Runders
Technology and innovation lift us all, hmmph yeah tell that to the three who buried a damn kid in the last couple weeks. Tell that to me aching joints and my worn down body. Keep that tripe where it belongs, Inspector and lets get this business done with. You don't want to be here and to be quite honest with you, we Runders don't want you damned Top-Spire types down here either. But alas in their eternal bloody brilliance the Governance Board put types like you in charge of the facilities down here and inspecting them twice a year. So let's get this the bloody fuck over with so you can get back up there where you damn well belong and I can go back to my shit show down here. After all, it may 'lift' us all but that isn't quite true is it Inspector. No of course not, some need to be stuck on the levels below, to keep all this old damned tech running, aye, cause Thunderhand knows you Top-Spire types already forget how to. Come on, let's get this the blazes over with.
Bran Gerstrum, Mechanical Engineer and self proclaimed Runder living in the Rundowns, berating a Top-Spire inspector for their formal rhetoric, before taking them on a tour and inspection of the water dispersing and treatment facilities amongst the city's docks.
Culture
Shared customary codes and values
'Runders' as they call themselves are quite simply just those whom live and work in the Rundowns within the city of Rydan. However that has become more than a designation of residence and where one lives within the city, and a Runder culture has developed, very much tied directly to the continued feeling of being buried, forgotten and otherwise just left behind, and a sort of begrudging pride attached to their own importance, combined with disdain for what they view as the empty platitudes of the folk in the districts above. The sayings like 'Technology Lifts us All.' which are applauded and heralded as such a wonderful message above, are at best greeted with rude snickers and profanity, and at worst perhaps even with threats or active violence down in the Rundowns.
This is because those sayings are equal parts false platitude and equal parts lies the upper crust tell themselves seemingly whilst forgetting the next layers below them. Each layer doing the same in turn. However those at the bottom, in the Rundowns, well they have no one to look down at from above. Yet they struggle on, keeping machinery and facilities heavily out of date and in desperate need of repair or complete overhauls, key facilities and infrastructure the entire city of Rydan desperately needs, somehow some way running.
This is because those sayings are equal parts false platitude and equal parts lies the upper crust tell themselves seemingly whilst forgetting the next layers below them. Each layer doing the same in turn. However those at the bottom, in the Rundowns, well they have no one to look down at from above. Yet they struggle on, keeping machinery and facilities heavily out of date and in desperate need of repair or complete overhauls, key facilities and infrastructure the entire city of Rydan desperately needs, somehow some way running.
"But the storage tanks for dispersal you are pumping from are rusting out, that isn't safe that's contaminated!"
"Well don't you got eyes of an eagle Inspector. Pipes too, nary forget."
"But this is not safe, you cannot be pumping water from these lines to the city!"
"Nary worry your fool head though we pumps all the water you lot above access from the lake and filters it here, it gets treated on the layers above for this problem. After all, most everyone lives in the layers above here, so long as they aren't leaking we don't need to be wasting coin down here. Them's your employer's words by the way, not mine. I been fightin' for years, we all have, to get funding and materials to fix all this shite. No one gives a damn. 'Just keep it running' is what we get told. So fuck it. Its running, you don't see any evidence of lost pressure or leaks. Sign off and get out of here, back up Tops where you belongs Inspector. You don't wants to be down amongst the Rundowns when shift changes. Can get a bit rowdy at night down with the Runders and others don't always take as kindly as me to those from the Tops.
Further conversation had by Bran Gerstrum with Tallen Pullsted, Public Works Inspector
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