This DCverse is Maddening

The streets of Gotham was exactly as depicted by most forms of media; dark, dreary and a slight gray haze to everything. No wonder this city was seen as the edgy younger sibling to the upbeat and shiny Metropolis. Trash littered the broken and untreated sidewalks only added to its aesthetic, the slight smell of oil meandered through the air from the cars that were atleast 10 years behind the most current model except for the occasional newer models that rumbled down the road. On every corner, there were either a working girl or a thug protecting their turf, sometimes they were one in the same. Albert learned that the hard way as he walking aimlessly through Gotham’s seedier district, he still remembered by being both propositioned and shaken down by one particular lady of the night. He could only shake his head at himself,’ Did I awaken a new fetish in me?!’

But even with all the excitement of the day there was still one thing that continuously prodded at his mind like a primary school bully, his system’s “case” update. He didn’t want to accept any rewards until after he could find somewhere out of the way to see what happens, he wasn’t sure if the system would have a visible effect like a light glow over his skin or trumpets blaring or even if his rewards would just fall out of thin air. Not something you would want happening in a place as dangerous as Gotham.

He was given instructions from said thug/prostitute(?), after it was made apparent he had nothing of value on him, to the nearest homeless shelter. He could only scurry away less she see his slightly red face, but that was almost an hour ago and the sun seem to have started to fall casting the dreary city in a blanket of shadows. Which magnified its dark features until he felt a sense of danger from every alley way he passed by, maybe just he was jumping at shadows or rats. Most likely it was both. His tension began to ease as he came across large run down building with letters over the top that said ’Gotham’s Northern Outreach Center’.

Speeding up his pace, Albert soon approached the large metal door before trying the door handle only to find it locked. Sighing softly, he began to knock loudly on the door that bared his way to a peaceful sleep. After a couple of seconds of knocking, a small eye level hatch slid open with an ear rending creak. Hard blue eyes stared down at the youth with suspicion, the voice was muffled from the thick door,”What do ya want?”

“I was told I could come here to stay for the night?” Albert obviously didn’t tell this person WHO told him about this place, he felt the story would be far too embarrassing.

“Are ya trying to peddle drugs here?” The eyes narrowed further,” Cuz if ya are, yer ain’t welcome here.”

“No ma’a-eer sir?”

He could only stumble through his denial, the door was so thick that the gender of the voice was obscured and heavily muffled. The eyes looked into his for a few seconds before the hatch slammed shut and a series of heavy locks were heard coming undone. A bit later the door cracked open and in the door way stood a hard looking woman in her late thirties with blonde hair in a loose bun wearing a sleeping gown. But all those descriptions flew out of the window after Albert caught the sight of a bulky object tucked under her arm, as if sensing his shocked gaze the woman cackled,” Ya must be new to this shit hole of a city, rule number 1; Always, always have a gun at hand, even the priest down the street carries one around as he preaches!”

Her mirth was evident in her voice, and because you didn’t argue with someone who is armed with a gun he could only nod in agreement. Seeing his acceptance, she opened the door wide enough for him to slide through and after scanning the area for danger she closed the door behind him. The series of locks being put in place caused the hair on Albert’s arm to rise, there were at least five heavy duty locks followed by multiple deadbolts that all locked into place. Turning he could see a lightly lit white tiled room with a receptionist desk to the side out of the way, the woman walked herself behind said desk and started typing away at the keyboard. The smell of smoke emanated from the overflowing ash tray to side of the desk, it looked as though it hadn’t been emptied in a good while. His eyes slid to the side towards the ground and saw a trashcan filled with empty cigarette boxes, maybe that ash tray had been empty recently. The woman’s rough voice shook him out of his inner thoughts,” Name? Age? And how many days are ya planning on staying.”

“My name is Albert Nelson, I’m 16 and….” he started,” I don’t know how long I’ll be here, atleast 2 weeks I believe?”

The woman spoke again without taking her eyes off of the screen,” Ya can stay as long as ya like here, but there are rules to follow. I don’t care if ya do drugs but don’t it here. I don’t like the cops so if some of em come looking for ya, yer out of here. We serve 2 meals a day here, 1 early in the morning and another just before we close, yer a bit late for it but there are some sandwiches leftover. If ya don’t have any nightwear it will be provided, we don’t do laundry here but there is one down the road from here. Ya can only stay here at night, during the day ya do whatever out there but no one will be staying in their room all day. Keep yer stuff close to ya, cuz if something of yers goes mixing I am not going to help ya look for it. Besides those rules, be courteous towards the staff and don’t cause trouble. Ya got that?”

