A man came to the Bleak to survey ground he had bought. The man was rich, and powerful. Thought that he could bring some civility to the Bleak, to the desperate that have been forced to call this place home. He ignored the predatory eyes of those around him, ones unafraid of his security force he brought with him. We’d seen it all before, and it only ended in misery.
But ignoring our warnings, ignoring the signs that he was in the gravest danger he’d ever been in, he moved forward with his project. He took down buildings, he took down homes and what people had, and built his factory that promised to bring hope to the hopeless in the pits of this hell.
But one by one his men were butchered, and slaughtered like lambs. He couldn’t replace his men fast enough, and those who hadn’t yet been killed began running away. Scurrying back to the upper levels because they were getting the message.
You come here, as an outsider to try and fix things, you’re just fresh meat for the kill. That’s all we have down here, is what we kill and what we take.
Our business is survival at any cost. Not some factory to feed, cloth and help the upper levels, not an honest days work to see what little we have be given to Zeus.
No, we kill to survive down here. We kill to mark out territory.
I try to warn trespassers. I do, I’ve gone to them several times. We don’t need more broken families, drug mules, and crime down here. Not in my region.
You think you have the answers, you Upper dwellers. You sycophantic cretins that think you know what we need down here. You present hope, but with the lie that things will improve.
You and men like you will learn, one way or the other:
Business runs differently down here.
Deville, you say you have whatever we need… For a price. But what if what we need is men like you gone? Away from us? What if we desire to be left alone?
Will it be business as usual, then?
What price will it be to see you out of our lives, and out of my region?
I feel the price is far higher than you’ll ever be willing to pay.
Just ask the last man to bring business down here, now that he has been drawn and quartered by his own men in a desperate attempt to keep the Bleak away.
We’re not monsters, you see. We’re ahead of the curve.
I’ve had enough of people like you, invading the Bleak, thinking you understand it.
Time I come to your home, your business, your safe places.
Make it business as usual for you there. MY kind of business.
The ones that show the heartless entrepreneurs that monsters do exist in the darkest pits.
Show you what happens to businesses down here:
They close. Forever.
So, let’s do business.