Hey, out of curiosity (because the wiki I found coulden't help me) what IS a dragon totem?
Shadowrun: New Age
More recent editions have re-named them mentor spirits. They're metaphysical beings that may or may not be ungodly powerful entities that help metahumans learn and improve at magic, often but not always in exchange for favours and/or conducting your life in a manner the totem approves of. Note that this actually matters, as a displeased totem can and will inflict penalties on the amount of magical power you have available until you appease it.
Dragon specifically is one rarer-than-average totem among many (it never shows up in the core rulebook like the most common totems do), but due to totems either picking mages that match their personality type or not-so-gently nudging their charges down that path, a dragon shaman can be more than a little dangerous.
Dragon specifically is one rarer-than-average totem among many (it never shows up in the core rulebook like the most common totems do), but due to totems either picking mages that match their personality type or not-so-gently nudging their charges down that path, a dragon shaman can be more than a little dangerous.
- Location
- Canada
[X] Spend your time off mostly with Karna. According to the schedule Bluejay forwarded, he's probably out at the bazaar right about now, scrounging up some parts. And you never did take him up on that Matrix walkabout. And, well, you can't avoid him forever.
- Location
- Pilipinas
[x] Spend your time off mostly with Karna. According to the schedule Bluejay forwarded, he's probably out at the bazaar right about now, scrounging up some parts. And you never did take him up on that Matrix walkabout. And, well, you can't avoid him forever.
-lets watch some internet porn!
edit: and with the Matrix, we can join in on the action!:lol
-lets watch some internet porn!
edit: and with the Matrix, we can join in on the action!:lol
LaRed
Are you stupid or something
- Location
- Mou Ikkai hell
[
[x] Spend your time off mostly with Karna. According to the schedule Bluejay forwarded, he's probably out at the bazaar right about now, scrounging up some parts. And you never did take him up on that Matrix walkabout. And, well, you can't avoid him forever.
-lets watch some internet porn!
edit: and with the Matrix, we can join in on the action!:lol
Eh, I doubt we could get in on the action without datajack. And getting one in our current situation would be unwise.
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
[X] Spend your time off mostly with Karna. According to the schedule Bluejay forwarded, he's probably out at the bazaar right about now, scrounging up some parts. And you never did take him up on that Matrix walkabout. And, well, you can't avoid him forever.
Also, (since technology is driven by porn) VR porn!
Nah, this is the perfect opportunity to force Flambewing to enter a deal on our terms in desperation to keep us from killing ourself by enterign a deal with Max.
Also, (since technology is driven by porn) VR porn!
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
You look at the little schedule Bluejay sent you for Karna. You think about what Geier said- Karna wants what's best for everyone, Karna knows what you're going through, Karna's better than you give him credit for. More to the point, Karna is the leader and you can't avoid him forever. You sigh slightly, already dreading what's to come, and look more closely at your PDA. The bazaar again. You rise from the couch, stretching the kinks and aches from your muscles like a cat, and search for your fresh new set of borrowed clothes. The old leather coat rasps against your spurs as you pull it on, reminding you how desperately in need of fitted clothes you are. Something to bring up with Karna, maybe. You wrap your scarf around your head, a little less sloppy this time, and pocket your PDA. Ready for a night on the town.
You emerge from the Executive and step onto the covered walkway, studiously refusing to look down. You're reminded again of the (appropriately enough) night-and-day changes in Schattenstadt. If it weren't for the guards stationed around the settlement, little dots of black and neon blue, you'd think the place had been evacuated. At least the sky has something approaching colour this late, shades of golden orange that even come close to the sky you remember. You put your hands in your pockets and get a move on. No sense in pining for long-dead comforts. Like pretty skies. Or clean air.
Some of the guards you pass glance your way, yet still none of them show any real reaction to you. Zero Point must have instructed them well. It helps, if only a little. You make a few wrong turns on the way find Karna, but you correct your course quickly enough. Maybe you have an improved memory and sense of direction too, on top of everything else. Small comfort.
You find him on the floor above the movie theatre, next to what a helpful sign informs you is the 'ARCADE'. You glance inside as you pass and glimpse a fairly standard setup of game machines lined up all in rows, everything sitting cold and dark without the night-owls (early birds?) of Schattenstadt to populate it. The thing beside it that has Karna so interested has its own sign. You read it quickly as you scuttle over to him - 'Herr Tintenfisch's Geräte'.
The regular infrastructure of the shopping centre long since eroded away, the shop makes do with tarps. A lot of tarps. They stretch out into an awning to protect the goods from the decades of rain slowly working its way through the building layer by layer. The wares are arranged with agonizing neatness and precision into circular 'islands' which, as far as you can tell, have absolutely no rhyme or reason to them. There aren't even price tags. There's also nobody around to actually sell the things.
