Erin Tarn's survey continues through what was once the southeastern United States.
Kentucky and Tennessee have become wilderness again. Dense forests and rolling hills dominate both territories, with civilization limited primarily to tiny settlements and feudal kingdoms. Magic is strong throughout the region, which also means supernatural monsters are common.
But the strangest phenomenon reported there is something the local people call "D-Shifting."
A traveler might be walking normally through the forest when the entire landscape suddenly blurs and shimmers with a silver light. When the effect passes, the familiar forest may have been replaced by something completely different, perhaps an alien forest or even a desert.
The people experiencing the event remain in the same geographical location. It is the environment around them that seems to change.
Nobody understands exactly what is happening.
Tarn compares the experience to walking through an enormous holographic image that randomly changes around you. Even for people who have experienced D-Shifting several times, it remains deeply unsettling.
Northeastern Tennessee, particularly the region bordering North Carolina, contains another enormous concentration of magical energy. The ruins of Bristol, Johnson City, Newport, Athens, Chattanooga, and Knoxville are all known locations of ley line nexus points and frequent D-Bee activity.
Moving farther south brings Tarn to Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
These lands have been physically reshaped by the return of Atlantis.
The old coastline is gone.
Approximately sixty percent of Louisiana, forty percent of Mississippi, and ten percent of Alabama disappeared beneath the Gulf of Mexico. The new coastline begins near the ruins of Alexandria, Louisiana, then continues east through Port Gibson and Laurel in Mississippi before reaching Atmore, Alabama.
Lower Alabama has become a region of swamps and lakes. Mobile is underwater, although the Mobile River survives and is now larger and deeper than it was before the Cataclysm.
There are scattered farming communities and feudal kingdoms throughout the Deep South, but Tarn considers the region overwhelmingly wilderness.
Surprisingly, ley line activity is comparatively minor.
Only four nexus points are known across all three territories. Louisiana has none. Mississippi has one near the ruins of Oxford. Alabama contains the other three at Selma, Talladega, and Guntersville.
Guntersville is the most powerful of these and has attracted several tiny communities.
Wild Psi-Stalkers roam throughout the Deep South, hunting psychics, practitioners of magic, and monsters. Cyber-Knights also travel the region regularly.
Then there is Georgia and Florida.
Tarn calls this region the Dinosaur Swamp.
Most of Florida is simply gone. Everything south of Tampa Bay was devastated during the Time of Rifts and now lies beneath approximately two hundred feet of water.
What remains of Florida, together with most of Georgia, has transformed into an enormous marshland resembling a greatly expanded Everglades.
And dinosaurs live there.
A scholar Tarn met in the region claimed to have identified thirty-two different types of creatures matching descriptions found in Pre-Rifts texts. He personally showed Tarn two species that appeared remarkably similar to the creatures once known as Stegosaurus and duck-billed dinosaurs.
Their existence raises a question Tarn cannot answer.
How can animals that became extinct millions of years ago be alive on Rifts Earth?
Perhaps the Rifts do more than cross dimensional space.
Perhaps they can cross time.
Or perhaps these creatures are not actually Earth's prehistoric dinosaurs at all. They may be animals from another world that happen to resemble them.
Whatever the explanation, dinosaurs and other monsters are unusually common throughout the eastern portion of the old American Empire.
Tarn suspects geography is responsible. The enormous number of Rifts along the Mississippi, the magical concentrations around North Carolina and Virginia, and the Bermuda Triangle farther east provide numerous potential entry points for creatures from other worlds.
The eastern United States has therefore become a natural place for otherworldly life to establish itself.
The East Coast itself barely resembles its Pre-Rifts geography.
Half of North Carolina is underwater.
One-third of Virginia is gone.
The lower portion of Maryland south of Washington, D.C. has been submerged, along with everything east of Chesapeake Bay. Delaware has disappeared completely, and roughly forty percent of New Jersey is underwater.
The ancient cities that once lined the eastern seaboard are mostly piles of wreckage.
According to Tarn's understanding of the Great Cataclysm, the entire coast was battered by tidal waves, hurricanes, and earthquakes. The devastation did not end quickly. The land continued to suffer for approximately a decade.
The destruction extended inland as far as the Appalachian and Allegheny Mountains.
Having personally traveled through these regions, Tarn says the scale of destruction is difficult to comprehend. Whatever happened during the Time of Rifts must have genuinely seemed like the end of the world to anyone who survived it.
South Carolina has lost approximately forty miles of its old eastern coastline. What remains is predominantly woodland populated by dinosaurs and monsters from the Rifts.
North Carolina's new coastline begins around Lumberton, continues through Fayetteville and Raleigh, and then runs north toward the mouth of the old Roanoke River.
The remaining land is forest filled with monsters.
Western North Carolina and neighboring Tennessee contain intense concentrations of ley line energy, dimensional Rifts, and areas where D-Shifting occurs.
Virginia has also lost roughly one-third of its territory.
The ruins of Emporia, Petersburg, Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Alexandria now mark the coastline.
