Atrophy

Chase the Night

@HexaflexagonCool! Cool, cool, cool. I moved him over.

@NuttsnBoltsAwww, not Jaws? Or you could throw dark and go the full creepy route and call her Daughter. (Gaze is actually kinda pretty good, and I'm just jealous that you were able to come up with a handle in about a tenth of the time it took me to go "fuck it, I'm leaving it blank--oh!")

Chase the Night

Blank

Thirty-six | 2030-1-30 | Five foot ten

---

APPEARANCE

A quick once over of Blank and it would be hard to imagine he was anything but one hundred percent pure organic. He’s reasonably in shape with a slight athletic build, although his face is rather plain. If anything he looks like your average mid 30s white guy with a unstylish brown hair cut short tucked under a hat, brown eyes that have only slightly noticeable bags forming underneath, and a few days of stubble slashed with splotches of gray hairs. It’s the face of the kind of person whose name you always forget, of the guy who introduces himself, shakes your hand, and then instantly disappears from your mind the minute one of you leaves the room.

A week later you’re in some bar celebrating your promotion and there is a dingy looking dude with a backwards baseball cap and a bulky hoodie who comes walking over and calls you by name to congratulate you. He shakes your hand again and flashes you a smile. Not a perfect smile, not a disgusting yellow smile crafted from cigarettes and coffee, but just an average whatever smile. You pretend to recognize him and as he walks away you’re already about to forget about the guy and tuck into your next beer when feel a chill run down your spine. Something’s off, and it’s not just the taste of your shitty light beer. You look at him again; how could you have ever thought he was even remotely organic?

The problem starts with his boring, lackluster brown eyes. Blank’s right eye appears to be a lazy eye, but after some study you can notice how it jumps from darting around separately to focusing with its partner. When he blinks the right eyelid moves in a way that is too jerky to be right, like it was filmed but then half of the frames were removed from the video. When he speaks you can see that the words and sounds do not seem to match the motion of his lips. It’s like they are a second behind or a second ahead, but never completely lined up. You’re looking at his skin now. The skin on his face is weathered from stress and the sun. However, the flesh creeping out of his sleeves look too bright and smooth as if someone had touched them up with an airbrush. Beneath his sweatshirt you can make out the top of a combat vest. He catches you staring so you look away, and the second you look back the man is nowhere to be seen. Vanished. Gone. And by the end of the night he’s gone from your mind, too.

PERSONALITY

Despite playfully toeing the “mysterious stranger with a dark past” line, Blank is actually a rather cheery and friendly fellow. He identifies himself as a good listener, and he’s the kind of person who buys someone a beer and by the end of the night knows their name, birthday, favorite food, and biggest regret. He’s rubbed elbows with many different kinds of people, and knows how turn up or turn down his professionalism to make others feel comfortable. However, in casual conversation he prefers to remain rather lighthearted and optimistic, and the more familiar he is with someone the more prone he is to throwing playful little wisecracks their way. When on a job he’s as cool as a cucumber and frequently claims that things aren’t fun until they go wrong. Blank doesn’t seem especially picky about his jobs, especially these days, and takes the ones most Divers would shy away from out of fear of repercussion or some moral dilemma. If asked why he does the filth jobs Blank just smiles and shrugs, saying something like “work’s work” and smiling or something equally dismissive.

And that’s the thing about Blank. You can talk to him for days, but he’d never volunteer any real information about himself and is quick to change the subject when it comes to the days before he was a Diver. Below the plastic smiles and programmed banter, Blank is a lost man with a shattered heart. He (rightfully) believes that nobody wants to see a grown man sulk about like some teenager who just got dumped by their high school sweetheart, so he pretends that everything is sunshine, flowers, and lollipops instead of exploring his anxieties. Truthfully, he always feels sullen and has a rather negative outlook on things. The only thing that really gets him up in the morning is the hope that one day he’ll find her. Really, he’s just another stupid, obsessed, hopeless romantic.

BACKGROUND

The story of Blank is the story of Vitruvian Solutions, the corporation the man would grow up inside of and work for until, assumedly, the end of his life. Like Blank, VitSol was formed almost entirely on accident after a drunken night of fun between two wealthy strangers. A few months later and the strangers had formed one of the first augmentation corporation focused largely on subdermal implants that did not disrupt the appearance of the normal human body. Meanwhile, Blank’s parents had formed a screaming, shitting baby who had ruined his mother’s figure with stretch marks. Unlike Blank’s parents, who somehow managed to stay together until the end despite absolutely loathing each other, VitSol’s founders only made it about five years before the inventive Janis Paige proved to be too much of an eccentric for the more business-minded Vanessa North split off and joined the more conservative and much more profitable Ordre Publique Industries. Blank’s mother, a school friend of Janis, was brought in as Vanessa’s replacement.

