Well, I know this is going to dissapoint, but here’s the plot for the first sector of Absolution. Also remember that this is STILL a work in progress, so not everything is completely set in stone, and I don’t go into detail on every single bit of gameplay encountered.
Sector 1: The Outskirts
Shortly after Jake is unceremoniously thrown off the train, he is approached by one of Absolution’s many residents, a young man in his early twenties with a normal upper body, but no lower body. Instead, he supports himself on a set of steampunk-era spider-like legs, which look like they’re about two days away from rusting themselves shut. The man (working title Torsoboy) gives Jake a very basic rundown of the outer regions of Absolution. In essence, this is where everyone enters the decaying town; however, the train only runs one way, and nobody knows where it goes after it leaves, meaning there is no way to leave except, perhaps, through the Golden Gate.
When Jake tries to ask Torsoboy about the Golden Gate or leaving Absolution, he is instead directed to a nearby buidling, an old wooden shack called the First Circle. The conversation immediately ends with Torsoboy giving Jake a small bag with his name on it, which now serves as the game’s inventory. (Basically, any item too big to fit in the bag will have to be carried in Jake’s hands, possibly exposing him to danger if he’s not careful.)
The shack turns out to be half of a bar (the other half was demolished when the train approached the turn too quickly and simply sheared it off). The bartender is a Frankenstein-esque pastiche of various body parts, including a patchwork-like pattern of skin covering his body, and a gut that sloshes about uneasily when he moves. The only other customer resembles a regular human, but is unconscious on the floor. The bartender is completely unwilling to help; he simply states there is no way to escape, and that Jake should simply kill himself now and get a job at the bar.
Just as Jake is about to leave to explore, however, the bartender asks the unconscious man to pay off his tab. When there is no response, the bartender instead draws a pistol and blows the man away at point blank. Sickened and horrified beyond belief, Jake rushes out of the bar, just in time to see two robed figures just like the ones on the train enter the bar, and eventually exit with the dead man’s body.
After a little exploration, Jake finds the gate to the next sector. Unfortunately, the gatekeeper, an eyeless man with a peg leg for his right leg, has lost the key, meaning no one can pass. Although there is some rope nearby that COULD climb over the gate, the gatekeeper refuses to let Jake borrow it for any reason. Once Jake leaves the gatekeeper’s shack, he runs into Torsoboy again, who gives him a map of the Outskirts and some warning to be careful around “Baphomet’s followers.”
Using the map, Jake is able to find a hidden shantytown built around a butcher’s shop. The residents are all misshapen mutants, many of them with gaping holes in their chests (around the intestinal area) or with half of their faces melted off. There is, however, one truly notable resident; the same man Jake just saw killed is now living in the dump, his face replaced in a similar patchlike manner to the bartender. He has little memory of who he USED to be, but can vaguely remember beating someone to death while drunk a few years prior.
After looting the town for some items, Jake is told to go to the butcher’s shop to help deliver some new meat. At the shop itself, he learns that the package he’s carrying is fake; HE is the new meat. After the butcher straps him to a conveyer belt and turns on the dicers, the pig-like man with meat hooks for hands and no nose leaves to attend to “the rest of his lord’s order.” Now alone, Jake manages to escape the bonds and hide inside a hanging horse carcass. When the butcher returns and sees his prey escaped, he runs to find him in the village.
Unfortunately, when Jake steps out, he learns the butcher knew he was there the whole time, “just like the last two guys.” This time, Jake is left with no choice but to deal with the monstrosity directly; he manages to knock the butcher back with the carcass, grab and rip off one of the meat maker’s own hook hands, and impale him through the throat. Even THIS doesn’t stop the butcher, and Jake is pushed dangerous close to a giant meat grinder. The two are pushed over the edge, the butcher digging his remaining claw into Jake’s leg. Unable to climb up with the extra weight, Jake grabs the hook stuck in the man’s throat and pulls it loose, causing the butcher to thrash in agony and loose his grip. Needless to say, he does not survive his fall.
Now badly wounded, but otherwise alive, Jake clambers to the floor and walks back to the village. When threatened, the residents tell him that the butcher was one of the bartender’s many stooges in this sector, along with the entire shantytown. Once, this sector was the easiest to leave, with the gatekeeper more than willing to help everyone that needed it. However, this also affected the bartender’s business, as there was nothing to keep anyone around long enough to drink themselves to death. Once the key vanished, the bartender’s business boomed, but because there was no way to leave, he quickly expanded his plans to enslaving every one of Absolution’s new arrivals through the “Order of Baphomet.”
Before Jake can inquire further, Torsoboy clambors into the village. He tells him that he’s found the key; it’s lying between two boards in the tracks, no doubt lost when the bar was smashed by the runaway train. Unfortunately, the rails are also electrified to keep anyone from following that way out, and he cannot get close enough because of his legs. He gives Jake a first aid kit to mend the damage in his leg, and asks him to open the way for everyone.
Jake returns to the bar, only to find a very angry bartender waiting for him, handgun in hand. A quick throw of the meat hook knocks the bartender unconscious. Through the combination of a wooden pole, the hook, and some thread, Jake is able to retrieve the key without frying himself to death. He returns to the shantytown, but only finds one of the robed figures there, holding a long scroll. The message reads that the village’s residents have been “liberated” and sent to resume their prescribed duties in Sectors 3, 4, and 8. Immediately after leaving the village, Torsoboy tries to tell him about “the woman in sector…”
Then Torsoboy’s head inexplicably explodes. The robed figures grab the body and drag it off, but not before leaving behind a generic message for “all new citizens:”
“If you are here, you deserved it. You see, my friends, this is Hell. This is my little corner of a much darker domain. You want to leave, go for that Golden Gate? All right. But remember, your soul is now mine to toy with, to control. And you will never live to see Paradise. -Baphomet.”
Horrified at this news, Jake despairs over being trapped in an afterlife he never believed in. Soon after, however, he realizes that, whatever that Golden Gate may lead to, it’s a better chance than simply giving up. Returning to the gate, he gives the gatekeeper the key; before the ecstatic man can open the gate, however, he is gunned down by the revived bartender, now VERY pissed off. Angrily cursing the day HE died and ended up in this place, he swears to make Jake pay for ruining his business.
After a brief struggle, Jake manages to use his makeshift polearm to tug one of the bartender’s many threads lose. This results in a chain reaction that causes the man’s skin to literally fall to pieces, leaving him nothing more than a slimy pile of guts and gore. Even then, the key doesn’t fit the gate’s lock; it seems all the trains riding over it have bent it hopelessly out of shape. Jake falls back to Plan B, using the rope to climb over the gate and drop down the other side. To his horror, he sees even MORE of Absolution looming ahead.
“At that moment, as I hit the ground, I knew everything. There was no real hope of escaping. If this really was Hell, I was stuck here forever. But…at the same time, something felt wrong here. If this was Hell, where were the eternal flames? The endless screams? The wailing and grinding of teeth? None of that shit was here, just a bunch of seemingly content monsters. And as I walked further into Absolution, I knew one thing: I would find a way out.”
Next chapter: The Red Light District
