[Splat]

Nah, I mentioned Stivik to avoid confusion, and I don't mind you saying about Dion and Gappiqu so much. As I've said a few times, (story spoilers!) she does like him, but she can't admit it to anyone (including herself).

Anyway, enough W@RF talk; it's probably just confusing half of you anyway.
Normally I'll be posting on Saturdays and maybe sometimes on Wednesdays, but I'm not sure if I'll be around tomorrow so I'm going to post the chapter today instead. Just as a note, the information about dates and time on Oddworld in the chapter is made up by me; it's not official.


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A year on Oddworld is 401 days long, with each day being 25 hours. The glukkon calendar splits the year into 10 months, the first 9 having 41 days, and the last having 32. The mudokon calendar has four seasons; 3 are 100 days long and the last is 101.

Part 1
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Traitor’s Oddysee

Chapter 1

The slig to be labelled 67322 was born on the fourth month according to the industrial calendar. The vykkers he was assigned to when he hatched quickly found a problem with this when it came to situations when they would need to say, “Have you seen Six-Seven-Three-Two-Two? That sliglet is always getting into trouble,” As, by the time they finished, the slig would usually have emerged, possibly with a dead bird to display proudly to the room. The simple solution to this was to name the damn thing. Some vykkers opted to keep the numbers the sliglets were given and the sligs would be left to name themselves in later life. Other vykkers abbreviated the numbers of their sliglets, resulting in names such as ‘Twenty Four’ or ‘#7 Slig’. Sometimes words were picked to use as names, like ‘Hammer’. In 67322’s case, the vykkers opened a dictionary of the sligs’ native language, stuck a spindly finger on the first word they saw, and henceforth slig number 67322 was known as ‘Stivik’, which in sliggish, means ‘egg yolk’.

Stivik was the sort of sliglet who would bring home dead birds to show off. How he caught them without pants was, as far as the vykkers were concerned, anyone’s guess. It gave the vykkers the impression that he must be fond of the outdoor life, and he was clearly good with animals (the industrial definition of ‘good with animals’ does not mean that you are good at looking after them or that they like you. In fact, it is almost the opposite) and so it was decided from early on that he would be enrolled as a scout, working outside walls to track down rare animals, mudokon settlements and any other geographical feature that glukkons would be able to make a profit out of. He left his brood as soon as he had learnt to use pants, and began his new training.

Teamwork was something he took a while to get the hang of. Working as a team when you’re out in the wild was absolutely necessary if you were to survive, but that didn’t stop him complaining about it. When he was moved to a barracks to get the hang of using basic firearms he flourished at first, but then began to lose interest in the monotony of the target ranges. His attention would begin to wonder away, his gun would gradually turn away from the mudokon templates and drift away, to the ground as his thoughts drifted, or to point another way as he fantasised about things he would rather be doing.

“What are you doing, Six-Seven-whatever?”

“Uh, nothing, sir.” The young slig quickly lowered his gun; it had been following a bird across the sky. “Call me Stivik, sir.”

The big-bro, named Wrench, grunted and glanced into the air. “Shooting down the birds, 6-7…?”

“Six-Seven-Three-Two-Two, sir.” Stivik’s tone was bitter. “And I doubt I’d be able to. I’m not that good.”

Wrench snorted, “Try.”

“What?”

“Try! Shoot down a bird. Let’s find out if you’ve got it in you or not.”

Stivik looked unsure, but didn’t disobey. He hefted his gun to his shoulder and aimed into the air. The big bro spoke. “Get the gun close to your eye so it’s lined with the sight on your mask… Aim for where it’s going to be, not where it is, or you’ll just follow it until it gets away.” Stivik’s gunshot cracked the air suddenly, and missed. The birds panicked and began wheeling madly. A second shot ran out, taking Stivik by surprise. He looked around quickly to see the big-bro aiming his gun casually up. A dead burn thumped to the ground in the target range. He barely glanced at it and spoke casually, arrogantly, “Of course, it’s a lot harder, hitting an animal, or a mud.”

