estoria | « 016 ⇢ EVENT016.EXE »

Entry tags:

« 016 ⇢ EVENT016.EXE »

Who: Everyone, you poor saps
When: OOC: 7/22 || IC: 2/08
Where: ViViD's new Heath and You: A New Way to be Healthy
What: Intro log, intro log! Come get your intro log!
Rating/Warning: PG-13; some violence and questionable situations. Let us know if it veers into other territory so we can lock the log!

//event016.EXE

The doctor's office is hardly the funnest place in the world to be. Children crying, adults bickering in hushed, stressed tones, the receptionist looking incredibly bored...

Wait. How did you get here? Weren't you watching a powerpoint a second ago (or enjoying your time in your cozy apartment in Cerealia)? Well, now you're in ViViD, and in an attempt to concentrate on healthy living, CERES has released a new level: Health and You: A New Way to be Healthy. Sure, you could log out at any time if you're a ViViD pro and used to this whole experience, but now that you're here, why not sit back and enjoy it? Indulge in some easy level grinding or something. Besides, it'll take a little while for the game to let you log out without calling you a spineless quitter, and who wants that added to their ViViD rep?

So instead, take a look around the tiled hospital. Visit the receptionist and say hello (she ignores you, go back to your seat). Pick up a snack at the vending machine (except every single one only has these gross things in stock). Maybe you should just test the truth of that old idiom, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away", especially with that weird doctor over there. Is he staring at you? He might be staring at you.

Seriously, go find an apple before he comes over here.

Well,
well,
well...
isn't it time for your c h e c k - u p?

//SCENARIOS.EXE

PHASE I

[ 0800 ] If you're a new arrival to this fine city, you will find yourself waking up in a bed after suffering through that unfortunate powerpoint. The sun streams through the window, the bed is uncomfortable but not terrible, and everything is quiet and idyllic... wait. Where are your clothes? You'll suddenly find yourself dressed only in a medical gown (yes, complete with back open) and you seem to be... in a hospital? That's new.

If you take a look at the medical chart attached to the bed, you’ll even find your chart, name on it and everything. That can’t be right, can it? You're the picture of health! You're welcome to wait around for the doctor to dispute these claims but no one's showing up anytime soon (aside from the possible roommate you might have, in the same situation as you). There’s nothing stopping you from leaving the room or looking around at least (except for the lack of clothes), but it’s all hospital as far as the eye can see. Try and be careful what rooms you poke your head into; there are some strange aliens getting their check-ups in there. They don't seem like they want to be bothered.

If you’re not a newcomer, and go into ViViD searching for riches and grand prizes (or just stumble in there by happenstance), the receptionist will stop you and hand you a stethoscope, lab coat, and name tag. Congratulations, you’re a doctor now, and you have free reign over the hospital. Go nuts. Or don’t, because there are still those aliens waiting for their check-ups. Now it’s your turn to get dragged away by a frazzled nurse to administrate a tentacle massage to a patient, as she's now on break! Have fun and don't get the hospital sued.

PHASE II

[ 1000 ] Just don’t end up in the basement.

If you end up in the basement by some weird twist of fate (or via trapdoor, which could happen because let's be honest, this is ViViD), you’ll find yourself in a long, empty, blindingly white hallway. The floors are white, the walls are white, the ceiling and the flickering lights are white, and you have the odd feeling you're being followed.

If you turn to see who it is, you’ll find that it’s your younger self. They’re not solid. They’re not real. You can stick a hand through them, and it will go right through. But they are you, whether age 4 or age 14 or anywhere in between, and they’re covered in blood and holding an equally bloody knife. Quietly, as they follow you, they'll mumble, over and over and over again, “It was you, you did it, you killed them, you’re the murderer.”

And they will follow you until you get out of that blindingly white hallway, and away from those blindingly white lights, and if you tried to touch them, there will be blood on your hands. The younger you won't respond to anything you say, just following behind you like the frightening apparition they are. At least nothing else is stopping you from returning to the main hospital, no matter how surreal this experience might be. Just find the stairs.