That would be because Karna is talking to the robotic squid sitting on a crate in the middle of the 'shop' like it owns the place. The cephalopodic case is propped up on a display stand, the peaked main body roughly as long as your torso and as patchwork as an old blanket. It peers up at Karna with a cluster of electronic eyes, gesticulating with its eight muscular manipulator tentacles as it 'speaks' to him. The other two tentacles are more delicate, tipped with all sorts of hardware too small and unfamiliar to name. It notices you coming and waves.
"Guten tag-ag!" The words are synthesized badly, bereft of emotion and pronounced syllable by syllable. The stutter doesn't help either. "May I interest you-you in our f-fine new- KKKKSSSSHHHHH"
You flinch.
"Don't worry about it, that happens when he tries to say something he hasn't been programmed to say." Karna sidles through the shop with practiced ease, skirting every delicate display as he scans them like a hawk. "Autonomous shop drone, only programmed with about fifty phrases. Probably hasn't been able to sell you something by name since 2050."
"Where's its owner?"
The drone wiggles its tentacles at you in a vaguely offended manner.
"Herr Tintenfisch prefers to be called 'he'." Karna picks up something the size of a pack of cigarettes, turning it this way and that. "And we don't know. It was a deactivated hunk of junk until about three years ago. Next thing we knew it'd put itself back together again and started setting up shop following its protocols. It's been ordering new stock online like clockwork ever since. So… he's one of the family now."
"Stunning-unning deals you can't afford to mi-miss!" Herr Tintenfisch adds.
"... so is it a-?"
"An AI?" Karna chuckles once. "An AI would be an order of magnitude more impressive. No, Herr Tintenfisch is just a commercial piece of software someone accidentally or on-purpose coded to be more or less autonomous in this situation. Barring a catastrophic CPU failure or his replacement parts getting discontinued, he can essentially go on forever."
"I… see…" You stare at the drone suspiciously.
"You may already be a winner-er!" it replies.
"So what're you doing up?" Karna asks, shuffling to the next display. "After all the excitement last night I'd have assumed you'd take the chance to sleep in."
"Didn't really want to sit around with nothing but the TV for company. Sorry, trideo."
He shrugs. "Fair enough. Was there anything you needed?"
You take a somewhat deep breath. "Look, Karna-"
"Yo, Adrian!"
Raban looks considerably more awake than the last two times you saw him; the bruised hollows under his eyes more dusky smears than hard-cut circles. His hair's even a little less mussed up too. He probably hasn't been up all that long. Leaning around a meticulously organized, tiered display; he shifts his load under one arm. Gripping the bulbous, podlike modules tight as he holds up a hand in an easy half-wave.
The night's warm enough that he's wearing short sleeves, you can see a network of tattoos beneath the pale-brown skin. Circuit patterns; forking and dividing, shifting from cool blue to pale green as they arc down his arm. There's a circular node, almost like an icon, on the back of his right hand. Inked bars splitting off from it, branching down his fingers. You didn't notice it before. You try not to stare now.
You… do an okay job.
"H-hey." You mumble, more than a little caught off guard. More than a little shy.
"Hey yourself. How's the taser working? Was a faster job than I would have liked. Hope it did its thing ok-" He pauses as he rounds the display. As he catches a glimpse of who you're talking to. To his credit he recovers gamely. "...Oh hey Karna. Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt."
"Don't mind me, just browsing," he replied. "You're here to ask about metamaterials I take it?"
"Buy nine and get the tenth one free-free-free with our loyalty program!" Herr Tintenfisch adds sagely.
"Well, sort of." Raban adjusts his grip on the modules under his arm. "Came to get some drone targeting uplink modules. Stayed to ask about getting metamaterials in bulk on the cheap." He glances at you. "Kind of need it for all your Shadowrunner gear, heh."
"Oh, right. That." You look down at yourself, the ragged replacement for Ram's coat doing an even worse job of covering you. "Guess I've been a bit, um, underdressed recently."
"Don't worry, you don't look very naked."
You cough awkwardly. Raban doesn't seem to notice.
"And hey, we might even have something ready for your next run!" he goes on.
"You'd have to work fast," Karna comments slightly grimly. "We're on a very tight schedule now that Adrian's on the team. Very demanding client. One we don't want to cross."
"Oh, well, from what I heard on the grapevine you seemed to do pretty well for a first-timer!" Raban smiles reassuringly at you. You try to return the gesture. All you really do is expose a lot of fangs. He doesn't seem to mind.
