04-06-2018, 11:22 PM
It was approaching seven thirty, Dunes time, and the chickens were coming home to roost. By chickens, I mean dirty fuckwads with nothing better to do than rope dumb kids into beating up their sisters. Drake watched with an unamused glare as a small cadre of unwashed punks filed their way into the dark recesses of Nippur's irrigation plant. Oil lamps were ignited in the windows, and the gentle murmurs of contrived gang business began to echo across the dusty courtyard.
The smuggler bided his time, waiting until ten minutes had passed since the last straggler had skulked their way into the narrow doorway of the station. Mostly confident that any sentries would be off their guard, Drake took a crouching position inside the dusty second story of the shed and sent a command into his cybernetic legs. The iron extremities hissed and whined as power welled up within them, before releasing with a sharp clack-shoof. The built up pressure sent Drake sailing through the open window and through the cool desert air.
Had the smuggler been any more of a smooth operator, he would have skidded to a stop on the irrigation building's rooftop. As it were, he crashed straight through an opposing window and on top of a pair of gentlemen who had, moments prior, been engaged in a session of casual oral sex.
Drake reeled on the ground, dazedly brushing bits of safety glass off of his garments as the two Tiamat cultists hoisted their pants back up. They shouted a string of obscenities at the smuggler, who mostly ignored them. Now that his attempt at stealth had been blown, there was really very little reason to sneak around. With a tip of his hat, Drake exited the room and began walking down the hallway. It was poorly lit inside the irrigation facility. Candles illuminated small patches of a remarkably filthy tile floor. Chunks of drywall and spackling littered the ground alongside food wrappers, used needles, and baggies.
In due fashion, two more cultists appeared, brandishing clunky, oversized assault weapons at Drake's face. He glanced behind him to verify that the two lovers had his flank covered with similarly shitty boomsticks.
"I'm here to see Vito." Drake said, casually picking a bloody shard of glass out of his forehead.
"You ain't here to do shit!" spat back one of the Tiamat thugs.
"Well that's...just...categorically wrong. Hey Vito!" Drake shouted, peering over the accosting youths' shoulders as if his target was right behind them.
"Yo Vito we gotta talk man!"
...there was no response. By this point, the entire irrigation plant was on high alert. More and more misguided cultists filed into the narrow, second story hallway to get a look at the poor fool who was trying to jump them. Among them, Drake spotted the brother of the girl he had rescued earlier. The one-armed man pointed straight at him.
"Ey man I got your sister home safe and sound. No need to fret." Drake said in a tone that earned him at least five slaps in the face. The tween scoffed, slicking back his cropped, black hair.
"Fine. She can starve there." he squawked. His fellow cultists chuckled and hooted in confirmation of the lad's candor. Alright. Drake could play this game.
"Aw fam, sissy don't wanna play clubhouse wit you and da boyz? Harsh, bro." Drake crooned, leaning against the wall.
"That's a pity, considering you only got fugly back there to give head around here."
"Hey man shut the fuck up...and that's messed up, they're kids!" the taller of the two lovers spat, brandishing his shitty gun at Drake. The smuggler donned a very genuine looking but very fake look of surprise.
"Aw shit I'm sorry. I thought fucking the status quo was your norm. Tiamat. Goddess of Chaos and change. All that." Drake mused.
"That's not how we operate." said a new voice. Female. Dusty and deep. Drake turned to look at its source, and came face to face with an extremely tall, heavyset woman of darker complexion. Her hair was braided into long ropes, each tipped with a brass ring. Ritual scarring covered her face and bare arms. Dressed in a simple tube top and jeans, he ample bosom threatened to burst free of its krylon mooring at any moment.
"I am Vito. Gimme one good reason I shouldn't have you mowed down right now." the broad broad growled. Drake raised one eyebrow, then the other.
"Uh, well, first of all? Crossfire." he said, pointing to the gunmen behind him and tracing a path from their leveled weapons to the people in front of him.
"Second? I can help make sure you won't all be dead within the week. Maybe some. But definitely not all." Drake said flatly. He picked at a patch of dry skin on his cheek before looking back towards the hulking Vito. To punctuate the sincerity of his threat, he flicked the golden badge on his jacket. Vito scowled down at the lion's emblem.
