The above video (Part 1) is an excerpt from the video logs of Pale Lodge Junior Hunter Roggl Fettltheer. Selected from Annex M-3670G.
The story below (Part 2) is the tale of Tolyk Tarn. Selected from Annex M-3670G.
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My name is Tolyk Tarn, and I do not die easily.
The Pul’Leem learned this when they came for my family. I’d been worried about their inevitable arrival for weeks - my drunkard, credit-loose father had taken out a small loan with them, and though he (somehow) paid it back in full, he’d gotten the money to them several hours past the contractual deadline.
“It’s no problem hic at all!” he had slurred in his soggy attempts to reassure me. “The debt’s paid! The credits are in hic their hands! Who cares if I was the littlest bit late?”
The Pul’Leem do, that’s who. Though I hadn’t yet personally dealt with the newest overlords of our rusting homeworld, I’d heard the stories of what befalls those who displease them, and unlike my father, I believed them. Those psychic slugs that came from somewhere on the other side of the universe are just as bound by their contracts as we are. Apparently, leniency isn’t something they’re capable of, not even when the margin for forgiveness can be measured in minutes. My father didn’t want to believe he’d doomed us, but from the moment he told us of the tardily settled status of his debt, I knew we had to leave. I tried so many times to convince him to take my mother and me and run - somewhere, anywhere but where they knew us to live. He scoffed, called me paranoid, said the Pul’Leem were “benevolent rulers and fair creditors - far more so than the Bellow Syndicate had been when they ruled Kaer’s Reverence”.
He didn’t WANT to believe the tales being told about the Pul’Leem on the OutNet, so he lied to me, my mother, and most importantly, himself, saying that we were going to be just fine. It was a lie he TRULY believed, all the way up until the moment the Pul’Leem kicked in our door.
It was supper time when they came. Not the Pul’Leem themselves, of course, but a team of their thralls - those unfortunate fools whose transgressions had been greater than a delayed repayment of debt, therefore damning them to a fate far less merciful than death. The implants the Pul’Leem placed in their brain stems robbed them of their will, but NOT of their awareness, making them into unwilling puppets with no purpose beyond that which their masters ordained for them. I thought I saw one of them weeping beneath his helmet as he slit my mother’s throat with his plasma knife. Whether that sentiment was genuine or imagined, it did nothing to stop her blood from explosively gurgling out in a crimson torrent onto the floor.
That was within 5 seconds of their rather explosive entry. It all happened so fast. My father was screaming, his eyes bulging halfway out of their sockets when she hit the ground, howling about how the debt was paid, how it was DONE, but none of it mattered. A late repayment was a broken contract, and a broken contract meant death for the debtor AND their kin.
The thralls came to me then, the cryer and another, wordlessly converging on me as the big one held my father aloft by his forearms, his elbows bent and twisted behind his back. I knew I was next. All the reports said they killed the breaker of the contract last, made them watch as their families died, so that their last thought might be an understanding of their error. I was ready for them, at least as well as I could be. I had taken to carrying a glo-shank in my sock, a locally engineered implement I had already become quite familiar with in my particular line of employment with the Psy-steem running gangs of the lower stacks. By the time the cryer had dropped my mother’s still-bleeding corpse and turned his shoulders toward me, I already had the glo-shank’s retractable plasma spike halfway through his skull. He collapsed instantly, and I pounced, howling like a demon, toward the one who still held my gaping, sobbing father by his wrists.
It’s said that what made the Pul’Leem so powerful, so undeniable in their march of acquisition across the universe, was their ability to constantly and consistently calculate risk. Their magically enhanced minds are, at all times, weighing the odds of a successful outcome and adjusting their course instantaneously based on the current situational odds. The same is true for the thralls they remotely control, which is why, in the fractional moment between my killings of the cryer and the one that held my father, the former chose to end my da’s life rather than defend itself against me. No regard whatsoever for its own well-being, only an undeniable compulsion to complete the mission it had been tasked with. The retractable plasma blades that could have ended my life instead plunged through his chest cavity half a second before turning off as the thrall crumpled lifeless to the ground, dead the moment I buried my glo-shank in his neck.
I deactivated my weapon and turned to catch what I so naively thought might be the still-living body of my father, but instead was met by a plasma blade arcing through his corpse and the air in front of me, kissing my left cheekbone and eyebrow as it swung upward. I yelped in pain, momentarily blinded by the blade's collision with my face, as the third thrall barreled toward me through our kitchen, its blade now reversing course to fall directly upon my head. I jolted to the left at the last second as the blade sizzled through the space I had just occupied, and half leapt, half bounced off the counter back toward the thrall, who was reeling around to take another swing. I slammed into his arm as he attempted to raise his blade again, pinning his hand against the wall as I brought my fist that clutched the glo-shank up to his forehead. I was a fraction of a second away from ending its miserable life when suddenly a crushing force burst forth from the powered chest plate of the thrall, colliding with my torso, ripping the breath from my lungs, and sending me hurtling backwards, through the glass window on the other side of our kitchen.
