CHAPTER 0 – The Origin of The User
CHAPTER 1 – Awakening
CHAPTER 2 – The Tunnel
CHAPTER 3 – Surfaced
CHAPTER 4 – The Tour Guide
CHAPTER 5 – Hull of Darkness
CHAPTER 6 – Swine Eat Swine
CHAPTER 7 – Blame
CHAPTER 8 – Ville of Illusion
CHAPTER 9 – Deflection
CHAPTER 10 – Agony of the Cowards
CHAPTER 11 – Ogres' Aisle
CHAPTER 12 – The Technophiles of
Palladius
CHAPTER 13 – Advice From the Orgiophant
CHAPTER 14 – Mortispolis
CHAPTER
15 – Kiss of Cozenage
CHAPTER 16 – Asylum, At Last
CHAPTER 0 – The Origin of The User
Thirty
page exposition, detailing the mechanics of the game and Roy’s background,
which led to the game’s creation.
CHAPTER 1 – Awakening
The
narrative begins when Roy awakens in the real world for the first time in
almost twenty years. Most of his memories have long since been washed away by
drugs, conditioning, and detachment and he does not know where he is. A strange
man appears, and releases him from his isolation chamber, then bluntly lays on him
everything that has happened and tries to convince Roy to come with him. Roy
denies all that he is being told until the man, Exxe, shows him a pocket
mirror. Roy has a psychotic break at the sight of himself and tries to run, but
the perimeter of the manor is sealed. Sees the outside world and fully
disassociates back to Valcadis.
CHAPTER 2 – The Tunnel
[Valcadis flashover scene one. The
same recurring dream: the storm, the vast misty ocean, the small boat, he all
alone.
Then the flames, all is burning. Roy awakens on a bed. An old man and two
children attend to him. Tells Roy he is sick, fevered, perhaps caused by majick, also
that many ominous things have been happening since the eclipse. Roy sees the
eclipse from his bedside window. a golden sunset, with a black orb over half.
“Ardora, I’m afraid I don’t know that person. I’m sorry. You can stay here
until your well. My daughter will take you wherever you need to go.”]
With
Roy unconscious, the hegira begins without his consent. Exxe pulls Roy on a
dolly through the underground access tunnel, leading off the property. Roy
wakes and is given medicine for his psychological issues, and becomes somewhat
more receptive, as Exxe opts for rhetoric to convince him to cooperate. Questions are asked and answers are
given. Largely a dialogue based chapter. The two build a modicum of rapport,
and though still confused, Roy partially comes to accept the parameters of his
new reality.
CHAPTER 3 – Surfaced
Chapter
documents the two hour drive south from the manor into the city. Descriptions
of the post-collapse world, and a history of the collapse. More dialogue
between Roy and Exxe. The two run out of gas a few miles out of Brooklyn, and
proceed on foot towards downtown, specifically, Roy’s father’s skyscraper to
rendezvous on the roof with the man who will help them. The streets are mostly
desolate besides a few scattered vagrants, but are guarded by drones, still
operational from before the collapse. Inside the building, more stragglers, on
drugs, sick, dying, mad. Most ignore them. They take the stairs to the top
floor where a deranged man attacks Roy. Exxe tries to fight him off, but
cannot, and another man rescues them. Enter….
CHAPTER 4 – The Tour Guide
[Valcadis flashover, scene two. The
strange woman on horseback. The storm. The mission recalled. Ganzer, I’m going
to end you.The augur’s prophecy: "Beware of illusions, you carry a
curse."]
Roy
awakens from his fugue state. He is lying on a mat of cloth, and overhears the
conversation between Exxe and another man with a strange voice. It is the man
who killed his attacker. Information is divulged. An introduction to Sinlis.
Roy has immediate trust issues with their new partner. The three enter the
sewers and began their descent into Nether York.
CHAPTER 5 - Hull of Darkness
The
hull consists of the sewers under NYC. This area is a brink, a fringe to the
subcities, a safe way to navigate away from the populated subway tunnels.
Sinlis describes it as like a limbo into hell that only men of a certain degree
of madness would ever dare cross. It is pitch black, and they follow Sinlis who
can see thanks to cyberoptic implants. No infrastructure, no occupants. Still no
definitive action. Sinlis talks, tells a little about his past, though oblique
and vague. He also summarizes the
underground to his unacquainted partners. Groups are segregated, and these
pocketed nations are referred to sectors, spread between four levels of depth,
their populations referred to as sects. There are nine sectors in all, and
though the cultures of each sect are unique in their psychosocial mutations,
all have a shared leitmotif of extremes and insanity. Many are dangerous,
do not allow passersthrough. Luckily they are primitive and dysfunctional in
ways that can be exploited as weakness and Sinlis, familiar with the sectors of
the first three tiers, assures safe passages until that point. However, he
admits he has not ventured deeper and confesses that he has always been too
frightened to go into the deep, final tier. There are several points of entry,
known as portals, from the hull into the undercities of Nether York, none of
which are preferable to the others. Sinlis chooses one, that he infers is the
least dangerous. They come to the entry hatch, and go down, entering...
