voidtreckermods: (train)
VoidTrecker Express Mods ([personal profile] voidtreckermods) wrote in [community profile] middleofsomewhere2021-05-09 06:48 am

What their Eyes See: Start

"Good Morning Voidtreckers, today is day five of the month of Llama." The voice echoes through the train as passengers wake up in their beds. Not long afterwards their SCA’s glow with the colour of the void and a holographic image will appear.

Preperation and Arrival

As usual they have a couple of hours before arrival to ready themselves for the mission ahead. As promised the dressing carriage is open for them to find suitable clothing. Trench coats, a lot of leather, a lot of black with neon colours thrown in here and there. There is a lot of choice in a variety of sizes so everyone is bound to find something to fit. Hopefully something they like, though some passengers may be more comfortable with the fashion choices than others.

A couple of hours after the announcement of the mission the voice speaks again. "Shortly arriving in system #93426194992. Arriving in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." The train shakes as it leaves the void, colours fading to be replaced to a grey thick smog outside the windows.

The train bumps slightly as it hits rails, snaking its way towards the city before entering a tunnel. A few moments and they come to a stop, the doors open onto a platform. Stepping out into the station the first thing to hit them is noise, it sounds like there are ten different advertisements blaring, someone or something is playing loud music. There's a lot of flashing signs, screens with advertisements, bright lights that change colour for no real apparant reason. Heavy on the senses as they make their way to the gates.

They will find that their SCAs allow them through the barriers and into the wider train station, which is somehow even louder. It is busy as well, people hurrying from place to place. There are signs declaring this to be Tier Three, Home of Manufacturing. as well as signs pointing the way to lifts, to take them to other tiers.

Tier One

Mapping

For those travelling up to tier one the first thing they will notice when they leave the lift is, it is a lot quieter up here. Peaceful even, there are people around, all looking official and busy. None will pay the Voidtreckers any mind unless they are acting particularly suspicious.

The air feels better here, probably because the whole tier is encased with a dome that they will be able to see as they enter, coming from a lift near the edge of the tier. The buildings are all harsh dark metal, almost uniform in design. The streets are clean and there has been an attempt at greenery with some shrubs and simple plants.

The buildings all need to be accessed using their SCA's. Their SCA maps show them where the buildings are but give no information about them, nor do they have maps of inside. Once the voidtreckers enter they will find that their maps fill in as they explore.

There are plenty of different buildings, offices, labs and meeting rooms. There are also a lot of security staff and anyone acting too suspiciously will be approached and questioned. Hopefully they have a plan, blend in or sneak around.

Flickers

Sometimes though that is a little harder, they might enter a room to find themselves on their old street, in a world they have visited before on the train or somewhere else that is decidedly not here. These illusions get more common as time goes on and people will begin seeing the illusions of others or find the two scenes merging together.

Voidtreckers who are immune to illusions will not see these strange visions and those who are particularly strong willed will be able to fight them off. Once people know they are illusions they can focus through them to see reality even if it is overlaid with what their minds want to see. It will take a lot of concentration to stay focused and get an accurate map.

Tier Two

A Mystery

The lift here brings them out into a glass covered corridor. Outside the glass the air is thick with smog but the filtration systems means that the air seems fine inside, especially with their SCA's helping out. Outside the tunnels they will be able to see the lights of hovercars zipping around and the silhouettes of buildings. Office blocks and large houses make up this sector. Large billboards blare out advertisements at all hours, neon lights shining through the smog.

The atmosphere of the sector is one of fear, people hurry about their business, keeping an wary eye on their surroundings. The newcomers won't get too much scrutiny but people are likely to be very wary if approached or questioned.

But they will talk once they guage them to not be a threat. Murders. Six people dead, from inside their own houses. Locked doors, security systems, all for nothing. Is it a serial killer? But the reports suggested an animal attack? From what animals?

Getting access to the houses will take some negotiating or breaking and entering. The bodies themselves have been cleared by law enforcement, caution tape still up to keep out any nosy public.

