Opposition

Walmageddon: Day of the Discount (Post Apocalyptic Supermarket Simulator)

Sheets approaching within the next day or few days, noble Wal-Master.

𝔽𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪: 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝔾𝕒𝕞𝕖 - Cyberpunk Political Intrigue Roleplay

Quick update as we near the end of this duo of prologue scenes. For those involved in [[[ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕖, 𝕊𝕙𝕒𝕕𝕠𝕨 ℂ𝕒𝕣𝕒𝕧𝕒𝕟]]], we are going to finish up this massive collab and close that scene. Once Bork has dropped his final solo post for [[[𝔽𝕚𝕣𝕤𝕥 𝕊𝕙𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕕 𝔾𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕤]]], he, Atrophy, Firecracker and I will throw together a final collab in the smoking aftermath.

Once both scenes have reached completion, I'm going to start work on the next array of scenes which will take place approximately 2-3 days from now (around 1-2 days before the Reclaim Zone debate takes place). I am planning on either 3 or 4 options for the players to flock to surrounding major events that will be going on around the Reclaim and providing some room for you guys to further sink your teeth into the various subplots that you are looking to pursue. While the details on these scenes aren't finalized, I'll likely have some information for you guys in the discord as requested, though I'm going to try and get the first scene posts up without too much spoiled.

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10

"Producing and developing,
Producing without possessing,
Doing without presuming,
growing without domineering:
this is called—"

"Magic?" The enigmatic girl evoked a soft laugh through closed lips. For the briefest moment, those watching may have noticed the corners of her lips curl upwards. That straight stare remained, though, a different sort of complexity. "No— Lao Tzu preferred 'mysterious power', 'the constant', 'the Way'."

She brought her drink to her lips yet again, unmoving eyes frozen upon the girl who questioned her. Uncertainty, hesitation, confusion ran through all of them, and immediately some would let their minds become fogged—drift into the irrational. Not her. "Take your pick, Zoey," she said, flicking a gaze towards the girl who had arrived second and already searched desperately for order in purgatory. The girl took another drink, then another, and another. She tried to tell herself it was to keep her mind clear.

More folks trickled in after that. First came a heavily-tattooed girl who was certainly underdressed for the weather, but then, weren’t they all? Next came someone, who by the girl had guessed, was mute due to her scrawled messages in place of any verbal correspondence. When the group started to exchange introductions and rattle off questions at one another, she dropped her hands back onto the bar, falling into a seat gently and silently atop the counter. She settled closer to the wall once Penny had moved behind the bar. Her intentions were unclear, but her demeanor was easy enough to spot. She was relaxed, but her back was judiciously kept away from the parade of strangers.

She wasn’t one to speak up when it wasn’t all that necessary, particularly when her newfound horde was busy interrogating one another. She did observe with an unscrupulous eye, perhaps for the briefest moment showing a glimpse of perplexion. They all talked so strangely, she thought. All suspicious and knowing. Of course, she wasn’t one to judge in that department. That was her whole deal, after all.

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Nothing but a byproduct of the die-off…

Having collected herself, posted upon the edge of the bar’s roof, she traced the newcomer. An airport? The empty girl wondered just how empty a predicament she’d found herself in. However unfortunately, these others were all close enough to make it a party. Purgatory, she thought, would have to wait. This limbo was still occupied. The newcomer seemed to know one of the others, which threw her off. It must have been a glitch in whatever simulation she found herself splayed in.

The more the world confounded around her, the more she tried to think back to that last moment. It had to be the pipe, the devilish nectar. Alas, no hallucination had ever reached her brain so vivid in its portrayal. She held her head in her hands and braced for a pain that never came. Unless she was still dosed, it couldn’t have been long since she vanished from the crumbling high rise in the night. She wasn’t really focusing on the gathering after that, but before long each individual started to file towards the bar and head inside. The night was nice, blanketed in that sort of midnight blue, but she hated the snow. It was the cold, she was sure to clarify to herself. To be alone in purgatory had nothing to do with it.

The girl stood and started to scour the roof for an entryway. Getting down was always harder than getting up. There was a hatch in the concrete, and she yanked it with vigorous fervor, making all sorts of racket in the process. Despite her frenzied pulls, however, there was certainly some sort of lock blocking her way. It was fine. She was fine. Taking the easy way was lame anyways. A second story balcony was easy enough to reach by lowering herself on the lip of the building, and from there, she ventured inside the unlocked door to seek out the company of strangers. How far she’d come in mere minutes…

She thumped down the stairwell and into the bar and passed another of the stranger along the way with little more than another weak salute. She paused for a long moment to survey the array of strangers and was sure to eye up each one of them. Each of them was plenty unique, but evoked no memories within her. The girl with the blue streak in her hair had already taken to raiding the bar, and the more she thought about it, the more she cared not for any purgatory’s laws. Without words, she also carried herself behind the bar and ran a hand over the various bottles. There wasn’t anything authentic enough for her usual tastes, but she settled on a bottle of clear lychee liqueur and was fixing her own drink in no time. Drinking straight from the bottle was way too anti-aesthetic for her.

