4-10: Drinking With Skeletons

The Black Desert City may be a place out of time, its skeleton residents completely disconnected from the outside world, but there are some things that can be relied upon no matter where you find yourself: If you want the good gossip, you go to the bar.

Jam perks up at the mention of Tinfist. While the two haven't met, Jam first heard their name back in Sho-Battai, a vigilante hero who'd been attacking slavers. They're the subject of a hefty 50,000 Cat bounty in the United Cities and Holy Nation alike. Cat-Lon, conversely, is a much more mysterious figure. Thus far, they've only been mentioned in passing by Burn, who opined in Admag that none of the world's current heroes and warriors hold a candle to them.

Whoever this Cat-Lon is, the skeletons certainly seem to hold them in high regard. Unfortunately, further details are not forthcoming. Not yet.

While Jam bristles at the claim that fighting slavery is a “losing cause”, Horse sidles up to the bar. Having spent the better part of the day doing his best to shield himself from the acid rain, he would welcome a drink or three.

The bar carries skeleton repair kits, fuel, electrical components, and grog. The barman may have forgotten that humans can drink grog. Horse fills his cup and plops himself down at one of the tables, joining a skeleton who's otherwise sitting alone. Spending all this time with Burn hasn't helped him learn skeleton body language for shit but he may as well introduce himself, right?

Sadneil's starting stats are randomized, most stats starting anywhere between 3 and -3. This time, they got saddled with -1 in each of Strength, Toughness, and Perception. It's more funny looking than anything else—that range of stats is really not much different from starting with everything at 1. In any case, they effectively don't have any skills. That's fine. Skeletons are great to have around for pretty much anything other than travelling to the Holy Nation, their only skill xp penalties being in sneaky thief stuff. At minimum, they're a recruit that doesn't need to eat. Quite handy.

In the long run, I think Sadneil will hang out at the base for the most part. After all, as they say, they don't really like excitement and adventure. I see them helping with base defense, potentially as a turret guard since skeletons get an xp bonus to the Turrets skill, and picking up whatever job or trade fills in the gaps when more of the gang gets out adventuring again. For now, though, Jam, Horse, Burn, Silvershade, and Beep want to explore more of the Deadlands. Whether they like it or not, Sadneil is along for the ride.

Before anyone gets too ahead of themselves, though, there is more to see here at the Black Desert City. Jam ventures upstairs, curious what the skeletons keep up there in lieu of the beds a normal bar would have. The answer is... beds, actually, both regular ones and skeleton repair beds. For people who allegedly have organic visitors so rarely, that's nice of them!

The far bigger surprise is that there's actually another organic person up here—another hive soldier, in fact!

The only non-skeleton resident of the Black Desert City, Razor is presumably hiding here to escape from the bounty on their head. It's been a long time—84 days, in fact, since Jam read it in the Sho-Battai bar, with nothing but a pair of ragged cargo pants and a bunch of scavenged skimmer meat to their name—but they're pretty sure they remember how it reads.

The bounty writer gets some points for creativity—“angular cheek bones” is a pretty funny way to describe a hive soldier—but Jam will not be doing their dirty work. An “enemy of the nobility” sounds pretty alright to them. They give Razor a sly nod before heading back downstairs.

I wish there was more to do with Razor. They'd make a pretty cool recruit, I think, for people who don't mind being enemies with the United Cities. There aren't many unique hive soldier recruits (in fact, there's only one, and that one can't speak) so Razor could also have potentially filled a gap in that sense. I also just wanna know more about their deal! Recruit or no recruit, it would be fun to have a conversation with them. Alas, they have nothing to say.

It is a bit funny that the skeletons around here all act like they've never seen a hiver before when Razor is right here—it's not like this is just one of many places Razor can show up. They're always here at the skeleton bar. I guess most of the skeletons wouldn't have any reason to come up here; they have repair beds in their homes. Maybe Razor just keeps to themself and most of the skeletons haven't seen them. Maybe the skeletons are covering for them. If it's the latter, Jam counts themself in with the skeletons.

Aside from the bar, the Black Desert City has a single shop: One that mainly sells skeleton limbs. A bit grisly perhaps but skeletons need replacement limbs from time to time too. It can't help the skeletons' deep, enduring sorrow that they need to scavenge parts from their fallen bretheren—surely, sometimes even from people they once knew.