@Famotill hey, I know a guy from another site that would thrive in this setting. He's not signed up here so he would be 0 days, 0 posts but I can vouch for him as a committed writer. Would you be open to him signing on as well?
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@Famotill if you don't mind me asking, how did you make the maps? Both the continent maps and the individual maps of Vicelles and Astoria? They look awesome, is there a site or software you did this on?
Also interested!
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The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention - Chapter 2 (Completed)
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5 yrs ago
Forum: Advanced Roleplay
@Gcold sorry, will get on it right away.
Corros Meeran
Boring. The only word that summed up Corros' day so far, and it was barely even noon. He had been awake since before anyone else in the squad, as was normally the way; he hadn't adjusted well to life aboard the Tempest so far. It was strange, a far cry from his family's cosy home in Lothal City or the dorms of the Academy. Those dorms didn't float around in space, for one. New surroundings always seemed to put Corros on edge at first, and this time the mixed feelings of homesickness and excitement were playing havoc with his sleeping pattern. It wasn't that Corros didn't feel comfortable here, nor that he was particularly stressed or worried about anything, but he just couldn't sleep. Instead of staying in bed this morning and trying to squeeze out every second he could, he'd got in the gym early, spending an hour and a half working through his usual circuits before the first meal of the day. After that he decided he wasn't in any mood to do anything too strenuous, especially with the squad expecting their deployment orders at some point today.
In truth that was the only productive thing he had done all day. He'd eaten with the squad in the morning, at a time where everyone is usually still tired and wishing they were in bed. He'd walked a lap of the ship just to kill time and familiarize himself a bit more. Corros was an expert when it came to procrastination. He had visited the armoury to make sure all of his equipment was where it should be, and then revisited again an hour later just to double check no one had moved it while he wasn't there. He'd managed to spend 10 minutes alone just decided to not clean his armour, having examined every plate thoroughly, before deciding it was in fact dirty, but not that dirty. Mostly, though, he was just thinking. He always did it, he'd think about anything and his mind would wander and before he knew it half an hour was gone just spent thinking. He thought of home, of his smiling sisters and proud parents. He thought of the world below, Lotho Minor, about its people and their lives and about what would happen when they got down there. And through it all, the young man from Lothal just couldn't stop thinking about how damned bored he was.
So the order to assemble was a welcome one. And it came much earlier than expected, a pleasant surprise for a man that would have just carried on wasting time if it hadn't. He was on his way back to the squad's bunkroom when the order came in, but like lightning he turned on his heels and set off the other way, fixing his helmet in place with a satisfying click. By the time he got there the armoury had been picked clean, and it certainly hadn't been so empty earlier. Which meant only one thing. Almost everyone else was already in the hangar. Spurred on now by a new desire to not be the last one there this time, he grabbed his rifle and fixed it in place. The bandolier went next, sitting across his chest, black against the sheer white of his armour's chest plate. A large pack fixed onto its holding on his back, and to that clipped a Smart Rocket Launcher, and Corros' favourite piece of kit, an MPL-57 grenade launcher. It was hard to move anywhere in a hurry loaded down like this but Corros did his best, jogging through the corridors and cursing himself for putting too much emphasis on his legs in the gym today.
Surprise surprise; everyone was already there. The vast majority of the 200 stormtroopers aboard the Tempest were. 'It's always me,' he thought to himself as he looked around frantically, trying to work out where he should be. Corros was able to pick his squad out of the swelling crowd thanks to the HUD in his helmet kindly showing him everyone's serial number. He walked slowly and calmly, trying to make it seem as though he wasn't panicked at all, but realising only after that walking so slowly when he was already so late probably just made him look like an ass. He took his place at the end of the line without saying a word, trying to catch his breath a little after running with so much kit but doing his best to avoid breathing heavily. Like he needed to give anyone else a reason to give him grief. Standing in line, it was finally time to get excited. They were going down, to the surface of Lotho Minor. Why, Corros wasn't too sure, but he knew they'd all find out soon enough.
