The monstrous Black Volcano which has loomed
and leered menacingly over Happy City since it was
founded has finally erupted.
Vast rivers of lava are streaming down the
mountain slopes towards the human settlement and
ash is already beginning to rain on the rooftops. It is
only a matter of time before a pyroclastic cloud
scorches instant death onto the people or the molten
rock pours into the narrow streets and kills
everyone.
But in the city there is complete calm. Reassured by
the King’s insistence that they are in no danger and that
the volcano is not actually erupting at all, the city folk are
going about their everyday lives. Goods are bought and
sold, meals prepared and eaten, couples married and
children educated.
There was a brief moment of confusion when it
was discovered that the Happy City authorities had
cut down every single tree in the Great Gardens in
order to build a massive wooden fence on the
northern limits.
But rumours that this was designed to hide from
view the erupting Black Volcano were soon
dismissed as malicious paranoid fantasies, as the
King explained that it was a completely necessary
step to protect his people from blood-thirsty foreign
pirates and smugglers.
And so, as certain extinction draws ever closer,
the people of the Happy City keep bustling around,
making money, gossiping, squabbling over the petty
details of their lives and reporting to the Official
Inquisitor any citizen seen to be sniffing suspiciously
at the sulphur-laden air, cocking an alert ear to the
distant rumbling or trying to peer through the gaps
in the Great Anti-Crime Fence in order to see if the
lava is close.
