Recap pages are Spoilers Off by default, so all spoilers were removed. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned
"Take this note to Thousand Cuts. You're going to deliver that note to a bandit leader known as the Slab King. He used to be part of the Crimson Raiders, until his methods got too brutal. I didn't think ripping Hyperion officials limb from limb in front of their loved ones was an effective way to get intel. He disagreed. Still, he owes me a favor, and he can help us get past the bunker outside Control Core Angel."
— Roland
Still grieving for the loss of Bloodwing, the Vault Hunters from 1 and 2 make their next move on their way to stop Jack from releasing the Warrior, as well as taking down Jack once and for all.
Your next task is to deliver a note to the Slab King, found at the Thousand Cuts area, west of The Highlands. In order to do so, you must survive the initiation rite: slaughter hordes through hordes through hordes of Slabs and reach the Slab King himself. Who turns out to be... Brick, the fourth original Vault Hunter. After delivering the note, Jack takes notes of what happened and sends three beacons located in specific areas, which both you and the Slabs need to destroy in order to fend off the invasion.
After the beacons are destroyed and Jack is angered, Brick joins the Crimson Raiders on Sanctuary. Don't expect his Slabs to be friendly, though.
This mission takes place in the Thousand Cuts area, but for purposes explained in the next paragraph, the area of Lynchwood will also be troped in this page. The related sidequests for these zones are "Rocko's Modern Strife", "Defend Slab Tower", "Hyperion Contract #873", "3:10 to Kaboom", "Breaking the Bank", "Showdown", "Animal Rescue" chain, "Shoot This Guy In The Face", "Demon Hunter". The related challenges for this area include:
- Thousand Cuts: "Cult of the Vault", "A Grave Matter", "Portrait of the Gunzerker as a Young Man" and "Slab UHF".
- Lynchwood: "Cult of the Vault", "Last Train to Nowhere", "Look Ma, No Hands", "That's Impossible, Even For A Computer", "Duel of Death" and "Do or Die".
NOTE: While Lynchwood is available just after entering The Dust, prior to the events of Chapters #5 and #6, its inclusion is being made here because the main boss of the area, the Sheriff of Lynchwood (later revealed to be Nisha from Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!), has a history with Brick, and because outside of side missions where you get to learn more about the setting of the game, it has no impact on the main story. Therefore, any tropes related to Lynchwood will be placed here.
This mission, the related sidequests and challenges, and the Thousand Cuts and Lynchwood areas, show examples of:
- All Animals Are Dogs: Dukino, the baby skag in Lynchwood, behaves an awful lot like a puppy.
- All Crimes Are Equal: The Sheriff of Lynchwood really likes hanging people.Deputy Winger: The sheriff has asked me to read off the punishments for breaking each of her two-hundred and twenty-three laws, but I figured I'd save everyone some time and just say this: DEATH. The punishment for everything is death! So please, keep your head down and be cool!
- Bad Boss: The Slab King/Brick is openly contemptuous of his bandits, often ridiculing them as you carve your way to him. The only Slabs he actually respects are the Vault Hunters after they pass his initiation. He also approves of killing the Sarcastic Slab.Slab King: Just so you know, my slabs will probably still try and kill you — cuz they're idiots. So don't feel bad about killing them. I never do.
- Comically Missing the Point: Axton, when confronted by his superior/wife over his Glory Hound tendencies, as shown in an ECHO recording required to complete "Do or Die".Sarah: Instead of protecting the dignitary assigned to your command, you put a tracker on him, gave him to the enemy, tracked them back to their base and blew it up. With the dignitary still inside.
Axton: Yeah, which was awesome! You can't pretend that wasn't awesome. - Could Say It, But...: When Axton's wife (who is also his superior officer) informs him he's going to be arrested, then executed, and notes that she can't officially tell him to go AWOL. Immediately.Axton: Too bad. That would have been good advice.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The reason Shep Sanders, a quest-giving NPC from the first game, isn't here. Brick gouged out his eyes and cracked his skull open because Shep betrayed the location of New Haven to Hyperion.
- Cutting Off the Branches: Brick is implied to be the character who canonically killed Sledge, as he keeps his hammer as a keepsake.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Brick lets his underlings do the fighting before accepting the players into his gang.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The Sheriff of Lynchwood has many, many laws. Breaking any of them is punishable by death.
- Driven to Suicide: Face McShooty, a bandit that gives you the quest of shooting him in the face. Doing so even nets you an achievement.
