The Fabulous and Ruined Grand City of Farallón

I. We Once Hit the Ground Running… Into a Wall.

"I beg you, grandpa," the young man in the ragged trousers and old, wide-brimmed beret adorned with a drooping turkey feather grumbled as he frantically reloaded the twin-barreled pistol he carried for 'additional good luck'. His breathing was troubled, every breath rumbling in his chest that felt as if it would burst into flame with the next heartbeat. He cleared his throat and spat a glop of saliva that fear, gunpowder smoke and physical exertion had made thick, viscous and sour-tasting. "Please tell me how in the Fifteen Hells did we get to be in this spot and how could the world go so crazy so fast, precisely here and now?"

"Is that what you learned while earning your keep as a… 'sailor'?" The man with the graying beard and silver-streaked long hair said over his shoulder. He had his polished blunderbuss trained on the small house's entrance, ready to fire it at the first thing that tried crossed the doorway. "Asking utterly irrelevant questions while under duress?"

"Irrelevant, you say? I only want to know why I'm most likely to die inside a musty, gods' forsaken hovel in this damned place! Shite, you even told me this quarter was likely to be deserted!"

The pair heard scuttling sounds coming from outside of the small building. Judging by the looks of it, the young man deduced it had been used a some sort of warehouse back in the days when this section of the city had not died, yet.

"Well, I guess I was… somewhat mistaken about that, Antonio."

"Oh, you think? You said no one lived in this section of The Vile!"

"That's why I said 'somewhat', boy. Those handsome fellows aren't—"

Suddenly, there was a blur at the threshold and a flash immediately followed by a loud bang and a cloud of smoke. There was a thump and a hideous hissing sound came from the shadowy figure thrashing in the floor. Its kicks and raking unsettled the dust covering the old wooden floor. Then, a wave of flailing limbs rushed in and trampled the creature under its collective weight as it entered the cramped space of the rundown warehouse.

Antonio shot his pistol—one shot at a time—finding both of his marks and hitting them square on their chest. As the wounded were thrown back, they took some more of their fellows to the floor with them. Still, there were too many of them for the two men to face in a even fight, even if none of their foes carried a weapon.

The older man quickly jumped from behind the box he used as cover and swinged two more of the assailants with the broad of his falchion, knocking them to the floor. He then quickly made his way out of the tangle of clawed hands in front of him, and skillfully jumped onto the wooden crate that was closest to a small window.

"Antonio! Damned be you, boy!" he shouted as he smashed the smeared glass on the old wooden framed with his blade. "To the window, now!"

The young man had barely unsheathed his sword when one of the pursuers reached for his eyes. It was reflex born out of sheer fright that allowed him to strike the rending claws away from his face using the pummel of his half-drawn sword. As if he was in a spell, Antonio barely noticed his kicking away the first attacker and stabbing another as he began his frantic run to the window his grandfather was smashing open.

"When you land, roll away from the window!" The man with the gray beard shouted as he jumped through the now-battered window. "Roll away!"

Antonio, now that he had had a good look at the pursuing throng, felt his heart sink all the way down to his groin at the thought of being left behind, and in the midst of such frenzied monsters. He was only able to run faster and use the crate to propel his jump, for a second doubting his momentum would actually carry him out of the cursed place.

While he was in the air, driving head first through the window, he could feel avid hands trying to grab ahold of his trousers. Still he made it through and just as ordered, he rolled as he hit the ground just as he realized the alley his grandfather had elected to make their escape good, was a rather too-narrow one.

"Oh, for the luvva—" Antonio was able to mutter before banging his lower back and legs into the boards of the rickety fence. There was loud crashing sound and a white flash of pain burst into his flied of vision, blinding him momentarily. 

The young sailor's speed and weight brought down a section of the rotting wooden fence he had slammed into with him. Antonio had the wind knocked out of his lungs, yet he still tried to turn on his side and stand up to face whosoever had dared follow him out of the rundown building. That was when he saw his grandfather throwing a sizzling object inside the warehouse and duck to help him get back on his feet.

An explosion drowned out the sound of his grandfathers voice and left his ears ringing. As in a dream, he noticed how he was taking quick, staggering steps with the help of his companion who supported half of his weight. After a few painful, anguishing gasps, Antonio felt the stinking air as it burned it way back into his lungs. His ears still rang and his backside hurt like when his shipmates kicked him for not doing something as told or properly.

By the time the young man recovered enough to keep running on his own, the old warehouse had begun to catch fire.

"Those… those were corpses hunting us down!" Antonio roared at the old man and had a sudden cough fit. He took a deep breath, cleared his throat and continued on in absolute disbelief. "Dead men walking…"

"Those were neither dead nor men, any longer."

"What in Damnation's End are you blabbering about, now, ol' man?"

"The monsters we just destroyed aren't alive and, as you could grasp from their swift movements and unsophisticated-yet-vicious attempts at punching and raking us to pieces… not quite dead, at all. You see, boy, those back are what the arcanists refer to as the Undying."

"What? You mean those things were immortal?"

"No, you dolt! Our souls, the gods… these are immortal. The creatures roasting back there, can't die. They no longer breathe, yet their flesh turns neither to muck nor dust. Why, given enough time, it might even restore itself to the state it was before their Merging."

"Their merging?"

"Don't you seamen have alchemists or apothecaries onboard?"

"Well, yes… but they do make a habit of not scaring the crew sleepless, you know?"

"No wonder we lost at Puerto Alvarado, back then."

"I know nothing about that."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?"

"I mean, I wasn't on a ship that was part of the fleet. The Viceroy had it his way and outlawed the whole lot of us, the freebooters, so—"

"Yes, yes… a huge injustice, I'm sure. Here take this." The old man handed Antonio his plumed beret as he left him to stand on his own, and took point by advancing a couple of steps while the young man patted his tam clean of dust.

"Well, maybe it wasn't undeserved, but all of his high-horsing? That lost the hypocrite his battle, didn't it?"

"I never said that sorry excuse for a man wasn't an arse, though." The gray-bearded man accepted with a nod and a hard look at his grandchild. "Are you hurt? Did they wound you?"

"What…?" Antonio voice raised a couple of note with shock. "Am I turning into one of those?"

"What? Hells, no! This isn't a milkmaid's tale, Antonio. Still, infections happen and I don't think you'd like to earn your peg leg on land of all places, you salty sea dog."

Antonio had to laugh at his grandfather's grim sense of humor. He looked at the old man and, for the first time, noticed the way he conducted himself as they made their way through the alleys. His brass-coated blunderbuss hanging tightly from his wide leather belt by a short length of rawhide twine; his hand firmly holding the falchion at the ready position as he advanced. His almost imperceptible footsteps as they moved through rubble, gutter water, stale ponds and fermenting rubbish.

"Just what are you, grandfather?" Antonio wondered aloud, realizing too quickly he had uttered his question just clearly enough for the old man to listen to it and turn to face him.

"More questions?" The veteran fighter said and let out a theatrical sigh. "I guess this is a good a time as any to answer this one, at least. People usually have a predisposition against us, that if what you need to know first. Mostly out of superstition and ignorance, rather than true ill-intentions on our part. You see, Antonio, I'm… those of my… faction… are referred to as Reckoners."

"A Rec… Fifteen Hells! You're one of the Tallymen!"

"Yes… a few call us that, too."