“My deal?” She looked to the girl with the blue streak in her hair, who coincidentally was the only other of the condemned lot that went straight for the bottle—straight pulls of vodka with no remorse. It almost made her cringe to watch, but there was a degree of respect to act, she supposed. Her poker-face remained. “I tried to launch myself into the void, but wound up here instead.” She looked around. “Quaint… Was expecting to be alone, too.”

“Never the matter. Welcome to purgatory, or stillness, or the constant. Whatever you'd like to call it.” She rose her glass up to the other girl who definitely didn’t have a problem in a far too dramatic gesture. It felt strange to reach the next stage, she thought. Alas, all she could do was remember her doctrines. The 'Climax of Emptiness', it seemed, would continue to elude her.

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Smooth Caravan, Carry Me Away…
Let It Be, Just Maybe, The Final Time I Stray From the Path…
Silently, Let Me Fade...
Carry Me Into Entropy…
Into The Void...
Into Emptiness…

"The Girl Who Lost Herself in the Emptiness..." Is that what they would call her? She thought so... Maybe. She was never quite sure. That was part of Zen, right? It was a fitting time for it all to go down—straying from the Way, a shell, a husk, an entity endlessly enraptured by her own emptiness but never quite achieving that blank state of immortality or whatever the hell it was. It was a fitting place for it, too. She was huddled up against herself, knees-to-chest, blanketed in the darkness but old yellow streetlights illuminated her from below. The skyscraper was in the center of downtown, just adjacent to the city hall building actually, but that didn't prevent its vacancy. She was invisible from below, a silhouette against the dark sky. It didn't matter. No one wandered the streets in the quiet night.

She sat in front of one of those tan and green tournament travel chess sets, having taken the time to set up the board completely before going back through her earlier game. It was just him and her in an empty corner of the deserted school library. "Outcast Club", they called themselves, but the university only saw Philosophy Club mentioned between the misfits. She stared at the board's final position. Open Sicillian, Accelerated Dragon, Exchange Variation. She sat in front of the black pieces. It was a game that weaved in and out of aggression and defense for both sides, but eventually, having castled opposite sides with pawns completely locked, they had to shatter the tension. It was move twenty-three. He played Knight F6 and she captured without calculating. She dropped a rook and the final bell rang, signifying the building's close right before she resigned.

It seemed petty, didn't it? Embracing the void over something so small. Was that what they would think of her? Was that what she'd be remembered for? She pushed the thoughts aside. Those truly following the Path won't let their heads be clouded by past actions, but damn, it was such a simple mistake. In the darkness, up above, all alone, she did calculate the best line with strained eyes. Seven moves ahead. It really was an impressive mental effort, at least for an amateur like her, but when she went to move her rook, the city's winds resigned for her. Her king toppled, slid from the board, and rolled along the rooftop to teeter at its edge. She just watched the little plastic piece rock, didn't scramble to reach it. She'd already lost interest in the board. It was a fitting way to finish up.

She reached for the ornate and long pipe just next to the board. It looked like it was liberated right out of some old ethnic antique store, and considering her locale, it probably was. It even came pre-locked and pre-loaded, though that was her doing. She knocked the top off, gazed into the glaze of the choice nectar of the Ancient Mariner, and flicked a match across the roof’s tarmac. Perhaps, she thought, she’d see visions in the ice beyond too, come back with stories to tell and all that. There was no ice there, though. Only wind.

It was a perfectly fitting place, a perfectly fitting night, a perfectly fitting way.

The Way of Walking Alone

►2, Do not scheme for physical pleasure.

►3, Do not intend to rely on anything.

| | | | |

►17, While on the Way, do not begrudge death.

—Shinmen Musashi, one week before he perished.

She held a third breath of searing smoke in her lungs and forced herself to stand despite the feeling that her body and her senses were beginning to betray her. It only got worse when she was on her feet. Exhale, like a dragon’s breath. Then, she took another breath of pestilence. Her vision began to leave her, but she saw the edge. She dropped the pipe. Things went black. She heard the doppler wail of sirens, and she wasn’t sure if she was falling forwards, backwards, or into the emptiness...

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It was the doppler that brought her back.
Not an ambulance, but a familiar sound.
The blackness retracted. Damn.
One more bout.
It doesn’t have to last.
Get your knives out,
And get up off the ground.

Turns out death wasn’t an endless black void. It was white, and cold. The wind sliced through her and made her shiver. She didn’t want to open her eyes, but once the gusts grabbed hold of her black cap, she shot after it. From her prone, aching position, the tips of her fingers barely grasped it in time as she nearly sent herself over the building’s edge. Her opposite hand felt the lip of the brick building cracking and she pulled back.

