estoria | « 002 ⇢ event001.exe »

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« 002 ⇢ event001.exe »

Who: Everyone ever.
When: 09/14-09/30 (ooc)
Where: Within ViViD/Entertainment District
What: Hardcore gaming.
Rating/Warning: PG-13

//event001.EXE

It's my party and I'll tank if I want to!
( Dates: 09/14 to 09/30 )

Welcome, new players, and old, alike. So, remember getting into the lovely little test drive that you found some new friends in? We hope you've been helping some of them out, it's good to make friends. But! Our lovely scientists have been hard at work, and they've finally released a proper, completed stage to help you all along into the world of Tellus.

Or just messed that up too.

Unfortunately for most people, with the release of the beta version of this new level of ViViD, the new arrivals will also be shoved right in (with all their received items in a special pouch they can transport out of the game with them) and have to be helped out until they can get to a logout portal, or risk being stuck in there for a while! Yes, friends, YOU will have to go into the game and help the newcomers get out, or risk certain dragony death.

On the 14th of September, signs and advertisements will start flashing for those in-game already.

Welcome to the world of Cadmus, a vaguely Greek-inspired fantasy-based land, covered in dragons, and we thank those who played in our beta stage. Players, you have done well- but the three guardian dragons (Ismen, Colchi and Nemeus) are still at large, and we need your assistance bringing them down! The adventure is within ViViD, and you'll bring their scales to the Queen, who needs them to survive.

Unfortunately, everyone can carry only one scale each because once a group defeats them, the dragons' bodies will vanish, but until this period of the game, they will keep reviving until the queen is healthy enough to help silence them for good. Do not fear, though! The land itself is filled with several mountains, waterfalls, and large castles/castle towns, a beautiful sight to see. Technology is very sparse inside, however, and players will be relying on their own abilities to carry out the mission to completion. Oh, and there may be people who need rescuing... can you get to them in time?

And the compulsion to participate will be strong. So, players, will you and your team be able to rescue the poor folk stuck in there , and defeat the dragons, and get the scales to rescue the queen? Well. Time will tell, of course!

The situation is simple:

For New Arrivals:

✩ New players will be part of the group of folk needing rescuing and escape. New players WON'T leave the game after their arrival briefing, and end up in this little glitch of a system. Those that weren't in the test drive will end up here post-arrival briefing!
✩ Once a character already in the game reaches a newcomer, an escape portal will open up instantly on a point on the map. Both parties can log out from there and enter the colony, or they can band together to keep playing. Note that once they find the portal (they may have to fight some enemies to get to it, but they'll have a map!) they can log in and log out normally.
✩ New Arrivals can escape/log out once they join a party with another newcomer as well if someone in-game hasn't found them, and find an escape portal which will appear in random, dangerous locations where they may have to fight enemies. They'll level up and their options to log out will appear when they find the portal (and they'll be led to it with a map!) But only if they join up with another newcomer! (this info will be revealed to them once they're in the vicinity of another new arrival)
✩ If your newly-arrived character goes solo, well... they'd better be ready to fight a dragon to escape, because that will be the only way they'll get out. If they reach GAME OVER through death, they'll wake up in CERES' Hospital and be inactive for a day.

You can log in and log out as many times as needed, and once a group of players has defeated all three dragons, they won't have to fight them again nor will they be compelled to join the game once more (but they can log in and help others who haven't defeated them yet!)

For Players Already In The Game:

✩ Compulsion to play will be high, and soon, you'll know why!
✩ Remember the details you have as well. There will be people who appear to look like people your characters know, and the virus will make them act erratically and attack your own. Be wary and be swift!
✩ Helping the new arrivals will allow them to log out easily, much more easily than they would going solo or with another newcomer. Your characters will get information on-screen telling them this, and it'll be nice to follow!
✩ Players already in-game can log in and out any time.

During this period of time, the dragons will respawn to fight those who haven't defeated them yet. Getting those scales to the queen is important, so make sure you get through to them!

