Akuma Quest [Cyberpunk AU Exalted]

[Syz]

Content Warning: This quest will or could possible address themes of body horror, violence, drug abuse, human trafficking, self-harm and suicidal ideation, claustrophobia, detailed descriptions of insects/arachnids, and sexuality. Thank you for engaging with this content responsibly.

From the first moment I saw you, peering through a veil of shadow, I loved you.

Loved your shaking hands, and the frightened glimmer in your eyes as you quietly asked yourself if you had the strength to do what you were about to do.

And yet, I never regret that you stayed your hand, for I am certain that you suffered more in the end.

If you ever have hoped or prayed or pleaded that your tale would be forgotten, even if just by yourself, do not worry. Do not sully that beautiful, black heart of yours with something as ugly as hope.

I will remember. I will always remember.

In fact, darling, let me tell the story again, just for the joy of saying it.

The story of how, in a world of gods and heroes,

you became a monster.
​

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"Do you like hurting other people?" — Hotline Miami

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CHAPTER -1: The Birthday Surprise

You wish you could show your sister the sunset for her birthday. You remember the last time you went out to work early to catch a glimpse — it's the special privilege of scavengers that if they crane their necks enough peering up the garbage chute, they can actually see all the way up to the surface. Usually it's a patch of starless black, with a few glimmering specks of color that might be stars but you're almost certain are the windows of some penthouse apartments in the Terrestrial Heaven. But that one evening, at the far corner of a richer blue than you'd ever known, you saw a hazy banner of purple, orange, and gold, so beautiful that you broke the law right there by mouthing an unsanctioned prayer of thanks to the god that gave the sky those colors.

It was a stupid mistake. Every day, the sun heats the garbage shaft like a tremendous oven, to the point where it still can be searing hot to the touch in certain spots when the usual mass of trash-pickers comes out to work an hour past sunset. You made the best of it, but still managed to blister your hand with burns — and then pop them into bloody sores over the course of a hard evening's work, and reopen them each night over the course of a long, bitter week, bandaging them with scraps of cloth and rinsing them with a bottle of cheap liquor you got ahold of to keep it clean and disinfected. Just because they'll let you go out to work early doesn't mean you should. Every couple years, someone tries to beat the system by bundling themselves up in this or that, hiding out in the trash heap past the last call for workers and the morning lock-up, hoping to take advantage of the light and lack of competition to run up their earnings — or maybe they're just buzzed on enough stimulants to think they can make it without sleep and double their pay.

And when the evening comes and the scavengers find their bodies fused to whatever bit of metal they stumbled onto, smelling a bit like ash and a bit like rot and a bit like meat left on a skillet, anything they might have found passes to their colleagues, who whisper prayers for their compatriot to be born into a better life even as they unwrap their corpse and pick it clean like vultures.

This is life in the Below, the city beneath the city. The roots of the great tree that is Fulcrum, the endless spire-metropolis that reaches down into the depths of the ground where it draws its thermal energy from, and reaching up to the green pastures of the Surface, the pristine luxury of the Terrestrial Heaven, and even to the glittering and godly heights of Celestial Heaven. This is the one, great bastion of human life, where an endless throng of that humanity eke out short and miserable existences worthy of burrowing grubs, dreaming of dying so they might be reborn to something better.

You thumb the inside of your jacket. You have another present for her. She'll see the sunset on her own terms, one day. Away from the miserable stench. Without needing to bend backwards, holding on to something to avoid falling and being buried in waste. Her horizon will not be the rim of a garbage chute. Her future will be better than yours. This is the promise you've made, if not to the gods who would witness a trash picker's vows, then to yourself.

Your other present is...
[] A toy lion, carved from a piece of genetically engineered timber you got a hold of, the crossbeam of some project that came to nothing. Before going to sleep for the morning, you've been whittling it, and you've even managed to use some discarded makeup to stain the wood in the bright hues of a heavenly guardian spirit. When you aren't by her side, it will be with her to keep her safe. Gain the mundane perk Knife Expertise (you are proficient with knives, and are assumed to have one smuggled on your person by default).
[] A set of two blue ribbons, made from the strips of usable fabric from a stained blue dress that you got ahold of. You were lucky enough to have a friend who could measure and cut it into just the right length. You know that she'll look just as beautiful as anything up in either Heaven. Gain the mundane perk Connected (you get along well with others, and are assumed to know who in the Below to go to for getting something).
[] An electronic toy, a kind of puzzle box that requires you to slide colored blocks in a specific pattern to beat a series of levels. It was broken when you found it, but with a bit of know-how, you were able to repair it and get it to work. It's the sort of thing someone on the surface would get — your sister deserves nothing less. Gain the mundane perk Tinker (you have a talent for repairing and creating electronics, and can usually understand how they work).
[] A book of illustrated poetry, completely intact — a genuine treasure for any scavenger. You've always been good about scouring the trash heap and bringing home some new bit of writing with you, even if it's usually just scraps of magazines, but this is something special, something you've been saving. You can tell from the way she eats up what you bring her that she's smart, that she's going to go far in life. Gain the mundane perk Sharp (you're intelligent, and as educated as someone brought up in the Below can be. You're also naturally perceptive, and will notice things others don't).
[] Write-in (gift and related perk)

