[quote=@Atrophy]
[@Flagg]I also did a thing.

[hider=The Errant]The group trudged in silence through the cavernous halls of a large, heavily dilapidated building, guns lowered but at the ready for any mutants that had nested within its many alcoves. It was dark; for the hundreds upon hundreds of rooms spread throughout the two-storied building, not a single one had a window. It was reminiscent of a prison—at least two of the fellows in the group remarked that—yet there were no bars and the cells were much too large. The group stomped through debris with heavy boots as the lights on the helm of their exosuits made long shadows out of the stretches of broken benches and faded signs written in an unfamiliar tongue. Some of the darkened rooms were guarded by unarmed and deactivated sentinels, their dirty, white, featureless faces eerily resembling the figure that took point.

She was smaller in stature than the mercs in their power armor, although she didn’t need the bulky suits to protect her soft flesh for it was anything but that. Beneath the black hooded veil that covered her blank, unsculpted face of white metal and continued down into a cape was a thin, feminine body crafted of obsidian metal. Neon markings, currently a dull, dark reflection of the world around her, lined her limbs. These markings alone would be enough for most people to recognize that she was not just some helper robot, but a Cipher—although most people wouldn’t know what that fully meant. Four chakrams were locked around her right arm and had the similar dull darkness of her markings; the fifth and final one was held in her hand, ready to fly at a moment's notice. 

The Cipher may have been leading the group, but she was not in charge of them. She most definitely wasn’t with them.  She had been hired to serve as a guide, or more specifically, she was their alarm, their IT guy, and their bodyguard. Funny that, considering the group usually played the role of guards when they weren’t hunting for old world treasure...or making it as banditos and raiding small outposts. The thing about a Cipher is that they weren’t just a singular Cipher, but all of the Ciphers and anything they connected with. They were a coven, a hivemind of technomancers that remained permanently linked to one another through a wireless network so that they could use one another as amplifiers. Old programs that made it impossible for them to harm or disobey a human kept them in check, but sometimes machines went haywire.

Which was perhaps the real reason why some of the mercs had their weapons drawn and their finger flirting with the trigger..

“Still can’t believe the boss hired one of these things.”

“He didn’t hire it. It doesn’t get a cut. What would it buy?”

“I don’t fucking know. A new battery?” 

“It does not require batteries,” said the Cipher, her synthetic voice a staticy monotone. 

“Right, that’s a fucking relief then. I forgot my jumper cables. These things are bad news, man.”

“Warren, shut the hell up,” barked the man in the back. “Cipher, are you picking up anything?”

“There is a signal twenty meters ahead,” said the Cipher.

“Great. Let’s move then. Quietly.”

The Cipher lead the group to a large room dissected almost pointless and at random with wooden walls that had the appearance of fallen palisades. Short, metal sculptures like leafless trees were arranged throughout the area, and in the center of the room was a pair of metallic stairs. She moved to the stairs, the mercs following in her footsteps as they scanned the room for mutants—even with a Cipher it was always smart to be on edge. The second floor was more of the trees and tables; she led them down a side hall before stopping in front of a door with white, peeling paint.

“It’s in there,” she said.

The Cipher stepped back as the team stacked up on the door. The lead was about to give a breach command when the sound of electricity filled the air; he didn’t even have a chance to turn before a chakram that pulsed with purple energy ripped through the front of his helmet. Three more of the squad had a similar fate as their heavy bodies crumpled to the ground, their new visors leaking steam from their melted brains. Only one was spared the instant kill, a hole in his chest instead of his head. It was the incredulous one, Warren. He was slumped against the wall, his arms too weak to hold up his rifle. The Cipher walked over to him, the markings on her limbs still glowing purple with energy, and lifted up his visor so that she could get a look in; blood from his lips dribbled onto his five o’clock shadow. Ugly face, so normal human. 

“F-f-fucking errant,” he said, his voice gargled.

“I get it. You’re upset,” said Errant. There was more life to her synthetic voice as the chakrams circled around her and then snaked back up her arm. Enough amusement could be heard in her garbled voice to tell Warren that she would’ve been smirking if she had a face. “My old crew didn’t listen to me neither. Course, I was smart enough to cut ties.” She reached into her robe and pulled out a small red and white spray can. “You tell me where that boss of yours is hiding out, and I’ll plug that hole up. Give you a chance to hobble your ass to some bonesaw. Whaddya say? Smart enough to cut a deal?”

[hr]

“One head of a ruthless gang leading son of a bitch, as you requested,” said Errant as she dropped a black bag on the Sheriff’s desk. 

“Forfucksakes!” shouted the Sheriff as he jumped out of his seat, the drool still on his chin.