"I want a name." The gloved fist of one of Cayne's men cracked against the man's jaw and he slumped, the only thing stopping him from falling to the ground being the other two gang members holding him up by each arm. The man spat, a horrid concoction of blood, spit and at least one splinter from his teeth. Cayne himself stood watching, out of distance of any potential, unfortunate, splatters, with his thick arms folded across his chest. He had been watching his men for a few minutes now as they set about their work, opting against getting his own hands dirty. Besides, having grunts do it for him made him look more powerful, and was thus more intimidating. The man in front him, hanging limp in the hands of two heavily augmented gangsters, was named Calum Alpwood, but no one who knew him would recognize him now. His face had been mauled, with one eye socket visibly dislocated and the other swollen and purple. His lips were puffy and split in numerous places, and a foamy dribble of blood was leaking from the gaps in his gum where his teeth used to be, running down his chin and dripping onto the floor. Cayne didn't feel sorry for him; he had no space in his limited repertoire of emotions for pity, especially not for a man like Calum; a Neanderthal.
Calum lifted his head and the same fist struck him again, this time on the nose, setting his blood running like someone had turned on a tap. Pathetic, Cayne thought to himself, staring down at the bloodied and battered man before him through his haunting, grey cybernetic eyes. The display in his vision was showing Calum's vital signs to Cayne. At the start his heart rate had increased drastically to 112bpm, but with every subsequent punch the spike got smaller, as if he was fading. We don't have a lot of time. Cayne stepped forward, the sound of his boot thudding against the pavement enough to make the four men around Calum to take a step back. He fell to his hands and knees without anyone supporting him, breathing heavily and retching up small amounts of bloody phlegm. Cayne stood, silent, watching, towering over him. His breathing had become laboured. He looked up at Cayne, trying to look unimpressed. What he didn't realize was that Cayne could literally see the signs of terror thanks to his scanner. "You finally gonna hit me now then?" His voice was weak and raspy, every word was an effort.
"No." Cayne's reply was blunt. "If I hit you, you'll die. And I don't want to kill you." Cayne reached down with one hand and grabbed the collar of Calum's jacket and hauled him to his feet, holding him up on his feet thanks to the strength of his augmented arms. "I want a name. I've told you this. I'm trying my best to be patient with you Calum, but now you're really starting to fuck me off." His eyes met Cayne's implants. Cayne's face was calm, a pool of water with not a ripple on the surface. His eyes betrayed no emotion, nor did his mouth. Calum's heart rate quickened a little. "Don't make me ask again." Cayne could smell iron on his breath as the blood had begun to congeal and oxidise.
"I can't do that. You know I can't... they'll kill me man! They'll kill me, they'll tear me apart piece by piece. Please."
"They won't lay a finger on you. We will protect you, better yet, we'll fix you. But I can only help you, Calum, if you help me. So c'mon, let's help each other." Calum still seemed unsure. "If you can't help me, then you're of no use to me. And if that's the case," Cayne's left hand folded in on itself, and from his middle finger a long, serrated knife came forth. "Then I'm going to slash your thighs and wrists, and leave you here to die in your own blood. It's your choice. Doesn't bother me either way." Cayne was doing his best to stay calm. They needed that name. The Shepherd's message had been clear enough; the bombing was orchestrated by the Neanderthals. And this man, this pathetic, drug-addicted waste of oxygen knew who'd delivered it. The girl. He was a nobody, no-one would miss him. He had no family apart from a little sister he lost contact with years ago, and he was a nobody among his gang. The girl wasn't even high priority. The Disk came first, and then the Neanderthals. The girl was just sport, revenge for the inconvenience they had caused. Cayne almost considered her collateral. But until he was finally unleashed, the Sheepdog was quite content to make the most of the bone he'd been thrown for the time being. He had already been thinking about how much fun they could have when Cayne finally got a hold of her.
"She goes by Calypso." He practically spat the name in Cayne's face. Calum let his head drop in shame, disgusted that he'd let himself be broken. Cayne didn't blame him. He'd spent a solid 10 minutes being wailed on by men with enhanced strength, and he was just a pathetic creature of mortal flesh. "What's her real name?"
"I don't know, I swe-" Cayne's hand had moved, lightning fast, gripping Calum's scrawny neck and lifting him off his feet, bringing his eyes level with Cayne's. His feet were kicking wildly, and his hands scrabbled at Cayne's massive hand as he croaked and gasped. The choke was total; he could barely even make a noise. His eyes had gone wide, and his skin and turned dark red as the blood flow out of his face was restricted. Cayne held him for 10 seconds at least, watching the life slowly slip out of his eyes, when he dropped him. Calum fell flat, spluttering by Cayne's feet. Cayne looked at the sleeve of his hoodie in disgust, noticing the stain from Calum's blood and making a mental note to get it dry cleaned tomorrow. He barely let Calum catch his breath before he hauled him up to his feet.
