To enjoy fabulous Edwardstown, first you must arrive in fabulous Edwardstown, and there’s only one good way to do that, and that would be La Mancha Airfield (not yet an airport, kind readers, but give it time), situated comfortably on the eastern edge of town and well-known for the superior smoothness of its tarmac (in the 99th percentile for the territory, in fact). There is only one thing better than taking off from La Mancha Airfield, my friends, and that is landing on it. In all my life I have never been treated to a better country airfield experience. Important note: there are also buses going to Edwardstown from a variety of nearby cities and a variety of buses leaving as well, should you somehow be more afraid of flying than the Hesperides, but this guide is not liable for any damages incurred should you try and actually take them.
On your ride from La Mancha Airfield, you are likely to pass through the Steeltown Open Air Museum, a neighborhood-sized tribute to the nearly forgotten, distant industrial past of both Edwardstown and the old United States, the entire neighborhood a well-preserved array of steel mills, outmoded power stations, low-priced tenements and, of course, an entire previous generation’s worth of Americana, or at least what could be recovered of it after the Great Disaster, with live-in employees doing their very best to recreate what it must have been like to live in Edwardstown at the start of the 1990s. Praised by tourists from the world over as a perfect encapsulation of an all-too-recent part of American culture, Steeltown in all its glory may yet be worth a full stop rather than a mere casual pass. Who knows, perhaps you may even catch a battle between those eternal bitter enemies, the high-flying hero Birdbrain and the sinister mistress of eyes, Glazzie!
Once your taxi has taken you straight out of Steeltown, you should find yourself in the Northside docks, where all the main shipping terminals of Edwardstown happen to be located. A good look into the more serious side of the city, you will often see in passing riverboats laden with cargo, dour dockhands, massive machinery, large laborers and more! The ascetic, functional buildings for the less privileged populace to reside in will perhaps be not as easy on the eyes as the more lovely parts of the city, but it is important to take note of them regardless, for Edwardstown is not just all fun and games – it is also an important river port, and quite a lot of cargo comes through here, especially given the impracticality of roads in this day and age. They say that the aquatic hoodlum known as Reel resides somewhere in the river, and most would point to the docks being her territory, so to speak, though whether this is because of mere watery association or because of it being one of the few seemingly vacant territories in town is somewhat unclear – you need not worry, friend, as she dwells in the river, and her gang of disreputable hoodlums seems perfectly content leaving tourists alone, unless they were to try seeking her out – legends abound of such experiences in certain circles, many of which are, of course, completely untrue, but some, well…
In any case, once you have gone upriver far enough, the Business District awaits – a grand place, truly, and here you will find many of the common pleasures of Edwardstown, including a great number of shops along Main Street, the First, Second and Third National Banks of Edwardstown, clubs, hotels and bars in a variety of prices, from the ostentatious Grand Azure in the very center to the affordable, yet cozy America Inn, the Business District is a place of business, culture and comfort beyond anything you will find in the territory, not least of all due to the efforts of the mysterious Karma, the guardian spirit that has done its best to keep the place safe from any and all intrusion and irregularity, to the point where only the more unstable criminals would even dare try something here – it is said that to see an employee or tourist suddenly manifest parahuman abilities and save the day from a rabid terrorist is a life-changing experience, and one that only a few people, all of them Edwardstownies or lucky tourists, can boast. If you hope to enjoy a good, clean time in Edwardstown, this would be the place to do it.
Slightly upriver from this lie the Bluffs, which would be where the more wealthy Edwardstown residents reside, and a perfectly good place to go for a Sunday drive in by all accounts. Perhaps not the greatest place for sightseeing – this is all private property, good friends, and the beautiful people of the Bluffs are not big fans of mingling with tourists. Even the local private school, the loftily-named Thebes High, is notoriously reclusive, with rumors of secret ceremonies, clubs within clubs, councils within councils and even student-perpetrated conspiracies for pedagogical purposes occasionally making their way to the other students within the city’s other, more inclusive schools. In short, the Bluffs are lovely to look at, but odds are that you do not belong there, good friends – however, if you do not mind potentially embarrassing yourself before far wealthier individuals, there is hope. You may attempt to crash one of the wild parties that the Bluffs citizenry are known to throw every now and then, and perhaps you may even find yourself admitted! And at that point you have yourself the makings of a night to remember, friends. Just be mindful of the six foot fences and “TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT” warnings, as both can foreshadow terrible consequences!
