[XP] The Rifts We've Formed (still working on topic)

The Rifts We've Formed

An urban fantasy JRPG

Story

(Warning: This is going to be a fairly long read, as it is written in the point of view of a mentioned character from the game. Furthermore, it's written in more of a thought-by-thought format, so it's not 100% coherent)

Spoiler for:

"Are we alone?" For countless years, mankind had asked itself this, whether wondering about the existence of a divine force, or even of extraterrestrials beings. Both the existence of God or of aliens is surely up to debate. But mark my words... we are not alone in existence.

You must be thinking to yourself, 'what kind of loony is writing this'? I'm not expecting anyone to believe anything I intend to write, nor am I trying to force anyone to. For all you know, I am merely writing this as the introduction to a novel of some sort. For those curious as to what I'm blathering about now, however, I ask you only read further.

The atomic bomb, by far, is perhaps one of the most sinister devices of destruction that mankind has ever cooked up. So much as one warhead can level an entire city and render it uninhabitable for many years. But what the scientists did not know was that there was damage produced by the atomic bomb that modern science cannot measure. Such damage is what was caused to something that some call 'The Veil', for a lack of a better term thereof.

The world as we know it isn't the only one in existence. Some say that Islam teaches that there is more that one Earth, for instance -- I believe a translated quote from the Quran was "It is Allah who created seven heavens, and earths as many". And, don't those New Agers believe that all religions contain some form of spiritual truth or something?

I've seen beings from that other Earth, that world hidden by the Veil. Those I've dealt with haven't had an official name for their planet, but in their common tongue -- think our Earth's English language -- it translates roughly the same as 'ground' or 'land'. They were more concerned with the name of their dimension, not their home planet. They didn't have anything too amazing for it though. They merely called it the 'second world' or 'second realm'. For purposes of keeping it simple, I'll just call it the Secondrealm.

The Secondrealm apparently was created by their main world deity -- not unlike how they consider our main world deity to be the god of the Abrahamic religions. Their deity, so suspiciously, doesn't have a specific name, like "Zeus" or "Odin". What they called him was 'Ohm-na'az'... the translator I talked to pronounced it 'Omnis', and, not unlike the Latin term Omnis, 'Ohm-na'az' meant 'All'. Well, specifically, 'All-Powerful'.

But I am boring you by now, I'm sure. You're probably wondering about the point of this little Word document. Simple: we need to be ready for the Zashai.

The 'Zashai' is short for the 'Zashai Regime'. The more and more I look at this whole picture, of my research in Secondrealm history, the more it seems to reflect our world's history. Remember Nazi Germany from your History classes in school? How they proclaimed a particular race to be the 'master race' and was determined to destroy all those who were not of that race? The Zashai Regime echoes of the hellish Nazi dictatorship.

I won't relay how the Zashai came to power, for I know you won't give a damn. All you need to know is that they're bad people who want to take over the first-world nations of the Secondrealm. At least, that was all they wanted to do at first.

Then we dropped those damned atomic bombs. And now, the Veil has been torn asunder. Atomic bombs, if I recall correctly, split atoms which in turn creates immense destructive energies... what scientists didn't know, and probably still don't, is the fact that nuclear energy also is one of the few things that wear away at the Veil. Long story short, nuclear explosions are so powerful that they literally eat away at that which keeps our world separate from other ones.

...I know that sounds like a real crock, much like a poorly written sci-fi novel. Again, if you're willing to read further, then do so. No one's asking you to.

Back to the Zashai Regime. Apparently, people in the Secondrealm knew for a fact that our world, nicknamed the 'first world' or 'first realm' -- I'll just call it the Firstrealm -- had existed. According to their Omnis' followers' holy book, we humans are favored by Omnis, so much so that Omnis made himself one of us to teach us his ways. Sound familiar? Yup. Sounds a lot like the Gospels in a nutshell, doesn't it? Problem is, now that the Veil is weaker, the Zashai want to come to our world to take it over as well as their own.

But, how did they 'know' we exist, you ask? They knew because they have discovered the secret to something amazing fairly quick in comparison to humans, something us humans can only dream of -- they have unlocked the power of PK, or psychokinesis. No one's really 100% sure where PK comes from, but what they do know is that it requires some kind of spiritual power to learn, and mental strength to master. Using an ability known as 'scrying', the governments of the Secondrealm have been spying on us for who knows how long.

So, let's review. There's another world, with beings who know we exist. There is a dictatorship in that world that wants to rule its world and our own. There are also those in that world that possess powers we can only dream of wielding. Long story short, if we do not take action quickly, we're going to be in serious trouble. The general public has no idea how to fight the Zashai, or what they're capable of.

