Hellsborough Exposed

Field lesson from above the Wisewood, and it is the one that gets crosslanders killed: The Xin are not animals. They keep a hierarchy, a strategy, and the quiet trick of stripping intent clean out of a living target — body left walking, will gone entirely — and they deploy it not as combat but as administration. The Mentiloth built the first dark networks for them, and the question of why ought to keep you occupied for whatever time you have left.

Best taproom on the Middlewood Road was heaving the night the DPDC jellyheads went on strike — nothing empties a workshop and fills a bar quite like a grievance. Van was already sat there with a pint stood waiting for me, the way he always is, and I have never once worked out how he knows the exact hour I will walk in. I bought the next round regardless; spending keeps the wheels turning, and anyroad, if the strikers do not rein their necks in the Exacid will be down on them long before last orders.