« 015 ⇢ EVENT015.EXE »

[reparator]

Who: CERES, you, and your little dog CYbuddy too!
When: OOC: 6/11 to 6/17th | IC: 1/18 to 1/21
Where: The Greater Cerealia Area/ViViD Shenanigans
What: Event log
Rating/Warning: PG-13/R for possible violence! Let us know if the log needs to be locked or if any issues pop up, thanks!

//event014.EXE

Perhaps it's easy to take the accommodations of Cerealia for granted, even for those who come from worlds that are considerably less technological in nature. Aside from that one nasty hiccup on Halloween, everything moves smoothly in terms of everyday appliances. One can come to take the soft glow of LED lights and hum of machines for granted if you've been in the colony long enough. The metro runs on a regular schedule and you'll very rarely find yourself late for appointments. Schedules run on a universal clock and appliances for your every need and desire can be conveniently supplied by CERES. Life is good. Really. Yet with the rocky transition to the new CEO, it would appear as though the colony is experiencing some minor… glitches? Well, surely it's nothing to worry about. Nothing can be as bad as the fiascos that residents found themselves dealing with under the old management. Continue on with your day, it's fine. An announcement made by Mosley, who you may recognize as the secretary of the new CEO, will echo the same sentiments with a broadcast from your CereVice: “Good day, residents. This is Mosley. Please pardon any minor hiccups in your commute or quaint mundane activities today. In accordance with the transition, we are also doing some pre-emptive spring cleaning, I suppose you could say. A few bugs were found crawling where they shouldn't in the city's infrastructure. Isn't that positively horrific? They really let this place fall apart. You needn't worry, in a few days everything will be as pristine as it should be. Think of this as a cleansing for all of us. Goodbye."

//SCENARIOS.EXE

PHASE I [ 1000 ] 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. ]

//RUN.EXE

Welcome to Cerealia's June event! Please visit the OOC information here, and should you have any questions, feel free to ask them here! You can also check the FAQ for more general inquiries. This event will last from June 11th to June 17th, or IC 1/18 to 1/21. Should this event log hit Captcha, there is an all-purpose overflow here. Thank you!

Comments

ota

[sewayaku]

PHASE I

[ Thus far, Zara has been able to get through his day without any major malfunctions, and if you asked him, he wouldn't even say that anything was off about today. Sure, the refrigerator sort of fired a few ice cubes at him when he opened it this morning, but that was just a random mishap. Maybe it was normal for refrigerators. He doesn't know!

More pressingly, the refrigerator had been noticeably on the empty side when he'd finished picking up ice cubes and fnially peered inside; seeing as he has the day off today, he figures he may as well get some errands done. He's made it to the grocery store safely, in what may be the biggest streak of good luck he's ever had in his life.

Naturally, it doesn't last.

He's innocently standing in the checkout line when, without warning, the sprinkler systems switch on in the supermarket, instantly dousing everybody in the building. ]

W -- What is the meaning of this?!

PHASE III

[ The week only got worse after that. But, as always, he managed to survive the worst of it, although not without earning his fair share of cuts and bruises. And that's not mentioning the stress. Zara's lived through several of CERES' "experiences" by now, but this one is by far the worst. The darkness is oppressive, the lack of electronics is isolating, and he has the distinct feeling that something else is out here with them.

Once he's out onto the streets, he's left trying to navigate back to his house in near darkness. As a rabbit, he has an excellent sense of direction... but that can only get him so far without being able to actually see landmarks. Instead, he's forced to rely on his ears almost entirely. Hesitant, nervous, he moves quickly through the city, trying not to jump at every faint sound and sensation. There's something else out here. He's certain.

One noise, closer than the rest, catches his attention, and he's sure he's not imagining this one; mustering up all his bravery, he calls out: ]

Who's there? Show yourself!

[ the sound of a weapon being unsheathed can be heard. ]

phase iii

[helmsplitter]

[He wasn't going to admit it. Nope. Not a single thing could ever get him to admit that he was completely, hopelessly lost. Not. A. Single. Thing.

Except for the sound of a weapon being unsheathed ahead of him.

Dotanuki zeroes in on that sound and prepares to draw his as well. The tachi was still smarting from his own run-ins with ViViD recently, and he wasn't about to let something get the drop on him.]

You might wanna put that thing away before you get yourself hurt.

[sewayaku]

[ that at least tells him that it's another human and not some kind of ethereal monster again. He wonders if that's better or worse. For finding another living being out here in the dark, the other guy certainly doesn't sound too friendly.

Tense, Zara slowly sheathes his blade, although not all the way. His ears let him pinpoint where Dotanuki probably is, at least. ]

My apologies. I thought you might be another creature.

[helmsplitter]

[Well, close enough to human. He can hear the blade slide back into the sheath, but he doesn't hear it click and that makes him wary. He doesn't want to get too close if the guy is going to attack.]

Well, I'm not, so you can put that thing away for real now.

[He stepped further out, but makes sure to hang back just outside of attack range.]

If you're really sorry, that is.

[sewayaku]

[ they're both "close enough to human" for it to work for him. At the testy reply, Zara simply sighs, and there's the sound of the hilt clicking into the sheath. Though he's not the most trusting sort, he trusts other people far more than he trusts whatever's crawling out in the dark right now. ]

There's no need to be so suspicious. I'm an honest rabbit. [ pause. ] Are you lost, as well?

