The past year has seen events of unexpected and unforeseeable seriousness, that threaten the very fabric of contemporary society, and might result in the demise of all that our order has struggled for through these many years.
The trouble began immediately after the fall of Karras, after his
untimely end at the hands of Garrett.
Warned of his plans by a treacherous member of our Order, whose name
shall ever remain unspoken, Garrett brought about the downfall of Karras, and
the destruction of the plan for which we have laboured so long. He killed Karras before we were able to
place our agents in such a position as to avert the affects of his – inevitable
– downfall, and thus manoeuvre the City into a state of balance. As a result, the scales have been adversely
tilted, perhaps even permanently.
As word came of the devastation at Soulforge, we rushed there
immediately to prevent Garrett causing any more harm. We brought him back to the compound, and watched from inside as
rioting mobs in the streets slew Mechanists and their brother Hammerites. Blood ran through cobblestones, and into
sewers that became choked with offal.
Rioters smashed machinery, destroying the pumping stations, power
generators and pipelines that were the arteries of the City. Our metropolis was plunged into darkness
both physical and moral. The rich
retreated to their fortified strongholds, protected by guards and walls. The City Watch, deprived of leadership and
purpose, joined the riots.
The situation calmed eventually, aided no doubt by the Great Fire,
which spread through the warehouses of the harbour districts, destroying food
and supplies. Those who could left,
those who couldn’t fortified their dwellings and tried to weather the storm,
while those that could do neither starved.
Food reached those who could afford it.
Some industries still functioned – there remained work at the docks, at
the mines, in the fields. The workers,
bowed under the weight of their loads, were paid little by the foreign
merchants that were the only people who now had the capital to operate.
But there arose one man from out of the masses, an orator by the
name of Marngels. He would stand by the
heap of rubble that had been the most splendid of the Baron’s palaces, and let
forth vituperative rhetoric on the rich that still lived in the City. He would curse the merchants, the exploiters
growing rich off the backs of the workers, and he would call for their
blood. He would let forth on his views
of society, his dream of a classless society, where all would be equal, where
everything would be shared, where people would work not for wages, but for the
common good.
Unsurprisingly, this appealed to many of the oppressed workers to
whom he was reaching out. They agreed
that the merchants should be punished, that their wealth be shared, that class
be abolished, and that all should work for the common good rather than
themselves. Calling themselves
Socialites, they grew in number as Marngels spread his teachings to other parts
of the City.
Meanwhile, the merchants were not idle. After one failed assassination attempt, they called on the one
who would be both brethren and betrayer – Garrett. He had left us, impatient again with our teachings, angry that we
had decided it would be better for Viktoria to die, and disgusted that the
situation was so different to what we had planned for. The new City proved a rich hunting ground
for him, and so it is no surprise that the merchants decided to hire him to
make the assassination. What was rather
more surprising was that he chose to make known to the merchants our existence. We had not planned on him being so angry
with us, or else we would not have let him leave again.
The merchants cunningly let it be known to the Socialites that we
existed, and implied that were their supporters. The resulting riot destroyed our compound, and forced us into
even deeper hiding. Even after so long
we are still finding Keepers who were lost in this great diaspora. Garrett succeeded in his assigned task, and
killed Marngels as he stood making a speech before his followers. The conspicuousness of the deed is perhaps a
fitting end to this master thief’s career.
He disappeared soon afterward – probably into early retirement, paid for
by the merchants – and we have found no trace of him. We taught him too well.
However, the merchants did not have long to enjoy the removal of
Marngels. His vizier, Stenin, took over
his duties. Stenin was even more
radical than Marngels, and his fiery speech was the key factor in the storming
of the Baron’s Palace, and the end of centuries of autocratic rule. The Baron was killed with his family, his
supporters either murdered or forced to flee, and the merchants that had grown
fat off of the profits of the workers suffered horrific fates. Stenin set himself up as head of the new
city-state, proclaiming it to be a unified socialite republic. The name of our metropolis was changed to
Stenincity. Hence the new name given to
the City – the Unified Stenincity Socialite Republic.
Stenin’s changes were immediate and far-reaching. The wealth of the merchants was added to the
City coffers, and their houses assigned to those who had distinguished
themselves in the storming of the merchant’s palace. The previously oppressed workers were allowed to elect governors
to represent their districts, and the governors elected representatives to sit
in the new City Council. Stenin and the
City Council introduced plans to rebuild the factories that the rioting had
destroyed, and restore the new USSR to the trading role that the old City had
occupied. Promises were made,
punishments threatened, and the Socialites knuckled under. Those who protested were executed by the
City Watch – reformed and renamed the Stenincity Guards – or else sent to
Cragscleft to work the renovated mines.
The protests increased as more and more people realised that this was
not the classless society that they had been promised, where they would no
longer have to work, but so did the punishments. The governors and representatives were loyal to Stenin, and those
who were not could expect death.
This
is the situation as it stands now.
Stenin has introduced a series of plans aimed at revitalising the
industrial capability of the USSR, and rebuilding the utilities and amenities
that they initial rioting destroyed.
However, he rules his city-state with a grip of iron, squeezing from it
the dissidents and the undesireables.
Hammerites and Mechanists dare not show their faces, while the Pagans
have been driven ever deeper underground.
It is only a matter of time before we too are threatened with
extinction. And what then will come of
the City?