- Evil Is Petty: "Hyperion contract #873" has the Hyperion Corporation hiring you to kill a bunch of bandits, knowing full well who you are and promising a "Hyperion firearm made especially for you" if you do it. The sniper rifle in question has decent stats and an onboard A.I. that does everything it can to make you feel bad (which is an explicit Shout-Out to this XKCD comic
). - Exactly What It Says on the Tin:
- The mission called "Shoot This Guy in the Face". A guy named "Face McShooty" wants you to shoot him in the face. Guess what you do.
(Turn-in message): "You shot him in the face."- There's an unique bruiser named Muscles.
- Giver of Lame Names: According to the Sheriff, who also happens to be Jack's girlfriend, Jack just sucks at naming things since his original name for Lynchwood was "New New Haven."
- Hanging Judge: The Sheriff of Lynchwood is a version where the judge is also the local legislature, jury, chief of police, and town executioner. Let's put it this way: the town being named "Lynchwood"? That was her idea. Her deputy mentions that there are more than 200 offenses that are punishable by death. This being Borderlands, the recommended way to bring about judicial reform is with a revolver.
- Heel–Face Turn: Deputy Winger, if you spare him during the showdown with the Sheriff.
- Hold the Line: After the main mission of the chapter, you're given a quest where you have to defend an Hyperion supply drop that landed in Slab bandit territory, with the help of some Slabs. In this case, there's a set number of enemies that Hyperion throws at you, but unlike Overlook (where you can repair the beacon if it's damaged and continue the mission), this mission is over if the supply drop takes just a few hits, and the last, most powerful enemies spawn just a few steps away from being able to hit it.
- Just You, Me, and My GUARDS!: "Showdown" has the Sheriff of Lynchwood calling you, saying "Pistols at high noon. Come alone." Of course, even though she considers YOU a Worthy Opponent and is a borderline Friendly Enemy, she doesn't tell you that she'll be surrounded by mooks armed with assault rifles, her right-hand man with a shotgun, and hiding behind cover on the roof of her office with her incendiary Maliwan pistol drawn...
- Kangaroo Court: Salvador was subjected to one in his backstory. The judge refuses to believe that the bandits who attacked Salvador's grandmother were, well, bandits, and insists that they were innocent men whom Salvador murdered.
- King Mook: Dukino's Mom is a massive Skag.
- La Résistance: The Slabs. Their leader, the Slab King, held a grudge against Hyperion for killing his dog. Then we later know that "King" is no other than Brick, a fellow Vault Hunter of Roland, Lilith, and Mordecai. The climax has you team up with Slab Buzzards in order to get to the Control Core Angel. Said buzzards also "force open" the bridge that lets you go to the Badlands. Lastly a side quest involves having the Slab Psychos, Marauders, and Goliaths as allies against a group of Hyperion Loaders.
- Laser-Guided Broadcast: Invoked. Part of the "Do or Die" challenge of Lynchwood has Handsome Jack hearing Axton moping about how bounty hunting is too easy, and arranging to have a Vault Hunter recruitment advertisement played on the radio so Axton will hear it.
- Mob War: The Slabs have it against the Sawteeth, which you meet later in the story, but they also have a bone to pick with the bandits of Lynchwood, according to the announcements of the town's deputy.
- No Name Given: The Sheriff of Lynchwood has no name and the deputy even points it out during a broadcast. He doesn't know who she is, just that she showed up one day, deputized him, and scares the shit out of him. It isn't until Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! that her name was revealed to be Nisha.
- One-Woman Wail: The background music for Thousand Cuts.
- Overly Long Gag: The entire quest dealing with Face McShooty mentions the words "face" and "shoot" no less than 10 times each. And that's not including what the guy actually rambles about (hint: it's about shooting him in the face).
- Peninsula of Power Leveling: Lynchwood is overcrowded with enemies, despite being a relatively short map, so you're likely to kill a lot of enemies fast for farming EXP or Badass Tokens from completing challenges. It also contains plenty of loot chests within a relatively short distance from each other, so players could easily just rush through every one of them for rare loot per visit.
- Protection Mission: "Defend Slab Tower" requires you to protect a Hyperion supply crate that fell into Slab territory in Thousand Cuts.
- Punch-Clock Villain: The Lynchwood sheriff's deputy is in that role only because the sheriff put a gun on his head. He does as little as possible to assist the sheriff in fighting crime, only does it due to threat of injury, torture and/or death, and unlike Hyperion's overall culture of blatant disregard for human life and unlike the sheriff who is in specifically to torture and kill outlaws with her bare hands, he also seems to be genuinely concerned about the life of Lynchwood's residents and keeps asking nicely the population over PA to not commit any crimes if they want to avoid the Sheriff's murderous wrath.
