IC Thread - 01

Aki:


"That's the lot, miss. Are you waiting on something? It's probably been held up in the sorting; they'll probably still have it at the post office. You know where that is?" At your affirmative nod, she flicks the reins and the cart trundles off again.

-==>

On the way to the Post Office, you spot an unusual number of rats standing on tall buildings, cloaks to the wind. They pose dramatically, noses into the breeze. They are looking at...



Zorro:

You dash across the roofs on your NOBLE STEED. The wind whistles in your fur, and you approach the OLD CLOCK TOWER. There is a SHADOWY FIGURE skulking around the roof, and its shadow has great claws and a tail - a CAT SPIRIT possessing an unwary human, no doubt. The door to the clock tower is BARRED from the inside.

As you arrive, there is a resounding BOOM sound as the clock tolls the hour. Dust shakes from the eaves of the tower, and the figure leaps into the air in shock.

Amy:

The SBURB MANUAL starts with the usual blurb about what the game is about:

"Players (you and your friends) take the role of exiled Heroes who have been driven from their rightful Land by a great evil at the start of the game. These Players are scattered on two kingdoms that are at war on a promised land.

The goal of the game is for the Players to reach the promised land, Skaia, in order to claim for their own the very thing that Derse and Prospit are fighting for, the Ultimate Reward."

The next few pages go over some basic interface for what looks like a Sims-style house-building game. It looks like-

It's at this moment that a warped BIRD squawks out from underneath your bed. You recall a bird like this in your dreams last night; you must have dragged him back with you by accident. It starts flapping around your room like a complete feathery asshole, then spots the shiny disc and swoops down, grabbing it in its beak.



Zeto:

Mum gets up with a groan as her knees creak. "Well, if you don't like it we can always take it back..." she jokes. "All right, all right. What do you want for breakfast? One of us should open the place up." A good-natured ARGUMENT quickly ensues over which of your mothers is going to be the one to open the shop and who'll stay with you, with the outcome that all three of you move to the KITCHEN...

where the COFFEETRON has sprung a leak. With most coffee machines, this wouldn't be a problem, but high-pressure steam joints can be dangerous if you're not careful. Fortunately, with your new Mecha-Torq AutoSpanner, LIMITED EDITION, you can sort it out in a matter of moments.

Everything settles into a comfortable daily routine after that. J3-NNY is sitting at the table, doing SOMETHING NAUTICAL on the INTERNET, when she speaks up again. "Strange. My Weather Reporting Appears To Also Be Malfunctioning. Today Has A Predicted 514% Chance Of Meteor Showers."

"You Have A New Message From Matty," chirps J3-NNY from across the room.
"Ok, just a moment," Zeto replies, re-tightening up the last couple of nuts on the COFFEETRON with her new SPANNER. That done, she wipes her hands and turns to her robo-friend, who is already holding a KEYBOARD ready for her. She looks at the screen.

Well, he hasn't disconnected yet, so maybe she hasn't missed him. She starts TYPING.

Cool. Well, after BREAKFAST then.
"Going out somewhere then?" Her mother always seems to know what's going on.
"Mm-hmm."
"Well, not before you've had breakfast you're not. And don't stay out too late, you don't want to miss your birthday dinner..."

---

Zeto swallows her mouthful. "Five hundred and fourteen? Sure you haven't misplaced a decimal somewhere? Remind me later, I'll take a look at it." She finishes her breakfast and heads upstairs to get CHANGED, then back down to the basement to pick up her LAPTOP before heading out. "See you later!" she calls out as she sets off for the nearest STATION to catch a train to the STEAMWORKS.

Matty:

Rinley rolls her eyes at you. "Finally!" she says, around the last mouthful of steamed bun.

The two of you set off across the rooftops. The RAT HIGHWAYS aren't as well-maintained near Arcadia as they are on the docks, in Fortitude, but you're more than skilled enough to make up for it.

As you near the Steamworks, you can see a huge crowd queueing outside GAMESTART. However, your attention is claimed by navigating the MAZE OF PIPES on its roof that occasionally attempt to fire you into the air. You sometimes suspect that it's a tsukogami, but if it is, it's very good at lying low when you investigate it.

You nail the dismount with a delirious sicknasty back-flip-twist, and Rinley lands beside you with a whoop. Then she spots someone and drags you off to the side, behind a chromed-steel STEAM ORGAN. "Is he still out there?"

