ZacksQuest

Beyond the City Walls (Surreal Apocalyptic Scavenger RP)

Wondering if people would be interested in RPing in this setting. I first tried doing this one a couple years ago to no avail so I decided to reboot it.

Beyond the City Walls: A Survival Story

Where and when is Beyond the City Walls set?

Beyond the City Walls takes place in the eponymous City, which is not just an impossibly large labyrinthian structure similar to a modern day metropolis, but a sentient force that can alter the majority (roughly ~90% of itself, known as the Active Zones) of its own structure at will, including its own internal laws of physics, create dangerous creatures that act as its tools in attacking those that live within itself, and absorbs any dead or discarded materials in its active, changeable areas to be reused to its benefit later.

It is roughly over one hundred years after the City first appeared sometime during the modern era in the central United States and began expanding all over the world until it's been all but consumed. It's unknown how many people currently live within the City, but civilization still exists.

While 90% of the City is considered Active and able to be manipulated by itself, the remaining 10%, large chunks of city and spiderwebbed lines running between them known as Dead Zones, are the areas used as outposts for the remnants of human civilization, known as Sectors. Most rely on trade, hunting, and searching for hidden stockpiles left by The City as traps to get by, but some have... diversified in strange and inhumane ways.

What is the goal of Beyond the City Walls?

The absolute end goal of the game would be to escape the City or destroy it entirely. This, however, would take a lot of time and a lot of building up and working together to accomplish and as of yet nobody knows where to even begin. So currently, your initial job is to work for the well-being of your own Sector, Sector Three. The three primary jobs you can take are Retrieving, scouring the Active Zones for Caches of weapons, medicine, technology, and other such goodies; Hunting, taking bounties on dangerous criminals and inhuman beasts roaming the City; and taking post as a Soldier, protecting your Sector against invasion and war from enemy Sectors or more unnatural forces. The story is largely malleable, and as you keep going you can help figure out what direction the Sector is going to take and what your role in it will be. With any luck, by the end you'll have become veterans of the City, faced some of the nastier, more powerful denizens, and made a name for yourself across every Sector in the City. Depending on what you choose to do and how you go about it, you could discover the secrets of The City, become afflicted by the overall eldritch nature of the setting, make deals and pacts with things that don't bear mentioning until they come about, shift political tides, forge friends, stage coups, set up shops, do as you please the farther along you go.

Why just the one faction for now and the handful of jobs?

Simply put, no matter how many people initially would sign up, splitting things across even two Sectors and three jobs would still be a six-way split, and then the story would be almost all waiting. As it grows both in terms of scope and momentum, more factions and jobs will be able to be taken both by your already established character, or by creating one character per faction (but not per job per faction) and using them simultaneously- generally as many as you can sanely do and keep track of in your head. The current limitations are to get the story moving fast from the get-go and then diversifying as it continues.

What kinds of things could you expect from the RP?

The City, to put it lightly, is massive. And a massive cosmic force that can shape itself and its own minions in any way it wishes can do quite a lot. Still, here's a few examples of the things you may find within the world: Sectors engaged in inhumane activities such as slavery, experimentation, cannibalism, or out-right City worship, strange creatures summoned by the City to protect its Caches or fight survivors, including the transforming, combining dark figures known as the Shadow Graphers and the avian, weather-changing Flock, as well as a slew of other creatures. You could go up against nomadic raiders, dangerous cults, and if you're very unlucky, you could find yourself face to face with one of the Afflicted, humans mutated by the influence of the City itself, physiologically and psychologically changing with a fighting benefit at the cost of their humanity and mental faculties, or the even more dangerous Constants, nigh-godlike beings that reside in Domains in the center of The City, not creations of it but powerful denizens of an indeterminate number that work symbiotically with it. You can find yourself in parts of the City where gravity itself shifts, where the world seems to be floating on platforms, where you can walk into a building and find things changed in bizarre ways. You could take part in wars or make your way as a trader or research the City or wander and give aid. The choices are up to you.

