"mage" by Dale Kimon Felty

In a place were the people are fat and complacant and the gov't is controled by powerful lobbiest it wasn't hard to move in and take over. Small steps, misdirection, controled media, and secret alliances. It  was just a matter of getting the right people in the right places. Greed and corruption. Power. Just as in Rome people ignored the evidence. Who could blame these evil men for usurping power...it was to easy. Through a party , hiding under the disguise of morality, right, and backed by religious demigogs, they grew to be the only power. Now all the world was poor and only the few at the top had wealth. At first countrys fought, then states, then gangs....all for what little was left. Diseases were released to bring the populations into controlable size. But the plan was to good. between the wars, polution, mass consumption of resources, crime, and plagues, there was nothing left to have power over. The world spiraled into a dark age. In a place believed to be were the old order had sat, a mage searches through papers, scribbles of the past, trying to put it together. Trying to find a cure for the plagues. Is he looking to find magic for his own power or is the trying to save what is left of mankind. The choice is yours. Will mankind fall or scramble back from the brink of extinction.