"Please... I don't," he took a deep breath, coughed, and then spat out a mouthful of spit and blood, "I don't know anything else. She's a delivery girl, freelance. Please." Another mouthful. "That's all I know." Cayne paused for a moment. This man knew his life was on the line. Nothing made a man more honest than the prospect of not waking up tomorrow. He doubted Calum was lying. He looked around at his men. They had been standing motionless, not making a sound, observing. "Take him to Nate. And make sure he fixes his face, I don't wanna see shit like that in my safehouse." The first man, the one who had been throwing the punches, nodded in response. He was grotesque; six glowing robotic eyes made him look like a spider and he was wearing a respiratory mask over the lower half of his face. He relinquished a syringe, holding Calum down with one hand and using the other to empty its contents into his blood stream. He was unconscious almost instantly. They picked him up, the largest of the four slinging his limp body over his shoulder, and without a word headed off down the alleyway.
Cayne pulled his hood back up, sporting a grey hoodie today, and pulled his jacket sleeve down to cover the stain. He went in the other direction. He didn't care if his lackeys got caught, but Cayne could do without going to prison before his work on his world was complete. It had been a busy day, travelling around and getting information out of unfortunately stubborn clients. Cayne decided to settle into a sports bar for the evening. He ordered food; a hot dog and fries, onion rings, and beer. Four bottles over an hour. There were enough people for Cayne to blend in, sat in a booth on his own opposite one of the large screens. Cayne had just ordered a fifth beer to the table, when he noticed people crowding on the pavement. At first he dismissed it, but just seconds later, sound cracked the air, booming over the city. Was that... a railgun? Cayne walked briskly towards the door, joining the crowd. People were screaming now, shoving and running. Outside it was crazy, mobs of people assembled on the sidewalk, every single on of them looking up. Cayne's mouth opened in surprise.
Both parts of the craft were freefalling, split by a failed attempt to destroy it with rail rounds. The smaller safety craft around it had given up. There was no stopping this thing, a great metal ship. It was all about the reaction now. Things were already too far gone to stop it now. The smaller vessels pulled away, and the flurry of fire attempting to halt its descent had ceased. Cayne watched speechless as it hurtled downwards. Was this really happening? He began to wonder if he had just had one too many beers and his cybernetics were playing up. All of his questions were wiped away as the ground shook and the craft collided with the ground. A cloud of dust and debris kicked up, and covered everything. Cayne ducked down, pulling his hoodie up over his face and his t-shirt up to cover his mouth and nose, and waited for it to pass.
Calum lifted his head and the same fist struck him again, this time on the nose, setting his blood running like someone had turned on a tap. Pathetic, Cayne thought to himself, staring down at the bloodied and battered man before him through his haunting, grey cybernetic eyes. The display in his vision was showing Calum's vital signs to Cayne. At the start his heart rate had increased drastically to 112bpm, but with every subsequent punch the spike got smaller, as if he was fading. We don't have a lot of time. Cayne stepped forward, the sound of his boot thudding against the pavement enough to make the four men around Calum to take a step back. He fell to his hands and knees without anyone supporting him, breathing heavily and retching up small amounts of bloody phlegm. Cayne stood, silent, watching, towering over him. His breathing had become laboured. He looked up at Cayne, trying to look unimpressed. What he didn't realize was that Cayne could literally see the signs of terror thanks to his scanner. "You finally gonna hit me now then?" His voice was weak and raspy, every word was an effort.
"No." Cayne's reply was blunt. "If I hit you, you'll die. And I don't want to kill you." Cayne reached down with one hand and grabbed the collar of Calum's jacket and hauled him to his feet, holding him up on his feet thanks to the strength of his augmented arms. "I want a name. I've told you this. I'm trying my best to be patient with you Calum, but now you're really starting to fuck me off." His eyes met Cayne's implants. Cayne's face was calm, a pool of water with not a ripple on the surface. His eyes betrayed no emotion, nor did his mouth. Calum's heart rate quickened a little. "Don't make me ask again." Cayne could smell iron on his breath as the blood had begun to congeal and oxidise.
"I can't do that. You know I can't... they'll kill me man! They'll kill me, they'll tear me apart piece by piece. Please."