- Putting the Band Back Together: After Roland successfully recruits Brick, the four original Vault Hunters from 1 are reunited as NPCs on Sanctuary. There's even an achievement for reuniting the Vault Hunters of the first game in Sanctuary.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Deputy Winger in Lynchwood. The Sheriff is brutal and pragmatic to the point where she tortures people for being out at night, and Winger is just desperately trying to keep the regular folks who live there from being killed by her by warning them not to do the stupid things that would get them strung up. When you finally confront the Sheriff, there's even an objective to not shoot Winger because he's not a puppy-killing sadist like her, or an ex-bandit like her marshals.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: The Sheriff of Lynchwood, when she confronts you, has a Maliwan revolver with a Tediore Grip that also fires flares.
- Sarcastic Clapping: True to his name, the "Sarcastic Slab" does this while Brick officially accepts your allegiance with the Slabs.
- Story Breadcrumbs: As in the first game, ECHO recorders are strewn around the landscape, as both side quests and just items that fulfill Badass rank requirements.
- The "Do or Die" challenge tells the story of how Axton came to Pandora.
- The "Portrait of the Gunzerker as a Young Man" challenge tells the story of how Salvador came to Pandora.
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Shep Sanders. He sold out the people of New Haven and got killed by Brick.
- Suicide as Comedy: One sidequest found in Thousand Cuts features a bandit gone so far off the deep end, he's actually begging to be shot in the face. He even changed his name to Face McShooty.
- Surprisingly Easy Mini-Quest: In Thousand Cuts, there is a quest called "Shoot This Guy in the Face". It's Exactly What It Says on the Tin, and you even get an achievement called "Well That Was Easy" for it.
- Talking Weapon: The Morningstar, the reward weapon for completing "Hyperion Contract #873", is a mockery of unsubtle You Bastard! moralizing. Every action the player makes is accompanied by a shrill-voiced guilt trip from the gun. (Wasting ammo? There are children on Prometheus who can't afford it! Shoot that psychotic criminal or very hostile wildlife? Maybe they were just having a bad day!)
- Timed Mission: "3:10 to Kaboom" requires you to complete all the objectives and blow up Hyperion's train in Lynchwood under said amount of time.
- Train Job: "3:10 to Kaboom" ends with the Vault Hunters blowing up an Hyperion train carrying Eridium for Jack.
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: "Hyperion Contract #873" requires you to kill 100 bandits, however it also contains four side missions that require you to kill them with elemental damage: 25 with explosive, 25 with incendiary, 25 with corrosive and 25 with shock.
- Vagina Dentata: The "Animal Rescue" sidequest chain begins with a sick skag in Lynchwood. If it were up to Scooter, he would have put a bullet in its "cooch-mouth" as he puts it, but then suggests a more humane solution to nurse it back to health with food and medicine.
- With Friends Like These...: Even after joining the Slab bandit clan later on in the game, the rest of the Slabs are still hostile towards you save the occasional air support sent by the Slab King, Face McShooty, and Rocko. The Slab King justifies this by saying that they're still crazy idiots like every other bandit in the game and you shouldn't feel bad about killing them. He doesn't.
- Worthy Opponent: The Sheriff of Lynchwood considers you this. Despite being a possibly crazy, sadistic, brutal, puppy-murdering cowgirl, her response to you shooting up her town is "I like you." and unlike Jack, she doesn't verbally abuse you and speaks politely to you, although she does note that you're not that different from bandits. When you finally meet her, she greets you with a cheerful "Howdy, partner" and compliments you on your fighting skills. Finally, when you kill her, she mutters "Well Done." before expiring. Heck, throughout the entire sidequest arc, she comes across as a borderline Friendly Enemy, which is odd when you consider that she's Handsome Jack's girlfriend.
- You Bastard!: Mocked with The Morningstar, the reward weapon for completing "Hyperion Contract #873", a custom-made sniper rifle for murderers - like you! It has a whiny, irrelevant, guilt-tripping tirade ready for almost everything you do, attempting to defend those poor innocent bandits and cuddly wuddly creatures trying to eat your face off. Funnily enough, most people love it and keep it for a good giggle at the funny things it says. Even more hilarious is when you use it when killing a boss.Nice job ending that life!Most serial killers thought they were good people too!Maybe he came from a broken home!If you were a better shot, you wouldn't need to reload!That was murder by most definitions!By not donating to charity, you are indirectly murdering THOUSANDS of lives every day!YOU CAN'T GET RID OF ME THAT EASILY!
