Editing Tales from the Wal (section)

===''Life at the Top''===

You check your surroundings, straining every sense, no beating wings, no bird calls, no clattering of talons on steel. Safe, for the moment. You quickly run through your list of required items and check your safety equipment. You attach your grapnel chain to a series of claps on your jumpsuit with that done All safety checks are clear and you reach into one of your many pockets. You carefully grease up your grapnel and then you place the hook on the zipline. You push off from the light fixture and within moments you're flying through the air along a steel cable with nothing more than you're own strength and a steel chain standing between you and certain death. Despite the lubricant on the grapnel a hideous shrieking fills the air sparks fly where the metal of the grapnel contacts the metal of the zipline. You've hit terminal velocity, you're going as fast as physically possible for an object falling through the Wal's atmosphere. It's one of the few thrills you're allowed in the life you live.

The sheer speed is an intense thrill that's all its own. You can feel your blood boil, but your arms are aching and the aisles of the Wal are rushing up to meet you. You have to get off this wild ride. You bob your body just so and you fly loose from the zipline, you're free falling through the air, even if you had a nearby perch to nab with your grapnel the forces involved would just tear your arms off. You carefully fit the grapnel into a velcro loop and reach down to your belt. You pull the chord and crack silk. A carefully stitched and lovingly made parachute blooms out behind you and the sudden drop of speed is almost like being struck physically. you reach behind you and take hold of two special chords, and with these you carefully steer yourself towards one of the shelfblock tops, its almost impossible to miss, the shelf itself is the size of a small building. You hit the shelftop in a tangled heap of cloth, chords, and clattering metal.

Years of training make sure that when you hit Shelf Top you roll just so. Nothing is in harm's way and all of your gear is carefully stowed. It would not due to get impaled by one of your own knives during a descent to the aisles, your people are not so numerous that gatherers can be allowed to destroy themselves with their own ineptitude. You loosen the cords from yourself and your parachute falls away to become a tangled mess on the shelf top. You quickly check your surroundings, no birds, no humans, no robots, no other noticeable ground threats. You spend ten minutes carefully folding and stowing the parachute, you may need it later. Then you walk over to the edge of the aisle and look down. You feel a slight pull in your gut, even from up here everything looks so confined and cramped, it makes you feel insignificant, helpless. You shake your head vigorously to dispel those thoughts and remove one of your meathooks from your belt and gauge the distance to the other shelf. You can make that jump.

You give yourself the room you need for a running jump and you charge across the shelf top full speed, you send all the force you can muster into your legs and your honed muscles send you forward across the gap. Of course you don't make it to the other shelf top, there isn't a human alive who can do that. You do however make the arc you wanted. You swing your meathook forward, catching the tip in an inches deep crevice in the shelf space, the impact jars your arm and if you keep this up you'll be feeling the pain for days but you're TopDweller, you do what is required of you, no matter how painful, humiliating, or difficult you keep calm and carry on. You pull yourself up onto the shelf and switch the meathook over to your other hand. You've got some climbing to do if you want to get your mission accomplished and it's best if you keep the fatigue as spread around as much as humanly possible. You spend the next 3 or 4 hours (maybe you should get a timepiece?) leaping across aisles as you make your way.

You leap across the aisles, this time you have both meathooks in hand and you use them to scale the shelf until you reach a proper vantage point. From here you watch the battle royale take place. This will not do, you need those pills. You reach into your pockets and you retrive it, the forbidden weapon. Birdseed, you approach the edge and remove the cap of the small jar and carefully consider altitude and angle. Then you casually flick your wrist and cap the jar. birdseed flies out into the air it lands among the goners. The flying man is the first to notice and he immediately grounds himself, though he still sees fit to fire lasers into the crowd of Goners. It starts with a rustle, then a sound of flapping wings, one, then two, then a dozen, then thirty, then fifty, then the sound of a hundred wings all beating in time fills the air and death descends on the crowd below. You affix your grapnel to the edge of the shelf, attach the chain to your safety line and you leap, entering the fray.

