Futuristic — 𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐀𝐇 : 𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗛 𝗛𝗘𝗔𝗩𝗘𝗡

[apocalypse tv]

NINEVAH, NINTH HEAVEN

keywords: sci-fi, fantasy, cyberpunk, magical realism, religion, lgbtq+ themes, action, adventure, violence, manmade horrors beyond comprehension
inspo: fallen london, disco elysium, kill six billion demons, blades in the dark, COUNTER/WEIGHT, 17776

welcome to the world of NINEVAH, where all living life is a mistake by the gods in their pursuit of a perfect, silent, universe and all intelligent beings have rallied against the perpetual assault of the divine in a desperate bid to keep on existing in a cold, unforgiving reality that wasn’t meant for them in the first place. in a perpetual war against the creator entities termed "The Divine and Natural Order", mankind has developed and kickstarted hyper-advanced technology and employed dark unexplainable arcane arts to fight against the masses of angels and other divine forces sent to exterminate them. even though the divine cannot interfere directly with the universe they’ve created and end the war themselves, it’s still a losing battle, and the final judgement day comes closer with every minute of every hour.

NINTH HEAVEN, where the main story is set, is the populated planet closest to "The Hole", a rip in reality where angels are hypothesized to come from, and the threshold between this plane and the next. It is the last stronghold of mortaldom, the outpost at the edge of known civilization and the closest to the Frontier, the galactic warzone where the battle between life and the gods actually transpires. enter you, an off-worlder fresh off the starship from planets far beyond, stepping foot into this hell cityworld for the first and maybe the last time. this thread will chronicle your choices as you navigate through the planet-wide urban sprawl that is ninth heaven, trying not to die before you get to the end.

tl;dr mankind and just life in general was a mistake by the gods, the gods want to destroy all life, but people are like “wait no i wanna live”, millennias-long war ensues. there’s technology, there’s arcane mumbo jumbo, space opera elements, and lots of heavyhanded themes about war and what it means to be human

RULES & INTRO

hi my name is lev and i made this quest to practice my writing and improvisation skills. this is a throwaway world that i think about in my spare time that i would like to explore. if it is confusing to you or if you want to know more, hit me up and i’ll be happy to explain.

anyway, this quest will take in votes via strawpoll to avoid post bloat and help me keep track and count. feel free to comment thoughts, questions, concerns etc on this thread though — i just don’t want like. a string of posts saying nothing but “i choose x” clogging up the readability. also idk how the whole thing works and at this point i'm too afraid to ask.

secondly this quest will update sporadically (hopefully frequently?) as long as at least one person votes in the thread. i don’t expect much because quests aren’t really all that popular, but i hope people are interested enough to cast a vote, even at a slow pace. thank you for reading.

 

[apocalypse tv]

THE BEGINNING / REBIRTH.

the streets of ninth heaven are grimy, slick with trash and guts and the viscous hatred that seems to secrete out of every one of its denizens, slimy thin film almost tangible to the visual appendage. it’s somehow sticky and slippery underneath your feet, even through your thick travel boots. it seeps through you from the soles up. skyscrapers push up against the sky, rendering it visible only via reflections in the chrome glass and sleek neosteel structures.

the air--meshed with nanobot droppings, vaporized gore, and god particles--hangs heavy on your shoulders. a burden, pushing on your very being.

this city is one that will rot your soul. it’s an old saying about this place, a sentiment repeated over and over again by travelers, residents, and scholars. and it’s true. it’s only been a day since you docked from offworld, and you can feel the pressure building in the base of your skull and your spine, making you a miniature atlas under the tonnage of a lumbering urban beast. the last stronghold of mortality, almost determinedly filthy, against the sheer face of the divine.

but you will not bow your head down under the weight. because --

you are looking for something. you are determined in your goal. a contact had sent you the coordinates to this city-planet months ago, but you held off, firmly believing that you could find what you were looking for somewhere else – somewhere more plausible. more palatable but now, every other location has been crossed off, and beggars can’t be choosers. a lot rides on finding what your looking for – your salary depends on it, and so does your life. agitated, your hand finds itself slipping into tattered coat, rubbing the figurine in your pocket. your eyes are on the road ahead of you, carefully navigating the crush of beings and non-beings, but you know the shape of it in your hand-- a little ceramic dog, features worn by your constant fiddling over years (or has it been decades?). all that’s left is the general curves of it, the pointed ears, the stubby little legs, and the impression of a tongue lolling out an open maw. it’s smooth and unusually warm to touch. → [path of the elegiac hound]