PHASE III

[ 1200 ] As soon as you’ve managed to escape the clutches of that frazzled nurse who still refuses to come back from break, you’ll find that the atmosphere has turned very dark indeed. There’s rain pounding against the windows, and as lightning flashes and thunder booms (it’s all ambiance, you see), there’s the tell-tale Mwahahahaha of an evil, mad doctor at work. What a sinister guy.

Turning a corner will lead you right to his very, very evil doctor's office. He's repurposed one for his sinister deeds and some nurses are looking very put out about it. There's someone attached to the medical table who might need some help and of course, it could be one of your friends that he’s snagged. You might want to help them before that very evil mad doctor tries to add an extra limb or two to your poor friend. Honestly, who needs three elbows?

Or maybe it’s you who’s been grabbed by him and attached to the medical table by strong, metal restraints. Hopefully someone follows the “Mad Scientist: This Way” signs all over the hospital and saves you because really, three elbows?

PHASE IV

[ 1400 ] Of course, while the ambiance is still dark, grim and creepy, and the rain still beats upon the glass of the windows, there is a murder...because why wouldn't there be?

The director of the hospital has been found murdered, slumped in a seat in his office, hand in hand with his secretary. Oh no! You’re welcome to investigate the crime scene if you want, but it’s not a very good one; there aren’t any clues, and the director and his secretary actually seem to be alive if you prod them hard enough. They're a bit put out by your interruptions and might ask you to "go solve this somewhere else" the more you bother them. How rude of you to muck up their death scene.

But there’s a new quest for you, and it says this: Pursue Justice or Pursue the Truth?

If you choose to pursue Justice, you will find yourself dropped into a new ViViD level, this one a straight hospital hallway with no doors and alternate routes. Some posters line the hallway but most of the detail is lost in the dim light. Not far ahead of you, The Suspect can be seen running away. (Naturally, you can tell that they are The Suspect by their poorly scribbled out face and black silhouette.) If you should follow them all the way to the end of the hallway (and it is a long, long, long hallway), you can grab The Suspect. Of course, that's if you make it there without falling through any of the trapdoors, tripping over medical supplies or stumbling into less fortunate player characters. If you're successful, you’ll hear a jaunty tune and you’ll receive a bonus of 50,000 ViViD points. Congratulations! You may now log out and continue with your daily life.

If you choose to pursue the Truth, you will find yourself dropped into another ViViD level. This level is a maze; there are filing cabinets stuffed full of papers making up the walls (though the papers are all blank) and they seem oddly impossible to move. You will need to find your way through the maze while avoiding more trapdoors, more scattered medical supplies, the occasional angry cthulhu patient and the occasional player character who has been grabbed by the occasional angry cthulhu patient. Eventually you will be able to find the end of the maze and there you will find a scrap of paper with a clue on it, signed Bellona Recreare. You may now log out and continue with your daily life.

Strangely enough, you can’t seem to access that quest again once you’ve completed it once. Oh well.

BONUS

[ xxxx ] There are plenty of sexy nurses wandering the hospital (yes, everywhere) and they know your shots aren’t up to date. Should they manage to catch you and jab you with one of their needles, you’ll have some of the following side effects:
➟ Unstoppable urge to hug the nearest person
➟ Unstoppable urge to kiss the nearest person
➟ Unstoppable urge to dance with the nearest person
➟ Hiccups that last for 20 minutes
➟ Uncontrollable laughter that lasts for 20 minutes
➟ Hallucinations that everyone around you is dead, which also lasts for 20 minutes

You may pick and choose which effects happen at which times or if there is a combination of them. Have fun!

[ Remember to apply proper warnings on threads with sensitive or inappropriate material and do let a mod know if your thread careens off into maiming or canoodling so we can lock the log. ]

//RUN.EXE

Welcome to Cerealia's July intro log! For your convenience, we have compiled the characters' arrival experience here, and should you have any questions, feel free to ask them here! You can also check the FAQ for more general inquiries. Should this event log hit Captcha, there is an all-purpose overflow here.

