Dusk in the city of New California Republic, the finale of yet another day of thievery and foul talk, trolls awakening from their light slumber, shuffling in the shadows and on the worldmap, waiting, baiting. There in the eastern corner of the Bazaar, clad in robes shabby and threadbare from centuries of fallout, alongside mutated freaks of the wasteland, stands the once great Boss Viking of the north, hated by many, admired by some, known by all: Now but a mockery of his former self, watching the bluesuits as they come and go.
Verily, he says, addressing no one in particular, or perhaps the knave sneaking next to him with a broken grease gun, 'tis not the horrors of war that ruins the spirit of a man, by Odin this much I've learned. His voice is deep and scarred, like the cloth of a heathen, drawn and quartered, soaked in whiskey and left to dry over the open fire.
For I have one hexed many men, and countless are the times I've watched Redding burn. I've seen the cornfields of Klamath watered with blood, and the streets of New Reno littered with corpses, victims of the jet, slain by my own hands. Where others would fail, I have remained steadfast and true, guarding toilets and collecting taxes from the slavers of the Den. Many are the gruesome wounds I've endured, and more numerous still the ones I've inflicted upon my enemies. Yet my will kept strong and my mind sharp like the blade of my throwing knives, when throwing knives were still good.
It is not the merciless sacrifice of waves upon waves of the einherjar, who now feasts upon Sæhrímnir and prepares every night for the great battle of Ragnarök, nor is it the grisly remains of a militia before my blood spattered feet, once full, now but a heap of mutilated corpses, mocking the god of war and thunder. It is not the pillaging or the base raping, the slaughter of women and children or the futile sacrifice of numerous slaves, melting away on the exit grids of Broken Hills; it is neither of these things that brings a Viking to his knees.
Nay, for it is the never ending grind of the moles and the squeal they produce as their heads pop that can never be unheard.
The night has come. A C4 explosion briefly shakes the ground, then all is quiet once more. The Boss Viking is staring into the void, his mind, haunted by encounters of the past, is now far away from keyboard. Somewhere in the north, a bluesuit kills a mutated molerat for the first time.
