Valbeck is a large city in Midderland. It is an important centre of the Union's Industrial Age, and growing every day, with new manufactories and new slums. Conditions in Valbeck are terrible with squalid overcrowded slums, smoke pollution, and spiralling inflation, but peasants still flood into the city as landowners enclose common land. Valbeck becomes a major centre of the Breakers movement, wanting better conditions for workers. The head of the city's Inquisition, Superior Risinau, is secretly a member, and the dissident group can hold large meetings almost out in the open. The city erupts in a week-long insurrection until successfully suppressed by Crown Prince Orso.
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