What are the rules for this RP?

First and foremost, the site rules apply. No seriously graphic imagery, no nudity or explicit sexual content (it's not 18+), be courteous and polite to other RPers and while you can decide your own personal arc, you don't control others' of course. Don't be excessively OP and if you want to make significant changes to your character, such as becoming Afflicted, changing sides, plotting against his or her own Sector, or anything that would risk leading to an OP character or sending the status quo way out of whack, message me first and we'll work together on meeting in the middle to get that done. Other than that, there are a few rules on how many skills and what kind of equipment you start out with at the very beginning.

So if anyone's interested in this idea, let me know. It's a bit of an out there, more surreal take on the apocalypse, but hopefully it's unique enough for people to like the idea.

Beyond the City Walls (Surreal Apocalypse RP)

I've been waiting a bit to see if people come back, but if people have just lost interest in it I can't really do too much about it. I hope the RP can continue, I was planning on steering it to a fun place actually pretty soon after the last post.

Beyond the City Walls (Surreal Apocalypse RP)

I'm still here, I'm just waiting for peoples' schedules to clear up enough that they can continue. I'm just guessing everyone's more than a little busy. Like Sypher's definitely busy (speaking of which, Sypher, I hope you're doing really well with those three shows!) and I'm going to assume that most other people are as well.

Beyond the City Walls (Surreal Apocalypse RP)

Okay I'm going to keep checking on this if possible but I'm more or less just occasionally glancing. When activity picks back up I'll get back to GMing but given how verbose my posts end up being I try to wait it out until at least two or three people go. I hope everyone involved is doing well!

Beyond the City Walls (Surreal Apocalypse RP)

So Zacks, should we be expecting much resistance on the sector nine side of things, or is the city giving us a bit of a break to catch up?

@brokndremes

It's going to lighten up a little on the journey there. Mostly it's the creatures right around the Cache that are going to give everyone a problem, but for Sector Nine the City's going to try to go easy. It wants a conflict and the start of a war, so as much as the City enjoys causing hilarious amounts of pain to everyone, it's going to loosen the slack. Same, honestly, with Sector Three after however this particular encounter plays out, and maybe for Kat the Huntress as soon as at least someone else arrives on the scene. So nah, it's all blue skies until you make it to the Cache.

Beyond the City Walls (Surreal Apocalypse RP)

Replied as Meshach and the City. As far as Bertram goes he's staying out of things for a while considering he's the only one not going to directly take part in the assignment.

Beyond the City Walls (Surreal Apocalypse RP)

Meshach

Slowly the shadowy figures of the Shadow Graphers were ambling closer, almost imperceptibly gliding across the uneven surfaces. The Shadow Graphers on the inside of a window were now making their way through the glass of the window and gliding down the building facade at a ninety degree angle. The more Meshach looked around, the more Shadow Graphers were appearing. They were common fare as far as the City goes. He really hoped not to encounter any, or at least only a few, as it was a waste of time and bullets trying to deal with them. Cat turned, her back against Meshach's, and they circled, each one getting their bearings. The City block was fairly simple- this close to the Sectors the City still couldn't do too much. It couldn't hover City blocks in the sky or really do too much to gravity, dimensions, time, distances, or anything of that sort this close, which meant as far as this fight went it was really much simpler than any fights out in the No-Man's Land of the City, in the wide berths of untamed urban jungle that were very much alive and omniscent. That meant than any one bullet if aimed correctly would hit a Shadow Grapher unless the City directly interfered and something told Meshach that it wouldn't. There were too many Shadow Graphers in this one place, but they were smaller somehow, a little weaker, a little skinnier in shape even though it was a implacable creature of shadowy sinew. The way they ambled too wasn't as coordinated as a deadlier group of Shadow Graphers was. If the City really wanted to use its darkness-born foot-soldiers to kill it would put most of its effort into them. They'd be sleeker, faster, stronger, able to form quickly into deadlier things, and even have some of the multi-colored eye variants that were apparently not uncommon but not common enough for a Hunter to see one regularly. But these ones weren't just weak, they were simple to kill, too. They still were in sufficiently large numbers that they could do serious damage to the untrained, but it seemed that either the City's influence was mostly redirected elsewhere, or this band of creatures was essentially a formality as far as Retrieval of such a big Cache went (and Meshach didn't doubt that either- something nagged at him, made him think that if the City was really truly alive as most people agreed it was, then the placement of the Cache directly between two warring Sectors was no accident, and this half-assed party of shadow beings served to strengthen that theory) or both. The way to the Cache was still clearly marked, the green haze of the clouds above the City acted as a guiding beacon, and it only so happened to be in the cardinal direction where most of the Shadow Graphers were amassing.

