Where the Fuck?

The light vanished. “What the fuck?” I blinked away the last vestiges of spots to find Nox battling the girl who had been just an echo in the room before. I held my hand up and sighed with relief, the battle shone through with blurred opacity of my hand. It was strange being an echo when I felt so real.

I watched in awe as he burst into flames while he dodged and flung his fists at the now zombified girl. I’d heard the tales but I’d never seen him in action before.

It was awe inspiring.

When the girl slumped to the ground he looked around frantically. “I’m alright.” I reassured him. His fingers reached out passed through my visage. I longed to feel those long fingers on my skin. But that would never happen.

He had to go and rushed around his apartment gathering his things and left in a flurry of motions. The alarms that concerned him were silent in my bedroom where I slept.

I was about to wake myself and leave the dream but hot searing pain drove down inside me. I felt like I was burning up from the inside. I sprinted through the house and out the door. I was a ghost to this realm, I tried to find Nox, but I didn’t know which way he’d gone. Fuck I hadn’t been anywhere in this spiraling city. So I headed towards the spire in the middle. It could be seen for miles — or so Nox said.

The pain grew and I dropped to a knee in the suddenness of the wave that passed through me.

My ears began to ring but not the ring I remember hearing, more like alarms blaring loudly in and out of phase. I felt sick to my stomach and stopped to vomit, only nothing emerged from my throat. Dry heaves wracked my body and then there was a blinding purple yellowish light encompassing my vision. Searing white hot pain and I screamed.

And just as suddenly the light faded. The pain stopped and I stood on a street in my blue boxer briefs. “What the fuck?”

I looked around the foreign landscape and felt the cold, soft metallic sheet beneath my feet. The houses lining the street were strangely built of the same metal I stood on. A dim purple light flooded around me as I looked up to the tower glinting in the sky. “The fuck!”

I brought my hand to my face and the translucence was gone. I was solid. I was here. Wherever the fuck here was.

Alarms blared all around me — a sharp piercing sound. One was really close. And soon after I arrived a man in a gray suit wearing a rainbow logo on his right chest pocket approached me. He limped a little as he walked, but he stopped and stared at me cocking his head to the side. “Geez, boy oh boy, lookie what I got meself here.” He smiled revealing a crocked smile with several blackened teeth. “The bounty on you sir is gonna be mighty big.”

A stray thought crossed my mind “He’ll never see it coming.”

And he was right. I never saw the stick he pulled from his pant leg and jabbed me right in the gut with it. I shook violently while electricity pulsed through my body and the guy took a swing.

I jerked suddenly with the violence of the stick and the man completely missed his punch. How the…

I regained my composure and unleashed my own fury of blows. It had been a long time since I’d been in the ring and I managed to land four blows to his zero before he got me again with that fucking stick. He hadn’t learned from the last time to wait till I stopped convulsing before throwing his right hook and he missed wildly again.

When I recovered I swung up hard and clocked the guy right under his chin. His head snapped back and he fell backwards. “Fuck me!”

I looked around but there was no one watching. Not a soul other than this fellow. I picked up the stun stick thing he had and jabbed him in the gut with it and then I took his clothes. The jumpsuit was made of odd material and when I unzipped the material it fell into a complete grey with no logo — just gray boring material.

“Better than being naked.” I said out loud.

The jumpsuit fit perfectly despite the man being shorter than I was. And the shoes on his feet looked too small, but when I tugged them on they fit perfectly. What kinda place was this? Was this really where Nox lived?

I could have taken the watch on his wrist, but it looked complicated and nothing like any watch I’d ever seen. I wrenched the fallen thugs arm so I could look at it closer and saw that oddly enough, it had several blinking dots. “Wonder what these are?”

I touched one and a small voice from the device sounded. “That is Agent 359’s location.”

“Can you understand my question?”

“Of course.” The small female voice chirped.

“I need to find Nox. I don’t know his number. Nox Luxingis.”

“Agent 381 is located in Garden Park.”

I changed my mind and took the watch and strapped it to my wrist. “Where is that?”

A route showed up on the screen and I smiled. “At least this will be easy.” And I started to follow the directions and to figure out what the fuck just happened.

Alex Brizo is an Inquisitive Dream walking Explorer with latent talents who Commands Mental Powers and is an Anchor from Shift #0

Advancement: □ +4 Stat □ +1 Edge □ +1 Effort □ Skill

Tier: 1
Effort: 1
Armor: 0

Recovery:
□ □ □ □
Damage:
□ □

Might:(1)
■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
Speed:
■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
Intellect:(1)
■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ □
XP:
■

Skills: (p): light and medium weapons, (t): forensics, dreams, any task involving learning something new, writing, geography, history, (i): heavy weapons, hear or notice danger, initiative

Cyphers: L2 non-combat Effort Enhancer, L4 Secret
Abilities: telepathic, hedge magic, decipher, dreamcraft, bond, mental link with drifter, create anchor
Weapons: stun stick 0, unarmed 2 – eased

Equipment: Programmable Jumpsuit, stun stick, wrist computer, expensive slot, moderate slot, moderate slot, inexpensive slot, first aid pen, inexpensive slot, inexpensive slot, book, book, book

Setup

Q: When Alex wakes up is he in Nox’s house?
(1d20+0: [7]+0 = 7)
No

Q: Is he near by?
(1d20+0: [11]+0 = 11)
Yes, but [“Woven”, “Accomplice”, “Precious”]

Q: Does he recognize the location?
(1d20+0: [5]+0 = 5)
No

Q: Does an DEHI agent find him?
(1d20+0: [3]+0 = 3)
No

Q: Does anyone find him?
(1d20+0: [15]+0 = 15)
Yes

Q: Does he know who finds him?
(1d20+0: [9]+0 = 9)
No, but [“Foot”, “Explosion”, “Damage”]

Q: Can this person help him find Nox?
(1d20+0: [14]+0 = 14)
Yes

GM Intrusion: The guy is not friendly and you are worth a lot of money being from Shift #0 → 1 XP to Alex, Alex gives 1XP to Nox

Thug, Health 9, damage 4, short → clothing, wrist computer, stun stick

Initiative: A 19, T 11

A: 1 int → Telepathic link (knows the guy is going to attack)
T attacks A: 8 defense – hits → Alex stunned
T attacks A: 9 defense – misses
A attacks T: 12 attack – hits (T 9 → 7)
T attacks A: 16 defense – misses
A attacks T: 10 attack – hits (T 7 → 5)
T attacks A: 15 defense – misses
A attacks T: 14 attack – hits (T 5 → 3)
T attacks A: 18 defense – misses
A attacks T: 15 attack – hits (T 3 → 1)
T attacks A: 15 defense – misses
A attacks T: 7 attack – misses
T attacks A: 6 defense – hits → Alex stunned
T attacks A: 11 defense – misses
A attacks T: 8 attack – hits (T 1 → 0)

Cypher System disclaimer and Open Game License
Numenera, the Cypher System, No Thank You, Evil!, Invisible Sun, and their respective logos are trademarks of Monte Cook Games, LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries. All Monte Cook Games characters and character names, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are trademarks of Monte Cook Games, LLC. Content derived from Monte Cook Games publications is © 2013-2022 Monte Cook Games, LLC.