you are looking for someone. the desperation burns like an old gasoline fire in the snake of your gut. sears new wounds above scar tissue. that place right below the line of your ribs is throbbing again -- it’s going to rain soon. you want to see him badly, though you barely remember the curves of his face. the locket, sterling silver with the nicks and dents that come with age and neglect, rests leaden on your collarbone. it doesn’t have a picture in it. time took that away from you long, long ago. → [path of the obsessive incendiary]

you are looking. your eyes are hungry. they devour everything around them—sights, smells, the sounds. you revel in the manmade horror of the city you just arrived on, bright and loud and screaming. it’s been so long since you’ve felt something other than irritated ennui. to reach nirvana is to live every experience, to commit every deed. hedonistic and destructive, you are a leisurely tourist in this so-called heavenly city. the shackles of your former prison, some eons away, have long disintegrated, leaving only the long slash of a scar across your throat as any evidence of your captivity. you breathe in the night air, thick with smoke and the rotten smell of life. though your past might catch up with you one day, you are determined to enjoy your time here as much as you can. an amused chuckle attempts to escape your throat, but only gasping sounds emerge from your mouth, hampered by the absence of a larynx.
→ [path of the mute demiurge]

you are going to kill angels. the first thing you do when you dock is check your weapon. it’s an instinct, honed by years of harsh training and lived experience. your hologun is a thin, sleek model no longer manufactured by its maker, shimmering almost opalescent in the city lights. a flick of the wrist and the gun shimmers, seamlessly turning into a dagger with a serrated blade. perfect for killing your chosen quarry – your firearm is a standard issue of licensed angel killers, an armament forged by cutting-edge technology and held together by the sheer power of will – both anathema to angelic ilk. you are part of mortality’s last defense against the judgement of the gods, tasked with the arduous mission of dispatching their divine messengers. you are determined to pursue your noble ends to completion and your fervent travels have brought you here, to the last frontier where mankind meets the divine, where angels proliferate and camouflage themselves into this city of sin.

satisfied with the tool’s condition, you plunge the blade deep into your chest, where, on contact, it flickers out of existence, leaving nothing behind. you are a hunter, a zealot, and a savior. and you are going to cleanse this city of angels. → [path of the exalted zealot]

CAST YOUR VOTE.
https://strawpoll.com/polls/XOgOJ3b72n3 please cast your vote by filling out the poll above.

 

[apocalypse tv]

VOTES HAVE BEEN CAST.

CHARACTER UNLOCKED:
EXALTED ZEALOT​

FAITHFUL SOLDIER OF THE CHURCH OF VOLITION
YOU ARE A HUNTER, A ZEALOT, AND A SAVIOR, AND YOU ARE GOING TO CLEANSE THIS CITY OF ANGELS.

your name is ORDNANCE 17 and you are a bona-fide angel killer. licensed and anointed by the IRON WILL of the CHURCH OF VOLITION, you gave up your old name and all trappings of identities for the sake of fighting the good fight. though the real war between humanity and the divines rages on at the final frontier, there is a larger, more vast game of cloak and dagger being played behind the frontlines. certain classifications of heaven’s ANGELS lurk among the living, having infiltrated the mortal rank and file for the purposes of intelligence gathering and covert assassination. it is your duty as an operative of the church to secretly find, capture, and kill these angels before they do harm to mortality’s resistance.

with a spotless track record and a stoic determination, you are one of the finest weapons in the CHURCH’s arsenal. devoted to the cause entirely, your faith and strength of will are officially categorized as IRON CLASS EXEMPLARY, making you one of the most adept HOLOFRACT SOUL WEAPON users in the organization. of your own free will, you volunteered to be assigned to the NINTH HEAVEN outpost to rid the city of its perpetual infestation of enemy agents once and for all.

PROFILE
ALIAS: ORDNANCE 17, TRUE NAME AS YET UNKNOWN
PRONOUNS: THEY/THEM (AS THIS IS THE CHOSEN PLAYER CHARACTER, THEY WILL BE REFERRED TO WITH GENDER NEUTRAL PRONOUNS THROUGHOUT)
WEAPON OF CHOICE: HOLOFRACT SOUL WEAPON; RIFLEBLADE CLASS
(NOTE: THE EFFICACY OF YOUR WEAPON AND THE SKILL WITH WHICH YOU USE IT DEPEND ON THE STATE OF YOUR WILL AND YOUR FAITH IN YOUR CAUSE. IF BOTH ARE COMPROMISED, YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF DEFENSELESS.)
AFFILIATIONS: THE 4TH ARMAMENT, CHURCH OF VOLITION
OCCUPATION: COVERT OPERATIVE, ANGEL KILLER
FATAL FLAW: SERVANT OF DOGMA
SIGNATURE SKILL: MASTER OF SELF

– inveniam viam aut faciam.