Before the creatures of the City began to seemingly emanate from the walls, the ground, and the shadowy corners of the block, she was about to answer and possibly placate his unwarranted curiosity. He was so close to getting some kind of answer; likely a partial answer, even an outright lie if he didn't know any better. He didn't really care how people thought for the most part; they were either entitled or otherwise unrepentant scum who he wouldn't bother associating with unless if they weren't the ones holding the metaphorical purse strings, or they were people whose ideas and thoughts he admired but were simply too weak to survive in a hostile hellhole like the City, but Cat was proving to be neither. The word "friend" was a bit of a strong word, and alien to Meshach's tongue, and even saying that the potential for some kind of ... "friendship" being there was outlandish, but acquaintanceship, a like-minded ally, someone who might not die within weeks of their first encounter, it's quite a rarity. So he paid a little more attention, in order to learn what to say and what not to say and how to say things in order for her to not loathe his assistance in the current task. It paid to have allies, after all.

Now, however, it was all tactics. It was all planning. Cat was judging distances from her short-ranged rifle and she didn't think she could safely hit any of them from their current range. They eyed the Shadow Graphers warily. The white-eyed shadow beasts were shambling closer, inch by inch, centimeter by centimeter, a slow and agonizing crawl. Something about the Graphers seemed off somehow, a faint ripple in the bodies that couldn't even be attributed to the aura of darkness, flecks of absolute black trailing off and dissipating from the creatures. The eyes and mouths of the beasts coarsed smoothly like waves. Even though they were only mostly tangible beings made of shadows, they had a seemingly solid layer. Something about this just didn't kick in. Cat mentioned to Meshach about trying to formulate a plan, and, at some point, asked for his tactical advice. She didn't need to add the part about dragging him into it; he was as happy to come along as one in his situation could be. An Afflicted to kill, a large Cache to get half profit from, a little reputation and ego boost to boot, and with someone who he didn't dislike with every fiber of his being. He just needed to figure out what was going on. He noticed that, every so often, one or two of the stunted ones rippled almost entirely, flickered like an image, while a few- a very, very faint few- were the normal kind of solid, with the pinpoint eyes and wide slit mouth of light. These ones didn't amble, they didn't slouch, and they came in much faster, attention to them almost being completely diverted by the gaunt, ambling Shadow Graphers to the point that Meshach had to do a double take the first time he saw one. When he was sure that most of the pieces had fallen into place, he scanned every inch of his surroundings, looking for the right target while he spoke to Cat in a sotto voice.

"I think I know what's going on, and it's very important that you trust me. Well, not me my instin- y-you know what I mean. But first I need to ask you. Describe to me exactly how you see this City block. Leave no detail free. But first I need to test a theory.." Bingo. He found exactly the right one. Two Shadow Graphers were in a line only about two dozen paces away, the one in front one of the gaunt, shambling ones with imprecise movements and a seemingly complete intangibility, the one behind the more solidified presence of the kind of Shadow Grapher that Meshach was familiar with. The first thing he would do is nonverbally respond to that sharpshooter comment, just to get that point clarified. Also he had a hypothesis to test. So he aimed for the head of the Shadow Grapher in front with his pistol and fired, the bullet flying in a decent trajectory- although a little more off-kilter than Meshach wanted, flying more towards the right cheek of the Shadow Grapher in front as opposed to between its eyes- but still in a trajectory that will take it through both of them.

