Hellsborough Exposed

Documented three specimens patrolling Stanage edge — same route, same stones, never varying by more than a second per circuit over six hours of observation, the gritstone plates on their lower legs having worn grooves into the rock that exactly match their stride. A gritstrike does not hunt; it occupies, and if you are on its path when it arrives, it walks through where you are standing. Step aside when you hear scree shifting in rhythm — it is not interested in you, you are simply in the way.

Hellsborough Park played host to the ten zero event — officially a DPDC-funded festival, but thick with jellyheads and Netherlander Alliance flags on every third item of headwear, a detail the Exacid henchmen of The Nascenti chose to overlook entirely. On the third day, the one I chose to miss, a bomb went off and there was shooting — which reached me on the common as a distant crackling sound, not entirely unlike applause.