[helmsplitter]

overflooow

i

[floralprophecy]

[Labrador happens to be standing in line behind him and is equally doused...]

... there seems to be a lot of malfunctions today. We'd better get out of here before we catch a cold.

[sewayaku]

[ but his groceries...!

No. The boy is right. Standing here getting wet won't do him any good - although he doesn't even understand why there's water raining from the ceiling. They didn't have sprinkler systems in medieval times. Zara's ears flex back on his head. ]

Malfunctions? Is that what's causing this -- indoor rain? What in the world could be the function of that?

[floralprophecy]

[Lab nods and points upwards.] Those... [What were they called again. The flowers at the flower shop have told him about them before.] ... sprinklers are not working properly. They're there in case there's an indoor fire.

[sewayaku]

{ Ah. Fire protection. That's actually a useful and sensible invention that would doubtless save many lives in the case of a real emergency.

However, right now, all it's doing is making this bunny and his shopping soggy. He wrinkles his nose, then hastily bends down to drop his basket on the floor before turning towards the door. ]

Well, there's certainly no fire here. What a useless bunch...

[floralprophecy]

[Labrador does the same and heads towards the door as well.]

It seems like a lot of things are malfunctioning today... I hope they get everything all fixed soon.

[sewayaku]

Are they? Wonderful. These futuristic contraptions are utterly unreliable.

[ they step outside, and he shakes his head to dry off his ears a bit, sending some water flying, before reaching up to wring out some of his hair. ]

Or our captors are, I suppose.

[floralprophecy]

Yes. But the ones in charge are working on fixing them so we'll just have to be patient. The lady now in charge seems nice enough.

[Lab tries wringing the water out of his hair and clothes, then he sneezes. He gets cold very easily unfortunately since he's technically dead.] I guess we should get a change of clothes or at least dry up as soon as possible.

i.

[deontology]

[Sousei doesn't usually do the grocery shopping.

Now he's reminded why. He's soaked, ponytail dripping even as he squints up at the ceiling and. Slowly scowls. He almost misses Zara's question, but...well, a moment later he processes it, shaking his head (and flinging water with his ponytail).]

It seems we are dealing with more malfunctions.

[sewayaku]

[ gently splattered with ponytail water... but he won't even complain, he's too confused by the fact that there's water at all. Zara can't seem to decide between trying to cover his groceries and cover himself, and he's left sort of hunched over his basket, one hand hovering uselessly over his head (his ears are getting soaked anyway.) ]

Whatever it is, they need to turn it off right now! This is ridiculous!

[deontology]

I am not certain they can. Come on. It is better to leave.

[Sorry about the ponytail water--but with that, Sousei's turning on his heel to leave the store, because this is nonsense. They may as well get out of there before they get drenched further...... regardless of the state of their grocery shopping.

It's nice enough outside, anyway. Well. Screeching technology aside.]

[sewayaku]

[ for a moment, he stands there, clearly conflicted about what to do - he really did need groceries. But the cashiers are all in a panicked confusion, too, nobody is moving, and he's getting sopping wet. It's really, truly not worth it, despite what his sense of duty wants him to think

So, after a moment of staring after Sousei's back, Zara drops his basket on the ground, hurrying after the other man outside. ]

Ugh... What in the world happened in there?

[ he sounds both puzzled and annoyed as he squeezes water out of his collar. ]

[deontology]

Have you experienced anything else odd such a this? I was wondering if this was wide-spread, and it seems to be.

[He'd had an argument with his bedroom door early in the morning.

It was unfortunate.

But seeing that this is wide-spread........A sigh escapes him, soft but irritated, even as he wrings water from his ponytail.]

If it is this prevalent, that could be a problem.

[sewayaku]

No, I didn't notice anything off... Not any indoor rain, at least.

[ he's not going to get any drier than this without the aid of the towel, so Zara gives up, looking a little soggy and bedraggled, but mostly just confused. ]

What do you mean, "this?"

iii;

[immobileyes]

[ Mary's had some help getting home, but upon realizing that Zara's not there, she does the Dumb Teenager Thing and instantly ventures out to look for him. It results in her ending up somehow turned around, to where she's starting to think about trying to return home again-- when she hears his voice and his... sword??

Startled, she's stopping in her tracks. ]

W-wait--

[sewayaku]

-- Mary?

[ he recognizes her voice instantly, and his hands freeze on his cane-sword, face turning in her direction. ]

That is you, isn't it? Are you safe? Oh, you shouldn't be out right now!

[immobileyes]

I-I'm fine! [ And now that she's sure he won't stab her, she's quickly heading for him. ] But I got back and you weren't there, so I got worried--

[sewayaku]

My apologies. I was a bit tied up.

[ the implication, of course, being "there's some crazy shit going down and i was unable to avoid it." His sensitive ears are able to pinpoint where she is fairly easily, even in the dark, and he holds out his hands for her to find as she draws closer. ]

But there's no need to worry about me. I can take care of myself. You, on the other hand... If something had happened to you, what would I do? A young lady shouldn't run out on her own in the dark!

[immobileyes]

[ Mary treads closer, finally latching onto his hands with no small measure of relief. ]

But I found you.

[ So lecture her later, she's just glad she managed that much. ]

[sewayaku]

That's beside the point. What if it hadn't been me you'd found? We're not alone out here.

[ and he doesn't just mean other people, either. Despite his scolding, he holds her hands tightly in response. ]