Walled City Nightmare
GM TEXT: [Off in the distance, an alien silhouette beckons to you. It’s her—the tall, slender thing from your dreams. The elusive figure that you’ve always been moving toward, but could never quite reach.
A crowd of locals lines the path ahead, kneeling in supplication. They look emaciated, all skin and bones, clothed head to toe in dirty rags.]
PLAYER: [Examine the kneeling figures.]
GM TEXT: [You stare at the nearest of the kneeling figures, a man in his late twenties.
He locks eyes with you. Slowly, his mouth yawns open.]
GM TEXT: [The man has no teeth. They’ve been pulled, and recently, from the looks of it. His gums are a bloody, pitted mess.
As you stare into the black void of his mouth, his tongue comes lolling out. It looks like it was caught in an industrial accident—a swollen, twisted slab of meat.
The corners of the young man’s mouth twitch upward into a ghastly smile.]
PLAYER: [Look away.]
GM TEXT: [You turn away from the local and the ruin of his mouth.
Seconds later, you’ve passed him, and he’s gone.]
GM TEXT: [Your legs carry you deeper and deeper into the beating heart of the tenement. If you haven’t reached the center yet, you must be close.
It’s incredibly hot and humid in here—the sweat rolls down your body in sheets. Your thoughts go hazy with the heat, and a dim sense of unease takes root in the pit of your stomach.]
PLAYER: [Focus on the uneasy feeling.]
GM TEXT: [You try to concentrate on the unease that you’re feeling, but you find it impossible to focus. The omnipresent sound of grinding gears isn’t helping.
Looking up, you can see where the noise is coming from—a hatch. The same door that you saw in your nightmare back when all of this began.
The markings on the door are legible now. A single word in faded yellow paint.]
GM TEXT: [PROSPERITY.]
GM TEXT: [Suddenly, impossibly, the alien figure that you’ve been moving toward is standing right in front of you. At the same time, your vision finally clears, and ice water runs through your veins.
The Walled City isn’t a slum at all. It’s an enormous, gaping maw, and the buildings are a forest of crooked teeth.]
—”Revelations,” Shadowrun: Hong Kong
