[The Grid] Chatper 1: Hardwired

Oh my god wait a second what what WHAT!?


As stated earlier, Kase had been lucky. He'd been nearly run over by a truck, poisoned by exotic fish, flown halfway across the country, been shot at by European gangsters, had a encyclopedia volume dropped on his head, and shocked like he'd plugged in his DS Lite while his hands were wet. People had already been shot, Athena included, and as far as he knew, she was the only one to survive any of it. So yeah. He could settle for less.


Then, his vision quest (if you call it that) came along, and the whole thing went straight to hell. Again! He was starting to wonder if Raven of the Teen Titans ever had this kind of trouble.

So, this is what Linkara felt when he read the words "I'm Ray Palmer. Weclome to pain." Wondrous.


So yeah. GO, DICE ROLL!


4d10 = 4 successes.
 
Erin


...dream-reality loops and twists like a kite until she stands on the steps of a ziggurat, looking down on the plaza where in times past, the sacred games were held. She feels the warmth of the Daystar as it rises behind her, hears the roar of the crowd, and wonders at how far she has come. They are shouting something, chanting it --


Here she had fought in bloody battles for the glory of the Most High, where the victor received the honor of being allowed to offer up her heart to the Unconquered Sun. Never her, though. Many times she had been dragged bleeding from the field, praying that someday she might be found worthy of becoming a perfect sacrifice.


Her prayers were answered, as prayers sometimes are. A day came when she stood victorious against all comers. But the offering the Sun demanded of her that day was not her heart, but her soul.


Now the plaza is filled with her people, clad in golden armor or arrayed in bright-hued feathers: the Army of the Gods, the liberators of humanity. Horns are blown, and bells are sounded, and and priceless treasures are brought before her that she might accept them. Once again, she has proved herself to be first among the Sun's warriors, and even as they cry her praise, and the priests approach her bearing artifacts of great rarity and virtue, she wonders what offering her god will require in return.


They bring her the great daiklave she freed from the Shadowbrute's minions, now cleansed of the clotted green blood, and she brandishes it in in the dawn. They give her the horn, wound about with runes of blessing for her followers and prophecies of destruction for her foes; she lifts it, and winds it, and the walls give back the splendid terrible sound, as if the city itself had sent up a mighty shout, speaking one word, one --


And then the priests fall back, bowing down to the ground.


She almost squeezes her eyes shut as He approaches, orichalcum scales blazing, not with flames but with a love that she can feel on her skin like summer sunlight. She has always known that He cares deeply about her, about all of them, about Creation, but she has never until this moment seen the fullness of it: this passionate allegiance to life, this fierce charity that wills health and joy to all humankind. She feels all the death in her, all the decay and darkness, screaming and cowering away from Him; it knows its enemy. It tries to drag her with it, but she stands her ground, wondering if she will be able to survive His touch, or endure the burning life it promises.


Then she sees what He has in his hands, and knows what sacrifice is asked of her.


He looks at her, not with the adoration of the crowd, but with a kind of tenderness, like a parent whose child has finally learned how to walk, and says her name --

Per + Occ →

6,4,5,9
 
Stormy: Pretend this is all put in really flowing prose. Prose that moves the soul and inspires you to role playing glory. Prose involving creepy spiders. Anyway, this is what your character figures out. You, Kase, are staring across a void of voidy-ness (think The Void/The Abyss/Oblivion) at something that has been thrown into the aforementioned void. With me? That something is a glowing ball of ye' olde power (Perhaps a Solar Exaltation? And by perhaps I mean Yes, it's a Solar Exaltation and it is, in fact, YOUR Solar Exaltation.) Your character doesn't know the exact terminology, but go with it.


Anyway, you're trying to Exalt and the Exaltation is trying to help, but there are two problems in the way. The first is that, again as mentioned before, your Exaltation got thrown into The Abyss. That's a mighty big problem. The second is that there's some contraption on this side of the Void that's screwing everything up. Given what Athena and Bob told you before, you figure the contraption is this Matrix thing. It's big, it's evil, and combined with various difficulties, it's stopping you from Exalting.