Further north from the Business District lies the notorious district of Hoytsburg. As wholesome a neighborhood as you will ever find, Hoytsburg is largely a suburb for both the docks and the Business District these days, as well as providing housing for a good number of the employees of the ex-nuclear power plant slightly further away, once called appropriately the Hoytsburg Nuclear Generating Station, but now simply dubbed the Hoytsburg Generating Station for several reasons, the foremost of which being that nobody really knows how it generates power these days, since the whole thing seems to operate by the will and work of a single dedicated employee, Muhammad Abbas, who’s been inside the plant since roughly 2003, having been there on the day that it suffered from a terrible incident comparable to, but not quite equivalent to a full-blown meltdown as a result of certain events in the area around Edwardstown. Given that the plant shows about a 60% increase in efficiency and 90% reduction in operating costs now that he’s in charge of it as well as its sole employee the Edwardstown Board of Tourism would say he’s making very good use of his time. Of course, how he happens to have achieved this without a supply of fuel or a particularly qualified staff on hand is another question, but it is apparently one that the relevant government agencies have had answered to their satisfaction, as Mr. Abbas is now left to his own devices inside the plant and the entire facility has been turned into a Priority Restricted Zone, which means that the land in a five block radius of it has been cleared and is now regularly patrolled by heavily armed military men. The good news is, there are quite a few gift shops and observation towers on-site for all your tourism needs, so you will be well-provided for in terms of pictures and souvenirs, dear friends!
And then, sidled right up to Steeltown and very easy to overlook or even conflate with the area as a result, is Whittle. Compared to Steeltown, Whittle is the actual industrial district of the city, and boasts quite a variety of factories, mostly ones engaged in the food industry. Of particular note are two, dear friends, and these would be the Holly Jolly Ice Cream Inc. factory complex and the Fyne Breweries, both of which pack the double whammy of being excellent places to work in as well as beloved attractions for tourists and curious Edwardstownies alike. In fact, much of Whittle is dedicated to the food industries, with quite a few facilities beyond the two main ones (the others, unfortunately, tend to be more of academic than popular interest), with a few chemical factories here and there sprinkled in. Not many people live in Whittle – in fact, quite a few of the people living in Steeltown currently work in Whittle, since not all of them handled the transition from living and working in a decrepit post-industrial landscape to living and working in a perfect recapturing of a decrepit post-industrial landscape terribly well, as is their prerogative! As their unofficial motto states, that’s what Whittle is for!
And finally, there is the Wall. It encircles Northside from the north, east and west, with occasional locked gates along the way – all in the name of keeping Edwardstown safe from the encroaching wilderness and its terrible, terrible inhabitants. And so it does, lo and behold! The Wall, though only a humble four meters in height, has thus far proven entirely adequate at both keeping the Hesperides out of the respectable neighborhoods of Northside as well as providing a wonderful platform for Project Ed and other youth movements to paint very interesting explorations of the human condition and highly explicit imagery thereof, the colorful nature of certain parts of the wall very nicely offsetting the armed guards and security checkpoints along the way. A very common activity for graduates of schools in Edwardstown is to organize a field trip to one of the Wall’s thus far unpainted sections (and believe you me, dear friends, there are many) and make their own little contribution to its increasing loveliness – there are even certain kiosks spaced along the length of the Wall courtesy of the Edwardstown Board of Tourism that are prepared to sell you supplies to do the same at equitable prices! So visit the Wall – it is by no means as severe as it sounds, but is actually twice as safe as you think!