Blank spent his childhood years mostly inside of VitSol’s corporate offices, being taught by tutors and playing with the other corporate kids. He was raised to be well mannered and proper (although not by his parents, who were far too busy), and he spent an alarming amount of time in Janis’s lab watching the older woman try to come up with her next invention—although he was mostly interested in coming just to see the days when she couldn’t find a solution and would watch her tear her lab apart in a childish fit. As he grew older his interest shifted from watching Janis to watching her young, pretty lab assistant named ████████. She had hair the color of—*static*—and eyes that were just the most beautiful—*static*. He would close his eyes every night and see ████████’s face and knew that she was the one, not realizing that it was largely the stupid thoughts of a horny teenage boy. Still, he was determined to be with her, and when he joined the company proper he petitioned his mother to place him in the R&D facilities.

She put him in security instead. Not because she wanted him to stay away from Janis or ████████, nor because the security headquarters was closer to her office so she could keep an eye on her only son. No, momma Blank assigned him to security because that’s where the aptitude tests determined that he would fit best. She had a business to run, and the R&D team already lacked enough focus as it was without the boss’s stupid kid fucking everything up. At least in the security section he would get some discipline and learn how to focus. Blank still didn’t give up on getting close to ████████, and used his status as the boss’s son to coerce the captain of security to assign him to the laboratories after he passed his training. When Janis unveiled her Fixer Project (and idea she had stolen from foreign corps) Blank was the first to sign up knowing that it would be ████████ who was going to be helping with the implants. Just some other stupid way to get to know her and to, hopefully, catch her eye.

It was a terrible plan, yet it worked. For nearly five years (between the augmenting, subterfuge, and the hunting of Divers who had acted out against VitSol), Blank and the woman—*static*. Looking back, it was probably the last time the man was truly happy. And then one morning she was gone and he couldn’t even remember her fucking face. Nobody could. Not even Janis. All records of ████████, all videos, all emails, everything was scrubbed clean. Worse still, important company secrets and prototype devices had been stolen. Blank’s mother was furious at the boy. It was his job to take care of Divers, and not in the goddamn—*static*—way. He was put on probation, but it didn’t even matter. The company was sunk. His mother, still a savvy business lady, saw the iceberg coming and abandoned ship before everything completely crashed and took a consulting position at her husband’s company. Blank wasn’t invited along. His oversight in ████████’s infiltration ruined any professional relationship he had with his parents.

For a few more floundering years, Janis tried to run VitSol. However, with almost all of her prototypes already being produced and sold by other corporations and a complete lack of any business mind whatsoever it was seen as just a desperate attempt by a desperate, hopeless woman. She became reclusive. Nobody was shocked when she was found in her office with an empty bottle of scotch, a hole in her head, and her brains splattered all over the window. Nobody except Blank, who had spent too much time with the woman to believe that she was the kind of person who would give in. Ordre Publique Industries, the company now ran by Janis’s original partner Vanessa North, purchased VitSol and liquidated the company. Blank was offered a position on their security team, but he declined. After twenty-something years, he was tired of corporate bullshit and, unlike his mother, he lacked any real savviness.

Blank became a Diver, because he had no real other skills or options and part of him, deep down, thought he would one day run into ████████. Thanks to his advanced augmentations from his days as a Spook, Blank quickly established a reputation as one of the most effective Divers one could hire. He saw the job through and made certain that no messes were left behind and no tracks were made. For a while, hiring Blank to sabotage a competitor, assassinate a rival, or steal a secret was almost a guaranteed success. He lived by VitSol’s slogan, repurposing it as his own sort of personal creed: discretion above valor. He back a living legend among D.Vs.

