[1] new players and characters
[2] plotline // the wildcard network // byelobog and the waterkant crew
[3] plotline // the wildcard network // nyyrikki and the california crew
[4] plotline // the wildcard network // merging
[5] plotline // aeonis
[6] plotline summary [the wildcard network]
[7] contest // i can haz next sim?



As usual, the #2, #3, #4 and #5 plot summaries are fairly verbose. If you just want a skeletal overview of what's happened, take a look at #6, though note that this doesn't include #5.

[1] new players and characters

JesseRidgefall and Moons both are new on the roleplaying stage. You might know them better as Sho (or Deja Entrendu; #dataclaw regular since Sehto dissolved) and Cerunnos D'Abbadon (or Cery; from The Abyss City for those of you who've been to that community), respectively.

New characters played are:

Moons' character Patches (Michael Andreas), an extremely feline boy in his very late teens, with a pleasantly multi-facetted but mostly peaceful and friendly personality.

JesseRidgefall's character Willoughby (Willis Ambrose), a borderline case for insanity, with a paperthin mask of humour atop a genuinely good mood, with the lot of that, though, cloaking a very deep scepticism of anyone and everything.

Kor meanwhile has brought in Psiona (Sirena Blades), Jennifer's sister, who's had the misfortune of getting herself trapped (so far, instead of Jennifer); not only that, but she's gotten herself trapped right along with a sorely unwanted stalker of hers: Adrian Omdahl (who's thus far unmentioned screename is Nyyrikki Nylund), a new character of pinkgothic's, who gives off an aura of perfectly normal, nervously insecure but kind teenage boy. Sirena knows different.

Nemesis has brought in Sable (Jordan Marsden). Initially thinking the glitch only pertained to her, she's made fairly good friends with Willoughby, something that's certainly mutual.

BLusk... still has no characters, but he has enriched the NPC database with Ricky Navarro, an Aeonis employee who spent some time flirting with Jennifer with tech talk.


[2] plotline // the wildcard network // byelobog and the waterkant crew

In the new simulation (Necropolis, though none of the characters know the name yet), the triad of Elizabeth, Noko and Byelobog broke apart when Joshua brought up their bizarre conversation in Darkscape [Log #006] and the younger man stolidly refused to acknowledge the reality of it, in that he continually assured Byelobog of that to him, it had been a dream. Byelobog quickly decided that it was a sign of too much instability for it to be trusted and headed off by himself, leaving Elizabeth and Frederick behind.

Cue the Necropolis tower. As a fairly prominent landmark, and since Byelobog certainly desires to leave the simulation now that he's sure his body hasn't gone and died on him (him still being quite conscious in the confines of the Wildcard network, after all!), he assumed it to be important and decided to camp nearby.

Unfortunately, that made for a very high-profile location to sleep in, and an 'alter ego' Frederick found him, surprising him in his sleep and with lush amounts of mockery and violence [Log #013]. Bizarrely, the encounter entered with a deliberate play with fire from the boy, untying Byelobog and watching for his reactions - which ultimately culminated in a vengeful tying-Frederick-to-the-bed-naked action, both as a simple form of humiliation, and in hopes that he'd rot there (not that short of the building caving in the boy was ever in danger of death).

Sadly, Dread, who's revealed to be the orchestrating force behind that particular scene, didn't take much liking to that and went ahead to find Elizabeth astrally (a tedious chore since he didn't know where in the world she takes residence in) to point her to where Frederick'd been left. Elizabeth found him and freed him, against all protests from Frederick - who had, at the time, 'enjoyed' over a day of introspection and come to the conclusion that he was a liability.

What followed was the two fractured camps of that particular group beginning to tackle Necropolis' quest on separate paths:

Byelobog rapidly organised himself, extending his earlier inventory of a map of the city with a bicycle and several useful items, weapons included. With a bicycle, he headed out to Necropolis' west (24 MAR) and was quick to retrieve the earth crest (25 MAR). On his way back, he punctured a wheel, which he decided to either replace in a bicycle store, or simply grab a new bicycle.

