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05-05-2016, 01:17 AM
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Anarcho-Apiarist
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: Jun 2008
: Your mother
: 9,859
Rep Power: 27
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Oddworld: Negative Externalities
Negative Externality neg·at·iv ex·tur·nal·it·é n An economic term describing negative external effect, often unforeseen or unintended, accompanying a process or activity.
Chapter I - Plummeting
There are some who say that Oddworld itself was created by the gods in such a way as to avoid the species that evolved upon its multiple surfaces from ever mixing. The plains dwellers, those that inhabited the forested nooks and the desert crags were never to mingle with those of the warm, damp interior crust. Nolybab then, was a wretched, festering place where the evils from within the mantle could seep out and curl their gnarled claws around the regions known by the sun. If the beasts were imprisoned within the earth, Nolybab was the ladder that would make their escape possible. A city of incomparable age, size and scale; needle-like towers rose out of the thick green mists below and pierced the belly of the sky above. These structures that threatened to defy physics with their immensity, were criss-crossed and riddled with platforms and walkways that allowed citizens to traverse from place to place. The city was skeletal, cantankerous and brittle; buildings nestled amongst one another on rickety stilts and sometimes entire roads and plazas were suspended through the acrid air without a single support, relying on their own mere ever-decreasing structural integrity to remain standing. The smog-induced twilight was near absolute, punctuated only by the neon lights that emblazoned buildings, bridges and walkways. Wherever there was space for advertising, the business class took advantage. One such area, surrounded on all sides by tremendous billboards and ventilated by factory extractor outlets (thus reducing the pungent fumes significantly), was Luskan Square. Here a junction of twelve separate walkways was created right in front of one of the most titanic spires—the monolithic Magog Barbican. A crowd was currently amassing as the central screen fixed high above the entrance to the tower flickered stock reports across its face. The fate of countless thousands were cast across it as the unforgiving red LEDs formed and reformed into arrows and numbers; they expressed the catastrophic fall of the stock market and cried doom.
SOULSTORM INC. ↓ 235 POINTS
FEECO PLC. ↓ 145 POINTS
FLUB FUELS ↓ 78 POINTS
VYKKER'S PHARMA. ↑ 12 POINTS
Some of the onlookers shook their heads in disbelief, others rubbed their eyes. Wails erupted forth and spread from person to person like a contagion. Armed slig guards looked on uneasily, their tentacles twitching around the barrels of their rifles. Ammaras leant heavily against a street lamp and groaned to himself. He ran his paws over his face and peered out at the text that fled across the bottom of the billboard, announcing an imminent news report. Looking up now, he stared into the slit-like windows of the Magog Barbican and scrutinised the silhouettes that interrupted their otherwise constant yellow light, permeating the gloom. He could only make out three floors up before the smog made further sight impossible. He wondered whether the Cartel was equally blindsided by all this. Before he could dwell on the idea, his attention was snapped back to the screen as the familiar jingle of the Magog on the March News programme blared out from speakers positioned on poles around the square. The picture was grainy and the signal was bad but the newscaster slig could still be made out, fixed into his chair, looking somewhat flustered as an off-screen assistant handed him a stack of papers.
“The last time I spoke to you all, we were receiving unconfirmed reports that Soulstorm Brewery was the target of a terrorist attack by Abe the Mudokon! Well dear oh dear I can now confirm that that is exactly what happened. It seems that the boiler was overloaded and after enough pressure built up, KABOOM! The place was scattered across Mudos. We are also aware that the Brewmaster—interim big-kahuna in charge of day-to-day plant operations—was killed in the resultant firestorm. The Magog Cartel is now facing the desperate problem of a managerial shortage; apparently our Lord and Master Maggie herself has been put to the task of fixing this big pain in the ass! The EMSE took a tumble today as well with shares in Soulstorm Incorporated going from hot-rocks to penny stocks in mere hours. We feel real bad for any poor shmucks that have had their savings wiped out. You can bet your bottom moolah the repo-teams will be out in force tonight! I for one, am glad that my savings are invested in Vykker’s Pharmaceuticals, the creators of Butt-Flo and sponsors of this broadcast of Magog on the March. Butt-Flo: If you can’t poo, Butt-Flo’s for you!”