You can see a figure about your age, dressed in DUBIOUSLY VICTORIAN APPAREL. He appears to be buying a mixture of gears, pipes, and glassware, but the cart he's pushing around also has some large lumps of MEAT in and a jar of EYEBALLS. A whispered conversation with Rinley establishes that it is LEONARDO DA MONTREAL, and she may have accidentally broken his INCOMPARABLE NIGHTMARE ENGINE.

"We need to get out without him seeing us, or we'll be stuck here for hours listening to his ranting! As team leader, I can't let that slow us down!"

Zeto:

BREAKFAST is as delicious as usual. Oddly enough, after checking the OBSERVATORY DATA FEED, it looks like they are actually sending you a forecast of meteor showers.

The bell rings a few times as the regulars come in for their breakfast or coffee, more than a few of them wishing you a happy birthday as well.

---

The train journey is swift, and you reach the Steamworks, where a flock of well-meaning ADMIRERS almost instantly forms around you to admire your new AutoSpanner. One of them makes the mistake of calling it a wrench and is swarmed under in a way that reminds you eerily of a swarm of piranhas. As flattering as the attention might be, there's a lot of people, and they're getting in your way.

Zorro:
You use the distraction to close the distance between you, and as she spots you, she turns and you can see the SLITTED PUPILS that are a common sign of possession by CAT-SPIRITS. She bats at you with a hand, and you can see her fingernails are extended into claws. Normally CAT-SPIRITS won't hunt humans (well, humanoids), so there's something strange about this one.

> ALLEGE

"A hero?" She grins ferally. "The wind blows in from the lake. Shells open, crack, bleed. Time runs, like sand."

The cryptic horseshit, however, is par for the course.

> ANTICIPATE

She seems to be tensing for an attack.

Zorro bounces back to his feet, and bows to his opponent.,,, then suddenly darts for the door of the clock tower

Zorro


Your quick action completely blows past her guard, even with her CATLIKE REFLEXES. You dart to the door and quickly make it through the RAT-DOOR, a small inset door large enough for a rat or a child but not big enough for the possessed woman to follow you through.

Inside the ABANDONED CLOCK TOWER, there's a spiral staircase leading upwards. Coloured light spills through the windows, and you can hear the sound of muffled crying from upstairs.

Heading up the stairs, you find EDONY hiding herself behind a crate of CLOCK PARTS and GEARS. She seems to be too scared to have noticed you yet.



Amy
You make good time to ARCADIA itself, but as you reach the entrance to the shopping district, a RED LIGHT stops you. As you wait for the lights to change, the BIRD lands a few meters away on a FIRE HYDRANT, your disk still clutched in its thieving beak. You chase after it, but it leads you a merry way through ARCADIA, until you almost crash into a horde of people outside GAMESTART. The queue is long, and with a sinking feeling you realise that most of them are clutching SBURB flyers.

Aki
"Because we won't be able to protect everyone. Say your farewells while you can.". The ANGEL guns the engine and drives off into the sunrise, making it hard to see where exactly he goes.

You reach the POST OFFICE, which is actually a complex of small FISH WAREHOUSES that have been converted for the purpose. Conveyors take parcels and letters between the SORTING SHEDS, and this being Fortitude, there is RIGGING set up so that people can scale the sides of the building and reach the roof. Inside, Kasumi Miyamoto is the only one behind the desk, old in the way that only a Japanese matriarch seems able to be. She puts her book down as you approach the counter. "How can I help you, dear?"

You explain your predicament, and she nods sagely. "You're welcome to have a look in the sorting rooms. We're a bit short-handed, so it might not have been sorted yet."

Entering the SORTING ROOM at her direction, you see that it all funnels toward one desk at the centre of the room. A girl sits there, sorting parcels at a speed you find frankly unbelievable. They pour onto the desk in a constant stream and she is throwing them in all directions, somehow ending up on what you hope are the right conveyors without even a dent.

Amy curses at being foiled once more by the blasted BIRD.

Standing in a QUEUE for long enough to get things sorted out or a new copy of the game would require something that resembled PATIENCE. She frowns in momentary thought, wishing that there was someone else around to TALK to... and possibly stand in the queue with. Hopefully, in time, the crowds will die down and she'll be able to get a replacement DISK (as the BIRD seems to have escaped, again).

It seems it is time for PLAN B (well, C, or possibly D, but who's counting). She is tangentially aware that it is someone's BIRTHDAY and even though she hasn't been invited to any kind of party that seems like a perfectly good excuse to purchase some CHOCOLATE and go looking for FRIENDS!

> Purchase a edible Birthday gift and cycle around in search of others.