Frederick and Elizabeth, meanwhile, took some time to analyse the tower, and along with some generous amounts of indecisiveness (particularly in Frederick) finally began a hike south on the 26th, arriving south on the 27th, where they determined the houses in that location to be packed entirely with sand.


[3] plotline // the wildcard network // nyyrikki and the california crew

On the 23rd, without warning to either the current inhabitants of Necropolis (who noticed nothing of it) nor the people affected, the Wildcard network trapped a batch of people from California [Log #016] - along with a stray connection from Europe's Scandinavia county, Adrian Omdahl, who really only got drawn in by proxy, having cyberstalked Sirena Blades. Fortunately for him, he connected outside immediate view of the others, which allowed him to later feign coincidence.

The gaggle of people at first seemed convinced that whatever glitch had reeled them in was temporary - excepting Willoughby, who was mistaking the Wildcard network as a fabled location his friend Jesse had been researching into (a place of hacker lore, which's description matches Wildcard perfectly, but differs on some key points), and seemed convinced they'd doomed themselves, though he took it with humour. The collective opinion was quick to become gloomier after they reached the Necropolis tower and found no immediate link out, nor a manual telling them what to do.

Some generous looting of the stores insued, first to pass time as the lot presumed the 'beta environment of some future MMORPG' would eventually see connections of those responsible, who'd be able to help them out; then as a means of finding items that might prove useful when solving the Necropolis quest. For Willoughby, this meant (amongst other things) getting weapons. For none of them, it meant getting bicycles, though.

On the 26th, Willoughby and the others ended up in the east of Necropolis, where the crest is hidden in plain sight and the question is simply how to get it. Pebbles were thrown for the better part of the day, and much practise accumulated, but it wasn't until the next day and Willoughby deciding to shoot at the wind crest that it was knocked out of its suspension mid-wind-archway.

Adrian Omdahl, meanwhile, had lost track of the California crew, whom he was still hiding from while formulating a plan of how to best waltz in and introduce himself - he'd simply missed them leaving for the east and, assuming something of the sort, decided to grab a bicycle for himself to be swifter than they would be on foot, but the plan petered out into naught when he realised not only had he no idea where to go, but he was only needlessly exposing himself to attention if he was to cycle around.

Confused, Adrian fell asleep on the floor of the bicycle store the night of the 25th.

After acquisition of the wind crest, the California crew headed - still on foot and without haste - from the east of Necropolis to the north.


[4] plotline // the wildcard network // merging

To recap: Shortly after obtaining the earth crest, Byelobog had a puncture in his 'cycle and wanted to patch it up or replace the 'cycle. Nyyrikki/Adrian, meanwhile, sought to grab a bicycle for the sake of stalking after the California crew but lost incentive and fell asleep on the floor of the store he found.

The natural consequence?

"Who the hell are you and what on earth are you doing in a bicycle store, sleeping on the floor like a retard?"

After being initially forced to stammer and stutter nearly scared Adrian off, Byelobog quickly labelled the boy as completely harmless and thus instead took him under his protective wing. They shared a few stories, though naturally Adrian mentioned nothing of the California crew, much less of Sirena Blades, except in rambles unrelated to the network, letting some of his obsession show through - but beyond seeming cutely infatuated, nothing that bothered to stick to Byelobog's memory, even.

Now armed with a new bicycle - as well as one for Adrian - it didn't take the new team of two long to head south, Byelobog firmly intending to go through the directions in a clockwise, systematic fashion. It was there that Byelobog encountered Frederick, the boy at that very moment busy digging sand out of one of the houses while Elizabeth slept on the beach, which netted him the accusation of murder, which was fortunately quickly dispelled.