"They won't lay a finger on you. We will protect you, better yet, we'll fix you. But I can only help you, Calum, if you help me. So c'mon, let's help each other." Calum still seemed unsure. "If you can't help me, then you're of no use to me. And if that's the case," Cayne's left hand folded in on itself, and from his middle finger a long, serrated knife came forth. "Then I'm going to slash your thighs and wrists, and leave you here to die in your own blood. It's your choice. Doesn't bother me either way." Cayne was doing his best to stay calm. They needed that name. The Shepherd's message had been clear enough; the bombing was orchestrated by the Neanderthals. And this man, this pathetic, drug-addicted waste of oxygen knew who'd delivered it. The girl. He was a nobody, no-one would miss him. He had no family apart from a little sister he lost contact with years ago, and he was a nobody among his gang. The girl wasn't even high priority. The Disk came first, and then the Neanderthals. The girl was just sport, revenge for the inconvenience they had caused. Cayne almost considered her collateral. But until he was finally unleashed, the Sheepdog was quite content to make the most of the bone he'd been thrown for the time being. He had already been thinking about how much fun they could have when Cayne finally got a hold of her.
"She goes by Calypso." He practically spat the name in Cayne's face. Calum let his head drop in shame, disgusted that he'd let himself be broken. Cayne didn't blame him. He'd spent a solid 10 minutes being wailed on by men with enhanced strength, and he was just a pathetic creature of mortal flesh. "What's her real name?"
"I don't know, I swe-" Cayne's hand had moved, lightning fast, gripping Calum's scrawny neck and lifting him off his feet, bringing his eyes level with Cayne's. His feet were kicking wildly, and his hands scrabbled at Cayne's massive hand as he croaked and gasped. The choke was total; he could barely even make a noise. His eyes had gone wide, and his skin and turned dark red as the blood flow out of his face was restricted. Cayne held him for 10 seconds at least, watching the life slowly slip out of his eyes, when he dropped him. Calum fell flat, spluttering by Cayne's feet. Cayne looked at the sleeve of his hoodie in disgust, noticing the stain from Calum's blood and making a mental note to get it dry cleaned tomorrow. He barely let Calum catch his breath before he hauled him up to his feet.
"Please... I don't," he took a deep breath, coughed, and then spat out a mouthful of spit and blood, "I don't know anything else. She's a delivery girl, freelance. Please." Another mouthful. "That's all I know." Cayne paused for a moment. This man knew his life was on the line. Nothing made a man more honest than the prospect of not waking up tomorrow. He doubted Calum was lying. He looked around at his men. They had been standing motionless, not making a sound, observing. "Take him to Nate. And make sure he fixes his face, I don't wanna see shit like that in my safehouse." The first man, the one who had been throwing the punches, nodded in response. He was grotesque; six glowing robotic eyes made him look like a spider and he was wearing a respiratory mask over the lower half of his face. He relinquished a syringe, holding Calum down with one hand and using the other to empty its contents into his blood stream. He was unconscious almost instantly. They picked him up, the largest of the four slinging his limp body over his shoulder, and without a word headed off down the alleyway.
Cayne pulled his hood back up, sporting a grey hoodie today, and pulled his jacket sleeve down to cover the stain. He went in the other direction. He didn't care if his lackeys got caught, but Cayne could do without going to prison before his work on his world was complete. It had been a busy day, travelling around and getting information out of unfortunately stubborn clients. Cayne decided to settle into a sports bar for the evening. He ordered food; a hot dog and fries, onion rings, and beer. Four bottles over an hour. There were enough people for Cayne to blend in, sat in a booth on his own opposite one of the large screens. Cayne had just ordered a fifth beer to the table, when he noticed people crowding on the pavement. At first he dismissed it, but just seconds later, sound cracked the air, booming over the city. Was that... a railgun? Cayne walked briskly towards the door, joining the crowd. People were screaming now, shoving and running. Outside it was crazy, mobs of people assembled on the sidewalk, every single on of them looking up. Cayne's mouth opened in surprise.
Both parts of the craft were freefalling, split by a failed attempt to destroy it with rail rounds. The smaller safety craft around it had given up. There was no stopping this thing, a great metal ship. It was all about the reaction now. Things were already too far gone to stop it now. The smaller vessels pulled away, and the flurry of fire attempting to halt its descent had ceased. Cayne watched speechless as it hurtled downwards. Was this really happening? He began to wonder if he had just had one too many beers and his cybernetics were playing up. All of his questions were wiped away as the ground shook and the craft collided with the ground. A cloud of dust and debris kicked up, and covered everything. Cayne ducked down, pulling his hoodie up over his face and his t-shirt up to cover his mouth and nose, and waited for it to pass.
