Tales of Strata 17

''My name is Mithril Bender and I'm finding out lots of things since I woke up. I'm about 40 or 140 depending on how you reckon it and which part of me you're talking about... but that's not important. I'm just penning some thoughts down about Strata 17. If they're useful to you, well... that's good. If not, well... I wasn't writing them for you anyways...''

Strata 17 is a torched strata - the life was literally eaten away by a deadly mystical plague. It seems almost like yesterday when it happened. Some feel like it got what it deserved, but I'm reserving judgment of my own until we do a little digging - which might have to wait because of my backlog.

In any case, it was quarantined by OoPS. Now, piecing two and two together, about 40 years ago, that great and wise Lunaria who espoused personal responsibility - Doc Murphy - headed down to the Strata to see what one of his long ago forebears had done to the place and what he could do to reverse the issue. After three decades, it looks like he may have succeeded. Life is starting to show back up and a number of growing oases are there.

About 5 years ago, during an AXE mission to re-supply Doc Murphy, they woke up an intelligent fire-breathing wyvern who has taken the name of Quintanilla - whom I really think is just a young dragon who hasn't gone through her Power Molting. May the Lightbringer help us when that happens.

At that point, the Doc thought he would be safer out of Strata 17, but he still sent a few missions back to 17 to see what else was going on there. Yes, he sent them - apparently he's some kind of Big Shot in AXE - I'm thinking Specialist with a lot of pull, while his assistant, Flexa Talonis, is a Coordinator, possibly once a Specialist as well.

Most of the later missions quickly started to revolve around a rather curious (aren't they all) Drexel by the name of Mapper - formally Kirk Mapper Maphis of the Long Whisker Clan. Yes, that same clan as Granny Maphis, but that's another story in itself. Focus. He quickly rose to great stature in AXE (I couldn't resist the satire), obtaining the title of Officer of the AXE Library - Acquisitions Department. Definitely an Agent, it's reasonable to assume that he's also a Specialist. It cannot be argued that he is very accomplished. He has almost single-handedly organized the three feuding parties on Strata 17 and according to a proposal for Minor House Status at the Celestial Council, he has somehow come out of this thing as the ' “First Voice and Shield of Seventeen,” his role that of Strata Representative and Overseer in all things outside of the strata or when intra-group issues must be taken into account.' Given his prominent stature in AXE, and his work on other projects, I'd say there's a kink in this thing that may take a decade or two to resolve, but that's just the way of The Federacy.

For now AXE - and the unofficial representative government of 17 continues to take advantage of the slow motion of bureaucracy and is exploring as much of the strata as possible. It's no surprise that they made it to the Othelin Ruins where the Strata 17 plague originated, only to find a highly classified extra-spatial area which is simply called "The Window" - because AXE can be as creative as the bureaucrats it so deftly avoids.

I have little doubt that Strata 17 will become a place of incredible significance in the near future, if not in the history of Bastion.