Side Quests : Knights in Seed Buns
( Dates: 09/14 to 09/21 )

Remember those Knight Burgers? Yeah, hah hah ha... players who ate them during Cerealia Welcome Barbecue will be experiencing certain interesting side-effects that can only be fixed by either getting to the hospital- or performing a side quest in the Cadmus Event, to look for the Tree of Asclepius.. This will be pointed on the north of the map, guarded by the Priestess who was in the beta stage. She will however, be different and may attack those who try to steal- she will be more hesitant to let people delegated to fight for their friends take the fruit, but she'll give in once you fight her protector, The Talon. Don't worry, he's harmless... and will participate in a duel to defeat and kill him (he'll respawn after) to hand the fruit to the player from the tree. Players who don't delegate, and are feeling the ill effects and complete the mission while making it to the tree themselves will bypass the battle. This information will all appear on-screen!

This side-quest can be played on this log, with newcomers and old players alike! Also feel free to make your own logs through the week for the non-game parts!

//SCENARIOS.EXE

PHASE I

[ xxxx ] You're logged in, you have your objective. Your character is exploring the world of Cadmus, meeting friends and enemies alike. The NPCs are kind enough, providing directions. There are even a few minor enemies to battle as you gear up to handle the big bosses. For the new arrivals, they will be waking up immersed in the game straight from being pulled from the nexus code. They won't know they're in a game for the most part, not until the peculiarities start to pile up. Hurry up and start asking questions. Team up where you can and get the hell out as fast as you can.

PHASE II

[ xxxx ] While immersed and exploring the terrain, familiar faces start to appear, those from your world that you've been thinking of, missing, obsessing over. They seem sweet and cheery enough, a smile on their face as they spit out generic information. At first, it's strange, but then you start to notice their tone becoming more and more hostile.

Within moments, your weapon is in their hand, and they're attacking without warning, looking for the fastest way to send you into the dreaded game over by forcing you to fight against your own move set. These corrupted NPCs will continue to appear all over for the next few weeks, the result of a digital virus infecting the game, so beware of sudden death.

PHASE III

[ xxxx ] The dragons are waiting for you to pluck scales off them, looking harmless enough. You think they're cute and cuddly and might go in for a bit of a petting. Then suddenly, they'll reveal their true forms to you, face delightfully splitting open to show off a black hole of teeth, teeth, and nothing but teeth. It's your choice whether you want to take them on or wet yourself a little, but they'll be coming after you regardless.

PHASE IV

[ xxxx ] For those suffering from the horrid Knight Burgers, the end of the road is the Tree of Asclepius Quest. Look above for further information.

BONUS

[ whyo'clock ] Congratulations! You've won, and now, your character is able to log out successfully. With great success comes great prizes. As your character remains seated and hooked up to then ViViD console, they'll be approached by a robotic stripper of either sex. Yes, your prize (for completing, other prizes will come up later) is a CERES-sponsored lap dance, complete with a stripper scantily dressed in fabric stamped with the CERES logo on it. Within the nexus code, a delightful tune was recovered to accompany the scintillating gyrations of said stripper. You are now the Drake to their Nikki Minaj.

Run while you can.

[ You can choose to set your threads in the game or before/after if you'd like. Remember to apply proper warnings on threads with trigger-y or inappropriate material and do let a mod know if your thread careens off into maiming or canoodling so we can lock the log. ]

//ETC.EXE

✩ Make your own top-level posts on any dates or a range of dates, and plunge into adventure! Open them up to newcomers or all, and post some starters to get going! You can post as many as you want, anywhere and all.
✩ Once dragons are defeated for a player and their party, they won't have to fight them again. They'll respawn for the duration of the event, but they'll be considered defeated by them unless they join a party where a group of players hasn't defeated them.
✩ Players already in the game can log in/log out at their leisure. Players newly arrived to the game will only be able to do so once they've found a portal, after which, they'll be able to log in and out as the others.
✩ At the end of the event, the Queen will be revived and she will destroy the dragon spawn core, freeing everyone from the compulsion of playing.
✩ Credits and Prizes will be rewarded at the end of the gaming period. We'll put up an OOC post then, and ask for whoever feels they accomplished the mission to reply.
✩ Defeat of the dragons if your character managed them all can be handwaved, however, if your character is physically incapable of doing so, please do not say that they did just to get the credits and prizes (15,000 credits per dragon for all players in the party!).
✩ All participants, whether they accomplished the missions or not, will get prizes, so go on and slay some dragons!