After the initial tension between them dissipated, Elizabeth was quick to share her notion that perhaps, what had assaulted Byelobog had been a renegade administrator of the network they were on, since she assured him Frederick was incapable of doing such harm, and he HAD cited an inability to control his body. Byelobog came to accept this as truth and even went as far as to apologise to Frederick, though their relationship is nonetheless quite strained.

Byelobog then managed to fish out the water crest from the freshwater 'pool' at the beach, finding its depth easily manoueverable as the water turned out not to increase in pressure the deeper one dived, making it a mere question of how to cleverly hold one's breath.

With the earth and water crests obtained, Byelobog and the others returned to Necropolis on foot (though pushing the two bicycles 'belonging' to Adrian and Byelobog). Once there, Byelobog showed them the bicycle shop he'd obtained his from and organised Frederick and Elizabeth bikes, too.

On the 30th of March, the group headed north, where it was Frederick, exploring the crater with some curiosity while the others set up a camp at the base of it, who first stumbled across the California crew. The reuniting came much to Adrian's dismay, though he bested the meeting with Sirena to the point of her thinking it atrocious luck rather than Yet Another Stalking Case.

In an effort to please her, he headed off with Sable to Necropolis main to get insulation supplies and hang-gliders, which has given her some room to breathe. Sable and Adrian took two bikes, leaving another two behind for the other six. Those were promptly nicked in the (subjective) night that followed, Frederick deciding to leave, highly uncomfortable by the amount of people now in his vicinity while he clearly made for some focal point for the demon / renegade administrator / apparition. The second bike fell prey to Patches, who didn't want Frederick leaving by himself despite all warnings from the boy not to tag along.

Naturally, this has Elizabeth quite distrought, though Byelobog - despite not being exactly FANCIED by her - has been doing his best to keep her in a good mood and from running off on her own.

Even before Adrian and Sable returned, Byelobog brought up the interesting qualities of the water, which resulted in a heavy debate on the nature of the lava in the lake - and in a fit of courage, one of the Citizens reached out to touch the surface, finding the surface itself to be perfectly cool to the touch, despite the heat emanating from it, as if it were simply the air around it that were heated, rather than the lava itself. As such, simply walking across to the island has yielded the fire crest to the California crew, who waited for Adrian and Sable to return, to then head back to Necropolis proper on foot.

Having all four crests, the Citizens - excepting of course Patches and Frederick - are quite tempted to leave, though Elizabeth has been begging them to wait for a while, in case solving the simulation would open a link only temporarily, wanting to give Frederick and Patches a chance of meeting back up with them, so they'd leave together. Either way, though, while musing that, they headed back to Necropolis on foot.

Meanwhile, Patches meets Dread, though the situation is relatively benign; even though it ends with Frederick having a case of Shredded Thumb due to a bizarre concatenation of events ultimately culminating in a rare bout of aggression from the more feline of the two.


[5] plotline // aeonis

Offline, Aeonis caught wind of a 'spike' in the connection times reported: In this particular case, by Willoughby. Suspecting there to be more to it, Teo Escarrà approached Clarion Vexhall for permission to investigate more properly, his own casual inquiries with other ISPs in the vicinity of the case having yielded bristly tempers with Monsoon.

With the team formally extended to North America with Vexhall's blessing (minimalist though it ended up being, with no additional funding or time being granted, merely executive power), Teo hooked up properly with Monsoon and is in flaky contact with their own team investigating the phenomenom, suffering three cases as they were until one of them fell away for reasons their research later turned up to be the person's death: A certain Michael Andreas, estranged from his family and largely without real life friends, had simply not been found in time to prevent death by dehydration.

As far as the involved ISPs are concerned (Aeonis, Monsoon and Wwwire), this is the unfortunate first death associated with the phenomenom, but media reaction has so far been dampened to a trickle in the later pages of the tabloids.

Working together with Monsoon allowed Teo to obtain the addresses of the two cases still connected: Sirena Blades and Jordan Marsden. Monsoon are less willing to cover the resulting hospital bills than their rival, but due to the lack of finances, Aeonis has no means of taking them over, either, leaving the California cases not on Aeonis purely in the hands of their families and/or friends.

