Refuse at the Roots

Refuse at the Roots
Date 2082-09-12 GM Discogoblin Location The Resonance Realms Status Threat Level: High
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	The World Tree's Recyclers
z	Workin' lads (fault sprites)

Summary

Z takes Oneiro and receives a vision of a soon-to-open resonance rift, which she jumps through in order to access the resonance realms for the first time. She confronts the great firewall and is sent to the realm of Refuse, where all the unfinished files and abandoned ideas of the matrix are collected and recycled by the World Tree. She chases a packet of her own bad takes and hastily edited posts through the junkyard, fighting off sprites along the way. Right as the data is about to tip into the recycling crusher, z realizes that some things are more important than not being owned online and lets it fall. She returns to meatspace with a deepened understanding of the resonance as a whole, as well as a new connection with the World Tree.

Background

Z wanted to figure out a way to the resonance realms, and figured that the best way to do that was to smoke some Oneiro. It didn't go down well (asthma is a cruel mistress), but after hacking her lungs out z experienced a vision of a resonance rift opening up on the Emerald City grid. She came out of the vision and popped some Cerepax, ready to dive into the resonance for the first time.

The Meet

Z traveled to the St. Alexia public park on the Emerald City grid, the place where she had seen the rift opening in the vision. Along the way she saw a variety of headache inducing advertisements, one of which drew her ire for being marketed to wannabe cops. Not wanting to get sidetracked, z vowed revenge on the sign and continued on her journey. Arriving at the park, she sat down on the central fountain to ponder when the rift might open. She didn't have to think for very long. The rift opened up right underneath the fountain, sucking her into it before she had time to react.

The rift deposited z in a featureless black void, lacking even the base code of the normal matrix. She drifted aimlessly for a while before coming to the infinitely spanning great firewall. Her reflection peered back at her, formed out of the wall's gibberish red code. After playing charades with it for a couple of minutes, z decided to send one of her sprites through the resonance to a fellow technomancer with a message for help. After essentially getting "idk try touching it" in response, z touched the wall and was once again sucked through a rift.

Far from the featureless void this second portal deposited z several thousand feet in the sky above Refuse, the resonant realm where unfinished and forgotten data is recycled back into the World Tree. After managing to make a safe landing thanks to her newly summoned phoenix sprite, she realized that the trash around her were all packets of junk data. Unfinished emails, deleted P2.0 posts, discarded files that found their way down into the Refuse. One piece of trash in particular caught her attention; a rusted and weather beaten laundry machine. Upon touching it, she realized that it contained a bundle of the unfinished regrets that she had tried to scrub from the matrix. Horrified she attempted to resonance spike it into dust, but was forced to run as an enormous claw scooped up the pile of junk. It loaded it into a truck and sent it to be fed back into the matrix. Z would not let that happen.

The Plan

Sprinting through the falling garbage towards the truck, z dived under it and clung to the bottom as it drove away. She followed the truck to the recycling center, avoiding the gaze of the sprites keeping watch. As the truck loaded her data onto a giant conveyor belt, z summoned her army of sprites and hopped up to stop it.

The Run

The enormous conveyor belt was covered in an impassible cover of trash. As her sprites fed her streams of resonance, z threaded a complex form to part a path right through the center of it. The metal junk creaked and grinded as it rolled out of the way, revealing a straight shot to her target. Unfortunately, the noise had alerted a pair of fault sprites standing guard to prevent exactly this. Z charged for the laundry machine as her sprites clashed with the enemy, just barley making it before the data was fed into the World Tree. As she stood on the precipice of the great compactor, z witnessed a small part of the great well of resonance at the base of the tree. Struck by both its beauty and the pointlessness of what she was doing, z elected to let the data feed the tree. She collected her remaining sprites and escaped, being sent back to meatspace with a deepened understanding of the resonance.

Aftermath

Using her newfound power, z went back and vandalized the absolute fuck out of that billboard. It was great.

Rewards

11 Karma

8 CDP

Submersion Grade 1 Discount

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.