And then he started to fade away. Newer, cheaper augments were proving to be remarkably better than VitSol’s old tech. Blank soon found himself struggling out in the field, forced to rely more on his wits and his instincts than his gadgets and his augments as security measures grew and grew. Nowadays, when old D.Vs hear the name Blank they just smile sadly and nod, while the neophytes just raise an eyebrow and stare dumbly. Despite knowing that he’s falling behind with nearly a decade old tech, the man refuses to change or upgrade his augments. Some say it’s stubbornness, others say spite. Only Blank knows the real reason. It’s fear. His augmentations are the only thing from ████████ that remain. Without what’s left of her he would have nothing; he’d be blank.

WEAPONS

Blank prefers to remain hidden and undetected in favor of straight forward assault, but he does carry a few tools on himself when things get messy. His first weapon is an OPI SB79 “Tranquility”, a compact, twenty-round anti-material SMG equipped with a foldable stock, a built-in suppressor for reduced muzzle flash and sound, and an optical scope that wirelessly connects to ocular implants allowing for one to aim without leaning out of cover. His second weapon is a VitSol Overloader, a powerful stun baton that was removed from the markets after people discovered that a quick tampering could easily turn the nonlethal weapon into a pocket electric chair. Even today it can knock out the most dangerous of C-Freaks, although the baton takes a while to recharge. Blank also carries a grab bag of EMP and smoke grenades to level the playing field, as well as enough plastique to take out a building.

SKILLSET

-Infiltration
-Sabotage
-Tracking
-Escapology

AUGMENTATIONS

VitSol Ocular Reconnaissance, Awareness, Concealment & Low-Light Enhancement Version 0.8: More colloquially known as the decidedly less wordy “Oracle Eye”. The Oracle Eye offer many benefits that were absolute cutting edge back in the day. For starters, it has the now standard HUD, zooming, night vision, and thermal vision modes. Also, the Oracle Eye is able to tag targets to both track and predict their movements, allowing a user to almost always be one step ahead of their target. The Oracle Eye can detect radiation from electronics and as well as “see” sound waves and functions as a kind of radar. This allows the user to roughly map out the area within a limited radius around themselves on their HUD, handy for preventing them from walking out in front of a security camera or letting an Enforcer get the drop on them. The Oracle Eye also allows for monocular vision, visual and audio recording and projection, and is undetectable when it is or is not in use.

VitSol’s prototype retinal implant failed to ever make it out of testing before the company went bankrupt, although a number of them did escape liquidation. However, installation of the Oracle Eye required complete removal of the natural eye and thus would prevent any user from upgrading to better retinal implants in the near future. With advances in x-ray vision and cloaking systems that bypass the Eye’s vision, the device is hardly desirable. Today, they are seen as a glorified camera/radar device and novelty item sought after by collectors and little else, although some Corps would pay a pretty penny to get their hand on one so they could crack the elaborate code for the uncannily accurate prediction algorithm.

VitSol “Silent Running” Hypermobility Limbs: Limb replacements covered with reinforced, self-repairing yet “ultra realistic” skin. The limbs are built more for agility than raw power, although they do hit harder than regular hands and feet. The limbs allow for extreme amounts of unnatural flexibility with the ability to bend at the joint any which way, allowing the users to fit through or hid in more spaces. The augmented limbs also act as sound dampeners, allowing a user to land on their hands or feet or sprint without producing much noise at all. Designed largely to provide users with augmented limbs without an obvious appearance, an error in the design doc made it so the artificial skin remained unaffected by UV rays. Meaning that anyone who installed the SR Limbs over two decades ago now have incredibly youthful and creamy doll-like arms and legs to go along with a potentially tanner/paler and more wrinkled face and body.

VitSol VoxMo: A failed attempt to break into the mainstream by creating a hyper-realistic vocal synthesiser that was marketed as the “First Step Towards Pop Stardom”, it was immediately shelved after a broadcast over the Net met with an incredible amount of backlash due towards the terrible lip syncing of the device itself—the performer was reported to look more like a fish slowly dying on dry land or a poorly dubbed kung fu film. The voice modulator itself works wonders, and users can produce a multitude of sounds outside of human voices, although the lip syncing issues occur even when they speak in their own natural tone.

Project Phantasm: A secret project by VitSol to create the first perpetual cloaking device as an alternative to an active camouflage for in-house use by their fixers only, Project Phantasm was a microscopic, neural implant installed in the parietal lobe and hooked up to a bunch of neurons. These neurons were supposed to charge the chip by the electrical impulses in the brain so VitSol’s Spooks could remain invisible. While the it did allow users to cloak themselves for longer, it had an interesting side effect where after a varying amount of time (usually around five straight minutes) users would quickly begin to lose their sense of taste, smell, touch, sound, and sight over another period of time (around ten minutes). It was deemed a partial success until Spooks started to permanently lose their senses and then some. After that it was just another nail in the company’s coffin. Most users stuck with the Project Phantasm chip keep their use of their cloaking ability to short, infrequent bursts out of fear of permanent brain damage.