The rooms the bodies were found in were all rooms that used holograms as decoration and the voidtreckers will realise when they enter them that these holograms seem a lot more realistic than some of the others they might have seen in their stay in the sector so far.

Creatures

As they talk to people, or overhear gossip they will hear more about animal attacks. Someone swears they saw a lion prowling the streets. A hovercar crashed and the driver swore they had been attacked by an eagle. Neither of those creatures live in the city. Neither of those creatures exist on this world anymore.

But the Voidtreckers will quickly learn there is something to these rumours, especially as dark falls, the feeling they are being hunted. A paw tread, a tail disappearing around a corner. As days go on they may get attacked by a bear, a tiger or perhaps a creature from their own world, one that should not exist here at all...

Tier Three

A Crisis

Leaving the station brings them into crowded streets, air thick with smog, Up above them is the floor of the plate above, set with bright lights to offset the lack of natural light getting through. Billboards and screens blare advertisements, traders yell their wares. Life is fast and swirls around them as they step out into the streets.

Here also there is an air of worry. The talk is all of Spectura, kids unconcious after playing video games, hospital overflowing. Spectura's fault, there are calls for accountability, claims of sabotage. No person gives the same story and it becomes clear that most people don't know what has happened but almost everyone knows someone who has been affected. Fear, blame, tensions are high.

But life must go on, the factories never stop, people can't not work and with so many people unconscious people have to pick up the slack. The whole sector feels at breaking point.

If they try and buy Spectura systems they will not be stopped though they will need to sign a waiver, to take on all responsibility for what might happen to them if they go into the system.

Spectura


There are a whole range of games to look through, though the two most popular ones where the majority of players can be found are an open-world farming MMO called AgriTopia VI Ultimate, with bright landscapes and calming diegetic music, and Aegis Force, a tournament team shooter with short battle scenarios and smaller maps.

Those entering the system will fall unconscious in the real world and as they enter the problem will be pretty obvious straight away. Red vines, covering everything, tangling trees, creeping up buildings, coming straight for them to attack.

Anyone who gets overwhelmed by them will be stuck, unable to move or progress. It is possible to fight them off and for those voidtreckers who have faced the vines before they will find their soothing powers will work here as well.

People are tangled throughout many different games and once they are freed will need some help to find the next save point or exit. They need to help plant the final hundred potatoes, or team up to take down the level boss or solve the next puzzle, keep the vines away and free as many people as they can.

Tier Four

A Way In

As they leave the lifts they will find this tier is dark, dim lighting barely penetrating the smog. Homes are makeshift and all on top of each other. The streets are crowded, loud and people don't stop to chat. It is incredibly claustrophobic, with large support columns, exposed wires and large pipes running alongside and over the 'roads'.

Here there are plenty of stores selling anything and everything, certainly not above board. Credits are sometimes accepted but more often store keepers will prefer to trade in barters, food is popular. Anything that isn't nutri slime or the even worse unbranded basic version.

Bars and other seedy establishments are open all hours, neon signs beckoning. It is here that they will find the entry points to the fighting rings.

People don't talk about it openly but you look big enough, mean enough or dramatic enough then it will be slipped into conversation. Have you heard? Winners get a dream come true.

The fights are a mix of one on one and group fights. All terms are negotiated before hand with an overseer and fights are to the yield. The crowd wants a show and so dramatics are encouraged.

What was that?

The rumours about people going berserk are spoken in whispers. No one really knows what has gone on. A few fights have gotten out of control, a couple of fighters broke down after fights, at least one has quit for good. Most spoken about is The Crimson Fist. The best fighter in the ring who two days prior just left. Left the city with no protective gear, no word to anyone. No one knows what happened to them.

As the voidtreckers get further into their fights they will begin to realise something strange is going on. That opponent you are facing? They now look like your worst enemy, or perhaps your best friend, your lover. Sometimes you're no longer in the city but in a place of fond memories or your worst nightmares. Fights can very quickly go south when your opponent believes you their greatest foe.

Advancing the ranks now seems like it might be more difficult than first it appeared.
shadowslipping: (Oii oi)

[personal profile] shadowslipping 2021-05-14 12:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Is that really it then..? [She's guessed that fairness may not be the primary decision maker here.

