Inside III: Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll

[Neon Knight]

((Boring rules and specific locations in the spoiler))

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All standard forum rules apply here, as do the godmodding rules generally agreed upon on this sub-forum.

This thread is for urban shenanigans as Outside is for wilderness shenanigans. It's generally a good idea to mark your PC's location with a [Location] tag at the top of your post so that other players using the thread will know where you are.

This thread is open for use by everyone. Feel free to make up locations within or even man a booth at the open market place. Please be respectful of other people's locations and refrain from blowing them up with an orbital laser strike or something.

There are NPCs all over the place, being a city and all. They are free to be used, abused, blown up, or turned into brain-hungry undead at your desecration. Please be responsible with your NPC use and clean up after you're done.

Above all else, be nice and have fun. That's the point of FFRP after all.

Locations
Barkhouse Bestiary (Public)

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Odd that the building had seemed to simply spring up overnight. Even stranger is the fact that is has somehow managed to grow over at ACROville as well. Things like that happen all the time in Nexus though, so perhaps not. Or... perhaps so...

You see, when a building pops up over night in Nexus it is usually not there one moment and then there the next. Those who happened to be wandering about during the wee hours of the morning swear that they saw this odd structure growing out of the ground. Like a malformed tree maturing far faster than any tree has any business maturing. And like a tree the roof of the building sports a canopy of branches and leaves which several local birds have already taken up residence in.

The leaves are thick and broad, the bark a curious brick red color and as smooth as a paint finish. Said bark is peeling in several places, revealing younger mottled green bark below. Rather reminiscent of a madrone, really.

Despite the fact that the building is quite clearly a tree it is also quite clearly a building. A tree that has grown into a rather unnatural shape. Above the front door one will find a sign of bright yellow barkless wood which reads:



Off to the side is what one would assume to be a carved wolf of the same wood baying at the sign. Because tree puns are funny.

One will find that the door opens quit effortlessly into the roomy interior of the tree-house. Perhaps the first thing that might strike one as odd is how well lit it is inside, due both to window pains of transparent plant membranes as well as bioluminescent globes hanging from the ceiling. The whole building feels somewhat humid, though the temperature is quite comfortable for your average humanoid.

Also hanging here and there are wooden cages. More akin to old fashioned song-bird cages that the ugly boxish wire mesh variety. Some of the cages are empty. Others contain various animals, both fuzzy and not, which watch passersby with curious eyes.

Like the cages, in truth like the building as a whole, there really don't seem to be any corners to speak of. Only smooth organic curves in this place. Which makes the counter in the main room stand out a fair bit. But only because of its planed surface. It's certainly by no means square. Or even rectangular. Rather it curves and meanders around a fair bit in a very haphazard way.

Behind the counter is a perch. And on the perch is a rather odd bird painted with earth tones and a fair bit of blue. Should a customer have a message for the owner while he's out it will be more than happy to remember it for you. And if he happens to be in another room the bird will probably squawk until it gets his attention.

From the main room one will find three doors branching off to other chambers, all with similar furnishings and décor as the first. One seems to be packed with various supplies for the proper care of curious critters. Food and bedding and cages and the like. To the right one will find more varied critters as in the first main room, though the temperature here is a little warmer and the lighting slightly more dark. Also of note are a series of raised ponds which contain a plethora of colorful fish.

Yes. Even trout.

The final room is fairly large and packed to the gills with all fashion of truly bizarre plants. Many of which seem to be growing what could be assumed to be... equipment. Rope. Individual pieces of armor, pauldrons and bracers mostly. Pendants. And other less identifiable things. At one wall of the chamber is another pond with a smallish waterfall running out above it. And basking on a rock at the edge of the pond is a three foot long salamander. The amphibian, not the elemental. Near it is a sign which reads:



On the second floor of the tree house is Avatar's workshop and personal quarters, though the means by which this portion of the building is accessed isn't immediately clear. The quarters are rather plain and Spartan. The workshop seems cluttered with notes and cages, though there is some semblance of method to the madness.

In all a rather strange place, no doubt. A strange place that sells custom magical beasts and living wondrous items. How very curious indeed. What an item that won't get fried by disjunction? Need a fire breathing guinea pig? Have you always thought that it would be useful to be resistant to petrifaction? Do you need some exploding seed pods? Then, fine customer, you have come to the right place! The proprietor even takes custom orders, though expect that such creatures will take a day or two to complete. After all, it isn't easy to build a living thing from the ground up.

