Uptown Slunk - Glint - 31/03/22

With the streets of Gadenthor so eerily quiet, the echo of footsteps can be heard across the building. The interrogator enters one of the few rooms that the fall and the subsequent rise of the city left relatively intact. Inside, a single foot soldier is sitting on a piece of debris. The man's eyes stare blankly into the distance, shock imprinted upon his features.

'Soldier?' The interrogator asks, to no avail.

'Name and detachment!' The interrogator barks.

The gith jumps, a familiar drill kicking in.

'Jalan, 5th Dreadnaught Riders!'

The other githyanki nods.

'Tell me what happened yesterday.'

The foot soldier starts his tale, noticeably more at ease as the routine of status report eases his mind. Perhaps eases it a bit too much.

'Well, in the morning I chatted with my pal R'a'n. He's been attached to the crystal cart convoy, the guys who were supposed to open the portal, you know? He's been annoying me about how he's only had three days until retirement. I said – fucking what, Visserle from our squad had two days left, so he could-'

'Later in the day, please,' the interrogator interrupts, raising his arm sharply.

The soldier collects himself quickly.

'Oh, yeah, right.' He nods. 'So, we've made it to the security building, no problem. Visserle said it was quiet. Too queit. Should've known she was right. So our sage started bringing those golems to life. I went out for a smoke. There I was, smoking my pipe. Saw one of our viverns fly down and look over a nearby street. I peek round the corner and suddenly there's a rat flying over my head and landing on a pile of debris.'

The interrogator looks up from his notes.

'And you didn't think it was suspicious?'

'Nah, I figured the city flies – why can't rats fly, too? So, I finished my pipe and returned inside. On my way down the stairs I saw a mechanical mouse. It was running in zigzags, like it was lost or something.'

The interrogator huffs.

'And that didn't look suspicious either, did it?'

'Not really, the city is full of weird technology. Bet they've made immortal mechanical critters, too,' he shrugs and continues, ignoring the interrogator swearing under his breath. 'Our sage disabled it anyway. Now, there we were standing. Me and Visserle discussing her retirement plans, Qeth just looking at the ceiling, the sage instructing the golem to patrol the streets, move debris, you know, improve the logistics. The golem's waking up, starting to shine a little. We're just minding our business, right?'

'Right.'

'And then the doors burst open, and suddenly there's a horde of people running in and swearing to high heavens. One girl runs in, shouts something, and just starts stabbing Visserle like a maniac, didn't even look very angry. Like it's fucking Tuesday for her or something! Killed Visserle, and raised a spectre in her place. Then another guy comes in, and he's on fire. Like literally on fire. Swears at the golem, and it stops moving all of a sudden. Then three huge guys run in, swinging weapons left and right! One, purple-skinned, wasn't even looking what he was hitting, I think he got blinded by the golem. Never heard of weapon safety? A big grey dude just cut Qeth in two. With a blunt weapon! The last one, brown-skinned, is fucking huge, and just starts cutting down the golem with an axe like it's a fucking tree. Did nobody tell these people that axes are for wood, not for stone?!' Jalan continues, hysterical notes bubbling up in his voice. 'Then there's this grumpy dude, starts cutting our mage while smoking a cigar. Kos tries intervening, but the guy turns around says 'you bastard' and kills him. What's with all the cussing? Is there some sort of order of Rude People on this plane that we don't know about? Have they weaponised swearing? Cause then we're fucked!'

'We're investigating that,' the interrogator nods. 'Please continue.'

'The blinded guy keeps swinging around, can't hit shit. So Ripan teleports to kill the fiery dude, but where does the dude ends and the fire starts? Don't think he even hit him. We try hitting the other guys, but it's like they're cool with it. DO you think they worship Ilmater or Loviatar or someone like that? Then the golem wakes up, tries killing the huge guy, and the guy turns away and cuts his arm off. Like is it some sort of insult? Are we missing some cultural context?! Anyway, he shouts something about some 'Thicc Bois', runs ahead and kills Ripan, and then just backs away in this weird stylish walk… The fire dude swears again, and drops our sage with some smoke arrow. Kinda weird after he shouted 'stop killing everything'. Guess he has a ludonarrative dissonance or something. The girl and the spectre stab the golem. Then the blinded guy runs in and hits it once, on accident more than by design, and of course out of the pure motherfucking luck he hits its core, and the whole golem collapses! I got hit by the debris. Don't know what happened next. When I woke up the control panel for other golems got fucked up and the whole squad dead!'

'And the sage?'

'Probably dead too! Can't confirm that, though. Haven't seen her corpse.'

The interrogator nods and finishes up his notes.

'Well, soldier, well done on surviving that. Have a day of rest, and then you'll be reassigned to another squad.'

'Sir, are we facing some order of berserker paladins called Thicc Bois?'

'Too early to tell. What makes you think that?' The interrogator narrows his eyes. 'Were they wearing some sort of insignia or matching uniforms?'

The soldier frowns and shakes his head slowly.

'Not that I could see… It all happened so quickly…'

'In which case, don't trouble yourself with that. The portal team was successful, which means that the reinforcements are in tow, thankfully. Rest up and join the fight,' he says in a tone that signals the end of any conversation.

Jalan salutes and averts his eyes. The interrogator leaves the room and rubs his eyes tiredly.

They've got a lot of work ahead…