I’d have been happy to be so quickly away from the thrall, were my parents and I’s apartment not nearly 40 stories off the ground, perched above the wastefields of the lower city. I felt only two things as I plummeted downard and watched my old home shrink into the sky above - first and foremost, a spitting, venomous anger; anger that I had not finished the thrall that had helped to kill my parents, and then an even deeper, colder regret that the Pul’Leem would never feel even a mote of the pitiful resistance I had mustered against them. They would never know my name, never know me at all, despite their heavy hand in the ending of my life. The last words to leave my mouth were curses of the foulest kind before the heaping piles of the wastefields rose around me, and everything cut to black.
I awoke in shadow, thinking I was quite dead, condemned to the dreaded Darklands of my parents' archaic faith as punishment for my short and faulted life. But if I were dead, why could I feel pain? Why did the cauterized gash over my left cheek and eye burn so badly? If I had left my body behind, why did I feel it aching in every muscle and tendon? It took me a moment to open my eyes, and an even longer moment to understand the sole occupant of my visual field, a bright, distant point of light surrounded by pure darkness. Slowly, I realized that when I collided with the ground, I must have punched through some thin layer of ground, a rusted portion of some great shell, and fallen deep into the hollow pit it concealed.
Far below the wastefields lay the catacombs, an ancient, layered labyrinth of ruined city and forgotten time, the compressed, worm-riddled, foundation of space junk and countless civilizations' worth of detritus that Kaer’s Reverence had been built atop. It was a place whose upper levels I had visited on many occasions, but I had never been this deep. To think that a cavern of this scale lay almost directly beneath the home I had been raised in… I would have shuddered, had that pit not just saved my life. I sat up and found that my fall had been arrested by an enormous deposit of old insulation - the scratchy, fluffy kind that everyone I knew still used, but had been long ago discarded by the privileged highlings living in the city’s star-scraping towers above in favor of some newer, less carcinogenic variety. With little else to do, I stood, wincing in pain, and started to walk.
I knew that I had little time, if any at all, to disappear. The Pul’Leem had a reputation for thoroughness - I figured that if they didn’t find my body, they wouldn’t stop until they tracked me down, dead or alive. I looked around, my eyes finally adjusting to the dark, and saw that I had fallen into the remains of an ancient amphitheater. All around me were thousands of crumbling seats, ringed above by a halo of tunnels leading out of the long-buried stadium. Though I could see that the stands were empty, I couldn't help but feel as though I was being observed by the whispering echoes of some ancient crowd as I darted off the pile of rotten foam toward the distant edge of the cavern, climbing up dusty stone stairs past rows and rows of the crumbling chairs that had sat in this chamber undisturbed for who knows how long. I was almost at the entrance to one of those long corridors out, almost free in the dark, when I heard the buzzing - and made the mistake of turning around.
It was the thrall, the one that had sent me hurtling into the pit, hovering down through the hole my sudden entrance had made in the stadium’s roof. His old floatpack sputtered and whined as he made his choppy descent; the sound of a faulty resonator, sure to fail soon - but not soon enough. It took barely more than a moment for it to spot me as I fled its gaze into the tunnel, and even less time for it to cover the distance between us. I could hear the sizzle of its plasma blade coming to life, and I dove to the ground at the last possible moment as its blade crackled through the space my head had occupied half a second before. The thrall, no 20 feet past me and realizing it had missed its mark, twisted around in mid-air and hovered in place for hardly a second as it assessed the most efficient way to finish me off.
Here’s the thing about the catacombs, the thing that every local psy-steem runner comes to learn - they’re a blasted deathtrap, for more reasons than one. There are more ways to die down here than damn near anywhere else, be it by fleshroach swarm, ancient boobytrap, or just a good old-fashioned tunnel collapse. There are ways to manage and mitigate these risks; however, techniques that every smart catacomb runner learns quickly, or not at all. To avoid fleshroaches, make sure to carry a rag soaked in tether oil - they hate the smell of it. Don’t want to fall prey to a booby trap? It’s best to stay clear of chokepoints and avoid any caches left out in the open. As for not getting buried alive by a tunnel collapse - well, just don’t activate any resonance engine-based gear in tight spaces. Like a floatpack, for instance.
