In the days before magic had returned to the earth, the country had been well served with roads. Aircraft had flown high above the deserts and grasslands to connect the coastal population centers with the interior’s scattered bastions of civilization. But with the Awakening, the land had come to chaotic—and often malevolent—life, swallowing roads and brewing vast, swirling storms of such violence that air travel was often too risky. The Dreamtime had returned as a Nightmaretime, and mankind had retreated before the unleashed fury of the wild magic. Only a few resource-exploitation centers belonging to megacorporations remained in the interior, and even their lifelines were tenuous.