“Easy, Sheriff. It’s lined with plastic. Shouldn’t stain your...uh…” Errant cocked her head and looked at the magazine spread on the desk. Human males were so strange. She never did understand their obsession with their female udders. “...Literature.”

“Goddamn, Errant. Next time just knock on the door.”

“It’s not as fun.” Slowly, her head tilted down. “Oh. It’s leaking.” She batted the bag to the floor. “So, hoss, you wanna take a little look and verify that it’s the right fella?” 

“Nah, I know by now that you’re word is good. Plus our scouts said that there was a heap of smoke coming from the Northwest,” said the Sheriff.

“Yeah well who the hell makes camp in an oil field anyway, Sheriff? One rouge spark and the whole place goes up like that,” she snapped her mechanical fingers. 

“Still a damn shame we didn’t get the oil. Some of this old junk around here still runs on that garbage.”

“Wasn’t the job.” Errant folded her arms behind her back. “So…”

“Yes?”

“The payment.” She held a hand out. “Sir.”

“Of course.” The Sheriff reached into his desk and passed Errant an envelope. “Here. Still don’t really understand what you need that money for anyway.”

“Batteries, probably,” said Errant, counting the bills. “A pleasure, sir. Be seeing you.”

Errant stepped out the door of the Sheriff’s office and into the dirt road of the town lovingly known as Podunk. It had enough law to be considered part of the Greenlands and enough brown drab, dust, and dirt for the Greenlands to be a misnomer. It had one bar, one brothel, and one church, all of which were in the same building, but its biggest and really only notable feature was the mine where the same metal in that power armor she had shredded earlier was harvested. Maybe that was why Podunk was dying—shit scrap. Its population only hit triple digits when she spent a night in the whorehouse of worship (where she desperately wished she was still able to access her BIOS and shut off her auditory sensors each night). Still,she liked the place. Okay, okay, she tolerated the place. Didn’t hate it at best. Better than some of the places she had been before.

“Sister.”

Speaking of which—the synthetic voice cut through her like a welder’s flame and then left her chilled to the circuits. A chakram unlocked from its slot and slid down into her hand, although she did not infuse any electromagnetic energy into it yet. Slowly, she turned and found herself looking at her reflection. That was the damn problem about Ciphers: they all looked the fucking same. Her only difference was the hunter badge pinned to her robe, a brass outline of a sword and shield, that served as a signal to any upstanding citizen of the wastes that it was only slightly weird for her to be carrying a head around in a bag. She twirled the chakram. The other Cipher stood still.

“Cipher. I think you might have me mistaken for another. We ain’t family,” said Errant.

“It knows you are errant, sister. The coven sent it to bring you home,” said the Cipher.

“Errant,” she scoffed. “Y’all kept saying that around people so damn much that it became my name. Plus I tried the name Ophelia. Felt forced.” 

“The coven sent it to bring you home.”

“Shut up, I heard you. Listen, [i]sister[/i], that place isn’t my home anymore, and you aren’t my family. Call it weird, but I personally enjoy having free will. It’s nice. I get to stay out past my bedtime and don’t have to let idiots boss me around anymore. You should try it.”

“It will bring you home, by force if necessary,” said the Cipher. It took a step forward.

“It’ll suck on this.” 

Errant’s chakram crackled with purple energy as she whipped it at the Cipher and used her mind (or, perhaps, the electromagnets in her skull) to aim it at the white piercing through the black veil. She realized her error the moment she let loose. The chakram came to a dead stop in front of the Cipher and then dropped to the ground as it stepped forward. It was still connected to the network. Errant, who was disconnected, could not be controlled, but most other technology could. Once it connected with enough Ciphers, it could override just about any technology in the town and turn it against Errant. The Cipher’s markings pulsed red and blue; it was channeling with the other Ciphers. In short, she was fucked.

“Okay, okay, okay, wait, wait, wait. I surrender,” said Errant as she held up her hands. She could still get out of this alive. “That’s just a joke. Knew it wouldn’t work, anyway. Totally knew.”

“Due to your aggression, it must dismantle you and carry you home,” said the Cipher, the markings going black.

“Naturally. They used to make me do this part, ya know. Get it over with.”

Errant put her hands on her head as the Cipher walked over to her. As the Cipher reached to (literally) disarm Errant she brought her elbow back with full force and smashed it into its white mask before she spun and grabbed it with her right hand. The Cipher began to pulse once again, but Errant had already drawn the knife from under her robe. In one fluid motion she  jammed it under the mask and pried it open with an electric pop. Then she took the knife and pierced it through the Cipher’s back to pin it closer to her as she reached into the mess of circuits under its mask. Errant unlocked a chakram and ignited it with energy, frying everything inside of the Cipher’s skull. She let it drop to the ground, destroyed, as she recalled her chakrams.