This wasn’t quite in the forecast. Perhaps it was the lack of light that assaulted her eyes, but her city didn’t look quite right. The derelict, it appeared, had transformed into a well-kept cityscape. She was still at the heart of the urban jungle, but there was no sign of its struggling beat. It was…

Empty…

The doppler caught her again. It carried shouts from far below, but their message was distorted by the monoliths off which it echoed and resonated. She looked around, the chess set was gone, but pressed into her palm was the wicked device that gave her lost time. She figured that this must have been what death was like. The city was nice. The Emptiness was satisfying.

The girl did her best to find her way down. It was strange, that place. She knew she shouldn’t have been so serene, but no matter what happened, she knew she wouldn’t turn back. The high rise—just like the last one, she supposed—was empty. It was a different kind of empty. No exposed wires on the ceiling, no worries of asbestos, no musty smell of water droplets forming puddles that hadn’t evaporated in years. Each floor was pristine, with its own array of shops or restaurants. With each stairwell she took, the whole place just felt more foreign. She started to hesitate about her plans.

She diverted herself on the second floor, stepping out onto a lower terrace to see if she could catch sight of the street-level wanderer. In a world of mystery, it was best to take things at a nice, cautious, slow pace. She stepped to the roof’s edge and tried to post herself up in a seated position. What she hadn’t accounted for was the overnight blizzard, or teleportation, or death, or whatever. Both of her arms shot back, and she barely caught herself from slipping off the building entirely. She dragged herself back into a cold seat, only hoping that the nearby wanderer, who had since been joined by another. The new one looked equally as confused, which eased the girl’s panic.

In her awkward position, she figured that silence was an admirable option. She certainly wasn’t hiding—not after that near-fall—but the two down below approached one another. They were going to talk, or fight, or something. Whatever it was, the girl could go from there. Any glances cast her way were met with her best attempt to keep cool in the confusion. She tapped the ridge of her open hand to her forehead in some sort of half-assed salute. When she did finally offer her own utterance, she spoke no louder than a normal conversation, almost muttering.

“A bit desolate today… Isn’t it?”

"Empty..."

Walmageddon: Day of the Discount (Post-Apocalyptic Supermarket Roleplay)

I would like to sell my soul to the capitalists.

𝔽𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪: 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝔾𝕒𝕞𝕖 - Cyberpunk Political Intrigue Roleplay

The Prophet and Her Visions

All eyes on her, Delilah was used to it. What she was not used to was being unable to fire off strings of 3-dimensional countermeasures to send any onlookers into a frenzy of blind, mind-wracking Flux panic. She took stock of the horde of bourgeoisie corpos staring back at her. Her eyes fluttered in and out of red-and-blue focus. Delilah could have almost sworn that the damned paper glasses were busted. She kept seeing glitches where everything appeared 2-D.

A series of taps made the Shaman blink a few times. Was she receiving a message?

>>> 𝕃𝕠𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘...
>>> 𝕎𝕖𝕝𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕓𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝔽𝕝𝕦𝕩 𝕊𝕙𝕒𝕞𝕒𝕟!
>>> ℕ𝕠 𝕟𝕖𝕨 𝕒𝕝𝕖𝕣𝕥𝕤...
>>> ...

She tried again.

>>> 𝕃𝕠𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘...
>>> 𝕎𝕖𝕝𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕓𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝔽𝕝𝕦𝕩 𝕊𝕙𝕒𝕞𝕒𝕟!
>>> ℕ𝕠 𝕟𝕖𝕨 𝕒𝕝𝕖— “н𝓞𝓛¥ Ｆ𝐔ς𝓀 𝔀𝓱ᗩ𝕋 ⓘᔕ 𝐭𝒽𝓐丅?”

Delilah half-jumped, half-stumbled back when the security guard entered her field of view, leaving her glasses a bit skewed on her face. She equipped two karate-chop formations on her hands.

“A panic?” Delilah repeated. “Disturbing of the peace?” She threw her arms up in defeat, or at least, she tried to. Her right arm got tangled up in her deck’s rigging and the cords ensnared her so she could hardly raise her hand above her head. “Woman, the Reclaim Zone is full of shadowy assassins and there’s a mysterious hacker leaving art everywhere that only I can see because of my immense power.”

Delilah commenced battle with herself, attempting to—however dangerously, considering the whirring fans that signified her concealed kit was clearly running—untangle herself with aid of her teeth. Delilah’s new drinking partner took it upon herself to approach the situation, and Delilah inferred, help her battle the security woman. How wrong she was. The Anprims were busy cackling amongst themselves. Delilah could only figure that they were talking about vaccines or something. She didn’t care much. It took too much focus to try and maintain a deathly scowl on her face while she stared at Lott. It may have looked a bit more like she was having a stroke, but Delilah couldn’t see her own face. Not always.

