Proofread This OP for me?

Just read through this and give me some comments. This is Misere, one of my RP's that I think was my best. I redid the OP and I'm considering running it on the Sporum if there's interest.

Mina, if you're still interested, your spot is still reserved.

Anyone else who wishes to join can do so, although I will be running it on the Sporum.

----


The room is dark, but you can almost feel a certain pulsation of raw emotion in the air.

A ground floor house? With large, spacious windows, and not even a fence around the exterior.

Pathetic.

They can see the rising and falling of the man's chest through the window, count his eyelashes through night vision scopes. It's that little adrenaline rush you get before a kill.

Of course, a gunshot would be noisy. Too noisy. And the Hunters operate in secret.

The windows are smashed open, and four men dressed in black and dressed to kill roll inside. The man in the bed doesn't have time to move before they've driven a knife through his skull, his neck, his chest, his-

There is a deafening bang, an unmistakable roar of a gunshot. It did not come from the sniper. The Hunters are confused. Confusion, you see, is more potent than any bullet or blade. Because in that split second when the men look around, and the sniper perched in a tree flinches with surprise, one of their own fell to the ground, dead.

They spin, hearing the thud, only to be dropped by three consecutive shots. The bowie knives fall to the ground with a clang, and sniper barely has time to steady his breath before the figure is gone.

The neighborhood around him is buzzing with activity. A botched mission, but not entirely...

They know they're getting close. The sniper rappels down from his sixty foot high nest and slings the rifle over his chest, running to the house. He'll never make it in time, especially if this is Vesper. But still, bodies must be hidden, and answers must be found.

He gets in through the window, which is now a splintered frame of wood looking in on a room filled with glass shards and blood. Four of this man's friends lie dead. And on the bed....He looks at the man, flipping him over.

The sniper curses rather violently. This wasn't their target.

Right next to the bedside table, just out of the view of the window is a small bottle of sleeping pills, weighing down a note.

"JOKE'S ON YOU"

The sniper's face flushes, although no one sees behind the ski mask. He whips around, hand falling to the pistol holst-

No time. Before he can react, Vesper shoves a sickle in between his ribs, then swiftly rips it out. Its soaking with blood, but the wide-eyed look of his would-eb murderer distracts him.

Vesper wipes clean the blade and tucks it in his sheath. Leave the bodies to the police. He slips out of the house as, twenty miles away, sirens flare and officers scramble for cars and SWAT forces arm their shotguns.

The night is quiet again.


---

You had a dream lately. Most dreams you forget quickly. Most of them you're glad to forget quickly-because, most of them tend to be you dying. Nightmares that wake you up in a cold sweat, with your trembling hand grabbing for the person in the bed next to you, or the knife under your pillow or .45 strapped across your chest.

Not this one. In this dream, a man sits on a chair with one eye looking right at you, and the other eye being tossed back and forth between his hands. An eye patch lies over his knee, perhaps anxiously waiting to be taken off this man's jeans and put over his skull where it belongs.

You are but a spectator, not in control or capable of thought. Your view of this man grows larger as you are dragged closer, and the man fumbles in his pocket, pulling out an address, and one word.

SUMMIT

----

Sanguination City is a sprawling metropolis of city life, crime, and the general ebb and flow of thousands of people, going about their lives none the wiser.

And a few that are the wiser.

These few had done their best to bury themselves in the far reaches of the globe. A forgotten town in the country. An apartment deep within the metal jungle of New York. For the most extreme, perhaps a cabin within the wilds of Yellowstone or a tent in the northern reaches.

You are one of these few.

You burned your credit cards and your driver's license. You left a wife, maybe, a husband. Perhaps a kid, maybe a girlfriend you were going to propose to. You left a job and a house and friends and everything about you. Your yearbooks were licked apart by your fireplace, along with every picture of you that you could find.

You had a dream with this man. The one-eyed b*stard that ruined your life.

He handed you a playing card. He told you to burn everything and go. He told you good luck, because you'd need it, and that they were close. So close.

You woke up with a playing card between your fingers, as if ready to throw. You looked at it.

Same as the dream.

There was a knock on the door.

Then another.

