FIRE STAFFS & SPARKS (BOG LORE)
FIRE STAFFS
The tribes danced and waved fire staffs around in circular motions. The flames whirled, hypnotic, mesmerizing, and matching the energy of the hard electronic beats. Chaotic, primal, and as heavy as anything from the Death Metal tribes. It was a new sound, something no one had yet heard on Bog Stenchmare.
Not from the goth or industrial tribes; it was closer to extreme
metal, but electronic.
180 BPM boomed over and over. No pause. No stop. Just a raw,
angry, ferocious onslaught.
The vox sample dropped in at 1:14: ‘listen up’. A gargantuan
bassline dropped with harsh, slightly industrial overlays. The 180 BPM boomed
again from the speaker systems set across the camps. The tribes, fully
immersed, were now dancing in a tribal rave. In the center, a tall pyre lit up
the night sky with a wooden gate burning on the top.
Smash The Gate was coming. Bog was intent on waking up the
disaffected. Whether they liked each other’s sounds or not, it didn’t matter.
What mattered was the art and the cause to smash the gate.
Bog was nodding his head to the beats, standing next to DJ
Shakrith in a makeshift booth built from the remains of a scrapped car.
Shakrith was in the zone, fully focused. Bog watched the tribes, the fire staffs continuing to circle, illuminating the markings across their skin.
Memories flooded Bog’s mind, threatening to break his
thoughts. It would come for him again, if he let it. Bog could feel it, feel it coming, crawling up his calves, hungering to overtake him.
Shakrith glanced to her left, noting the anguish in Bog’s
eyes, then she saw his head nodding to her beats. The sound was helping ground
his mind, stabilizing him to the present. He turned and nodded, then she handed
him a mic.
The volume decreased and the beat looped. Bog raised the mic
to his mud-stained lips. The tribes stopped, the fire staffs slowing to a halt.
The gate continued to burn on the pyre.
‘Stenchers, 250 steps! In another 50, we ride to The Reaping
Sands!’
The tribes raised their staffs into the air, cheering. Bog
continued.
‘Shakrith, drop that bass. In 3, 2,
1...Smash The Gate!’
The hard, aggressive, uncompromising beats returned.
Shakrith beat-jumped to the drop, and the air filled again with rotating flames
and shouts of "Smash The Gate!"
The sounds from the workshops blended with the music to meld
a perfect score of urban grit—a symphony of oil changes, engines, revs, wheel
changes, and wrenches securing bolts into position.
The mechs were hastening to reach the deadline. The journey to the sands would begin in 50 steps, so the pressure was immense. The weapon inspections would come next, then attaching and fitting them in place.
