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« 021 ⇢ EVENT021.EXE »

Who: There are new people in town. No really. It's a town. And people are new.
When: OOC: 11/15 ; IC: 4/7
Where: ViViD's new and improved CereScape!
What: CERES has heard complaints about the previous gaming situation, so they're fixing it. They hope everyone enjoys their new and improved changes to the game!
Rating/Warning: PG-13 for some scary images and/or situations. Please let the mods know if the rating should go up!

//event021.EXE

You’ve arrived. The sweeping, picturesque landscape is vast and perfectly rendered; the lake glitters in the sun, the grass ripples in the wind, the city bustles with voices and noise, and overall, it seems there’s been a bit of a graphics boost for CereScape.

And now you're a member.

Time to enjoy all of the perks that brings, and try not to think about how much it cost you. Don't worry, it's an automatic, monthly deduction, really, no need to worry!

CERES assures you that it will be totally worth it.

This is Mosley and I am now a wizard. I say that because we have heard your customer feedback for CeresScape and in your whining, you have requested wizards! And other stuff too but the important thing here is wizards and excellent graphics. We have delivered on both. You are welcome and I hope you all continue to appreciate what CERES does for you. Just you. Especially you.

Happy leveling!

//SCENARIOS.EXE

PHASE I

[ 630 ] You really have arrived, finally.

Too bad the welcome isn’t so great.

Upon arrival, you will literally be dropped out of the sky.

You may land in the lake (watch out for the fish). You may land on the roofs of the buildings in the town (watch out for the spires). Or you may be unlucky, and fall all the way from the sky to the ground, at which point you die and lose a life already.

Don’t worry, you’ll respawn in the air and you can try again.

Good luck this time!

If you do manage to finally land in a way that doesn’t break your spine and/or drown you, you’ll find that if you’re a newcomer, you’ll have some strange words hovering over your head. They seem to be a set of your name, a level, a class and a quest, something like --
Ima Adventurerer Lv. 9000
Class: Dragon Slayer
Current Quest: Slay every dragon
-- but aside from existing, they don't seem to have any actual impact on your abilities or requirements. But you can do the quests if you really want to. Everyone will clap politely for you if you do. There might be confetti, even.

They would appear to coincide with a scroll or two posted up in the middle of town for everyone to see.

At least it’s easy to tell who’s new this round.

PHASE II

[ 745 ] Once you’re safely on the ground (hopefully no broken bones!), it’s time to get a feel for the game. As free range as it seems to be, you have all sorts of choices in where to go and what to do. You could take on some quests! You could go hunt down monsters! You could...pick up that fancy looking armor over there!

Except you may not actually want to do so. As soon as you touch that armor, it will equip itself, no ifs, ands or buts. Of course, it isn’t so bad, at least, not for the ladies. For the men who equip the armor, they may find it to be a little breezy. In many different variations.

To make matters worse, be careful what you touch in your inventory, unless you want to equip a fish instead of your sword, or whatever the hell this is instead of your cool, awesome, special weapon. Good luck.

And the only way to unequip it is to find something else to equip. There’s motivation for some questing, at least.

PHASE III

[ 1000 ] Eventually, you have to venture out of the town, however. There are NPCs ushering you to quest onwards, and there’s nothing in the town worth poking your nose into; none of the doors open, and all of the NPCs say the same, looping lines in a creepy monotone.

There are quests to be done outside of the town, they say, over and over.

So, off you go. However, the moment you step out of the town, you’re…somewhere else entirely. Look behind you, and the town is gone. Look around you, and there’s nothing but flowers, fields and the other people who have stepped out of the town themselves, looking equally confused. The bizarre armor is now gone, and you're back in your proper clothing; the strange floating titles and levels and the like are also gone. Otherwise, it is silent; there isn’t a single other soul. No bird song, no buzzing of bees -- just silence.

Of course, it won’t last. Soon, the monsters show up...but strangely, they seem to be monsters from your world, if your world had monsters. If your world had animals, they are those, or robots, or any number of combinations. But they seem...different. They’re meaner, larger, nastier, and all dark colors and bloody, dripping claws and fangs.

It seems everything’s been a little corrupted here -- even things from your own worlds.