Sirena Blades' family came to be visited by Ricky Navarro of Aeonis to determine any technical fault with the machine in question, as well as the stats and numbers of the same for their files and perusal while sifting through the possible causes. In a case of geek muscle-flexing from both Jennifer and Ricky, the two took an odd liking of each other and Ricky left Jennifer his VoIP number.


[6] plotline summary [the wildcard network]

The trapped Citizens in Necropolis have all crests, largely thanks to Byelobog, as well as to Willoughby's good aim.

A timetable of events:

19 MAR: Byelobog leaves Elizabeth and Frederick. He acquires a map and sets up camp in a furniture store near the Tower.
20 MAR: Byelobog is surprised in his make-shift home by a Dread-controlled Frederick. The situation reverses toward the end and Frederick is tied down.
21 MAR: Frederick enjoys some introspection while Elizabeth tries to find him, unsure where to even start.
22 MAR: Dread appears to Elizabeth to tell her where Frederick is and she frees him.
23 MAR: Adrian and the California crew connect. They head to the tower and only then realise the full extend of their problem.
24 MAR: The California crew hope for outside intervention. Byelobog grabs a bike and heads to Necropolis west by bike.
25 MAR: The California crew head east on foot, Adrian losing them in the process and falling asleep in a bicycle store. Byelobog retrieves the earth crest and heads back, accidentally puncturing his bike tire.
26 MAR: The Calis reach east and try to get the crest by throwing pebbles at it. Byelobog encounters Adrian in his bicycle store of choice; the two 'team up' and Adrian gets a bike and an explanation of the (probable) quest. Elizabeth and Frederick head south on foot.
27 MAR: Willoughby obtains the wind crest through shooting at it; the Cali crew head back to Necropolis proper. Adrian and Byelobog head south. Elizabeth and Frederick -are- south, and discover that the houses are packed with sand.
28 MAR: The California crew head up to the north and camp there. Byelobog encounters Frederick in the south and all hell breaks lose for a moment; Elizabeth calms the situation and explains her 'renegade admin' theory pertaining to Dread, and friendship is restored. Byelobog obtains the water crest.
29 MAR: Elizabeth, Frederick and Byelobog head back to Necropolis proper to grab bicycles.
30 MAR: Everyone meets up in the north (much to Adrian's chagrin, who is forced to explain himself to Psiona, however prepared he is for that). Adrian and Sable head back to Necropolis proper to get hang-gliders and/or insulation material.
31 MAR: People wait for Sable and Adrian. Frederick sneaks off during the night, Patches coming to follow largely by coincidence.
01 APR: Elizabeth notices Frederick's absence and frets. Byelobog shares his story on the south Necropolis water properties and a solution is found for the north. The Citizens obtain the fire crest, then head back to Necropolis on foot with Adrian and Sable. Patches meets Dread, though fortunately nothing happens, short of Frederick getting a case of Shredded Thumb in the process.


[7] contest // i can haz next sim?

We're far too close to needing another sim and I'm very reluctant to revive any other CF2 simulations short of Dominion, which I'd rather put off for a while longer. Whether you want to actually gamemaster a simulation of your design or not, do feel free to design one. In fact, I promise you that the gamemasters (myself especially) will worship you basically forever if you do that.

In fact, I'm so unabashedly desperate that if you make one on the wiki until the next newsletter (that's in about two weeks, folks), your work will be part of a contest, which means you get to win spiffy prizes.

The winner (that's the one who's sim I pick as being the one after Necropolis) will be allowed to force me at gun point to write a character for a Wildcard storyline of their chosing, and
gets a picture from me. I'll draw anything, even humans, but I do strongly recommend against asking me for a human picture, because I am quite fail at drawing them. With that in mind, happy wiki'ing!

Honourable mentions (I'm sure there will be some) will also get a picture, but it'll be lots sketchier.

With that said, happy simcrafting!