There are many things to see in Southside and the first, most prominent of these would be Edtown, the bohemian, unregulated counterpart of the Business District located just across the Carver Bridge, the place where sound becomes color, and music becomes life. Once known as Old Town and known to be home to all manner of scum, the place was revitalized by the formation of the now-famous Edwardstownies Project Ed, a youth movement today numbering in the thousands and known for their activism in “livening up” the place, as they put it. Edtown adequately reflects the movement in many ways, and is held up by lovers of authenticity as a wonderful alternative to the perceived soullessness of the Business District, as it is a place where the full works of Project Ed are proudly displayed and embraced, with streetlights repurposed into a variety of “mood spheres” constructed by local Tinker Ilo, the residents uncommonly friendly with any and all comers, many of the old buildings replaced with organic structures grown by the queen of the forests, Taproot, the ruined Edwardstown City Hall turned upside down by manipulator of angles One-Eighty and woven with Taproot’s plant sorcery to create the very center of Ed activity in town, Chez d’Ed, said to be an unforgettable, inexplicable, unquestionably mind-altering experience by any who visit. For those of you disgusted with the idea of a clean and corporate holiday, Edtown is the place you want, though you may want to leave your important documents and nice shoes back at your hotel if you’re not intending to stay.
Edtown sets quite a high standard for the rest of Southside to follow, and a lot of the area does its best to follow, chief among them Murgate, located just downriver. The residual feeling of your consciousness melting away from a casual pass through Edtown is noted to vastly enhance the Murgate experience, which is sure to take the form of a delightfully seedy, sinful adventure that you would expect from an isolated city in the Dark Strip. Though the district is in general brimming with suspicious dives, aging tenements, houses of ill repute and similar exciting destinations, at the center of it all is the Helium Tiger Hotel & Casino, which handily tops the B-list of Edwardstown’s amusements with its unique understanding of sumptuous décor and guest service. You never know what’ll happen at the Helium Tiger, so brace yourself for the unexpected, and you may just find yourself pleasantly surprised! Side note: the Helium Tiger’s associations with organized crime, particularly with the crew of local parahuman crime lord known only as Bubbles, remain entirely unproven and unappreciated by the Helium Tiger’s staff, and the Edwardstown Board of Tourism would ask that you refrain from furthering this negative association in words or deeds.
Of course, Southside is not just made up of colorful locations such as Edtown or Murgate – there’s still some room for good old unthreatening, uncorrupted Mother Nature, and that you may find in Ramsfield Park, just upriver from Edtown. An enclosed area of tamed nature, Ramsfield Park has all the allure of the woods with none of the vicious Hesperides, although it must be noted that it is somewhat infested with a variety of communes of the religious and/or anarchic varieties, making it a little more inhabited than your average large park. A lot of the older buildings here have been taken over by local cults, converted into organic miniature farms or simply squatted in by youthful and rebellious vagrants – as such, Ramsfield Park isn’t quite the pristine nature experience some would like. It is, however, the best you are going to get in several thousand miles, and for all their usually poor hygiene the locals can’t be said to be anything but friendly to newcomers and always ready to pass after two puffs no matter what the size of the circle. A wonderful camping location, though do be careful with campfires, as the often-sighted Taproot does like making a careless camper’s outdoors experience that much more interesting from time to time, and those on the receiving end of her lighthearted jests only grow to appreciate them after the fact.
From these neighborhoods you may rightly guess that Southside has a reputation as a slightly rowdy place, and you would be entirely correct. In fact, the Edwardstown Executive Committee of Public Safety came to the same conclusion two years ago, and had the brilliant idea of funneling some much-needed financing into the languishing Remar AFB at the southern edge of Edwardstown and expanding its functions a smidgen, a project that turned out grander than expected as federal funding came in from generous donors and conscientious congressmen alike, turning the decrepit, half-abandoned monument to American militarism into the secure bastion of safety and research it is today – the Remar Restricted Zone, home of Edwardstown’s dedicated military police, firefighting and special forces divisions, their shiny, impressive equipment, the best civic defense training areas in the entire state and even a small scientific park catering to the interests of the public safety industry. Unfortunately for you, dear friends, the Remar Restricted Zone is, as the name implies, restricted. Not entirely restricted, however, as the PR department, if reached and spoken to well in advance, can arrange a very nice walking (or, if you are particularly lucky, helicopter) tour of the premises that should give you an adequate glimpse into the daily life of Edwardstown’s most dedicated civil servants and their on-site families. Unsanctioned tours are strongly discouraged by both the Remar Restricted Zone security as well as the Edwardstown Board of Tourism, as these are, as of last year, possibly considerable as federal offenses. Do not trespass on the land of the law, kids, and respect the law of the land.
