The doctor's office is hardly the funnest place in the world to be. Children crying, adults bickering in hushed, stressed tones, the receptionist looking incredibly bored...
Wait. How did you get here? Weren't you watching a powerpoint a second ago (or enjoying your time in your cozy apartment in Cerealia)? Well, now you're in ViViD, and in an attempt to concentrate on healthy living, CERES has released a new level: Health and You: A New Way to be Healthy. Sure, you could log out at any time if you're a ViViD pro and used to this whole experience, but now that you're here, why not sit back and enjoy it? Indulge in some easy level grinding or something. Besides, it'll take a little while for the game to let you log out without calling you a spineless quitter, and who wants that added to their ViViD rep?
So instead, take a look around the tiled hospital. Visit the receptionist and say hello (she ignores you, go back to your seat). Pick up a snack at the vending machine (except every single one only has these gross things in stock). Maybe you should just test the truth of that old idiom, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away", especially with that weird doctor over there. Is he staring at you? He might be staring at you.
Seriously, go find an apple before he comes over here.
 Well,
well,
well...
isn't it time for your c h e c k - u p?
|
PHASE I [ 08 00 ] If you're a new arrival to this fine city, you will find yourself waking up in a bed after suffering through that unfortunate powerpoint. The sun streams through the window, the bed is uncomfortable but not terrible, and everything is quiet and idyllic... wait. Where are your clothes? You'll suddenly find yourself dressed only in a medical gown (yes, complete with back open) and you seem to be... in a hospital? That's new.
If you take a look at the medical chart attached to the bed, you’ll even find your chart, name on it and everything. That can’t be right, can it? You're the picture of health! You're welcome to wait around for the doctor to dispute these claims but no one's showing up anytime soon (aside from the possible roommate you might have, in the same situation as you). There’s nothing stopping you from leaving the room or looking around at least (except for the lack of clothes), but it’s all hospital as far as the eye can see. Try and be careful what rooms you poke your head into; there are some strange aliens getting their check-ups in there. They don't seem like they want to be bothered.
If you’re not a newcomer, and go into ViViD searching for riches and grand prizes (or just stumble in there by happenstance), the receptionist will stop you and hand you a stethoscope, lab coat, and name tag. Congratulations, you’re a doctor now, and you have free reign over the hospital. Go nuts. Or don’t, because there are still those aliens waiting for their check-ups. Now it’s your turn to get dragged away by a frazzled nurse to administrate a tentacle massage to a patient, as she's now on break! Have fun and don't get the hospital sued.
PHASE II [ 1000 ] Just don’t end up in the basement.
If you end up in the basement by some weird twist of fate (or via trapdoor, which could happen because let's be honest, this is ViViD), you’ll find yourself in a long, empty, blindingly white hallway. The floors are white, the walls are white, the ceiling and the flickering lights are white, and you have the odd feeling you're being followed.
If you turn to see who it is, you’ll find that it’s your younger self. They’re not solid. They’re not real. You can stick a hand through them, and it will go right through. But they are you, whether age 4 or age 14 or anywhere in between, and they’re covered in blood and holding an equally bloody knife. Quietly, as they follow you, they'll mumble, over and over and over again, “It was you, you did it, you killed them, you’re the murderer.”
And they will follow you until you get out of that blindingly white hallway, and away from those blindingly white lights, and if you tried to touch them, there will be blood on your hands. The younger you won't respond to anything you say, just following behind you like the frightening apparition they are. At least nothing else is stopping you from returning to the main hospital, no matter how surreal this experience might be. Just find the stairs.
PHASE III [ 1200 ] As soon as you’ve managed to escape the clutches of that frazzled nurse who still refuses to come back from break, you’ll find that the atmosphere has turned very dark indeed. There’s rain pounding against the windows, and as lightning flashes and thunder booms (it’s all ambiance, you see), there’s the tell-tale Mwahahahaha of an evil, mad doctor at work. What a sinister guy.
Turning a corner will lead you right to his very, very evil doctor's office. He's repurposed one for his sinister deeds and some nurses are looking very put out about it. There's someone attached to the medical table who might need some help and of course, it could be one of your friends that he’s snagged. You might want to help them before that very evil mad doctor tries to add an extra limb or two to your poor friend. Honestly, who needs three elbows?