Separate from that, but not completely removed, is the problem of the antenna. The Exaltation trying to Exalt you is burning stupid amounts of Essence which is overriding the antenna that's channeling the energy into the bodies-to-insects phenomena. Since that antenna got all screwed up, (perhaps when you moved parts of it, by which I mean the pyrite rocks) it isn't dumping energy into the dead kid in the prison cell. Instead it went looking for the nearest viable target, a magical 'ground' if you will, and guess who it found? You.


So long as you're trying to Exalt, it's going to keep turning you into spiders. Normally Exalting is almost instant, but there's that whole Exaltation was thrown into the Abyss problem, which is screwing the whole matter up. So that's what's going on with you. You figured all this out on the Integrity roll.


Arynne: Your memory does not give you your prior incarnations name. That part gets fuzzled out.


Malcom


The two suits look confused. "That name is not known to us. Target designate: Malcom should reveal himself and explain what he means."
 
As the exchange goes on, Hank's heart starts beating faster,


"Boys boys! We're gettin' off on the wrong foot here. It's just a simple quid pro quo. You want out of the cell, and I just want to know what in the hell is going on here. So how about you and your friend there, take the magazines out of your hand cannons, eject the rounds from the chamber, and slide the pieces towards me. Y'all will the have the ammo, we'll have the shootin' irons, and then nobody will be leaving here with more holes than they came in with."


Then Hank adds to himself,


"cept that one guy,"


he calls back out to the MiBs,


"Sound fair?"


All the while the droning and footsteps are getting harder and harder to ignore.
 
Kase was being torn apart. It was too much, the bugs were effectively freezing his brain with fear. However, he could see the light. It wanted him. And so did he. But could he make the distance? It was so distant, and the bugs were going to override him well before he could get there, if at all...


Then an idea struck him. Maybe if it wanted him, maybe he could call it to him somehow. Split the difference.


Here's hoping. Authorization code okay. Detonation timer is set. Time lag is set to five seconds...this time I'll be betting on light!


Kase began to step slowly towards the light, reaching out his hand, calling out with his soul...or something akin to that.
 
Inside


"Negative. Disarmament is not an-" The suit stops suddenly. Both do the listening thing for several seconds. Afterwards, something has changed.


"Very well, Hank. Your offer is accepted."


Without further ado they strip the slides from their weapons and cast the handles and barrels through the cell bars. They retain the actions and carriage, as well as ammunition. The weapon pieces they replace in interior pockets. "Malcom, we have been instructed with information about subject: Gottendammerung. We have also been instructed to convey this information only if you reveal yourselves. All parties must reveal themselves and remain unarmed. Hands must be in plain sight."


The two suits stand in perfect unison and interlace their fingers over their stomachs.


Edit: They throw the guns away from themselves. The pieces hit the far wall and stop. You'll have to get up and walk down the cell hallway to collect them.
 
Malcolm cautiously looked to Hank, then smiled amused. "It worked," he said softly, having not expected such an offer to pass, "that's a first." Then nodding- carefully doing this work buy time and information- he put his palms together and interlaced his fingers, stepping out into plain view of the suits.
 
Erin


There are cracks in the sky. They spread insidiously across heaven and cloud, moving with great speed. The pure vaults of of the air are soon stained with them, and they form a corona of ill health around the Sun. They try to get behind him, but the inherent potency of the God who will soon be called Unconquered defies them. In your mind even the breaking of the world is no match for your Lord's might.


Still that doesn't mean you can't see them. The drama of your reception goes on undeterred, and you perfectly remember being immersed in it. The peculiar ride-along consciousness of your other self though, the self that knows you now lie sleeping on the grass, watches carefully from the corners of her own eyes and studies the fragments of motion in the background. There are ancient things she sees.