>>> 𝕃𝕠𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘… 𝔸𝕘𝕒𝕚𝕟…
>>> 𝕎𝕖𝕝𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕓𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝔽𝕝𝕦𝕩 𝕊𝕙𝕒𝕞𝕒𝕟!
>>> 𝕀 𝕤𝕖𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦'𝕣𝕖 𝕟𝕠𝕥 𝕓𝕦𝕤𝕪...
>>> ℕ𝕠, 𝕚𝕥 𝕙𝕒𝕤 𝕟𝕠𝕥 𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕦𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕪 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕗𝕚𝕧𝕖 𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕦𝕥𝕖𝕤. 𝕊𝕙𝕖'𝕤 𝕝𝕪𝕚𝕟𝕘. 𝕊𝕙𝕖'𝕤 𝕒 𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕣. 𝕊𝕙𝕖'𝕤 𝕝𝕪𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕠 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕙𝕠𝕝𝕖 𝕣𝕠𝕠𝕞. 𝕋𝕠 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕗𝕒𝕔𝕖 𝕣𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 𝕟𝕠𝕨...

Now she was angry…

Or Happy...

Or something…

“Excuse me, shill,” Delilah glared harder at Lott, and pointed a gun at her. Index and middle fingers extended, and thumb raised, Delilah’s threat was no idle threat. She meant business. “But I’ve only been here for four minutes and twenty seconds, and if Councilman Samsara and I had actually been drunkenly wrestling, I’d have killed him by now.” Delilah cleared her throat, gagged, and added, “—with my bare hands.”

Samsara, who had been staring directly into the wall, trying to count the grains of degrading brick, turned back around when he heard his name. He couldn’t help but brush his shoulders off, straighten his posture, and wear that smirk that just screams ‘Hustler’ when he heard Delilah call him Councilman. He stepped back towards the room when he heard the mention of contraband but stopped in his tracks when he noticed Delilah’s ‘gun’. He was either trying above all else to hold in a laugh or trying above all else not to shoot himself right there.

“And it’s not contraband unless you count all of the custom mods inside. It’s very serious equipment. I’m packing heat.” She really was. She could feel the overheating fans desperately whining with all their motors against her body. Delilah’s arm tensed and started shaking when she saw Lott wasn’t taking her threat seriously. Already, her newfound enemy was reading off a list of rules or something. “I’ll show you.”

She dropped the gun and dramatically flicked her arms back to flutter her jacket in her best display of majesty. Suddenly, the idea came to her. The idea. Her greatest one yet, she was convinced. She grabbed a fistful of cords, tossing some aside and she tried to sort them with grandiose and unnecessary gestures while getting a running start towards the NTP candidate.

“Samsara,” she exclaimed. “Catch me. I’m going in.” With that, Delilah stabbed the end of a jack into her neck, missing the first time but hitting her target on the second go. Immediately, Delilah’s entire body went limp, tangled in cords and heading for the floor. Samsara lunged forward and wrapped his arms around the flopping Delilah, if only to keep her jacket closed and cover the stencil of spray paint along the side of her now exposed cyberdeck that clearly read 𝔸 𝕄 𝔸 𝕃 𝔾 𝔸.

>>>𝕁𝕒𝕔𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕀𝕟...
>>>𝕃𝕠𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕃𝕒𝕓𝕪𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕙…
>>>𝕎𝕖𝕝𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕓𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝔽𝕝𝕦𝕩 𝕊𝕙𝕒𝕞𝕒𝕟! 𝕐𝕠𝕦 𝕝𝕠𝕠𝕜 𝕝𝕚𝕜𝕖 𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕥, 𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕟 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕠𝕣𝕡𝕠𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕪...
>>>...

Delilah’s senses awakened and she was still in the room, but all her senses were damp. Few features of the suites were even left, leaving in their stead the black and white emptiness of the Labyrinth doing its best to simulate the environment while her deck strained to probe for more data to complete the picture. Delilah wormed around in the darkness. Something wasn’t quite right. She shouldn’t be… Feeling. Not here. There are no Fe𝕖li𝕟𝕘𝕤 in the Labyrinth. Particularly not an

𝕆

𝕍

𝔼

ℝ

𝕃

𝕆

𝔸

𝔻

ℍ
𝔸
ℙ
ℙ
𝕀
ℕ
𝔼
𝕊
𝕊

𝕃𝕠𝕒𝕕𝕖𝕕…

And she felt invincible. Immediately jumping back to that day, lost in the Labyrinth. Happy. For the first time since the incident, she could remember it. It played back in her mind, every synapse repeating its exact duty to recreate the memory. She was working overseer stuff for Dexter Campbell’s Reclaim Zone Mayor campaign. She was talking to the Overdriver. She was managing the cameras. She was monitoring Campbell’s dialogue. She was everywhere at once, consciously-split, ripping at the seams, barely on the brink of breaking into a quadrillion pieces.

She was triangulating the street samurai’s location. Overdriver lost his partner. Her brain was at its limits. Her overclocked deck was smoking back on the outside, burning hot against her thighs. Black lines started to cross each of her visions, like cracks in glass. Everything was splintering. Everything was in pain. Everything felt great. She was the queen of the high-speed digital seas. She was a beast. She wasn’t one of the many, she was the many. She pushed again and again. Another perspective exploded across the cracks. Another channel of perception. She couldn’t keep track of any of them, the cracks expanded. She was overcome with blackness, but not before she caught sight of that last zone of split-consciousness, in some strange, foreign place in the Labyrinth. She saw the tag, half-complete. Then something saw her. Her heart stopped.

