//SCENARIOS.EXE
PHASE I [ 16 00 ] At 4:00 PM, the lightly falling snow will stop and no sounds will be heard.
What will be heard is faint sound of ‘hohoho’ and ‘sleigh bells’ faintly in the distance distinctly in one direction but when you turn that way it seems to disappear and you can’t pick up a trace of sound. It will keep occurring intermittently no matter where you are and each interval of 15 minutes, it will sound as if it’s gotten closer but the same things will occur.
by 6:00 pm, when it sounds really close (like right behind the character or next to them), when they turn they’ll hear the sound of laughter that comes from someone they greatly admire or care about to one side of them. However, unlike how everything else has disappeared, that person remains and even seems to recognize they are there. At first, it seems well enough as they will ask innocent questions such as “What are you looking around for?” and if told the truth, their important person will kindly brush them off as joking and tell them they are imagining it. If told ‘nothing’, the important person will prod them with curiosity (you can have it be annoying, whiny, friendly--however that character would most likely nag them to let them in, including things said such as “you can tell me”).
Regardless of choice from there, the person will eventually decide to assist in locating this sound, as your character will hear it once more and from the sudden surprise on the other person’s face it seems they may have heard it, too.
At 6:30pm, the person will give up, suggesting you guys go back (go home, go shop, go eat, whatever the character would suggest as something fun and interesting. if they are the type of character who would just simply part ways with the other and say they will meet them back somewhere else, that’s fine, too!) In the end, they will start to walk past the PC if they are in front of them, but as soon as they are behind him the PC will get a hand on the shoulder and pulled to be whispered to by that person in the ear (or any variant of it at the player’s discretion to sound more like said individual): “You always did have a habit of looking for the things you can never find. A trait of only the most worthless.” followed by a strong wind that drowns out laughter of the person when they came, but this time much crueler. The wind is gale force so the character will not in any way be able to turn around fast enough to see whether the person walks off or disappears.
Looking to the ground, there are footprints, though, that suggest that person was there. Unfortunately, the snow is light and not wet, so unless the character looks quickly they may miss the evidence. And with the wind starts the heavy wet snow, increasing until blizzard conditions are reached.
OOC NOTES:
- If doing this prompt, people who tag into other people’s top levels can choose if they also have an important person that’s come to them in the same way or they can simply be alone.
- Both characters can see each other’s important persons (assuming the individual tagging the top level has one), and they will treat the other PC polite enough but would do what they normally do with strangers while around their PC. Players might want to take the opportunity to do some simple ‘npcing’ of their character’s important person in relation to the tags their top levels receive or the tagged into, but it is by no means required. Just one more potential thing you can add to your threads if it helps or will be more fun/interesting ).
- If any player-characters would happen to have the same important person, the player-character entering the thread will have their version start to slow down in their movements until they are behind them and no longer keeping up. When they turn around to look for them, they won’t be there any longer, but they will be fully acknowledged by the spectre and act as if the newly arrived isn’t remembering correctly (they ran ahead to find the player they are with now or etc.)
- The spectre should at least be believable to be able to cause doubt on whether it is real or in their heads or some other type of trick. If directly asked, the NPC will never quite say one way or another, but sort of be sympathetic to their uncertainty or laugh it off or dismiss it… again, however that character’s NPC would react to being doubted.
- It doesn’t have to be their “MOST IMPORTANT” person. Just someone that they are close enough to that their opinions matter/the player character really misses/they would be bothered by them not finding them worth anything/etc.
PHASE II [ 1700 ] Now that blizzard conditions have suddenly come into play, including white outs, all that lighting doesn’t seem to be much help (and that’s before any lighting finally ends up blowing out due to the conditions). You might want to look for that person that was with you, because you swore you saw footprints in the dry snow before it was all erased with the force of the wind.
Traveling outside may be more dangerous than you intend, however, not because of the cold, but because you can’t see who’s (or what) coming at you nor who’s (or what) coming behind you… or from any other direction, either.
Pretty convenient for an accidental murder in the form of a hit and run by a moving vehicle.
...Or a sleigh speeding forward by the work of nine reindeer and equipped with saw-blades used for ice cutting in place of the normal runners. You will want to get out of the streets as fast as you can because, while you will not be consistently chased, increased attempts at various times will be made on your life the longer you stay out.
While your character is welcome to run into the nearest place they can or continue to stay outside despite being an intended murder victim, the combination of the disorienting whiteout along with the sleigh attacks will strategically attempt to push characters towards the large mall that has been now shut down for the evening. They will find the doors unlocked and most likely others there that have be also driven here by the same situation. Somethings not right, though. Because the mall suddenly doesn’t look the way it once did, especially if you were just there earlier in the day. You are about to find out that the lot of you aren’t much safer, inside, either. Be prepared to run or fight your way out.