Then Another.

Another.

Then the sound of your door being kicked in.

Perhaps your wife was there. Perhaps not.

If she was, she was shot before she could run or fight or cry or scream or pray. Dead.

Maybe you got away. If you didn't, this isn't your story.

If you had the guts or the brains or the strength to slip through their fingers, though, this is.

And so when you thought you'd outrun them, after all this time, after so many close calls and sleepless nights, hours cleaning a gun or sharpening a blade, the man whispers for you.

Summit.


----

This is Misere. The OP above should have given you a vague idea of what's going on, but I will clarify because I'm a nice person like that.

You had the dream that was detailed above, and when you awoke you had a card. You were also...different. Not in a way that anyone passing on the street could tell (except for a Hunter), but you knew something was different.

I'll get to that later. More important things, now.

First, every waking moment of your life since the second you opened your eyes has been on the run. You will have had at least one encounter with the Hunters, men in black who deal in lead and don't f*ck around. Perhaps they wounded you. Perhaps not. Odds are they didn't, because normally, they don't shoot to wound. Whether you've been running for a week or a year, you will have dealt with the Hunters once. More if you're not as good-you have not gotten a chance to observe the body or even get a good luck at it. If you have killed one, you've likely done so y luck or ambushing.

Second, there is the card. It is as natural to you now as your hand or blinking. Unconsciously, you can feel its presence. Invigorating. Comforting. Whether it's tucked into your wallet or in the sole of your shoe, you know where it is. You can sense it. Feel it claw at you.

Third, there is the summit. Vesper called you in a dream to his house. Or a safe house, at least. You have, perhaps, met with a few other Cardkeepers in the past. Maybe not. Regardless, you don't fully trust any of them. But Vesper's summons seems powerful...instinctual. Natural. You go. The RP will start with your arrival at Vesper's safehouse in Sang City.


---

RULES
I was going to make a list of concrete rules, but instead I'm going to go over a few general points.

First, there is only one restriction on killing other players. You know that rule about not killing someone's character off without permission? Tear it out of your memory banks and throw it away for this. I do not give a crap if you open the RP off by shooting every single person who's signed up. It's their mistake for getting close enough to trust you.

Now, as for that one restriction. It is the Lucky Break. The Luck of the Draw, if you will. Your character will survive the first near-death encounter that he/she has. That is the ONLY guarantee. If another character has you in his crosshairs, and it's the first time you've been attacked, your character can fall, the bullet can be swayed by the wind, the shooter can sneeze and miss wildly. After that...no such luck. This rule is a constant, so it won't reiterate it.

Second, realism. I feel this encompasses godmodding, metagaming, etc. As for authotting, however, there is a tricky issue. As I've established, what you all do with one another is not my concern. This will take a Lord of the Flies approach very quickly if things go as planned. Don't harbor any grudges against anyone, by the way. Back on topic, though, autohitting. If you have a gun barrel to someone's head and pull the trigger, they will die. You do not need to wait for their post responding to it. If it is a situation where they could not feasibly dodge it-i.e., a VERY GOOD sniper, perhaps their being asleep or restrained somehow...by all means.

Third, the card rules. This is unique to this RP. If your card is burned, you will die instantly. No exceptions. The Luck of the Draw does not apply. Second, if your card is maimed, cut, etc, you will feel excruciating pain, but it will oddly piece itself back together. A viable torture technique but not an efficient murder tool. Your card exerts considerable power over you. Whoever holds your card will control you. You will not have a choice in this. If the person holding your card (mentally) orders you to burn down an orphanage, start assuaging your conscience. You can, obviously ,do the same to other people.

Are you considering giving up your card to avoid the Hunters? Nice try. It likely won't work. You might already know too much, but if you read (the OP is continued), I'll touch on that idea again.

Your card is a coefficient to your abilities. I will go in-depth about your abilities later, but the higher your card value, the more powerful you are and the easier you are to find. A Two will not have that many extra gifts, but an Ace will be much more superior. An Ace, however, will be easily found wherever they go, but a Two may avoid hiding much more easily. Either way, you'll likely die. You cannot have a Joker.

