Scuttling in the Walls - Chance Meridian - MAGE [2-6-2026]
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Scuttling in the Walls
Date: [2-6-2026] -- Mid Oct, 2014
Location: Abandoned half built train station under the loop
Player Characters Present: Chance Meridian
Open Spots: 2NPCs Present: None
Current Scenario: Chance has been cleaning this place up, hiding the entrance, and getting it ready to become a new sanctuary for his Legacy. Unfortunately, there seems to already be residents here....
Suggested Dice Pools: perception, running away, combat (down and dirty possibly), occult, magic stuff
End Trigger: Deal with the residents in the place
Opener:
Beneath the Loop, the half-built station breathes like something alive. Concrete ribs arch overhead, their forms interrupted by scaffolding long since left to rust. Fluorescent tubes hang from the ceiling in staggered lengths, flickering to life only when the mage passes, their dying light stuttering over raw walls and graffiti-slick pillars. The air smells of rust, wet stone, and ozone — a tang that tastes faintly of forgotten magic.
The station floor is cleaner than it should be. Dust has been swept aside, debris stacked in orderly piles, as if someone — or something — has been preparing the place for use. Tracks vanish into two yawning tunnels, one collapsed in darkness, the other breathing a faint draft of stale air. Water drips steadily from an exposed pipe, marking the seconds in this sunless place.
Then comes the sound — not from the tunnels, but from the walls. A dry rustling, a scatter of pebbles, and the whisper of movement just out of sight. Large shapes slip between columns, too fast for the eye to catch. At first, they seem like rats — until the light hits something wrong: the gleam of glass shards, twisted metal wire where there should be fur, a jaw of bottlecaps and screws clicking in the dark. They’ve been built from what the city discards, animated by something that remembers the noise and motion of life.
Yellow eyes flash from the shadows — dozens of them — reflecting the bare light like coins in deep water.
The mage’s breath fogs in the chill as the realization sets in: this place was never truly empty. The deep city keeps its own order, its own citizens, scavengers born from what humanity forgets. And as the train tunnels hum faintly with the buried pulse of Chicago itself, it feels less like an abandoned refuge and more like a heart chamber — one that has noticed a new intruder.
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Just letting you know I am not forgetting about it, but I need to get some folks spun up on it, which probably requires a downtime action.
