Veridian City Shadows Deep

The flickering gas lamp casts elongated shadows across the cobbled alley, illuminating the grimy brick walls that seem to whisper secrets in the chilling night air. Rain slicked the stones, reflecting the weak light and blurring the already indistinct figure huddled beneath the awning of a dilapidated pawn shop. That figure is you. Forget what you know about heroes and villains. Forget grand destinies and shining armor. You are a rat in the maze, a cog in a machine you barely comprehend. You are merely trying to survive in the sprawling metropolis of Veridian City, a place where steam power grinds against the gears of magic, where fortunes are made and lost on the turn of a card, and where shadows hold far more than just darkness. You wake up with a throbbing headache and a damp, stained shirt. The last thing you remember is a dimly lit tavern, a crooked game of dice, and a face you can't quite place. More importantly, you're missing something: something vital, something you can't even name, but whose absence leaves a gaping hole in your memory and a knot of dread in your stomach. Veridian City doesn't care about your amnesia or your missing… something. It has its own problems. Gang wars are brewing in the dockyards, a mysterious plague is spreading through the lower wards, and rumors whisper of ancient creatures stirring beneath the city's foundations. You're not a hero. You're not even particularly strong or skilled. But you have to figure out what happened to you. You have to find what you lost. And you have to do it before the city's darkness consumes you whole. Your journey begins now, not with a fanfare, but with the drip, drip, drip of rainwater and the gnawing feeling that you're already far too deep in something you don't understand. What will you do? Who will you trust? And, perhaps most importantly, what are you willing to become to survive? The answer, my friend, lies in the choices you make. Welcome to Veridian City. Good luck. You'll need it.