PHASE III [ xxxx ]
Depending which side of the mall you enter from depends on the layout of the mall and what you’ll be finding. Please note Cerealia’s mall is incredibly large so it would be quite the effort to go from one end to the other. However, it is possible, and if you reach the middle of the mall, the two variations of the mall will collide with one another. Once you step over into the other version, whatever dangers you faced from the other side will cease. However, now you have the other sides dangers to face, as well.
3A: WARM
The mall looks as if it’s been abandoned suddenly—there are no guards or any sign of movement initially. Despite the power being out, you will actually be able to search if your characters want to and get the power to turn back on. Be aware that turning the power back on in the mall will result in a change noted below for both prompt 3A and 3B.**
Regardless of whether you turn the lights on first or stay in the dark, you will find the multi-levels of the mall scattered with various gifts, left for all of you as gratitude for complying with coming to the mall. These may or may not be your definition of a gift, however. Every package is addressed to someone who has shown up at the mall, yourself included. While wandering by a gift that doesn’t have your name on it will do nothing, doing the same for one that does… Merry Christmas to you! Santa’s elves will be busting out of the packages and will solely be focused on you and you alone. They’ll be sporting just about anything and everything you could think of they could use to harm you, but it’ll be in the form of a creepy toy or candy (to try and choke/suffocate you with if they manage to get close enough to you to do it)—basically anything that could be harmless but is now not, but they will avoid any direct death methods. Their intention is incapacitate you to the point they can eat you. Note they are not easy to kill, but they are killable. However, there will always be at least one elf out chasing you. You might want to team up to take these guys out. (think of them as the hardest normal enemy on a map for your level).
Whether you turned the lights on yourself or not, at some point the lights will come on and make your lives more festive: different elves will be appearing on the upper floors with just about and every possible projectile weapon. There is probably even a canon or two, as well, so watch out! But probably nothing bigger than a canon… and no rocket launchers because there would be no fun in that if everyone died too quickly during playtime. These types of elves are more numerous but they are easier to dispatch and do not have a specific target. They also don’t care if they kill you, but they are more likely to try and slow you down so they can watch you become dinner for one of the bigger ones.
3B: COLD
The other side of the mall looks like quite a bit different and in heavy disrepair.
It is also possible (although more difficult) from this side of the mall to turn on lights (even if the lights will be a lot less numerous than on the other side of the mall.) There are no christmas decorations here, just the snow littering the wrecked structure. Even though it is clear there is a hole in the roof, for some reason the blizzard outside is not through it. Instead it’s just a quiet and light snowfall.
But this is side of the mall where there are LESS, but quite a bit more dangerous enemies. The elves that appear are identical to the ones in packages on the other side of the mall, however, they do not sport weapons other than their sharp teeth and claws (despite pictures, these features aren’t super noticeable on the ones on the other side of the mall like this side until they get at your throat). They are also faster and while they also want to eat you, they don’t care if they rip you apart in the process before getting to eat. All-in-all this would be a lot more of a visually gruesome death to experience as well as watch as the victim will end up in pieces. Since these are a little stronger than their counterparts hiding in the presents, there also aren’t as many (probably 1 for every two characters at all times). They would be the strength of a small mini-boss.
But, it won’t be long because you hear some inhuman snorts and growls that don’t sound very animallike, either. looking up you’ll find that it looks like Santa’s let his 9 reindeer out for the hunt and they’re coming in after you.
There’s only 9 of them (you know dasher, dancer…etc. etc..), but they are each the strength of a harder mini-boss. They withstand a lot of damage and the more injury they take, the more aggressive/frenzied they become. They will eat you/tear you apart/trample you/impale you with their antlers, whatever. While you’ll see them come in from the roof, they act like predators and use the shadows and disrepair of the mall to their advantage to try and corner you and otherwise surprise you. Your best chance with them is to stick together as one of you alone won’t be able to kill one of them), but they will make every effort they possibly can to separate all of you to take you each out one by one (and, why yes, the reindeer will gang up on you once they separate you like a little lamb from its heard…).
This side of the mall is definitely a team-effort survival trip. Each reindeer is slightly different in its methods, but who can really tell the difference when things are at this stage? Rudolph IS THE BOSS OF THE PACK… taking him out first will help your characters greatly, although he’s also the most difficult (and your characters would have to icly figure out killing him will actually help them out, too).
***CONCERNING TURNING ON THE LIGHTS (PROMPTS 3A + 3B): If characters on either side end up turning the lights on manually, they will also end up releasing a creature that is unkillable and will stalk your characters until you are too far away from it and it gives chase to another (so you have to run away when it finds you). The trick to encountering it the least amount of times is to constantly keep moving, although this will make any strategic things difficult against other problems being faced. It is possible to stun it/slow it down temporarily to aid in characters escaping when it shows up if the character has the ability to do it (summons, magic weapons, superhuman strength characters, etc).
