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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cathoi" data-source="post: 2269911" data-attributes="member: 31215">- Jumping into this with both feet, all subject to your discretion of course-  ================================================Metropolis, like any other city, has its secrets.  They are magnified by her size, enriched by the desperation of her inhabitants, and carried over innumerable streets like the alchemical drugs distributed by the minute inside her thick walls; secrets too dark for a natural scenery.  But these same secrets are not content to stay locked within, be their barriers that of a house, the granduer of the Metropolis Walls, or the shell of a human skull.  If not allowed to to enwrap others in intrigue, a secret will warp its weilder instead.  Snake and twist darker still, until there is nothing left of the individual but the secret.  In Metropolis, secrets like this have a mind of their own; indeed, lives of their own.================================================   Naten (Pronounced Nathan) Khea was a man working under the power of one of those secrets, in fact one wouldn't be completely incorrect in calling it The Secret, the architects.  Beings, half-sentients, Gods?, who are whispered of by the crazed and the focus of more then a few Metropolis nursery rhymes, at least in the known reaches of the City.  A Fairy tale?  Definately, but all nursery rhymes have a degree of truth in them, or the fancy of truth, that's why they're told to children anyway.  Looking for that kind of secret in Colliseum district though could cost one their head, amongst other things.  Here history had to be forgotten...in the hopes that sanity would come in its place.  It had been nearly unanimously, democratically decided by the already ignorant masses that the Colliseum district would have no history.  Those who lived within the Mosh district had rolled out property deeds and kicked out the less fortunate, a few days of rioting in a small quarter, and then quiet.  A walled ghetto within an impovershed city, but Colliseum at least could fend for its own, every detail had been meticulously planned out to create absolutely no change what-so-ever, this was the only way for the starving district to survive.  Knowledge would become obsolete, Colliseum disctrict had taken just about all it could stand of progress. The starving would remain starving, the poor would remain poor, and the prosperous would have exactly what they wanted, security.   In the upper echelons of Colliseums old nobility however, something was stiring.  Peasents and political idealists were content with their parts, little machines in a big city.  The old families had always kept distractions to fall back on; gang warfare, competitive art and theatre, architectual outdoings, but closed away within their own mansions each now had too much time for brooding, thusly did their eccentricies grow.  It started out as little games, miniature conspiracy theories about magic and creation and the families own part within the whole of Metropolis.  Real murders were put on by families simply to watch the human drama unfold; homes, jobs, lives were ruined to indulge in whatever next sick whim struck one of the ruling Dons.  Each petty family combed over libraries the ordinary populace had thought burned, each pedigree crept furthre into the madness of their fantasies, jaded by the dour mediocrity of industrial scenery.  The common people had no central government to turn to once the nobiltiy struck against them, no choice but to dance to the strings since they had no idea whome to trust.  In one of these  Don's bouts of madness, a "prince" had discovered something truly awful, something truly secret within Colliseum, and maybe Metropolis on a whole.When the dons played out their drama's, pretending to be a Seelie court or cosmic illithid just to relieve their boredom, they would occassionaly do enough damage to the normal populace to create leftovers from the lives crushed.  Specifically, orphans; and Colliseum was rife with them.  They spilled out from tent cities inside decaying factories, they hopped from attic to attic simply for a relatively safe place to rest, they moved about Colliseum like strays, and like strays the fatherless children constantly being rouned up.  Sometimes they were picked up by families who had lost their own, other times they were simply put down, not enough resources in the quarter support their mouths.  When put into care, they were raised as normal citicenry, and took their place within Colliseum "Society", but when left to run amongst the alleys a buried instinct took over, some primal scavenger gene that allowed the orphans, children only, to thrive within the nooks and crannies.  It was under this realization that the Don's found a new hobby.  Perhaps, reasoned the barmies, the children were cared for by Metropolis itself, by some preserving nature the children needed and the City simply fed that need.  This is not so unnatural to think in a world of magic, besides, maybe it is a dormant god, or a benign fey that spread itself through out Metropolis,  surely whatever force fed the thousands of orphans held by Colliseums walls must be a device of the Architects, and he who asked the Architects, so the stories go, could rule Metropolis, or even step outside its fabeled walls.Ovejoyed at the new challenge, the Dons set about their new game with a gusto all thier own.  Sides were picked and secret societies chosen, Lords and Ladies went on to pour their private fourtunes to seek an awnser to the riddle of Colliseums orphans.  Thats where Netan comes in.  He's a tacker, a bounty hunter, a "seeker" in the more polite and socialbe of circles.  Netan finds the kids, sniffs 'em out of their hiding spots, and brings the espescially gifted our touched sniveling brats to go into the Dons institutions.  There the Don's pseudo-wizards poke and prod 'em for info about the Architects and presumably feed 'em milk and cookies.  What the hell ever.  Not a bad racket considering the pay, though the hours blow he'd have saved up enough to retire nicely by fifty-five.  That's how it should've went too.  Netan didn't need that priest of Urbanus knocking him out during a hunt, the priest and his cronies pulling him into one of the Don's "Facilities".  They showed him what was done to the orphans.  In a way he'd always suspected, murderers, crazed experiments into fear and response, living autopsies, Netan would have done just fine never knowing the fruit of his labor.  Now witness to the horror of his acts, Netan of course changed allegiance against the Dons.  A reluctant revolutionary, and a spy in the dark plots of the Dons. Then came the night of "revolution".  Netan was to lead the orphans to a safe place because he was the only one with the access to the childen.  In one night of bluster and fire everything the Don's created was torn down around them, terrible bids of power were thrown to the wayside by riots and fire by peasents and political idealists.  In that night of terrible wrath Netan was to lead them to sanctuary, away from the riots.  He failed in this task. A blow to the head, no-one would've seen it coming, but it doesn't stop him from blaming himself.  He fell unconscous from the hit by the blackjack, miraculously saved while the whole city quarter burned to ashes.  Waking in the smoke and ruin with only a feeling of jaded guilt, Netan can't help but think that the orphans were saved by some twist of the city, some shift in the alleys when none but a childs eyes were looking.  And if he was saved as well...maybe he could find 'em, set the record straight and get on with life once they were cared for properly...maybe that would stop the cries of guilt and shame in the night. Everything in Collisuem is in ruin now, already becoming haven for squatters as Netan scrounged for what resources he could find and set out in a random direction, twoards a City district in better repair then his former location of residence.  Two short swords stowed in his pack and a list of two thousand needles in a miles wide haystack held in his grasp.  This is so not how he envisioned his next 25 years.======================================= Netan Keha lvl 2 rouge, 2 ranger; human. Hmmn, in retrospect I might've been a tidbit over-zealous...just a little.  *shrug* oh well, feel free to use as much or as little of that as you wish, I'm adabtable.</blockquote>

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