Ah, but that aside.
] You must have lived in quite the place then... ...for myself it was a matter of investigation; I was supposed to seek out a smuggling ring within the tournament itself.

...unfortunately I did too well, so I had to remain through to the finals even after completing the investigation, [She mutters, grumbling.]
bakegarasu: (he's a cold hearted snake)

[personal profile] bakegarasu 2021-05-14 04:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Mm. I grew up in the yakuza. From a real young age I was in bars like this. Sometimes watching fights like this, too.

Sometimes I'd get thrown into the ring. I think the first time I was eleven or so?
shadowslipping: (pic#13315175)

[personal profile] shadowslipping 2021-05-15 03:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Yakuza..!?

[Well! ...Yikes!] That young in the ring, even?!
bakegarasu: (who's that rapping at my chamber door?)

[personal profile] bakegarasu 2021-05-15 10:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah. ... Wasn't all that much of a problem for me. Got beat up a lot, but then I started figuring out how to se my size to my advantage.

[What, did you think they put him against other kids? Nah.]
shadowslipping: (pic#13321640)

[personal profile] shadowslipping 2021-05-16 03:18 pm (UTC)(link)
The fact that they had you fighting adults at all says that it was a very big problem..! It's even more incredible that you made it this far now!
bakegarasu: (i hear you)

[personal profile] bakegarasu 2021-05-16 04:14 pm (UTC)(link)
... Is it? Didn't seem all that much of a big deal to me. They weren't all that strong, looking back at it. I was just weak.
shadowslipping: (Oii oi)

[personal profile] shadowslipping 2021-05-18 01:13 pm (UTC)(link)
...You were a child...

[Considering that there's no one to really mouth off about this except for the prior victim, Yuume can't really let herself enter shout and lecture mode. What she can do, however, is express some severely dry disbelief at...that.

He can't seriously believe that.
] Who in their right mind compares a child's strength to an adult for any good reason?
bakegarasu: (who's that rapping at my chamber door?)

[personal profile] bakegarasu 2021-05-18 04:23 pm (UTC)(link)
So? I still had to defend myself. Just because I was young didn't mean I wasn't strong. I was already killing yakuza from other groups by then.

[This is Fine.]
shadowslipping: (Oii oi)

[personal profile] shadowslipping 2021-05-18 04:25 pm (UTC)(link)
[Yuume simply pinches her nose.] That is not what I was saying...

...Look at it this way. Strong, or otherwise, what would you say if we collectively forced the children on the train into the ring against the combatants here?
bakegarasu: (he's a cold hearted snake)

cw: child abuse which i should have labeled this whole thread as in retrospect

[personal profile] bakegarasu 2021-05-18 04:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Okay, but they're not monsters or freaks like me. They can feel pain.

[He shrugs and glances at the fighters currently in the ring.]

I can't. It really didn't matter if I was in the ring or not, they were going to find a way to hurt me physically for their amusement.

[He doesn't sound mad about it.]
Edited 2021-05-18 16:28 (UTC)
shadowslipping: (irrecoverable...)

CW for past suicidal ideation uh

[personal profile] shadowslipping 2021-05-18 04:39 pm (UTC)(link)
[Yuume looks as if she has been struck.

'That's right! I am a monster- so why haven't you killed me yet?' She had cried.

'Because that would be too good for you,' her opponent had sneered.

Yuume blinks herself back to the present with a strange blend of hard and soft expressions.
]

Do you think so little of yourself, over such an inability?

...I work with 'monsters'. Spirits, demons, and gods. Of all sorts, that has been my job back home.

All of them would agree- if you say it was alright for yourself, it is the same as saying it is alright for others.

...nothing changes what happened of course. But at the very least, you should recognize it for what it was, instead of justifying that sort of self-deprecation.
bakegarasu: (whoever knows pain is raised)

[personal profile] bakegarasu 2021-05-19 12:13 am (UTC)(link)
... Don't know that that's true. Freaks aren't the same as others. And I'd already had a bunch of kills to my name by then.

