"The priests and holy-men, they claim those things out there are the restless ghosts of dead gods."
"And what do you think?"
"I'm not so sure they're ghosts." -- Anon Guest
They called this land the Dead Plains. The grasses grew high, but trees would not. Neither deer nor cow would voluntarily graze on the grasses, here. Even horses, an animal universally recognised as rather dim, would not walk into the preternatural flatness of the Dead Plains. And worse, it was fresh after Fire Season, when the desolate nature of this area was laid bare and black for all to see.
"What are they, then?" asked Baudrik, world's unluckiest apprentice, as he helped his master pull the cart across the blackened wastes. He did his utmost not to look at the indistinct white figures as they went about their peculiar dances on the plains. They certainly looked like ghosts.
"That's what I aim to find out. Legends say that there was a great war and a great weapon. Like all great weapons in legends, it made the people vanish, but left the buildings intact. And, of course, it was used. Or something went wrong and it turned against its creators." Investigator Karis puffed as she spoke. This was harder work than either of the were used to. "The people didn't quite vanish. And the buildings... went away. All that was left was a barren plain where only wild grass would grow, and no sensible living thing would ever wander."
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