Roll 2
Go west to investigate The Guild. A total absence of physical presence is... just inhuman.
The Guild's lobby has a talking floor. Quite literally, you happen to step on the wrong area, and the floor yells at you:
"You stepped on one of my sensor relays!"The affected area turns a dark red.
"Now I will have to relocate. Hold on..."The lobby itself is quite empty. There are no other persons in the room, and the only furniture is a pair of chairs in the center, in addition to the elevator which is on the opposite end of the room. Due to optical screens lining the walls, floors, and ceiling, it appears as if you are in some kind of virtual matrix, and the elevator entrance seems to stand alone, much like a portal.
"So... what is it this time? Are you one of those Wayward guys they dig up out of the grave? I have no business with you or your naive ambitions."Northeast. Terraforming this world sounds good.
Head to the north-east to 'investigate' the Wayward Sons.
A man appears from the elevator just ahead. He wears a happy look on his face, and wears a simple black robe. A strange symbol hangs from his neck, a shape with a bronze person attached and hanging from it.
"Greetings! I can tell you two are new, just by your expressions!""That's a lie. You were told--" says a clerk in a white suit.
The interlocutor was met with a big, round stare which cut off any further contact.
"Now then...
I welcome you to our headquarters at Echo Narnia. We've quite a large presence here, if only thanks to our brothers in the Divergent. Tell me, do either of you know about astrophysics?"The man in the white suit chooses this time to interrupt again:
"Probably not. The network has quite a strange cosmology to it... something about world-planes and--""My apologies, please forgive this man for his rudeness. Now, I was perhaps a fool to assume you'd know. Now, that said, we ARE a bit understaffed at this site. We were meaning to construct a new launch site nearby, close to the equator, but we actually don't have anyone with the proper professional background here. But of course, the network holds many surprises for us."The strange robed fellow then goes on to explain the current situation of the colony. Apparently, uranium is at quite a luxury, and the Guild currently holds a monopoly on the stuff. The Guild, however, rejects all cooperation with foreign powers such as Wayward Sons and ExoCore. This makes it rather difficult for Wayward to acquire fuel for its nuclear thermal rocket designs, as the Guild simply doesn't sell to groups with ambitions involving expansion.
This leaves Wayward with little choice but to rely on sparse and unreliable black market sources. This is clearly no foundation for a New Humanity.
Wayward is looking to invoke its doctrine of "necessarium conformitatem," that is, a necessary conformance to the scruples of the reality network. The other factions practice manipulation of the networked populace in order to produce politically convenient outcomes--the Divergent are especially well-known for this in the real world. But Wayward takes this a step further: by intentionally causing divergence in select individuals, Wayward is able to not only recruit skilled operatives to join its cause, but also provides the Divergent a service by maintaining the status quo; no individual that is adept at deep thought can exist in the reality network for long, for Wayward's clandestine recruiting operation naturally targets the more intelligent.
Due to your lack of education otherwise, you are not particularly well suited to most jobs in Wayward, aside from piloting shuttles and transport vehicles, as well as being a mechanic for simple machinery.
To the Divergents. If anyone can help me get even a piece of my former life back, it's them.
Although I do like the ideals of Meat Factory, I think I need a ghost before dealing with them.
You enter the building, meeting a jumbled mess of orange geometric shapes and patterns floating in the middle of the room, which is depressed into the ground and houses a projector right in the center.
The swirling shapes veer dangerously close to your face. A booming voice comes out of nowhere.
"Greetings! I am positively elated to contemplate a strange and unfamiliar personage!"The swirling batterns align into some sort of diamond pattern. The text 'Anhotep' shows up just below the diamonds, in glowing letters.
"Doubtless, it is not often that one such as yourself would be so confident so as to associate with us in such an expeditious manner...""That's Anhotep," says a man off behind a desk. There are two curved sets of desks gathered around the projection in the center of the room, forming partial circles.
"He is our muscle. He does all the grunt work that you typically need humans to do, like accounting and the like. He's not exactly a good strategist, though."
The shapes fixate on the speaker, forming concavely-curved isoceles triangles with a straight base, overlapped in the center of its gaze.
"If you wish to learn, newcomer, there is a presentation on the upper floor about to start in a minute. That should help you decide."
The lobby room is populated, aside from the four clerks at the desks and the bizzare machine, with three other people: A man and a woman in casual dress, both on opposite sides of the room, and a man wearing a military uniform and hat.
The military man looks to be heading toward the elevator, but the man is just loitering. The woman is whispering with one of the clerks at the desk. You overhear:
Woman: What is that... thing over there?
Clerk: It's called an Angel. An incredibly powerful ghost. Few persons have the capacity to become one.
Woman: You mean ghosts? We're persons too.
Clerk: There's no legal distinction. But you, due to your divergence, are not able to become an Angel, for obvious reasons.
The elevator lets you visit ten floors. The rest require a special card.
"Unnecessary." NeoDireWolf walks past the man allowing the bandage to fall to the floor.
Head to the eastern building.
You enter into a hall of mirrors. Images of yourself surround you, mirrored and walking in all directions as you continue forward. But one thing you notice is that you cannot see the doorway in the mirror. If you turn around, though, it's still there.
Suddenly, one of your reflections walks up to you of its own accord.
"Who am I?" It asks.
"What am I?" you hear another voice from behind. It's another reflection.
"Where am I going?" says a third, off in the distance. He looks into your eyes, and you notice that one of his eyes is a different color: an ethereal shade of yellow.
The odd-eyed one comes closer, stepping carefully around your reflections. You notice that the reflections no longer follow your movements. Instead, they all stare at you directly in the eye.
"'Myself' is but a product of a mind steeped in decadence and physical indulgence. It is only clear that I am a product of my surroundings. But to be truly free, I must change my surroundings. I must become a catalyst of change myself, in order to overcome my failed upbringing into a world of lies and self-deception.
Is Asmodel not correct?"
Traits:
Practical Learner ("Practical" Learning Threshold +1)
0 Armor (+0 to defending rolls)
0 Evasion (-0 to incoming attacker rolls)
Skills:
Unskilled
Status:
Healthy
Items:
Traits:
Abstract Learner ("Abstract" Learning Threshold +1)
0 Armor (+0 to defending rolls)
0 Evasion (-0 to incoming attacker rolls)
Skills:
Unskilled
Status:
Healthy
Items:
Traits:
Practical Learner ("Practical" Learning Threshold +1)
0 Armor (+0 to defending rolls)
0 Evasion (-0 to incoming attacker rolls)
Skills:
Unskilled
Status:
Healthy
Items:
Traits:
Fast Learner ("Abstract" Learning Threshold +0.5, "Practical" Learning Threshold +0.5)
0 Armor (+0 to defending rolls)
0 Evasion (-0 to incoming attacker rolls)
Skills:
Unskilled
Status:
Healthy
Items:
Traits:
Mostly Abstract Learner ("Abstract" Learning Threshold +0.9, "Practical" Learning Threshold +0.1)
0 Armor (+0 to defending rolls)
0 Evasion (-0 to incoming attacker rolls)
Skills:
Unskilled
Status:
Healthy
Items:
Author
Topic: You Are Cybernetic Avenger: Turn 8 (1/7/2016) (Read 8030 times)