The thrall had just started to fly back toward me when the ceiling came down on him, without even a rumble of warning. One second he was there, floating in the middle of the tunnel, the next second all I could see was his head and right arm, the rest of him pinned to the ground beneath the crush of stone and rusted metal that had vomited down from the ceiling above him. The deactivated hilt of his plasma blade escaped from his grip and skittered out along the floor, stopping right in front of me. As open an invitation as I’d ever seen. I pulled myself up, slowly, listening for any sign of a continuing collapse, then, satisfied that it was safe, grabbed the hilt and walked toward my buried pursuer. Had it been anyone but a thrall, a poor sap who’d had no choice in his actions, I’d have left them there to suffer and rot, buried alive in the quiet darkness as payment for what they’d done to my parents. But this soldier was no more willing to do the Pul’Leem’s bidding than I was - and for that, I granted him a quick death by way of liberating his head from his shoulders.
It took me another few minutes to safely dig the faulty floatpack out from the rubble and separate it from the corpse of its bearer. An unnecessary risk, you might think, but not so when I knew that more hunters would follow the dead thrall. Any catacomb runner knows that old floatpacks might make for poor transportation in the deep, but can be easily rewired into a deliciously effective improvised explosive. Once I secured that critical piece of equipment, I made haste out of the collapsed tunnel, made my way around the arena to a corridor on the opposite side, and journeyed down it until I found a set of stairs that descended even deeper into the murky shadows of the lower catacombs.
I soon realized that I had just departed the 4th sublevel - nearly the deepest layer of the catacombs that was still able to be practically used for moving psy-steem across the city, albeit only by those brave or stupid enough to traverse it. I’d never been even close to this deep. My first and strongest thought was to climb - to go any lower would be tantamount to suicide. Everyone knew that the closer you got to sublevel 6, the stranger and more potent the dangers became. Supposedly, somewhere down in the long forgotten deep, there existed a “gateway” - some ancient path to another world, a technological relic of whatever forgotten society had once inhabited that layer of the ancient city. A portal through which horrors and wonders alike found their way into the crumbling underbelly of Kaer’s Reverence. In addition to being the source of countless legends and tall tales, this gateway was also, supposedly, the escape hatch through which the Bellow Syndicate had fled when the onslaught of the Pul’Leem finally became too much for them to withstand. That little factoid was bestowed upon me by the most steemed-out elder I knew, a regular customer who claimed to still remember the old days before even the Bellows had laid claim to the city after the Pul’Leem had pushed them out of everywhere else.
In short, it was a fool’s hope, one that more likely led to a nasty death than anything else. But what other choice did I have? The surface held even less safety than the depths - the Pul’Leem would, if they hadn’t already, be sending someone (or someones) else to kill me, or worse - turn me into one of their enslaved soldiers, doomed to be a puppet to their bidding with nothing more in life to look forward to than the release of death. So, with that disquieting fate in mind, I descended as fast as I possibly could.
It only took what must have been a day or two for that choice to be validated, though my journey through the fifth sublevel was certainly no vacation. I was nearly snatched by a Collector Crab when I wandered too close to its hovel, had to jump off a walkway into a pool of foul, oily liquid to avoid a horde of ravenous fleshroaches, and almost blew myself to pieces when I accidentally crossed the wrong set of wires as I hastily reconfigured the thrall’s floatpack into an explosive trap on the cusp of my descent. I was barely a few hours into my travel through sublevel 6 when I heard that explosive detonate somewhere overhead. I had set it up in the bottleneck that led to the only safe descent ladder I could find, assuming (rightly so) that anyone who came after me would have to follow that path. I had hoped the blast would collapse the passage entirely, but the lack of an accompanying shake and rumble told me that my luck had only carried me so far. Whether or not my pursuer had been killed by the blast was unknown to me, but even if they were dead, it was only a matter of time until someone else followed in their footsteps. I raced through the ever-narrower corridors and half-collapsed tunnels of the 6th level until, in the moment I thought I could go no further, I found it.
It was enormous and ancient beyond compare. I knew immediately that this was no relic of whatever society built this sublevel, eons ago, but something far older, far stranger. It was an enormous arch, made of a brilliant, brassy metal that far outshone all the dingy, rusted ruin that entombed it. It was beautiful - and as I soon found, frustratingly incomprehensible. As I circled it, searching for and failing to find a switch, button, hatch, ANYTHING that I could use to activate or control it, a twitching, horrific panic rose within me. I realized I had deluded myself - that I had taken the pure, stupid LUCK which had allowed my initial escape and let myself believe that my streak of good fortune was bound to continue. If ANYONE had EVER used this archaic piece of technology to escape this world, they had done so after being assisted by some additional piece of knowledge or magi-tech that I was woefully lacking. This thing, beautiful as it was, was nothing more than a dead end.