Chase the Night

Well hey, since everybody else is doing it...

"Hey, read me!" [+]

Blank

Thirty-six | 2030-1-30 | Five foot ten

---

APPEARANCE

A quick once over of Blank and it would be hard to imagine he was anything but one hundred percent pure organic. He’s reasonably in shape with a slight athletic build, although his face is rather plain. If anything he looks like your average mid 30s white guy with a unstylish brown hair cut short tucked under a hat, brown eyes that have only slightly noticeable bags forming underneath, and a few days of stubble slashed with splotches of gray hairs. It’s the face of the kind of person whose name you always forget, of the guy who introduces himself, shakes your hand, and then instantly disappears from your mind the minute one of you leaves the room.

A week later you’re in some bar celebrating your promotion and there is a dingy looking dude with a backwards baseball cap and a bulky hoodie who comes walking over and calls you by name to congratulate you. He shakes your hand again and flashes you a smile. Not a perfect smile, not a disgusting yellow smile crafted from cigarettes and coffee, but just an average whatever smile. You pretend to recognize him and as he walks away you’re already about to forget about the guy and tuck into your next beer when feel a chill run down your spine. Something’s off, and it’s not just the taste of your shitty light beer. You look at him again; how could you have ever thought he was even remotely organic?

The problem starts with his boring, lackluster brown eyes. Blank’s right eye appears to be a lazy eye, but after some study you can notice how it jumps from darting around separately to focusing with its partner. When he blinks the right eyelid moves in a way that is too jerky to be right, like it was filmed but then half of the frames were removed from the video. When he speaks you can see that the words and sounds do not seem to match the motion of his lips. It’s like they are a second behind or a second ahead, but never completely lined up. You’re looking at his skin now. The skin on his face is weathered from stress and the sun. However, the flesh creeping out of his sleeves look too bright and smooth as if someone had touched them up with an airbrush. Beneath his sweatshirt you can make out the top of a combat vest. He catches you staring so you look away, and the second you look back the man is nowhere to be seen. Vanished. Gone. And by the end of the night he’s gone from your mind, too.

PERSONALITY

Despite playfully toeing the “mysterious stranger with a dark past” line, Blank is actually a rather cheery and friendly fellow. He identifies himself as a good listener, and he’s the kind of person who buys someone a beer and by the end of the night knows their name, birthday, favorite food, and biggest regret. He’s rubbed elbows with many different kinds of people, and knows how turn up or turn down his professionalism to make others feel comfortable. However, in casual conversation he prefers to remain rather lighthearted and optimistic, and the more familiar he is with someone the more prone he is to throwing playful little wisecracks their way. When on a job he’s as cool as a cucumber and frequently claims that things aren’t fun until they go wrong. Blank doesn’t seem especially picky about his jobs, especially these days, and takes the ones most Divers would shy away from out of fear of repercussion or some moral dilemma. If asked why he does the filth jobs Blank just smiles and shrugs, saying something like “work’s work” and smiling or something equally dismissive.

And that’s the thing about Blank. You can talk to him for days, but he’d never volunteer any real information about himself and is quick to change the subject when it comes to the days before he was a Diver. Below the plastic smiles and programmed banter, Blank is a lost man with a shattered heart. He (rightfully) believes that nobody wants to see a grown man sulk about like some teenager who just got dumped by their high school sweetheart, so he pretends that everything is sunshine, flowers, and lollipops instead of exploring his anxieties. Truthfully, he always feels sullen and has a rather negative outlook on things. The only thing that really gets him up in the morning is the hope that one day he’ll find her. Really, he’s just another stupid, obsessed, hopeless romantic.