​

 

[apocalypse tv]

ARRIVAL.

the city is the last in a chain of outposts that border the heavenly singularity- or “the hole” as most people call it. it is the closest out of all of them to the source of creation, so reality is a little more malleable here, for better or for worse. the edges of the buildings here flicker and blur like a mirage, and the people in them seem to weave in and out of reality seamlessly, like fish in a stream.

SERVANT OF DOGMA — a den of heathens and heretics, the lot of them. mixing in with angels and beasts of all manner and thinking they can play god.

SENSATION — beatrice, your holofract weapon, newly sheathed once more in your chest, buzzes, resonating with your soulbody comfortingly. you notice that its glow, usually muffled due to it being sheathed in your chest into your soul, now emanates through your bulletproof mesh vest. though angels are more powerful in ninth heaven, you are too. your faith is one that could move mountains to begin with - now, so close to the source, you suspect that you can perform miracle-class feats. your blood is pumping, just itching for a fight. for stimulation.

RECALL — you wanted to be on the frontlines in the war. fighting against judgment day with your bare knuckled blade, shearing through celestial flesh and plucking feathers out of bloodied wings. but the church, seeing your potential, set you to cloak and dagger work. your extreme readiness to do what needed to be done and (more importantly, your frightening ability to will things into existence) couldn’t just be wasted dying out in a hyperspace battlefield.

as you step out of the shadow of the passenger ship, you notice people stare. its not often that a member of the church comes here - especially in plainclothes. taking note, you survey your surroundings, your soldier’s vigilance unconsciously scanning for suspicious behavior, possible exits and choke points.

SIGHTED — the port is bustling in the early morning - ships dock in and passengers flood the area, tired and hungry, while vendors set up shop to prey on their weary, addled minds. the holoshield sky is mostly dark, but the city is brilliantly lit from within, all streetlamps and glittering skyline.
most people in the port are too deep in their own thoughts and vices to take notice of you, but you feel the eyes of a wary few who know what the glow in your chest means, and who notice your soldier’s stance. there’s no hostility or danger yet, but you keep alert. the ninth city and its denizens are unpredictable after all.

SENSATION — the comm in your ear suddenly emits a light buzz, having come online as you unboarded the ship. instantly, the coordinates of the safe house that would serve as your lodgings are uploaded directly into your brain, along with your mission brief.

MASTER OF SELF — a formality, but an unnecessary one. you’ve read the dossier several times over on your way here, diligent and meticulous as you always are.

MISSION BRIEF — it’s a simple mission in concept, really. alliance spies stationed in the city had sent word of new intelligence - they had exploited a leak in the enemies’s defenses, leading them to a verifiable lead to a guerilla enclave in the heart of ninth heaven.

RECALL — the alliance, whose full title is the alliance of sentient beings against the natural order, is the coalition of all intelligent mortal life fighting against the natural order of reality, whose godly denizens seek to end the entropic eyesore of creation itself. you serve under this alliance, more specifically in its ‘humanitarian’ wing, the pale cross, which your church is affiliated with.

the church of volition is only involved in the war effort as medics and charitable aid in the eyes of the alliance and its humanitarian designation reflects that - a result of the entangled politics and power plays within the alliance itself. however, their military involvement is no secret, and thousands of bright-eyed applicants pour in during recruitment season, hoping to join the glorified IRON CLASS EXEMPLARY, the class of elite warrior priests led by the will herself.

SERVANT OF DOGMA — many of them don’t make it, unable to persist under the harsh training nor having strong enough faith in the ethos of the church. they’re dazzled by the holofilms and the uniform, black-hearted and vying for fame and fortune.

MASTER OF SELF — there you go again, with your self-righteous rage. it’s what makes you powerful, but it’s your fatal flaw as well. beatrice gives a placating hum from under your ribcage, a thrumming glow of warmth, snapping you back to the matter at hand.

MISSION BRIEF — the rumored guerilla enclave, the report posits, may be the fabled headquarters of the angels in the ninth city, something the church had been tracking down for centuries. if true, this mission could make your career - and more importantly, deal a heavy blow on the natural order’s intelligence sector.

you’re supposed to go to a covert meeting with the alliance contact, whereupon you would receive a data parcel with the lead to the angel lair. you are to do some reconnaissance of your own, pinpointing the exact location of the enclave with the help of the lead and dispatching the enemies within as soon as possible.

