The Grendel Flats Mining Company

[redstripe]

The following is an excerpt from the notes of Molly Squidpidgge, journalist for the Los Santos’ Town Crier:

“Sandy Gulch is just as sandy as its name might imply. The town is practically deserted and the sand and wind have started to erode its buildings. However, despite its ghost-town appearance, Sandy Gulch is not completely abandoned. Few families remain and those are primarily subsistence farmers. Each is eager to see a new face and a rare visitor will quickly find himself with a turkey leg, a plate of steamed vegetables and an evening full of stories. They will jaw on about their favorite cow or their most stubborn mule but as soon as one asks about the Grendel Flats Mining Company these hospitable rural folk will curse, make a sign against The Sight, and kindly usher you out their door.

Sandy Gulch was not originally a farming community. How these families manage to scrape out an existence on this barren land is a miracle in itself. Sandy Gulch used to be a booming coal mining town. The industrious ideas of ambitious men demanded coal and deposits were found, here, giving birth to a bustling mining town. Every able bodied man was a miner but the veins didn’t run near as deep as first speculated and after a short decade, work began to dry up.

One can only imagine how The Breach was seen as the answers to all these people’s prayers. The mining town had all the labor, all the equipment necessary to harvest the incredibly valuable soulstone and with a brief ten kilometers by rail to site of The Breach, Sandy Gulch was in prime position to capitalize. Principle amongst the surviving mining companies in the area, Grendel Flats Mining Co quickly became the primary mining contractor for the Malifaux mines.

Today one can see in the ostentatious main street of Sandy Gulch, the products of its success in Malifaux. There is an enormous hotel and casino, a dozen taverns and bars, and a rail station to rival any major urban center. Sand spun by the constant wind has destroyed these buildings, however, making them appear as if relics from ages past.

The Grendel Flats Mining Company building became of chief interest to me. The local population seemed to view the building with suspicion and superstition and after I wore out my welcome with my constant inquiries regarding the company, the building remained the only hospitable place left for me to stay in.

Walking through its offices, one could easily imagine its employees had simply vanished. Drawings were half finished on desks and I found a coffee cup with evidence that it had been abandoned half full. During my stay in Sandy Gulch, I occupied myself with the volumes of business records that I found. I found accounting documents that outlined the various contracts the business held throughout its life. One could easily see the transition from GFMC’s trade in coal to soulstone with firms like East-West Steam Transit being replaced by the Holistic Thought Conclave.

As we know, the mines of Malifaux became, for lack of a better term, unavailable. However, the financials I discovered at the GFMC building showed continued business even after that fateful day. Such documents are rather arcane to non-accountants like myself, but the files referenced a “secondary market” in several places.

I took that term to mean real-estate. I had found several deeds for abandoned mines that had been purchased in the later years of GFMC’s operation. My time in Sandy Gulch was growing short and so after gathering several interesting documents, I decided to visit one of these abandoned mines to perhaps divine GFMC’s interest in purchasing them. I was not prepared.

I pray with every fiber of my being and to every god and every devil that might hear my plea. I pray that no man or woman would ever lay eyes on the horror I discovered at the mine. Life does not prepare you for a vision like that. The capacity of my mind to maintain sanity was tested. I’m not sure I passed. There are things in this world that once seen can never be unseen and whenever I close my eyes I am haunted by the image of those bodies.

First, the scent of the place was thick like a mist. It was the scent of disease, decay, and death and I wretched as I approached the entrance to the mine. The sand around the shaft caught the light of the setting sun so it glowed red and purple like a festering wound. I poured whiskey over a rag torn from an old shirt and held it over my nose and mouth in an attempt to blot out the smell and ventured closer.

What I saw, I have no doubt, was an image of hell. My lantern illuminated the shaft and only two hundred meters in was a mountain of bloated and decayed flesh. Stacked like bricks into a wall, the twisted, compacted bodies of hundreds of men and women were piled. The wall was alive with crawling, disgusting things, maggots and worse that feasted upon the unholy bounty stored here.

I lost my mind. I honestly have no idea what happened to me in the hours following that horrid discovery. I awoke face down in a dusty field. A farmer was prodding me with the muzzle of his rifle. It took me a moment to understand what was happing, but I recognized the man as one of the citizens of Sandy Gulch I had met in previous days.

And I saw, spread out in front of me, the scattered papers I had collected from the Grendel Flats Mining Company. The accountant’s records, the land deeds, bill of sales. The words “secondary market” caught my eye again and then something I hadn’t noticed before. At the bottom of a bill of sale was scrawled, “The Guild.”

I have no idea if the Grendel Flats Mining Company continues to ply its trade or not but I understand, now, what it considered the secondary market in soulstone trade after the collapse of The Breach. I understand, too, why this town has all but disappeared save for a small collection of superstitious farmers.