PHASE IV

[ 1400 ] If you persevere through the monster-infested fields, trampling your way through flowers which did nothing at all to you, you’ll eventually find yourself at a still, still lake. It’s a beautiful place, quiet and hushed and untouched, and totally monster-free; it might be a good place to take a breather.

But if you look into the lake, even for a brief moment, you’ll see whatever it is you want most in the world. Whether it’s a person (dead or alive), a thing, a title… it doesn’t matter; the lake will show it, tantalizing and right there, so close to being in your grasp.

If you don’t pull away immediately, you might find that it’s hypnotizing, in fact; you’ll feel the need to go closer and closer, even if it means wading into the lake to get closer to that goal. Just...don’t go too far. Something is waiting for you.

If you touch someone to try to help them, you’ll see what they are also seeing in the lake, for better or for worse. It might be a good chance to get to know them, if you weren’t, you know, in danger of being eaten.

Thankfully, with some perseverance and good friends, the hypnotism can be broken. You do have friends, right?

If you survive all of that, you can finally log out and join Cerealia proper -- hooray!

BONUS

[ xxxx ] There sure are a lot of flowers in this field of flowers. There are flowers everywhere. Which isn’t a bad thing, unless you’re allergic to flowers (if you are allergic to flowers, CERES apologizes and suggests you take their special, patented ClariCERESclear to clear that right up). Except...the longer you’re in said field of flowers, the more you may notice that things are a little...strange.

Some of the pollen of the flowers has some strange effects on your bodies, it would seem. You could stumble across any of these (or none at all), and they could last anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour or two, depending on how much of that pollen you breathe in.

The effects are as follows:
➟ The urge to princess-carry the nearest person
➟ The urge to serenade the nearest person, regardless of your singing ability
➟ An awakened urge to be really aggressive towards the nearest person, even to the point of fighting (it's time to pvp)
➟ Uncontrollable crying
➟ An uncontrollable urge to make flower crowns and place them on peoples' heads (which thus further spreads the other effects).

Don’t trust the flowers.

[ 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 November 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. Thank you!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( phase i; )

[yeah, that fall? it kind of hurt. but there's no impaling or anything of the sort, just a hard crash into the ground that is probably only broken by stahn's already extreme armor and even more extreme hair.]

A---Ahhh, tch-tch! That hurt... [he'll sit up, rubbing his head a little. it takes him a minute to notice the words that float over his head.] Heeeeh?

[he's confused. and when he's confused and without one of his human comrades, it means there's only one solution: ask dymlos. so stahn pulls his sword out, holding it tightly by the hilt and straight out in front of him, with the tip of the blade facing the sky.]

Hey, Dymlos. What do you think it means? "Fire fighter L-V 55..." [a pause, and.] Ah! It's because I use you, and you use fire, right?

[no, stahn. that's not it. "Stahn, don't be ridiculous. We should check the area first to see what this is all about before making such an assumption." the sword answers him—though to most, they'll hear nothing at all. which means that stahn's response will look... like he's talking to an inanimate object like it's alive to those who can't hear dymlos.] Mm, I guess you're right. Okay, let's do that then—let's go!

[and that means for those who don't, stahn may be approaching with a friendly smile and a wave. he's got questions, and being the rpg protagonist he is, it's only natural to approach every person he sees in the hopes of gaining some information. or maybe scaring them off because he's a guy with a mullet that would make whitesnake jealous that talks to his sword.

in any case, he hasn't even really taken note of the quest part of the equation yet. it's a good thing he has a habit of interacting with all the animals he sees anyway, huh?]

( bonus; )

[okay, so maybe stahn spent a little too much time breathing in the sweet scent of flowers. they're nice and relaxing—honestly, he kind of needs it. the only reasons he's held from freaking out about his friends and loved ones supposedly being gone for real is the fact that dymlos warned him not to be so quick to believe something like that without evidence.

so this? it's not so bad. after spending a while in the flowers, he wants to sing a song about them. so he'll wave over anyone who's near—or just sing to nobody at all. the problem with this? stahn cannot sing. at all.]

♪ Ooohhh, flowers!
♪Flowers in this fieeeeeeeeld!
♪ You're so pretty!
♪ Even Rutee would think you're too good to sell!

[stahn, no.

someone stop him. despite his passion, it's a terrible song.]