Ammaras went cold despite the constant bombarding heat from the factories deep in the underbelly of the city. A trickle of sweat welled up on his bald head and streaked down his brow. Wiping it away, he rocked slightly as if blown by a gust of wind and was steadied by a heavy paw on his shoulder. Snapping out of his daze he turned to face a mudokon, perhaps one of this brethren, equally grey and listless. He looked at him quizzically and realised that he too must have been caught up in this catastrophe. Ammaras wanted to say something but no words welled up from within so consigned himself to share the resolute silence that had descended. Others around him wandered as if in shock. Some formed groups, equally quiet in the face of the news. Most departed. A couple of guards descended into the clusters to break them up, further dissipating the crowds.
It was apparent that the stock market crash was a national event, not merely confined to the boardrooms of the elite. The copious Soulstorm shares he’d bought were worth more as scrap-paper than their supposed underlying value. Once the banks found out his investments had been wiped, they’d take everything he owned automatically and since he wrapped up his business a few years ago, there was nothing to fall back on to bring in any more cash. The real issue would come not from the banks, or poverty and homelessness though, but the corporations. There was no remit to their scope for retribution and the debits he held would be repaid. In this life, repossession was nine tenths of the law.
A van rolled up and a team of well-equipped sligs hopped out of the back, Ammaras assumed the private security forces of the Magog Cartel has arrived in case of an affray outside the Barbican. When three of the group split from the vehicle and made their way towards him, he threw up his paws and turned to go, wanting to avoid trouble. He was completely unprepared then, when one of the sligs elbowed him aside and hurtled the butt of his gun into the chest of the mudokon that had stood by his side. He watched and winced as the attack sent his comrade reeling backwards. A follow-up attack landed squarely in his shoulder and an almighty crack emanated from within his body, followed up by a short sharp wail. The other two sligs grabbed an arm each and wrenched them backwards before forcing him to his feet, dragging him as he stumbled along towards the van. Ammaras simply stood there dumbfounded as the mudokon cried and babbled before being thrown into the back of the vehicle. He made no effort to help or protest, merely watching as others who had seen the encounter now fled along the smog choked walkways, vanishing into the pollution itself. Had he not been in shock from the tumbling chain of events, he might have made an effort to check the emblazoned insignia on the side of the van, instead he chose to turn and run, vacating Luskan Square as the vehicle sped off down the widest causeway, leaving it empty. The Magog Barbican loomed over his shoulder for a time, its awful size fading slowly until at last, it too was lost to the fog.
As Ammaras made his way deeper into the labyrinthine tangle of pavements his pace fell dramatically. The industrial smog burnt his throat and his lungs felt as if they were swimming in a thick liquid. Inhaling more fumes than air, his muscles fought against every movement, lactic acid driving his pain receptors into a fury. At last he came to a halt as a violent cramp in his stomach bent him over double. As the pain subsided, he stood up and spat a clot of phlegm and soot into the gutter. Perhaps wending his way through the alleys would be preferable to staying on one of the choked main walkways. Although many of the streets looked the same, he knew roughly where he was and from here he could make his way towards his apartment within the hour. Although a detour through the passages would take longer, he had a faint but worrying sensation that he ought to avoid open ground. Nervously he edged off the path and slipped between two towering redbrick structures, windows boarded up, graffiti spread liberally across their faces. The walkway was rickety and wobbled as he trod down its narrow length. Only the faintest sickly green glow permeated the otherwise absolute darkness; photons fleeing the monstrous factory furnaces in the belly of the city. Some whispered the machinery down there in the depths was alive, that the few organic inhabitants below were hopelessly mutated and wandered empty workshops preying on any unwary wanderers. There was even a story that the god Cudram was chained down there, and that his anger powered the whole of Nolybab. All Ammaras knew, was that the drop was fatal, and every time the alley opened up, every time a hole in the walkway appeared, he was reminded of the immense Below. He thought of the drop, to fall hundreds of yards, maybe even miles. That is if you didn’t splatter yourself on one of the crisscrossing platforms below first.