This monster is also the only one that will not cease its attacks and ignore you should you cross between the center of the mall. So, yes, if it’s chasing you and you run straight through… it’s gonna CHASE YOU STRAIGHT THROUGH into the other version/side of the mall, so don’t stop D: !!
PHASE IV [ xxxx ]
And if you didn’t run to the mall, or didn’t get chased by santa’s killer sleigh, or heck, maybe you stayed inside your apartment all day? Don’t feel too safe for too long. If you aren’t celebrating christmas properly, aka in an area (a building, an office, a bathroom stall, your apartment, your bed etc etc) that is lacking either a Christmas Tree or the proper milk and cookies for Santa to assist him while he is so busy this night, he’s not going to be happy. Which means, he’s going to come punish you for your lack of respect for the hardworking. It doesn’t pay to be impolite to your elders, you know. This is why we can’t have nice things.
The room/area has to have both the Christmas Tree and the milk & cookies in order to be safe. This is literally the only way to keep Santa from coming at you with a machete like a jolly serial-killer. He starts with a machete, but he can pull just about anything out of his toy sac (semi-automatic machine gun, you got it…). Because Santa is magical, he is unkillable and you can’t injure him, either. The best you can do is break his weapons to stall him and hide, but he’ll stalk around looking for you, telling you what a naughty boy/girl you’ve been and now you’re hiding from the consequences! You can hide from him under beds, in lockers, closets, etc, and while he won’t open any of those things unless you make noise to alert him, he will leave. Don’t stay in the hiding spot for too long, though, because he will come back and that time he will find you.
The trick to getting off of Santa’s murder list? While he disappears once he’s lost sight of you (maybe 15-20 minutes is the grace period that he’ll leave you alone), get a christmas tree and get those milk and cookies out. OR run to a place that has both of these things.
While Santa is chasing/stalking you, he will talk to you and give hints on what the characters need to do to be spared (things along the lines of “good little girls and boys always leave Santa milk and cookies for his long journey” and “where is your christmas spirit? not even a christmas tree for old santa to put his gifts under.” etc etc.).
Once you complete this, he will return and be planning to be murderous once more, but once he sees the tree and cookies he will immediately stop and be extremely jolly and forget you in favor of the cookies in milk as well as putting a couple presents under the tree like he didn’t just terrorize the living snot out of you with sharp objects. And then he’ll be heard with his trademark commentary for those familiar with the Santa Claus lore: “MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL GOOD NIGHT…” and disappear without (anymore, or at least, yours) bloodshed.
BONUS [ whyo'clock ]
{ there isn't a bonus this event, apologies! but we will do our best to remedy this for you guys on the upcoming test drive by connecting it to something appropriately traumatizing for mental processing. Please stay with us :D! }
[ 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. ]
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Open
[The snow is a familiar backdrop for Jade. Even more familiar is the figure who appears within it.
Come see Jade as he confronts this scientist, with a demeanor that's less consistent than usual, as if fluctuating between trust and suspicion.]
[Phase II]
[Jade will offer cover to people stranded out in the snow. If anyone wants to be under his command as part of a search party, feel free to assume that. For the most part, he'll try to target the sleigh as it passes with his fonic artes. After that encounter in the snow, now he is more driven and pretty much all-business in taking on the enemy.]
[Phase III-b]
[Jade ends up on the cold side of the mall
reflecting his heartand he'll be ready to take command in the fights here as well. He'll try to observe the movements of the reindeer to form battle strategies.He'll seek out people in need, but he'll also call for the help of others as he prepares fonic artes.]
Cover me for about one minute. That's all I need.
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With her only weapon in a hand, a meager knife, she'll brace herself for any incoming attacks as best she can. Panicked though she may be, she observes their movements and narrowly dodges when she can see patterns. Essentially, she's playing the bait. She's definitely more defensive than offensive.
For now, she's okay with that.
Come on, Jade...]
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Jade gathers his fonons and watches his former rescuee in action once more. But when the time comes, he calls out to her.]
Katherine! Pull back! [She doesn't have fon slots, so he can't give her friend-or-foe markings. That means he has to make sure that she doesn't get hit in the fonic arte which is now nearing completion.]
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She won't make him say it twice. Dodging one last charge from Rudolph, the leader of the pack with the obnoxious nose, she dashes to the opposite side where he'd come from, staying behind Jade.]
Go!
[Before they all scatter and try to split the two of them up!]
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O flames of Hell, bring unto them the wrath of the lord of fire! Flare Tornado!
[A cyclone of flame forms, enwrapping the reindeer and scorching them severely. Jade immediately dashes forward with spear in hand to try to finish off any of the survivors.]
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She can't tell which reindeer it is. It doesn't seem like she cares...]
