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Wilnow, the present day …

An old white-haired man limps through the streets of a city, his rusted mechanical leg barely allowing him to walk, clad in a dark green jacket, trying to escape the approaching sirens. He gazes upwards.

Massive concrete skyscrapers pierce the smog hanging over the city. Advertisements don their walls – holographic billboards the size of football fields. Various pictures of products and companies flash upon the walls. Their glow lights the entire city in a neon haze of commerce.

Some of these skyscrapers are simple, crudely designed apartments, concrete, steel, and glass, designed to fit thousands in the most efficient space possible. Cubby-sized rooms designed to fill all human ethics minimums without sacrificing cost. Efficient, yet dehumanizing in their cruelty.

Far away from these buildings, giant obelisks stand out, not monuments to fallen heroes or wars, but towers to corporations that run this new world. Sleek, designed by the finest architects to represent the MegaCorp that hired them.

VTOLs fly out of these skyscrapers like wasps from a hive. Executives board these aircraft to travel the city and beyond, to be safe from the horrors they inflicted upon the population.

Gunshots and tire squeals can be heard in the distance, reminding the old man of the gang violence in the dark corners of the city.

Gang wars. Crime. Drugs. Homelessness. 

All caused by human greed and a MegaCorp hiking the price of a life essential, doesn't matter who you are, be it elf or half-ling, human or giant, orc or half-goblin. A corp can throw your life off the rails and sell tickets to the show.

The old man limps faster, hiding in an alleyway as a police patrol car shines a bright light into it. He hides behind a junction box, narrowly escaping the light. He exhales and hurries past.

Meanwhile, the city's police force is just a facade of its existence. Defunded, ill-equipped, and unmotivated, police patrol the streets, their presence doesn't encourage hope and safety for the residents; on the contrary, they brutally beat their anger onto anyone trying to push them about on the streets.

The residents themselves have to buy illegal firearms to defend themselves; some make their own by fabricating them, and the bravest who can, use magic. However, as a last resort …

Magic has been banned here for a hundred years, its use suppressed by mechanical marvels of engineering — Effigies. Skeletal devices with thin, bent arms clutching trumpet-like sirens where mouths should be, with various sensors and mechanical boxes strapped to them by hanging wires. They stand along city streets, like scarecrows keeping watch.

Their purpose is to detect magicules — particles that every living being possesses in varying amounts, and if used, can manipulate other matter: heating up the air to make it burn, freezing water, moving rock, healing wounds. Casting magic can produce a radiation of particles the Effigies can detect; they are all linked into a network that allows a location to be determined. When some detect a caster, a signal alerts the Rapid Anti-Magic Force (RAM). They have the tools to neutralize anyone with magic abilities.

No one knows where those who get caught are sent off. However, they never come back. Crazed theorists believe they get sent to a secret bunker to get their magicules extracted, but some believe they get forcefully inducted into the military force.

Not long till a Corp puts a price tag on your suffering.

Life wasn't free here after all…

°

The city continues to rumble along.

Many places in the city continue to work without a minute of rest, various factories pumping out cheap single-use products and disgusting food, but people require rest unlike machines.

The old man from before crawls out of the shadows, head hung low.

A rundown factory building stands in a corner of the city; its upper parts might be home to slums of homeless people, but its underground cellar houses a bar.

Murmur — is its title name.

The limping man tries to enter the bar, struggling to even stand straight in front of the bouncer guarding the door. He pushes away the cripple, not allowing the disgusting ghoul near it.

The man struggles back into the shadows, narrowly passing a shady gang.

He was lucky, since inside the bar…

Its interior is rather spacious, the air reeks of stale beer and sweat, the laminate floor sticky underfoot. Mismatched tables and chairs are scattered about. Various rustic decor hangs upon the walls; in the corner is a platform that long ago acted as a stage for a band. Now the only music playing is through a wireless speaker. The sound is smooth jazz.

A grizzled giant of a bartender, literally towering over the counter, cleans glasses, enjoying his mundane life serving people who need it the most.

Meanwhile, a busty dark-haired elf, in a waitress dress, acts as a servant carrying drinks for the tables. Some are more enticed by her presence than the drink itself.

The night was calm. But the bar sparks with an energetic atmosphere, an oasis of human life in a barren asphalt and concrete desert. Getting to relax outside this sort of place is hard; sleeping at night without being woken up by a VTOL or gunshots is impossible.

However, life isn't always fair. As everyone was gulping down beers and chatting, the chime of the entry doorway opening can be heard.

The bouncer of the bar tumbles down the stairs into the bar, blood trailing from his sliced throat.

The bar falls into a deadly silence.

A group of masked men follow down after, one with a bloody knife.

The bartender yells out in anger, cracking the countertop with a resounding smash of his fist as he rushes towards the one with the knife, his massive hands grasping the neck of the thug who killed his colleague.

“— you will pay for this! All of you!”

He screams his soul out at the man. Although the thug he was holding like a doll has long since perished, he lowers the man just to see the end of a gun barrel.

«Bang»

A single gunshot rings out.

A single bloody hole appears through the bartender's rough forehead.

Glasses shatter. The bar is no longer the safe haven it was two minutes ago.

The gang of masked goons turns to face the crowd.

The bar tries to fight back; brave souls run out to resist. However, bravery doesn't stop bullets.

The goons open fire, levelling anyone who is still standing.

Blood, guts, and alcohol cover the walls and floor.

After their act, they go around kicking and double-tapping those who might have survived or tried to hide in the corpses.

The elven waitress hides but is caught trying to escape; she tries to bargain to be let go, even offering her body to let her live.

She would be shot through her chest anyway.

These weren't your usual rapist, drug-huffing thugs.

The gang ends their massacre by finding a single woman, dressed in a red hoodie with large fox-like ears on its hood, sleeping on a table, surrounded by half-empty bottles of alcohol.

They try to “wake” her.

A gun is raised to her head.

«Bang»

The shot echoes, swallowed by the city’s ceaseless hum. Somewhere in the dark, a faint ripple stirs—like water disturbed in a forgotten well, unseen but alive.