( phase iv; closed to leon/discard )

[stahn is undoubtedly ready to take a break. he's not used to traveling alone anymore, and while he's persevered this far, it's tough. he's trying hard to wrap his head around the circumstances—but it couldn't have come at a worse time. with his own world in so much danger and things really coming to the wire, it makes him feel helpless, like he's failing the people most important to him. did they really perish? did he fail to save even his friends? the other members of the swordian team? why... why was it just him and dymlos?

it's draining, so when dymlos suggests they take a breather, that stahn get his head on straight again, he relents. it's quiet, and it's pretty... in some ways, it almost reminds him of the area surrounding leane, and that's enough for him.]

Wooooow... amazing. The lake is pretty... [bad idea, stahn. he edges closer to the water to see how fresh it is; it looks clean and crystal clear. but it's not long before his eyes catch something so shocking that he can't help but want to pursue it.]

...Leon!? [it can't be possible, right? it had to be a trick, because he'd just spoken of leon to marian what felt like just moments earlier. besides... leon was dead. why would he be there, standing in the same thing that took his life? yet still, he feels compelled to chase it. because what if it is leon? what if some miracle occurred, and what if it could lead him to rutee and the others? he has to know. so he pressed forward with little regard, wading into the water with no care.

too bad that dymlos isn't fooled. "Stahn! Stahn!!" he calls that out, numerous times to try and snap stahn out of the trance, but it's not working at all. for all the times dymlos serves as a good voice of reason, it's not enough—not when it's leon that he sees. he's desperate enough to want to believe that this is something good in the middle of a lot of terrible things that seem to be happening to him.]

[Look, this entire situation has sucked from start to finish. He doesn't understand why this is happening. He doesn't understand why he of all people was dragged into this. He doesn't understand how this entire situation has anything to do with his world supposedly being destroyed.

He doesn't understand why he's breathing right now, when he can remember running out of air, and taking a helpless, unstoppable breath in, and breathing in only water--

The only bright point about this situation has been that he's not alone, as ever; Chal is still there, and still alert and okay, and that's something that Leon is relieved for (even if it'd been a very tearful reunion (on Chal's part), which only confirms that Leon knows that he definitely--).

There are flowers stuck in his hair, and he was trying to brush them off of his cloak when he hears Dymlos before he sees anything else. He...shouldn't go over there. If Dymlos is yelling at Stahn, Stahn is there, and... That doesn't make sense, but even so, he shouldn't.

But it's the panic in the Swordian's tone that drags him over there anyway, unwillingly, and when he sees Stahn edging towards that lake as if transfixed, he knows something is wrong. Can he really stand back, even knowing that? ...No, no he really can't, can he, and it's with a clenched jaw that he steps forward.]

Tch-- Stahn! What do you think you are doing?!

[yes, something is definitely wrong here. because even though leon calls out his name—even though that alone should be enough to snap him from the trance that draws him further into the water, stahn doesn't actually stop at all.

dymlos, on the other hand, does. despite the improbability, he's obviously able to recognize leon's voice—that it's leon, and not whatever the hell it is stahn's chasing after.

"Leon, you have to stop him before it's too late!" there's no time to question that, and dymlos knows it. talking about what happened or how this is possible, and what state chaltier is in are things that can come later. dymlos is powerless to bring stahn to his senses this way, and he is honestly quite sure that if there's anyone who could get through to him beside himself and rutee, that it's most definitely leon. especially after what had happened. so for now, dymlos is relying on that much, because leon could physically stop him—something that he's unable to do himself.]

Leon—is it... you? [he hears leon's voice, so stahn assumes what he's seeing in front of him is leon. but his tone is distant and dazed, all part of the trance he's in and not at all with the normal energy and awareness that he usually carries. it's bad. this is so bad, because now he's getting some sort of illusion completely confused with what he'd never expect to really be here calling out to him. why—why is leon standing in the lake like that?]

we knew this from the start

discard - 2015-11-15 01:43 (UTC) - Expand

and yet here we are on the pain train

majinken - 2015-11-15 02:27 (UTC) - Expand

open!

phase why

phase tales of destiny was a mistake

Bonus.........................stahn why.

because mikleo obviously needs MORE misery....

bonuuuuuus

no subject

phase i;

no subject

i

no subject

bonus.........

no subject

phase i;

no subject

bonus

no subject

i

no subject

bonus.............why..............

bonus......

bonus

bonus

phase 1 sorry aly adding to your pile

bonus;