The Salt Fields

        During the last days of the Twilight War, as the City Mind's insanity grew, millions of terrified Desians fled to the north in the hopes of finding some way to escape their doomed empire. They jammed the motorways for hundreds of miles, some trapped in vehicles, but most simply fleeing on foot. When the blast wave overtook them, their bodies were fused into salt. Those near the city were blasted into dust, but many still remain, some as far as five hundred miles away. Forests of wind-erroded pillars can be found throughout this region, all leaning northward, some with vague humanoid features. The Salt Fields are now really nothing more than a vast, blasted flatland covered in salt. It lies in drifts, or clings to the dead land in crusted rinds. During the day, temperatures skyrocket to 120 degrees above. At night, they plunge below freezing.

        It is here that the two mad daughters of the City Mind wage their endless war, pitting armies of Machines against each other in a mindless struggle that has gone on for six hundred years. The fighting can be heard for miles around, and at night, the flash-fire of their terrible weapons can be seen from even further. Neither Core A nor Core B has the slightest advantage over its sibling, their blazing intellects trapped in a never-ending loop, like a computer trying to beat itself at chess. Both control an identiacal maximum quota of resources, and neither is capable of the rational thought needed to reach any resolution. So they fight. And fight. And fight.

        Forever.

        "I often wonder what would happen if someone interfered with the balance. It could take as little as a thrown rock, a minute distraction, anything, to tip the precarious cycle that has remained intact for so long. I dread what would happen if one of those crazed minds were unlocked from its countering loop, and allowed to turn its attention elsewhere." - Haxle

        While the entire area is essentially a wasteland, it is also full of warring Machines. They move with such haste that it is possible to be in flat, barren isolation one minute, and be caught up in a mortar or laser crossfire the next. As devastating as this may sound, the fighting Machines will utterly ignore anyone that stays out of their way. After all, there is no time for distraction. Still, stray shots and especially large explosions can bring disaster.

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