"How'd you get in here?" she snapped.
"Y'all suck."
Vito punched Drake in the fucking face.
"Damn..." he groaned, wiping a bloodied lip on his sleeve, "I'da figured the leader of this temple would be a bit more uh...priestly? Lemme guess, that ain't how you operate either." Drake chuckled, his eyes glinting.
Vito offered him a knowing smile.
"Alright slick. We can talk, but you still a dead man." Vito said coyly. She bade her followers to disperse and guided the one-armed man into what Drake assumed were her personal quarters. Basically, these Tiamat fuckers were just a bunch of squatters with guns. What he did notice were the fifty or so crates of Golden Cross supplies stacked up in the dark corners of her office become bedroom. Large, scrawling motifs of dragons and fire were inked all over the walls in Sharpie, and Vito had a large nest of blankets and cushions in the middle of the floor. Two disciples stood guard at the doorway. Their guns were at their hips, but ready at a moment's notice.
"So what's the game here; steal convoy supplies and then cop 'em out to hungry, obedient kids? Where's the temple thing factor into that?" Drake asked, looking around. There was a small crunch under his foot, and a glance revealed that he had stepped on an empty syringe. He had to assume that everyone in the building was a heroine user. Vito uttered a dark, throaty laugh.
"Temple. Not a church. We worship Tiamat, goddess of destruction and decay, here. That's what Nippur is. Decay. Depravity. Survival of the strongest. She watches over the rejected and the scorned, and guides them here." Vito said, her tone slowly becoming more and more unbearably preachy. Drake laughed sharply.
"Uh, no fam. Empty stomachs are what guides people here. Lookin' for food you stole from 'em. Why people think you a guy, anyway?" Drake asked, thumbing the hilt of his katana. He didn't dare reach for his piece with the guards at the door, but he was extremely tempted just to kill Vito now and suffer the respawn. Frankly, he was excited for his first time.
"Gets the thick ones in the door. Tiamat will only speak through a woman, but some people will only take orders from a man." Vito said with a smirk.
"Vagina power!" Drake blurted out, pumping his fist in the air. The huge woman shot him a mixed look of disdain and denial. Drake shrugged.
"People may not know it, but we're what has kept Nippur alive since Law burned the city. We keep the streets organized, but dangerous. There's no accounting for the psychos out in the wastes, but if they thought Nippur was helpless, there would have been nothing left. We keep the thugs armed and the people angry. The buzzards leave us alone. Tiamat runs this." Vito said with a widening smile, gesturing to what Drake now recognized as a map of Nippur on the single desk in the room. It was constructed out of food cans and old scrap paper, but it was a passable representation.
"Uh hhhuh. So. You know Gilgamesh is back–"
"Fuckin everyone knows that, you think we stupid?" Vito snapped, slamming a meaty fist on the ancient table. Drake smiled internally. Well now this was certainly a raw nerve.
"He can sit on his golden throne, with his golden hair, fuckin' that golden pussy, but if he tries to come down on us, Nippur dies. This whole irrigation system is rigged to explode. How the people gonna love him when they dying of thirst? Can't drink stupid, fucking gold, can they? Fuckin...gold everything up in here." Vito said, muttering her final sentiment over the rim of what Drake had to assume was a very flat beer.
"He's committed to a theme. Look. Not sure if you noticed the part where Gilgamesh summoned an entire fucking hospital like he was ordering a BLT, but that happened. You think blowing up this irrigation plant is gonna slow him down with, what, six or seven Prime sucking him off? Bitch please." Drake said, sitting down on the cult leader's bed. This particular line of rhetoric seemed to have put Vito at a loss for words at the moment, so Drake made sure to follow through on his attack.
"Like I said, Gilgamesh might kill some of you, but if you play your cards right, there might be room for you in the new Nippur. Think of it as...an apocalypse's apocalypse. An unpocalypse." Drake said softly, quickly darting his hand into his satchel and snatching a cigarette out. The guards at the door twitched and trained their guns on Drake, but relaxed slightly when he showed them the little white death stick. The smuggler idly lit the cherry on a nearby candle and took a deep, long, luxurious pull.
