Nexus
You were minding your own business, just doing whatever it is you normally do on any other day. It was rather boring, really. But then you blinked.
You found yourself standing on something hard and flat. Looking down, you didn't see anything. It was as if you were standing on the lack of existence. It was like you were standing on a plate of glass in the middle of deep space... but it didn't make any noise, you could breathe, and you could tell that at least you were fully illuminated yourself.
Just as your mind starts to clear, you hear a loud thud from above you. Something made of stone, or maybe metal, sounded like it fell into place. A bright light, like a spotlight, appears above you and creates a cone of light around you. You're blinded now, having been looking exactly where the light source appeared.
You could hear music now, playing from what sounded like a broken music box, being played backwards. You hear footsteps in what sounds like sand, or maybe glass, coming towards you. You turn to look, and some of your vision has recovered.
Standing there is a relatively tall man, about your own height plus a little more, skinny and wearing a red-and-white pinstripe twin-tailed suit and a stovepipe tophat to match. He pinches his handlebar mustache and leans forward. "So I assume you understand what you have to do?" he asks.
The look on your face betrays your confusion. His voice booms louder than you could imagine anything could ever be while stepping back and putting his arms out as if he has an audience. "CONGRATULATIONS AND WELCOME TO NEXUS'S CIRCUS!" He quiets down to painfully loud psychotic screaming. "Are you ready to play the game? Your patron is paying for this service, so you had better keep them entertained!" He almost sounds sad with the next thing he says. "You're not the star attraction..." He looks like he's pretending to cry, but it's obviously a fake emotion. He spins on one foot as if he was a ballerina, and when he does so, the stripes of his suit, or maybe his limbs, or possibly both, fail to keep up with each other and he looks more like a giant spider with a train conductor's hat. His voice booms so loud that it's hard to imagine a star going supernova is quieter. "BUT THAT'S FOR YOU TO FIX NOW ISN'T IT? YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A TOY ON DISPLAY AFTER ALL!"
After trying to ask him just about any question, he somehow becomes even less helpful and more nonsensical. But, at least he does teach you that the metal plate attached to your arm means you are his property to do with as he pleases, and the green gem embedded in it lets you magically place items inside it, and you can use the Points he gives you for entertaining him to purchase extremely gimmicky things that help you under precise circumstances. He doesn't tell you what the red gem on the bracer, which he calls a P.L.O.T. Device, is for.
"Any questions?" he asks you, now actually seeming like he wants to help. Whether you try to ask him anything or not, he ignores your response completely and waves goodbye. You find yourself...
In the active campaign of the roleplay. Maybe you're in hell being chased by demons. Maybe you're on a comfortable inflatable raft gently relaxing on a manufactured river. Maybe you're sitting in a stadium chair watching giant macaroni wearing football helmets playing sports. Maybe you're standing at a window in a tavern watching a spaceship lift off. Maybe you're on your knees inside a cardboard box, watching some gang members having a dance-off. Maybe you're on stage, and someone just handed you a microphone. Maybe you just heard a woman scream 'Help! Thief!' and you realize she's pointing at you. Maybe you're in a classroom built on top of a cloud, the teacher is a hologram, and the other students are horses and crocodiles.
It's the same story for every player character! What is it Nexus wants? Who knows. What is Nexus, really? Theories abound, but no one is entirely sure. What does he even look like? He's usually a crazed ringmaster from a circus, but sometimes he looks like a giant spider with a train conductor's hat and a big smile. Sometimes he looks like a floating mess of mathematical equations and odd shapes. He probably doesn't look like any of these things really... What is the game he's talking about? Who knows. Who are these patrons he speaks of? He doesn't say.
So now that you, the player, know just as much about Nexus as the characters do, are you ready to start?
What the characters will never learn, but you the player can know now is this:
Nexus is the in-character personification of the roleplay's narrative.
Children
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