Then the cartridge wore off. The bootleg juice was already millimeters from empty when Delilah jammed it in her neck. She was doing it again. Delilah found herself connected four perspectives. She couldn’t have been there more than a few seconds before the crash happened. She pulled back, feeling the heart palpitations even without any connection to her senses.

Outside the Labyrinth—back in that dreaded world—the population of the Central Square suites saw the four CCTV cameras mounted in the corners of the lobby spazz out, whirring and spinning around in circles like there was some sort of electronic earthquake. They were looking at nothing, just struggling to exist as they were viciously attacked by some evil cyber-witch, poor machines. After a few seconds, the cameras stopped. Samsara struggled to pulled Delilah up to a semi-upright position. Already, her face was flush red and feverish.

But she wasn’t quite finished. She still had vengeance to enact on the mean shill that didn’t even flinch when Delilah menaced her with a gun.

Lott’s phone was menaced next. Any Knights Enterprise code was suddenly replaced with a graphic that overtook all of the device's function. Its depiction was simple, bearing a sprite of red and blue glasses over a pink heart backdrop. Crossing the heart was a series of three converging heart monitor readouts. Each of them flatlined upon meeting one another. To menace her even further, the device started uncontrollably vibrating, like the something bad is definitely happening sort of vibrating. And then it all stopped.

Delilah’s eyes shot open and she clawed a weak arm up at her neck, content to let Samsara worry about holding her weight up.

>>> 𝕃𝕠𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘…
>>> 𝕎𝕖𝕝𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕓𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝔽𝕝𝕦𝕩 𝕊𝕙𝕒𝕞𝕒𝕟! 𝕐𝕠𝕦 𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕪 𝕗𝕦𝕔𝕜𝕖𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕠𝕟𝕖 𝕦𝕡...
>>>𝕊𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕄𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕒𝕘𝕖 𝕥𝕠 ℂ𝕠𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕤: "𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕋𝕣𝕦𝕥𝕙", "ℂ𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕫𝕖𝕟 𝕂"
>>> ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙ𝕀ℕ𝔾...
>>> "ℍ𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕠. 𝕀𝕥'𝕤 𝕞𝕖…”
>>> "𝕀 𝕄 𝕘𝕠𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝟚 𝔻𝕀𝔼…”
>>> “ℙ𝕝𝕫 𝕨𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕖 𝕞𝟛 𝕒 𝕨𝟙𝕝𝕝…”
>>>...

“Samsara.” She gave a dramatic, but weak cough. “I’m having a heart attack.” Samsara tried his best to drop her, but she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down. All her battle-ready energy had left her unfortunately. She curled up against her boss’s leg.

“Call the police.”
“Wait no. Not them.”
“Call someone. Not the police. Maybe the army.”
“A foreign army.”
“A foreign impartial army.”
"Or the navy."

𝔽𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪: 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝔾𝕒𝕞𝕖 - Cyberpunk Political Intrigue Roleplay

𝔽𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪: 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒t 𝔾𝕒𝕞𝕖

Get Caught In The Vortex And You Can’t Escape!!!

Ohhhh no.
Not again.
Hustle sister, shit is rough.
It’s dangerous. Cumbersome.
Another one—
Another thunderous moment is coming up.
Run.

I’ve seen it before. I wasn’t one of those that wept. I saw it, inflicted with a twisted, different, wicked curiosity. You see it as a speck—a seed—a little piece of the void peeking into this reality with its threats.
It’s like an embryo of chaos.
I call it The Vortex.

Spiralling. Spiralling. That sort of thing, it’s infectious, relegating any safe environment instead to a place of dangerous intent. Also—it’s odd. It’s odd how often you find that the loss of total control—the spiral—emerges from this world’s most ordered elements. It’s like finding death at the site of a resurrection. I saw it first hidden in infrastructure, coming forth, evoked from the crumbling crevices. Even in space, there is decay. You can’t avoid The Vortex. Everyone has their day.

I didn’t think I’d find it in my safest place. Right there in the walls. I thought I was safe, that I could escape the chaos.
Nay.
It came.
But instead of fleeing, I embraced it,
And there was never again a place where it could get the jump on me.

S A V E Y O U R B R A I N
𝔸
𝕊
𝕊
𝕀
𝕄
𝕀
𝕃
𝔸
𝕋
𝔼

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕃𝕚𝕞𝕓𝕠 ℂ𝕝𝕦𝕓

ℍ𝕚𝕘𝕙 𝕆𝕣𝕓𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝕊𝕥𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝔸𝕝𝕖𝕩𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕣𝕚𝕒
∞∞∞, 𝟚𝟘𝟞𝟝

| | | | |

“Nonono! Do not touch the console yet. We barely use it unless bossman gives us the go ahead to go full entropy-mode during parties. The type of events where he gets enough money to redo the entire joint.”

“What does it do?”

“Oh sweetie… Let’s wait for tonight. Trust me.”

“Tonight?”

“Bohemia motherfucker! You have no idea.”