BACKGROUND

The story of Blank is the story of Vitruvian Solutions, the corporation the man would grow up inside of and work for until, assumedly, the end of his life. Like Blank, VitSol was formed almost entirely on accident after a drunken night of fun between two wealthy strangers. A few months later and the strangers had formed one of the first augmentation corporation focused largely on subdermal implants that did not disrupt the appearance of the normal human body. Meanwhile, Blank’s parents had formed a screaming, shitting baby who had ruined his mother’s figure with stretch marks. Unlike Blank’s parents, who somehow managed to stay together until the end despite absolutely loathing each other, VitSol’s founders only made it about five years before the inventive Janis Paige proved to be too much of an eccentric for the more business-minded Vanessa North split off and joined the more conservative and much more profitable Ordre Publique Industries. Blank’s mother, a school friend of Janis, was brought in as Vanessa’s replacement.

Blank spent his childhood years mostly inside of VitSol’s corporate offices, being taught by tutors and playing with the other corporate kids. He was raised to be well mannered and proper (although not by his parents, who were far too busy), and he spent an alarming amount of time in Janis’s lab watching the older woman try to come up with her next invention—although he was mostly interested in coming just to see the days when she couldn’t find a solution and would watch her tear her lab apart in a childish fit. As he grew older his interest shifted from watching Janis to watching her young, pretty lab assistant named ████████. She had hair the color of—*static*—and eyes that were just the most beautiful—*static*. He would close his eyes every night and see ████████’s face and knew that she was the one, not realizing that it was largely the stupid thoughts of a horny teenage boy. Still, he was determined to be with her, and when he joined the company proper he petitioned his mother to place him in the R&D facilities.

She put him in security instead. Not because she wanted him to stay away from Janis or ████████, nor because the security headquarters was closer to her office so she could keep an eye on her only son. No, momma Blank assigned him to security because that’s where the aptitude tests determined that he would fit best. She had a business to run, and the R&D team already lacked enough focus as it was without the boss’s stupid kid fucking everything up. At least in the security section he would get some discipline and learn how to focus. Blank still didn’t give up on getting close to ████████, and used his status as the boss’s son to coerce the captain of security to assign him to the laboratories after he passed his training. When Janis unveiled her Fixer Project (and idea she had stolen from foreign corps) Blank was the first to sign up knowing that it would be ████████ who was going to be helping with the implants. Just some other stupid way to get to know her and to, hopefully, catch her eye.

It was a terrible plan, yet it worked. For nearly five years (between the augmenting, subterfuge, and the hunting of Divers who had acted out against VitSol), Blank and the woman—*static*. Looking back, it was probably the last time the man was truly happy. And then one morning she was gone and he couldn’t even remember her fucking face. Nobody could. Not even Janis. All records of ████████, all videos, all emails, everything was scrubbed clean. Worse still, important company secrets and prototype devices had been stolen. Blank’s mother was furious at the boy. It was his job to take care of Divers, and not in the goddamn—*static*—way. He was put on probation, but it didn’t even matter. The company was sunk. His mother, still a savvy business lady, saw the iceberg coming and abandoned ship before everything completely crashed and took a consulting position at her husband’s company. Blank wasn’t invited along. His oversight in ████████’s infiltration ruined any professional relationship he had with his parents.

For a few more floundering years, Janis tried to run VitSol. However, with almost all of her prototypes already being produced and sold by other corporations and a complete lack of any business mind whatsoever it was seen as just a desperate attempt by a desperate, hopeless woman. She became reclusive. Nobody was shocked when she was found in her office with an empty bottle of scotch, a hole in her head, and her brains splattered all over the window. Nobody except Blank, who had spent too much time with the woman to believe that she was the kind of person who would give in. Ordre Publique Industries, the company now ran by Janis’s original partner Vanessa North, purchased VitSol and liquidated the company. Blank was offered a position on their security team, but he declined. After twenty-something years, he was tired of corporate bullshit and, unlike his mother, he lacked any real savviness.

Blank became a Diver, because he had no real other skills or options and part of him, deep down, thought he would one day run into ████████. Thanks to his advanced augmentations from his days as a Spook, Blank quickly established a reputation as one of the most effective Divers one could hire. He saw the job through and made certain that no messes were left behind and no tracks were made. For a while, hiring Blank to sabotage a competitor, assassinate a rival, or steal a secret was almost a guaranteed success. He lived by VitSol’s slogan, repurposing it as his own sort of personal creed: discretion above valor. He back a living legend among D.Vs.