@Atrophy who said anything about killing? Ramming her full of experimental tech would be much more beneficial.
I'm working on a post, been slow going as I've been quite busy the last couple weeks.
I was wondering if someone might be willing to draft up a map?
Ghajotia has been the current epicenter of the action but I think we could all benefit from having a hard-set, agreed upon orientation to make it a little easier to visualize how the players are moving about / where their home bases are & what factions are butting up against others.
Have to say I second this, I thought of this when I was trying create a character. Having a solid layout would be hugely helpful, even if it's just a quick sketch on paint.
First post was largely a whole lot of nothing but I'm already working on the second. Should have a bit more about it and will end up Cayne in Ghajotia, witnessing the crash etc.
It was raining. Of course it fucking was. All it ever did was fucking rain. Cayne had only stepped off the train three seconds ago, yet the murky clouds of toxic smog had already opened up. He rolled his eyes in annoyance, reaching a hand up to the top of his head to pull his hood down further over his face. The one downside to having hypersensitivity implants installed that he had found so far was the rain. To most, the dull acid drops slid right off their skin, but for Cayne, every drop left a small burning sensation that was far from painful, but certainly irritating. Sure, he could hear things he would never have been able to before, and his vison was like watching an extremely high definition display forever. But god, it made the rain annoying. One robotic, boot-clad foot set down in front of the other, and he was off, striding over the cracked concrete of the platform towards the terminal. He was glad to be off the crowded transport, even if it did mean walking the neon-bathed streets of Arcadia, with the rain pouring down and the foul air, a rotten mixture of chemical pollutants and cigarette smoke, assaulting his nose.
The walk along the unsheltered platform was longer than Cayne cared for. Soon he was back under cover, the automatic terminal doors making way for him with a reluctant hiss. It was cold inside, and it stank of piss, Trace and god only knows what else. A small crowd had formed around the security gates, a less than orderly queue trying to squeeze through as fast as they could. Not that there was anything to see. The only thing on the other side of those gates were the shit-stained, gang infested streets of the Delcos District. Cayne waited patiently, trying his best to ignore the fact that almost everyone around him was completely clean of augmentations. He counted to ten in his head, trying to suppress his natural urge to cleanse them all of their sins. They were ignorant; they knew not that they did wrong, but that did not make them innocent. Everyone in the densely packed terminal crowd barged each other, but no one dared lay a finger on Cayne. It only took one glance at the gargantuan mountain of metal and meat for most people to decide it was probably wiser to just move out of the way.
After little more than a minute of waiting, Cayne stepped up and presented his ID. He nodded to the guard; a friendly looking, middle-aged man with dark skin and a scruffy black beard. The man was heavily augmented, sporting a fashionable robotic eye with a warm blue glow that Cayne knew was filing the faces of every person here. But not Cayne. He was on Cayne's payroll. They had danced this dance a number of times beyond counting. In a matter of seconds Cayne was through, registered under a random name every time. Technically, Damiran Cayne had never entered the Delcos district, the stronghold of the Awakened crime syndicate. But, Scott Rogan, Ben Baxter, and hundreds of other faceless Arcadian nobodies had passed through this gate in recent months in his place. No one could pin Cayne here no matter how hard they tried. The light above the gate flashed green, briefly highlighting the narrow smirk on Cayne's shadowed face, and the glass panels parted to let him pass. Cayne had learned that in a world like this, where a different gang owned every pavement slab and leaning on the wrong wall could get you shot, it was important to enjoy the little things. Sliding through checks like this was just one of the thousands of little things that Cayne had come to love about being the boss.
The streets of the Delcos District had become almost comfortingly familiar to Cayne. His personal dwelling was elsewhere but Delcos felt like home. Towering buildings flanked the closest thing Delcos had to a high street, and a plethora of neon signs flooded the battered pavement with an eerie multi-coloured hue. Over a mile of shops to either side of the terminal were the first thing most people saw of the place. All manner of small-time businesses made their home here, from small clinics and clothes shops to cafes and bars. None of them would ever reach the heights of the Mega-Corps, but they did enough to keep themselves afloat for the time being. Easier said than done, given the way things were these days. On the surface, Cayne's gang presided over a relatively peaceful district. There was very little gang conflict since the Awakened had driven most of them out. Violence was rarer here on the streets than other parts of the city and the crime rate was relatively low. It was when you dug deeper below the façade of relative safety that the roots of Cayne's gang became more and more evident. The night time disappearances had raised a few eyebrows but with so little evidence to go on there was nothing the Peacekeepers could do. Roughly one in every three of the boys in blue that walked these streets had been paid off by the Awakened to look the other way, and given their poor pay and poorer life expectancies they were often more than happy to take the bribe. Those that weren't often disappeared themselves. In truth Cayne's gang owned much of the territory here by law, having invested heavily in a number of the local businesses, swooping in at times of hardship to lift them out of trouble in exchange for impossible, bottomless debt that they could never shake free. That way the Awakened were able to financially sustain themselves, and got the double bonus of being able to use the stores as fronts for their often less than legitimate dealings.