You want to get her something nice to have on her. Something to make up for the fact that today, she's going to be coming to work with you. She's thirteen after all, which means it's either the scrapyard or the factory — and while women usually end up in the factory, you don't want her in there without a mother or sister to show her how to work the equipment safely, to keep an eye on her and look out for her. The floor is as deadly as the junkyard, just in a different way. You don't intend to let her out of your sight, let her wander into danger. Even if it's in the junkyard, if she has to start working, the safest place for her to be is right by you.

You grunt softly. You're lucky enough to have a room to share with her, and some cots to sleep on. Your own little nest in the pseudo-apartment honeycomb that is the more "residential" part of this tier of the Below. Standing up, you look over to where your sister is laying on her own cot, squinting in the darkness.

One day, you'll save up enough to pay off her share of the family debt. She'll be the one to make it out. She'll be the one to live a comfortable life in the subsurface. She's smart — maybe even the surface, gods willing. But for now, that means you have to make sure she makes it through with you. You normally have your sister on a daytime schedule, albeit one that overlaps with yours. Now that she's going to be leaving the community school — mostly a bunch of kids huddled around a TV which can catch broadcasts of educational programs — she's going to need to adjust to your nighttime schedule. That means you've been helping her adjust so that she can wake up on time, though it's been a bit of a rough turn-around to completely flip her usual periods for waking and sleeping.

You've been doing this with:
[] Some cold tea from your ration packs before bed (ineffective).
[] Having her do jumping jacks before bed (ineffective).
[] Sleeping medication (effective; adds to debt).

Lastly, when you go to wake your sister, what name do you call?
[] Iskra
[] Melody
[] Write-In

What is this? This is my putting into practice an idea I've had for a while -- a world something like Exalted's Creation, where demigods walk the earth and mortals are transformed by the touch of heavenly power -- but it's also a world cast in the nightmarish aesthetics of a future that bathes in the worst excesses of our own time, a world of staggering inequality and cruelty, where the genetically engineered Ryujin demigod caste enjoy the heights of luxury even as countless others suffer, and greater and stranger threats threaten to topple the spire-city that all call home and bring an end to life itself. It's a world begging for a hero.

You aren't that hero.

But maybe, even if you fall into the depths of hell, even if your soul may not be saved, there may be a ray of hope for you if you're willing to fight for it.

This is a story in the style of Darth Bane or Darth Plagueis, the story of how hardship and wickedness sharpen a person into a blade of ambition that can cut the world into a new image. Of sinister villainy. This is an action story, where your character will wield superheroic power and be driven by their passions and emotions. It's also a story of horror and tragedy, where your character will fall into the pits of Hell, damn his soul, and sometimes hurt the people he cherishes most even when he desperately doesn't want to.

This story will borrow terminology from Burn Legend, present its setting as a more grimdark, cyberpunk version of the Realm, and offer a take on the Yozi heavenly influenced by the Yama Kings as presented in Thousand Hells, a well-written supplement to the otherwise mostly-terrible and very orientalist RPG Kindred of the East. If none of that makes sense, don't worry in the slightest.

For now, new updates will be posted a few times a week. Updates will be delivered in the morning (CST); the exception is tomorrow's update as this is being posted in the evening and I want to give time for votes, as well as because I'm going to be travelling. So the next update will be posted on Sunday morning. Extensions may be made if a particularly interesting write-in option is being discussed in the voting.

Thank you for joining me for this journey, and I hope you enjoy the ride. Let's surprise each other!

Click to shrink...

 

[Syz]

THE BELOW

What others call "The Below" is, in truth, a network of sub-societies that underpins the great metropolis of Fulcrum, the vast super-city that stands as the one true bastion of humanity against a great and endless ocean of churning darkness. Relics of those who built the city, the vast pits are arranged as a smaller shaft dedicated to a specific purpose, enclosed within a larger shaft that contains various facilities for maintenance and rings where workers dwell. Here, the majority of Fulcrum's population dwells, sustaining lifestyles of wildly varying quality -- though one near-universal constant is that the Surface which the Below sustains is more prosperous than they are, and all things there are more abundant.