He was in no hurry.
The smuggler bided his time, waiting until ten minutes had passed since the last straggler had skulked their way into the narrow doorway of the station. Mostly confident that any sentries would be off their guard, Drake took a crouching position inside the dusty second story of the shed and sent a command into his cybernetic legs. The iron extremities hissed and whined as power welled up within them, before releasing with a sharp clack-shoof. The built up pressure sent Drake sailing through the open window and through the cool desert air.
Had the smuggler been any more of a smooth operator, he would have skidded to a stop on the irrigation building's rooftop. As it were, he crashed straight through an opposing window and on top of a pair of gentlemen who had, moments prior, been engaged in a session of casual oral sex.
Drake reeled on the ground, dazedly brushing bits of safety glass off of his garments as the two Tiamat cultists hoisted their pants back up. They shouted a string of obscenities at the smuggler, who mostly ignored them. Now that his attempt at stealth had been blown, there was really very little reason to sneak around. With a tip of his hat, Drake exited the room and began walking down the hallway. It was poorly lit inside the irrigation facility. Candles illuminated small patches of a remarkably filthy tile floor. Chunks of drywall and spackling littered the ground alongside food wrappers, used needles, and baggies.
In due fashion, two more cultists appeared, brandishing clunky, oversized assault weapons at Drake's face. He glanced behind him to verify that the two lovers had his flank covered with similarly shitty boomsticks.
"I'm here to see Vito." Drake said, casually picking a bloody shard of glass out of his forehead.
"You ain't here to do shit!" spat back one of the Tiamat thugs.
"Well that's...just...categorically wrong. Hey Vito!" Drake shouted, peering over the accosting youths' shoulders as if his target was right behind them.
"Yo Vito we gotta talk man!"
...there was no response. By this point, the entire irrigation plant was on high alert. More and more misguided cultists filed into the narrow, second story hallway to get a look at the poor fool who was trying to jump them. Among them, Drake spotted the brother of the girl he had rescued earlier. The one-armed man pointed straight at him.
"Ey man I got your sister home safe and sound. No need to fret." Drake said in a tone that earned him at least five slaps in the face. The tween scoffed, slicking back his cropped, black hair.
"Fine. She can starve there." he squawked. His fellow cultists chuckled and hooted in confirmation of the lad's candor. Alright. Drake could play this game.
"Aw fam, sissy don't wanna play clubhouse wit you and da boyz? Harsh, bro." Drake crooned, leaning against the wall.
"That's a pity, considering you only got fugly back there to give head around here."
"Hey man shut the fuck up...and that's messed up, they're kids!" the taller of the two lovers spat, brandishing his shitty gun at Drake. The smuggler donned a very genuine looking but very fake look of surprise.
"Aw shit I'm sorry. I thought fucking the status quo was your norm. Tiamat. Goddess of Chaos and change. All that." Drake mused.
"That's not how we operate." said a new voice. Female. Dusty and deep. Drake turned to look at its source, and came face to face with an extremely tall, heavyset woman of darker complexion. Her hair was braided into long ropes, each tipped with a brass ring. Ritual scarring covered her face and bare arms. Dressed in a simple tube top and jeans, he ample bosom threatened to burst free of its krylon mooring at any moment.
"I am Vito. Gimme one good reason I shouldn't have you mowed down right now." the broad broad growled. Drake raised one eyebrow, then the other.
"Uh, well, first of all? Crossfire." he said, pointing to the gunmen behind him and tracing a path from their leveled weapons to the people in front of him.
"Second? I can help make sure you won't all be dead within the week. Maybe some. But definitely not all." Drake said flatly. He picked at a patch of dry skin on his cheek before looking back towards the hulking Vito. To punctuate the sincerity of his threat, he flicked the golden badge on his jacket. Vito scowled down at the lion's emblem.
"How'd you get in here?" she snapped.
"Y'all suck."
Vito punched Drake in the fucking face.
"Damn..." he groaned, wiping a bloodied lip on his sleeve, "I'da figured the leader of this temple would be a bit more uh...priestly? Lemme guess, that ain't how you operate either." Drake chuckled, his eyes glinting.
