New Vance City

Oscillator Station lies beneath the central tower of the old city broadcast grid. It was an automated interchange for maintenance staff and signal engineers, abandoned within days of the collapse. No faction claimed it—transmission interference made coordination nearly impossible, and the structural integrity of the station is questionable. Since then, it has become a nesting ground for an unusual breed of Shamblers. They don’t wander far from Oscillator—reports suggest some form of directional pull, possibly linked to the malfunctioning signal amplifier still active below the central track. Drones sent in transmit nothing but feedback. Patrols are instructed to avoid the area entirely.

The station’s design is circular, with the platform forming a full ring around a sunken transmission node. The node still emits pulses of analog signal, visible as occasional heatwave-like ripples across the air. Most of the lighting has shorted, leaving only flickers from loose arc cables dangling from above. Shamblers crowd the lower basin in unmoving clumps, as if waiting for a cue. The walls are completely overgrown with wet insulation foam and copper-threaded mold. A few human figures stand motionless near the edge of the control pit—mouths agape, faces blistered—yet they do not fall. Every few minutes, the pulse intensifies, and they twitch in sync before returning to stillness. The station smells of ozone, copper, and decay.