John and I both work in the factory. I’m more magically inclined, so they have me in the power station pumping magic into the boilers that spin our turbines. John is half-elf, so he’s better with his hands. They have him carve the strengthening runes into our equipment and into the final product. We don’t see each other during work except for our lunch break, but that hasn’t been happening lately.
We normally meet up in the break room for lunch and shoot the shit for a half hour while we eat. But lately we’ve been forced to work through our break. It’s been happening to the whole shop for about a month now. So I just kept working, John and I will just hang out at the bar after work to make up for it. Some of the other guys hang around the same bar after work too, I’ve been thinking about talking to them.
We finished our work for the day and met up by the exit. We live a block apart, so John and I usually cartpoole. We got in John’s cart and went to our respective houses to change into our street clothes and get cleaned up.
Then we met up at my place and chatted a bit before we left. “I don’t fucking get it, Cyrus. We do all of the work in that factory and we’re making pennies on the dollar compared to the bosses. I think we should talk with the other guys at the bar. They’ve been talkin’ union,” John complained.
I honestly agreed with him so I said, “I agree we need to unionize, we’re getting screwed over. They already took our lunch break, what else will they take?”
“You wanna try to get in with the others at the bar?” John asked.
“Yeah, let’s see if they’re willing to let us help out,” I said
That settled, we headed to the bar. On the way we mostly complained about work and the fact that we weren’t getting our lunch breaks anymore.
When we got there, we saw the others sitting in their booth and walked over. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a creep staring at us from the bar but didn’t think too much of it. I handled introductions ‘cause John can be… John.
“I’m Cyrus, this is my best friend, John. We work at the factory, and we’ve seen you around. We figured we’d introduce ourselves ‘cause it’s not gonna happen over lunch.”
Then they introduced themselves. There were three of them, a burly half orc-half dwarf, a gnome, and a human.
The half orc went first: “I’m Cedric, I work maintenance on the equipment. Pleased to meet you guys.”
The gnome went next: “I’m Jameson, but most people call me Jamie, I assemble the final product on account of me small hands.”
Last was the human: “I’m Alex, I do the turbine maintenance. You guys gonna stand there all night or sit down?”
After introductions we mostly just made small talk for awhile; they weren’t sure of us yet. John and I don’t usually hang around with any of our other co-workers, we’re content to do our own thing.
“We heard the brewery unionized, did you guys hear about that?” John said.
Alex replied, “Yeah, I heard they were getting dicked over by the shop manager. Being forced to work mandatory overtime, and the safety systems weren’t getting the maintenance they needed.”
Cedric chimed in, “I heard someone lost a fucking hand from one of the canning machines because the safety guard wasn’t on it!”
“Yeah, that whole incident is what ended up driving everyone to unionize for better pay and better safety. I’m surprised it took someone losing a hand for people to fight back, but I can’t say I blame them entirely. People don’t like rocking the boat.” Jamie added.
Then John said it and tension I hadn’t even noticed washed out like a wave.
“We hear you guys talking union over here sometimes– we’re tired of getting screwed by the bosses, can we join?”
“Shhh! Don’t talk so fuckin’ loud!” Cedric whisper-shouted.
“We’ll talk about this more, in private,” Jamie said and nodded to a guy sitting at the bar.
“Who’s that guy you nodded towards?” I whispered.
“Works for the boss, he’s a union buster” Jamie replied.
“Kneecap buster, too,” Alex muttered under his breath.
“There’s a private room in back that they’ll let us use. It’s next to the bathrooms. We’ll continue this conversation there. Don’t everybody get up at once, filter in over the next 10 minutes or so.” Cedric said quietly before getting up and walking in the direction of the hallway with the bathrooms.
Jamie went next under the guise of checking on Cedric. Followed shortly by Alex. Once Alex was clear and had made his way over, John and I went. We made a show out of how drunk John supposedly was, and how I was just helping him to the shitters to throw up.
I watched the union buster out of the corner of my eye while everyone else moved. He didn’t notice anyone going anywhere until John and I got up, but John actually was drunk so the show we put on got him to quit watching.
Finally we made it to the backroom relatively unhindered. We stepped in and sat down at a round table in the middle of the room.
There was a deafening silence. Once again John broke the silence. I swear he just doesn’t understand when it’s awkward.