I wasn't a kid in a lot of ways. I didn't even really speak at that age. Outside of being forced in school it'd be maybe a couple words a day.

... I'm not saying I don't hate my father or what he did - I killed him for a lot of reasons - but that was just... normal life for me.
shadowslipping: (irrecoverable...)

[personal profile] shadowslipping 2021-05-19 10:47 am (UTC)(link)
Stop calling yourself that, [She cuts in harshly, narrowing her eyes.] Stop calling yourself a 'freak'- I don't care that you murdered by that point. I don't care that you apparently weren't allowed a childhood- none of that justifies it, [she bites back,] And I stand by my words. [Even if it included his father. Even if-]

Whatever that life was, you may have considered it normal but it shouldn't have been. Or do you think it would be any better if some other child, who also couldn't feel pain, arrived here and was put through those same things?

You can't justify this with 'it made sense because I wasn't normal'- with 'I hated them, but it still made sense'. It doesn't make sense, and I can tell you that without a doubt.

To say things like 'I was just weak,' or 'I was just a freak'...no.

If they placed a child in the ring against grown men, that didn't change that you were a child- it makes no difference, what you had already done or what you were capable of! I don't mean this as an insult of your ability at that time- frankly, I stand by what I said when I said it's amazing you can stand before me now. But what I'm saying, is that that was not normal in the slightest.

...I know we've just now met, but I can't sit idly, when someone talks about themselves in that way. Particularly not when it's obvious what the case actually is.
bakegarasu: (death carnivore)

[personal profile] bakegarasu 2021-05-19 02:31 pm (UTC)(link)
I wouldn't know, I've never met someone else who can't feel pain.

[He knows it's a medical condition, remembers most of what it's called, but knowing it exists in medical books is different than knowing someone else who has it.]

I know it wasn't normal. It's not like it's a life I could walk away from that easily. Believe me, I tried to escape from the yakuza, and it got the only person I ever cared about killed. I'm not with them anymore, but it's because I'm my city's guardian. ... Like in a magic way, not self-imposed.
shadowslipping: (Saddened)

[personal profile] shadowslipping 2021-05-19 02:54 pm (UTC)(link)
It's a hypothetical question for a reason, [Is the dry response, but the woman ultimately sighs.]

You say you know that, but moments ago you acted as if it was as typical as the sun being in the sky- you even called yourself 'weak', when in that scenario you were an 11 year old boy pitted against grown men.

I'm not judging you, for not getting out sooner. Frankly, there are far more who never get that chance, so I'm glad. It's the self-inflicted end of everything you've said...

'Weak'? ...from what you tell me, you were impressively strong, and I don't mean physically.
bakegarasu: (i heard a tapping)

[personal profile] bakegarasu 2021-05-20 01:46 am (UTC)(link)
Mm. I survived. That's all I really did. Might be strong, but... trying to do something with that strength now.

... I've got the strength to protect people of all kinds now. I'm not... that kid in the ring anymore.

[He's not sure who he's trying to convince.]
shadowslipping: (pic#13321640)

[personal profile] shadowslipping 2021-05-21 10:58 am (UTC)(link)
[She can't help but wonder if what they were talking about has been lost along the way for that matter. Yuume finds herself simply nodding, perhaps a little sadly, before looking back toward the ring.] ...You'll pull out if it gets over your head, I hope? [She eventually says.] It might not seem like it, but from what I've seen so far the option of retreat is at least on the table in most of these fights.
bakegarasu: (death carnivore)

[personal profile] bakegarasu 2021-05-21 03:26 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't think that'll be a problem. ... Maybe a little bit more than usual, since I'm using hand to hand rather than swordfighting, but... anyone I crossed swords with would be dead.

[He's confident, but he has every right to be.]

I think I'll be fine, though.
shadowslipping: (Small Smile)

[personal profile] shadowslipping 2021-05-24 01:30 pm (UTC)(link)
It would probably be better to avoid using blades, yes- unless the opponent seems to be significantly roboticized, but even then.

[That's just an electricity risk.] I'm glad to hear that though.