Around the monolithic temple is an ancient forest of Arden whose trunks have never yet been hued by the hand of man. It is black and rich, perilous for even the Sun's Chosen but in no way evil for it. It has a purity of nature that is hostile toward its protectors and for long you have forsaken it. Why go looking for unnecessary conflict when there are so many enemies who deserve it better and require it desperately that you all might survive? None the less it rings the temple, protecting you in an odd way. Those who make war on you cannot imagine your sacred ceremonies take place so close to doom. That is an irony in itself.


Distantly, through the vast gloomy trees, you see someone. His shape and form is familiar, and he's desperately throwing himself at an impossible chasm. On the far side is something wonderful. Unfortunately, the fractures of the world have already infected the trees and even the canyon before him. From these cracks pour spiders, beetles, and vermin. They will engulf him soon.


In fact they are coming from all over. They pour out of the sky and drip from the winds. The Sun is congratulating you and simultaneously teaching you of the determination of love, standing only a little distance away that you can more easily see his lesson. All around are people absorbed in rapturous awe. And between their toes, scuttling across grass and stone, are little things. They move west, into the forest, and have no discovered you yet.

You're on deck. I'm waiting for something first.
 
A beaming grin shows from behind Hank's bushy beard,


"Well Malcolm, what can I say? God gave me a gift."


Hank lets the pieces go, he just didn't want them to have them. He then sets his pack, which contains his ax, down near the edge of the entrance to the room.


With palms outstretched to his sides, Hank follows Malcolm around the corner,


"Sorry again about the cell door gents, I just didn't want to end up like the poor bastard at your feet. I'd like to move on and put it behind us, start a little tit for tat, but I didn't catch y'all's names! Thing One and Thing Two? Tweedle Dee Tweedle Dum? I'm sorry, I'm a Southern boy at heart, and some things just need to be done right."
 
Inside


The two guys examine you through the cage. They don't make any hostile actions, nor do anything that speaks of violence. The once says, "It is a good thing that hostility can be avoided."


"Yes," the other agrees. "But now we are unarmed."


Then, even more strangely, both men slowly part their jackets and turn around. They're wearing oxford shirts and ties, but you can see that they don't have listening devices or more guns. The do have those little radio earpieces running into jacket pockets, but no weaponry. (Oh, they do have several mags each, and underarm holsters, if it matters.)


"We would like to be certain you are not hiding weapons though. Especially you, the talkative one," a suit says, indicating Hank.


"Indeed. Your clothing is quite loose. You could be hiding a pistol under there. Please remove your shirts and turn around slowly," the other adds. "That way we can be sure you're being honest."

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3073790/ and stunts http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3073795/ for a total of two successes each. They do get a coordinated attack, so apply a -2 to each of your MDVs.
I think I mentioned this before, but I normally skip rolling join debate. Assume that you two go more or less together, and they do as well. Also, please don't spend wp to resist every single hit of mental influence. I'm not saying never do it, just keep it in character. Thanks.
 
Hank laughs off the distrust,


"Well here,"


He reaches into his pockets and pulls out his pocket knife,


"I'd hardly call that armed, but I'm all for cooperation."


Hank then tosses the knife to the side of the room.


He pulls the bandana from his mouth, revealing a friendly grin, he resumes speaking,


"Now I've been pretty forthcoming: I left my stuff in the hallway; I gave you my name. I'd rather not strip down right now. I don't like the idea of bugs getting on my bare chest, and to be honest, I kinda have some body issues. As a man of God and a man of my word, you can trust that my associate and I are unarmed and approach you in good faith."

Thanks for fleshing out my MDVs on my sheet for me, saved me a minute. My MDDV, after the coordinated penalty, was still 2 so they were just that close.


Cha+Perf 6d10 → [2,8,1,8,5,1] 2 sux Stunt?
 
Malcolm's Mental Dodge is high enough even with the penalties to fight it off.


Man+Performance+1d Stunt = 2 sux


Malcolm kept his hands together and up in view. "I'm weaponless, I assure you, especially since I have little chance in anything but a hand to hand fight. Now I believe we've come out and disarmed, such as it is. Tell me what you have about Gottendammerung."
 
