Shadows of Elysium: The Laughing King

Chapter 4: a farmer's tale

A Farmer's Tale

Temmy was once a simple farm boy in the village of the Raven Tribe, but that was ages ago. Before he became the village elder in charge of agriculture, before tribe hunters ambushed O.T. (Overlord Taskforce) jeeps and brought huge cases of Elysium into town, before the crops became... weird.

A picturesque dirt path stretched as far as the eye can see. From the mountain edge to the sun on the horizon. Fruit, nut and lumber trees of all kinds made meticulous lines of forest on either side of the trail. Two long rows of vines and bushes wound their way neatly around tediously cared for fence posts.

Tomato plants outgrew the clean cages that held them up. Blackberries outgrew normal apples and the apples stayed red through all of the seasons. Even what passed for winter out here in the otherwise desolate desert. Temmy was so proud of his work that he would often boast, 'My garden pushes back the desert air and the nuclear rain!'

Most laughed at the idea, but he was right. Hardy trees were always grown on the edge of the forest formation to protect their brethren with thick canopies and hardy trunks. A windbreak unlike any the 'civilized' world could manage. It was by far the most plentiful land to the north of the Thunderbird Mountains, the land known as the 'True Wastelands'.

It 'was' the most plentiful land, but not anymore. Not in any useful way.

Now the plants had fallen into the care of minds warped by Elysium. Minds that thought the shimmering concoction that came in metal and glass vials was good for fertilizer. In a strange way, there was logic to it. The drug did make people powerful and gifted with unbelievable magic.

The pumpkins and squash that line the dirt trail at Temmy's feet were purple and soft. Green vines cover all of the berry bushes. Not a lively and vegetative green, but a pulsating neon green. Temmy sat for days watching the vines grow over the fruit.

He delighted in the way it overtook the bushes. The way it sucked the life out through glowing bubbles into the new vine. After a long day of sitting particularly still and watching one bubble as it made its path through the entire length of vine, from bush into the ground, Temmy stood. From the shear amount of cracking bones you would have assumed something was broken, but the carefree farmer didn't even notice.

"Town time!!" he yelled in a surprisingly childish voice full of energy.

Temmy skipped merrily down the dusty roads made even dustier with each passing wagon. The Elysium had brought so much joy and progress to the village clearing between mountains. Everyday laborers who've taken one dose of Elysium were strong enough to perform the duties of four owl-bulls (oxen with the head of a black, horny-eared owl and wings to boot). Some people had morphed entirely into gaseous or liquid forms allowing them to do things humans never could. Such as ride the afore mentioned owl-bulls despite the mass of horns protruding from their backs.

Some of the liquid formed persons could water the entire village's personal plants simply by going for a stroll. The gaseous could power scavenged steam tech or flit about the village with messages as if walls didn't exist.

Temmy passed by an alley-way full of people who hadn't taken well to the drug.

Liquidized arms spilling acid into the streets, a person whose facial tissue bulged out past the skin around his cheek and eye, a human face was suspended in a brass-fitted glass tank with heating tubes into someone's home. The face was in immense pain as the toxic gasses that remained of its body were pulled through a cleansing and heating cycle. Temmy snapped from the sight at the sound of a voice that he always cared to hear, "Hey Temmy! You missed the festival this season, no one got to hear any of your stories!"