Tolyk's Return
Selected from Annex M-3670G.
The above video (Part 1) is an excerpt from the video logs of Pale Lodge Hunter Shyar of Oldwind. Selected from Annex M-3670G.
The story below (Part 2) is the tale of Tolyk’s Return. Selected from Annex M-3670G.
Looking for the audio version? Scroll all the way down!
It feels like it’s been a lifetime since the day I arrived in the Patchwork City. And in truth, it has. Little of the boy I was upon my arrival through that sputtering portal remains; nearly every piece of him cut out or ground away by the uncounted years I spent in that confounding city. Only his anger survived the trials that awaited me there, coiled in the darkest corner of my heart, almost forgotten… until the day my new masters saw fit to point me toward the ones whose actions sent me to the city in the first place.
I can only imagine how displeased the Bellows are with me. They may seem violent, unthinking brutes to the outsider, but that’s all part of their facade. It’s easier to deceive those who believe you to be little more than a mongrel in a sharp suit, and far more satisfying to outwit them when the time is right. They are a calculating, exacting breed of being. No move they make is unintentional, no spilt drop of blood ever wasted. I can scarcely imagine the fury Boss Goluluk must have felt when he heard what I did to the Pul’Leem’s messenger. It’s not their way to kill the mouthpiece of an enemy on sight - even if that enemy is the one that drove them out of house and home. They’d rather greet, watch, and wait. Learn as much as they can, from both the spoken and unspoken words of the messenger. Their patience wins over their wrath nine times out of ten.
Me, on the other hand? I guess my patience could use a bit of work. The minute I found out who that poor bastard worked for, the coiled anger in my heart reared up like a thesian viper and bit into my brain with a vengeance. It was all I could do to keep myself from inflicting more pain than necessary on the sop those damn Pul’Leem slugs sent through the portal. Truth be told, I don’t know that he felt any pain at all - probably just a light sting as my pattern unweaver blew its core as it disassembled every cell in his body. He didn’t even get a word out. I didn’t think after that, just leapt through the rapidly shutting gate he’d just stepped out of, and ended up here.
Here. Wherever the hell “here” is. Strange place to dispatch an envoy from. I can’t tell for the life of me what this place is supposed to be, or why there isn’t a single footsoldier of the Pul’Leem on the other side, waiting for the envoy to return. This place appears to be another buried portal, akin to the one I used all those years ago to escape their thralls and make my way to the city… albeit in a far more spacious location. The walls that rise on all sides of the portal soar overhead, vanishing into the dark. I must be in the base of an enormous silo, I think. I turn all around, up and down, scanning with my ocular augments for any sign of life, but find nothing, no hidden assassins, no squads of thralls, NOTHING. Just a single way out - a darkened corridor directly across from me. I move away from the now-deactivated gate toward the corridor, slowly, softly, just like I have a million such times, scanning all the while. Nothing in the tunnel, which my augments tell me is approximately a hundred meters long, perfectly straight, and opens into a much larger space on the far end. I move through it, inching forward, step by step, towards the dimly lit end of the corridor. Arriving at the terminus, I poke my head out, clearing the corners, before being shocked to a standstill by what I see awaiting me.