Patrick


Yanking his cellphone from his pocket, he flips it open and answers, only to hear Athena's voice -


"Pat, shoot the rock closest to Kase. He's about to die."


...for about point-five seconds but what feels like an eternity, he freezes. This is the kind of situation where you can't ask 'why', though, he realises - it's like being a car a lap down in turn 4 coming to the checkered flag, and the leader is roaing up behind you and is going to be passing you on its way to the win, and you have an instant to decide whether to go high and let him go under you, go low and let him go around you, or take the access road at high speed and risk wrecking yourself in order to remove all risk for him. There's no time to debate the merits of which route to take, you just have to choose one based on instinct, and if the leader wrecks because he skids up into the marbles going around you - well, That's Racin'.


And so it is that Athena will probably head the soft rustle of fabric as Patrick nods, and possibly (depending on how good her hearing is through the phone) the crackle of gunleather as he pulls his pistol from its holster, leveling it on the rock...


...but, just because you only have an instant to choose and have to, it doesn't mean you can't look in the mirror.


"Did Lace make it back alright with the Challenger?" he asks, concerned, as he levels his aim - his next action depending on exactly what Athena says...his finger tightening on the trigger, ready to squeeze in an instant.

Making sure it really is Athena, who would know Lace wasn't driving the Challenger, vs. an impostor who would be expected to say what he wants to hear to get him to do somethign to screw things up...


Assuming it is Athena and she answers 'correctly', the instant he hears the answer, bye-bye rock!


Dex+'Archery', 5d10 → [8,2,3,5,10,8] = 3 sux


Possible stunt dice? 2d10 → [10,2,1] = 1 sux
 
Inside


There is a brief silence as the suits contemplate your refusal. The one of them speaks.


"Gottendammerung is a German translation of Ragnarok. It refers to the end of the world, and the Norse preconception that the best of times were in the past. The future is presumed to be nothing but inevitable tragedy until the end. The fall of mankind was looked forward to as a good thing, as its evil prevented was prevented from achieving unconscionable levels. Sometimes the only salvation of a thing was ending it before it could fall wholly to corruption."


"But that's not what you're referring to, is it?" asks the other, taking over with fluid grace. "You don't mean that, nor the final volume of the opera. You want to know about the entity, am I correct?"


"You will observe we could quibble about definitions here and fulfill the letter of your request," the other notes. "We are not. A show of good faith."


"Observe," the first orders, and at that point you hear the music. It plays ever so softly from the air conditioning vents, and wafts in from the midi-speakers in the jail cell computer. The music is an aria, and the voice of a soprano soars above you, filled with all the glory of a human soul while whispering with the faint volume of its origin. One of the suits reaches down and moving slowly withdraws the strange knife from the corpse. He wipes it off, and places it in a black suitcase. There is a foam-cutout there that fits it perfectly. He places the hard plastic case by his foot, and then stands up. Every motion is made in a slow, carefully non-threatening manner. The body stills.


"The word was an echo and a hint from names in an earlier tongue. One you may or may not understand. Truly, he is called..." The suit says something, and that it is in a language not spoken on any land of Earth is not something you need to be told. It has sounds you've never heard, though after listening once you cannot understand why they are not commonly used. "That is the true name of Gottendammerung, when he existed, and before his component souls usurped him as he did his originator. Only by their strange nature did they break the Law, and each new generation was greater than the last. When Cyceline was bound and her rule usurped, they could no longer exist in their original nature. The brood of Jormungund was thrown from the world."


"Is that of whom you wish to know?" the other suit asks. "We have much information on him and will trade it. Now, our question. How many of there are you?"

If you intend to lie, roll Manip + (Socialize or Presence).


Outside


"She isn't driving the Challenger and no." Athena's voice is not happy.