Or maybe it’s you who’s been grabbed by him and attached to the medical table by strong, metal restraints. Hopefully someone follows the “Mad Scientist: This Way” signs all over the hospital and saves you because really, three elbows?
PHASE IV [ 1400 ] Of course, while the ambiance is still dark, grim and creepy, and the rain still beats upon the glass of the windows, there is a murder...because why wouldn't there be?
The director of the hospital has been found murdered, slumped in a seat in his office, hand in hand with his secretary. Oh no! You’re welcome to investigate the crime scene if you want, but it’s not a very good one; there aren’t any clues, and the director and his secretary actually seem to be alive if you prod them hard enough. They're a bit put out by your interruptions and might ask you to "go solve this somewhere else" the more you bother them. How rude of you to muck up their death scene.
But there’s a new quest for you, and it says this: Pursue Justice or Pursue the Truth?
If you choose to pursue Justice, you will find yourself dropped into a new ViViD level, this one a straight hospital hallway with no doors and alternate routes. Some posters line the hallway but most of the detail is lost in the dim light. Not far ahead of you, The Suspect can be seen running away. (Naturally, you can tell that they are The Suspect by their poorly scribbled out face and black silhouette.) If you should follow them all the way to the end of the hallway (and it is a long, long, long hallway), you can grab The Suspect. Of course, that's if you make it there without falling through any of the trapdoors, tripping over medical supplies or stumbling into less fortunate player characters. If you're successful, you’ll hear a jaunty tune and you’ll receive a bonus of 50,000 ViViD points. Congratulations! You may now log out and continue with your daily life.
If you choose to pursue the Truth, you will find yourself dropped into another ViViD level. This level is a maze; there are filing cabinets stuffed full of papers making up the walls (though the papers are all blank) and they seem oddly impossible to move. You will need to find your way through the maze while avoiding more trapdoors, more scattered medical supplies, the occasional angry cthulhu patient and the occasional player character who has been grabbed by the occasional angry cthulhu patient. Eventually you will be able to find the end of the maze and there you will find a scrap of paper with a clue on it, signed Bellona Recreare. You may now log out and continue with your daily life.
Strangely enough, you can’t seem to access that quest again once you’ve completed it once. Oh well.
BONUS [ xxxx ] There are plenty of sexy nurses wandering the hospital (yes, everywhere) and they know your shots aren’t up to date. Should they manage to catch you and jab you with one of their needles, you’ll have some of the following side effects:
➟ Unstoppable urge to hug the nearest person
➟ Unstoppable urge to kiss the nearest person
➟ Unstoppable urge to dance with the nearest person
➟ Hiccups that last for 20 minutes
➟ Uncontrollable laughter that lasts for 20 minutes
➟ Hallucinations that everyone around you is dead, which also lasts for 20 minutes
You may pick and choose which effects happen at which times or if there is a combination of them. Have fun!
[ 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.
Regarding phase IV, should your characters tackle the alternate ViViD levels and make it all the way through, please PM the mod account to let us know if they picked Justice or the Truth, as that will have an overall impact on the game! You will also receive your plot clue at that time, should your character have gone down the Truth path. Please PM the mod account by July 29th with the decision your character has made; the thread does not have to be completed, that just will allow us to tally up the choices for August's event.
Thank you! |
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
[Zack doubts there will come a day when he doesn't hate hospitals on principle. They smell too clean, for one, when everything that happens in them is anything but. Doctors hadn't been a big deal as a kid, sure, but as he got older, those doctors only seemed to grow stranger, more detached, and just a little unhinged.
He'd take being a puppy over a damned lab rat any day. (As if he had a choice.)
It's not the kind of environment he'd wanted to suddenly wake up in, as if the recent (and also sudden) shifts in his environment hadn't been bad enough. The whole thing makes him antsy, and he can't help but pace around restlessly, more concerned with nerves than modesty.
He paces, waits, no doctor, rinse and repeat. Eventually, the waiting gets to be too much--there's nothing wrong with him, and silence is never a good thing in these situations (either something was wrong--not--or something worse was waiting)--and he grabs his "chart."]
WHAT? I don't cheat at cards.
