To Write (Jumpchain)

This is a self-imposed writing challenge... which I'll be writing tomorrow, because it's like... 3:30 at night, and I've got to sleep or face the consequences...

Spoiler: THE WRITING CHALLENGE!

- Each Jump has 2/5 (usually 400 CP) of the starting CP EXCEPT for the first jump and the Utility Mods (Body, Warehouse, etc.)
- Origins, Races and similar sections are Free, so long as their price tag is under 300 CP.

- Every six words written awards One (1) CP, up to 18 000 words.
- Written CP can be spent either once it is in the bank, or just before the end of the jump.
- CP can be stored in a Bank, with the following limits:
- - Maximum Capacity is 10 000, plus 1 000 for every three jumps.
- - Any banked CP has an interest rate of x2 every 10 years OR x1.5 per Jump.
- - Each Five (5) Real Day that passes between deposits drains 50 CP from the account.

 

There's several ways you can die. Some of the more common ways are from heart failure, old age, cancer, or plain old hit and runs. Most of the time, it's an unplanned affair, where you leave behind friends and family in the material world.

This didn't happen for me. Dying on the john. In a random Wal-Mart.

Yeah, okay, officially it was my heart going out because of that maneuver thing that happens when you "push" when constipated. The uh-... what was it called... Valsalva? (Really brain? Why do I remember this, and not the names of algebra theorems?)

Anyways, that's not what's important right now. What is, is where I'm at right now. A blank "room", with supernaturally white walls. I don't know how long I spend in there. It could have been five minutes or five years.

"Ah, Mr... Smith, how are you today?" says a bored voice, startling me. Turning around to meet the speaker, a floating cheese wheel... thing.

"S-smith?"

The thing chuckles, "Well, Officially, your soul number is 4711... one of the earlier ones, really." Somehow, it shrugs. "After a point in the cycle of reincarnation, names become meaningless, ergo, John or Jane Smith for the uh, thinner, souls..." It circles me, and sometime between passing behind me and coming around, a clipboard appears, floating along with the expy of a god. "Hm, slightly above average karma... Main sin was Sloth... Hm, nothing very noteworthy, well, other than one little thing."

The board flips in my direction, and the eldritch script whirls in front of my eyes. Blinking slightly at the headache inducing text, I watch as a piece of the form is highlighted by a ethereal golden hue. An aura of smugness radiated from the being as the words finally stopped spinning randomly, spelling out a single sentence.

"'Bound to the Chain', well, aren't you an unlucky bastard." The clipboard goes flying behind the proxy-god, expanding outwards as it falls, until a desk and two slips of paper fall onto the ground. "Right then, fill those out, and we'll get you started on your first jump."

A strange compulsion fills me, pushing me to fall back into a chair that didn't exist a few seconds ago. The wooden seat scrapes against the unseen floor, until I'm finally facing the two pages.

[BODYMOD]
[WAREHOUSE]

My bare finger comes up to the [WAREHOUSE], and a minor twitch of pain goes through my fingers as they scrape the page. Turning the page over, the words on the sheet slowly settle, and the compulsion leaves me. The tips of my fingers bleed slightly after leaving the page, absorbing it, but only staining the selection boxes that the ichor of life hits.

With some care, I read through the options for my Warehouse. while [150] Choice Points will let me pick quite a few, it's the lack of essentials that worry me. The most obvious choices jump at me, starting with all of the Utilities except for the Gravity Link, bringing my total down to [70]. Next up is the Housing, Shelving, Workshop, Medbay and a Food Supply. with my last [10] Choice Points, I decide to take the Terminal option. While these were very basic in use, they guaranteed me a minimum amount of gear and supplies no matter where I went, as well as the means to repair and augment my gear later on.

All the options chosen, I press a "done" button at the end of the sheet with the tip of my bleeding thumb, and the page flashes, greying out.

Spoiler: Cosmic Warehouse [150

]
Mods: Electricity, Plumbing, Heat/A.C., Local Net, Force Wall, Shelving, Terminal, Housing, Workshop, Medbay, Food Supply.

The other sheet, [BODYMOD], was just as straightforward as the other, with one exception: The longer I stared at the page, the more the CP on the top of the page went up. It had started at 600, and had already gained 108 extra points.

Filing that information away for later, I chose Heavy as my build, since it was what I was used to. Next was the Body Type, which, while Bodybuilder and Athlete had more sensible builds, Charmer was the most valuable (if slightly embarrassing to admit) point-wise... Hm, yeah, I'll go with that. I skipped to perks, and while some of the were extremely useful, they'd be incredibly noticeable, so I skipped out on the supernatural perks such as Winged, Ever Cleansed and Genderswap, but took Metavore for the muscle retention. The rest of the perks were more or less useless.

Stats were a bit harder to assign. Strength, while useful, would be pretty much useless in a fight other than direct hand to hand, making it a dump stat. Endurance I bumped to four, giving me pretty much neverending stamina, while I put two in Speed, giving me a great running speed. Dexterity I put as high as possible, while Appeal and Shape were kept at their baselines. Finally, I decided my perception was good enough, and kept it at zero.

Physically, I'd be on par with most professional athletes, save for bodybuilders and muscle-based sports. In other areas, such as acrobatics and marathons, I'd beat out most olympic marathon runners, and be on par with cirque-du-soleil performers.

As I went to poke the "done" button, I was a bit surprised to see that my point total went up another 50 points, so I dumped it into Speed, then pressed the confirmation.