And then he started to fade away. Newer, cheaper augments were proving to be remarkably better than VitSol’s old tech. Blank soon found himself struggling out in the field, forced to rely more on his wits and his instincts than his gadgets and his augments as security measures grew and grew. Nowadays, when old D.Vs hear the name Blank they just smile sadly and nod, while the neophytes just raise an eyebrow and stare dumbly. Despite knowing that he’s falling behind with nearly a decade old tech, the man refuses to change or upgrade his augments. Some say it’s stubbornness, others say spite. Only Blank knows the real reason. It’s fear. His augmentations are the only thing from ████████ that remain. Without what’s left of her he would have nothing; he’d be blank.

WEAPONS

Blank prefers to remain hidden and undetected in favor of straight forward assault, but he does carry a few tools on himself when things get messy. His first weapon is an OPI SB79 “Tranquility”, a compact, twenty-round anti-material SMG equipped with a foldable stock, a built-in suppressor for reduced muzzle flash and sound, and an optical scope that wirelessly connects to ocular implants allowing for one to aim without leaning out of cover. His second weapon is a VitSol Overloader, a powerful stun baton that was removed from the markets after people discovered that a quick tampering could easily turn the nonlethal weapon into a pocket electric chair. Even today it can knock out the most dangerous of C-Freaks, although the baton takes a while to recharge. Blank also carries a grab bag of EMP and smoke grenades to level the playing field, as well as enough plastique to take out a building.

SKILLSET

-Infiltration
-Sabotage
-Tracking
-Escapology

AUGMENTATIONS

VitSol Ocular Reconnaissance, Awareness, Concealment & Low-Light Enhancement Version 0.8: More colloquially known as the decidedly less wordy “Oracle Eye”. The Oracle Eye offer many benefits that were absolute cutting edge back in the day. For starters, it has the now standard HUD, zooming, night vision, and thermal vision modes. Also, the Oracle Eye is able to tag targets to both track and predict their movements, allowing a user to almost always be one step ahead of their target. The Oracle Eye can detect radiation from electronics and as well as “see” sound waves and functions as a kind of radar. This allows the user to roughly map out the area within a limited radius around themselves on their HUD, handy for preventing them from walking out in front of a security camera or letting an Enforcer get the drop on them. The Oracle Eye also allows for monocular vision, visual and audio recording and projection, and is undetectable when it is or is not in use.

VitSol’s prototype retinal implant failed to ever make it out of testing before the company went bankrupt, although a number of them did escape liquidation. However, installation of the Oracle Eye required complete removal of the natural eye and thus would prevent any user from upgrading to better retinal implants in the near future. With advances in x-ray vision and cloaking systems that bypass the Eye’s vision, the device is hardly desirable. Today, they are seen as a glorified camera/radar device and novelty item sought after by collectors and little else, although some Corps would pay a pretty penny to get their hand on one so they could crack the elaborate code for the uncannily accurate prediction algorithm.

VitSol “Silent Running” Hypermobility Limbs: Limb replacements covered with reinforced, self-repairing yet “ultra realistic” skin. The limbs are built more for agility than raw power, although they do hit harder than regular hands and feet. The limbs allow for extreme amounts of unnatural flexibility with the ability to bend at the joint any which way, allowing the users to fit through or hid in more spaces. The augmented limbs also act as sound dampeners, allowing a user to land on their hands or feet or sprint without producing much noise at all. Designed largely to provide users with augmented limbs without an obvious appearance, an error in the design doc made it so the artificial skin remained unaffected by UV rays. Meaning that anyone who installed the SR Limbs over two decades ago now have incredibly youthful and creamy doll-like arms and legs to go along with a potentially tanner/paler and more wrinkled face and body.

VitSol VoxMo: A failed attempt to break into the mainstream by creating a hyper-realistic vocal synthesiser that was marketed as the “First Step Towards Pop Stardom”, it was immediately shelved after a broadcast over the Net met with an incredible amount of backlash due towards the terrible lip syncing of the device itself—the performer was reported to look more like a fish slowly dying on dry land or a poorly dubbed kung fu film. The voice modulator itself works wonders, and users can produce a multitude of sounds outside of human voices, although the lip syncing issues occur even when they speak in their own natural tone.

