Dud

Moonfiend

Renaldo Piper, The Moth

"Oh fffffffffshit."

The city streamed around him in a crash of colors and a roar of sound. The pulsating waves of the morning crowd echoed off the open storefronts and the warmth of the brilliant golden sun shimmered on the intricate curving patterns in the wide stone walkway of the western concourse. He looked up as he ran. From so close to the Wall, it was easy to see one of the rings of giant mirrors that brought the sunlight to Periphery City. Angled to catch the dawn from the mirrors above, they formed a relay from the top of the Wall to the very lowest level. Between them stretched the glass elevators. Dozens of them flowed, up and down, carrying visitors and workers, human and machine alike.

He nearly threw his red metallic keycard at the side gate as he approached. It dinged politely.

<Piper, Renaldo. Approved for service elevator 1047S-T.>

He was too exasperated and late to bother stopping to look up at the maze of holographic signs. He moved his left hand to his right arm and fingered a keyboard, pulling up the accounting firm's network.

"I need *huff* service elevator ten-forty-seven s-*huff*-dash-t!"

A neon orange beam sped across the walkway before him, lighting his path. He skidded to one side to avoid a stroller and to the other around a gawking tourist. The orange beam ended and the door of a large and unwieldy yellow metal canister rattled open as he approached. It was heavily dented and scratched and had rivets down a side where a section was bolted back on. Apparently employees didn't get quite the same experience as everyone else. He slowed to a walk and entered, the door closing behind him with a clang as he leaned against a wall and caught his breath. The stench of grease and sweat and depression assaulted him; choking back a gag, he breathed more slowly. The light above flickered as he tapped a keyboard idly and swept through several files. His name was Renaldo but the other interns called him Moth. They said he was flighty and harmless and always managed to create a mess if left on his own for too long. He thought it was kinda cool for a nickname, though, and embraced it. After all, he knew they were just insulting him and putting him down because they were his friends. He'd never had those before, and it was nice to have people paying attention to him for once. Moth smiled.

A rumble, and the door groaned open and light filled the elevator. Moth looked up, squinting before the brilliant white that flowed in. His thoughts melted away and he stepped out, awestruck. He was immediately hit by a warm breeze that ruffled his hair and made his eyes water. Or maybe it was the light. Or the view.

What hit him hardest was the size of it all. Numbers and measurements couldn't do it justice. Wave upon wave of emerald, grassy plains stretched to the horizon. Wind sped across the ground, row after row bending to its will and flowing towards the endless sky. And the sky! Moth had never imagined it could be so orange. Streaks of yellow and red coated the clouds as they journeyed through the breaking dawn to the ends of the world. The world outside the Wall. The world outside Periphery City.

Moth's suit beeped. The meeting with the section foreman was starting. The moment passed and reality hit Moth hard as he ran.

Moonfiend

@Mokley@Archimedes@Eodwyn Aether@TojinHeh, thanks for the feedback dudes! I've been thinking about this story way too much. Then again, there are one hundred posts and IC hasn't even started yet, which means everyone else is thinking about it just as much.

Looking at the awesome map, I wonder how large Periphery is. Is every line a simple two lane street, or a massive eight lane freeway? I'd say with a queen as the ruler and with a huge flow of funding and goods required to constantly build up a wall, then the larger the better. More like a nation-state than a regular city. The four curves at each cardinal direction could be major support beams, maybe individual districts with their own governor or mayor that have micro-cites built around them. Maybe slums?

@Eodwyn Aether mentioned the queen's palace in the center, which I think makes perfect sense. It would probably be the tallest building in the city as well. And, uh, tha shits in the inner circle! Yes. Upper class housing towers, financial district, entertainment district, government services, etc.

If some Grit can pass for human, have any already infiltrated Periphery I wonder...

@MsChimeric

Now this is an interesting thought. And if they have, how far up the societal ladder could they be? Hm...

Today is one of my working weekends and I'm looking at the clock and I realize I was supposed to start getting ready twenty minutes ago. I'm sure I'll be thinking about this all day again.

Moonfiend

@Mokley liked this, and said I should post it in OOC.

So I have this image in my head, of an endless green plain. The sky is a deep, brilliant blue with shining white clouds flowing across it, casting mile-wide shadows on the land below. The plain extends for countless miles in all directions, to the horizon, and in the middle, a single massive tower. It's a hundred times taller than it is wide. But it's not a tower, so much as an enormous tube. And at the bottom, a huge bustling metropolis, a marvel of science and magical technology. Mirrors on the inside of the walls reflect sunlight down below, else it would have minutes of daylight at a time, if at all.

youtube.com/watch?v=L43_sGZ37_4

Roll intro credits.

Slow pan across a marketplace, or a busy intersection. A skyscraper-sized screen flashes into life and the queen smiles and waves to her people. Camera low, angled upward as white birds flutter past and up along the wall. Cut to the parapet of the Wall. The view pans left to right, cutting to a visitor's overlook, past Gabriel leaning against a column, Maria offering Elliana some candy, Reina filming birds, Vincent and Katrina milling about, Moth running in and out of frame. The view cuts again and contiues panning, past Dazz and Davis overseeing construction, Florence and Emmitt laughing at a shared joke, Liam handling a massive rivet gun as Old Otto shakes his head dismissively. Ethan strolls past, whistling nonchalantly. Rapid cut, at a low, sharp angle, as groups of two or three of the named characters all look up in shock, some on the edge of joy, some the verge of terror. Cut to a distant view of the city from the plains. Shadows descend upon the wall. Brilliant white flares across the view as the title coalesces in a curving, art deco script.

MOONFIEND.

