Lightning flashes. Thunder booms and rain patters on the roof. It’s all about ambience here in ViViD, of course. You gotta set the mood!
Welcome to the Pleasurable Super Youthful Caring Hospital Stage, PSYCHward for short. It works, shut up. It’s a stage created for your well-being, health and happiness. Be careful, though. The first step you take in the dilapidated asylum carries you right into a puddle.
Look down, and the puddle is red.
Ah.
Of course it’s blood.
It’s only going to get even more fun from here.
 Good Day. I Am The New Introducer For ViViD Levels. Mosley? Who's That?
Anyway, Please Have Fun And Remember To Be Safe. Safety Is Our First Priority At CERES.
Thank you. Enjoy.
|
PHASE I [ 4 00 ] The first room any people familiar with the ViViD song and dance routine will find is one that is...wonderfully full of body bags. Body bags everywhere -- on the floor, on the shelves, uncomfortably tossed over the back of a chair...and each body bag has a helpful tag.
Handy.
Of course, within each bag is a newcomer; they won’t be able to escape the body bags until someone else unzips them. They’re dressed in little more than hospital gowns, toe tags still attached to bare feet.
Welcome to ViViD! Enjoy your stay.
Of course, there has to be an element of surprise to it. Some body bags contain living, breathing newcomers, yes. But the others?
These contain corpses. The toe tag on them indicates a loved one or someone important to you -- or someone you hate beyond all else. You open the bag, and there is their face, achingly familiar and frozen in death...but blink and suddenly they’re the corpse of a nondescript stranger.
PHASE II [ 600 ] Step out of that room and now it’s the asylum proper. Lights flicker. It’s dark, but it’s still more than clear to anyone with ears -- something’s stalking everyone in this place.
The shadow flickers on the wall, the lights go out -- you turn a corner and there it is, jumping out at you with an unearthly cackle --
A puppet.
It hangs there limply, utterly harmless.
All around the facility, these harmless puppets lurk. In lockers, behind doors, in dark halls…
But they’re all literally inanimate and harmless. Whose dumb idea was that?
PHASE III [ 1000 ] But slowly, the atmosphere changes. Go in deeper, and the sounds around deaden until there’s nothing left but the dark all around and the sound of your own breathing. And yet, irrevocably you know, whether as an aspect of the level or something else entirely --
Something is actually hunting you now.
It makes no noise. It can’t be seen. But it’s stalking, and it’s on the hunt.
To make matters worse, now the asylum seems to have become a proper maze, with dead ends everywhere, and practically no light to see them by.
And the only other souls you’ll see are the other people stuck in the maze -- but there’s something not quite right about them either. You can see...bits of their code, lurking under the surface of their skin, and as you watch, it’s being corrupted, bit by bit, the longer they’re in the dark.
If you look down, it’s happening to you too.
Better hurry.
There’s only one way out.
PHASE IV [ 1400 ] And then you step through a doorway into light.
You escaped the maze, but this is an asylum, and you’re about to see why. There are rows upon rows of cages of aliens. They cry out and reach out through the bars with webbed or clawed hands or tentacles, begging for release.
Let them out, or don’t -- the exit to Cerealia proper is right there at the end of this room, inviting and safe.
But if you do elect to let them out, the entire room suddenly goes silent.
And there, in that cage you opened, there is no longer an alien, but instead a doll. And it’s watching you. Stay any longer, and the doll with start to move, reaching -- and if it touched you, suddenly you’re the one locked away behind bars.
On the plus side, when you take the exit to Cerealia, it’ll deposit you in the Pleasure District, where massagebots will reach for you to try to drag you in for a sensual massage.
Welcome!
PENALTY [ ???? ] You were caught in the maze.
It’s hard to say even now what it was that caught you, but now you’re strapped down to an operating table, and there’s a flat-faced doctor standing above you.
The restraints can’t be broken.
There’s a prick of a needle, and you fall unconscious -- and that’s probably a mercy. When you wake up, you’ll be back in the asylum somewhere, but missing a sense -- the one from your character’s application will be gone. A character who is sight will have been blinded, for instance, and a character who is touch will feel nothing. This will last until they log out of ViViD and get into Cerealia.
[ 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. ] |
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. Thank you! |
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III
At least this was ViViD, and there was a chance of making his way out of here, but the ever persistent feeling of someone watching him and stalking him wasn't a welcome one, bringing up one too many unpleasant memories of his own during his own group adventure. Maybe if it was that ghost again, he could try to bargain with it for some info before it inevitably tried to kill him, but--
The sudden sound of someone else's voice makes him start for a moment, too lost in his own thoughts and concerns to notice anyone else around. That was not a good thing, wasn't it? Looking over his shoulder, he spots a dim, familiar face, recognizing the boy from his first ViViD encounter, but-- that's not the only reason why it looked familiar. He kind of looked similar to somebody else he knew, a little like... Mabel, maybe? But now wasn't the time to dwell on that.]
Yeah? Good to know. And here I am without my fancy glowing pebbles, too.
[... he's not even kidding, he'd kill to somehow get his rock back from Hiro to break it right now for this.]
You got any nifty thing to mark our paths with?
no subject
Still, there's strength in numbers, whether it's figuring a way out of this place or fighting off a monster of the dark - or just having someone to outrun. Unfortunately for Dipper, he will probably end up being the one outrun. ]
Just my head. That's all we need though. [ WHAT, he's just being honest. ] I'm pretty good at figuring out mazes.
no subject
He just gives Dipper a flat look at his answer, however, not entirely sure if he's just been insulted.]
Is that so? I really hope you're not talking out of your ass, kid, since I'm getting real sick and tired of mazes already.
[There's a small sigh, and he reaches up to scratch at his head. Man, it's bad when he wishes Kuwabara of all people were here. He may have been a lump, but he was a lump who had a sharp enough sixth sense to sense his way out of these things.]
Which way, then?
no subject
[ Assuming the monster doesn't catch them first, anyway. He can figure out a maze, but he proooobably can't outrun a monster.
He nods towards the right. ]
I haven't tried this path yet. We really can only use trial and error to find our way out of here, so I know a lot of ways not to go.
no subject
Fine. It's not like I got any better options at the moment.
[He starts towards the path Dipper indicates, eyes adjusting to the long, dark hallway.]
How're you so sure these aren't ones you already checked out, though? They all look the same to me.
no subject
Hey, I don't have to help you, you know. I could ditch you and then where would you be?
[ Sure, Yusuke may not have any better options, buuuuut that doesn't change the fact that Dipper is still a great option to have!!
He sighs. ] I'm keeping track of the paths in my head. A mental map. It's not that complicated.
no subject
That's my line. Unless you got a personal dream of becoming monster food, anyway.
[He lets out a huff of his own, reminding himself that arguing wasn't exactly the best idea right now.]
Sounds like a headache to me, but hey, if you're that confident about it, all the power to you.
[One of the perks of having heightened spirit energy was the ability to see fairly well in the dark, and now that Yusuke's eyes have adjusted enough, he glances over towards Dipper again, the weird hat of his looking awfully familiar. Didn't Mabel draw someone with something like that a while ago? And his face really did look a lot like hers...]
... uh. Don't think I'm weird or anything, but... you got a sister? I swear I've seen that dumb hat before, and it wasn't when I accidentally dropped a tree on you.
no subject
Hopefully this would be the former, but who knows what Mabel's told this guy about him? ]
Actually...yeah, I do. Twin sister. Let me guess - you know her.
<small[ MABEL KNOWS EVERYONE. But for as dry as he sounds, Dipper doesn't actually mind the conversation all that much. It keeps him from focusing too much on their circumstances. ]
no subject