In the Grid at the level of the police station's front yard nothing overtly supernatural happens when you shoot the rock. Little bits of it go everywhere, and a couple score against your face and hands. The scrapes itch a bit. Otherwise the ley-lines recallibrate and shorten. You're outside them again. But since the shot took place before they had moved, no one around hears your .50 firing. There's a little cognitive dissonance with that, but you shake it off. People have started looking at you again, and the sleepers at your feet rest uneasily. Erin seems to be having unpleasant dreams, while Kase's somnolent form is squirming. He twitches, and little ripples under his skin move and twitch.


Inside Erin's dream world, the tide of vermin shrinks a little. The flow of them diffuses, and spreads out wide. Many of the cracks in the sky are burned away by her memories of the Sun in his glory. His aura cauterizes the glitches shut. Others keep pumping, and the things keep crawling.


Inside Kase's nightmare the pain slows. Throwing yourself across an empty abyss burns with white agony, thought that suddenly drops an octave and an order of magnitude when Pat blasts the rock. You do manage to get a look around.


There being no frame of reference, up and down are purely subjective. Used her for simplicity, you're 'down' jumping 'up' because there's some resistance keeping you from getting there. Above you is a black, infinite sky without stars or planets. There is a single golden point of light and nothing else. Reaching for it you find yourself reminded of children climbing hills and reaching for the sun. Unfortunately, you have as little success. Even with the absolute certainty of knowing that the light is reaching for you just as hard, it is stuck in the dark firmaments of an empty sky and you are bound by a skewed gravity to Earth. You cannot reach it.


Between you and the black sky, above but not infinitely far away, is a thing. It reminds you of the City of Dis, ringing the pit of Hell. It's built in expanding halos around the central blackness, and filled with flashes of short, violent light. There's something horribly brutal about each brief illumination that comes to a finish with shocking suddenness.


Below that at the level you are is a weird web-like thing. It's somewhere between a spider's web, computer network map, and the bare girders of a building still under construction. It has no skin, but a million lines and traceries draw pathways through the darkness. They link dull, blandly glowing pods of light to each other, and one one medium width beam you stand.




Kase: 5 dice, bashing damage, soaked as normal.
 
Bashing soak is set at 2, so it's now at 3 dice.


Roll(3d10)+0: 9,5,6


Now it's one...I think I have that right.


At once, his pain eased. Granted, it still felt like he was still an insect hive, it was now at least somewhat manageable. However, his overarching plan to grasp at the light that was reaching for his soul by...calling out to his soul, was effectively useless. This place was like being between worlds, and the metaphor seemed rather literal, considering where he was now. Between hell and...something that may very well be the place he had been before getting subject to insectine torture.
 
Absolutely correct. The only tricky thing about damage is normally 10s don't count double, and you're good on that.


Not entirely sure if this is coming through but you can interact with the others in the dream state.
 
Patrick


Patrick swears roundly at hearing that Lace hasn't made it back yet. A twinge of guilt in his heart - the two things that tear at him the most, the things he can least of all abide in life, are hurting women, and dogs. The latter is enough to make him break down in tears...the former, to send him into a furious rage.


If she's hurt, you will ALL pay, he promises to the air and their enemies, as he backs up to maneuver back inside the truncated field of ley-lines, leaving the two Sleepers outside for now - time, and all that.


"Rock shot, they didn't wake up and Kase looks...twitchy. Should I shoot any of the rest of the stones?" he asks, composing himself - guilt (and, if necessary, revenge) can come later. Right now, there's a job to be done to make sure everone present can make it to the stiff drinks.
 
Hank never got too deep into Norse mythology, although it was on his to-do list, and he never was much of an opera man, but as soon as the suits stopped playing coy he became very interested. The described cycle of usurpation reminded Hank of his Greek studies.


After they stopped, Hank replied quickly,


"Five"


he is a man of his word,


"Now what in the hell have you done to this police station and the boy at your feet?"
 
