PHASE I [ 10 00 ] The “cleansing" doesn't begin too strangely. No, instead it starts with some minor inconveniences. After Mosley's broadcast, anything running on electricity seems to be… mildly on the fritz. Characters will find their home appliances suddenly rebelling just enough to be troublesome. Anything that uses electricity within the bounds of the colony will start suffering from some small malfunctions. (Do we have any cyborgs in the crowd tonight?) Toasters burning your breakfast and shooting the crispy things at you. Televisions suddenly exploding in a haze of smoke before working perfectly fine a moment later. Hair dryers suddenly running a little too hot and whoops, your hair's on fire… Well, this is all still just a small issue. Probably. Here's hoping the fire extinguisher doesn't run on electricity too?
PHASE II [ 1200 ] It's only glitches for a day or so, but by noon the next day, things get a little weird. We interrupt your regularly scheduled routine to bring you this important message: Welcome to ViViD. … Wait, what? Yeah, sorry about that. Whether you wanted to or not, you've found yourself in the virtual simulator… except it doesn't seem very… virtual anymore, no. The monsters look a bit meaner, and they seem to be after you in particular. You might suddenly be glitched into a dead end, or a level that actually doesn't seem to be beatable at all, with people you've never seen before as your party members. Endless mazes! Boss battles with a wooden sword! Dungeons with no walkthroughs! When you finally make it to the end, you might even find a giant wall blocking your way, or a moat where there was once a path. Now that's troublesome.
And make sure you don't get hurt by any of those monsters. Not like it matters, it's just HP, right? Wrong. Rather, it'll actually hurt quite a bit, just as if you were injured in real life.
If you're lucky, you'll find yourself glitched back out maybe half an hour later -- your wounds still fresh from the experience and still bleeding. Just don't die. You don't want to see what will happen if you die.
PHASE III [ 1800 ] It's the day after, and you've survived your unfortunate ViViD runs (though there's no promise that you won't end up there yet again). But for now, you've finished your work day without too many electrical object malfunctions, and you're on your way home. Normally the transit system is so very reliable. From district to district, the metro is your only way of travel and today? Today it's stopping with an ugly screech. Hopefully you don't need to be anywhere because it's safe to say that you're not getting off this ride any time soon. The lights aren't only flickering anymore, they're completely out. The darkness settles in uncomfortably as you're only left with the other people who were making the same trip. A second later, things start to get weird. Cold breath down your neck. The scratch of something sharp and angry against the outside of the cabin. Seconds pass in silence, the presence of something outside growing more and more frightening. If you hold your breath and stay very still, you might make it out just fine. That is until a forceful SLAM sounds behind you and there's something against your window. At least you know what's been making all that noise.
Of course, should you pry open the doors, there's nobody there, but… you couldn't have been imagining that, right?
Looks like the entire city's blacked out… and without the hum of technology and warmth of the advanced lighting system, some ghosts have come out to play. But they can only be seen from the corner of your eye, a glimpse, a breath, a nondescript whisper on the air and then they're gone. Who knows what they want from you…? Either way, they're not saying, staying just out of reach and mostly out of sight… but always there, watching and waiting.
PHASE IV [ 0000 ] Here you are, finally: day 4. You made your way through the dark, avoided the things that go bump in the night and found your apartment. Your pants are gone, your door is locked, and you've managed to stumble right into your bed/nest/cocoon/what-have-you. Your unbearably long day is finally, finally about to come to a close but then something glitches, worse than before. Suddenly you're not all cozy in your bed, but rather suspended in an unidentifiable space. In this darkness, there is screaming and only screaming. You try to move your limbs, use your voice -- and there is nothing. Rather, you can only look on as the space shifts and you see two figures appearing in the darkness, glowing in the same digital blue that lights up the rest of the colony. As you get closer, the screaming grows louder -- a woman's screams, you can hear now. It sounds garbled, like broken pieces of sound bytes. She's being strangled, you can see now. The other figure strangling her is a robot, metallic and ruthless. He turns to see you and his eyes glow with the same blue shine. As the woman -- LILITH, for those who have seen her or heard her voice may recognize -- finally begins to lose her strength to scream, the robot's mouth slowly spreads into a smile as he maintains eye contact, cold and yet somehow pleased.
In the next second, you have been returned to your body, echoes of screaming your only lullaby. Sleep doesn't seem as likely anymore, does it?