“Ohhhhh— It’s a celebration.”

| | | | |

ℍ𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕠 𝔻𝕚𝕤𝕔𝕠𝕣𝕕. ℍ𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕠 𝔻𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕙. ℍ𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕠 𝕍 𝕆 ℝ 𝕋 𝔼 𝕏.

“It’s the ventilation unit, Stell. Ever think about that?” He stumbled forward, both hands pressing desperately into the counter. His world was turning in circles, but he was glued to the floor. His expanding pupils were concealed behind mirrorshades, but Stella could still see them—stare into their depths—somehow. “It’s a biosphere… ‘Biosphere’. Closed system and all that. All recycled.”

The world tilted 45 degrees. He was leaning no longer on the counter, hands instead pressed against the lip of the open ventilation shaft. Like a dragon spitting flames, he exhaled long and loud into the mystery shaft. “A biosphere. All the microbes, germs, viruses, grime, and infectious particles. All of them, all the time, dispersed and shared by everyone lost in Limbo.”

“Like communism…”

“Communist Bio-warfare…”

The vent teleported to Stella, or she teleported to the vent. Her colleagues' eyes watched on in amazement. They saw it too. They were—

“Like a collective...”

She smiled, or her face was a mask showing teeth. She levitated her wrist to the vent, bent the wrist back. They watched. They couldn’t stop her. Time itself stopped. Who commands the magic of passing seconds save for chaos—Mister Vortex? The way she cocked her wrist, it sounded like a shotgun. Then, Dust. It puffed forth, fluttering unto the mystery tube aloft into the ether, or wherever any such God of Chaos might send it off…

She forgot to stop. Didn’t. Not until both her chambers were empty. Her new Mixologist friends were amazed, mouths agape.

“𝖂𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖍𝖊𝖑𝖑 𝖆𝖗𝖊 𝖆𝖑𝖑 𝖒𝖞 𝕸𝖎𝖝𝖔𝖑𝖔𝖌𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖘‽ 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖌𝖚𝖊𝖘𝖙𝖘 𝖍𝖆𝖛𝖊 𝖏𝖚𝖘𝖙 𝖉𝖔𝖈𝖐𝖊𝖉 𝖆𝖙 𝕬𝖑𝖊𝖝𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖎𝖆, 𝖆𝖗𝖊 𝖌𝖔𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖙𝖍𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖌𝖍 𝖘𝖕𝖆𝖈𝖊-𝖈𝖚𝖘𝖙𝖔𝖒𝖘, 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖒𝖞 𝕸𝖎𝖝𝖔𝖑𝖔𝖌𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖘 𝖆𝖗𝖊𝖓'𝖙 𝖔𝖚𝖙 𝖔𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖋𝖑𝖔𝖔𝖗‽”

Reality skipped. Everyone came back. He started rushing out towards the dance floor. Stella was frozen. There was a beat, then the conversation played in reverse.

“Like a collective...”
“Communist Bio-warfare…”
“Ohhhhh— It’s a celebration.”

| | | | |

𝔸 ℂ ℂ ℂ 𝔸
𝕊 𝔸 𝔸 𝔸 𝕄
𝕊 𝕃 𝕃 𝕃 𝔸
𝕀 ℂ ℂ ℂ 𝕃
𝕄 𝕌 𝕌 𝕌 𝔾
𝕀 𝕃 𝕃 𝕃 𝔸
𝕃 𝔸 𝔸 𝔸 𝕄
𝔸 𝕋 𝕋 𝕋 𝔸
𝕋 𝔼 𝔼 𝔼 𝕋
𝔼 𝔼

Calculate. Calculate. Calculate. Do it perfectly.

The air was an amorphous aqueous purple sludge, she might have thought, but she didn’t have thoughts. The only places that were safe were occupied by tightly-packed people with bank accounts that looked like fake numbers. The Bohemians. People who shouldn’t exist, but because they did, they knew they were the only ones that mattered. A mass of 𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 intellect, 𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 power, but now they were just amoeba, worming their way through a place that didn’t exist. A place in Limbo, and it was full of purple sludge.

Calculate.

Maybe that’s what she was thinking, but she knew that wasn’t true. That was automatic, a reaction of the eyes and arms and heart and soul. The real calculations were in the back, each Mixologist inputted their planned commands before the air, the Limbo took hold. From there, what happened was like magic. It was out of their control. They were programmed, only expecting a thousand bugs and interruptions based on the wills of their loyal customers. Bohemia. Bohemians. Welcome to Limbo. A place where the air itself sparkles with magic.

“Hold up—” He could hardly get a word in. “I think my leg—” His dancing partner, a Korean idol magnate that had been controlling the game for at least half a century had him pressed against the wall. He wasn’t complaining. After all, she didn’t look a day older than her manufacture date. It wasn’t love, but something ravenous, the actions of an animal in captivity freed only in the land of Bohemia. He couldn’t resist either way. The 13th Saudi Hyperprince had jammed a sword through his calf earlier. It was still there, lodged in place. He didn’t really feel it.

Calculate.
No. That wasn’t it.
It wasn’t calculations that’d save the day.
Let the programmed commands guide the way.
She just had to ride the wave.