It was a sweet deal to be sure, and one greatly pleasing to a man like Cayne who placed emphasis on efficiency and power above all else. The Awakened didn't need anyone to thrive, and Cayne liked it that way. Anyone who wasn't with them was against them and needed to be cleansed. They were certainly a few enemies at the moment. The Black Brethren, more specifically, Aurora Baines, had managed to find the Golden Disk. The Awakened had been waiting and preparing, rather than searching, and now that the Disk had finally been unearthed, it would only be a matter of time until the Shepherd set his disciples loose on Arcadia. With the Disk in their hands the Shepherd could usher in a new age of prosperity and fast-track humanity's evolution, extinguishing the souls of the unworthy and ascending those who deserved it. It would be glorious. The other, a girl. That was all Cayne knew. She had delivered a suspicious package to a Skin shop frequented by several of Cayne's men a few weeks back. It had turned out to be a bomb. She almost certainly was working for someone; there was no way she would have known unless someone else had directed her there. The only way to be sure would be to find her, and have someone peel her pathetic flesh from her bones until the little mouse squeaked. Cayne had his men all over Arcadia listening in for news on both the girl and the Disk, but so far, no leads.
Cayne kept his head down as he walked, turning a left out of the terminal doors and mixing into the crowds along the pavement. It was late evening, and the sky above Arcadia probably would have been a brilliant golden lightshow were it not for the choking grey clouds and the shadows cast by the reaching peaks of Arcadia's skyline. The street was alive with people of all sorts flooding in and out of various establishments to listen to music far too loudly and get way too drunk and high. Cayne pitied them; life without a purpose was not worth living, and for your sole purpose to be to get blackout drunk and off your face on Trace? It didn't bear thinking about. It took about fifteen minutes of trudging in the rain, moving people out of his way with his shoulders and ignoring the insults of drunken fools for Cayne to reach his destination. A few turns, and then eventually left down an alleyway, past a sleeping homeless man slumped against the wall. It was narrow, with only a few inches of space on either side of Cayne's broad shoulders, and easily missed by most.
Eventually the alleyway opened up onto a much quieter street. The buzz of the bars and the blaring music was little more than a dull murmur in the background from her. This part of town was a run-down and long-abandoned industrial complex. The factories and warehouses here had belonged to various corporations over the past decades but their current state of disrepair and awkward location in regards to transporting manufactured goods meant that when they had gone on the market, no one had taken up the offer. Cayne's gang had made extensive use of the opportunity this had given them. None of the buildings looked particularly suspicious from the outside, but after Cayne had passed through the gate in the chain-link fence and in through a locked side door, he was back in his hive of criminal comrades.
This factory was in a better state than most. It was high-roofed, reaching as tall as three stories with a basement below. The main floor was a basic construction line that Cayne had long ago tasked his men with repairing with so far little success. Since then it had been utilized as a common space, adorned with battered old sofas, pool tables and TVs. The walls were solid grey concrete, illuminated by rows of white strip lights hanging from the ceiling. The second and third levels were accessible as steel walkways, giving a view over the entire floor and leading to what used to be a staff room and several offices. The air was thick with smoke and heavy rock music boomed out from a cleverly arranged speaker system, echoing off the walls of the cavernous construct. No one even looked up as Cayne entered. He headed straight for the stairs, his every step causing a great metallic thud that was drowned out by the raucous chatter of the thirty or so heavily augmented men and women in the factory and the loud music.