He could only nod in agreement, and after her mention of food he realized exactly how hunger he was. With a growl his stomach made itself known, snorting in amusement the woman finished typing and lead him towards a kitchen filled with stainless steel appliances. In contrast to the messy appearance of the building, the kitchen was spotless, Not a single thing was out of order, the dishes were clean, the floor was spotless and the counters reflected the lights overhead. Reaching into the fridge at tossing a plastic wrapped sandwich to him, she lead him further into the building.

While chewing on the bland baloney sandwich, Albert eyed the closed doors they passed from his count they passed around ten rooms before they stopped infront of a door that had the number 11 etched into the wood. Opening the door wide, the woman pointed at a varitiety of things around the room,” The sheets are newly clean, that window should always stay locked no matter what, and there are clothes in the cabinet. Try to keep it down and lights outs will be in a half an hour. The door can be locked and the bathroom is…” she leaned out of the room before pointing further into the building,”Down that hall, please knock before you enter.”

Walking past her while nodding he looked around the spartan room and only had his eyes on the soft looking cot pushed to the side. The events of the day wore heavily on his mind and all he wanted to do was finish this sandwich and pass out, but then he noticed another bed on the opposite wall.

“Yeah, these aren’t one person rooms. Ya just got lucky this time around, it might always be like that most nights. If ya have a roommate, ya don’t have to be friends or anything but be civil. And don’t worry, we don’t have mixed genders in one room. We don’t need any babies popping out of this building.” The woman answered his unvoiced question from behind, turning Albert sat down the bed and almost sank into its warm embrace. Turning towards the woman his voice croaked out,

“Thank you so much for all this, if it wasn’t for you I would’ve had to find an alley to sleep in.”

Wrinkling her nose in disgust she scoffed,” The rats would’ve gotten ya then, its no problem. Its the state that set this place up. But your welcome and good night.” Her voice was slightly softer as she closed the door, and he could hear her slipped feet scuffing against the tiled floor. Standing back up Albert swayed to the door before locking it and leaned back against it looking out the window in the gloomy streets of Gotham. He couldn’t believe it, he was really in the DC Universe. Sure he got dragged into the worst possible city and got involved in a crime being done personally by one of this city’s crime lords but atleast he got to meet Batman. His shoulders couldn’t help but droop after recalling his meeting with the caped crusader,

‘He was a bit of dick wasn’t he?’

Maybe it was because he was personally interrogated by the man but that event permanently destroyed the mystique and awe he might’ve felt for the ‘hero’. What kind of hero insinuate that a sixteen year old kid was responsible for the deaths of three people? And if that wasn’t the purpose, then what was it? Shaking his head at his spiraling thoughts, he closed the blinds cutting himself off from the sight of the grim city and leaned back into the bed. Now alone in a dark room he thought this would be a safe enough place to review the system.

‘Status’

[Name: Albert Nelson

HP: 20/20

MP: 9/9

SAN: 44/45

LCK: 35/45

Skills:

- Appraise: 25%

- Art/Craft (Photography): 55%

- Disguise: 20%

- Fire Arms (Handgun): 60%

- Library Use: 60%

- Listen: 30%

- Occult: 35%

- Psychology: 50%

- Spot Hidden: 60%

- Stealth: 40%

Talents:

- Resourceful

- Lucky

Cthulhu Mythos: 0%]

[Pending Case Updates]

Looking over his status screen, he could only nod at the results of it. He must’ve lost a point of sanity after seeing another person being shot, he was frankly lucky that need didn’t lose more and finally his Resourceful talent must’ve consume 10 LCK in order to ‘spawn’ his wallet into his hand. All in all, nothing to surprise on this side now he could narrow in on his case updates.

‘Cases’

[Case: Find out what Black Mask is after! Closed!

Rewards: Inheritance Key, and 1 Improvement Point!]

After receiving this message, Albert could feel a sudden weight on his chest. Looking down he say a plain key with the numbers 278 etched into it, reaching down at the small object he could only sigh in defeat. This must for the inheritance left by his grandfather, meaning no matter what happened today they would still need to reschedule the meeting if he didn’t have the key. But now he will need to wait at least two weeks in order to see what was left to him. But now now that he could give his full attention to the system he could fully explore it,

‘What is an Improvement Point?’

[An Improvement Point (IP) is a consumable unit that can be used to accelerate the growth of a single skill for a day, but it can only be used on skills that haven’t reached Master Tier.]

‘Master Tier? Can you list all the tiers?’

[Tiers of Mastery

Novice: 0-5%

Neophyte: 6-19%

Amateur: 20-49%

Professional: 50-74%

Expert: 75-89%

Master: 90%+]

‘System could estimate how long it take for a Novice skill to reach Master tier without any IP?’