Cliff, I hope to God you're reading this. My time is going to be short... I have to go and do something stupid. Tell your parents I'm sorry... not like I've much time left to live anyway. Your schoolmate, Sophia, has something she needs to tell you about herself. Tell her that I told you this. Tell her it's my dying wish. There is more to her than meets the eye...

-Ephriam Geiger

(This message was found in a Microsoft Word file on the desktop of Ephriam's laptop computer on September 3rd, 2009, with the title 'CLIFF READ ME'. Its cryptic message only further added paranoia to the Geiger family given his disappearance two days earlier. Ephriam's remains were found one week later -- what is eerie about them was that it seems as though his murderers had incinerated his body, removed the ashes from the cremator, and spread them in a pile on the floor of a warehouse. What's even more unsettling are two factors: the fact that the forensics scientists could not determine what fuel was used in the cremator, and the fact that the scorched remains of Ephriam's bones seemed to have worse and worse burning near the remains of his skull.)

Main Characters

"The Rose Springs Three"

Spoiler for:

Cliff Geiger
Age: 22
Height: 5'5"
Favored weapons: Blades, pistols
Bio: An average slacker by day, and a paranormal investigator by night, Cliff had grown up in his hometown of Rose Springs, Nevada all his life alongside his friend Danielle. One day, a couple days after his grandfather had gone missing (only to have his allegedly cremated remains found a week later), a cryptic message on his granddad's computer provokes him to try and find out the truth from a girl who moved into town roughly two years prior.

Two years had past since then, and Cliff, now knowing the awful truth of what his grandfather was warning him about, has but one goal in mind: to try and protect Lincoln County from the threat of the Zashai Regime. He had since figured out a bit of PK, and excels at 'bio-manipulation' powers such as healing and temporary bodily augmentation.

Danielle Burton
(on the left)
Age: 23
Height: 5'7"
Favored weapons: Energy weapons, long-arms (rifles and shotguns)
Bio: A college kid majoring in physics by day, and a trigger-happy plasma-slinger by night, Danielle had been Cliff's best friend since youth. Having lost her mother upon her birth, Dani had been living with her father, a chemist, her entire life.

Despite her desire to try and take Cliff's granddad's message rationally, she knew his grandfather had no reason to write the message, and had no history of mental problems. On top of that, imagine her shock at finding out their friend Sophie's secret, as well as her incredible tale that followed! Though she cannot use much PK, what she does know is helpful, and she is the only one of the party able to handle energy weapons as well as PK-related devices.

Sophia Fischer
(on the right)
Age: 22
Height: 5'6"
Favored weapons: Knuckles, cudgels
Bio: Your typical 9-to-5 worker by day, and... a monster by night? That's right, Sophia had a rather nasty run-in with a member of the Zashai Regime in the past, causing her to be mutated into a hybrid creature -- part human, part animal. Since then, she had been doing her best to live an average life in the town of Rose Springs.

Because she had encountered the Zashai Regime -- and Cliff's granddad could sense her mutations through his own experimentation with PK -- she ended up being a huge piece of the puzzle to the warning given to Cliff. Out of the three, due to the nature of her mutations, she is the most talented with PK, even to the point of where she can keep up an illusion of her old human form passively. But, her true self might get her into trouble some day...

-More on the way...-

I've read most of it, its not that bad in terms of story, i like it

Can't say i like the whole (slacker main character) but cliches are cliches.

if you wanted to add another bit of depth, you could look into various other countries tests of nuclear weapons as well, maybe bring a modern tie in with iran and its nuclear weapons program, you could tie in some other aspects of paranormal in such as some sort of communication beyond the void with the bad guys by a certain group of people. Maybe say that some recent nuclear disasters were caused as a result of tampering with reactors to get them to produce more radiation and further open said void? you might also want to look into some of the ww2 testing divisions (aka the japanese unit 731 which was intrested in biowarfare, there might be some more ast events you can use to add more realisim and depth to your story) in any case, you deserve a cookie for this keep up the great work

Thank you for commenting, Forte. I'll definitely look into the other nations' nuclear weapons tests as well. As for Cliff, I might change up his 'slacker' thing -- he's more of a "still working his first job, somewhere that sucks, not sure of what he wants to do with a college education" kind of guy.

Once again, thanks for showing interest. A lot of this is still in the planning stages, but I'll definitely keep working on getting more and more finished. Not sure when I can get even so much as screenshots up, but again, I'll see what I can do.