PHASE I [ 6 30 ] 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. ] |
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phase i
[ it looks worse when typed, but yata definitely screamed an "ahh" with a mix of "ugh" and some choking. ]
Saruhiko! Why the fuck's your level higher than mine?!
[ yata, your world just got destroyed and this is what you're worried about? wait. wait... fushimi is here. his eyes widen when he realises that, and he immediately rushes up to him. ]
You heard the shit at that presentation, right?
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He stares at Yata for a moment, taking in that it really is him, before he clicks his tongue and looks away, not wanting to let his face betray any emotions.]
Always focusing on the important things, Misaki.
[It isn't as if he could forget the presentation; he looks back at Yata and frowns. Even if they both heard the same "news", it didn't make anything better.]
... I heard it. Of course I heard it.
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You think the others are here?
[ in general, of course. he isn't just pertaining to homra, but also to fushimi's comrades in scepter-4. ]
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I doubt it. I haven't seen anyone else I know. There's also the fact that if they're telling the truth about all of this then it isn't likely that they happened to save many more people from the same place.
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They might. Aliens could be real...
[ but. . . that does make him reconsider. his heart has sunk earlier after being told that their worlds had been destroyed. it was painful. in fact, it still is. ]
You don't think it's the truth?
[ you're the only one he has right now, fushimi. don't mess it up. ]
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Honestly, as much as it sounds like a bad video game plot, things might be just as they seem. Aliens nuking an entire planet, being saved from that same disaster... it sounded way too convenient. But then, isn't the fact that Yata's here too a sign that impossible things might be possible after all? ]
They might be telling the truth. Or they could be lying to us. It's too early to tell for sure, isn't it?
[That's as close as a pep talk as he's going to get. Fushimi still wants a lot more information himself, before he can just accept everything anyway.]
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so even if all of this is true, then he'll be the one to save the world. ]
Yeah, you're right. [ he slowly nods. yata's rash and impulsive, so he's secretly glad that fushimi's here to stop him from doing and saying anything stupid...er than usual. ]
I guess it's just us, then.
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It's probably just a coincidence, of course.
[Or he could be bad at this whole being cool thing. He still doesn't want to consider what would happen if Yata was gone along with everyone else.]
For all we know, people end up here with others they know all the time.
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[ he mumbles a few words about how he still doesn't get it, but he gives fushimi a nervous smile. ]
Yeah, I guess. [ he laughs sheepishly. ] We'll be okay. I mean, you're here. We just gotta kill those Flamines and save the world.
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It's not a game, Misaki. It's not as simple as getting strong enough and beating the final boss and everything going back to the way it was.
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Well, what are you going to do here, then?
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They gave out job suggestions and keycards to apartments for a reason.
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So you're just going to do what they want.
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What's your big plan then, Misaki? Going to live in a cardboard box and fight the evil space aliens all on your own? I'm sure that's going to work out just wonderfully for you. You won't get anything accomplished by acting like a child about all of this. But let me know how it goes, the whole putting your pride before common sense deal. It's worked out so well for you before, after all.
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Wasn't acting like a kid.
[ yeah, that's his only retort. ]
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It's not like I'm totally okay with it either. It's just a means to an end.
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[ he shrugs his shoulders slightly. ]
I guess I can do that shit too. Look for a place to stay and all.
[ speaking of— ]
What jobs did you get?
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The jobs don't really matter. It's not important.
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?????????? ]
Did you get bad job suggestions?
[ YEEAAHH he's definitely going to pry. ]
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Oh, yeah. There's going to be some party at some place called the Sanctuary tomorrow. You better go.
[ a beat. ]
Or I'll kick your ass.
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Someone invited you to a party.
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[ and no, he's not going to tell fushimi that it's a girl who invited him to a party. ]
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[He's not jealous you're jealous.]
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None of your business.
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