The venue was impressive… in the same way a derailed train was impressive. A hulking maze of exposed girders, concrete floors that still bore forklift scars from the 90s, and power junctions that looked like they’d been last inspected during the Carter administration. Feral Eclipse had played sketchy gigs before, but this one practically screamed OSHA violation.

Thane stepped out of the van first, coiled audio cable slung over one shoulder, squinting through the fluorescent haze of the back loading bay.

A dented sign above the rusting security door read in faded paint:
“Welcome Artists – Rock the Steel!”

Gabriel hopped out behind him, immediately sniffing the air and making a face.
“Why does this place smell like hot pennies and armpit?”

Mark, already grumbling as he unfolded a stage schematic that had clearly been faxed sometime before Y2K, muttered, “Because the electrical is running through an old iron smelting conduit. Probably still got the ghosts of union workers in the walls.”

Inside, the “house sound crew” turned out to be two teenagers who looked like they’d just wandered in off a vape break. One wore a lanyard that said “Audio Intern.” The other wore no lanyard and may or may not have just been somebody’s cousin.

“Y’all plug in that DI snake and just slap the XLRs into that junction box,” the older teen mumbled, pointing toward a panel of exposed wiring that looked less like a stage connection and more like a cyberpunk bomb defusal puzzle.

Thane stared at it for a long beat, then turned slowly to Mark.
“I swear to Luna if that panel arcs while I’m patching in, you’re in charge of explaining to Gabriel why I’m a skeleton now.”

Mark just snorted. “I’ll bring a mop.”

Gabriel, meanwhile, had already wandered off to scout the green room, only to find it locked and the key missing. A janitor eventually opened it using a screwdriver and a threat.

Inside, the room was… not up to code. The sofa was shedding foam like it was molting, and the wall-mounted mirror had “HAIL SATAN” scratched faintly into one corner.

Gabriel looked around, unphased. “We’ve played worse.”
Then he opened the mini fridge.
“Okay, nope. There’s a Slim Jim in here that’s older than me.”

Back outside, Jonah was trying to tune his kit, but every time he hit the snare, a power cable behind him sparked against the wall.

“I swear to God,” Jonah hissed, “this whole building is trying to kill me.”

“Get in line,” Maya muttered, wrapping her guitar cable in a tight coil. “The sound guy just told me not to worry about grounding. I told him I wasn’t planning on becoming a lightning rod with tits.”

Rico was the only one taking it in stride. He was balancing a cymbal on one hand like a waiter with a tray and chatting up one of the lighting techs.
“Yeah, no, it’s cool,” he said. “We’ve survived worse. Once played a show in a warehouse where the monitor mix came from a boombox on a broomstick.”

Thane, at this point, had pried open the side junction panel and found an entire family of roaches living on the circuit breakers.

He closed it again very, very gently.

Mark caught up beside him. “Think we’re gonna die?”

Thane exhaled slowly. “Nah. We’ll survive.”

Then, deadpan: “But someone else might not.”