---

The City's attention was divided thrice, its power automatically changing some things here and there in far off areas and conjuring things near other Sectors without its attention or control, but currently it was trying to set the stage for a war, and the two main parties weren't properly synchronized. The two designated Retrievers from Sector Nine were only just starting to get acquainted and prepare to head out, while the two from Sector Three were already a few blocks closer. It had to make sure not only that the Retrievers from Sector Three didn't come up and nab the items inside before there could even be a proper standoff, but it had to circumvent the damnable ex-Servant of Tsefahn who thought it was her own.

To this end, it had sprinkled a little bit of The Harmony right outside of Sector Three. Not quite enough to cause things too hectic or impossible, but just enough to create a simple illusion of an impossibly large army of Shadow Graphers, although it peppered in a few actual Shadow Graphers here and there just to take them by surprise. To this end, it had set multiple stages of confrontation against the Servant so that she would be preoccupied at least until one group or the other arrived. If it was Sector Nine she would be asked to stand down by whoever was on scene, most likely; that's what Sector Nine's normal brand of paladin-type Retrievers were, but the City wasn't quite sure of its inventory and didn't know if there were any Retrievers left from the Sector that haven't been drawn to its other smaller Caches. In the case of Sector Three... well, one of the two sent Retrievers has a hate-on the size of some of its taller buildings for Afflicted and Constants alike and the other one has a less than fortunate history with someone of the same profession as the first. It would at the very least be interesting.

It felt bullets on two fronts. On one front, the hawkish, dark-haired man Meshach fired a single bullet that rippled through the illusion Shadow Grapher without fully perforating or destroying it in the slightest, it still walking confidently forward slow step by slow step, while the Shadow Grapher behind it burst into a plethora of dark, shadowy shapes, muscle and sinew made of pure blackness bursting from the dead creature to lay and dissipate on the concrete. On the other front, Kat the Afflicted was busy shooting the lances it fired with perfect accuracy, many of the lances shattering into pieces on contact, though there were some, groups so close together but distant enough in time and location that she could do very little but try to dodge some. It knew about the accuracy given to almost all Servants, but especially enhanced in the case of the Huntresses, but even an Afflicted has its limits. At the same time, its final step was nearing fruition, but this step had not quite yet faded away. Lances that dodged stuck fast into the Shoggoth, reformed and, as more Shadow Graphers aside from the ones the mutt Lazarus was ripping into entered the being, these lances extended and became more tentacles, as the ones that had been broken into pieces, in their last vestiges of usefulness, still kept going forward in the general direction, some landing on the ground, small tentacles trying to trip the Huntress before dissipating into nothingness, others flying farther past her, trying to hit her and, if failing that, going back into the Shoggoth. The City would stand this no longer, so with only a handful of the Shadow Graphers it wrote out the message,

IT IS NOT YOURS HARLOT
TURN BACK NOW

where it could be plainly seen. One tentacle, particularly elongated by the inclusion of Shadow Graphers began to slither and coil like a thin snake, dodging as many of Lazarus's bites and avoiding its ripping claws as much as it could, and although it ended up ragged and flimsy, managed to wrap itself around Lazarus's neck and pull. The Shoggoth, already halved and only slightly growing back, was almost done for. Then it would be time for the City's final stage, which will hopefully keep her out long enough for one group or the other to arrive.

It really wanted things to go to plan.

Beyond the City Walls (Surreal Apocalypse RP)

Alright! No problem. To be honest I usually wait for a couple people to make posts before I make any posts but it seems somewhat dead around here lately so that might change.