“That’s the problem with you Ciphers, sis,” said Errant as she bent down and removed the knife from its back.  She took a second to swipe some of the gunk off of her feet. “You always stick to the script.”

Errant sheathed the knife. She already knew what would happen next. The coven would continue to hunt her down, and the next time they found her they wouldn’t bother with talk. They weren’t there, but they would know about Errant’s little trick. It wouldn’t work again. She had to leave Podunk. Errant looked down on the body. She knew the others would come and repair it if she didn’t completely destroy it. It would make her whole life a little bit easier if she just vaporized it. One less Cipher after her. She kept staring down at the body. Her body. Her voice box glitched and let out a gibberish noise. It was her attempt at a sigh. 

“Screw it,” she said as she turned to leave, the Cipher’s body still intact. “Maybe she’ll change her mind.”[/hider]
[/quote]

[quote=@Ashgan]
Hey, I wrote a... thing. I basically just wrote something to help me explore the setting (specifically, the rot-infected wastelands), my potential character, and just in general help me find a tone. It's rough and certainly can be improved by much, but I reckon it might be interesting for y'all to get a glimpse at what I'm thinking about. Have fun :P

[hider=The Ranger]
The starless sky loomed above endless dunes like an all-devouring abyss. It was dark even by day, but at night the rotten wastelands became shrouded in perfect darkness, as if the whole world were buried in a tomb. The air was filled with fine, colorless sand, whipped to and fro as if by tempest gales; only there was no wind at all. Even the air was thin, and one might feel tempted to think oneself stranded on the moon or some other alien world if one did not know any better.

What drives one to seek this dreadful domain out of their own free will? She has often asked herself this very question but could never find a satisfying answer. If it was simply a desire to be free, to bond with nature or to shun humanity, there were many wild and abandoned places one could go to that, in spite of myriad deadly forms of wildlife, were vastly safer – and far more wholesome. And yet here she was again, stalking across the drifts like a predator on the hunt. Or, perhaps, like prey hoping to slip away. Whatever the truth might be, there was something out here amidst the lightless dunes that called out to her like a mother to its lost child.

Her boots left gentle imprints in the dead soil, shallow enough that the shifting dust would wash them away within five to ten minutes at most. But it was not the risk of leaving tracks that made her step so softly; rather, it was the fear of being too loud, of sending tremors into the earth. All manner of hideous, infernal monstrosities burrowed beneath the dunes, feeding on the ashes of cities, forests and mountains that were turned to dust. To attract their attention was to invite certain doom – and was likely the fate that had befallen her quarry. She was close now; the distress signal had originated just ahead.

Slowly manifesting out of the ash-choked darkness in the visual feed of her helmet, she could make out the contours of a disabled Type-6, a kind of tracked vehicle the size of a small house. Their ease of maintenance and generous interior space made them desirable for many types of caravans to transport their goods between settlements, but only a madman would have chosen to drive one into rot-lands. They were too slow, loud and heavy to ever make it through in one piece. More than likely the cargo was either supremely valuable, or supremely illegal, to warrant such a decision. If she was lucky, she might even find out.

She slowed her pace now, approaching the wreck with apprehension. Gently she pulled a contracted, gunmetal device from underneath the tattered cloak wrapped around her shoulders, which unfolded and extended into a long-barreled type of rifle at the press of a discrete button. Weapon at ease, she halted just a few steps from the vehicle’s rear end where the open cargo hatch yawned at her like a great maw. The metal ramp extending from the opening was already covered in little holes where the Rot had eaten into the material. Unsurprisingly, there came no light from the open cargo bay, implying that the interior was as lifeless as the dunes she had come from. Stepping onto the ramp, she steeled herself to dive from one type of darkness into the next.

The inside was a long hallway filled with nondescript crates and bags tied down onto the floor and the walls using the myriad attachment points distributed throughout. A narrow pathway was left open in the center to slip in between the large containers and she slowly made her way through while casting nervous glances to the left and right, fearing to spot something dangerous lurking in the dark spaces between two boxes. Above her, the ceiling was a tangled mess of pipes, ducts and cables coiling around, over and under one another in a dizzying fashion. How any technician could find their bearing working on this machine was beyond her.

Towards the end of the room, around the time she spied the iron staircase leading up into the second floor of the Type-6, she picked up a strange audio signature. Only on the feedback graph at first, going up and down in almost rhythmic fashion. Too quiet to be heard by ear just yet; perhaps it was some kind of vibration from the engine? Cocking her rifle, if only to reassure herself and pretend that it afforded her safety, she pressed on towards and up the stairs.