The secondary market was the recycling of soulstones. Without a steady source of them, their power needed to be replenished. Several unsavory solutions have been implemented to meet this demand but few so gruesome as the methods developed by GFMC. They murdered this town and with the dying breaths of their victims gave life to their depleted stones.

And The Guild paid quite handsomely for this service.”

This article was discovered posthumously by the executor of Molly Squidpidgge’s estate and was never published before now. A memorial reception honoring Molly’s life and her contribution to journalism will take place this Sunday evening at Our Lady of Mercy.

[Nathan Caroland]

A very fun piece Nick and completely in the venue and twist that is Malifaux!

It gives all sorts of expanded ideas on how the soulstones were restored, some through rather tame measures and others downright barbaric and horrific means and I rather like how you did it as a publish piece and memorial.

(mulls it over ...)

[supervike]

I really like it. That first paragraph sucked me right in, and I was interested to read more.

Then, about halfway through, it really took on a 'Lovecraftian' feel for me. Nice job of alluding to the evilness, but leaving most of it still to our imagination....

Good one!!

[EricJ]

nice one! it's giving me ideas...

[redstripe]

The concept of soulstones, if such a thing existed in our world, would have significant existential and theological ramifications. I find it very interesting how the people and organizations of this world might react to the "death effect" shown by the soul-stones. Would normal, salt-of-the-earth folk avoid proximity to soulstones for fear of losing their souls? Would churches protest the use of soulstones because they may deny access to an afterlife? Does the death-effect provide proof that the soul exists? I'm going to cut myself short, here, because I could go on for paragraphs.

@supervike: I was obviously in a very lovecraftian state of mind. Rereading it, I see that I even have a library scene and a maddened revelation scene.

[goblyn13]

In my opinion, for many religious organizations I see soulstones as both a Proof the soul exists as well as a problem, after all, wouldn't soulstones appear as a form of purgatory? or worse, hell? I can see some even using soulstones as a method of punishment for the wicked to ensure that they won't be able to move on to heaven or paradise. And at the same for those who practice Ancestor worship, I see the soul stone as the ultimate form of ancestor worship, after all, if a great revered ancestor was captured in a soulstone wouldn't it be the ultimate pinnacle to be kept close to your family for all time? and it would make for the families ultimate treasure, something that they would rather sacrifice their first born for rather than lose great-great-great grandpa's soul.

[Nathan Caroland]

But what would you do if the soul stone was depleted in some fashion, was great-great-great grandpa's soul moved on to the next stage or did ya'll just purge him of what he was and would be in some terrible conflagration of your own making?

Ahhh ... theres the question!

Seriously though, I rather like little debates and discussions like these, they're great for mining ideas.

[Keltheos]

Ancestor worship brings up an interesting conundrum. The families in cultures that do practice typically believe the ancestor has moved on to a better place/higher place and believe the ancestor can act as a medium between the family and the religion's higher powers.

How would a group that practices ancestor worship but also traps the soul in a soulstone behave? Would they consider it an honor to be locked in the stone until such time as they're called upon to help the family in some way? What would the group teach one another about the nature of the transition, the stone itself (would it be considered a prison, or more of a plush halfway house/limbo where the ancestor resides until being released and moving on to a higher plane?)

Also, what about the souls? Do they remain sentinent, or do they lose all semblance of who/what they were and are simply power sources - the 'spirit' part of the soul being lost/destroyed in the process?

[redstripe]

Also, what about the souls? Do they remain sentinent, or do they lose all semblance of who/what they were and are simply power sources - the 'spirit' part of the soul being lost/destroyed in the process?

Right now, I'm just calling it the "death effect." I think there may be people in Malifaux that would continue to contest the existence of a soul, even with the presense of soulstones. I'm not sure anyone in the world understands the true nature of soulstones or the process that recharges them.

[Thryth]

Right now, I'm just calling it the "death effect." I think there may be people in Malifaux that would continue to contest the existence of a soul, even with the presense of soulstones. I'm not sure anyone in the world understands the true nature of soulstones or the process that recharges them.

That's cool. I made my own theory on what was happening, which would make the stone's name incorrect.

Not sure if I should share here, in an IM, or just stay out of everyone's way.

[Nathan Caroland]

Welcome to share and speculate all you want folks.

[Thryth]

Okay then, this would be the way that I would do it for the game.

Leave the exact mechanics vague, but the stones are recharged by someone being mortally scared. This way there can be some randomness for the recharging (no recharge if the recharge-ee doesn't know of their fate, or if they are not afraid of it). This also allows the stones to be used for animating constructs. I doubt that you would attempt to say that constructs have souls (souless reanimated body is pretty much the definition of undead, isn't it?)

I think that this avoids the theological implications, yet allows for have the baddies do bad things to recharge the stones, and puts randomness into the mechanics of recharging a stone.

What do you think? Do I get hired now? Okay, well how about some free merchandise? No? More IM's for my account? A click on the thanks button? :D :D