You slam into the back of a fully grown axebeaked finch and drive it into the hard linoleum floor. It screams in protest and you silence it by brutally slamming one of your meathooks into it's jugular. You slam the other meathook into it's eye and hold the beast down as its death throes play out, then you stand and retrieve your hooks. You look around yourself, the birds are tearing into the goners with a ferocity few could say they've ever witnessed first hand and lived to tell the tale. The birds are doing their best to go after the group of grounder warriors but their machine expert seems to be using some odd glowing bubble to keep them at bay. The pills are in that bubble, you need those pills. You steady yourself and charge forward, towards the bubble and towards the supplies your party needs. It is agony, heat unlike anything you've encountered plays over each micron of your skin that passes through the bubble. It takes less than a second, it feels like forever.

You almost pass out from the pain but you force yourself to stand. The strangers stare at you and you ignore them. you crouch, check the sell by date of the pill bottles, yes, still good. You begin shoveling them into the bag. One, two, three. The Sportsgrounder locks eyes on you. Four, five, six, he opens his mouth to speak. Seven, eight, nine you briefly look up, the Goners are dead and the birds are feasting. The Sportsgrounder is saying something but you aren't listing to him. You turn and leap through the force field. Agony,

But you're prepared for it this time and you work off the pain by swinging your hooks at anything stupid enough to get in your way. You have what you came for, part of it anyway. You charge across the aisle full tilt until you're out of range of the birds. You leap and slam your hooks into the shelf, you begin climbing. You're going to need a vantage point. After all you only have one item, and you have six more items to go. Hopefully the other six retrievals will be this smooth.

It doesn't take that long to find what you need, though figuring out how to get it is the major problem here. Goners, more than twenty of them besieging strange group of people, a man in pointlessly ostentatious golden armor, studded with gemstones, wielding a blazing, diamond studded sword. a woman wielding a steel spear, on the back of an enormous crab, her skin is blue and she seems to have developed natural armor plates on her body in some strange sympathy with her mount. A man wearing purple and gold cloth, draped over plastic padding, a shotgun in hand, his clothes declare him to be a "yellow jacket." Above the three hovers a man who wears a set of car batteries on his back, his boots spray fire and the strange gauntlets he wears blast the goners with bolts of burning incandescence. They appear to be guarding a collapsed display, pill bottles coat the ground, some crushed underfoot. The ghost image of a busty young woman declares that Age'B'Gone makes her feel like a 16 year old. You need those pills.

----

“One hand over the other now, oh and don’t look down,” Crikey says, giving him advice before the trial to come, “Now get up there and do Irwin proud.”

He slaps his companion on the back, causing him to stagger the last few steps before the shelf. You take a deep breath and make sure your pouch is securely attached, its contents softly rustling at your touch. You begin your ascent, the handhold readily available from the imprints worn into the metal from generations of climbers. There’s a ragged cheer as you pass the point of no return, past the “Ask Employees for Help,” sign and the judging face of Sam.

“Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look –“ your mantra broken as you reach for your handhold and find yourself slipping on a pile of bird shit. Your feet planted firmly but your upper body flailing, you fall forward into the pallets of rawhide bones. They scratch the skin and a few fall down to the linoleum below. You swear you can hear the packs of corgis already yipping towards it. With a shudder, you wipe the bird shit from your hand and continue your upward ascent. 

With a groan you haul your way atop the final shelf, hours have passed and the worst has yet to begin. You stand, hand shielding your eyes against the harsh light so near the lamps. You reach into pouch and draw a fistful of birdseed, the rustling draws faint coos. You hear the flapping of wings, the whirring as the great ‘tron guns follow the winged devils, and prepare yourself.

You drop the seed over the side of the shelf.

The flock dives after it.


With capture sphere in hand, you dive after the flock.

----


His Holiness, most exalted Executive Samael Walton the First, Bringer of Low Prices, Bearer of the Sacred 25 Pound Diamond, and Persecutor of the Heretics looks on the works of the hated 'Tronboyz. The heathens have torn down the very shelves and used them as the most basic building blocks of the structure. Holo Emitters stud the outer surface, showing ghostly blue, red, and green images of the heathen's gods. Neon tubes stretch from the base of the structure to it's very apex, and it is crowned by fat a silvery disc that spews lightning bolts into the air. Samael shivers in the icy air and briefly wonders what happened to the Expedition of Crusaders, Seasonals, and Tech Support Priests who were ordered to find a way to alter the temperature in this department. Surely the favored of Sam would be able to overcome whatever dark works these Heretics wrought to create such a frigid atmosphere? But he does not ponder it long for he has work to do.