Also, remember our NPCs? They'll show up at random to help and assist those that need it. If an NPC's help is urgently required, please put in a thread titled "Open to NPCs" and set it at the city center fountain within the game, and they will show up there to reply!

... and Ceres Inc would like to apologize for this glitch in gaming for the New Arrivals, and hope you will continue to help their research.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Seeing her own friends be twisted into something their not has caused her to grow silent as she walks around the terrane. Her body feels weak as her head pounds with questions she wishes she could ask them... and answers she wants to hear. It's a laughable joke in her face and the thought of someone pulling like that would normally make her sneer, but there's nothing she can do except go forward.

The sight of Ludger makes her brain switch over completely. She knows he's been suffering from the sickness and to see him here looking worse for wear makes her stomach drop, a hollowness resting in the icy pit of it. Her entire body tenses up. ]

Ludger! Wh—What are you doing here?! You should be resting!

Huh? [ her voice cuts through a haze of sorts, and takes him a moment to register. it's become hard to differentiate what's real and what isn't... especially as the strange visions he's been seeing have been getting more vivid. still, once he realizes there actually is someone talking to him, he smiles a bit weakly. ]

I'm alright. [ he tries to lift himself back up to his feet, though he quickly realizes his legs are a bit unsturdy at the moment. ] I heard the cure to whatever's going on is in here somewhere, so I came to try to find it.

...things didn't really go the way I'd planned though.

[ She places a hand firmly on his shoulder to get him to sit back down. She's definitely not as strong a soldier, but she's got the maternal stare that says he had better listen to her if he doesn't want to pay for it later. ]

You shouldn't be here. You don't know what'll happen if you...

[ Her expression falls. The word sticks on her tongue, she doesn't want to say die because one: she doesn't know how it works in ViViD and two: she's not sure she can face that again. Even if they're not good friends, she can't stand to watch another person to die. ]

[ a sigh. he wants to protest, but he knows she's right... especially after the last few horrific encounters he had to go through. but at this point, after doing so much he can't just turn back and log out now. ]

I know. [ he understands the implication, even if she doesn't finish the sentence. ] But if I don't do anything about... this condition... things are just going to get worse.

[ and if playing this game is only way he can make the hallucinations stop, its a small price to pay. ]

[ She sighs, her mind thrown off by what she's just witnessed and the worry she has for Ludger's condition. This whole thing has agitated her more than she wants to admit and it's hard for her to turn off her crankiness. ]

Will you just let me keep an eye on you? We can go through the rest of this game together.

Are you sure? I'll probably end up slowing you down.

[ he's not really opposed to it... company is always nice. but he doesn't want to put the people around him in danger, which is definitely the case at the moment. he can't really trust himself to act rationally to begin with, so he's been doing his best to stay somewhat isolated. ]

Of course I'm sure. I'm not much of a soldier, but... you are. Which means you can just give me some tips or somethin' to avoid... whatever those dragon things are.

[ She's already had one run-in with them, she would rather avoid another. ]

Let's just... try it, okay? If it doesn't work out then we can part ways.

We should probably leave the dragons to the others.

[ at least until he can get cured, anyway... and even then, he'd probably be in no state to go around fighting gignatic killer lizards. ]

Alright, deal. Just promise me if things get bad, you won't put yourself in any danger on my account.

[ Mary looks conflicted. Her eyes fall to the ground, then flicker in a couple of different other places surrounding them. What if Kimber was the one asking that? Or one of the Misfits? Even Naoi or Jason... she can't just leave someone behind when the going gets tough. That isn't like a Misfit at all... or Mary herself. ]

I—I can't promise you I will, but I'll... try.