Moonfiend

Another question for everyone: what do you hope to do or accomplish in this rp? What sort of stuff are you excited about? The one thing that kills my rps most often is the fact that a lot of my crazy nonsensical plot twists are never as awesome as I think they are, haha! I want to do this one justice, and make sure that this game at least attempts to be everything you expected! So lemme know you expectations -- it'd help write a lot. :)

@Mokley

With such a huge variety of characters already, "Moth" is small and meek enough that he could get lost in the fray. He's intellectually overconfident but extremely self-conscious and awkward around others. I'd like to see him eventually evolve from a dorky loser into something of a dorky badass. The story sounds like it could go any number of ways, so I'd like to see if Moth will be able to change with the times, or will stubbornly cling to his past and get left behind. I'd love to see how the others evolve as well. So much variety and so many paths. This will be neat!

Moonfiend

Name: Renaldo "Moth" Piper

Abstract: Obsessive Financomancer, Math Genius, and All-Around Dork

Detail: One of the most famous accounting firms in the city, "Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Brown, LLC.", has been personally selected by the queen to oversee the astronomical flow of funding towards the eternal expansion of the great wall which surrounds Periphery. The four big names themselves sit in their palatial offices, pressing a few keys where necessary, but for field work (or what those in the business refer to as "bitch work"), they send Renaldo. Renaldo is fresh out of school and knows how incredibly lucky he is to be interning at CMYB, an organization his instructors gushed about while making it absolutely clear that he had no chance of ever working for them. Joke's on them. Renaldo was hand-picked by the four named partners themselves; he believes it's because of his incredible intelligence and tenacity. He plans to make it big someday. He's going to be the fifth named partner, he's sure of it! He just needs to remember where he put his enchanted calculator.

Appearance: Five-foot-two and stick thin with freckles, large perfect white teeth, and messy blonde hair he tries to push back in the latest style. He wears inexpensive "tech-specs," a pair of cybernetically enhanced glasses, both to correct his extreme myopia and provide a quick link to the files and data processors at the main branch. The slightest bit of physical exertion, and his cheap Mechro-Accountant 1000 suit is covered in sweat. Various keyboards and touchscreens run across both suit arms.

Magical Inventory: The only item of his that is enchanted is his calculator. On his first day as an intern it arrived at his cubicle wrapped in plain brown paper, an unusual and unexpected gift straight from Lady Cyan herself. Renaldo's calculator includes one sigil in its memory, a Sigil of Stamina.

Moonfiend

@Mokley
I, uh, am still thinking about that. I've been working on the general idea for the character, but this all came out over the past hour or two. The calculator can calculate much more than just math. The odds for survival in dangerous situations, the percentage of sincerity in a person's speech, the chances of getting laid while bar hopping. The keycard is company property, issued to Renaldo for use as long as he remains under their command. It unlocks doors and computers at the company branches throughout the city and can also open other paths if the firm determines it falls under their jurisdiction. If that's a bit much then we can just say it's a normal calculator and keycard.

The sigil is attuned to and tracks the essence of money and can reveal if a client is channeling funds illegally or hiding money from lawful taxation. If empowered with part of a soul, it can track and detect physical objects, goods, and even people.

How's that?

Moonfiend

Name: Renaldo "Moth" Piper

Abstract: Obsessive Financomancer, Math Genius, and All-Around Dork

Detail: One of the most famous accounting firms in the city, "Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Brown, LLC.", has been personally selected by the queen to oversee the astronomical flow of funding towards the eternal expansion of the great wall which surrounds Periphery. The four big names themselves sit in their palatial offices, pressing a few keys where necessary, but for field work (or what those in the business refer to as "bitch work"), they send Renaldo. Renaldo is fresh out of school and knows how incredibly lucky he is to be interning at CMYB, an organization his instructors gushed about while making it absolutely clear that he had no chance of ever working for them. Joke's on them. Renaldo was hand-picked by the four named partners themselves; he believes it's because of his incredible intelligence and tenacity. He plans to make it big someday. He's going to be the fifth named partner, he's sure of it! He just needs to remember where he put his enchanted calculator.

Appearance: Five-foot-two and stick thin with freckles, large perfect white teeth, and messy blonde hair he tries to push back in the latest style. He wears inexpensive tech-specs, a pair of cybernetically enhanced glasses, both to correct his extreme myopia and provide a quick link to the files and data processors at the main branch. The slightest bit of physical exertion, and his cheap Mechro-Accountant 1000 suit is covered in sweat. (Two words: pit stains.) Various keyboards and touchscreens run across both suit arms.

Magical Inventory: The only item of his that was a major financial investment is the enchanted calculator he usually keeps in his left pocket. An enchanted keycard from the company is in his right. Renaldo was given one sigil for his apprenticeship with the company, a Sigil of Accountancy.

Moonfiend

This is captivating. I want to know more.

Oriast (An original dark fantasy world based on both the real world and fiction) [Advanced]

I haven't got much in my head so far, but I have a few ideas. A small, scrawny young man from Ergiland, a pure magic user who is questioning his faith and unsure of his abilities and his place in the world. I don't think he would be an orphan. Possibly the youngest in a family of powerful mages, of strong and stout Ergilanders, and thinking himself unfit to be a part of them, he journeys to the Academy to become a real sorcerer.

That's it so far. I'd like to hear more about the magic system, about the difference between wizards and mages, and about what other religions there are.

Oriast (An original dark fantasy world based on both the real world and fiction) [Advanced]

I know almost nothing about Witcher, Fable, Game of Thrones, or Dragon Age, but this sounds like something I'd like to take part in. I'm not great at worldbuilding, though I'd help with fleshing out ideas. There's a lot of the historical details I haven't gone over yet but it's almost midnight and I'm supposed to go kiss someone so I'll be around.