TheNexusProject/Ashtown

Ashtown

by Moxiane

At the southeasten edge of the city, where the Nexus and Cinnabar districts end at the walls, lies an ill-favoured part of the city which was until recently known as Aston. Prior to the Great Nexus Fire, this was a vibrant neighbourhood, with theatres and museums aplenty. But afterwards, the attention of the Council of Entities was more focussed towards the centre of the city; and so, this area, which was particularly badly struck by the inferno, was left to languish. All of this would have been bad enough were it not for the sudden surge of hungry ghosts that swarmed out of the neighbourhood, ghosts which were somehow hardier than the rest of their ilk, and far more difficult to put down.

The majority of the locals who survived the fire moved out in the years following the destruction, leaving gutted houses and other burned-out buildings for the undesirables of the city to move into – which they did in droves. Less than a year after the holocaust, Ashtown, as it had become known, was a nest of criminals, junkies and other lowlifes, competing with Firewander for general squalor and ambient violence. Early attempts to rebuild this part of the city were met with murder on the part of the new denizens, to the point where contractors and surveyors refused point-blank to enter without mercenaries in at least talon-strength, something that the Council of Entities considered uneconomic; and so a policy of containment regarding Ashtown has been enacted.

Visitors to Ashtown, of which there are few, report that there is a permanent haze in the air and a continual smell of burning that causes significant irritation to the nose and lungs, despite the fires having been out for decades. The hungry ghosts are still a major problem, particularly because they retain the unnatural resilience that caused so many problems in the early days of Ashtown’s existence, and local savants have come to believe that there are at least two small shadowlands within the ruins and rubble.

The Entries

Ashtown Reapers by AntiVehicleRocket
Dorsons Doorstep by Sparrowhawk
Theatre of Death by Issaru