It all happened so fast: one minute, I’m sitting with me family and enjoying a usual evening supper. The next, I’m in this nightmare and everything’s gone arse over tit. Wasn’t sure what to think, really, so I thought it best to keep a record of things since I became part of this hellhole. The name’s Mogrim Dunn and I’m going to talk about meself a bit first before getting into my accounts. Don’t want to hear about me? Feck off. Also, while I’m talking about this document, don’t go expecting dates and the sort. I’m no researcher and this ain’t no detailed record. So if you’re expecting that sort of thing, you can feck off again.

  I was born in Southvale, a stain of a town with no more people to it than teets on a pup. Me mum and dad farmed grain like every other poor, Lawless souls in Southvale. By the time I was old enough to know there was more beyond the bread and mud surrounding me, I left. I couldn’t have been older than 13 marks when I took off for the big city: Isold?’s Rest. It’s called such because some famous Scholar took a nap there or something like that. Scholars are so self-important, ain’t they? They build towers, towns, and gizmos, then they go and name them all after themselves. It’s a right joke, it is. I bet you that Isold? bird never did a damned thing for the city besides coming through and naming it. Weren’t no Scholars in the town by the time I ran through it, at least. It’s just as well, though: Scholars tighten everybody up and there’s no room for money to be made when we’re all too busy walking around with sticks up our arses.

  I got me start running grifts in the lower quarter. I was young, but I weren’t no fool. People saw wee Mog and thought “Oh, there’s a pup to be collared, right?” Wrong. Me most profitable gig was selling nameless tech. I’d find some junk in the dump, clean it up, paint some blue doodles on it, and sell it for a shiny shembal to anyone visiting the city. I’d tell’em ol’ Isold? herself left the artifacts behind and no two were the same, the saps. Eventually, the local toughs noticed what I was doing and brought me to the king of the city’s underworld: Balmesh.

  Balmesh was the type of leader people write stories about. Real stories, not the shite you read about bumps in the dark. He led fairly and ran an illegal transportation business as straight and narrow as such a thing could be. He greased the right palms, turned a blind eye when necessary, stepped in when things got too heated, and he never bit off more than he could chew. He taught me everything he knew. Those 10 marks were the best of me life. Hell, Balmesh was more of a father to me than me own. It made it real hard to steal his business from him, but you gotta do what you gotta do if you’re going to take what’s yours. See, Balmesh never bit off more than he could chew, alright. He lacked that innate hunger. He was fine with his lot in life. But me? Mog’s always hungry. Turned out his boys were hungry too. After 10 marks of running the streets with them, I had their trust, sure. But, more importantly, I had their ears. “You boys ever think about the shembals we’re leaving on the table,” I’d say. Balmesh had a strict code, after all:

  We don’t sell to kids.

  We don’t sell substances people could abuse.

  We don’t sell beyond the lower quarter.

  We don’t sell Law’s Unforgivables.

  Balmesh just wanted to provide an avenue for those lesser off to still get what they needed. Tooth powder ain’t cheap, but poor people don’t want their mouths smelling like shite either, you know. But you’d be surprised how much money a kid could have in Isold?’s Rest. You’d be surprised how bad people wanted to give coldkicks a try. You’d be surprised how much money there was to be made outside the lower quarter. And the Unforgivables? You think Ol’ Mog lost a night’s sleep over those? I’d sell me mum’s soul if it got me two shembals to rub together. Course, Balmesh would never allow such a thing, so he had to go. Maybe I ought to have offered him a deal, but no. Balmesh was a man among men and I wanted to remember him like that. No deals for him. We gave him a good burial and off we went to work.

  And work we did. By the time my 40th mark came and went, I turned Balmesh’s little enterprise into a full blown empire. The mayor didn’t even go to sleep before checking with Mogrim Dunn, first. Maybe you think I were a brutal son of a whore and deserve to be feeding worms, hm? Well, feck off. Law don’t care one bit what you or I think. And even ol’ Mogrim Dunn can be a good man. And I was. I put a lot of those shembals right back into the city. I helped fund a school for the brats, a clinic for the sick and elderly, and that sort of thing. Who paid for the Scholars to come through and help with relief after the earthquake 5 marks ago? I think the taxpayers did, but you’d better believe Ol’ Mog paid his share and then some. In the middle of all the work, I even found a bird to call my own. Her name’s Sophia and she’s everything.

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  Feck. I told meself I wouldn’t even talk about me family. But what if I never get back? Listen, if you got this off me skin and bones, you’re responsible for telling me family what happened. No backing out now, you nosy prick.

