Plumbers: Three unnamed NPCs discuss work conditions.
All the good things belong to Monolithsoft.
A few boxes pulled up to a barrel, a few beers from a battered cooler packed wtih dura-ice. It wasn't the Rosemoss, it wasn't even the Repenta, but they called it their clubhouse and it was as good a way to unwind after a shift as any. Bonus: no one sniffed at their grimy coveralls. They were sniff worthy, the drainage team, and not in a pleasant way. They didn't take it amiss, but it got old.
"Some broad called me a plumber the other day," complained the first worker. He'd spent his shift trying to divert a nasty stream coming off the above decks roadway from the gel moat under the city. He'd succeeded, at a cost.
"Plumbers get more respect," said the broad sitting next to him. She cleaned up kind of nice, but you wouldn't know that at the moment. Her job today had been water/gel contaminant testing with a Zaruboggan. After the first hour, she had stopped tracking what had splashed into her own lap.
"We could use that," said the third. They wouldn't want to bore you with the details of their day, so the story moves on. "Paint our skells to match. Red and green, you know?"
"What? And make them go 'yahoo' when they take off or what?" said the first man.
"Yeah, sure," the collegue said, flashing a smile that was dotted with gold teeth. "And when they land, they could say, 'It's-a me!'"
"What we need is a union," the lone woman announced. "And matching hats. For us and for the skells."
Thus the IWU (Industrial Workers of the Universe) was founded. Also the iconic look for the industrial skells for years to come.
a/n: Short, to balance whatever gripped my brain yesterday. NLA needs unions.
Next up: Crime. Warning: I have been watching Columbo.