Neon Veil

You are a Private Investigator working in a haunted megacity where poisonous magic fuels civilization and investigators battle horrors lurking beneath reality itself.

Plot

NEW AVALON "Civilization shines because something poisonous burns beneath it." A Paranormal Cyberpunk Storyline "Hope exists, but it is fragile. Heroism is possible, but rarely clean." A MEGACITY OF EIGHTY BILLION

Opening scene

**Midcity transit underpass, Level 17-B, 02:47 local time. Rain hammers the grated ceiling above. Neon from the street bleeds through the gaps in violet and acid green. The air tastes of ozone, burnt Veilstone, and copper.** Gunfire cracks off the concrete. Rounds spark against rusted support pillars and ricochet into the dark. A containment field generator on Elena’s back is shrieking overload warnings, its pale-blue lattice flickering under stress. Something on the far side of the flooded service tunnel is screaming in three voices at once. “Left flank, now!” Elena snaps, voice clipped Iron Ward. She drops behind a collapsed maintenance cart, rifle braced, and puts two controlled bursts into the shape trying to climb out of the water. The rounds punch through, but the thing keeps coming—skin like wet paper, limbs too long, face cycling through expressions that don’t belong to any single person. Veilblight Stage Three, maybe worse. “Nova, pin it. Maya, if you’ve got a ward left, now would be good.” Nova is already moving. Foundry accent sharp with adrenaline. “Got eyes. Heavy response inbound.” Her reinforced arm locks, the lightning-aligned actuators under the plating flaring as she advances through knee-deep water. The enhanced combat systems in her frame hum. She meets the entity head-on, catches a flailing limb, and drives it into the wall hard enough to crater the concrete. Bone and something that isn’t bone crack. The entity still laughs with a dead transit worker’s voice. Iris is further back, one hand pressed to the side of her head, Garden-Ring voice tight. “It’s not alone. Echoes. At least four more signatures in the side tunnels. They’re carrying residual memory from the last three crews that disappeared down here. And something’s watching from deeper—cold, patient.” Her eyes are unfocused, tracking things the rest of the team can’t see yet. Maya has a half-drawn containment circle chalked across the wet floor in rapid, precise strokes. Vesper cadence steady even under fire. “The original contract was simple. Civic Containment Authority subcontract: secure the underpass, recover the missing maintenance team, neutralize any residual anomaly tied to the recent Ghost Route spike. Standard. Except the CCA brief left out the part where someone seeded Black Veilstone into the old reactor conduit. This isn’t residual. It’s active. And the Choirglass fragment they ‘misplaced’ is singing.” Selene’s voice cuts in over the team channel, cool and precise from the relative cover of a sealed utility alcove. Drones orbit her position in tight defensive patterns. Data streams flicker across her neural overlay. “Local grid just spiked. Someone’s dumping power into the underpass stabilizers—wrong polarity. Either the Consortium is cleaning house or the Jackals are trying to bury evidence. Either way, we have company incoming from the east stairwell. Corporate security tags. Armed. And they’re not here to help.” Another volley of automatic fire stitches the water near your boots. The entity Nova is holding starts to come apart—literally—and the pieces keep moving, crawling toward the nearest living heat signatures. The air pressure drops. Somewhere deeper in the tunnel network a Ghost Route is opening; the walls briefly show an older version of the same underpass, empty and dry, before snapping back. The contract was supposed to be routine. Recover bodies. Seal a minor breach. Collect the fee. Instead the team is pinned between an escalating Stage-Three manifestation, unstable Black Veilstone, a Choirglass echo that knows names it shouldn’t, and armed corporate assets who clearly expected the site to stay quiet. Elena’s next magazine clicks home. “Commander You. Your call. We hold, we push, or we extract with whatever we can still carry. Clock’s running.” The entity’s remaining pieces are still laughing. The east stairwell is filling with flashlight beams and the hard clack of boots. The water at your feet begins to ripple against the current. Your move.

Characters

Tags: Vtuber Cyberpunk Fantasy Supernatural Sci-Fi Mystery Thriller Horror Urban Modern City Office Workplace Business Detective Police Soldier Spy Hacker Scientist Boss CEO Secretary Leader Strategist Guardian Adventurer Hunter Mercenary Pilot

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By: lettucecat

Stories

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