It was damn near levitation the way she surfed across the dancefloor. The ceiling mounted vodka dispenser was on full blast, angled 15 degrees from its perpendicular point with the ground and sailing across the ceiling on its own programmed line. It blasted a stream powerful enough to form its own small river, formed approximately 41 milliseconds behind Stella’s surfing tray that sailed her across the dancefloor. She dismounted at her exact destination, spread her arms wide with a glass in each hand. Another two dispensers fired off a full pour of pre-mixed cocktails just on target. One for each of the twin heads of the family that own the Japan Rail zaibatsu.

She rode the Vortex—or maybe succumbed to it was a better word. She couldn’t know. She couldn’t think. She could just spin and spin, a human spider serving sickly smooth spirits to the shadow demons. She gathered a tray and several glasses, somehow unbroken, and the game began again. Vodka and absinthe falling from the ceiling in torrents. The kickback of her wrist shot flames this time to ignite the trace poisons in the air while the second layer settled nicely into the glass for a very aesthetically pleasing, Bohemian cocktail.

It wasn’t long after the esoteric stone statue was wheeled into the center of the dancefloor before it was toppled over and cracked in half. Stella’s colleagues were uncannily reunited as the idol nearly took a hit. From atop the statue and pressed against the wall, two red-strings were reunited by none other than fate in the Vortex. They knew it probably wouldn’t happen again before Bohemia ended.

“You have a sword in your leg.”

“That explains a lot.” He slumped down onto an upturned table that had somehow been ripped from its bolts and thrown into the wall. She joined him. “If I leave it there, and he forgets about it, I probably get to keep it.”

“How do you think Stella’s doing at her first Bohemia?” She tossed her glasses off and into the Vortex, looking towards their newest partner. “She’s a machine.”

“She’s definitely enjoying herself. Still working, right in the center of the horde, unscathed, dangerous, dusted. That’s bad.”

“She’s got the make of an Ultrabartender for sure.”

In the Vortex, a dangerous place accepted as little more than fate—that’s when you see its meaning in the game, and that’s what she learned that day. When you’re in the midst of the maelstrom, you engage it. Lost in the chaos, pop off.

She’d seen into the spirals, and once you’ve looked within, it never leaves you. You’re just left, lying dormant until—

𓇽𝔻𝕦𝕒𝕥𓇽, 𝕃𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕖𝕒𝕕

ℝ𝕖𝕔𝕝𝕒𝕚𝕞 ℤ𝕠𝕟𝕖, 𝕊𝕠𝕦𝕥𝕙 ℂ𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕊𝕡𝕣𝕒𝕨𝕝
𝔸𝕡𝕣𝕚𝕝 𝟙𝕤𝕥, 𝟚𝟘𝟞𝟝 𝟙𝟠:𝟙𝟘

[𝔽𝕚𝕣𝕤𝕥 𝕊𝕙𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕕 𝔾𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕤], 𝔼𝕩𝕖𝕔𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘...

—it came back, and she acted like magic. Two objectives solidified in Stella’s head, and then she was readied, prepped, calculated, awaiting to begin the 𝔾𝕒𝕞𝕖. She didn’t think of her plan. It kind of just appeared in her head what felt like seconds before her shit got rocked. After the catalyst, it was all immediate action.

Oh god, she thought. The guy was fighting himself. One sushi-driver slammed the other’s head into the bar with the force only found in some mutant cybernetic hand. The table rattled and their drinks jumped a few millimeters into the air. Stella watched the lemonade mixture tilt and tap the counter, teetering too far—just a tad. Then it was in the air, heading to the floor fast.

Ultrabartender senses sounded the alarms with a series of synaptic zaps at the moment of the impact.
That was the call to action!
The Vortex suddenly attacked,
Timed to the rhythm of the beat of the

[[[𝔽𝕚𝕣𝕤𝕥

𝕊𝕙𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕕

𝔾𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕤…]]]

Then came the crash. Stella’s optics took note of the pressure changes, the first bottles flung from the wall, the shockwave before she could even see what happened. She knew the wave was coming. It was the same feeling as Bohemia—just behind her, and it was time to ride the wave.

Her legs were like springs and her hands were the needles there to guide the thread. Stella threw herself into a somersault over the bar catching sight of her beautiful, beautiful stock, for just a moment cascading across the air in the cacophony. All of the pristine bottles lost… Or maybe not. Her optics crossed, each tracking a bottle on the side of their opposite. A handle of overproof rum and a handle of classic Jack Daniels, so perfect. She couldn’t let them die, she thought, not even if all of 𓇽Duat𓇽 dropped. When she landed, her cybernetics acted without her, and the bottles joined her hands.

The car busted straight through the bar and the counter’s contents became a mosaic of sharp shards carried by the wave over any and all patrons. It plowed straight into Goon #2 and flattened one of the dancefloor’s zombies in the process. Goon #1 drew his concealed handgun the moment he recovered from the blastback. Stella didn’t know why he aimed it at her, but it didn’t matter. Goon #2 was the competent one. What was one more shatter in the massive mess?