Regarding phase IV, should your characters tackle the alternate ViViD levels and make it all the way through, please PM the mod account to let us know if they picked Justice or the Truth, as that will have an overall impact on the game! You will also receive your plot clue at that time, should your character have gone down the Truth path. Please PM the mod account by July 29th with the decision your character has made; the thread does not have to be completed, that just will allow us to tally up the choices for August's event.

Thank you!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( phase i, part a )

[the powerpoint and everything around it had been a blur; a whirlwind that roxas barely had time to make sense of any of it before suddenly, his eyes were opening again. and of course, the scenery is wholly unfamiliar to him. it automatically puts him on the defensive to leap out of bed—only to be stopped uncomfortably by the breeze on his back.]

What... what is this? [all of it, he means. the gown, which is definitely not his coat or the normal clothes he wears beneath it. he's never seen a hospital gown. or a hospital, for that matter. which makes this an entirely new situation. roxas' solution? recon. even if he's not in the clearest state of mind and he's no doubt aggravated by the situation, he knows he won't get anywhere if he doesn't look around. the first stop is the end of the bed, partially to try and fix the robe before actually making a break for it... though he's stopped pretty quickly when his eyes catch sight of his name on the medical chart.]

Huh? What does any of this even mean? General sadness? Internet "me-mes?" A new soundtrack? [his brow furrows and his jaw clenches. whether he's asking the people around him or just speaking out loud due to the frustration, he doesn't make clear at all.] Why does it have my name on it? This doesn't have anything to do with me.

[for a moment, he considers tossing it over his shoulder and ignoring it, but just before letting go, he has a second thought. the name signed could be someone he knows. who shoots and has a penchant for shitty nicknames? xigbar. if he's still being tracked, even here, he should hold on to this paper—so roxas elects to fold it up instead before he tries to get some more info.]

( phase i, part b )

[there reaches a point where roxas has had enough. he's getting the run around, and all he really wants back are his clothes and his ability to get the hell out of this building.]

Tell me how to leave! [of course, he's getting the run-around that it's for his health.] There's nothing wrong with me, nothing at all!

[it's not working. and after the twentieth generic, non-answer he gets, roxas lets out a very aggravated scream. that's it. he's so done right now. in his left hand he summons oblivion from the darkness; in his right, oathkeeper spawns from a flash of light.] Let. Me. Go!

[yeah, he mad.]

( bonus )

[and now, for something much different. apparently their efforts to calm roxas down involved "updating" his shots, and now... well.

well... you may just have the arms of a short, normally angry kid wrapping around your torso. roxas doesn't know; he doesn't really get that it's some kind of side effect from the shot. hell, he barely understands hugging at all. the kid needs more love in his life, but the belief of not having a heart at all means he doesn't have any real understanding of love, affection, or what this means. he just knows that it's an urge he can't seem to resist right now.

the fallout from this will happen within moments, most likely.]

Edited 2015-07-22 02:14 (UTC)

[ First she gets shoved into a lab coat too big for her, then she's hit by a piece of paper, now this. Among other things. Sadly, Mary's too baffled to react beyond the world's squeakiest... well, squeak, of surprise, because first of all, she's stranger-shy.

Second of all, she's not used to strangers hugging her, and all she can do is stammer out baffled noises in an increasingly anxious manner.

Please hold. ]

[in all fairness, this is the first time he can remember hugging anyone, either. it's strange and warm, and he doesn't really understand it, both it what it signifies and why he is doing it.

so after a moment (and a couple of mary's squeaks), he'll pull back, arms dropping to his sides. silent, roxas looks at his own hands, then back at her.]

I... don't know why I did that. [an honest explanation, if totally unhelpful.] Sorry.

[how sorry he sounds may be up for debate, if only because he feels baffled. and further, he can feel heat rising in his cheeks, and it's not from anger. what's going on? what is this? roxas just doesn't know, because why would he know what this kind of embarrassment is like?]

OTA!

bonus

no subject

bonus;

no subject

i-b

no subject

bonus

no subject

ia!

no subject

phase i-b

no subject

phase i. b

no subject

bonus

no subject

phase i a!

no subject

phase i-b

no subject

i, a

no subject

1b

bonus!