Vito offered him a knowing smile.
"Alright slick. We can talk, but you still a dead man." Vito said coyly. She bade her followers to disperse and guided the one-armed man into what Drake assumed were her personal quarters. Basically, these Tiamat fuckers were just a bunch of squatters with guns. What he did notice were the fifty or so crates of Golden Cross supplies stacked up in the dark corners of her office become bedroom. Large, scrawling motifs of dragons and fire were inked all over the walls in Sharpie, and Vito had a large nest of blankets and cushions in the middle of the floor. Two disciples stood guard at the doorway. Their guns were at their hips, but ready at a moment's notice.
"So what's the game here; steal convoy supplies and then cop 'em out to hungry, obedient kids? Where's the temple thing factor into that?" Drake asked, looking around. There was a small crunch under his foot, and a glance revealed that he had stepped on an empty syringe. He had to assume that everyone in the building was a heroine user. Vito uttered a dark, throaty laugh.
"Temple. Not a church. We worship Tiamat, goddess of destruction and decay, here. That's what Nippur is. Decay. Depravity. Survival of the strongest. She watches over the rejected and the scorned, and guides them here." Vito said, her tone slowly becoming more and more unbearably preachy. Drake laughed sharply.
"Uh, no fam. Empty stomachs are what guides people here. Lookin' for food you stole from 'em. Why people think you a guy, anyway?" Drake asked, thumbing the hilt of his katana. He didn't dare reach for his piece with the guards at the door, but he was extremely tempted just to kill Vito now and suffer the respawn. Frankly, he was excited for his first time.
"Gets the thick ones in the door. Tiamat will only speak through a woman, but some people will only take orders from a man." Vito said with a smirk.
"Vagina power!" Drake blurted out, pumping his fist in the air. The huge woman shot him a mixed look of disdain and denial. Drake shrugged.
"People may not know it, but we're what has kept Nippur alive since Law burned the city. We keep the streets organized, but dangerous. There's no accounting for the psychos out in the wastes, but if they thought Nippur was helpless, there would have been nothing left. We keep the thugs armed and the people angry. The buzzards leave us alone. Tiamat runs this." Vito said with a widening smile, gesturing to what Drake now recognized as a map of Nippur on the single desk in the room. It was constructed out of food cans and old scrap paper, but it was a passable representation.
"Uh hhhuh. So. You know Gilgamesh is back–"
"Fuckin everyone knows that, you think we stupid?" Vito snapped, slamming a meaty fist on the ancient table. Drake smiled internally. Well now this was certainly a raw nerve.
"He can sit on his golden throne, with his golden hair, fuckin' that golden pussy, but if he tries to come down on us, Nippur dies. This whole irrigation system is rigged to explode. How the people gonna love him when they dying of thirst? Can't drink stupid, fucking gold, can they? Fuckin...gold everything up in here." Vito said, muttering her final sentiment over the rim of what Drake had to assume was a very flat beer.
"He's committed to a theme. Look. Not sure if you noticed the part where Gilgamesh summoned an entire fucking hospital like he was ordering a BLT, but that happened. You think blowing up this irrigation plant is gonna slow him down with, what, six or seven Prime sucking him off? Bitch please." Drake said, sitting down on the cult leader's bed. This particular line of rhetoric seemed to have put Vito at a loss for words at the moment, so Drake made sure to follow through on his attack.
"Like I said, Gilgamesh might kill some of you, but if you play your cards right, there might be room for you in the new Nippur. Think of it as...an apocalypse's apocalypse. An unpocalypse." Drake said softly, quickly darting his hand into his satchel and snatching a cigarette out. The guards at the door twitched and trained their guns on Drake, but relaxed slightly when he showed them the little white death stick. The smuggler idly lit the cherry on a nearby candle and took a deep, long, luxurious pull.
He was in no hurry.
![[Image: screen_shot_2018_02_16_at_4_33_57_pm_by_...c3dkog.png]](https://orig00.deviantart.net/883e/f/2018/047/1/d/screen_shot_2018_02_16_at_4_33_57_pm_by_tearen_and_zearen-dc3dkog.png)