[With the hosts’ current body’s aptitude, it would take 50 years to raise a skill from Novice to Master tier]

That response caused Albert to reel back in show, what kind of body did he get dropped into?! Sure his starting stats might be a bit lower than the average person but still fifty years?! From what he could tell his skills would allow him to succeed eventually, what would be the point to even trying to reach Master Tier?

‘System are there any benefits to reaching Master tier in any skills?’

[Reaching Master Tier will allow quicker success for more and more complex problems, other effects are unknown.]

So it would be worth it just for the ability to speed up his success rate, but what really dragged his attention was the line of ‘other effects’. From his own knowledge there would be no special effects for skills that reached 90% in the either Pulp Cthulhu or Call of Cthulhu, atleast not from the Keepers he normally played with. Could that effect be something like Batman’s Presence?! He could still remember the aura of suppression that just oozed off the man, and that effect in its self hardened his heart enough to want to reach Master tier as fast as possible.

‘How much does a IP increase the growth of a skill?’

[Improvement Points (IP) are on a declining slope of usability. A point will allow for the rapid development of a skill through the Novice and Neophyte tiers but that rate of growth will start to show diminishing returns through the rest of the Tiers until Master tier in which no amount of points will allow a single percentage of growth.]

So he couldn’t just focus all his IP on a single skill to force his way into Master tier, he would be required to have a balanced array of skills and allow grow them naturally after the Neophyte tier. Min-maxing in this situation would only leave him in a dire situation. Especially in this accursed city. He just needed to stay in the city for two weeks before he could get his inheritance and never look in the direction of this cesspool of misery again. As if to spit in the soup of his plans, the system flashed before him.

[New Major Case Opened: Start a Detective Agency in Gotham!]

Description: Gotham is home to many unsolved mysteries, the Bat Family nor the police can solve everything and someone needs to pick up the slack for the people! Open a detective agency here in Gotham and the wider world will be open to you!

Requirements: Legally Acquire the deed to a building and open a detective agency.

Rewards: 3 IP, 1 Talent Voucher, and the small increase of 1 Statistic!]

****************************************************************

A dark cavern was lightly lit by the light of many computer monitors, the sound of bats were evident in the background along with rhythmic taping of keys. An unmasked handsome man in its iconic black and gray suit sat in a large chair that laid in front of many large screens, his piercing blue eyes roved quickly over words. His matted brown hair laid bare to the world as his cowl rested on the desk next to him, he was so engrossed in his work that he didn’t even greet the soft steps that stop behind him.

“Master Bruce,” a dignified voice announce,” Young Master Dick is off to bed, much to his consternation.”

The man behind Bruce wore a tailored suit that didn’t have a single wrinkle anywhere in sight. The man seemed to be in his late fifties with thinning black hair that only reached to the sides of his head allowing the light to bounce off the top. His eyes blues looked on the screen with a degree of boredom, and his thin mustache held steady even if the grimace he struggled to keep off of his face. On his white glove hand he carried a covered silver platter that wafted a mouth watering smell of chicken and some sort of potatoes. He only received a grunt in return after his greet, sighing in way all parents does he lowered the platter to the side.

“Master Bruce, you must eat before it gets cold and properly sleep tonight. You have a board meeting tomorrow and you should go with your wits in tact. What about this boy has you so worked up?”

“It’s too suspicious Alfred,” Bruce waved his hand around at the multiple images and files,” He came into the city a couple of hours prior and immediately gets targeted by Black Mask? At the same bank that held Kryptonite? I don’t but it.”

“This…” Leaning forward Alfred looked closer to one of the screens,” Albert Nelson? He looks to be nothing more than a boy. Maybe a bit young as Young Master Dick?”

“No they’re the same age.”

Looking back at him with a shocked face,” But Master Bruce, he doesn’t look any older than 13?”

“That’s one mystery,” Bruce nodded,” At first I thought he was abused, but there are no cases or reports on him. His story matches the timeline too, grandfather died a couple of months ago and now he needs to get whatever he left in that bank out before the end of the year.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

He leaned further back in his chair,

“I don’t know, nothing on paper seems strange about him but my gut says otherwise. This city doesn’t need anymore uncertainties I’ll keep an eye on him for now and make sure he doesn’t get it into trouble.”

“Them Master Bruce, I will leave you to your work.” Slightly bowing the old man took one more look at the photo on the screen before turning and walking away into the dark. In Bruce's’ eye he continued to stare at the image of the sixteen year old black haired and browned eyed youth before him.

“Lets hope you stay out of trouble Albert, for both our sake.”