>>5302995The Sub-basement sat forgotten, the musty place hadn't seen any real attention in the last hundred or so years. The humble space was spent holding old tools or stray building materials. But without warning it had found life returning. Albeit slowly at first. Forced underground larger rodents than the ones usually present began to infest it. Crude in tongue and attitude, they had brought with them a flag. A thing even far older than the poorly constructed walls. With reverence they hung it. The large heraldry on full display without shame. Olive drab a single red symbol resting in the center.
To the eye of a layman the simple bakery that sold adequate meat stuffed pastries hadn't changed. The residents of the level hadn't noticed a sharp influx of foreigners, this far down no one would. Within the belly a cyst began to form. As rusted metal shelves and stray boxes were hauled up from the concealed womb of cement and metal. Just as easily did crates of virulent armaments and equipment of war flow in. Incubating until the time was right.
Thick smoke twirls out from between the man's blackened teeth and sour gums. His unintentional smirk leaking the dense gaseous ink, the foul acrid fog mimicking his every breath. His lips were mostly gone, replaced with tight scar tissue; only the far corner allowed him to work the long square cigarette. Face draped in shadow the scarred Pariah wasted no time suckling on the stick. In the corner an old television set flickers rapidly through sepia footage, the dull elysians voices accompanying it indistinctly low and undecipherable for all present. Two others lingered in the cramped space.