So come in! Look around! Have your lycanthropy repressed and buy a monkey of healing to sit on your head!

Erin's Emporium (Public)

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Construction Gnomes have been hard at work renovating a small store along one of the various merchantile roads. Well, it was small. Now it's bigger on the inside.

And filled with every sort of weaponry imaginable, from across the multiverse. From blaster carbines to P-90s, surface-to-air missiles to ballistas, zats to nunchucks, they're all here.

Is that a siege crossbow sitting in the corner?

The Scrivener (Public)

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Just inside the front door are rows of bookshelves, featuring many a book, tome, and article filled with useful information. At first one would assume that this is just a bookstore, but, as the clerk behind the counter will cheerfully inform you, The Scrivener specializes in obtaining and researching information for a fee as well. On the second floor is Douglas' office, where one can hire him as a private investigator.

Camlar Wines (Public)

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Camlar Wines
Proprietess: Tessa Camlar Fairley

On entering, Camlar Wines appears more like a home than a shop. There are comfy chairs and a fireplace. The wine is, of course, in the cellar with magical wards to maintain its environment.

The shop specializes in wines from Camlar Vineyards in Faerun, though there are other varieties as well.

Not advertised, but possibly known through word of mouth, is that the proprietess can craft custom magic items with no waiting. Of course it takes time to do, but Tessa cheats. However, the cost is very high.

House of Oddities (Public)

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*squeak*
*squeak*
*squeak*
*squeak*
*squeak*

This man approaches an empty lot. Walking over, the man kneels down, setting his briefcase next to him. Opening it up, he leans far in, almost to the waist, before drawing himself back out again, holding a beaker of water in one hand and what appears to be a small model house in the other. Closing the briefcase, the Squeaky Shoes Man maneuvers to the center of the lot.

Placing the model down, he pours the water on it and then dashs back to his briefcase quickly. The model grows, slowly at first, then faster until soon, there stands a single story house. The paint was a hideous cat-puke green and peeling. Rust lined the porch railings and shutters were hanging on their sides. The windows were covered in dirt and dust. The man smiled and picked up his briefcase. Moving quickly to his new abode, the wooden steps gave a strained groan under his weight, but held. The door swings open with a screech and the man steps inside.

Some time later, the man comes out with a hammer and a wooden sign. Staking it in front of the house, somehow pushing it into pavement, the man nods, seemingly proud of his work and goes back inside. The sign reads as follows:



Those who walk up the ominously groaning steps and enter the shop/house will be greeted by an incredibly dusty room. Cobwebs lie all along the walls. Floorboards creak precariously. There even seems to be a hole or two in the floor. This place certainly seems unfit to live. To the right and towards the back of the room is another door that must lead further into the house.

In the middle of the room is a card table with one leg shorter than the others creating that annoying, impossible to remove, wobble. Sitting in a cheap folding metal chair facing the doorway is the Squeaky Shoes man. On top of the table is the briefcase.

Welcome to the House of Oddities. What is your flavor today?

Hestia Cyanide's Potions and Poisons (Public)

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The rumbling of cartwheels and the clippetty-clop of carthorses comes to a halt as the quaint little wagon comes to a halt in the empty lot. And I do mean quaint. About the size of a small room, the wagon seems comically tiny compared to the large twin carthorses that pull it, appearing too small for someone to live in, let alone hold a shop in. At least, until it expands. The wagon seems almost to explode as it enlarges, rooms and walls and chimneys and roofs popping and appearing until the wagon resembles a small, double-story, brightly painted cottage on wheels. The house sinks to the ground, wainscots lowering lowering to hide the wheels from view, until steps pop out from the bottom of the front door, coming to the floor, and a stable pops out from the side. A large creature, perhaps a troll, or maybe an ogre or a morlock or a bugbear, comes out the front door, herds the two carthorses into the stables (which, curiously, hold room for four), then returns inside, but not before hanging up a wooden sign proclaiming
Hestia Cyanide's
Potions and Poisons

in large white letters.


The inside of the shop is smoky and warm, with a sitting room at the front, consisting of a variety of mismatched comfy chairs arranged around a low-slung table, and a 'kitchen', if it can be called that, at the back, a chaotic arrangement of shelving containing a perplexing multitude of jars, vials and bottles, all facing inwards towards a giant cauldron (and a small stepladder, for Hestia is of the small sort).