“Bigger target,” Put in Stivik promptly. Wrench lowered his gun and stared at the slig.

“You think shooting a raging animal bent on ripping you open is the same as shooting a harmless bird out of the sky? Or shooting a renegade mudokon?”
Stivik shrugged. The big bro stared at him and then left him to continue training.

He returned a few hours later and motioned to Stivik. “Come with me, 6—7-so on.” Stivik hesitated for a second before following.

Wrench led him inside to a dimly lit room where a mudokon was chained to a post in the floor, looking scared and confused. Two other mudokons were locked in an alcove in a wall. There was a sceptical looking glukkon flanked by a pair of sligs who watched Stivik as he came in, seemingly unimpressed by his small stature. “You really think this sliglet is ready, Wrench?” The glukkon asked mockingly. Stivik winced at the insult. Wrench answered gruffly.

“Only one way to find out.”

The glukkon rolled his eyes and turned on Stivik. “Alright. You,” He gestured to the chained mudokon. “Kill that.”

The mudokon looked scared. The young Stivik looked puzzled. “Why?”

The glukkon glared at Wrench, who in turn glared at Stivik. The glukkon answered. “Why? Because it’s a mud! You need no other reason than that!”

Stivik looked with surprise at Wrench, who was looking increasingly more embarrassed and angry with every passing second. He looked at the caged mudokons who were moaning and begging him not to. He faced the chained mudokon, who had backed away from him, was on his back on the ground putting up his hands in a helpless gesture. He thought of Wrench always using his number, of the glukkon calling him a sliglet as he walked into the room.

Stivik raised his gun and shot the mud through the head. The glukkon’s mouth hung open in surprise. Wrench was laughing and slapping him on the back. “Not bad, Stivik: execution style an’ all. I told ya he was a natural, Boss.”

* * *

Basic training, for many sligs, requires them to kill a mudokon. While doing so isn’t necessary to ‘qualify’ most sligs who don’t usually struggle to get a job for the rest of their career, unless they prove themselves to be particularly talented in a particular field such as mechanics.

As soon as he could use a rifle and a tranquiliser gun properly, Stivik left the barracks and returned to scouting to meet the pack of five other sligs he would come to think of as brothers over the next five years. Tilic and Dekas were both experienced sligs who had been scouting together for two years already. Their previous pack had broken up, neither of them ever explained why, and Tilic had been promoted to commander of a pack of his own. The third slig, Stack, was also an experienced scout who had been injured in the field. By the time he recovered he was out of a job, and so he had been assigned to Tilic’s group.

Next was Braz who, like Stivik, was a ‘qualified’ scout, fresh out of basic training. That first day he seemed slightly nervous and glad to have Stivik as a companion.

The sixth member, Burn, was a slightly older slig who would do anything to avoid becoming a generic guard, but wasn’t much good at anything else he had tried. They had set him up as a flying slig until they found out he was terrified of heights, much to his embarrassment. He had tried his hand at mechanics and found himself rubbish at it, so now he had moved on to scouting. He was the last slig to be welcomed into the pack, arriving on short notice a few days after Stivik and Braz. Tilic had looked him over sceptically the first day he came, Dekas looked totally unimpressed and after introductions had been passed around Stack had whispered to Stivik, “Don’t get too attached to this one; you rarely last in this job if you haven’t been trained fully.”

Stivik had been a little surprised by the morbidity of this comment, and then Burn had gone on to prove the three more experienced sligs wrong by becoming rather good at his job. He admitted he didn’t enjoy the work, but his eagerness to avoid a job as a factory guard meant he worked hard and learnt quickly from his superiors. Despite Burn being older, Stivik had thought of him as his junior for the first few weeks when he showed no talent in tracking or hunting what so ever, but that quickly changed as time went by. The younger three were soon mostly equal in their abilities. The six of them developed strong respect for each other, which smoothly turned to a tight friendship: emotions of attachment sligs craved but rarely had the chance to experience in the industrial world. They became as close as brothers.