CHAPTER 6 – Swine Eat Swine
Tier
one of Nether York. The subways system, the lawless people. a long horizontal
hell hall of chaos and cannibalism. “Light violence” as sinlis calls it. Intro
to these people, dumb brutes with crude mechanical technologies who live mostly
in anarchy around the corridor of the rail tracks. Kind of a nod to cheesy
eighties post-apocalyptic films such as mad max, escape from new York, the warriors,
etc, though a realized and realistic culture based on that. They observe
violence, though do not encounter it towards them. People here seem to
recognize respectively avoid Sinlis.
They proceed through this area to the next, where they encounter their first
threats of many to come.
CHAPTER 7 – Blame
[Valcadis flashover scene two, part two. The
User follows a river upstream, which has turned to blood, and continues through
a forest of yellow leaves, before arriving at a verdant woods home to hermetical creatures.]
Tier
two. Sector of the arm (aka The Law). The entrance is guarded, and there is a
fight between Sinlis and the four defenders. They move on and come to a chamber
hall where many citizens have conglomerated for some kind of a speech. The man
giving the speech is the judge, who is the supreme leader of the arm. After the
speech there is an execution. The crowd disbands and the three hide in the
shadows. Sinlis deduces that the only way to get through the heavily defended
sector, is to take the judge hostage. In
stealth they follow the judge to his residence, and wait to attack later. The
house is guarded by two large men. One is drawn out and killed quietly. Sinlis
takes his clothes and helmet and motions for the other guard to come over, is
killed then. Judge is with really old, but in good shape. He notices roy, that
he is weak, scared, and having psyche issues. Begins to question and mess with
his head. Sinlis beats the judge to silence, though he has already gotten to Roy.
The trio is near the outskirts when they are met by a new enemy: agile, armed
technohumanoids called wraders, which have been dispatched by the arm to kill
them. There are six of them, and each an ability that matches that of Sinlis.
History of the wraders. The three must
work together to survive and get to the next sector. Roy is called into action
and kills one. At the edge of the sector, Sinlis kills the judge before the
trio barely escape the final two pursuing wraders, and enter…
CHAPTER 8 – Ville of Illusion
They
seal the border entrance and are safe from threats. This sector is an abandoned
city known as the the ville of illusion, what was once home to a sect of
neurotics / artists – though now defunct culture that exist now only as
archaeological ghosts, memories through portraits, really creepy ones, with
books (illuminated manuscripts), thousands of pages, illustrated that have a
chronicle of their lives before the collapse. Now there is only one man there, the reminders drove the rest of
them crazy, some killed themselves, others fled and were killed, most joined
other sectors. While there are no dangers, the place is very creepy, and
unnerving especially to Roy, as the sector was constructed like a house of
mirrors to mimick the old days above ground, before the collapse.
They
come to a chapel, a kind of inner shrine of the past, where they encounter the
sole survivor of this group. He is schizophrenic and engages Roy with crazy
talk, that seems like a warning or prophecy. Sinlis kills him, but not before
Roy’s sense of trust and reality is dislodged. That night they rest and Roy
hears a whispering voice call him away from the camp. He lies and says he need
sto pee, then follows it unto an artificial lake, where he is met by bloody
schizo-mole man from before, who rants about set-ups and illusions, causing Roy
to detach for a third time.
CHAPTER 9 – Deflection
[Valcadis flashover, scene three. The storm
has passed and the eclipse has waxed, covering nearly three fourths of the sun.
Roy begins an ascent through the strange villages and up a mythical mountain of
doom, following the trails of Ganzer, who has Ardora and clues suggest he seems
to be taking her to play a part in some sacrifice. Enemies await in a mysterious
forest. Ardora appears, or so it seems]
Exxe
and Sinlis find Roy naked and unconscious, and Roy awakens with distrust and
anger towards them. Believes they are not real or are using him. He leaves on
his own. Exxe tries to stop him, but Sinlis says to let him go, that he will be
back. This is a very introspective chapter, a psychological study on Roy’s
current state of mind as well as his deepest subconscious fears, that will
continue to be unearthed in later chapters. He wanders to the edge, where he
hears terrible noises that frighten him and has no choice but to go back .
