale raids can banks accept the mas­sive, dai­ly influx of cut­ters to Drau­mic ven­tur­ing towns.

Parnock

Chiefest among the ven­tur­ing set­tle­ments of Draum is the wild and noto­ri­ous town of Parnock. While most such towns are hum­ble affairs, rarely expand­ing beyond a sin­gle street, Parnock has grown to con­sid­er­able size. Sit­u­at­ed in the unex­plored, wealthy east of wht was once ancient Idra, Parnock is amidst a ver­i­ta­ble wash of near­by ruins.

Every day, dozens of ven­tures are launched from its gigan­tic con­sor­tium, bound for tar­gets near and far. Giv­en the sheer bulk of Idran con­struc­tion with­in their reach, the banks present at Parnock are unlike­ly to declare the place a dry town with­in the decade. 

The traf­fic to Parnock is immense. Every day, stage coach­es deliv­er a flock of new arrivals, both green and expe­ri­enced, to join the rush. To facil­i­tate such a mer­ce­nary bulk, Parnock is no usu­al town. Its dusty, tree-lined streets are near-devoid of per­son­al hous­ing, instead fea­ture the vari­ety of estab­lish­ment con­ducive to the ven­tur­ing pro­fes­sion­al. Inns, bars, and bath­hous­es are nev­er emp­ty. § Armor­ers, smiths, and weapon­smiths make boom­ing trade. Sur­geons, bar­bers, and cun­ning-peo­ple even more so. Estab­lish­ments in ser­vice to killing, heal­ing, and carous­ing are a cut­ter’s bread and but­ter. These, how­ev­er, are not the town’s great­est indus­try, save ven­tur­ing.

Of all the trades plied in Parnock, the most pro­lif­ic is the least regard­ed. Just out of town, large­ly unno­ticed, save for the smell and the spindly stacks, are count­less cre­ma­to­ria. §§ For trav­el­ers to Parnock, these are their first sight of the town. To any rea­son­able trav­eller, they should be an omen. For would-be cut­ters, though, gold fever eras­es all con­cern for this first and final des­ti­na­tion.

⁂