Each section of the Below is managed by a different corporation, further divided into numerous subsidiaries. As the corporation generally controls the flow of food and clean water into and out of the Below, the megaconglomerates' grip on the workers of Fulcrum is nigh-absolute.
​

Spoiler: Map of Level 42D

LEVEL 42D
​

A - The Slums. A debtors' colony located forty-two levels down, its citizens the refuse of Fulcrum. Status within the slums is directly correlated to one's nearness to the garbage chute; the deeper in debt and fewer friends you have, the more you find yourself pushed towards the edge of the ring, nearing the drop as your life becomes more precarious. While people are born in the slums, high mortality rates mean the population is stabilized by periodic shipments of new residents - most frequently the families of those who've fallen into medical debt in a Cynis hospital.

B - The Garbage Chute. A vast chute used to dispose of waste and detritus; the garbage chute rises as a cylindrical column within the larger shaft. This particular garbage chute once fulfilled some esoteric function to the city's builders, focusing the rays of the sun to create an unbearable, searing heat. Too intense to draw on for solar power, Cynis Pharmaceuticals instead uses it for waste disposal. While the majority of the megacorporations rely on one form of natural resource or another, and Cynis does mine the earth of the outer shaft and recycle what rare materials they can, the corporation makes its wealth by... other means. This is where the scavengers make their living, going out at night to pick through the waste and find things that they can sell for money.

C - The Gallows. The waste of the waste, the grimly-nicknamed "gallows" are the residences of those who can't find a home on the ring - every day they make the climb up ladders to make their living before climbing back down to rest in their swaying domicile.

D - The Bridge. The most well-policed (in that it actually is policed) section of Level 42D, this retracting bridge connects the factory to the ring. Every day, throngs of workers gather here in the morning to make their way to the factory; leaving in the evening. The guardhouse is the sight of many tearful last partings for those who settle their debts by selling themselves to Cynis.

E - The Drop. The lowest levels of the Below are the Dark; mined to the point of barrenness, the lightless depths are empty of human life and cloaked in superstition. Some claim to see a vehicle moving to or from the blackness, but these are never confirmed -- there's no way of knowing what's happening.

F - Flotation Array. By means of science and sorcery, the factory is buoyed up in empty air. The possibility of its departure hangs like a guillotine over the debtors' colony; the serene manner by which the lynchpin of Level 42D's economy sits aloft in the air an eternal reminder that however much the debtors need the factory, the factory could leave at any time.

G - The Upstairs Neighbors. Level 41D likewise provides workers for the factory; living conditions are roughly identical to those on 42D. While it's relatively less populated, when the trash one day piles up high enough to reach it, people will find their way to the higher level and 42D will become a ghost town. For now, those scavengers who reside on 41D use a makeshift internal stairwell to access the trash heap; illegal movement between levels is harshly policed.

H - The Factory. Here, Cynis Pharmaceuticals produces certain medical manufacturing and measurement equipment; large throngs of workers do dull, backbreaking menial labor in unsafe conditions to meet the corporation's endless demands. While the majority of the Factory's workers are debtors or slaves who failed to make their minimum payments, some successfully work their debt down to the level where they can settle accounts by selling themselves to the Cynis, securing a more stable lifestyle as permanent workers within the factory's internal campus. Those blessed few who settle their debts while maintaining their freedom live in the factory as well, enjoying education and a degree of upwards mobility. The levels of the factory where the higher castes work and live are separate from the lower castes; those who clear their debt most often turn their backs forever on the slums.

 

[Syz]

[X] Melody
[X] Toy Lion (perk gain: Knife Expertise)

You crack your neck left and right, slumping a bit forward on your cot. You've been up and clothed for about fifteen minutes now; the fact that you've aged enough to be able to fit into your dad's old clothes has done wonders for your wardrobe -- your typical outfit is a Cynis Pharmaceuticals factory worker's uniform with a scavenged synthetic-leather jacket slipped over it. Your knife is tucked in an inside pocket; it's more a hunk of pointy metal than a proper tool, but it gets the job done on those rare, unlucky occasions you've had to fight with junkyard beasts. Once, you scared off a fellow scavenger with it, but you don't like thinking about it - that brief reminder of how precarious your life really is, the fear pounding into your chest, the heady feeling of being in danger - and being dangerous - hard to tell apart and hard to clean off your soul. You had hugged Melody more tightly than usual that morning after work when you were sending her off to school, terrified of dying with your last thoughts spent wondering what she would do without you.

Now that she's coming to the scrapyard with you, you don't need to worry about that. If you die, odds are ninety-nine to a hundred that she goes with you, arm in arm to your next lives. Your throat feels dry, and you swallow. That won't happen. She has you. You have your knife. Nothing is going to touch either of you.

"Melody?" you ask.

No response.

"Mel?" you step over to her cot, putting your arm on her and giving her a firm shake. "Mel, c'mon, it's time to wake up."