Patrick


Athena admits, "I'm not entirely sure what is going on with Kase. My guess," and she subtly stresses guess, "is that those rocks are forming an antenna. The Grid, as we call the Abyssal artificial world you're all stuck in, is predominantly designed to syphon belief out of you and there's a great deal of it floating around. Were someone without enough personal power to want to do something like sorcery, they can suck it out of the ambient flux with an appropriate antenna. Presumably, someone inside doesn't have enough power to do whatever they want to do, but they set up the pyrite rocks as the antenna.


"Now when Kase and Erin poked them, they 'shorted out' the antenna for an instant. Some of that essence or belief it was channeling flowed through them and that activated them enough for something to happen. I'm not quite sure what. When either wakes up, please have one call me to let me know. Anyway, something Kase did interfered with the antenna something fierce, and now it's trying to purge him. It seems to be a spell of some nature, probably Flesh to Vermin or something functionally similar. Gods, I wish I knew whether or not to tell you to wake them up. If he looks worse, certainly start shooting rocks.


"As to Lace, well, she's still running south along the barrier islands. There are four Section 9 surgical teams after her, but they haven't caught her yet. You'd love it if you could see this, Pat. Cars and chases as far as the eye can see. It's a distraction, though. I don't think any of the other Agent teams are going to come up after you, so you've got some room to work with."


Hank


"We sterilized them," the suit replies blankly. "Him too. Can't you see the bullet hole in his Engine mask? Already his file has been uploaded into the temporary directory, and as soon as he is disassociated, he will be converted into sterile mass. Then both his engine mask will override his true facade, and he will be deleted, ie dead."


"Upon disassociation," the other suit adds. "Their biomass is somewhat more valuable than that which they have been reduced too, so the end state of the reaction is back-heavy. A typical seventy kilogram human will yield close to three hundred kilo-grams of insects. That way the world's balances don't fall out of kilter."


"Query: Were either of you contacted by the Castle or the Rooster?"
 
Kase was out of ideas. He knew that the light waaaay up there was inextricably tied to him, but it was impossible to reach by some kind of...well, he'd describe it as some kind of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. In a perfect world, some metaphysical mumbo-jumbo would also solve the problem. But, as he did not...


He began to walk around, trying to observe where he was and his situation. Maybe if he could try to apply his own knowledge to this situation, he could try to bend it to his advantage.
 
"No...." Malcolm responded, though his voice trailed off as he realized the implications of their words. The uninspired look he had been given after the car knock... was this world not real? "What do you want for the information?"
 
Kase


There are a couple of things Kase notices. First of all, he's not actually here. This is some of that metaphysical mumbo jumbo. He can tell this because he's a floating, disembodied sense of perception that perceives omnidirectionally. Damn useless metaphysical mumbo jumbo.


Anyway, you're more or less tethered to a single big conduit. You can move around but can't get too far from it. There's a sensation of stretching, and if you get too far from the pipe the antenna starts trying to turn your insides to bugs again. But so long as you stay close you're fine. You also notice you've got something like a golden halo around you. This is interesting because not far away down the conduit is a, well, person/thing with a similar golden halo. That person/thing is floating peacefully by the conduit, bobbing faintly with a vaguely brownian motion.
 
Malcom


"We are just talking, correct?" the suit replies. "Then we are getting nothing out of this but our discussion. It is your question."
 
Patrick


"I'd love it if it weren't for the fact that she's at risk," Patrick snaps, perhaps a bit too harshly, before taking a deep breath and shaking his head. "I'll be in touch the moment one of them wakes up." Pausing, he frowns, then speaks up again. "Speaking of vermin...the police station here was crawling with spiders and other bugs. I don't think," and here his tone becomes something akin to 'classic English understatement', "that this isn't the first time somebody's tried to change flesh to vermin here today."


Shaking his head, he stays on the line for the moment, cellphone tucked against his shoulder and his revolver in both hands, steadily aiming at one of the cairns while keeping a worried eye on Erin and Kase.
 
The callous dismissal of the lives of the people gets Hank's dander up, to speak colloquially.


"Sterilized?"


Hank asks incredulously,


"What did these people do to deserve to be so brazenly murdered? And what gives you the right?"
 
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