“So, we want to talk union. We’ve had our lunch break taken from us, Bob from payroll let slip that they’re considering mandatory overtime, and frankly I just think our boss is a dickhead who won’t pay us what we’re worth.” John whispered to Cedric.
“I heard we can make more money with better and cheaper benefits, too.” I said.
“You know, normally we have to convince people of all of that, and you two just figured it out, which is a nice change of pace.” Cedric replied.
Alex jumped in: “What do you guys do at work? Like, what’re your job titles?”
“I pump magic into the boilers and John carves the runes. We’re the only ones that do our respective jobs for first shift.”
“This is the exact type of in we’ve been looking for!” Jamie whisper-shouted.
“So how do we wanna do this?” Cedric asked.
“I think we should shut the factory down ASAP, for as long as possible. If two of us stand guard over the boiler so a replacement for Cyrus can’t make it in, then we win. I was thinking you and me would be best suited: we do the least essential work so nobody will notice us missing. Alex can make our demands.” Jamie said.
“What are we talking about? I feel like there’s a conversation going on that I should probably be looped in on.” I said.
“Shutting down the factory until our demands are met. You and John are the only ones in the factory who do what you do. If you guys strike with us, the whole factory shuts down.” Cedric replied.
“What are our demands?” John asked.
“Bring back our lunch breaks, equal pay for everyone and a thirty percent raise across the board, backpay for the strike, and a larger winter harvest bonus.” Cedric said.
“When are we doing this?” I asked.
“In three days to give us time to hash out the plan in more detail. Let’s go for it when we’d normally have lunch though, for sure.” Cedric replied.
“Now that that’s settled let’s drink!” John declared. And drink we did.
Eventually we all stumbled our separate ways, and I ended up crashing at John’s place again.
We had grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner to help sober us up and prevent a hangover. After we ate, John went to bed and I went to the couch. We’d talk more about the plan in the morning.
I woke up with a start, I’d fallen out of bed. We were moving again. I don’t know why it surprised me, we’re always moving these days it seems. I asked my broodkin what was going on. They replied, “Giant attack overnight, had to move the tribe again.”
“Ahh, that tracks, there were reports of one nearby when we set up outside of town,” I grimaced while I grabbed a snack and said, “I just woke up, you want me to lead the caravan for a few hours while you get some sleep?”
They handed me the meld orb faster than they could sigh “thanks”. As they climbed back into the sleeping cart they told me “someone will relieve you in a few hours” so I mind-melded with the Atlas beetles and took over guiding the caravan.
The road was flat and straight and the beetles aren’t as dumb as most people think, so it was a fairly simple matter of nudging the bugs one way or the other every once in a while when a curve came up.
Nobody ever did end up relieving me, but we still made it to the next town eventually. They weren’t pleased about a goblin tribe setting up shop so close to town. People don’t think highly of us. But they got over it when they saw our goods and silks. People seem a lot less likely to be overtly bigoted to you when you have something they want.
“We’ve got fine silks and rare goods!” One of my broodkin was shouting at passersby to get their attention, drawing in customers with the kinda shit they’d never be able to get this far out from the Metropoli. “We’ve even got powerful magics! And exciting new technologies!” It seemed to be working because there’s six customers trying to get our shipments of silk blend and the new portable phones.
We sold twelve of the new portable phones and eight bolts of the silk blend. We noticed a lull in customers coming by and called it a night.
We all set up in front of the visocast with news on. It wasn’t surprising that most of the reports were on the giant attack we just fled, but the report that it was coming our direction again was a very unwelcome surprise.
We changed it to cartoons to keep the fresh brood distracted while we packed up. It seemed to work because none of them asked any difficult questions. Whether that’s because they’re used to the nomadic lifestyle already and know the answers, or because the distraction worked was hard to say for sure.
I can’t stand pulling all nighters. We just finished with work for the day, and we have to fucking leave town and run the caravan another three hundred damned miles east towards the metropolitan core.
We finally got far enough from town that it was no longer visible. Myself and my broodkin all shared a collective sigh of relief. The Atlas beetles didn’t even need to be melded throughout the trip, they sensed the danger and kept going without our nudging. They didn’t settle down at any point in the journey. Even when I melded with them and started urging them to stop they kept going for another 10 miles.