Scouting went against the usual slig work ethic of train little, slack lots: under trained sligs wouldn’t last long outside, and there weren’t many opportunities to sleep on the job when you were trundling through a forest on the back of a mug. Their work wasn’t structured either. There would be days spent in industrial facilities, hunting new assignments or just taking a break, and then travelling, sometimes by train but more often on the backs of mugs. Because they moved around the continent they hired the animals, rather than buying them. They rarely had the money anyway: the job paid well, but also cost a lot. The sligs’ normal obsession with money was combined with a dependency on the stuff to keep operating day by day. Working outside of a factory meant they had to buy their own food and supplies. They made attempts to save a percentage of their wages for more expensive luxuries. At the top of the list of things to save up for was a new portable heat generator: the one they had had been provided by Tilic and Dekas was years old and worked about one day out of five. It seemed, however, that no matter how hard they tried, they never managed to keep much money.

They built up a small reputation for their work and there was rarely time when they couldn’t get offers for some job. With meeches becoming increasingly hard to find with every passing month, hunting them took up a lot of their time and earned them a good portion of their moolah. Whenever they finished a job Tilic would take them outside and jokingly give a speech about how much he valued them and how great they were. “Dekas, the bravest slig there ever was! Stack, the one that keeps us sane in the darkest hour! Braz, the natural born scout, and Stivik who was born for higher things! Burn, the slig of many talents, you’re the best buddies a slig ever had!” He would keep on until they threatened to shoot him if he kept going. This would usually be followed by a trip to the nearest bar, where Tilic would get drunk and begin his speech all over again, but with more slurring and more gesturing at the sligs as he referred to them. “Dekas, the… the, the bestest buddy I ever had! Stivik, born for higher things! Higher… ruler of Mudos he’ll be one day, mark my, uh, words…” At this time his five pack-mates would steer him out of the bar and, if necessary, knock him out to keep him quiet for the rest of the night.

Things weren’t all good for them. It was hard work for the money they earned; sometimes they would lose valuable equipment or the glukkons would try and cheat them out of their full pay, and as it was glukkons who held the power in Mudos they usually succeeded. Out in the wild, there was a constant threat from wildlife out for a meal and from native mudokons looking for a fight. Despite the friendship and the money, Stivik was not fond of the work, and preferred spending time in industrial facilities than outside. He and Mother Nature just didn’t get on. It was a joke in his pack on the dark nights, huddled around the dodgy portable generator, that Stivik would rather be a scrub than a scout.

“At least scrubs aren’t in constant danger of being eaten,” Stivik half grinned.

“Oh, I don’t know about that, what about the ones who spend their time poking around animal pens? Odd knows what goes through the head of some of those glukkons when they set their slaves to work,” Dekas joked.

“Hey, don’t insult the thick glukkons!” Tilic put in, mockingly serious, “It’s thick glukkons that give guys like us a living!”

“Hey, and what about mystery meat? You guys heard the rumours about what goes into that stuff?” It was hard to tell whether Braz was joking or being serious. Burn played along with him, though.

“Mudokon meat? Slig meat, glukkon meat?”

“Odd, you guys don’t believe that rubbish do you?” Stivik scoffed, huddling towards the machine in the centre of their circle, which was stubbornly refusing to produce heat. “Well how’s this then; scrubs don’t spend their nights huddling round a packed-in generator that hasn’t worked for about four years?”

“Do scrubs get any heating at all?” Philosophised Tilic with a grin. Stivik growled, rolled onto his feet and kicked the generator.

“That probably doesn’t help it, you know,” Stack muttered sleepily.

“It helps me,” replied Stivik bitterly. Burn laughed.




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