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That's the one!
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Only one of them has a nose like that. "Rudolph," the leader.
Katherine jolts back when the spear pierces him, and she throws her knife, hoping to blind him. She flinches, but forces herself to watch... and meanwhile, the other reindeer seem to be letting out ugly cries, their fur ablaze. It's like nails on a chalkboard, but at least they can focus... for now.
They all sound angry.]
3b
[ This guy is either overconfident or overpowered. Either way, Mitsutada can work with that. ]
I can try. Don't hit me, that's all I ask.
[ He's had practice fighting in teams, but only with fellow swordsmen. As for magic... being a spirit, he'd have some resistance against it, but not much. The elves are little different from the small demons that he fights for a living, so that's easy - but the reindeer might be coming this way.
So off he goes, moving with frightening accuracy for someone who looks human. There are a couple of bleeding gashes here and there, but he doesn't seem to notice them. ]
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I suppose I'll try to be careful... [He says that with just a hint of sarcasm as he watches the figure in action. The speed, the accuracy - it's all very interesting to observe. Definitely not a typical fighter.]
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If Jade watches closely, he will be able to tell that Mitsutada compensates very well for his one-side blindness. He instinctively guards his right side, seeming to not need vision to tell him when a beast approaches in that direction. His strikes are not as rapid as a wakizashi or a tantou's, but once he does make a move it is with blinding speed and force. ]
What're you gonna do?
Very sorry for the late!
I'm preparing a powerful attack. You'll need to step back once it nears completion.
it's okay!!
[ And then he's back into the battle - this time changing his strategy a little to manage the flow of elves. He uses the objects around them as shielding now, funneling the little beasts into small groups before cutting them down all at once. He figured that having them in one place would help Jade with whatever he was doing - and it's less tiring for him as well. ]
iii
Then a minute you shall have.
[She says as she channels her magic into the bow, a gift from Archer, and a bright set of flares are unleashed from it to disorient any nearby monsters. In the same breath, she looses all three arrows to try to slow them down.]
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He works on gathering his fonons while he observes her. The reindeer do seem to be partly disoriented/slowed down a bit by her strikes, but it won't last for long. They're ready to continue their offensive.]
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Intermittently, she channels her focus into the bow, more sudden flashes of light to blind the reindeer and disorient them, followed right after with--]
Gallant Barrage!
[though honestly she really would prefer having a frontline to cover]
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So Jade's doing his best to prepare the attack as soon as possible. Just hold out a little longer, Natalia... He made sure to limit break before he asked this of her, after all.]
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Though even as she's counting down and it's getting dangerously close to a minute, she can't help her frustration as the beasts get closer--]
Any time now would be nice....!
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And finally, at this moment, it is ready. And he begins to chant.]
O admonishing melody... Rise in the name of the Necromancer!
[A gigantic ball of energy forms surrounding the majority of the monsters, entrapping them. Luckily, Natalia's friend mark should keep her safe from harm.]
Mystic Cage!
[With that, a shimmering explosion wipes out or severely injures all of the monsters caught within it, as Jade gives a rather pleased smile.]
Now know what true power is!
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iii-b!
[Can she hold out that long? She's had a little time to recover after her unfortunate run-in with an elf so soon after her arrival, but she thinks she can manage. She'll just have to do what she can.]
Right. Leave it to me!
[Her stores of Psynergy are still low, so she calls on her Djinn. That's as good a start as any - it'll be enough to target more than one of them at once, too.]
Jupiter, I need you!
[There's a rush of wind before the summon sequence is complete, but it's a near instantaneous thing; first-level summons are easy. She waits for the elemental energy to clear and watches with narrowed eyes to see how the reindeer are holding up.]
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But once the energy clears, it's hard to say if they were truly hurt; rather, they seem even more aggressive than before.]
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Physically, she isn't that strong. If she'd thought to bring a mace it might have been of use here, but even a mace won't truly offset her lack of upper body strength. Her skill lies in magic, so even though her stores of Psynergy are low, she draws on it quickly again while backing up. She doesn't want to take a hit from one of those things - she has no idea how much strength they posses.]
Go to sleep!
[This particular spell is meant to make them do exactly that, but who knows if it'll do anything more than make them momentarily woozy. The reindeer seem a lot more resilient than she's prepared to face.]
I am very sorry for this lateness!
The spell does seem to have affected the reindeer on one level - they seem to be slowing down. And one, which is likely the weaker of the group, looks particularly drowsy.
Jade calls back reassuringly.]
Just a little bit longer! Be prepared to step back when I give the signal!
III-b
[She's got her assault rifle out by this point, and she's trying to conserve her bullets but she's got to keep the reindeer back.
...Which isn't something a little Throw can do, so she uses one on a reindeer that's gotten too close.]
So sorry for this lateness!