The Crisis #
Picentia. The Wool Capital of Campania. A town built on the rhythm of the loom, now covered in a fine layer of grey ash.
The men of the 16 Houses were in Pompeii when the mountain screamed. They did not come back. The Houses of Vettius, Popidius, and others are now led by the widows left behind.
Marcus and Gaius walk through the silent wool district. "Look at them," Gaius says. "The buyers are dead, the sellers are dead, and the contracts are ash."
The sheep survived, and the wool grows, but the hands that spun it are buried. Gaius touches a grimy bale: "The magistrates want to flee south. If we leave, these families will starve. We have nothing to give them but fleece they cannot eat."