Fourth, do not join this RP if you want your character to live. I am not going to lie about the ending of this RP-you will all need to have considerable cunning and skill to manuever through this correctly. And I'm referring to your characters. Do not entertain any delusions of happy endings-most likely, this will end in death. Bewarned, you will want to strategize VERY carefully while RP'ing. Teaming up may not be a bad idea.


---

Cards. I believe I've already established their importance, so I'll finally get to the bright side of this situation. Since your obtaining of your card, you have gained a few extra perks. DO NOT GODMOD WITH THESE. You did not become a member of the X-Men; these kinds of things would probably go unnoticed by passerby. These are relative to your cards.

First, your senses of observation and cunning are heightened. You will find that lying and thinking on your feet are much easier and that your senses are a bit sharper. You can see more easily in the dark (not perfect night vision, mind you-absolute darkness is still just as blinding. Try and envision the level of light of a near-full moon), feel more detail in things, and your hearing is more acute.

Second, your physiological aspects are all a bit better. Diseases seem to pass you by, aside from infected wounds, which are sadly just as irksome. A bullet will still kill you, but you'll find that MINOR wounds will heal fairly quickly, and you bleed out a bit more slowly than you probably should.

Third, you have this strange thing with your dreams. You are not clairvoyant, but things that weigh heavily on your mind tend to be resolved in your dreams. You have your fair share of nightmares, but you dream almost evrey night. Lucid dreams are a common occurence and you find that thinking about a fellow Cardkeeper in a dream tends to have them wind up in your dream, or perhaps it's you in theirs.

Fourth, you are nimble with sleight of hand and have are better all around. I don't mean Mary Sue, here, I imply that your character will likely be devoid of acne, perhaps look (and feel) younger than they are, if they happen to be a bit older. They'll need to sleep and eat and drink, but perhaps not as much as they should.

Do not abuse these, or I will find a way to revoke them.

---

Some final words before the end of the "IC" OP. Unless you are a very evasion-based character, you will likely have a weapon. Whether it's a serrated knife or a trusty handgun, you will probably want one. Something large like an assault rifle or a battle axe is out of the question-after all, you got to Sang City on an airline, and your weapon would have gone through their security. Your skill with a weapon is not guaranteed! I do not want to see everyone using handguns and having flawless aim. Someone last time had a VERY creative method of dealing with the Hunters-Mina used traps, which I thought was brilliant.

Sang City is the city that Vesper's safehouse is in. It is roughly the size of New York City, with around 800,000 people. It is fairly urban in the nexus of the city, but as it stretches out it becomes more rural, with lots of forests and creeks-very good places for a wilderness based character to hide. A ring of suburban homes surrounds the city and is enclosed by the more open outskirts. The city is primarily split into two sides: north and south. North Sang is much more sketchy, with the outskirts being the prime place to cook meth or hide from the law. The wide open land, derelict barns and thick forests are perfect places for gangs or druggies (and, potentially, you), and the South is a bit classier, with gated communities and higher-end restaurant.

There is a casino in the dead center of town. Vesper has warned you to never get close to it.

----

TEMPLATES

Name:
Pseudonym: (Whether a title or an alias, you will likely have one)
Age: (19-40)
Sex: (M/F)
Appearance:
Personality:
Bio: (This can be brief. I hate doing this and won't impose them on you)
Fighting Style: (Include weapon and preferred means of dealing with Hunters. Direct confrontation will end very badly.)
Card: (The Queen of Hearts is taken. No Jokers.)

---

East Sang. A rather quiet district of the sprawling urban giant, particularly so in the dark hours of the morning when you arrive. It's chilly, and the wind is a bit irritating: the breeze could be masking noise. Footsteps, the clicks of safeties flipping off, the rummaging as a gun is raised to a shoulder-

You've reached the destination on foot. You daren't give the address to a taxi and you definitely don't have a car. It's a small basketball court, with the nets long since gone and the paint on the backboard faded away. You walk out under the starlit sky, puzzled.

Ah, there. You casually walk to the edge, where it slopes off into the grass. You step down, giving a quick glance around-no Hunters that you can see, and you lift up the manhole cover.