Most of Virginia is comparatively free of magical energy, except for its western tip around Bristol, Grundy, and Wytheville. Even so, Psi-Stalkers and creatures wandering outward from neighboring Rift regions remain common.
A few small feudal kingdoms survive in the eastern and northern portions of the territory.
Pennsylvania is primarily wilderness as well, although scattered human and non-human settlements exist.
Washington, D.C. is in ruins.
However, a technologically advanced community calling itself the "Republicans" has established itself among the ruins and old subway tunnels.
Approximately sixty percent of its population is human. Magic is uncommon, but cybernetic and other forms of augmentation are heavily used, as are psionic abilities.
Tarn considers the Republicans a growing eastern power.
Then there is New York.
Manhattan has risen and is now physically connected to what was once New York State, making the former island a peninsula.
But the city is gone.
Not one building remains standing.
Manhattan is nothing but enormous piles of rubble.
Scavengers nevertheless claim that by digging hundreds of feet beneath the ruins, they have discovered recoverable Pre-Rifts artifacts.
Modern inhabitants call the place "Mad Haven."
Most humans avoid it.
Stories describe Manhattan as a haunted graveyard, and Tarn has heard reports of strange subterranean creatures living beneath the ruins.
Beyond these scattered locations, much of the East Coast is wilderness with only tiny pockets of intelligent life.
Tarn then turns north again, this time toward Michigan.
Northern Michigan, the old Upper Peninsula, is one of the unusual success stories of post-Cataclysm North America.
Human civilization is thriving there.
Approximately one hundred small human communities exist throughout the region, and two industrial kingdoms have become particularly important: Ishpeming and Manistique.
Ishpeming is also known as the Northern Gun.
It is a major weapons manufacturer that supplies non-Coalition communities, mercenaries, and even bandits.
Northern Gun can provide limited cybernetic and bionic augmentation, including partial bionic conversion and repairs. It can also perform M.O.M. conversion to create Crazies and biochemical augmentation to create Juicers.
Its military reflects those capabilities.
Ishpeming fields Crazies, Juicers, robot vehicles, power armor, and even a handful of Glitter Boys. They can repair Glitter Boy armor, although they cannot manufacture new Glitter Boy suits from scratch.
Magic is legal but viewed suspiciously.
Education resembles the industrial societies of the late twentieth century, and approximately eighty-eight percent of the population is literate.
Tarn estimates Ishpeming itself at roughly 110,000 inhabitants, backed by a mercenary force of approximately 35,000.
That mercenary army is remarkably diverse. Roughly twenty percent are Juicers, thirty percent are Crazies, twenty-five percent are robot pilots, fifteen percent are Borgs, and the remaining ten percent are conventional infantry.
Ishpeming also maintains alliances with powerful outside organizations, including the Chi-Town Black Market and Tolkeen.
The other major northern power is the Manistique Imperium.
Located along the southern coast of the Upper Peninsula, the Imperium includes the Pre-Rifts city of Escanaba along with numerous smaller communities.
Unlike the heavily weapons-oriented Northern Gun, Manistique has developed a broad economy.
Fishing, mining, metal processing, manufacturing, sawmills, trapping, farming, cattle, and dairy production all contribute to its prosperity.
Many smaller settlements view the Imperium as both friend and protector.
Its population is diverse, including D-Bees and mutoids, who make up approximately thirty percent of its people.
Education varies dramatically. Skilled technicians and scholars live in the industrial centers, while some rural farmers, scouts, and trappers remain completely illiterate.
Escanaba contains approximately 220,000 people with a literacy rate of about fifty-four percent.
Manistique itself contains approximately 380,000 inhabitants and has a literacy rate around seventy-two percent.
Both cities maintain trade schools and libraries.
Manistique also possesses one of the great universities.
Another hundred thousand people live in surrounding communities dependent upon the Imperium, although literacy among these rural populations is only around ten percent.
Militarily, Manistique is formidable.
It possesses robot and hover vehicles, energy weapons, rail guns, power armor, and limited cybernetic and bionic augmentation. Interestingly, this limitation is philosophical rather than technological. The Imperium possesses the ability to perform full bionic conversion but chooses not to emphasize it.
Its forces also include Wilderness Scouts and substantial numbers of psychics, including Psi-Stalkers and Mind Melters.
A loyal Techno-Wizard community lives there as well.
The Imperium maintains approximately forty thousand troops, fewer than ten percent of whom are mercenaries.
Relations between Manistique and Ishpeming are friendly but cautious.
Tarn believes that despite their rivalry and differences, either kingdom would come to the other's aid if genuinely threatened.
Manistique also enjoys particularly good relations with Lazlo. The two exchange manufactured goods as well as knowledge and literature.
Other smaller kingdoms exist throughout the Upper Peninsula, some with industrial capabilities of their own, but their populations remain below one hundred thousand and Tarn considers them politically insignificant.
There is a reason northern Michigan survived well enough for these civilizations to develop.
