All lands above the subterranean metropolis known as Urn were covered in pavement. The plains had been paved over centuries earlier to better accommodate the living mini-malls that endlessly wandered the countryside, searching for customers. A thousand years before that, the mountains & the seas were leveled & drained & paved over. Once the second & third moon appeared in the sky, extra parking became a necessity.

With little natural land left, most of societies rich & well-to-do citizens ventured down into the hollowed earth to Urn, the newly built utopia for humanity. But utopian societies often have dystopian counterparts, & the world above the world below was such a place. A place where the wastes from a perfect world were disposed of. Refuse of every sort, from sewage to criminals, from the sick, to the damned, all tossed onto the blacktop, left to die or destroy or whatever else happens to things cast off.

The paved earth wasnt barren though. Many peoples & cultures still survived on the surface. Steadfast in the face of endless waves of asphalt & the despicable runoff from the so-called utopia below. Scavenging soil from the few surviving do-it-yourself stores, agricultures devine hand still covered a precious few acres of the surface world.

Ondroe, a topsider, came from one of the Outer Pavement Clans; where the oldest paved lots held rule through the magical prowess of the Asphalt Shamans. The parking lines had faded from sight generations ago, but legend of their power echoed through clan history.

Ondroes father used to speak of his own grandfathers home, deep inside the parking garage of a lifeless mini-mall. "Pops kept jars of old road paint. From way back before the freeways stretched to the moons." Ondroe could see a strip of nostalgia weave itself across his fathers eyes, like he was still down in that garage, marvelling over its wonders. "Isle after isle of shelves, stacked with jars of road paint. He told me, as an Asphalt Shaman, every bit of conjuring or enchanting he did, started with road paint."

"Then he gave me the pistol, something he said he used during the Monument Wars." Ondroes father shuffled over to the cabinet at the end of the huge tent they called home, opened it & pulled out an old revolver covered in the inscriptions of the Asphalt Shamans. Then his father pulled a dust peppered box from within the cabinet. Inside, translucent bullets filled with grains of ancient road paint. "Pops told me these bullets could turn a person into a vacant lot." He handed Ondroe the pistol. "Ive never needed it, but you will. Where you’re going, it’ll be the balance in an unbalanced place."

He handed his son every box of road bullets he owned & then led Ondroe outside. "Its February 29th son, the only day the stairwell into Urn will be open for the next four years." He pointed to the derelict carcass of a gigantic digital clock. "Give’em the hell they got comin, son."