Prologue
Prologue
A world like our own was mirroring the events that would shape what we knew as the Industrial Revolution. In The United States of the late 1800s, the steam engine made transportation quicker, the telegraph made it possible to communicate from one region to another, and the invention by Samuel Colt made it considerably easier to kill one another. The big difference between the world we know, and the one chronologized in this story, was that the existence of magic, and mythical beings, was real.
In this world, magic was an ever-present element, like the wind in the sky. Unlike the wind though, magic was slowly fading away. Many believed that in a time of invention and new technology, magic simply couldn’t thrive, or that magic, a primordial force, couldn’t continue in a world focused on science, as opposed to the mystical. The power, once showered upon the beings of the world, was beginning to run dry.
The time frame for our story was after the American Civil War, but with one difference. The Union army was not only fighting to free black slaves, but to free the dwarf and elven slaves as well. The dwarves, with their ability to quickly dig through rocks, were an invaluable resource for mining coal, which the railroads had become dependent upon. The elves, who didn’t need to sleep, and had the stamina of five human men, were ideal for manual labor, like working in the cotton fields, or laying down railroad tracks.
As the railway got closer and closer to connecting both coasts, several boom towns arose throughout the western territories like weeds. Lawlessness was commonplace, and only the smartest, toughest, and most ruthless individuals survived. Many towns without lawmen were run by those who were willing to live with blood on their hands. And many of those opportunistic bandits weren’t even human.
