A Tainted Story

Prologue

There was a mountain range with peaks like prideful senitels, slicing into a fleeting atmosphere. At these summits, the air was almost too thin and cold to breathe. Lower down, on gentler slopes, the landscape shifted, became a more welcoming place. The presence of life hung over the vista like a shroud, a layered web that caught the buzz of insects, the songs of birds, and the calls of larger, more dominant beasts in the forests below.

As the sun slowly rose over these mountains, the morning light glinted- revealing a fast-moving object barreling down one of the slopes. From above, it looked like some forest creature composed entirely of metal: an armored bear perhaps, or a deer with polished bronze skin. But when viewed up close, the illusion wore thin, its movement unnatural and strange. It was, in fact, a machine in close parody. Oil ran through its veins, and hot steam was exhaled in noisy blasts. A skeleton of pistons and gears gave it the strength to rush through the canopy, its clawed feet churning up the loam beneath. So while it sounded alive, and acted as a living thing does, it wasn't.

And yet, the strangest thing about the automaton wasn't its appearance or existence in such pristine nature. It was the sounds of gleeful shouting, barely audible above the din of the machine. It left these echoes behind in its wake, an odd memento.

A dozen or so leagues lower down the mountains was the village of Valle- the largest settlement in the entire territory, But calling it a village wasn't the right choice of words. The typical village may have a blacksmith, a tavern, or even a tailor. But the foundation of such a place is cultivation. Villagers are often farmers, with the expansive, rural lifestyle it entails. It's a slow, quiet world, where the movement of the sun and the shifting of the seasons takes charge above all else. So while Valle may appear on a map as a village, the bustling streets and intricate shopping districts gave it the air of a strange, inexplicable city instead. It left the impression that the place was somehow lifted up from elsewhere and dumped smack in the middle of the wilderness. It was a whirlpool of life, constantly churning with the millions of daily tasks that made the entire place run smoothly. And its existence, although an enigma, wasn't a bad one; Valle was a place of fascinating polarity, and while the city itself was strange and whimsical, its denizens were much, much, stranger.

It was an isolated place; one that needed no major trade routes, no lifeline to the rest of the continent. It was self-sustaining, with little in the way of a greater connection. Not much came or left Valle; both a blessing and a curse. It meant that when disaster swept the land, they were exempt, tucked away, free to grow into a strange, twisting community. But if something were to happen, catastrophic enough to rock the entire continent, then there was little warning before it would smash its way into their little corner of the world.