The static did not abate. It became the new weather of Aethelburg, a constant, low-frequency hum that vibrated in the teeth and clouded the edges of thought. The city lived now in the echo chamber of its own memory, a precarious existence. They remembered how to shoe a horse, but the intuitive knowledge of which horse needed shoeing first was gone. They remembered recipes, but the cook's innate sense of how much spice to add had fled. Their world had been stripped of its nuance, reduced to a series of remembered instructions.
It was a life of profound loneliness. The deep, wordless connection between artisan and material, between farmer and field, between one person and another, had been severed. They could interact, but they could no longer *commune*. The silence between them was no longer comfortable; it was empty.
