For quickly on the heels of refugees from the perimeter lands of each three realms had come the vermin who without a host to prey upon could not long live, left to their own devices, the parasite requiring a host. And behind them had come the scavengers to loot among the leavings, and behind them finally like lobster on the ocean floor, the wastrels, miscreants, and scurrilous brigands who knew not reason but only l**t. And thus to these depraved and heartless souls had the outlands been surrendered, their ranks swelling as the rule of law receded to the immediate surrounds of Shire, Haven, and Vale, the theft of Sword, Scroll, and Stone seeming to have deprived even good kind folk of reason, compassion, and benevolence.
Thus the low road had descended literally into the chasm of inequity