On the third tier Cayne entered his office, and sat down. It was by far the nicest room in the factory. Dark, blood red carpet met the dark walls and warm yellow lights lit the room from each corner. A small wooden dark was in the far corner, partnered with a comfy black leather office chair. Cayne took of his jacket, throwing it over the back of the chair, and then his hoodie, letting it drop to the floor by his side. In just a tight t-shirt, the full extent of Cayne's modifications was visible. Thankfully, the air here was cleaner and the music drowned out. He reached down the where the PC sat under the desk and grabbed the jack, plugging it into the neural port at the bottom his skull. His ghostly white eyes turned red, and his mind was synchronized to the system. Cayne clicked the monitor on his desk on, prompting the black and red display to fire into life. There were several emails and messages, as expected; various reports on successful dealings and a number of meaningless memos that Cayne had seen a thousand times. Cayne scrolled from the bottom up, nonchalantly, uninterested, until at the top he saw an email titled URGENT! Cayne opened it by instinct. In his mind, the words were directly in front of his eyes; the monitor was largely redundant thanks to Cayne's link. He scanned it once, then twice to make sure what he had read was correct. If he still had his eyes, they would have widened. Quietly, he muttered, "Well. No shit."
The walk along the unsheltered platform was longer than Cayne cared for. Soon he was back under cover, the automatic terminal doors making way for him with a reluctant hiss. It was cold inside, and it stank of piss, Trace and god only knows what else. A small crowd had formed around the security gates, a less than orderly queue trying to squeeze through as fast as they could. Not that there was anything to see. The only thing on the other side of those gates were the shit-stained, gang infested streets of the Delcos District. Cayne waited patiently, trying his best to ignore the fact that almost everyone around him was completely clean of augmentations. He counted to ten in his head, trying to suppress his natural urge to cleanse them all of their sins. They were ignorant; they knew not that they did wrong, but that did not make them innocent. Everyone in the densely packed terminal crowd barged each other, but no one dared lay a finger on Cayne. It only took one glance at the gargantuan mountain of metal and meat for most people to decide it was probably wiser to just move out of the way.
After little more than a minute of waiting, Cayne stepped up and presented his ID. He nodded to the guard; a friendly looking, middle-aged man with dark skin and a scruffy black beard. The man was heavily augmented, sporting a fashionable robotic eye with a warm blue glow that Cayne knew was filing the faces of every person here. But not Cayne. He was on Cayne's payroll. They had danced this dance a number of times beyond counting. In a matter of seconds Cayne was through, registered under a random name every time. Technically, Damiran Cayne had never entered the Delcos district, the stronghold of the Awakened crime syndicate. But, Scott Rogan, Ben Baxter, and hundreds of other faceless Arcadian nobodies had passed through this gate in recent months in his place. No one could pin Cayne here no matter how hard they tried. The light above the gate flashed green, briefly highlighting the narrow smirk on Cayne's shadowed face, and the glass panels parted to let him pass. Cayne had learned that in a world like this, where a different gang owned every pavement slab and leaning on the wrong wall could get you shot, it was important to enjoy the little things. Sliding through checks like this was just one of the thousands of little things that Cayne had come to love about being the boss.
The streets of the Delcos District had become almost comfortingly familiar to Cayne. His personal dwelling was elsewhere but Delcos felt like home. Towering buildings flanked the closest thing Delcos had to a high street, and a plethora of neon signs flooded the battered pavement with an eerie multi-coloured hue. Over a mile of shops to either side of the terminal were the first thing most people saw of the place. All manner of small-time businesses made their home here, from small clinics and clothes shops to cafes and bars. None of them would ever reach the heights of the Mega-Corps, but they did enough to keep themselves afloat for the time being. Easier said than done, given the way things were these days. On the surface, Cayne's gang presided over a relatively peaceful district. There was very little gang conflict since the Awakened had driven most of them out. Violence was rarer here on the streets than other parts of the city and the crime rate was relatively low. It was when you dug deeper below the façade of relative safety that the roots of Cayne's gang became more and more evident. The night time disappearances had raised a few eyebrows but with so little evidence to go on there was nothing the Peacekeepers could do. Roughly one in every three of the boys in blue that walked these streets had been paid off by the Awakened to look the other way, and given their poor pay and poorer life expectancies they were often more than happy to take the bribe. Those that weren't often disappeared themselves. In truth Cayne's gang owned much of the territory here by law, having invested heavily in a number of the local businesses, swooping in at times of hardship to lift them out of trouble in exchange for impossible, bottomless debt that they could never shake free. That way the Awakened were able to financially sustain themselves, and got the double bonus of being able to use the stores as fronts for their often less than legitimate dealings.