"See anything you like-ike, 404 term of endearment not found?" Herr Tintenfisch asked.
"Nothing yet. Message me when you've got new stock in, same as always," Karna replies.
"Anything for a valu-valued customer!"
"So what're you guys up to now?" Raban asks.
"Well… not a lot. Nothing to particularly engage Adrian, definitely." Karna taps the pocket where his PDA sits, but doesn't check it. He doesn't need to. "Meetings. Doing the rounds. Checking in on the others. Basic Matrix legwork on the client-"
"Matrix!" you interject, louder than you intended. You clear your throat and start again, softer. "You said something about showing me around the Matrix the other day. So, I dunno, I don't mean to impose but if you've got a bit of free time…"
Karna does take his PDA out now, flicking his thumb across the screen briefly to check the time. He sucks his teeth momentarily. "Why not? You'll need to learn sooner or later, I might as well make sure you learn properly. We can get you a connection right next door."
"Wha- really? I thought that was just an arcade?"
"What do you think the machines in there run their games on?" Karna replies, ever so slightly amused by your ignorance. "You jack in, play online, jack out. The screens are for whoever's wandering around wondering what to spend their money on next."
"Sounds pretty cool."
"It was, in its heyday. But this place is fifteen years old - abandoned after the Night of Rage, like everything else non-essential." He chuckled. "We can thank Herr Tintenfisch for getting it up and running, actually. Hovers in and tinkers with everything all day every day, like clockwork. Seems to think it runs the arcade as well as its shop."
"Ask about our gold- platinum- diamond- onyx- pearl- zirconium- premium membership plan!" the drone stammered rapidly.
"I'll get out of your hair, then," Raban says. "Gunari'll have my ass if I take much longer anyway."
"Oh, uh, sorry everything had to get cut short," you apologize awkwardly.
"Don't worry about it. I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to talk when you're getting fitted for gear at the shop. Have fun in the Matrix!" Raban hugs the armful of uplink modules against his chest and begins his careful trip back to the shop.
You wave goodbye, you hesitate as he pauses and turns back around.
"Oh, uh, do you have a PDA yet by the way?"
You carefully fish out your secondhand device; it's large enough that it barely fits in your black-scaled palm.
"Sweet, toss?"
You toss it uncertainly. Low and underhand, slow as you can; you probably needn't have bothered, he catches it just fine one handed. There's a few seconds of screen swiping. He punches in a string of numbers with his thumb and tosses it back. You catch it against the padded breast of your replacement coat and glance down at the screen.
[Contact Added: Raban Hauk]
"Call me if you've got questions about your kit or need to special order something. Or if you just feel like it, heh. Later Adrian. Karna."
You look down at your PDA for a second, watching as the message auto-dismisses. You tuck it back into your pocket and look up to see Karna giving you A Look. He glances at the already distant outline of Raban, his eyes slide back over to you.
"...W-what?"
"Nothing."
The worn, moth eaten chair has at least twenty five separate settings by your count. Enough fine, semi-automatic adjustments to cradle anything from a troll to a dwarf in something close to actual comfort; complete with an in-built massage system to stave off numbness of the ass.
Literally none of them fit you. You're too lean, too boney, too fluid. Every time you try to shift some new spur or flange or limb ends up getting pushed out of the chair. You settle for curling up on the chair, catlike. Tail drawn tight around your ankles. Quietly glad that most of the Arcade is dark and empty. There are maybe one or two other people here, Schattenstadt's morning crowd.
A low humming starts, you flinch as the jagged edges of your body dig into the vibrating upholstery.
"I'll...get that." There's a click. It stops. Karna stands next to you, mildly bemused, a silvery helmet in his hands. The dome is sloped and sleek, rising up in ridges underneath an old, flecked off coat of glossy paint. Lights blink steady in a ring around the lip. Karna undoes a strap as he talks.
"There are two ways of accessing the Matrix: commercial use and proper decking. The difference between them is like a passenger airliner versus a jet fighter. The casual user doesn't dip their feet in farther than PDA's and maybe some external neural rigs. Deckers immerse themselves in the architecture of the Matrix, thinking and coding as the network and their tools will allow. Which in basic terms means hours of subjective time in the space of a few minutes. It can be addictive. A lot of us have to set timers to remember to eat and bathe." He reaches under the dome, you hear the brittle clicking, the hollow thunk, as plastic parts and cold circuits are pulled free. You shrink against the seat a little.
"...Are you s-"
"Adrian please. I know what I'm doing. And that's not what you're doing today anyway. Or… ever, most likely. You're Awakened on a level that precludes easy cyberization and we don't have the spare nuyen to make you a specialized rig and you don't have the training to use it if we could."
