F L E D G E

Deep beneath the mountain ranges of Noreela are the fledge mines. Fledge is a drug that is used for many beneficial purposes by the fledge miners: it is food, it has healing properties and, most of all, it allows them to travel. It lets them see. With fledge a miner can project his or her mind and spirit, leaving their body and travelling through air and rock to explore far afield.

Below ground fledge is good, powerful and pure. It is addictive, but it causes no damage to the body … unless withdrawn. The fledge rage is the terrible consequence of a fledge miner being denied their supply.

When fledge is taken to the surface it sours very quickly, its mind-projecting effects diminish, and it becomes more addictive. Some fledge miners go topside and decide to stay there … but they turn into weak people, addicted to any poor, stale fledge they can find.

Fledge miners are tall and willowy, using their long limbs and thin bodies to worm their way through the fledge seams that runs beneath the ground. They live in large communities deep beneath the surface, their caverns carved out of the ground by machines many generations ago. The miners work mainly in darkness, using touch and sound to navigate and communicate. A fledger can know exactly where he or she is in a mine by the nature of the echoes around them.

The fledgers are not alone. There are the Nax - fledge demons - almost deified because of their rarity, and the destruction caused if they are ever encountered. But they have not been heard from for a long, long time …

Trey Barossa is a fledge miner. In DUSK, he meets the fledge demons. And when he is forced topside, his life changes forever.

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