It was a sweet deal to be sure, and one greatly pleasing to a man like Cayne who placed emphasis on efficiency and power above all else. The Awakened didn't need anyone to thrive, and Cayne liked it that way. Anyone who wasn't with them was against them and needed to be cleansed. They were certainly a few enemies at the moment. The Black Brethren, more specifically, Aurora Baines, had managed to find the Golden Disk. The Awakened had been waiting and preparing, rather than searching, and now that the Disk had finally been unearthed, it would only be a matter of time until the Shepherd set his disciples loose on Arcadia. With the Disk in their hands the Shepherd could usher in a new age of prosperity and fast-track humanity's evolution, extinguishing the souls of the unworthy and ascending those who deserved it. It would be glorious. The other, a girl. That was all Cayne knew. She had delivered a suspicious package to a Skin shop frequented by several of Cayne's men a few weeks back. It had turned out to be a bomb. She almost certainly was working for someone; there was no way she would have known unless someone else had directed her there. The only way to be sure would be to find her, and have someone peel her pathetic flesh from her bones until the little mouse squeaked. Cayne had his men all over Arcadia listening in for news on both the girl and the Disk, but so far, no leads.
Cayne kept his head down as he walked, turning a left out of the terminal doors and mixing into the crowds along the pavement. It was late evening, and the sky above Arcadia probably would have been a brilliant golden lightshow were it not for the choking grey clouds and the shadows cast by the reaching peaks of Arcadia's skyline. The street was alive with people of all sorts flooding in and out of various establishments to listen to music far too loudly and get way too drunk and high. Cayne pitied them; life without a purpose was not worth living, and for your sole purpose to be to get blackout drunk and off your face on Trace? It didn't bear thinking about. It took about fifteen minutes of trudging in the rain, moving people out of his way with his shoulders and ignoring the insults of drunken fools for Cayne to reach his destination. A few turns, and then eventually left down an alleyway, past a sleeping homeless man slumped against the wall. It was narrow, with only a few inches of space on either side of Cayne's broad shoulders, and easily missed by most.
Eventually the alleyway opened up onto a much quieter street. The buzz of the bars and the blaring music was little more than a dull murmur in the background from her. This part of town was a run-down and long-abandoned industrial complex. The factories and warehouses here had belonged to various corporations over the past decades but their current state of disrepair and awkward location in regards to transporting manufactured goods meant that when they had gone on the market, no one had taken up the offer. Cayne's gang had made extensive use of the opportunity this had given them. None of the buildings looked particularly suspicious from the outside, but after Cayne had passed through the gate in the chain-link fence and in through a locked side door, he was back in his hive of criminal comrades.
This factory was in a better state than most. It was high-roofed, reaching as tall as three stories with a basement below. The main floor was a basic construction line that Cayne had long ago tasked his men with repairing with so far little success. Since then it had been utilized as a common space, adorned with battered old sofas, pool tables and TVs. The walls were solid grey concrete, illuminated by rows of white strip lights hanging from the ceiling. The second and third levels were accessible as steel walkways, giving a view over the entire floor and leading to what used to be a staff room and several offices. The air was thick with smoke and heavy rock music boomed out from a cleverly arranged speaker system, echoing off the walls of the cavernous construct. No one even looked up as Cayne entered. He headed straight for the stairs, his every step causing a great metallic thud that was drowned out by the raucous chatter of the thirty or so heavily augmented men and women in the factory and the loud music.
On the third tier Cayne entered his office, and sat down. It was by far the nicest room in the factory. Dark, blood red carpet met the dark walls and warm yellow lights lit the room from each corner. A small wooden dark was in the far corner, partnered with a comfy black leather office chair. Cayne took of his jacket, throwing it over the back of the chair, and then his hoodie, letting it drop to the floor by his side. In just a tight t-shirt, the full extent of Cayne's modifications was visible. Thankfully, the air here was cleaner and the music drowned out. He reached down the where the PC sat under the desk and grabbed the jack, plugging it into the neural port at the bottom his skull. His ghostly white eyes turned red, and his mind was synchronized to the system. Cayne clicked the monitor on his desk on, prompting the black and red display to fire into life. There were several emails and messages, as expected; various reports on successful dealings and a number of meaningless memos that Cayne had seen a thousand times. Cayne scrolled from the bottom up, nonchalantly, uninterested, until at the top he saw an email titled URGENT! Cayne opened it by instinct. In his mind, the words were directly in front of his eyes; the monitor was largely redundant thanks to Cayne's link. He scanned it once, then twice to make sure what he had read was correct. If he still had his eyes, they would have widened. Quietly, he muttered, "Well. No shit."
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