Project Phantasm: A secret project by VitSol to create the first perpetual cloaking device as an alternative to an active camouflage for in-house use by their fixers only, Project Phantasm was a microscopic, neural implant installed in the parietal lobe and hooked up to a bunch of neurons. These neurons were supposed to charge the chip by the electrical impulses in the brain so VitSol’s Spooks could remain invisible. While the it did allow users to cloak themselves for longer, it had an interesting side effect where after a varying amount of time (usually around five straight minutes) users would quickly begin to lose their sense of taste, smell, touch, sound, and sight over another period of time (around ten minutes). It was deemed a partial success until Spooks started to permanently lose their senses and then some. After that it was just another nail in the company’s coffin. Most users stuck with the Project Phantasm chip keep their use of their cloaking ability to short, infrequent bursts out of fear of permanent brain damage.

Let me know how I ruined everything.

Amongst the Lonesome- A return to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

@DJAtomikaCurrently working on some stuff with Flagg, but it's not entirely impossible for them to run into each other while on their own separate hunts.

Chase the Night

@HexaflexagonThanks for the details, boss!

The Origin: A War Resumed (Arc One; Completed)

On another note, I know Christopher might be a surprising name for this kind of roleplay, and I apologize for that. That was the name the character first had, and I don't have the urge to change it yet, so even though there might not be a Christ in Origin, screw it.

@The Darklight Project

I love your almost neurotic worries about the most mundane of issues. Wouldn't have even blinked an eye at the name until you mentioned it. Like literally every somewhat common Western name is somehow derived from the Bible or Game of Thrones, and as long as nobody names their character Daenerys Iscariot then I don't think there's really any issue.

Hell, it's better than following the Atrophy School of Naming where you just steal shit from mythology, song titles, or the Irish.

@Aya the SmallOh hey welcome by the way!

Chase the Night

Poking in to say that I'm going to begin working on a CS. That's a lie. I've technically begun to work on a CS, it's just that instead of writing anything down I've been getting myself distracted by Wiki-walks and so, so many videos of slightly creepy Japanese androids. Let's call it research.

Seriously, it's kinda nightmarish but I can't stop

@HexaflexagonI actually did wanna run a few things by you while I continue to spend literally hours thinking up a handle that's cool but not too cool and watching videos of dentistry robots brainstorm up my character.

1) The Net. It's been a hot minute since I've read Neuromancer, and I remember, um, names and that's about it. I take it that Sparks (or maybe everyone?) plug themselves in through some kind of pseudo-USB cable and, like, digitally upload their mind to the Net, yeah? Would they run risks of getting their brains fried from digital security measures like firewalls or being forcibly unplugged (like how my iPod warns me about the dangers of disconnecting before ejecting), or are they relatively secure from having their minds melted (like how disconnecting my iPod without ejecting has never actually done anything bad)? Likewise, would Sparks trying to hack into Corps be able to do it from the outside, or would Corps have a secure kind of Intranet/LAN that can only be accessed from inside thus requiring Divers to clear a path for Sparks and/or be Sparks themselves?

Also, everything on the Net that an average user would see would pretty much be controlled by Corps and loaded with subtle and not-so-subtle advertisements, yeah? Because I just want to imagine someone using the Net as a VR escape to relax on a digital beach drinking a digital beer after a hard day of trawling or tedious pencil pushing only for them to be interrupted by a Neo-Comcast pop-up informing them why their VirtualXcape is so much better than the free Veach app they're using.

2) Since most Divers, Enforcers, and Spooks are all Cybered up would EMPs be an available and common countermeasure against them? Say a duder has cyber legs and eyes, would an EMP temporarily make him blind and lame or just remove the added perks of the cyber parts? Or would it be something more like EMPs work against straight electronics, but a special lining mixed with the organic parts mixed with hand-waving for the sake of fun means EMPs wouldn't effect augmentations?

_{...EMP Grenades? Okay I'll stop.}

3) This one's just a character concept: former Spook from a Corp that went belly up whose once cutting edge stealth augmentations are now outdated when compared to modern Spooks forcing them to become a Diver. They'd be heavily augmented, but it would all be through subdermal implants with the intention of making them appear completely human. However, the implants were not as sleek as they are these days, giving them a sort of uncanny valley vibe (hence why I'm watching so many goddamn videos of creepy baby robots). I figure the inelegant and sorta creepy appearance of the "just-not-quite-right" augments coupled with the mass market appeal being focused on those damn sleek and sexy robot parts would be the major reason their former Corp went bankrupt.

Chase the Night: A Cyberpunk Story

Oh this looks rather rad. Looking forward to sneaking a peek at that OOC.

@TraitorMan, hearing that music just made me so sad that there will never be another video game where I can run around as a goldfish controlling a robot dual-wielding Tommy guns while gunning down green flaming monkeys.