[ She takes a couple steps back, giving him more than enough room. ]

[ he smiles a bit at her answer, doing his best to summon up whatever strength he has left in him. he's been resting for more than enough now... if he wants to get out of this mess, he needs to keep going until they reach the tree. ]

Alright. That's good enough for me. I must look pretty sorry right now, huh?

[ cover in blood and scales... yeah, he doesn't make for a particularly dashing figure at the moment. ]

Hey, don't worry about it! [ She grins. ] Even I have my bad days that the tabloids try to make look even worse.

[ She decides to take the lead, but hovers close by just in case he needs to rest or something may happen to him. Mary grows silent for awhile, listening to their steps against the path and the wind blowing through the trees. It's hard for her to believe a place this calm and beautiful holds so much disaster within it.

She understands that it's a game, but... still. It's still an extremely dangerous; one that enjoys taunting her too. ]

Back there... did you— see anything or anyone... strange? Like... someone who isn't here?

At least I don't have to worry about anything like that. I don't think I'm interesting enough for the media to go after...

[ ...admittedly back home he probably is, though his (in)famy hasn't really applied here thus far. no one thinks he's a terrorist, at least, which is probably a good thing.

he hesitates at her question, wondering how much he should say. ultimately he just nods a bit stiffly. ]

I saw my brother. I know he isn't really here, but... sometimes its hard to remember that. [ especially since the idea of his brother showing up here isn't really that farfetched. he has the same dimension hopping powers that he does, after all. ]

[ She bows her head and nods, looking down at the ground beneath her. Her entire body aches from walking and the armor she's wearing, but she has to beat this — it's the only way it will help him and Jason. If they can't get to it, then she will. ]

Yeah... my band showed up and for a second it really seemed like them, even some of the insults! But then...

[ Mary briefly closes her eyes for a couple of seconds and reopens them. ]

Guess that isn't really important now. What is is getting you that antidote!

...some of the insults?

[ he blinks at that, though he does kind of understand what she means. his own hallucinations weren't particularly pleasant either, or the... strange npcs he'd run into, for that matter ]

Yeah... I'm still getting the hang of this game though. It's kind of strange, it doesn't feel that different from being in the real world.

[ just... a bit more organized and mechanical, he supposes ]

[ Mary nods and falls into a lapse of silence, thinking it's not a good time to bring up the dynamic of her band in the middle of a simulation. Perhaps one day she will be able to talk about it without her chest hurting or feeling a hollowness within her entire body, but this is not the time nor place to consider that.

She flexes her fingers, looking down at them. It's her — wholly, completely, 100% her — but at the same time, it's still just a recreation of her. It holds all her traits, all her movement, the same speech patterns, and perhaps even her frame of thought. Even the rocky path beneath her, the textured bark against the trees, the feeling of the wind touching her cheeks all feels so real, but there's still something... disjointed about it all. What's underneath her skin if she's just a simulation? Is there any way that this can work for just more than playing games?

Her real self exists past all of this and she knows that's real, because she... ]

Yeah, me too, but... doesn't some of it just feel off to you? Not like in the sense that it's a game, but... it just doesn't feel like you no matter how much it looks and acts like you?

[ admittedly, he'd probably have a better sense of what she meant if he could trust his senses right now... but considering everything seems a bit off to him for the time being, it's hard to really differentiate. ]

I think I get what you mean... but it's all a little weird, isn't it? Like how this game works in the first place.

[ perhaps part of his discomfort with his current condition is based on the fact that he's in a virtual world... and this body isn't real. ]

If you get hurt here, you get hurt in the real world too, don't you? [ at that point it doesn't even seem like a "game" anymore. ]

I think, yeah... which is why we've gotta be careful, because if anything else worse happens then...

[ She doesn't let that get to her and she shakes her head, looking determined. Now that he's here alongside her, she has the advantage of keeping an eye on him and directing him where to go. The armor makes it hard for her to hold her head up completely, but a sudden confidence in her tone makes an appearance. The reminder of being a Misfit, of not allowing herself to be used like some doll, fills her with a vigor she had when she first arrived at that camp.