He's right, he's completely right, you know that. And truth be told you were only passingly curious but there's something about the casual way he says it that stings. Karna pauses, the individual segments of the helmet half-pulled apart.
"I'm sorry. That was harsher than I meant it to be. The point is, you don't need to worry about the high end esoteric parts of the Matrix even though we're not going full commercial. I'll be there to guide you in and show you around. Once you feel confident in the Arcade I'll take you in a bit deeper. Alright?"
You nod jerkily. Your stomach twitches. You're not really sure if it's from anxiety or anticipation. Probably a little of A a little of B. Karna beckons you in, you duck your head down and hold it still as he fixes the helmet to your angular, saurian skull. You sit back, feeling a little silly, but at least it fits well.
The broad screen in front of you fills with color, bright and cheery and soothing. Karna takes a seat next to you, gently drawing a slender skein of wire from behind his ear and jacking it into the helmet directly. He places the rig on his lap.
"Let's start you off with something easy..."
Icons cycle across the display, big flashy titles with sleek looking backdrops. You shiver as colors start to bleed out from the screen, creep in from the corners of your eyes. Designs and palettes to match the things on screen. You tentatively swipe the light even though you know it's not really there. Just to see the depth, see how it interacts. You turn your head to see Karna looking at you askance. You drop your hand.
"...Oh here we go." Translucent, pulsing webs fill your field of view. Weaving themselves into a title:
WICKED WEBS.
"It's a platformer. It'll get you used to movement in the Matrix. Ready?"
"Y-yeah. Think so."
There's a moment of awkward quiet, and then Karna hits Accept.
The world goes white.
The world goes black.
It's not solid, there's a kind of granularity to the darkness. It swirls and seethes around you like a cloud of coal dust. Like a storm of soot. Wrapping around you. Enveloping you. You're falling into the void. Desperately scrabbling for something, for anything to hold onto. Claws swiping at empty air. You think you're screaming. You don't know where you are. You don't know what's happening. You just know that the sensation in your stomach is rising, vertigo turning your innards end over end. It speeds up. You're falling faster. Faster. You don't even know if your eyes are open or shut but you try to close them anyway.
The world stops.
Slowly, hesitantly, you uncurl. Unwrapping yourself from the hunched up ball you drew yourself into. Opening your eyes (probably). Taloned toes click on something solid.
Blue-white light blooms from the point of impact, shooting out in every direction. Gridlines of blazing sapphire, digital patterns of burning azure. Slabs of onyx black beneath your feet, trimmed in neon. It reaches the horizon; there's a pulse, a flash. The blue shooting up so high you can't even see the top. Coalescing around enormous, monolithic structures. Around red and greens and a whole riot of colors detailing more of the black.
You feel air against your skin. Cool and dry. You look down at the ground, at your blue claws wrapped in a shimmering haze. Blue-white lines tracing their way up your bent legs, your lean chest. Your hide's somehow slicker, glossier.
There's a pulse of gold on the platform next to you. An avatar appears, gold clad and burning. His face an almost mechanical looking visor, from cheek to cheek and fused with his jawline. A mandala sprouting from his back, cycling with stylized icons. The world bleeds gold where he touches. The name over his head, highlighted in a little text-box, reads KARNA.
You're in some kind of arena, suspended above a vast web of glittering, glassy mesh. Other platforms switch and rotate around you, kept aloft by nothing in particular. Sleek black walls rise, just high enough to block out most of the surrounding area but not high enough to block out the nearby skyline. You and Karna are standing atop the only stable point.
Somewhere lightning flickers and thunder rumbles.
"I-" You try to finish the thought. You fail miserably. Settling instead for staring at the vista.
"Did you make it alright? I know the shift can be disconcerting for some. Especially if it's your first time."
"I...sure. Yeah. Fine." You hold out your hands, gingerly brushing them through the air. You feel a faint breeze play over your skin. "...wow."
"It's great isn't it?"
You glance at Karna. With the visor and golden armor he's harder to read than Geier. But he sounds...pleased. Probably the closest thing to actually enthusiastic you've heard from him yet.
"Wow."
"So. I've got about thirty minutes in meat space I can spare. That's plenty of time to give you the basics and show you some of the larger areas of the Schattenstadt internal net. There's a History database, a Media center, anything you want to know more about is off there." He waves at the giants in the distance, as large or larger than any man made structure in your time.
"Anything strike your interest?"
He pauses.
"...I'm not taking you through the Red Light section by the way."
You're not sure if you can flush in digital space. You think there's even odds you might have though.
