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 iv
And there are far too many illusions to make it worth it. That's what she thinks Apollo is at first: an illusion. Because it's been a while since he was there, and he'd left so suddenly, and she's in a game. There's no way that's her Polly wading into the water, he's just a lie, but -
But -
Even if she tells herself that sort of thing, there's no way Trucy can allow any version of Apollo Justice to come to harm if she can humanly help it, and so she'll splash into the water after him at top speed, flinging her arms around his waist. ]
Polly, don't you dare! [ She's not sure what the hell is going on here, exactly, but it can't be good, and -
oh.
that sure is a vision. :c her grip loosens just a hair. ]
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Wh...at? [Even the words feel heavy on his tongue. He sways slightly, sending little ripples through the water around them. It'll probably take more to snap him out of it.]
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...Polly! Oh no oh no oh no, c'mon, we have to move! [ She has no idea what's coming, but by virtue of it being a CERES game?
Trucy assumes it's nothing good. ]
Ooooh, if you don't move and we get eaten, I'm going to have Daddy cut your pay! [ She wouldn't. But Trucy's not sure how to snap Apollo out of it - she had trouble snapping herself out of his vision. ] And I'll make sure you're put on every case that involves a cat up a tree! And - and -
[ What threat can snap someone out of hypnotism? ...More to the point, why is threatening him with dumb things her first instinct? ]
Um, um - hey, do you want to see a trick?! [ THAT'S NOT ANY BETTER AS AN INSTINCT...as she frantically talks, she tries to haul him back a little, though comparatively she's PRETTY SMALL, so. ]
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And then he straightens up as he becomes fully aware of his surroundings again, the sudden movement sending some water splashing around them.]
Dropping us into water isn't funny either, Trucy! [His brain catches up with his mouth just then.] ...Trucy?
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[ You and Daddy are so protective of those darn things...but more to the point: ]
I know I'm amazing, but this particular bit of magic wasn't me! And there's something coming - eeek! [ IS THAT A MONSTER HEAD REARING UP OUT OF THE WATER and if so how fast can we book it, bro ]
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Let's get out of here!
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Ooh, hold on! [ Hold on? IS THIS THE TIME - she reaches to her belt, and tosses something back at the water. Whatever it was, it explodes...
...into a cloud of glitter and smoke. ]
All righty! Now we can make a stylish escape!
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[Of course she did. This is Trucy, and you'd think he would be used to this by now.]
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[ ...Your life, your choices, Apollo...at least she's prepared to continue running now that she's made a bang???? ]
Luckily for you, you've got me to handle the show biz, Polly! ...Anyway, we should totally continue the escaping part now.
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[Tugging Trucy along again, and this time he's not giving her a chance to try any more tricks on the thing in case she changes her mind.]
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