One of the test-gliders at the Heron Pool. Image by Lee & Noel Hammond
The Heron Pool is an Iron Master facility built and overseen by the Min-Orota family and located just west of the village of Mara-bana (navref Malborough, Massachussetts). Its purpose was a construction site and testing ground for a range of rocket-propelled gliders built by captured Tracker wingmen for the use of specially-trained samurai warrior-pilots. The project was handled at the direction of a Tracker slave named Steven Brickman, although this was actually the Plainfolk Mute named Cadillac in disguise.
The Heron Pool was destroyed in late 2990 thanks to the machinations of the real Steven Brickman, supported by the Amtrak Federation's AMEXICO organisation and approved by Toshiro Hase-Gawa, a Herald of the Inner Court working directly for the Shogun. The casualties and injuries among the many nobles present, including the death of the Yama-Shita domain lord, set in motion a series of events culminating two years later at the epic Battle of the Trading Post, and paved the way for the Second Ne-Issan Civil War.