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26. Important: do they call themselves a ‘warrior race’, Floyd? Because if not, that is really not an OK term to use. – ES
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27. Oh shit. It’s only just hit me. They’re … they’re Orcs, aren’t they? This is Mittelvelde all over again. – ES
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28. Sadly, falling debris usually exterminates all life on the planet the Moon was constructed around, but that’s not something to worry about during the shindig.
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29. I mean, who fucks a salad?
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30. When dining with these people, it’s incredibly funny to say ‘bleep bloop’ in the middle of sentences, and then swear blind that you didn’t say anything when questioned. Really messes with their heads.
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31. Floyd, you do realise one light minute is eleven-million miles, right? – ES
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32. It’s just more amphetamines.
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33. Especially if you like the idea of being able to see the accusing, spectral forms of long-dead Space Men in your peripheral vision.
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34. Is that really what they’re calling their battleships? I thought the Bison King lacked subtlety, Floyd, but the Syndicate really take the cake. – ES
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35. Floyd, it’s a complete grift, mate! They’re just lumps of plastic! And, like, have you never stopped to realise that everyone, in every World, speaks English anyway? I mean, that struck me immediately, but you do you. – ES
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36. Well, actually, it was wine. But still – those Space Men and their shoddy kit!
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37. I suspect he was a Wizard.
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38. SPACE weeks are six days long.
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39. You could also argue that some visitors are frankly reckless about getting lunchtime-pissed and then passing out in zero-G, before drifting slowly through the flames of a barbecue and catching alight. – ES
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40. Some might say ‘ghetto’ – ES
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41. The reason this area has been left to the robots is that it’s saturated in radiation from the engine’s amateurish shielding, so either find lead-based fashion choices or bring plenty of anti-rads.
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42. Floyd, in what world does ordering a robot to breakdance for your amusement not count as ‘sticking one’s oar in’? – ES
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43. Your mileage may vary: I paid through the nose for a man with a wrinkly ear to give me a ‘vision of the future’, and all I saw was some lady with antlers beckoning me through a load of fog. Nice try, mate, but I could do that myself with dry ice and a couple of tree branches. He wasn’t fooling me for a moment.
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44. Privately, many suspect there’s a good reason that Mission Control has never phoned back. After all, we only think the Space Man was his civilisation’s greatest pilot because that’s what his identical descendants tell us. Honestly, if he was much like the bunch of dolts who currently run Outpost Bravo, I can imagine why his people wanted shot of him.
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45. I said she’s better than Bludgeon. That’s not hard. – ES
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46. It’s not as dilapidated as some of the rougher bars in the Galaxy, but it’s nasty enough.
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47. I beg to fucking differ, Floyd. I saw the cargo manifest, and I know full well Bludgeon sold five platoons of Unk ‘security officers’ to the Stellar Warriors and pocketed the cash himself. He’s a hair’s breadth from being a goddamned slave trader, yet you still love him because he’s got a cool jacket and a winning smile. Don’t give me that bullshit about it being his ‘evil universe counterpart’ either – he trots that out every time he commits an atrocity, and you believe it. – ES
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48. They will be apoplectic that they aren’t asphyxiating.
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CHAPTER SIX: GRONDORRA
1. The exclamation mark is technically mandatory whenever discussing the place, but I find it ludicrous, and even Eliza agrees with me. I’m not going to bother using it anymore.
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2. Honestly speaking, I was expecting to hate Grondorra, but I was very pleasantly surprised. It’s an acquired taste, for sure, but I’m a fan. With this world, for once, what you see is what you get. Frankly, I needed that.
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3. We’ll get to them.
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4. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean the cities stop … citying, but it does often involve the residents rapidly evolving into shrieking troglodytes.
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5. Cancerous. – ES
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6. Spend five minutes among the Barbarians and you’ll hear about bloody Gak, the ant-faced god. Apparently, he lives in a deep hole, and they despise him.
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7. This is odd, to say the least, because the only deer-headed humanoids on Grondorra these days are the atrocious Stagmen, created by a depressed Sorcerer who wanted something to loathe other than himself. He did a good job with these braying, punch-drunk cretins.
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8. One of the biggest heroes in Barbarian oral culture is Gukleth the Roaster, a woman paralysed from the neck down who demolished her foes not through hammering them flat with a hammer, but with devastating rhyming couplets.
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9. They’ve got a crap sense of humour, mind. Don’t fall for the old chestnut of ‘the puzzle of steel’, in which they’ll set you a silly riddle about swords and then hit you really hard on the back of the head with a length of steel while you’re confused.
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10. Fascinatingly, the syncretic evolution of dogs and humans has taken a wildly different path on Grondorra. The wolves here have remained wolves, and stay wild and hostile to adult humans. Nevertheless, they have learned that if they take in and nurture babies long enough for them to rejoin their fellow humans, they will be rewarded with meat.
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11. Civilisation is like unprotected sex with strangers, the