We’d made it about a hundred-fifty miles over the span of two hours when we finally settled down for the night. The bugs didn’t seem to understand that the danger was over now; they wouldn’t stop chittering. I wish I’d known how right they were to still be scared.
Later in the night, after we’d made camp following our mad dash out of town, we’d all gone to sleep and had learned to tune out the chittering from the bugs. In the early hours of the morning we were all woken up by rumbling and stumbled out of our tents and sleeping carts. We felt it more than heard it, a deep periodic rumble that trembles through your guts.
Then we saw it covered in shadows. Deep inky, oily black shadows that obscured any details I could’ve made out. I’d never seen one this close and suddenly all of the stories about them being taller than the clouds seemed true. The bugs saw it too, evidently, because they all ran whether there was a cart hooked up to them or not. They ran faster than I’d ever seen them run before.
It all happened in an instant. The giant appearing, the bugs running, and now the giant reaching for a storage cart. It ate the entire thing. It swallowed the cart whole without chewing. It looked angry when it realized that the cart didn’t have anyone inside, then it looked around to find more prey. It spotted some of the young brood huddled together in fear. They were all scooped up at once and then swallowed. The entire tribe was in an uproar after that but we couldn’t do anything, none of us were powerful enough.
The elder brood started casting the most powerful combat spells they had at the giant, the spells shot through the air like fireworks, all of the colors of the rainbow blending into each other, into the brightest whitest light I’d ever seen. It lit the night sky around us and left several of us blinded for a few seconds and then we could see again. The giant was completely unaffected, in fact the giant looked bored, and it just… walked away as if terrorizing my entire tribe and eating our young wasn’t even a noteworthy event in its day.
The worst part was the apathy afterwards. None of us could actually do anything to stop the giant and once the terror bled out of us we just started trying to get the Atlas beetles mounted back to the caravan so we could keep moving. It’s all we can do, just keep moving and hope it doesn’t come again.
We caught the beetles and got back on the road. We had another two-hundred miles to the next town and a lot of sorrows that needed to be drowned, so we carried on in silence until we made it to the next town.
John was leaning on me at the bar because he’d had too much to drink again. He was talking big about things he couldn’t possibly know anything about; it’s what he does when he’s drunk. “They smell like rotting meat and cheese, like they have so much they can afford to just let it rot.”
“How could you possibly know that? One of them hasn’t ever been within 100 miles of town,” I said.
“My dad. He was in the first resistance group that killed one.”
“Your dad was in logistics! He was behind a fucking desk.”
He didn’t deny that. “The giants,” he said. “The giants reek of excess.”
My glass refilled on its own again, chilled to the perfect temperature as always. I quickly pounded it and told John, “Alright, let’s get you home, we’ve had enough to drink.”
Helping him up, we made our escape before the bar could ‘offer’ and charge us for another round.
I managed to get John home in one piece. He sobered up a little bit because of the brisk night air and the long walk.
He started rambling about the giants again. “My dad was there, for the fight where they killed it— they moved as many as they could to the front. My dad always used to tell me that as soon as the giant hit the dirt a thousand new and wonderful things sprouted from its corpse.”
Before I could reply, he threw up and passed out. I really wished he would learn to hold his liquor.
I didn’t feel like walking home after dealing with Drunk John, so I crashed on his sofa. I flipped on the news to fall asleep and I drifted into a fitful sleep thinking about the story John told me.
I woke up and John was making french toast. When I got up and sat at the table, John passed me a plate. We went through the typical “I passed out drunk on your couch” morning pleasantries and I asked him to tell me more about the giants while we had the news playing in the background. He told me everything he could think of, but one thing stuck out to me:
“They eat people. But they don’t chew or anything that would give a quick death, they swallow you whole. I don’t believe this part but, the soldiers say you’re kept alive the entire time until the giant has completely digested you.”
I said, “That’s ridiculous, how would they keep you alive? You require food and water or you die in four days— well, unless you’re a gnoll but that’s not the point.”
He replied, “I don’t know man, there’s a lot we don’t understand. Like, we still don’t completely understand magic and we use it everyday. But regardless, the stories about people being kept alive— they’re just rumors from the front as far as I know.”
We finished breakfast in relative silence and headed into work for the day. My mind was occupied by the stories John had been telling me all night, but I had to put off following up on that until the weekend when John and I could hang out again.