[PRIORITIES, Zack.]
BONUS
[The nurses freak him out. They're a really sour reminder of all the things coming out of Shinra's Science Department that he still wishes he hadn't, or at the very least, could forget.
But there's this pesky note on his chart here. The one that says "please leave"? He'd take that literally, if he could, but he can't seem to find a way to actually...do...that. Which has resulted in trying to ask one of those really stacked by kind of impaired in the face department nurses.
Not his best decision to date. Because that involves sharp needles, and then--
And then there's this crazy urge to hug everything.]
1
It says here you have a terrible case of Blight, and should leave immediately.
[ beat ]
Why did they even hospitalise you then?
[ another beat ]
Please don't try to eat me.
[ She doesn't actually buy any of this crap, but hey, it's ViViD. Why not get into character a bit? ]
no subject
[It takes a moment for the last part of that to sink in. There's not one bit of this that makes sense, from where he's currently stuck, to the fact that he's pretty sure he's never run into a nurse this young--not even when working for a company happy enough to recruit teenagers in their effective standing army--to the fact that the chart feels more like a prank than approaching any sort of assessment.
He hadn't bothered to check it all the way to the end, easily distracted by how ridiculous it had been from the start, so the statement seems to come out of nowhere.]
Why would I eat you?
[He's not sure he can sound repulsed enough. Gross.]
(no subject)
(no subject)
OH SHIT how did I lose track of this tag?
Bonus
Let go of me!!!
[ For now, he's struggling to pry you off, with strength that doesn't fit his lean figure at all. Your arms will most likely be bruising later... ]
no subject
Gods, what is even going on?
If we sprayed him with a water bottle, do you think he'd act like a typical puppy and slink off in shame? Because he'd like to.]I can't!
[He sounds just as dismayed by this way-beyond-weird turn of events, and he'd like it to stop any time now, but hugging just feels right, right now, for as much as it...actually doesn't at all. Brain, heart, learn to talk to one another. Any time.]
(no subject)
(no subject)
bonus;
when touched by a grown man when she doesn't call for it, she grabs them and judo flips them. and that? that's what's happening to zack right now. but athena quickly realises her mistake, and runs to zack who hopefully isn't unconscious. ]
I am so, so sorry!
no subject
Don't be, you've got a mean flip.
[He laughs, despite just how strange this all is. Maybe that's a reflex too. It's par for the course with how his life is turning out, lately. From ambitious to downright inexplicable.]
(no subject)
phase i
Alright, let's see here...
Oh.
Oh, no...
[ is this the part of a doctor's job where he sometimes has to deliver the bad news? ah, it was inevitable, wasn't it...
okay. ]
Well, I have good news and I have bad news.
no subject
Zack groans.
Every godsdamned time. This is why he has hospital trust issues. This right here.]
Unless the good news is that I can leave, man, just get it over with.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
bonus;
But then there's someone in a medical gown down the corridor, and she's so reluctant to say anything, in case he comes charging at her. She's a delicate, shy girl, she can handle only so much contact from strangers. But if he needs help... ]
Ex... cuse me....?
no subject
But, in an attempt to not, he folds his arms tightly and pins his hands to his sides. Not quite a satisfying way to numb the compulsion, but it'll do. For now. Maybe.]
Look, if this is about the hugging, I swear it's not my fault.
[Under other circumstances, that would sound needlessly defensive by way of introduction. Possibly still does.]
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
phase i;
[roxas is sitting atop the next bed, mulling over his own chart that he's taken hold of. he's already been given the runaround more than once since he woke up, so now he's trying to make sense of his chart and try to figure out if there's some kind of clue that will get him out of this.
unfortunately for him, he can't understand nearly anything on this own chart, which is just making of an immensely frustrating situation. which is bad, because he was mad before any of this even started.]
At least it's something you can understand, even if it's wrong.
no subject
Nothing else that makes a lot of sense.
[It's said with a shrug, like that whole bit about monsters isn't setting off giant red flags with alarm bells in the back of his mind the whole while. Play it cool, Fair.]
So, you mean it's like a bunch of gibberish, or what?
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
bonus!
