ALL WEAR MASKS IN THE PLAYHOUSE OF MAMMON
After suffering an accident during a rare day off, Neipas wakes up in the hospital and finds himself without his mask. Looking in the mirror, he gazes upon his face for the first time - and is horrified by what he sees.
Saddled with medical bills and the weight of many such debts - his sinister landlord haunts his thoughts and a mysterious debt collector stalks his every move - Neipas gets a job delivering meals up and down the endless floors of the Belab Tower, tallest in the world, center of the megalopolis of Axiac. Week after week he labors through exhaustion and struggles to survive on law pay. But his prospects brighten when he is hired to cater an event at the Eagles’ Nest, the lavish complex of gardens and mansions at the summit of the tower, where the most powerful people on the planet host debauched galas few ever get to witness and hold secret meetings to make deals and decisions affecting the lives of billions.
Meanwhile, a myriad battles are afoot across Axiac. In the mountains to the East, the indigenous population fights against petroleum and farming interests encroaching on their dwindling land. In the slums to the South, the already-destitute inhabitants face homelessness before ever expanding industrial operations. All cope with an increasingly uncanny, unpredictable, menacing Earth which manifests itself through vast wildfires and perplexing storms. Each struggle with the growing strangeness in themselves - with a deepening alienation drawing them away from their human essence and toward the aspect of their beastly personas.