Your sister lets out a long, low groan. "Ugh..."

"I know, I know. Me too. C'mon, we've got to get ready." You'd been having her do jumping jacks before going to bed, playing at being the drill sergeant in the lead-up to her first day. Making something of a game of it, though the 'game' routine fell apart pretty quickly when you both realized how miserable this all was. Her daytime sleep has been listless and uncomfortable, with her getting up when she's supposed to be sleeping, and only really settling into rest when it's time for her to be waking up. You have no doubt whatsoever she could adjust completely given just a little more turnaround time, but time - well, that's the thing. Time is money, and nobody here has either. Some sleeping pills could help her, you're sure it's just over-the-counter, cheap supplements on the Surface - Hell, ten levels up in the Lower where the shitty below-ground existences people eke out are at the very least more similar to poor humans than stray dogs. But the ridiculous upcharge you'd be given here simply wasn't worth it. You don't want to add a red cent to the family's debt, not when you're close enough to be able to pay it off.

Well, pay it off isn't the right way of phrasing it. That makes it sound like you don't have a lot of debt at all. But you've got less than most -- a blessing from your parents -- and you've nearly put enough of a dent in it that if you sell yourself to Cynis as one of their factory slaves, you'll be able to completely pay off Melody's debt. When you've settled accounts, you can get in with the factory and take an exam; people who do well get to go to school until they're eighteen -- learn a trade that takes them off the dangerous equipment and gives them a job that's safe, steady. You live on the factory's campus, probably the safest place five levels in either direction. There's even the possibility of transfer to a higher level, or even the Surface. Even if they don't get education or upward mobility, it's no wonder that most people settle their debts by selling themselves the very moment they can; better a slave with a barcode on your neck in the factory's work campus than a free man on the streets of 42D.

Of course, those who can't pay their debt and end up as bankruptcy slaves have it worse than anyone. Thrown at the most dangerous equipment, the worst jobs, used as lab rats to test the latest drugs the Cynis are working, before they're ready to move on to testing on what they consider to be human beings. Worked mercilessly to death, occasionally given some menial task around the slums just so people can look into their hollow eyes and know what fate awaits them if they fail to make their minimum payments.

The truth is, you've had your debt low enough that you and Melody could theoretically settle the family debt together if you both sold yourselves. If you had a younger brother, you probably already would have just to get the two of you out of the slums sooner. But everyone knows what happens when someone young and beautiful gets stamped with a Cynis barcode. Cynis Pharmaceuticals is one branch of a vast conglomerate, and medicine is just one of the ways they monetize flesh. You'd die before you put Mel through that.

You shake your head. Why are your thoughts so morbid right now?

Rousing your sister, you give her a bit more attention than usual. Like her father, she has silver hair, but where it just made him look old, on her it looks like a shower of moonlight. You help her do it up in two looping braids; you got some help from a fellow scavenger - a woman in her thirties named Fortunate Omen - in learning how to do so. A tight, simple style that won't get caught on any jagged edges. Her outfit is loose-fitting boy's clothes; mostly stuff you've found in the trash heap that was salvageable. A dull, grey long-sleeved shirt and jeans.

Her dark-ringed eyes sparkle with happiness as you press the wooden lion into her hand. "Happy birthday, Mel." She smiles, and her smile is all the thanks you need. The two of you move through crowded streets; beggars don't pay much attention to you since you aren't dressed up like people with proper factory jobs, but there are still junk sellers, collectors for offerings to petty gods preaching bastardized versions of the Immaculate Scriptures they knew thirdhand, people hawking talismans and charms to keep you safe in the scrapyard -- everyone has something to offer. Nobody has anything to give.

You never learned the name of the pudgy-faced man in a Cynis uniform who rents the scavengers supplies and he never bothered to learn yours. Junking was initially illegal, but now they're the ones who rent out the equipment and buy back all the stuff worth recycling, their little green-lit kiosk the center of the scavenging business and their security guards the ones who control who can go into the yard and when. He looks at you with a bored expression. "What'll it be?"

Assuming you get your usual daily haul, you can avoid a net increase in your debt by getting all the supplies except for...
[] A large basket that straps to your back. People with baskets usually fill up on valueless stuff; you can go with what you can carry in smaller packs if you know to grab what's really worth something.
[] A flashlight. You're damn good at seeing in the dark, and you like the idea of not broadcasting your position in case you find something really nice.
[] A scanner. While they sometimes ping for the rare metals in electronics that are worth the most at the scrap trade-in, people who use it tend to go too much on auto-pilot, to make no mention of false positives.

After picking out which item to go without for the sake of keeping your debt down, he nods. "And the name?"

Given Name:
[] Damek
[] Echo
[] Symon
[] Write-In