Monday, November 23, 2009

Ghost town

It was only a matter of months later, but Mausolith was practically unrecognizable. Where once there was bustling activity, there were now only a handful of people talking in whispers and working out where they were going to settle and make a living. The bars and taverns were all but closed, and the doors to the bank and gaol hung loosely on their hinges.

There was no law still, but also no-one to impose law upon. The St. Cuthbert evangelists soon realised that there was nothing worth converting here and left as soon as they arrived.

What had happened was still unclear, but what was certain was that they had exhausted the gold in the seams in the hills around Yellow River. What there was left, nobody wanted to dig for. It was said that all the mines therabouts were now haunted by the undead dwarven miners who were interned there.

Guthrie was a wise man - as soon as he saw the changing fortunes for the miners, he closed up his saloons and moved on. Some say he is selling snake oil from a traveling healing show - but rumours abound.

General Sutter however had not been seen for some months before, and the popular story is that he was murdered by his own men for the collapses in the mines. Others say that he was cursed by the gold itself. There is still another rumour that he was instead driven mad by his deeds and was locked in the gaol's punishment hole - never to be released. Nobody knows, and no body was found. His commercial concerns quickly descended into anarchy and then ruin.

Boom town to Ghost town. An age old story.

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