The upstairs part of the store is out of bounds, for it is where Hestia lives and sleeps, when she is not at PEACE.

Samantha's Smithy (Public)

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Name: Blacksmith
Owner: Samantha

An open workyard greets you as you walk up to this building, an anvil and random scatterings of all sorts of raw materials lying on the floor, with neater, untouched pieces stacked in piles up against the wall. A few tools lay on a work bench attached to a forge, which, should one be knowledgeable about these sorts of things, will be found to be of the highest quality.

Inside the building your eyes are immediately drawn to the rows of weaponry adorning the walls. There aren't too many modern weapons there yet, most of the weapons primarily being swords, although there is a large selection of other such weapons as well. All of the weapons that are there are obviously the highest quality, and have clearly been polished recently.

Once your eyes finish taking in the weaponry they'll spot the counter on the opposite side of the room, with a young woman, probably in her early twenties leaning on it, with a cash register off to the side. Her blond hair is tied back in a sensible ponytail, and her smile is warm and genuine as you come in.

The title is a misnomer, of course. No doubt the moniker of this place was settled on after a brief conversation that started with, 'Wouldn't it be funny if...?'. But now the name has stuck.

But what is this place, you ask?

Quite simple.

This is the place between the others that isn't Outside. Now, not outside as in outdoors. That out-door market place is certainly outside. But it isn't Outside. It isn't nestled between the roaring waves of the sea and the ancient, decaying mountains. It isn't hidden in the wilds.

It's here.

In this city.

This urban center that has burst forth like a field of toad-stools after an autumn rain. This city that begun to grow as soon as the first place of business was planted outside the various ACRO organizations.

It's a strange city, to be sure. Filled with all manner of people and places and dangers and wonders. One day a location may be an empty lot. The next a butcher shop. The next a lichen-choked cathedral long since abandoned. Nothing is static. All is in flux.

It had to have been here before. Right? People walked from the Taverna to the various Orgs all the time. So how would it have been missed? Perhaps it is now so much more real because it has been acknowledged.

So then, what is this place you ask?

Well my dear hypothetical inquirer, it is the urban counterpart of Outside. It is the inns and shops and streets and slums. The markets and the parks and the fountains and the city squares. It is the libraries and the places of worship and the dank sewer systems. It is all the urban locations that don't have a place to call their own.

Always wanted to crash through a fruit stand in a dramatic chase scene? Well now you can.

Beware the Cute Diseased Pigeons, however. While they may be adorable they are known carries of the deadly Vaporization Flu.

[Chas the mage]

all the Imperial troops are at the base of operations, tending to any nearby wounded civilians.

[Neon Knight]

[Maria's House]

Maria nods. Yeah I think I'll stay home for awhile. Thanks a lot for stopping by.

((Go for it.))

Greg nods, then pulls out one of his cards and hands it to her. "Do you have a phone? This card has my number on it. Call me if anything goes bad."

[McBish]

[Maria's House]

Maria nods taking the card. Will do. Thanks. Hope your place isn't to messed up.

[Neon Knight]

[Maria's House]

"Me too. Be safe." Greg leaves.

[The Bushranger]

[Erin's Emporium - Downstairs]

The information pulled from Crissy's mind by those meddling kids will find that Erin usually lives upstairs?


[Erin's Emporium - Upstairs]

...however, after finishing breakfast and saying a quick good-bye to May, Erin Folds away!


[Inside PD]

...to speak with Regis...

[Chas the mage]

a few soldiers walk over to Erins Emporium.

[Neon Knight]

[Erin's Emporium - Upstairs]

May goes to the room Erin pointed out to study.

[Inside PD]

Regis is waiting for her. He does not look happy.

[Reinholdt]

Vincent and Caroline/Crissy (probably) rush upstairs and burst in in battle stance only to find...

[Erin's Emporium - Upstairs]

Nothing? Or May maybe.

"Hello? Weapon selling villain? We're ready for our boss fight." Vincent looks around the place.

[Neon Knight]

[Erin's Emporium - Upstairs]

Hearing the commotion, May peeps out of the library at them. She's a cute, blond teenager, about 16. She eeps a bit and pulls back into the room, wondering what to do.

