Highland and Seventh

## Kirillov Kountry

Posted by: Hyasynth

Farther to the west is West Seventh, which is a long straightaway street leading out towards the Fort Snelling military complex. As you go west, it slowly shifts from a series of small, old shops, bars and restaurants, to a lower end metahuman neighborhood in the middle, to an Eastern European neighborhood, an extension of Highland Park and the domain of the Kirillov Vory . On its south side, along the top of the river bluffs, is Shepard Road, one of the longest straightaways in the sprawl other than the highways. Only locals seem to know to use it, so don’t be the out of towner who lets someone dust you this way. Also, below Shepard Road is Crosby Park Nature Preserve, home to all sorts of magicians, hippies and back-to-nature sorts. This is about as close as most are willing to get to actual wilderness, which is much more full of dangerous paracritters.

*Shepard Road also periodically hosts some of the best illegal races in the Midwest, courtesy of the Kirillov Vory’s hefty bribes to the SPPD. It’s actually pretty openly acknowledged that they ignore it, since the people in the apartments along the way enjoy the show as much as anybody; hell, they’ll set up lemonade stands for the audience. Combat bikers , sports cars, you name it. It’s also pretty well known to locals when they’re gonna happen, so don’t be the idiot who goes out driving on the road that night. Keep your ears peeled, and catch it if you can, it’s a sight to see.*
- Fight Owl

*Anybody who thinks Crosby is anything like wilderness is a complete and total city kid.*
- Brynhild

*A couple shapeshifters  make their home in the park, too. After all, they’re smart enough to live somewhere where they can be in animal form without getting shot at.*
- Red Hawk

Farther up north from the end of that road is Highland Park, an area that’s got a lot of strangely mixed elements. Here’s a short local history lesson. After the Ghost Dance War, Highland Park was largely right across the river from the astrally-tainted Minnehaha Park , so that sent property values from the formerly high end neighborhood plunging downward. Yet, in the wake of that conflict, Ares  formed from the ashes of GM, and reestablished activity at the former Ford plant at Ford and Cretin. As such, the neighborhood went into a blue-collar state. That’s also about when they forced the city rail line through from Seventh and downtown up Montreal and across the river toward 46th and Hiawatha, which both tore up property and businesses, and made the neighborhood an active part of the sprawl again.

That blue-collar state lasted about until the first Crash , when the chaos combined with a spirit attack from Minnehaha that normally would have been repulsed sent a train right into the river, killing dozens of people. The line was shut down for a decade or so, and after the Crash, the neighborhood began to decay into a more blighted, gang-ridden one. Ares took notice and took charge by making a sweet offer to rebuild the area, which they admittedly did do a damn good job at, fixing the rail line, kicking the smaller and more violent gangs out, and setting up several Ares apartment complexes. The cost was a much larger area of Ares’ extraterritorial domain and several exclusive contracts. As a result, when the second Crash hit, this was pretty much an Ares-controlled district. Again, the Crash brought chaos, but this time the other corps got the drop on Ares, which had to sell a lot of its minor possessions in the area to other, smaller and less tech-reliant corps to regain its financial footing. Now, the area’s still blue-collar, and full of corporate housing, but there’s a lot of corporate sniping at each other, which is more work for us. There’s also still pockets of the blight from the 2030s and even a few isolated pockets where the good times of the last century persist. It varies block to block, so do your research.

*Highland Village on Ford Parkway is a spam zone; a minor one, but for this town it’s still saying a lot'**.***
- Nodewalker

*And don’t forget this is the Kirillovs’ home turf. I’m sure they’ve got machinations of their own, aside from the corp work.*
- Wirefrog

Head north from Highland past Randolph Avenue and you’re in Macalester-Groveland, MacGrove to the locals. Pretty rich area, especially along River Road. Expect random SIN checks, no-ghosting rules, and constant police patrols. Driving while meta can get you pulled over. And at least try to not look like street scumbags, alright? There are a couple private colleges in the area, but most students, except for the really loaded ones, end up living off in Highland, as it’s much cheaper.

*Passing yourself off as one of these students can be helpful if you’re not of the, ahem, demographics prevalent here. People react very differently to the scholarship troll that’s getting an education and trying to be a good citizen than they will to the suspicious, driving around the neighborhood for no reason troll.*
- Gopher Eater

*They’re mostly liberal arts schools, but that doesn’t mean there are no academics worth extracting here, or no research worth lifting. Not by a long shot.*
- Nodewalker

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