[ ] Look up what happened to the SOX in the fifty years you've been gone.
[ ] Research your fellow changelings, see how they've done with themselves.
[ ] Research dragons. For a thing that's squatting in your brain you don't know much about it.
[ ] Look up what this 'comet-mania' is all about.
And oh God change the topic.
[ ] Ask Karna about himself.
[ ] Ask Karna about the team.
[ ] Ask Karna about AI.
[ ] Ask about that performance review you never got because everything was on fire.
You emerge from the Executive and step onto the covered walkway, studiously refusing to look down. You're reminded again of the (appropriately enough) night-and-day changes in Schattenstadt. If it weren't for the guards stationed around the settlement, little dots of black and neon blue, you'd think the place had been evacuated. At least the sky has something approaching colour this late, shades of golden orange that even come close to the sky you remember. You put your hands in your pockets and get a move on. No sense in pining for long-dead comforts. Like pretty skies. Or clean air.
Some of the guards you pass glance your way, yet still none of them show any real reaction to you. Zero Point must have instructed them well. It helps, if only a little. You make a few wrong turns on the way find Karna, but you correct your course quickly enough. Maybe you have an improved memory and sense of direction too, on top of everything else. Small comfort.
You find him on the floor above the movie theatre, next to what a helpful sign informs you is the 'ARCADE'. You glance inside as you pass and glimpse a fairly standard setup of game machines lined up all in rows, everything sitting cold and dark without the night-owls (early birds?) of Schattenstadt to populate it. The thing beside it that has Karna so interested has its own sign. You read it quickly as you scuttle over to him - 'Herr Tintenfisch's Geräte'.
The regular infrastructure of the shopping centre long since eroded away, the shop makes do with tarps. A lot of tarps. They stretch out into an awning to protect the goods from the decades of rain slowly working its way through the building layer by layer. The wares are arranged with agonizing neatness and precision into circular 'islands' which, as far as you can tell, have absolutely no rhyme or reason to them. There aren't even price tags. There's also nobody around to actually sell the things.
That would be because Karna is talking to the robotic squid sitting on a crate in the middle of the 'shop' like it owns the place. The cephalopodic case is propped up on a display stand, the peaked main body roughly as long as your torso and as patchwork as an old blanket. It peers up at Karna with a cluster of electronic eyes, gesticulating with its eight muscular manipulator tentacles as it 'speaks' to him. The other two tentacles are more delicate, tipped with all sorts of hardware too small and unfamiliar to name. It notices you coming and waves.
"Guten tag-ag!" The words are synthesized badly, bereft of emotion and pronounced syllable by syllable. The stutter doesn't help either. "May I interest you-you in our f-fine new- KKKKSSSSHHHHH"
You flinch.
"Don't worry about it, that happens when he tries to say something he hasn't been programmed to say." Karna sidles through the shop with practiced ease, skirting every delicate display as he scans them like a hawk. "Autonomous shop drone, only programmed with about fifty phrases. Probably hasn't been able to sell you something by name since 2050."
"Where's its owner?"
The drone wiggles its tentacles at you in a vaguely offended manner.
"Herr Tintenfisch prefers to be called 'he'." Karna picks up something the size of a pack of cigarettes, turning it this way and that. "And we don't know. It was a deactivated hunk of junk until about three years ago. Next thing we knew it'd put itself back together again and started setting up shop following its protocols. It's been ordering new stock online like clockwork ever since. So… he's one of the family now."
"Stunning-unning deals you can't afford to mi-miss!" Herr Tintenfisch adds.
"... so is it a-?"
"An AI?" Karna chuckles once. "An AI would be an order of magnitude more impressive. No, Herr Tintenfisch is just a commercial piece of software someone accidentally or on-purpose coded to be more or less autonomous in this situation. Barring a catastrophic CPU failure or his replacement parts getting discontinued, he can essentially go on forever."
"I… see…" You stare at the drone suspiciously.
"You may already be a winner-er!" it replies.
"So what're you doing up?" Karna asks, shuffling to the next display. "After all the excitement last night I'd have assumed you'd take the chance to sleep in."
"Didn't really want to sit around with nothing but the TV for company. Sorry, trideo."
He shrugs. "Fair enough. Was there anything you needed?"
You take a somewhat deep breath. "Look, Karna-"
"Yo, Adrian!"
Raban looks considerably more awake than the last two times you saw him; the bruised hollows under his eyes more dusky smears than hard-cut circles. His hair's even a little less mussed up too. He probably hasn't been up all that long. Leaning around a meticulously organized, tiered display; he shifts his load under one arm. Gripping the bulbous, podlike modules tight as he holds up a hand in an easy half-wave.