You close it over you and are submerged in darkness, but your hands and feet find the rungs of the ladder easily enough. After a good fifteen seconds of climbing you touch the ground, and the world explodes with light. Instinctively, one hand covers your eyes and the other reaches for your (insert weapon here).

It's merely a motion activated floodlight. There is a small tunnel, and the vague impression of a rather elaborate fallout shelter. You walk towards it, eyes throbbing with pain as they water, and you see a heavy steel door.

In front of it stands Vesper, empty socket concealed behind the eyepatch, a sickle hanging from his belt and an automatic dangling from the opposite belt.

"Glad you made it."

--

The rest of the Cardkeepers are scattered around the room. There is an eerie, awkward silence. Everyone is tense, everyone's hands dangerously close to their own weapons. Vesper seems completely at ease within his foxhole: it is rather luxurious. A TV shows the latest news, a few sofas are placed before it. A foosball table sits dormant at the back, and on a long table in the far corner there's a steaming coffee mug and a deck of cards strewn about. A quick glance reveals Ace/Jack Ace/King Ace/Queen Ace/Ace/King/Nine. The combinations of blackjack go on.

You take a seat on a recliner, easing it back slowly. A glance at the edge of the room reveals a door into a bathroom. A few more doors branch off of this: presumably bedrooms, perhaps a way out of here.

Vesper does a quick head count. "That should be everyone. Now, since we're all her-"

The TV flickers. It goes dark. Everyone pauses for a moment, examing the curious phenomena.

It comes back to life. Displayed is a live feed of something, shaky camera shots and blurry resolution. You can, however, make out a rather grotesque image.

It is the decapitated head of one of your fellow Cardkeepers. Clenched between their teeth (their jaw is set in rigor mortis, forever held in the most godawful of grins) is their playing card, the Four of Spades.

A paper with magazine letters taped to it is shoved in front of the camera.

"Bring us two cards and we let you live"

The paper is pulled aside, and, as if to emphasize the point, the skull is shot once, twice, thrice. The camera ends, the TV returns to CNN to reveal very horrified anchors and a quick scramble to commercials. The world will not understand what message was sent, but everyone in Vesper's panic room did.

Before the commercials have started, everyone's revolver or knife is gripped tightly, and everyone is out of their seats.

"All of you, stop it!" Vesper barked. It's the first time you've ever seen him angry-one of the first times you've ever seen him, really, and he is a force to be reckoned with. His eyepatch seems to have sunk back into his skull, making this hollow void where his eye used to be. His right eye is trained on the group, and hands are nowhere near his weapons.

"If any one of you fire a shot or make a lunge, we're all going up in flames and we'll do the Hunters job for them. Now everyone take your hands off your d*mned weapons, and sit down. If you think you're about to take someone's card and walk out of here, I beg to differ."

Everyone stays still, held by an uneasy stalemate.

Lightning-fast, Vesper draws his handgun and points it at a security card. Not his playing card, no one would risk that. No, this seems almost like a credit card, and he holds the muzzle right to the center of it.

"This is the only way in or out of this nice little bunker. If you all don't calm the f*ck down right now, you'll be eating your own playing cards once the food runs out."

This seems to register. Slowly, one by one, everyone's knife is sheathed or gun unloaded and put on safety.

"Now that that's settled," Vesper says after at least a minute has passed, "I would like to extend an offer of hospitality. We have much to talk about, although I fear the Hunters' most recent announcement has...complicated things.

All of you are welcome to stay here as long as you wish or leave when you wish. My only rule is no violence. There should be enough rooms, and there is a dead bolt inside each."

He tucks the security card away.

"My library membership card, by the way. One-way exit, through that door." he points at a set of double doors that, upon further notice, looks conspicuously like a set of elevator doors painted to resemble normal ones. Either Vesper is an artist, or he placed quite a few strange demands on some interior decorators.

Vesper walks to the fridge and removes a bottle of whiskey. He crosses the room, pours a good third of it into his near-empty coffee mug and raises it to the room.

"To survival." He downs half of it, blinks (or is it winks?) a few times, and grins.

Welcome to Vesper's.

I like.

Thanks. Any criticisms or things to work on?