Wasted Acres

## Wasted Acres (West Acres Quarantine)

* **Area:**A roughly circular area reaching out about 2 km from the epicenter at the former West Acres Shopping Center (the final battle was in the parking lot of a lunch counter called 'Panera Bread') Cordons drawn at 26th Ave S, 28st St S, 7th Ave N and West Fargo city limits.
* **Background Count:**Base average 2. Ranges from 1 at the edges of the Quarantine and is up to 3 at the epicenter. Unique Features: Fluctuates with the weather. May rise as high as 5 during severe manastorms.
* **Formation:** During the chaos of the Ghost Dance, with Fargo's attention directed east, towards the raging Red River threatening to destroy downtown, groups of Native partisans (largely from the Oglala Lakota, Turtle Mountain Anishinaabe, and the Three Affiliated Tribes) made a concerted raid on West Fargo, shutting down wireless communications (through use of a lightning spirit), seizing the police stations and power supply. North Dakota national guard confronted them near the West Acres shopping center just east of Fargo/West Fargo city limits and the partisans retaliated with magic. A Free Spirit that had decided to align itself with the USA intervened and the resulting magical explosion left a four kilometer diameter wasteland where there had once been a thriving shopping district. Those businesses that survived were relocated downtown and brought into The Group's massive building project there. As a memorial to the fallen retail district, it was recreated on floors 11-13 of the Block as the West Acres Memorial Shopping Center (also known as the 'Mem' to the Block's inhabitants).
* **Description:**So, the city's answer to all of the above appears to have been to seal it off and pretend it never existed. As I understand it, the powers that be find it useful to have a barrier between the Zone and Maitomoni'ohe (West Fargo's official name) which now lies within the border of the Oceti Sakowin. I don't totally blame them, its still a drekhole of the first order. Reminds me of the barrens I've seen elsewhere, nothing grows there but a few stunted plants and mutant animals scurrying through the abandoned malls. The creepy part is that the physical infrastructure of the place was more or less untouched by whatever effect created it and so it looks like it did the day it fell, as if the inhabitants had just run out to do an errand or whatever and never came back.

A word on the inhabitants. On paper not only is Wasted Acres listed as 'uninhabited' but residing there is forbidden. However, in reality the Zone Patrol  is more interested in keeping things from getting out than from keeping people from getting in and there is a small, desperate population of squatters that reside (one hates to say 'lives') in this place. Although with the trouble getting food and the magical background count you've got to be pretty desperate to try it. As I understand it only the lowest of the low, those with no other options end up in this drekhole. Most of those that do make their way, when they do make their way, through a combination of scavenging and small-time smuggling. Wasted Acres can be a pretty good area to do some off-the-books 'business ' as long as you don't plan on hanging around very long. Although that could be changing, word around the shadows is that there might be a bit of a  growing ghoul problem inside the Quarantine...

Also, while there isn't much in the way of metahuman inhabitants, there is life inside the Quarantine. Nature has been quick to reclaim the region, even if that nature is changed. And since the old 'Red River Zoo' also existed in this area, there's still a lot of animals not precisely native to the region roaming around in there.

Of course, attempts have been made to reclaim parts of the abandoned 12 square kilometers of real estate, but almost all have failed from lack of political will, proper funding or magical savvy, with one major exception. That exception being, of course, Associationville. The Bluemont Lakes Association has managed to reclaim all the territory south of I-94 and east of I-29, although how and when is an Association secret.

While still a magical wasteland hostile to life, the parts of the Wasted Acres north of main have been reclaimed by Ares and several other industrial companies in town, who have installed automated factories and repair facilities, all run remotely. This is called 'Drone Country', as there are no living beings here at all.

Two major freeways cross through Wasted Acres, I-29 going north-south and I-94 going east-west. The solution found to this is that the freeways are entirely enclosed in armored sheathes as they pass through the wasteland, effectively creating raised tunnels through the area. On the inside, these passages are covered in AR announcements and advertisements, on the outside, bullet dents and graffiti.

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