Once a small town, the city that would one day be known as Greywater quickly became a hub of commerce and production with the invention of the steam engine. The technological revolution which followed saw that once-humble town become a city of unparalleled industry and wealth—but this golden age could not last forever.
When hard times fell, they struck hard. The inevitable labor battle over unionization and equal pay was long, and quickly became bloody. In the end, the wealthy triumphed over the working-class, ushering in an age of darkness which never really ended. The city quickly became divided by class, beginning a game of cat and mouse, where those on the bottom did their best to claw their way out of the pit of abject poverty and into the ranks of the middle class, and those on top did everything they could to distance themselves from their lessers.
The city expanded upwards into the sky, with the wealthiest always moving to the next best thing, always trying to keep separate from those “below” them. What was once one unified city became two, and then three. Before long, a societal ladder had formed that was more of a regimented spectrum than the simple question of have or have-not it had once been. All the while, the many factories pumped pollution into the air and into the water, and the roots of the city dove deeper into despair.
It was into this world to which Tavish Gordon was born. A laborer by right of birth, only his remarkable intellect and skill with machinery would save him from a life in the bowels of Greywater. He moved to Oldtown, at the city’s heart, and took on an apprenticeship with a skilled machinist. It was there he stayed for years, learning, working, inventing. Before long he had become an adult, not far off from a practice of his own and a life outside the shadow of his master.
It was then that, by accident or fate, he uncovered of the threads of mystery at which he could not help but paw, naive to the secrets within which would irreversibly change not only his life, but the world.