The night's warm enough that he's wearing short sleeves, you can see a network of tattoos beneath the pale-brown skin. Circuit patterns; forking and dividing, shifting from cool blue to pale green as they arc down his arm. There's a circular node, almost like an icon, on the back of his right hand. Inked bars splitting off from it, branching down his fingers. You didn't notice it before. You try not to stare now.
You… do an okay job.
"H-hey." You mumble, more than a little caught off guard. More than a little shy.
"Hey yourself. How's the taser working? Was a faster job than I would have liked. Hope it did its thing ok-" He pauses as he rounds the display. As he catches a glimpse of who you're talking to. To his credit he recovers gamely. "...Oh hey Karna. Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt."
"Don't mind me, just browsing," he replied. "You're here to ask about metamaterials I take it?"
"Buy nine and get the tenth one free-free-free with our loyalty program!" Herr Tintenfisch adds sagely.
"Well, sort of." Raban adjusts his grip on the modules under his arm. "Came to get some drone targeting uplink modules. Stayed to ask about getting metamaterials in bulk on the cheap." He glances at you. "Kind of need it for all your Shadowrunner gear, heh."
"Oh, right. That." You look down at yourself, the ragged replacement for Ram's coat doing an even worse job of covering you. "Guess I've been a bit, um, underdressed recently."
"Don't worry, you don't look very naked."
You cough awkwardly. Raban doesn't seem to notice.
"And hey, we might even have something ready for your next run!" he goes on.
"You'd have to work fast," Karna comments slightly grimly. "We're on a very tight schedule now that Adrian's on the team. Very demanding client. One we don't want to cross."
"Oh, well, from what I heard on the grapevine you seemed to do pretty well for a first-timer!" Raban smiles reassuringly at you. You try to return the gesture. All you really do is expose a lot of fangs. He doesn't seem to mind.
"See anything you like-ike, 404 term of endearment not found?" Herr Tintenfisch asked.
"Nothing yet. Message me when you've got new stock in, same as always," Karna replies.
"Anything for a valu-valued customer!"
"So what're you guys up to now?" Raban asks.
"Well… not a lot. Nothing to particularly engage Adrian, definitely." Karna taps the pocket where his PDA sits, but doesn't check it. He doesn't need to. "Meetings. Doing the rounds. Checking in on the others. Basic Matrix legwork on the client-"
"Matrix!" you interject, louder than you intended. You clear your throat and start again, softer. "You said something about showing me around the Matrix the other day. So, I dunno, I don't mean to impose but if you've got a bit of free time…"
Karna does take his PDA out now, flicking his thumb across the screen briefly to check the time. He sucks his teeth momentarily. "Why not? You'll need to learn sooner or later, I might as well make sure you learn properly. We can get you a connection right next door."
"Wha- really? I thought that was just an arcade?"
"What do you think the machines in there run their games on?" Karna replies, ever so slightly amused by your ignorance. "You jack in, play online, jack out. The screens are for whoever's wandering around wondering what to spend their money on next."
"Sounds pretty cool."
"It was, in its heyday. But this place is fifteen years old - abandoned after the Night of Rage, like everything else non-essential." He chuckled. "We can thank Herr Tintenfisch for getting it up and running, actually. Hovers in and tinkers with everything all day every day, like clockwork. Seems to think it runs the arcade as well as its shop."
"Ask about our gold- platinum- diamond- onyx- pearl- zirconium- premium membership plan!" the drone stammered rapidly.
"I'll get out of your hair, then," Raban says. "Gunari'll have my ass if I take much longer anyway."
"Oh, uh, sorry everything had to get cut short," you apologize awkwardly.
"Don't worry about it. I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to talk when you're getting fitted for gear at the shop. Have fun in the Matrix!" Raban hugs the armful of uplink modules against his chest and begins his careful trip back to the shop.
You wave goodbye, you hesitate as he pauses and turns back around.
"Oh, uh, do you have a PDA yet by the way?"
You carefully fish out your secondhand device; it's large enough that it barely fits in your black-scaled palm.
"Sweet, toss?"
You toss it uncertainly. Low and underhand, slow as you can; you probably needn't have bothered, he catches it just fine one handed. There's a few seconds of screen swiping. He punches in a string of numbers with his thumb and tosses it back. You catch it against the padded breast of your replacement coat and glance down at the screen.
[Contact Added: Raban Hauk]
"Call me if you've got questions about your kit or need to special order something. Or if you just feel like it, heh. Later Adrian. Karna."