Beyond the City Walls (Surreal Apocalypse RP)

That's not a problem! Sticking to writing deadlines is always appreciated but it's understandable when you simply can't. I honestly wasn't keeping track of peoples' regular posting habits, though I will say it is great to hear that you'll be posting in more frequently!

EDIT: Also I just wanted to mention, @brokndremes, that right now I see the status under your avatar as "100 posts in 666 days" and it is simply too perfect.

Beyond the City Walls (Surreal Apocalypse RP)

Meshach rose quickly to follow Cat, tossing away the core of the apple behind him to land on the sidewalk. Yet another reason she was rapidly gaining respect to him- it was quite clear that she went by her own pace and seemed to only partially care about if people were going by that same pace in a beneficial sense. That was smart of her to do, sometimes trying hard to help people who just couldn't be helped or couldn't catch up was more of a hindrance than it was worth. Meshach believed that most lives are valuable, or at least have the potential for great value, but he was no cultivator and didn't care much. He also wasn't that much of a follower, but yet he still followed, taking long strides to catch up with her more quickly but otherwise not changing the pace of his footsteps. He didn't know exactly why.

Mostly, he knew, it was the fact that usually at the end of the rainbow there was some big scaly thing next to the metaphorical pot of gold that would fetch him a good price and teach the new Hunters coming in who exactly is the more experienced member of the team. However, it didn't help him more than momentarily, although cashing in anything useful from the corpse did stuff his pockets with well needed Cells. After all, some experienced hunters sometimes went out on expeditions beyond the normal scope of Hunter activities, by unshakable decree of the ever-meticulous and eternally malicious Council of Sector Three. And many of them never came back, including Hunters he had appreciated before and very shortly after his tenure as a slave. Although, a part of it was that he rarely met people who understood the kill or be killed world, even though the fact that their home itself is trying to kill everyone should have been an indication of it. This young woman did. He didn't expect nor care to hang around other people that long, but the few people he did find himself admiring and respecting he did try to stick with. After all, the very next day they could have gotten themselves eaten or flayed alive. The City is not a place to cultivate friendships, only grudges.

Though something kept nagging at him, even as they walked, mostly in silence, outside the boundary of the Sector closest to the newly-formed Cache. Something she said stuck in his mind, and the way she spoke, reacted to his response, walked in a careful, sharp, defensive manner, eyeing the surroundings as if every window was hiding an unnatural beast, and, to be fair, she was likely right more often than paranoid, although in a literal living Hell like the City paranoia and acceptable levels of caution are one and the same thing. Finally, when he picked up on what it was that irked him, he debated whether or not to even bring it up. In all honesty, it was an acceptable risk this close to their home Sector, but conversations simply lead to attachment, and attachments lead to mistakes. Meshach weighed the two options, then seeing no point in trying to suppress his curiosity, spoke up suddenly.