The exalted Samael retires from the observation post and carefully makes his way down the steps of the wooden structure. The Lumber would have been costly but promises of aid during future raids by the Suburbanites against the heathens bought him the wood at the low, low price of one tenth of his congregation. A bargain by any true Smiler's standards, after all making more new converts was easy enough, getting building materials at a discount was not a feat performed every day. The exalted Samael exits the observation posts and greets the group of believers with a benevolent wave of his hand. They are dressed in black, and gray, and white with carefully sewn and embroidered vests that bear the sacred smile. Some bare the wounds from pitched battle with the heretics hoping for divine healing from the Great Sam, others have not yet had the privilege of stepping into the fray to test their faith with steel and fire and hope for the Smiling One's favor in the test of Faith to come.

The Exalted Samael attends to his flock the best he can, he places a hand on a lightning burn and calls upon the Smiling One's beneficence to speed the healing of the carbonized flesh. He stands before a man who lost his leg to a mercenary's chainsaw hand and kneels, he spends five minutes begging the one who built the Wal to grant this man a new leg to perform deeds of faith in the name of the Smilers. He stands before the group of faithful smilers, those who have proven their faith in combat and those who have to do so and with tears in his eyes he thanks them for their service and begs the mighty Sam to grant his people victory soon. He feels a hand on his arm, Joseph, his aid has come, obviously there are urgent matters that need his attention. The Exalted Samael apologizes to his congregation, with blessings gained and miracles promised they disperse to tend to their duties.

Joseph is a short man, balding, he wears the typical smiler uniform but like the Exalted Samael's uniform his is made with gemstone decorated buttons and fine silk. Unlike the Exalted Samael he wears a harness and from it dangle dozens of clipboards, he holds one in his hand now and taps it with a ballpoint pen. "The casualties are starting to pile up and the Doctors are incensed, you stiffed them on their tithe of personnel when you traded some of the flock away for the lumber, which while useful, isn't going to be healing the wounds of our Crusaders." Joseph is the only man who can speak to the Exalted Samael like this, after all he is the only true confidant Samael has ever had.

"Have the wounded given to the Doctors as a tithe, not as useful as healthy subjects for their...amusements but we have more than enough to pay our overdue...promises 3 times over." Samael briefly examines one of the sapphire gems on his chest and absentmindedly begins to buff it.

"Well that solves our Limb'B'Back and Age'B'Gone issue but we have the Anarchitects to worry about." Joseph makes a few notations on the iridescent blue plastic clipboard he's holding and picks up the navy blue wooden clipboard that dangles from his chest harness. "They're pissed that you went over their heads with the suburbanites and now they're threatening to suspend their trade agreements."

Samael chuckles quietly and stops buffing the dull-looking sapphire, there perfect. "Send them the Sacred Diamond as payment, keep it a secret get a glass replacement or something from one of our trade partners. We can say that one of the heretics stole it right under our noses and use it as a way to stoke righteous fury in the congregation."

Joseph makes a note on the wooden clipboard and drops it, then he snatches up a metal one. "One of the Tech Support Priests returned from the Expedition to reverse the curse that the heretics have placed on this area."

"Oh?" Says the Exalted Samael looking up from his ruminations on all the troubles the "Sacred" 25 Pound Diamond has brought him in the 3 or so years he's carried it. 

Joseph spends a brief moment flitting through the pages on the clipboard. "and I quote 'Eternal Damnation, Blue Screen of Death, error will to live not found.' We couldn't get anything more out of him, he died," Joseph checks his gem studded fob watch. "Fifteen minutes ago. Roughly six hours after he returned from the expedition, to our knowledge the only survivor." 

Samael ruminates on this and sighs. "So be it, we do not have any more men and women to waste on foolhardy objectives. We must cut straight to the heart of the matter. We must attack that garish abomination and strike its very memory from the history of the Wal!"


[[Category:Homebrew Settings]]
[[Category:Stories]]