You look down at your PDA for a second, watching as the message auto-dismisses. You tuck it back into your pocket and look up to see Karna giving you A Look. He glances at the already distant outline of Raban, his eyes slide back over to you.
"...W-what?"
"Nothing."
***
The worn, moth eaten chair has at least twenty five separate settings by your count. Enough fine, semi-automatic adjustments to cradle anything from a troll to a dwarf in something close to actual comfort; complete with an in-built massage system to stave off numbness of the ass.
Literally none of them fit you. You're too lean, too boney, too fluid. Every time you try to shift some new spur or flange or limb ends up getting pushed out of the chair. You settle for curling up on the chair, catlike. Tail drawn tight around your ankles. Quietly glad that most of the Arcade is dark and empty. There are maybe one or two other people here, Schattenstadt's morning crowd.
A low humming starts, you flinch as the jagged edges of your body dig into the vibrating upholstery.
"I'll...get that." There's a click. It stops. Karna stands next to you, mildly bemused, a silvery helmet in his hands. The dome is sloped and sleek, rising up in ridges underneath an old, flecked off coat of glossy paint. Lights blink steady in a ring around the lip. Karna undoes a strap as he talks.
"There are two ways of accessing the Matrix: commercial use and proper decking. The difference between them is like a passenger airliner versus a jet fighter. The casual user doesn't dip their feet in farther than PDA's and maybe some external neural rigs. Deckers immerse themselves in the architecture of the Matrix, thinking and coding as the network and their tools will allow. Which in basic terms means hours of subjective time in the space of a few minutes. It can be addictive. A lot of us have to set timers to remember to eat and bathe." He reaches under the dome, you hear the brittle clicking, the hollow thunk, as plastic parts and cold circuits are pulled free. You shrink against the seat a little.
"...Are you s-"
"Adrian please. I know what I'm doing. And that's not what you're doing today anyway. Or… ever, most likely. You're Awakened on a level that precludes easy cyberization and we don't have the spare nuyen to make you a specialized rig and you don't have the training to use it if we could."
He's right, he's completely right, you know that. And truth be told you were only passingly curious but there's something about the casual way he says it that stings. Karna pauses, the individual segments of the helmet half-pulled apart.
"I'm sorry. That was harsher than I meant it to be. The point is, you don't need to worry about the high end esoteric parts of the Matrix even though we're not going full commercial. I'll be there to guide you in and show you around. Once you feel confident in the Arcade I'll take you in a bit deeper. Alright?"
You nod jerkily. Your stomach twitches. You're not really sure if it's from anxiety or anticipation. Probably a little of A a little of B. Karna beckons you in, you duck your head down and hold it still as he fixes the helmet to your angular, saurian skull. You sit back, feeling a little silly, but at least it fits well.
The broad screen in front of you fills with color, bright and cheery and soothing. Karna takes a seat next to you, gently drawing a slender skein of wire from behind his ear and jacking it into the helmet directly. He places the rig on his lap.
"Let's start you off with something easy..."
Icons cycle across the display, big flashy titles with sleek looking backdrops. You shiver as colors start to bleed out from the screen, creep in from the corners of your eyes. Designs and palettes to match the things on screen. You tentatively swipe the light even though you know it's not really there. Just to see the depth, see how it interacts. You turn your head to see Karna looking at you askance. You drop your hand.
"...Oh here we go." Translucent, pulsing webs fill your field of view. Weaving themselves into a title:
WICKED WEBS.
"It's a platformer. It'll get you used to movement in the Matrix. Ready?"
"Y-yeah. Think so."
There's a moment of awkward quiet, and then Karna hits Accept.
The world goes white.
The world goes black.
It's not solid, there's a kind of granularity to the darkness. It swirls and seethes around you like a cloud of coal dust. Like a storm of soot. Wrapping around you. Enveloping you. You're falling into the void. Desperately scrabbling for something, for anything to hold onto. Claws swiping at empty air. You think you're screaming. You don't know where you are. You don't know what's happening. You just know that the sensation in your stomach is rising, vertigo turning your innards end over end. It speeds up. You're falling faster. Faster. You don't even know if your eyes are open or shut but you try to close them anyway.
The world stops.
Slowly, hesitantly, you uncurl. Unwrapping yourself from the hunched up ball you drew yourself into. Opening your eyes (probably). Taloned toes click on something solid.
Blue-white light blooms from the point of impact, shooting out in every direction. Gridlines of blazing sapphire, digital patterns of burning azure. Slabs of onyx black beneath your feet, trimmed in neon. It reaches the horizon; there's a pulse, a flash. The blue shooting up so high you can't even see the top. Coalescing around enormous, monolithic structures. Around red and greens and a whole riot of colors detailing more of the black.