The Upper Peninsula seems to have fallen into a geographical pocket that escaped much of the destruction suffered elsewhere.
Tarn believes the lack of magical energy played a major role.
There are no ley line nexus points in the Upper Peninsula.
Only two ley lines cross the region, running roughly parallel along the northern coast of Lake Superior from Hancock toward Tolkeen in Minnesota.
The Great Lakes also provided natural isolation from many invading creatures and supernatural threats.
Northern Michigan still suffered during the Great Cataclysm.
But compared with much of North America, it survived remarkably intact.
Now it is becoming a genuine regional power.
Southern Michigan is almost its exact opposite.
The Lower Peninsula has been torn apart by magical energy.
Dozens of ley line nexus points and hundreds of ley lines cover the territory, particularly along the eastern coastline and near the old borders with Ohio and Indiana.
Line Walkers and other mystics travel the region.
Giant Fury Beetles are used as mounts.
Creatures from the Rifts dominate large portions of the wilderness.
The Imperium and Lazlo have recorded nexus points at numerous Pre-Rifts cities, including Alpena, Harrisville, Mikado, Tawas City, Standish, Bay City, Saginaw, Pontiac, Farmington, Detroit, Monroe, Adrian, Jackson, Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, and several others.
Neighboring Toledo, Ohio, South Bend, Indiana, and other nearby locations contain additional nexus points.
Numerous small kingdoms exist throughout the Lower Peninsula, including communities controlled by practitioners of magic, psychics, D-Bees, and supernatural beings.
Dragons are rumored to be common in the forests.
Tarn cannot personally confirm that particular claim.
Human civilization is otherwise sparse. Most people are trappers, Wilderness Scouts, or inhabitants of tiny lakeside settlements.
Old Detroit is a ruin.
Only a few crumbling buildings remain standing.
Four nexus points lie within the former city limits, making Detroit a natural gathering place for monsters.
Even so, scavengers continue searching the ruins because archaeological expeditions have reportedly uncovered remarkable technological and literary artifacts.
More recently, Tarn has heard that creatures from the Rifts have claimed Detroit for themselves and are constructing a new city over the old salt mines.
Across the Detroit River, Windsor is little better.
Three nexus points there have turned the Canadian ruins into another refuge for supernatural creatures.
About fifty miles west of Detroit lies something completely different.
Ann Arbor has become a small but thriving community called New Lazlo.
Before the Cataclysm, Ann Arbor had been home to an enormous university. Excavations have uncovered books, recordings, and artifacts, including several works by Victor Lazlo.
New Lazlo began as an archaeological outpost established by the Free State of Lazlo in Toronto.
It grew.
Today approximately forty thousand humans and non-humans live there, surrounded by friendly farming communities.
Magic and scholarship dominate everyday life.
Its people are prosperous, educated, and devoted to learning.
Erin Tarn believes they are also in terrible danger.
The Coalition considers Lazlo an enemy but has largely left it alone because attacking would require traveling through hundreds of miles of magically active territory.
New Lazlo is much closer.
Tarn believes the Coalition simply has not discovered it yet.
Once it does, she expects Chi-Town to destroy the community.
New Lazlo's leaders are confident that their magical and psionic abilities can protect them.
Tarn thinks they are overconfident.
Their people are scholars.
The Coalition's people are soldiers.
Tarn doubts New Lazlo possesses the military experience, aggression, or sheer destructive power necessary to survive a Coalition assault.
And even if the Coalition never comes, Detroit and its supernatural inhabitants are only fifty miles away.
Tarn ends the thought wondering whether age has simply made her pessimistic.
She hopes New Lazlo survives.
Finally, this portion of her account reaches Wisconsin.
Southern Wisconsin, stretching roughly from Green Bay and Marshfield south to the Illinois border, contains more magical energy than almost anywhere in North America.
Only the Magic Zone exceeds it.
The Coalition has designated the entire region forbidden.
Ley line nexus points cover the territory, including locations around Marshfield, Stevens Point, Green Bay, Oshkosh, Madison, Milwaukee, Lake Geneva, Beloit, and numerous other Pre-Rifts communities.
Chi-Town patrols the Illinois-Wisconsin border daily with SAMAS teams.
Coalition military installations have been established near Lake Geneva and Madison.
Dog Packs and mutant animal infantry penetrate fifty to one hundred miles into Wisconsin on reconnaissance and destruction missions aimed at supernatural and magical threats.
Coalition paranoia has occasionally escalated much further.
Massive bombing campaigns have been conducted against Milwaukee, Waukesha, and Madison.
The attacks reduced all three regions to wastelands.
Tarn has also repeatedly heard rumors of a magical kingdom called Shaedo somewhere around Marshfield and Stevens Point.
According to the stories, Shaedo is ruled by a dragon, perhaps several dragons. One name repeatedly associated with the kingdom is Kee-thh.
Tarn has no evidence confirming that Shaedo actually exists.
For now, southern Wisconsin remains predominantly wilderness and magically devastated territory under constant Coalition observation.
Few humans choose to live there.