Travel from point A to point B is never that simple, with any number of hazards blocking the way. Safe and, more importantly, reliable ways through the circuitous labyrinth between cities are more valuable than any amount of riches, though many take such humble payment for successfully discovering such a path. For some settlements, especially those created after the Great Reconnaissance, such routes are more valuable than life itself, for without regular contact with the outside world they would surely perish, whether from starvation or the maintenance of Glass technology responsible in one way or another for their survival. Such routes are equally prized among the cutthroat Bridge Tyrants, and even nominally safe passage must be taken with care, lest you are relieved of your cargo, life, or both. For all the lethal nature of these phenomena, they are and never have been a truly monumental obstacle to human exploration. Poor weather, disease, and lawless privateering have plagued every foot that set down outside its hometown since the dawn of time. It is then, lacking the necessary fire or horsepower to avoid such mundane threats, some are tempted to venture off the proven path to where even angels may fear to tread.
In many parts of the Cataclysm, it is possible to forget where one is. When the Grey temporarily abates, or the temperature is not too cold or too hot, when a sweeping vista takes your breath away and holds man’s soul with its magnificence... is when it is at its most dangerous. For the Shattered Continent is just that: shattered, by the hand of an idiot god. The treasures that drive the leviathans of the world to madness in their scramble to lay claim to them, are no treasures here. The many gifts pulled from the vaults of heaven by the iron will of Doctor Absal did so in a rain of rubble and celestial steel, both the horrors and wonders within crashing down around him. Flora and fauna alien to the most dedicated botanist infest the many biomes of the Cataclsym, whose purpose lies in another time and place. Creatures that dwarf even the heaviest Treads prowl the shadows, things of scale and teeth, fire and blood. To the Crewman scanning the horizon for only the distinctive silhouette of a Tread, remember: The dumb and weak ones died quickly, whether to the guns of man or the nature of the Cataclysm. The ones who remain are the killers and unkillable. Such vigilance against the mighty is obvious, but equally against the meek: there is no shortage of tiny maladies to infest the nooks and crannies of the shattered continent. Hyper-mold, the outbreaks of which consume entire towns. The Xirulean Fruit fly, whose touch begins a weekslong transformation into a pulsating sac of maggots, ready to begin the cycle again. The Rats of Dirrege, whose namesakes wonderous cloning machine had provided food for the entire populous and beyond, until a single rodent found its way into the delicate machinery. Soon the entire town was drowning in a tide of blood-slicked fur and scratching claws. After the horrific fate of the Dirrege township, the DMV-9 took measures to quarantine and purge as many of these types of insects and diseases as possible, but such actions have left only the most resilient and dangerous among them, and as Redsector fell, with it went their protocols and suppression techniques. Some in the DMV have laughed at this development, seeing the inevitable surge of these virulent pests a just reward for those who refused their generous hand of governance, but to those responsible for creating and administering those same quarantine protocols, it is no laughing matter. If let outside the harsh environment of the Shattered continent, into an area populated not by the sparse, isolated communities of the In-Between, but the heaving metropolises of the rest of the world, there would be no stopping them. Dirrege would be a mere footnote in the story of the swarm that laid low the world.