The Origin: A War Resumed (Arc One; Completed)

Ennis

Ennis couldn’t sleep. The aches and pains from the road demanded to be heard, and he swore quietly underneath his breath. His curse had saved him some nasty burns once or twice from one of Nia’s errant fireballs when she had been practicing so many years ago, but now he would have done anything to be able to trade it in just so he could cast one healing spell on himself. Instead, he just shifted in the bed, trying to find a spot that didn’t fire off a shot of pain through his body. He stirred, trying to find the energy to push himself off of the bed and perhaps stumble into a bath (surely, these country folks still practice hygiene, yes?) but his body refused to lift itself up. He would just marinate in his own sweat, then. The thought of it made his skin crawl.

Hunger, however, proved to give him the strength he needed to pull himself out of bed. He stumbled slightly as he got up and steadied himself on the bed’s frame as he felt his legs reform themselves into something solid. Grabbing his hat and smacking the dust from the road off of it, he ran a hand through his hair and put the cap on the top of his head. In fact, despite his aches he still found the energy to brush off whatever grime that had settled on him. He did not want to eat looking like some disheveled madman. Pushing his way through the door, Ennis kept a hand on the wall as he made his way down the stairs and into the common room of the inn.

He cast a look over to his companions—Drosil had just joined the table of ladies—and he decided he would join them once he order his meal. Sitting down at the counter, however, immediately changed his plans. There was no way he would be getting back up. Not for a few minutes, at the very least. He tucked into his food, nearly oblivious to the scene that was playing out behind him until Cyril announced the name of Damon Dubois. Ennis nearly spit out the soup that was in his mouth as he twisted, painfully, in his chair and added his own variation on the paladin’s title to the ever-expanding list.

“That Fair-Weather Bastard,” said another voice instead. Ennis almost leapt out of his seat (an action that surely would have sent him to the floor) as Vesta seemingly materialized next to him, leaning with a back against the bar. Already, she somehow had another drink in her hand. She was looking through angry eyes at the Paladin. She spoke in a muttered voice, but Ennis felt that she wasn’t really talking to him. “Of course that boy would bring that asshole along, too. As if we didn’t have enough problems as it is.” She took a heavy swig from her mug and slammed it on the bar. “Let’s go say hello. Wouldn’t want the boy to get upset.”

Vesta walked from the bar to the the table of their companions; Ennis struggled after her. Vesta shoved past Christopher. Ennis gave him an apologetic handwave. They arrived just in time to hear the Paladin’s comment about coffins.

“Yes, the bodies do just seem to pile up when you are around, Damon,” said Vesta. She looked at Cyril and nodded at the villagers the Sentinels had brought in. “More recruits, I take it? Shall I ask the innkeeper if he would want to accompany us, or perhaps the stablemaster? I’d ask the undertaker, but I fear he’s going to be quite busy in the next couple of days,” she said, her eyes glowering as they turned back towards the Paladin. “Why are you here, Damon?”

Her question, however, was lost in an outrageous and obviously fake laugh from Ennis. He slapped her on her shoulder and pulled himself in front of Vesta, wiping a tear that wasn’t there away from his face.

“Oh, what a kidder you are, Vesta. I see why they call you Joy, now. Truly the life of the party, always ready with a joke or your quick wit,” said Ennis, smiling brightly despite the daggers Vesta’s eyes were staring into him. He clasped the Paladin’s hand. “ Hi, Ennis Cade. It is truly fantastic to see you again, Sir. Well, we never actually met face to face, but you did help my family with an, uh, discrete matter many, many years ago. It is an honor to have you accompany us. Isn’t it, Vesta?”

“Honor isn’t a word I would use when talking about this man,” she said. “Damon, why are you he—”

“A delight, isn’t she?” said Ennis, giving another loud, fake laugh. “Oh…”

He knew the man’s actions towards blasphemers and that worried him. He also knew that he did not know how far Vesta was willing to go to egg on the Paladin, but she did not seem like the kind of woman who gave much regard to the Divines and that terrified him. He looked around with pleading eyes at the others, hoping somebody would steer the conversation towards, well, anything. His eyes fell on Drosil, unaware of the state of being the magus was in. The man seemed intelligent; surely he could fix this before it came a mess.

VIGILANCE: Sanctuary

@Lord WraithStill here, boss!