"Do you mind if I just say something? Something you said has been bothering me, though I didn't pick it up until now. How do you know about Hunting setups and organization as well as you do, being a Retriever? And I can't chalk it up to simply basic knowledge, because Retrieval worked the exact same way as Hunters until a little over five, six years ago, when the so-called 'Traitor' Connelly fled the Sector and a bunch of his teammates loyally followed him out and you did not even allude to it in any way, shape or form." Meshach allowed himself to shrug and raise his hands casually, the Colt Service Revolver firmly gripped in his left hand. He didn't know why exactly he was doing it. He usually was silent, only speaking through simple sentences that rarely exceeded four words as a maximum, except when discussing strategy or reprimanding idiots for not following said strategy. He tried not to be verbose on a general rule, and this deviation surprised him, even as it was coming out of his mouth. "I could be wrong. But something tells me I'm not. Now, I understand if you don't want to bring it up, Hunting's honestly a pain a good deal of the time, and I wouldn't want to bring up anything about myself either. I just wanted to say that I just thought it was-" Meshach fell silent quickly. Out of the corner of his eye on the red brick wall of a building only a block ahead to the right of an intersection, he noticed a flicker of movement. Anywhere else it would be merely a change in lighting, a quick casting of darkness over the wall followed by light. But the way it moved was unmistakable. Just to make sure, although it was more out of curiosity than precaution- he was already setting himself in a defensive shooter's stance from the waist up while still walking, revolver held up and arms steady to aim and fire at anything that came close- he looked at the street light directly across from the City block. Sometimes the lights occasionally crackle with what could possibly be electricity or maybe something else. The street light was dead, and it had been. Meshach looked up and to the left in the fifth story window of a tall, looming steel structure. In the panes of glass he could see at least five, six dark silhouettes against the glass, arms bent above their heads as if pressing themselves to the wall, peering outward. He saw the faintest glint of what might be rationalized as a white dust mote travelling in their field of view, but he knew that wasn't the case. Shadow Graphers were everywhere. The more places he looked the more places he saw them looming against the walls in dark spaces and around corners. It was a fairly small number of them in total, about a dozen or so, but if that was how many Shadow Graphers there were on the outer perimeter entire blocks away from the Cache at the epicenter, then there were far, far more nearer to the Cache itself. A lot of Shadow Graphers can create some large and nasty, if easily killable, creatures. And a Cache was never guarded by just a small platoon of weaksauce living shadows.

"Hold that thought, you might want to get ready for company..." Meshach muttered.

---

The City had expected Katerina to take action and dice the Shoggoth into pieces. It was a strange surprise that the young ex-Servant dispatched the Shoggoth in the way she did. The Shoggoth strained around the mutt Lazarus as it tried forcing its way deeper into the shadowy flesh of the creature. It did try to strain to keep the dog inside of itself, and it stopped its sharp shadowy tendrils in their tracks as soon as the dog was so far in that it would suffocate in a more excruciating death than its razor sharp tentacles could provide. Instead, the girl ran at an astounding speed, then leapt at and into the Shoggoth, backpack first, not before entering within quick slicing range of a few of the tendrils, which lashed out at her with speed that meant that it was highly unlikely she would dodge them all, especially if she was otherwise trying to destroy it. A lot of the Shoggoth's attention was otherwise- many of the Shadow Graphers consisting its paper-light mass were seeping out of the creature, extending and filling like a liquid into the dozens of small holes that extended from right below itself through tunnels and out elsewhere at various places in the street. When Katerina landed on the Shoggoth bag-first, it did not completely destroy the Shoggoth however. Instead it merely bust its top half like a ripe tomato. The lower tendrils erected to their fullest length and twitched there for a few seconds, as if the Shoggoth was stiffened in agony. Then the tendrils lashed. The shadowy flesh around Lazarus parted as the Shoggoth creature relaxed its grip to pay full attention to trying to mend itself and work at attacking the girl who burst the creature in half. Many gobs of shadow splattered over the edifices and facades of the surrounding buildings and street, giving everything dark, oily splotches. But that was one part of the fun surprise. The City expected the Shoggoth to burst apart fully, but this was going surprisingly better than conventionally expected of any mortal denizen within itself, even a skilled Servant such as her. The fact that the Shoggoth did not completely explode, only the top half, meant that Kat was soon to face an attack in three simultaneous stages. First, Kat and the newly freed Lazarus would have to dodge the now frantically swung tendrils of the remains of the Shoggoth, which now that they had their full attention back to fighting the creature, they likely would. But that was simply the first piece of the attack. At the same time, the gobs of oily shadow on the walls and ground elongated and formed thin, cylindrical tubes, at least nine inches long and with sharp, pointed ends- or as sharp and pointed as a corporeal shadow can be- which then hurtled themselves quickly through the air trying to hit Kat or Lazarus. Its third stage was preparing itself shortly, and once it was prepared not even a Servant of the Adderess herself could forsee it.