Immediately, my fevered mind began to spin. Perhaps this wasn’t it. Maybe, just maybe, the true escape lay lower? Yes, lower was my only choice - I couldn’t climb, not while whatever pursued me still stood between me and the surface, and not while the surface was held by the monsters that had slaughtered my family. I could never rise again. There was only deeper. There would only ever be deeper. I turned away from the gateway, steeled myself to meet my fate in the fabled darkness below the 6th sublevel, and began to leave - when I heard them. Footsteps. Heavy and fast, coming straight to me from down the corridor I took to get here. I was backed into a corner, no way out. I cursed and, with nothing else to do, hid, like an idiot child, behind the gateway, hoping against hope that whatever marched my way would miss me.
It didn’t. It marched straight into the gateway chamber and issued a hacking laugh. It saw me. It knew that I was there. There was no escape this time. I stepped out from behind the archway to get a better look at my doom, and was surprised by what I saw. This was no thrall, no mindless agent of the Pul’Leem - this was something else entirely, something I had never seen. It wore a full suit of armor, had enormous ears, singed at the tips, and hungry, reptilian eyes. It sneered at me as it spoke, spitting out throaty words that I couldn’t understand but somehow knew to be curses. This thing, this offworlder, whatever it was, was armed to the teeth. Its shoulder-mounted cannon followed my every move, but as it approached me, it drew two long, crackling energy whips, and the cannon disappeared. It had a different, more painful method in mind for dispatching me, it seemed - one rooted in this warrior’s pride. Why else would one forego an easy, long-range kill for a potentially dangerous close-quarters tangle? I was about to indulge the hunter’s ego, draw my blade, and make one last brave stand, when a different tactic crossed my mind.
Instead of standing, I cowered ever deeper, playing the part of the fearful runt to the best of my ability. The unlit hilt of the plasma blade was hidden in my right hand, and the deactivated glo-shank was in my left as I skittered behind the archway, running from the sizzling flails being swung through the air by my attacker. He (she?) pressed the attack, muttering in their guttural, alien tongue all the while. I scampered around the archway, and the hunter followed, mutters now becoming angry barking yells. As I scurried around the side, they followed. I spun around to catch a glimpse of the hunter’s position, and as I did, they passed beneath the arch - and I noticed something strange. Previously imperceptible etchings and lines glowed as the hunter passed beneath it, activating something in the arch in response to the hunter’s presence. I realized in that moment that the creature I thought would spell my doom may in fact be my salvation - but only if I emerged from this conflict the victor.
A whip cracked as I leapt out of the way, barely missing me. My attacker roared in fury and ran at me. I jumped to the left, feinted as though I were making a break for the chamber’s exit, then extended my arm and lit my plasma blade in the space I would have been were I truly running. Just as I hoped, my blade collided with the tips of the whip as it cracked through that same patch of void air, causing each weapon’s respective energies to become entangled. I yanked forward, wrenching the whip out of my attacker’s grasp and eliciting a surprised grunt from them. I sensed that I had less time than I thought before my attacker's pragmatism finally outweighed his pride and the shoulder cannon returned, so I made a desperate play. I released the blade from my right hand, allowing both sword and whip to clatter to the ground and, faking panic, swung my right arm toward my attacker, who met my feeble assault with his other whip, its flails wrapping around my arm, searing my skin and causing me to scream in pain. His scaly mouth pulled into a rotting grin as he yanked me close, no doubt intending to taunt me before he finished me off. I screamed as I brought my left fist up to his chin, a scream that dissolved into a cackle as I ignited my glo-shank and watched his smile melt away as a thick, hot, green fluid spilled from beneath his helmet. He didn’t make a sound as he toppled to the ground, convulsing like a dying rat, before falling still at last.
I collapsed beside him and released a muffled sob as I cradled my burnt arm, doubled over in pain. After a period of time I could not quantify, I finally stood, limped over to the corpse of my attacker, and set to work. I stripped the creature of everything, armor (almost none of which fit me), weapons (almost all of which would serve me), odd trinkets I couldn’t comprehend, and most importantly, a strange, disc-shaped lanyard that I found around the creature’s neck. It was this lanyard, copper-colored with a milky blue jewel at its center, that seemed to wake the dormant archway, evoking the strange glowing lines and symbols as I approached. It wasn’t until I tried pressing the jewel, though, that the gate truly sprang to life.
I stand here now before it, gazing into a swirling vortex of energy that beckons me, promising something strange and new on the other side. I do not know where it will take me, but I do know this - anywhere is better than here. I swear I won’t return to this place until the day comes that I can ensure my resistance to the Pul’Leem will not go unnoticed, until I can finally raise arms against them and mete out my vengeance upon them.
My name is Tolyk Tarn, and I do not die easily. Though today I am running, one day I will return. And when I do, it will not be as one who fears the monsters that took my family, but as a monster myself. By the end of this, the Pul’Leem will know my name - and fear it more than any other.
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