BONUS [ whyo'clock ] If at all possible, the darkness just got darker. How, you might ask? Well, it seems like someone just put a bag over your head! That's a little inconvenient, but it looks like you're suffering from an old school kidnapping at some point through these couple of days, complete with your assailants pushing you around asking, “Where the hell is the money?!" As they shove you into their shady kidnapper van, you can hear a certain song playing which is… a bit too on the nose for this situation. As the wheels of the vehicle stop and you're pushed out, the bag comes off and you're facing down your friendly neighborhood debt collector. He's slow to get his words out but they are very menacing indeed, something about threatening your family and sleeping with the alien fishes in the park. When you protest, insisting that you don't owe them any money, they pull out a CereVice and show your bank account, which does indeed seem to be approximately 50 million credits in debt.
They'll do this even if you're not in debt at all, and, in fact, it is impossible for you to be in debt, as CERES doesn't loan money to you people. Looks like the glitching did a number on your bank account though, and the numbers don't lie.
Looks like you're out of luck, friend. Why not have a friendly chat with the other half a dozen people who have been bagged and kidnapped as well? There's even a small table with snacks as you wait. Wait for what, they haven't exactly said yet. Maybe you should just leave through the window.
PENALTY [ xxxx ] Should you be unlucky enough to die in ViViD while it is glitching and injuries are being sustained, you will find yourself in a penalty game. Even more than usual penalty games, this one is increasingly unnerving. There is nothing but a dark room, a single light hovering over two masks on a table. One might recognize them as the masks of comedy and tragedy. In front of the player, red words slowly illuminate the room. Pick one. Well, that's an easy penalty game, isn't it?
Yet as you reach for one, the masks will suddenly turn into the faces of the two most important people to you. Their voices whisper, growing distressed as time goes on, “Pick me, pick me, pick me." The red words turn into a countdown if you take too long -- your hand forcibly moved to pick one mask or the other if the timer runs out. Yet once you put on the mask, you will see the person who was not picked, suddenly and brutally murdered right before your eyes by a shadowy figure, wearing the mask you chose.
With that, you will return to the colony, good as new. Though on occasion, you may see the person whose mask was not picked in the corner of your eye, dressed in black and wearing the very same mask of tragedy.
[ 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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i.
...Are you all right?
[He can't help but ask, expression only quizzical as he tilts his head.
He knew soda wasn't safe.]
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He's rubbing his poor abused shin when he wanders over, scowling at the vending machine that is now displaying "FxUCKe6r" on the screen for... whatever reason. He probably shouldn't have even tried.]
Yeah, I'm fine. It just surprised me. [No, it also hurt a lot...] I guess I should've expected something like this. Nothing has been working right all day.
[The ironic thing is he didn't even want soda... He wanted the coffee option....]
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No, it's fine. Leave it be....]
I've noticed some strangeness, but I wasn't expecting it to get this bad. I suppose I should have, knowing this place.
[What a pain. He thinks he was almost getting complacent a little, which is completely unacceptable.]
This will likely not be all we will have to deal with.
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Jude nods sympathetically.] No kidding. When things go awry here they really go awry. [It isn't just "this machine broke" it's "this machine broke and also caused a fire". Typical for this place, really, but not any less annoying.
But now he frowns, looking worried.]
You're right and I'm kind of worried about that. The hospital is a mess because of this. We can't help patients and some of them that depend on the machines there to heal are starting to really suffer from it. My healing artes can only do so much. [And even then there's a limit to it because he can only use so much mana before it's gone and he needs to rest and replenish.]
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...And if this situation grows any more dangerous, the hospital will be necessary.
[hm.]
I know there are others with healing magic here in this place. Are they aware of the hospital situation?
[If so, they can help--quantity would at least help Jude out a little.]
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So his suggestion is a good one.]
I don't know... but that's a good idea. Even someone without magic but medical knowledge at their disposal could help. The hospital can still hold people in rooms but we'll need a larger staff to take of them and to make up for the technology not working.
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... You already know Rolando. There is also Zara Skeens, a doctor. Seren suggested he may know healing magic. And Hinata Hajime is at least familiar enough with medicine and caretaking.
Those are all I know of who still remain, but there are a few names to go off of.
[There are times when it would probably be good to be more social, he's realizing, at least for situations like this.]
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Zara Skeens, Hinata Hajime... got it, thanks. I'll ask them and see if they can help out. [He smiles kindly.] Even two names are helpful in the end so... thanks.
[Leia doesn't count because he knows her already.... but still, he's grateful.]
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[It's an immediate and probably expectable answer. But Sousei really does believe it; he's just passing on information from someone who can't do anything with it (him) to someone who can do something useful with is (aka Jude). It's only natural.]
Being prepared for future circumstances such as these will only help us all in the future.
[This is just pragmatic and in no way altruistic so don't think otherwise okay!!!]
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So he just smiles, thankful nevertheless.]
You're right about that. It might be good to have a back up plan from now on. I got too comfortable depending on the machines here and now peoples' lives might be at risk. [Not that it's all his fault but he feels responsible about it anyway.]
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