After perhaps a half mile the alley began to widen and grow brighter., stumbling through loose rubbish as he blinked into the light, a bombardment of smells rapidly began to pummel his nostrils. Ammaras was not certain, but hazarded a guess that he was walking into the local bazaar. from there it would be only a few minutes until he was home. The journey had been undertaken far quicker than expected and he realised now that he must have carved a far more direct route; where the main road curved and twisted through the decaying landscape, he had plotted a diagonal course straight from Luskan Square towards his home, through a single, fairly straight passageway. Disturbing a lone fleech nosing around a pile of food-waste, Ammaras practically tumbled into the open market, sending it scurrying into a sewage opening. The gloom of the dirty alley was immediately replaced by a vibrant spectrum of bright lights, colours and scents and the gaunt looking mudokon shielded his face with his forearm, shuffling through a huddle of hawking, featherless clakkerz that were milling around the yawning alley entrance; their pallid, colourless wings flapping irritably. The bazaar was a truly odd and foreign place, where a dozen species came together to offload their goods under gaudy tents or makeshift shop fronts hastily erected from spare pieces of corrugated iron. There was only one stall that was a permanent fixture, for the owner’s work was so constant that he had long ago decided he did not need to follow the circuit of caravans around the city precincts. The shop sign—though not neon lit—stood out amongst the scrab jerky vendors and the machinists with its prestigious, hard wood frontage and bold red font; meticulously hand painted. “Van Groan’s Pharmaceuticals”, it read. Ammaras made a concerted effort to skulk through the hordes of khanzumerz undetected and faced not a single call to purchase from the shopkeepers right up until he reached the aforementioned entrepreneur. A whiny sing-song voice called out to him and he hung his head, sighing heavily before it repeated itself in the exact same tone.
“You there! I say, you there, I know you can hear me!” The way in which the vykker trailed the last syllable of each clause grated on Ammaras and he swivelled on the spot, an obvious look of agitation cast across his face.
“You look like a mud in need of a pick-me-up! Why not chock a few pills? Real, gen-u-ine imitation Vykkers Pharma brand anti-depressants, twice a dangerous and only half as powerful, or…wait no it’s—”
Ammaras stalked over whilst tetchily swiping at an inquisitive fly buzzing around his head. The muddy coloured vykker crooned, shaking a see-through bag full of tablets in his pincer-like hands. He wore a simple tattered apron and was notably taller than most of his kind, something he put down to his disenchantment with bodily augmentation. Regularly he stated with pride to customers that he had not undergone the common surgery to remove the lower calves like many of his kin had. No, he would say, no I believe in the goodness of medicine; when something can be removed, instead a pill will surely do. Ammaras had wondered before whether the vykker had split from the Conglomerate willingly, or whether he had been ostracised for his madcap ways.
“What can ‘ole Van Groan do for you today meesta?” He asked as Ammaras drew near, leaning over the counter with three of his four arms.
“Nothing thanks, ‘cept maybe some information. I mean, you keep your ears to the ground right? What’s going on with the Cartel?”
The wizened vykker’s brow knotted and his jovial expression faded slightly before he said: “I know about as much as you do, friend. That Abe guy took out two of the biggest facilities of the two most profitable arms of the Magog Empire, stocks are a plummeting. He’s doing your species wrong y’know; giving you guys a bad name. I’d keep yer head down if I were you. Still, there’s one benefit to all of this of course.”
“What’s that?”
“My stock is selling like water in the desert! Not to mention the value of Vykkers Pharma shares are through the roof! Happy pills, booze, we’re selling it all at twice the price, and the poor schmuks that have taken a tumble are soaking it up with every penny they got left! Say, we do have this one device if you simply can’t keep going…My First Suicide Kit; Don’t Stop Till You Drop! I’m actually having a sale on these things; you know Van Groan, always going for the medical route rather than the surgical one. Why bore a hole in your head when a bottle of tablets will put you to rest? They say the machine hurts only half as much as falling out of a fifth story window but—hey where are you going?”
Lost in his spiel, the vykker hadn’t noticed the mudokon turn away. By the time he had noticed, Ammaras was already leaving the bazaar down the main avenue. Home was just a few minutes away and from there, he could plan how to go forward.
·So, I started writing this a few weeks ago when I was at my lowest as a way to release some creative juices. I know it's lacking in plenty of areas but it is what it is. I'll probably update it fortnightly for as long as there's interest. Yes I am completely aware that writing un-ironic FF is not cool but fuck you.·
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Oh yeah, fair point. Maybe he was just tortured until he lost consciousness.
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Last edited by STM; 05-05-2016 at 06:52 AM..
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