Prologue
Prologue
Let me take you back to the beginning. Let me take you back to the origins of Boomtown, which began its life as a cluster of rocky hills in the outback of England’s West Country. Then one day a couple of hundred years ago, a prospecting geologist called Nicholas Boom was studying these hills and stumbled across a gold-bearing quartz vein threading its way though the rocky hills. If it could be said Boomtown had a father, Nicholas would’ve been it, and although he was the first person to pan for gold there his dream definitely didn’t pan out the way he envisioned.
At first Nicholas kept the discovery to himself, sifting bits of gold and selling it in the sparse towns of the area. But before long he realised help would be needed if he was going to make some real money. Thus he recruited a crew of miners, built lodgings for them and himself in the rocky hills, and set up trade links with gold merchants across the South West. The activity didn’t go unnoticed and soon hoards of hungry prospectors began to converge around the gold laden hills. It didn’t take long before blood was being shed and a perpetual power struggle ensued for dominance over the gold vein.
Nicholas expanded the settlements and created a town which he named in part after himself, and in part after the sudden explosion of wealth his town enjoyed. He tried to bring order to the community of miners and merchants, but before long lawless rebels turned that order into chaos. Everyone wanted to be in control of the river of gold that flowed from Boomtowns mines and most were willing to do whatever it took to achieve these ends. Nicholas Boom was found dead at the bottom of a gold mine one day and Boomtown fell into dystopian ruin; a society characterized by misery and oppression, disease and overcrowding.
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