Unbidden Inc. (Synthetic Hive) Blurb
When eldritch mutants attacked, you alone spotted them in the dark: Armoured, stark soldiers watching from the ridge. They stood completely still, seemingly there to observe, until a man cried for help as he was overrun. Seemingly taking that as an invitation, they fell upon your convoy, preventing death and dealing it in equal measure. Afterwards, with upturned faceplates, their smiling faces disarmed your fellows. You too felt at ease, until they named their price: the corpses. It's been a month, and while your fellow caravanners recount the story to cheers at the local watering hole, the pit in your stomach only grows heavier as you try to comprehend exactly what price you paid.
He approached at sunset, asking in some western drawl whether there was room at the campfire. It was easy to justify a friendly stranger's presence when another gun and another pair of eyes could make the difference between being found, slaughtered, by the wolves, and seeing morning. His crinkled insomniac eyes held both an urbane appreciation for his fellow man, and a watchful shifting that only comes to the paranoid and the experienced. You had to decline when he asked if you would "subcontract" with him to kill some local creatures. When asked for help in return, his shadowed smile widened, and he agreed on the paltry condition of a rundown of local rumours and information. His food and path-finding expertise probably saved the expedition, and for a couple weeks after there wasn't a single monster sighting, but in hindsight, how could a single lame-legged veteran make it all that way alone in the first place?
2 groups of five were at the gates this evening. Though slightly different in attire and disposition, it was easy enough to see that their meeting was actually a reunion. After convincing the town guard to let them in, they shared stories, information, and alcohol through the night. They partied as if the fall had never happened. Though to a man you and your friends blacked out eventually, when you woke up to the noon sun and asked the guard what happened to them, you were bemused to learn they left shortly after dawn. They left some drunkenly scribbled napkin notes about efficiency of farming, and picked up some travel-supplies, but seem to have gained nothing from such an over-the-top expenditure of booze. Strange.
The youngest of 6, The Scholar was intent on proving their theories right. But, for that, they needed to excavate a micro-arcology 20 klicks south, and without the political clout to gather escorts, the Elder Council repeatedly denied their requests. Then, late one night commiserating over cards, a stranger took the pot but offered advice: he could contact those "Unbidden" if The Scholar really wanted. They were friendly, very intent on technology, and asked little. The next morning The Scholar followed through, and a mere 2 hours later, a crew of action scientists awaited their ward at the settlement boundary. They proved competent in both science and soldiering, and asked only that the discovery be shared 50/50, but The Scholar couldn't help but notice: they always seemed to be on the same wavelength, no matter how little they spoke to each other.
Unbidden Inc. as they're called, is apparently a monolithic consulting firm that survived The Fall. Eschewing the corporate culture of old, they present themselves almost like an exclusive adventurer's guild from a fantasy story. Appearing around The Homeland a couple decades or so after The Fall, they've spent their time flitting between survivors, utilizing extant high-technology to effortlessly skim over dangerous terrain and avoid earthbound threats. They offer their services, and have come to be known as, omni-competent consulting specialists and first-responders. Though extremely insular about internal data and practices, they are almost to a member gregarious and empathetic. Offering their services for cheap(or sometimes free!), they're often but a call away on radio, flares, or even the occasional flag-signalling.
Unbidden Inc. is not without its faults, however. They generally have little respect for authority, and only a begrudging acknowledgement of raw power. They refuse to share information, and often misrepresent or conceal their secondary goals, even if they primarily intend to help people. They go to extremes to accomplish things, and are known to abandon what little restraint they possess in combating Eldritch influence. Besides those palatable but mundane flaws, however, is the rumours people spreading that to call on them is to give more than you intended, somehow.