Spoiler: Body Mod

Build: Heavy (5'11" to 6'3", 180 to 320 lbs)
Body Type: Charmer [100]
(+2 Shape, +2 Appeal, Endowed III)

Stats [550]
Strength 0
Endurance 4
Speed 3
Dexterity 4
Appeal 2
Shape 2
Sense 0

Perks: Metavore, Endowed III [100]

The cheese-like god floated around to the front of the desk, after which a glow encompassed the two, and a giant dice appeared in the background. "Now," It exclaimed, "Lets see what world you end up in..."

Suddenly, the giant die went flying, smashing against the walls of the room, bouncing a few times. It rolled to a stop after a few seconds, coming on the number 53. The several hundred sided dice glowed again, before disappearing into a table again, with another set of paper.

"Ooh, well, that's an unlucky roll for your first shot at goodhood, the [Bioshock] is a pretty damned scary place for a regular soul..."

Feeling a quite a bit of dread, I picked up the form. It was a standardized CYOA, worth 1000 CP, and a nice little intro on the first page.

The second page was Drawbacks, most of which I dismissed at once. Mind Altering Drawbacks were a no-no for me, I was already enough of a mess, mentally speaking. Control Switch looked -really- tempting, but would truly hinder me later on in the jump if I wasn't careful. I ended up only taking Burial at Sea, cutting off six years worth of time on my stay under the ocean, but dropping me completely off guard in the ruined city.

The Starting Location roll randomly flashed a One, putting my starting location as Apollo Square. Probably a good spot to start. Age came out as 22, while I was already male.

My Origin left me conflicted. It pretty much guaranteed I'd have foreign memories shoved in my head, other than the Laborer option... which pretty much sucked. While the Soldier gave me free plasmids, it also pretty much guaranteed I'd be in the line of fire right at the start. Businessman was nice, but was more or less the opposite of my current knowledge base. Money wasn't something I was ever good at.

Finally, I decided to take the Specialist, and pick the Inventor subclass. I'd always been good with numbers and tools, just like my grandfather. I quickly move on to the Abilities and Skill selections, and pick out a few of the costly perks. I grab Specialist Training, and toggle my choice to Engineering, guaranteeing me the ability to repair and use a huge slew of machinery, including on how to build my own. Next was Accounting Training, mostly because it was a good long-term perk. The second-Tier perks I picked up were Adam Pack II (for the plasmids) and Intuition (for building my own murderbots, Muhahaha!). Finally, to boost my latent mental talents, I grabbed Savant Genius, putting me on par with the geniuses of Rapture in my field of choice.

I skipped over the Plasmids and Tonics, and went for my gear next. While the Supplies would have been needed if I didn't have my Warehouse, the Wallet and Trench Coat would be good enough as replacements. I couldn't decide between the Pistol and the Shortwave Radio, so I flipped a coin, and ended up with the Radio.

With two-hundred and Twenty-Five CP left, I moved onto the Tonics. The only Plasmids I could see myself spending points on were the upgraded version of Decoy and Aero Dash. The base minimum for Tonics I wanted were Fountain of Youth and Elemental Sponge. With the free choices of Adam Pack II, I picked Telekinesis and it's upgrades, Teleportation and Houdini. The Free Tonics I chose were Walking Inferno, Armored Shell with it's upgrade, and EVE Saver.

The hovering god stopped me before my hand went close to the "Done" confirmation. "I forgot to mention, Mr. Smith, that leftover points are banked for you, so if you want to pick extra Drawbacks, you could save up for the next Jump." It did a weird shrug like thing before one of it's floating bits popped forwards in exclamation, "Oh, and each jump multiplies saved CP by 1.5 times as much at a flat rate, or by two by every ten years you spend in a jump."

...Did I want to take extra drawbacks? Hm...

Yeah, okay. I poked the Control Switch option, adding three hundred points to my total.

Spoiler: Bioshock

Drawbacks: Burial at Sea, Control Switch [+600]
Age/Gender: 22, Male.
Origin: Specialist (Inventor) [100]

Perks [850]
Specialist Training (Engineering), Accounting Training, Intuition, Adam Pack II, Savant Genius (Engineering).
[3 free plasmids and Tonics. 1 free upgrade for both types.]

Items and Gear [225]
Wallet, Trench Coat, Shortwave Radio.

Plasmids [75]
Telekinesis III, Teleportation, Houdini, Decoy III, Aero Dash.

Tonics [50]
Fountain of Youth, Walking Inferno, Armored Shell II, EVE Saver, Elemental Sponge.

Leftover Points: 300

Just before I pushed my thumb against the "Done" box, an extra sheet popped into existence, asking me if I wanted to alter the course of history from Atlas Shrugged mode to either Frank Gorland or Sofia Lamb Mode. I decided against switching the story before going back and finishing the submission form.

Uh, were the lights dimming?

It didn't take long before everything turned pitch black, and my sense of self evaporated into nothing.

Spoiler: The Bank

Deposited Points: 300
Writing Income: 144
Current Total: 444

 

This is an interesting way to get yourself to write more, I hope it pans out in a positive way.

 

Medb Hmmm, kinda. It's slow going, mostly because of IRL stuff and a lack of background knowledge on the current jump. I've got about... 1k written, and most of the background sorted out.

 

If you need help with background knowledge I can probably help. I'm one of those weird people who read wikis for fun.