A Continent of Banalities

 Day 07 takes a departure in setting, if not system. Meet Madysyn from the Electric Bastionland hack The New Economy (by me).  Favored Enemy: The Managerial Class. The glassy-eyed woman sitting on the other side of Svalte is Madysyn. She is far from home, and trying to figure out if this is a very detailed trip, or if she's really sitting here in the company of mutants and pyros. Madysyn worked in the now obsolete circle of hell that's big box retail. Mauermart was the place, and she hated it like everybody else. The downright psychopathic behavior enabled by the axiom that "the costumer is always right". The managers who decided to abandon all humanity because they were a teetering half-step above you on the ladder.  When Mauermart went out of business it was not due to lack of costumers. The owners' insane wealth had become so fluid that the actual stores were no longer needed. The stock was sold to people with money, i.e. the dwindling middle class in their dec...

 We're still in Electric Bastionland, and this fella is made with the Xmas supplement. Surprising lack of cheer, really. Crappy holidays! On the other side of Rankelay sits Svalte, a dirty youth dressed in miner's castoffs.  In his short life, Svalte has been a coalie bird and nothing else. Basically he was a human canary, sensing the toxic fumes of the underground before anyone else. Except the actual canaries had been retired due to being too precious for the task. Is there anything humans value less than other humans, we ask despairingly. As if this wasn't enough, Svalte put himself in deep debt with the mining company owner, Sir Ricarte of Precipice. This Knight of Old Bastion keeps himself alive in a coal-fired suit of armor, and owns not only mines, but also company stores. Svalte still has a signed photo of Sir Ricarte to remind him of his debt.  When Svalte finally looked up from his hazardous work, he realized that he was caught in a downward spiral of tox-l...

A very slight departure today. From Into the Odd to Electric Bastionland If only I could cauterize/the blues I'm feeling deep inside.. On the other side of Dhome, eyeing the fire wistfully behind smoke-colored glasses, sit Rankelay. He and Dhome just finished a very chin-stroking discussion about accelerants. Now however a deep melancholy has settled on him. Rankelay is thinking of Bastion and better days.  In Bastion the law has a loophole for every crime. Legal crime! What a concept. Rankelay's specialty was arson, within the negative spaces around the law's definitions. Rankelay was the third son of six, and his family had been well-respected criminals for generation. From an early age, Rankelay would burn discarded household items on the balcony, and incinerate trespassing pigeons with Molotov cocktails made from his parents empty perfume bottles. Once he tried to set fire to his oldest brother Mangalon, and the spanking he got taught him a valuable lesson. There are Al...