You feel air against your skin. Cool and dry. You look down at the ground, at your blue claws wrapped in a shimmering haze. Blue-white lines tracing their way up your bent legs, your lean chest. Your hide's somehow slicker, glossier.
There's a pulse of gold on the platform next to you. An avatar appears, gold clad and burning. His face an almost mechanical looking visor, from cheek to cheek and fused with his jawline. A mandala sprouting from his back, cycling with stylized icons. The world bleeds gold where he touches. The name over his head, highlighted in a little text-box, reads KARNA.
You're in some kind of arena, suspended above a vast web of glittering, glassy mesh. Other platforms switch and rotate around you, kept aloft by nothing in particular. Sleek black walls rise, just high enough to block out most of the surrounding area but not high enough to block out the nearby skyline. You and Karna are standing atop the only stable point.
Somewhere lightning flickers and thunder rumbles.
"I-" You try to finish the thought. You fail miserably. Settling instead for staring at the vista.
"Did you make it alright? I know the shift can be disconcerting for some. Especially if it's your first time."
"I...sure. Yeah. Fine." You hold out your hands, gingerly brushing them through the air. You feel a faint breeze play over your skin. "...wow."
"It's great isn't it?"
You glance at Karna. With the visor and golden armor he's harder to read than Geier. But he sounds...pleased. Probably the closest thing to actually enthusiastic you've heard from him yet.
"Wow."
"So. I've got about thirty minutes in meat space I can spare. That's plenty of time to give you the basics and show you some of the larger areas of the Schattenstadt internal net. There's a History database, a Media center, anything you want to know more about is off there." He waves at the giants in the distance, as large or larger than any man made structure in your time.
"Anything strike your interest?"
He pauses.
"...I'm not taking you through the Red Light section by the way."
You're not sure if you can flush in digital space. You think there's even odds you might have though.
[ ] Look up what happened to the SOX in the fifty years you've been gone.
[ ] Research your fellow changelings, see how they've done with themselves.
[ ] Research dragons. For a thing that's squatting in your brain you don't know much about it.
[ ] Look up what this 'comet-mania' is all about.
And oh God change the topic.
[ ] Ask Karna about himself.
[ ] Ask Karna about the team.
[ ] Ask Karna about AI.
[ ] Ask about that performance review you never got because everything was on fire.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Ask about that performance review you never got because everything was on fire.
[X] Research your fellow changelings, see how they've done with themselves.
[X] Research your fellow changelings, see how they've done with themselves.
[X] Look up what happened to the SOX in the fifty years you've been gone.
[X] Ask about that performance review you never got because everything was on fire.
[X] Ask about that performance review you never got because everything was on fire.
LupineVolt
Now with 200% more Puns
- Location
- Michigan
[X] Research your fellow changelings, see how they've done with themselves.
[X] Ask Karna about himself.
[X] Ask Karna about himself.
WanderingEye
smol skeleton
[X] Look up what happened to the SOX in the fifty years you've been gone.
[X] Ask about that performance review you never got because everything was on fire.
[X] Ask about that performance review you never got because everything was on fire.
The Curious Fan
Perpetually sleep deprived
[X] Look up what happened to the SOX in the fifty years you've been gone.
[X] Ask about that performance review you never got because everything was on fire.
[X] Ask about that performance review you never got because everything was on fire.
- Location
- Canada
[X] Look up what happened to the SOX in the fifty years you've been gone.
[X] Ask about that performance review you never got because everything was on fire.
[X] Ask about that performance review you never got because everything was on fire.
- Location
- Simi Valley, CA, United States
[X] Look up what happened to the SOX in the fifty years you've been gone. That shows you, Max. Don't care about our family. Sure.
[X] Ask about that performance review you never got because everything was on fire.
[X] Ask about that performance review you never got because everything was on fire.
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Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
[X] Look up what happened to the SOX in the fifty years you've been gone.
[ ] Research dragons. For a thing that's squatting in your brain you don't know much about it.
Seem most interesting/relevant. We really should be searching Totems though, not just dragons.
Adrian's new name really should be Steve Rogers.
[ ] Ask Karna about AI.
[X] Ask about that performance review you never got because everything was on fire.
The two questions he's most likely to answer.
[ ] Research dragons. For a thing that's squatting in your brain you don't know much about it.
Seem most interesting/relevant. We really should be searching Totems though, not just dragons.
Adrian's new name really should be Steve Rogers.
[ ] Ask Karna about AI.
[X] Ask about that performance review you never got because everything was on fire.
The two questions he's most likely to answer.
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
Herr Tintenfisch is best android.