Under the warm, fatherly shadow of the Remar Restricted Zone thrive two other neighborhoods, the larger of which is Arkwood, a homely, peaceful little suburb where many of Edwardstown’s senior citizenry and their relatives reside these days. Arkwood is the location of Gray Ranch, a cozy little sanatorium with very much adequate facilities to host a wide variety of ill individuals in body or mind, and give them a relaxing, isolated space away from the terrible travails and pollutants of everyday life. And you really could not ask for a better place than Gray Ranch for this purpose, friends, at least not at this price – the ranch is about as far from anything distressing as it is safely possible to be in the civilized world – at least at the very reasonable price points offered, mind you.
On the other side of the RRZ, and rather close to Ramsfield Park lies Xanadu, a far less grand place than you would expect from the name. The birthplace of highly eccentric experimental musician and often suspected rogue Thinker (tales abound of his persecution and his vivisection/assassination by the CIA) Louie Norton Meyer, Xanadu is where he spent much of his life and made much of his music, a lot of which has been carefully preserved by his very expansive set of friends and family, to the point where central Xanadu has become a strange subculture in itself, with each shop there featuring at least some memorabilia from Meyer’s rather long and prolific career, and more often than not playing his music at all hours of the day, sometimes at excessive volumes. There’s even a Louie Norton Meyer Museum, placed inside his old family home. A very conspicuous amount of effort for someone who has achieved essentially no mainstream fame, and many of the central locals appear incredibly enamored with his music and life story, sharing their love of it at the slightest provocation. It is a strange thing to behold for a tourist, and for its inexplicability alone Xanadu is a recommended site for visitation. The residents are lovely just like anywhere else in Edwardstown, and a more kindly Edwardstownie than a Xanadian you will never find. If you are lucky, you may even get to experience the irregularly occurring Meyer Festival, when the love reaches a fever pitch and all the stops are pulled out as the residents march about the neighborhood brimming with love of life and appreciation of the underappreciated artistic works of their resident genius, who they say still resides in Xanadu… perhaps on another, more mysterious plane of existence, hidden behind the plain principles, they meaningfully add, quoting perennial Meyer lyrics as they wax philosophical on their genius’ ultimate fate.
And finally for your safety and convenience we must mention the Low Fields, the areas south of the RRZ, the southern outskirts of Edwardstown – nowadays they are largely abandoned or inhabited by the willfully unmedicated and the homeless who cannot quite find a stable squatting location in Ramsfield Park, and the direct victim of insufficient funding that prevented the building of another Wall for Southside. Contrary to the rest of Edwardstown, the Low Fields are probably not a good place to be unless escorted, as no guarantees can be made about your safety, especially at night or worse, sundown. Though there is a certain beauty to the decrepitude and slow demise of the works of man that the Low Fields represent in the consciousness of Edwardstownies, and it certainly cannot be beaten as an accurate representation of the grim events of the past decade, the Edwardstown Board of Tourism cannot advise in good conscience that you come here unescorted, friends, especially without an experienced and well-armed guide. If you do, however, take the time to appreciate the quiet of the Low Fields. It is a quiet that the rest of Edwardstown does not know, the quiet of near-lifeless existence. Some report it makes them feel enlightened when they listen to the Low Fields at night. Others report great unease. One thing is for sure – an experience at the Low Fields will be undoubtedly your own, more than anything else in Edwardstown.
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Topic: Come On Down To Edwardstown: A Worm-Inspired RP (9/9) (Read 17118 times)