She's not going to let Jenna or vengeful spirits take that away from her when they've already taken away so much else. ]

But that won't happen, because we're gonna beat this. [ She looks over at him with a grin. ] Right?

[ he looks a bit taken aback at her confidence for a moment, before smiling and nodding. ] Right.

[ admittedly, he wasn't sure how things would go when he chose to enter the game looking for a cure... he'd always been the type to act first, think later. once he was in the game itself, so many problems had come up that he hadn't really had a chance to stop and think through what he was doing.

so, perhaps for the first time, he was actually beginning to feel optimistic about this entire excursion. ]

It's strange though, isn't it? This entire thing... why would the cure for something that happened outside the game be inside it? [ in fact, would ingesting something in a game really cure him outside of it? ]

I—I'm not really sure myself, but I don't know how virtual reality works. If we get hurt in the game, then we're hurt in real life, so I guess... whatever else happens to us in the game happens is real life too?

I don't understand it all, but you came in here with everything... [ She motions to his scales, her voice full of strong compassion for his ailments. Her brows furrow, looking worried yet again though the confidence hasn't left her one bit. ] Maybe if you get that antidote and leave with nothing, then it'll be the same outside of this.

Yeah... I guess even if it doesn't make sense, that's the way it is. A lot of this place is that way, now that I think of it.

[ ...he'll try not to think about it too much. he's used to things going over his level of understanding anyway. ] We'll just have to see. I don't know anyone else that's been cured yet... so right now all we can do is trust those messages.

They haven't let us down yet. Let's just hope that this isn't the time that they finally do...

[ There are tons of winding paths around this place that she has to wonder if they're even going in the right direction. She doesn't know what sort of markers to look for or places to reach that will give her some sign. The fear of being lost is one that prickles in the back of her mind, reminding her of horse rides and shipwrecks from times that now occur to her as dreams; cold sweat lies on her skin underneath the armor as she keeps herself standing steady with the weight of it protecting her.

When she looks up, she spots something in the distance: a large shadow... no, a silhouette that looks round and sturdy. Her eyes finally catch on that there are branches torquing through the golden sunlight. ]

Is that... a tree?

[ he nods, confirming her statement. on his own he wouldn't be sure if his eyes were playing tricks on him... but from a distance at least, that looks like a tree. ]

I think that's where we're supposed to go.

[ as usual, the npcs were rather vague about their instructions... but they had all mentioned something about a special tree. ]

We need the fruit from it... how do you think we should get it? [ no doubt there's some sort of test involved, but maybe they can bypass that entirely too. while he's usually not a fan of breaking the rules, he's pretty sure the current circumstances somewhat justify doing so. ]

[ She stops waling and looks over at it. The tree itself isn't very intimidating, but the mystery of what lies ahead of it makes her nervous. After all the dragons she's narrowly escaped and the people she's run into, the chance to be done with this and see everyone be safe is what keeps her goal of getting that antidote in the forefront of her mind.

It's the most she can do thanks to not being sick. ]

I doubt it's gonna be easy. We'll probably have to fight something, but maybe we'll get lucky and it'll be a puzzle instead...? Those usually show up in these kinds of things.

It'll definitely be a fight.

[ it's always a fight, as far his experience has gone. she might be right about that puzzle thing... but no, for whatever reason, he's pretty sure he's going to have to fight something. after all the hallucinations attacking him, at this point just having to fight something substantive shouldn't be a problem at all. ]

Don't worry... I might be out of it, but I should still be able to handle that much.

[ She knows he's right, but there's still hope that maybe they will get lucky and it'll be something else instead. Mary is already weary of death and fighting, even if it's virtual this time. Compassion rises upon her expression, but her voice is firm — she's not going to let him fight alone and there's no argument to be had about it. ]

Even if I'm not much of a fighter, I'll be here anyway. You won't have to do it alone.

phase ii

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