SENSATION — your blood thrums in excitement at the prospect of the hunt. you can barely keep your soldier’s poise - adrenaline is coursing through your veins, and the city around you hums with life as the holoshield slowly lights up with the sunrise animation to signal a new day. your meeting with your contact is in 10 hours - an almost unbearable amount of time - so your attentions must be diverted elsewhere for the time being.

what do you do?

→ [wander around and canvas the city]
→ [check comms and messages]
→ [find lodgings]

CURRENT STATS
BEATRICE : FULLY CHARGED
FAITH : 100%
10 HOURS UNTIL MEETING

CAST YOUR VOTE.

https://strawpoll.com/polls/Qrgebw3mrZp

please cast your vote by filling out the poll above.

notes: long time no see. hopefully there will be less time between updates from now on.

 

[apocalypse tv]

VOTES HAVE BEEN CAST.

→ [wander around and canvas the city]

you need to do something with all your restless energy. perhaps it would be good to explore the city. after all, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the landscape in order to find and execute your mission objective.

ACTION — you weave through the crowd with ease, seamlessly flowing in and out of the gaps between all the bustling people. you slip out of the port into the hypercity proper, the chrome of the starship boardwalk changing under your feed to beaten asphalt.

skyscrapers stretch above you, pillars of glittering windows and scrolling holographic billboards. their sheer size and architecture look mathematically impossible, improbable spiralatures and curves and almost scraping the animated sky of the city holo shield. walkways between these monoliths hang in the air with no support, with whole storefronts and apartments free-floating in the air, crowded together like windborne urban archipelagos.

RECALL — the ninth city is a place of innovation, where magisters and scientists can study the sheer face of god close enough to count eyelashes. great works are possible here, but also great disasters. the entire star system still has indelible scars from the mad experiments and grand workings of the arcane arts that were performed here - and you would know.

the arcane arts and bleeding edge science make unholy bedfellows, and the results spit in the fractured face of possibility. around you, as you walk the streets, are people from all corners of the seventeen star systems who call this place their home. a browbeaten sigilwitch peddles their talismans at the same corner where a mechanic with a rusted prosthetic arm hawks cybernetic parts for cheap. children throw stones that go impossibly high with a cheap dollar store featherlight rune to try and take down the puttering camera drones perched on the powerlines strung all over the city. you see a being (anteater-like body, probably from the Hyperion 6 system, vital areas exposed and easy to dispatch, you observe subconsciously) change its face to that of a cat, then sprout bone spur antlers, then finally shift faces to a well-known holofilm actress to a smattering of applause and the tinkling notifications of coins being sent via uplink. maglevs streak neon on criss-crossing roadways above and below you. you hear the flapping of wings above the pandemonium as you see winged alchemical beasts in bright uniform navigate the light polluted sky with packages strapped to their backs.

SENSATION — it’s an assault to your senses, a high density nightmare. as the overwhelming sights, sounds, and smells flood through, you hold your own as you try and filter the noise out and hone in on the points of interest. you wander without a particular location in mind, but with a goal. you memorize every step you take, the shape of the streets and alleys and sidewalks. the system of streets and the flickering signs of storefronts.

before long, your careful gait relaxes into a more assured one, the cacophony of ninth heaven separating itself into more sensical pieces. mimicking the people around you, you hunch your posture, speed up your walk, and assume a grimacing expression. the eyes on you slowly lessen, and then almost completely disappear — you’ve shed some of that offworlder milieu, and blended seamlessly into the living backdrop of passerby, at least for the most part.

→ [investigate the buildings]
→ [investigate the locals]
→ [go deeper into the city]
→ [get to high ground to get a bird’s eye view]
→ [check comms]
→ [find lodgings]

→ [other; instead of using the poll, please write in your choice of action]


CURRENT STATS
BEATRICE : FULLY CHARGED
FAITH : 100%
9.5 HOURS UNTIL MEETING

CAST YOUR VOTE.

https://strawpoll.com/polls/kjn18DO6xyQ

please cast your vote by filling out the poll above.

notes: poll will be closed around three days after the first vote. attached art by lownine on twitter.

 

[apocalypse tv]

* VOTES ARE SPLIT.

so, we have one vote for "deeper into the city" and one vote for "investigate the locals."
since the poll period elapsed with no tiebreaking vote, i've created a new poll with those two choices that will be up until sunday.

if there are no votes, i'll flip a coin to determine what happens next.

CAST YOUR VOTE.

https://strawpoll.com/polls/2ayLkQYlVZ4

please cast your vote by filling out the poll above.