A handle of Jack Daniels had the sort of shape that made her wonder if the manufacturers had expected it to be the bar-breaker’s weapon of choice. It was a heavy bludgeon long enough to shatter into a shiv, so that was just what Stella did. She smashed the bottle through the Goon’s gun and sent his shot rocketing off into the ether. The splash of whiskey was inevitable, and it seared his eyes. Stella was used to the smell, the taste, the feeling. In Bohemia, in the Vortex, to the Ultrabartender, the sting of whiskey was indistinguishable from pure oxygen.

Stella had plenty of adversaries. No enemies. An enemy implied that they could ruffle you, or something like that. She was un-ruffleable, but the adversary that came closest was the car, and whoever or whatever was operating it. There was something she couldn’t escape, though. Was that what fear was? Some unescapable bubbling sense of 𝔽𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪, inevitability, anxiety that wrenched at your internal organs with an eight-fingered hand, which you look down to see, despite the pain, and it turns out to be your own hand?

Kelvin didn’t even try to run out. Most of 𓇽Duat𓇽’s patrons hadn’t bothered. They made it, but their ‘urgency’ was more of a zombie-shuffle to the skipping music, now accompanied by the orchestra of the Vortex, but his bum leg made him slow to escape. Stella grabbed his hand and dragged him towards the front exit, but she wasn’t quite done. She had to keep her focus split on all the adversaries invading her bar and ruining its long-term-cultivated chill vibe.

One of the clones stepped inside the car. Stella stared him down with dead 𓇽Duat𓇽 eyes. After she gave him and his other self a free drink, this was what happened. She took a few steps over the dancefloor, calculating, but her eyes were locked on the helmeted soulless disaster behind his tinted windshield. Each step cracked and crinkled with broken glass. Two free drinks, and where did the clone drones go with them? The four-thousandth shattered glass, she thought. What was two more?

It took a lot of time to hang a neon-infused, glowing, golden disco ball—not long to take it down. It was a well-placed half-handle of Jack. That’s all it takes. Her aim never wavered, but one on-target shot wasn’t enough. She spoke up, watching the bottles cascade through the air. She knew the arc was perfect, so she didn’t stay to watch.

“One more drink on the house. Overproof Rum— for the road.”

The disco ball cracked, sent sparks streaming out of it like fireworks as gravity took the wheel. It met the rum right on target. The ball of flame flared up right over the driver’s windshield. The Land of the Dead became a momentary fireball.

Stella glanced back only once, letting her optics bathe in the light of the flash and her hair ruffle in the wave of the bang. A sliver of glass clipped her temple and left a blood gash that spread a swathe of red down the side of her face. She held a metallic briefcase in her hand.

You’ve been served.” Any last sight of Stella from the interior would catch a glimpse of one of 𓇽𝔻𝕦𝕒𝕥𓇽’s eye-like signs crashing down and igniting yet another fire. The sign still glimmered as it sparked up another fire.

closed or whatever don't look at this

The Girl With Empty Eyes

╚══════════════╝

[The Stranger who lost herself in the emptiness]

AT A QUICK GLANCE

►5 feet 3 inches tall
►120 lbs
►Japanese American
►Short, straight black hair
►Consistently wears a black beret and round sunglasses
►Wears a black jacket, black skirt, and black leggings
►Looks to be in her early twenties

APPEARANCE

A certain poise seems to offset the girl’s small stature in presence and presentation. She is slight, but appears more active than emaciated. Her movements are decisive, quick, and careful, with a bit of an airy quality to the way she tries to mimic a sense of grace with each subtle gesture at ease. She keeps her black hair straight and short, often brushed behind her ears to keep it out of the way and settling along her neck. With a pale tint to her skin the girl’s eyes are made all the more prominent, striking not so much because they are imposing or uninviting, but rather because of the sheer emptiness that they seem to hold. She is almost always caught somewhere between a sly, pretentious expression and an unreadable poker-face.

The girl is clearly very exact in cultivating and maintaining her style on a daily basis. She prefers dark colors in sleek outfits that are a mixture of functional and fashionable. With either a dress or a shirt and skirt, she is sure to accessorize with a practical jacket, leggings, and her signature array of berets to choose from. She is the sort who also has a sort of unhealthy obsession with sunglasses, her favorite pair being distinctly round.

ANYTHING... OFF?

Something’s incredibly off. She’s unreadable. The girl seems to be locked in a perpetual state of duality. Empty eyes. Empty expression. Empty gestures. Her composure and resolve are entirely alien, but carry a sort of knowing grace that unnerves all onlookers. She knows something you don't. She's hiding it. Her poker-face is impeccable. Dread, just being around her. Don't trust her.

OTHER

"Duality in all things.”

---

Yeah, I'll come back if you'll have me this time around. I'm glad to see you're still grinding this continuous storyline, and I've got some ideas waiting in the wings, though I'll have to be caught up on the wild 'world-eater' lore.