  Sophia is everything. She’s the reason there’s more than money on me mind. She’s the reason I get up in the morning. She’s the reason I haven’t given up, even after this nightmare’s begun. If she weren’t already a gift from Law, she blessed me with a child: Achaia. You ever hear what they say about kids? They say everything changes once you’ve had a little brat. Bollocks, I’d say. And you’ll never hear me say otherwise. But right here, between you and me, I’ll admit it. They’re right. I love this fecking kid so much. Law, please let me family be alright. I’ll give everything, become anything, do whatever I need to do if it means they’ll be alright. So, if you see this and I’m nothing but bones: it’s the Dunn House across from Fortune’s Market in the Lower Quarter of Isold?’s Rest. That’s right, I never did forget me roots. Instead of hiding away in the Upper Quarter, pretending I’m not scum beneath a boot, I built the Lower Quarter up and made it a respectable place to live. I even did right by me mum and dad in Southvale: bought the farm, gave them the luxury they deserved, that sort of thing.

  Why did I do any of this? The good and the bad? The answer’s the same: I wanted to. I wanted to leave Southvale. I wanted to take over Balmesh’s business. I wanted to make an unlawful amount of shembals. I guess, deep down, I wanted to find love too. Mogrim’s a man driven by nothing but desires, you see. So you can say whatever you want about me, but Ol’ Mog was always true to himself.

  That’s why when the world went topsy-turvy overnight, I didn’t question it. One day, I woke up and I wasn’t in me home. I wasn’t anywhere. I was in a lightless world that I could see in just the same. No sun, no moon, yet me human eyes had no issue seeing the place around me: the offscape. A story people told kids to keep them acting right come to life and before me. Achaia hadn’t even made her first mark, yet. I had to find a way home, so I started searching.

  Turns out, the offscape ain’t as unlived in as the stories might have you think. There are freaks and monsters everywhere you look, but there are also people like me. People just trying to get by, people looking for hope in this cesspool of situation, people with shembals in their pockets and nothing to spend them on. So then an idea hits me: Mog, you old sod, you built an empire before, so do it again. There ain’t no escaping this damned offscape without resources, funds, and power. Luckily, a good businessman always keeps shembals on hand, so it weren’t like I was starting from scratch. I had some money, plenty of ideas, me family in me heart to motivate, and a new environment to work with. But things were different, the clientele especially. The offscape…it does something to you. It chills your bones, hardens your heart, leaves you less than human. It did it to everyone I saw; shite, it’s probably done it to me, too. These customers out here aren’t interested in your basic drugs or cheap hygiene products. No, these bastards want distractions from this situation we’re all in. They want hard narcotics to distract, power and authority to deny their pathetic existence, blood and bone to give them hope for survival. Prostitution’s one thing and there’s plenty of that in that stain they call a city. But it ain’t always about the sex: people want to feel in control of others. Of all the unforgivables Law told us upstanding citizens to turn away from, even I hesitated to dabble in one of them: slavery. As a young pup, I didn’t care how I made me money. But everything changes once you’ve had a little brat. Selling a person’s freedom…it just don’t sit right with the old ticker.

  But then I came across this hole in the wall. It’s a cave full of honest-to-Law nameless tech. Would you believe it? We’ve come full circle. Ol’ Mog went from selly phony nameless tech to having his pockets full of it. But I’m burying the lede, here. More importantly is this facility as a whole. Law knows what it’s for; my guess is it’s some kind of training field. For what? No, it’s a who, not a what. And the who is some kind of special human. They can’t just be regular old scum like you or me. Regular humans don’t sleep in tubes. It was some sort of hibernation pod, I’d say, cause the sleeper looked like they’d been cozy in there for marks and marks. Just looking at them made me skin crawl, but Ol’ Mog’s an opportunist before anything else, so I gave them the old rise and shine.

  Waking the brat up was easy enough, but she spoke in puzzles and jargon I couldn’t make sense of. What I could make out was she needed a name, something to call her by. I was foolish. Weak. I missed me daughter and the name just slipped out. Now she only goes by that name and I’m livid every time I talk to her. She seems to basically be a human, but she doesn’t do it quite right. Her eyes don’t have no life to them, her voice don’t have no fire to it, she makes me fecking sick. So, before I even know why, I give her a good whack. It felt good. So I did it again. It became a regular thing; she doesn’t bruise easy, so it’s a nice stress relief. “What good are you,” I’d yell at her. Then she responded. She said she could alter the training facility, make it a home for us—stupid thing thinks we’re kin or something. But I’m not looking to set up shop here, if I were, I’d be living in Arca like every other poor sod. No, this is all temporary. So I tell her, with my boot on her head, I say “if you can make a home, you ought to be able to make other things.” I’m sensing a valuable opportunity, here. So I—