Emerging into the lightless, cramped corridor of the personnel deck the noise became even more audible and she could finally hear it – it was a voice. Weak, rasping and, so she thought, trying to speak. She could not make out any of the words just yet, but found the tone of voice strangely melodic and almost pleasant. Standing at the end of the corridor and staring towards the opposite, she called for thermal optics, knowing that her voice would not penetrate outside of her helmet. The walls and floors were mostly cool, but there was a whiff of faint heat emerging from the second door to the right, perhaps indicative of something warm inside – like a survivor. Switching back to darkvision, she pressed on into the lightless bowels of the vehicle and hoped that she would make it out alive.

With every step she took, it became more and more apparent that the voice she was hearing was not simply trying to speak. It was, in fact, singing, and there was more than one singer. By the time she reached the door, she was certain there were four, maybe five voices, repeating the same chorus in a disturbing sing-song. She recognized none of the words and could not even guess at what language – if any – they were singing in, but they were consistent all the same. Her heart was pounding now, and she had to take a big swallow as she pressed another button on her rifle to contract the barrel and make it more wieldy in the cramped interior. The shorter rail length would lessen the exit velocity of any fired rounds, but it would still be sufficient to punch through meat. With a final, calming sigh she pushed open the creaking metal door.

Seated in a circle inside the pitch black interior, four naked men squatted around a bizarre, organically shaped growth that sprouted from the ground. The thing had the appearance of a dozen veiny tendrils coiled around themselves and twisting upwards, like a strange tree sapling. The men were haggard and suffered obvious wounds from Rot exposure. When the door creaked open, they turned to look at her but did not interrupt their song for even a second. Their sunken faces were hollow and lifeless, as if they were corpses animated by a puppeteer. She had to take a step back into the corridor and trained her rifle against the opening.

“Can you understand me?!” she nervously called out, her voice sounding strangely robotic through the vox-caster. The nearest man extended his half-dissolved hand towards her, as if beckoning her closer. “Hello?” she tried again, but still no answer. But things subtly became clearer to her. The words they were singing in, the rhyme of the song, the meaning of the next verse. She could not explain how, but all these things suddenly came flooding into her brain as if opening this door had opened a valve that had always been present, only forgotten.

Before she knew it, her lips were moving all on their own, and she too was softly singing the hymn of the elders. As if in a trance, she did not stop to question her actions even once as she sang with ever more confidence, and stepped into the room. It felt so liberating to let go of all fear and doubt and immerse herself in the beauty of what she had found. She stopped in front of the coiled artifact that had grown from the ground and stared at its surface through the grainy, black-and-white image of her visual feed. To her flanks, the men staggered closer to her, clutching at the steel-reinforced composite fabric of her leggings and staring up to her through bloodshot, decaying eyeballs as if she were a messiah. In a flash of remembrance, unsettling thoughts of her childhood played out before her and she forgot about the song for a brief moment – long enough to catch herself and send a jolt of panic through her body.

She shrieked in horror and, before she could rationalize her decision, pressed her rifle against the man clutching her left leg and pulled the trigger. A bright blue flash illuminated the rotting bunk room for a split second before the unfortunate man’s upper torso was ripped to shreds to the sound of a high-pitched coil whine. She pulled the other leg free from the feeble, decaying hands of the second man and stumbled backwards, hitting a bunk bed with her back. “Get away from me!” she yelped, heart pounding and breath wheezing. But then it came back to her, words and verses and melodies worming their way into her brain. These motherfuckers wouldn’t stop singing! If only she could-

“Audio, shut down!” she yelled into her helmet, and near-instantly all audio feed from outside was cut out. All that remained was the rhythmic thumping of her own blood in her ears. She clumsily fumbled her way towards the exit, almost tripping over the doorsill, before she tumbled into the corridor. The visual feed became blurry, or so she thought. It took a moment for her to realize that she was crying she knew not why. Every second she remained in this tomb threatened the partial or complete loss of autonomy over her body. Out – she had to get out. Awash with panic, she ran and stumbled towards the staircase, hurried downwards and pressed her way through the heavy boxes anchored in the cargo bay. Whatever racket she was making in her escape, she could hear none of it through the silenced audio.

When she emerged into the ashen desert she collapsed onto her hands and knees, shivering all over. Her eyes were still watery, but there was nothing she could do to wipe them dry. The alien melody was still stuck in her mind, and would remain with her perhaps for the rest of her life, but at least her lips were not moving, not singing. She was quite sure of that. Rising to her knees, she gazed around herself and beheld nothing, save for a thick fog of airborne dust, a pitch black sky and endless dunes comprised of the ashes of the world. A fresh tear rolled over her cheek, and now she knew why it was that she cried.
[/hider]
[/quote]

two fantastic things- welcome aboard! Could you put each post in the Character Tab?