[Chas the mage]

[erins emporium-downstairs]
the soldiers enter and look to buy a mini-gun...

[Reinholdt]

[Erin's Emporium - Upstairs]

Vincent scratches his head. "Huh. Maybe she got away in all the commotion? Did I miss a cut scene of her leaving? Let's check the rooms." Vincent starts going door by door to see what rooms open and what are locked and peers into them.

[McBish]

[Maria's House]

Maria goes and frowns at her broken window, and then looking at the bullet hole in the wall thinking how close that was.

[Neon Knight]

[Erin's Emporium - Upstairs]

May panics when they open the study poor, backing up against a wall and looking at Vincent with wide eyes.

[Reinholdt]

[Erin's Emporium - Upstairs]

And she's older than both of them. Heh. Of course he does have a sword. "Hey. You wouldn't happen to be Erin would you? I think we're scheduled to fight her. Or convince her away from her wicked ways. Don't know yet actually now that I think about it."

[Neon Knight]

[Erin's Emporium - Upstairs]

That, and she's a clone of another girl with no memories or working knowledge of how the world works and is horribly confused. "N-no, my name is May..."

[Lord Magtok]

IPD Station

Magtok blinks.

A plea bargain? I'm supposed to sing for a measly little plea bargain like some common crook? You know what you're dealing with, don't you? You do realize that I allowed myself to be arrested, that I've just been playing along and such, right? Time for your Plan B, Mr. Green.

[The Bushranger]

[Inside PD]

Regis is waiting for her. He does not look happy.

Erin notices this, and raises an eyebrow, but nods. My mission has been completed. As a technical success.

[Neon Knight]

[IPD Station]

"I advise against resistance, Mr. Magtok."

___

[Inside PD]

"Right now, I don't have the time to deal with you properly. This city is in the pressure cooker right now."

[Reinholdt]

[Erin's Emporium - Upstairs]

"Oh. Hi May. Don't worry. We promise not to hurt you. What are you doing here?" Vincent sheathes his weapon. Causing the ridiculously large sword to disappear altogether.

[Neon Knight]

[Erin's Emporium - Upstairs]

"I-I'm staying here with Erin while my father is missing." She gives Vincent the odd look he deserves.

[Chas the mage]

[Erins Emporium - downstairs]

the soldiers looks for anyone inside the downstairs...

[Reinholdt]

[Erin's Emporium - Upstairs]

"Your father's missing? What happened?" Vincent smells it coming. Wait for it... wait for ittttt...

[The Bushranger]

[Inside PD]

"Right now, I don't have the time to deal with you properly. This city is in the pressure cooker right now."

I hadn't noticed, Erin says - honestly. What can I do to help?


[EE - Downstairs]

Well, there is the Push For Service button...

Crissy is behind the counter, but looks to be unconsious.

[Neon Knight]

[EE - Upstairs]

"Well, it's a long story. I-I'm... um, I'm the clone of a girl named Annie who got in some trouble and couldn't come back home. So She made me so that my father wouldn't be alone. And Erin's taking care of me. But when we got to the house, everything was gone. I don't know what happened."

___

[Inside PD]

"I've got revolutionaries, gangsters, giant T-Rexes, mobs, riots, murders, and panic throughout the city. What don't we need help with?"

[Reinholdt]

[EE - Upstairs]

A blue box pops up.

May has lost her father. She needs your help!
Accept sidequest?
Yes <--
No

Vincent of course hits yes.

"Don't worry May! We'll find your father. You can count on us!"

[Neon Knight]

[EE - Upstairs]

"W-what?" May looks utterly confused. "W-why would... but w-we just met... and you've got a sword! And you're breaking in here.. and..."

[Reinholdt]

[EE - Upstairs]

"Cause we're the good guys silly. Or the protagonists. Can't turn down a person in need. Or the sidequest bonuses." All the best stuff comes from sidequests.

[The Bushranger]

[Inside PD]

"I've got revolutionaries, gangsters, giant T-Rexes, mobs, riots, murders, and panic throughout the city. What don't we need help with?"

Giant...no, I don't want to know. I'll help how I can, but I do need to know where Annie's father went...

[Neon Knight]

[EE - Upstairs]

May just stares at him.

___

[Inside PD]

"Him? Oh, he skipped town as soon as we stopped keeping up on him. I've got no clue where he went."