CHAPTER 10 – Agony of the Cowards
They
head back in the opposite direction into a sect occupied by the fools or the
cowards, a group of people who unknowingly migrated themselves into a corner
and exist as passive prey for the surrounding predatory sects. They live
in a state of perpetual fear and mental foundering, almost in a state of
paralysis. They live in hiding, and have little or no culture. They are raided
and massacred by a group from the lower sect, who excavate their grottos and
devour them in Saturn-esque gore. Though there was attempt made to avoid such a
route, the sector has expanded, and they must cross into the territory of these
golem like people. Enter...
CHAPTER 11 – Ogres' Aisle
The
third tier. Sector of the
ogres, the freaks – omnivorous, psychologically mutated heathens. Mortal
monsters whose evil is not systematic, but primal and regressive. Roy
sees yet paralled horrors here. There are feasts of blood and it becomes aware
that this sector is where the screams from before originated from. Humans,
mostly from the sect of fools, are kept chained and imprisoned, where they are
eaten. Much action ensues before a rockslide separates Roy from the group.
Alone he is met again with the ghost of the schizo-mole man, and is jettisoned
further towards insanity. Another very introspective/psychologically probing
chapter into Roy. Leads into the lower third tier....
CHAPTER 12 – The Technophiles of
Palladius
[Valcadis flashover, scene four. Nearing the summit, there is a blizzard and The User must take shelter. Afterwards, he comes upon
fresh foot prints in the snow, and recognizes one pair as Ardora’s. They must
be close. The User pushes on, following the footsteps to some strange mythical
ruins on the mountain side, some sort of a temple. He is met by Ashlan, Ganzer’s
ally, and must defeat him to pass.]
The
sect of the technophiles or humanists who live peacefully in a remote, fortified
pocket of the earth. They have much technology, and are passive and friendly, conservatively
morally-grounded intellectuals. They offer medicine to sick travelers and safe haven, give
details on the fourth tier. Sinlis has a strong disliking for these people, as
they choose not to fight, but to isolate, and have sterilized their own
population for ethical reasons. Roy still very confused and paranoid, remains
in bed where he is taken care of, until Sinlis sparks trouble and they must leave, making way towards...
CHAPTER 13 – Advice From the Orgiophant
The
fourth tier. The sector of the hedonists or sexus cultus. A nihilistic, though
non-aggressive society based around carnal and chemical indulgence; an apex of
high society, mostly female, who reside in the psychedelic-gothic,
meticulously-labyrinthine pocket known as the chapel of flesh. Stained glass,
neon-lit walls with genital textures, strange music. Roy begins to lose his
mind as he wanders throughout the marble corridors of this decadent and surreal
maze. He is requested to meet with the orgiophant, the conductor or queen of
this sect, who apparently can help direct him. She gives him pleasure and
empathy drugs to ease his anxiety, and they spend the evening talking. A final
calm before the storm...
CHAPTER 14 – Mortispolis
[Valcadis flashover, scene five. The
eclipse is total. A tower resembling the branch of a tree uproots into the sky.
Demon-like creatures descend from the sky and attack The User as he nears the mountains
summit and the base of the tower. He encounters several allies and nemeses from
his history in the game, before beginning up the seemingly never ending stairs,
where Ganzer is taking Ardora. ]
Sector
of the lost, the logicians, the heretics. A bizarre cult of mask-donning,
non-violent psychos. Take drugs regularly, a kind of mix between acid and meth, called information
eaters, IE’s (pronounced ‘ease’), also dis-IEs. This bizarre culture has
an occult religion based on entropy, death, decay, etc. Engage in necromancy, alchemy, arcane practices and live
in a horrifying network of chambers, with digital libraries filled with obscure
existential and misanthropic-themed books, real and imagined, as well as 'rubicon rooms' for the purpose of
committing suicide and transmogrification vessels, to journey spatially, to
see through time, or even to see one's own end, though it is unsure if this actually
works or is an effect of the IE's, Roy is almost convinced to engage in this ritual,
but instead holds the hand of one of the apostles and he sees for him. The man becomes very frightened and silent before killing himself and saying a few
words. Roy begins to slip into terror and insanity.
CHAPTER
15 – Kiss of Cozenage
[Valcadis flashover scene six. The climax to the Roy's
journey to find Ganzer and save Ardora. Roy reaches a Babel-esque
tower. eclipse, the sacrifice, a final battle, where is she?]
Crossing
the Acheron, the underground waterway between the fourth tier and beyond. On
the other side, just prior to the asylum, a betrayal.
CHAPTER 16 – Asylum, At Last
The
firth tier and final sector: the asylum. Occupied by the immortals, or
demiurges, old men resembling baby
faced, paled, wrinkled, blush cheeked, little boys, mutilated by horrendous
surgeries. Humanity at its most
exponential mutation of evil.