Let me guess, you were overcome with the most pressing need to manhandle the nearest person and I was the lucky one who turned the corner, hm?
oh my god
[Unfortunately, for as sad and more than a little pitiful as that sounds, he's still very (literally) attached to the hug. This is just about the worst way to make a first impression, and even as social as he is, it's too much. But he can't seem to stop.]
If I said this wasn't my fault, would you believe me?
[There's always a story, right?]
:')
bless
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
phase 1
Okay, no, Shinpachi doesn't know what's going on. Or what he's doing. This is all some weird moment where he's dragged into ViViD out of the blue and everything is weird, so he probably looks just about as surprised as Zack does by the time he stands in his room. ]
Uh...
.. hey.
[ Smooth. ]
no subject
So instead:]
Let me guess. You don't get it either.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
i.
Except not really, because Rin has been glaring at his medical chart for the past two minutes (something about termites infesting his shoulder, and isn't that a barrel of laughs). Following his glaring, he'd tossed the clipboard across the room (not before checking his shoulder joint thoroughly, because what the fuck), rifled through the supplies for anything useful (at least he'd found a scalpel and a pair of scrub pants, so he wasn't walking around defenseless with his ass hanging out), and then stolen out into the hall. At which point he'd only ratcheted up another notch in terror because all the neighboring rooms were inhabited by creatures with more tentacles than anything else. Tentacles. Powerpoint presentations and tentacles; this is like all the horrible stereotypes of college thrown together.
So here goes Rin, trying his best to be quiet and managing it - for the most part. That is, until a door randomly slams open, missing his face by a millimeter, and he flattens himself to the wall to avoid being seen. At least the person in a doctor's coat is humanoid. Who knows. Who knows anything anymore.
He peeks through the newly opened door, which leads to another hallway of subsequent doors. There doesn't seem to be a way out of this damn place, just doors upon doors, tentacles upon tentacles, fluorescent lights upon fluorescent lights. He even misses the old tofu smell of Okada-san's Thursday night dinners in the cafeteria. He'd give anything to get back to the Samezuka pool, with --
Well, if the damn Powerpoint was real, then that's why he's here. To bring it all back.
With new determination, Rin tries the first door in the hallway, and is treated to the sight of a dark-haired man leaning over his chart and talking to himself. ]
Really? That's what you're going to focus on?
[ Shit. He didn't mean to blurt anything out like that, but... the sight of a bare ass gaping at him though the back of the medical gown kind of startled him. Not that he's not accustomed to the sight of bare asses (swim club, boys' school, etc etc etc), but usually he has a little bit of warning beforehand. ]
no subject
Granted, after having lived in barracks for years now, it's questionable that modesty would ever be a first point of consideration. Between shared living spaces and more medical and science facilities than he really ever wants to think about again, it's not a thing he expects anymore either. If it would have been a consideration in the first place, with his tendency to shift focus without warning.
(Sorry, Rin. The narrative has to apologize, because Zack won't think to.)He's startled enough to straighten up, at least, when he realizes that (lacking) internal monologue had actually been overheard, and spins back around (you're welcome, Rin).]
It's the only part that makes any sense.
[And he tosses the clipboard backward without consideration and shrugs as it hits the floor with a satisfying clatter.
It's only half a lie. True, none of it had made any real sense, but it's unsettling enough to make him wonder how "they" (always that damned nebulous "they") knew about that unsettling, gutwrenching fear that he's turning into the same thing he's been trying to save everyone from.
It's a coincidence. It has to be. Or a really cruel joke that's just landed on every wrong end. Right?]
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
i
...He guesses.]
The charts never lie.
[Stop bothering people, man.]
no subject
He turns and glowers.]
Sure they don't.
[And he totally believes that. Right.]
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
i
[Definitely a real doctor.]
[Anyway, his trained physician opens the door just in time to hear his protests - squints at the chart, and then attempts to snag it from him.]
I'll be the judge of that! Now sit down, I have to check your vitals for hidden cards!
no subject
Damn it.
He huffs, momentarily defeated and sits as instructed; at least it makes the medical gown marginally less awkward (really, whoever designed these needed a swift kick in the head).]
Hidden...what?
[It's better not to ask questions. He knows better.
And here he is anyway.]
phase I
When he passes one particular door, though, he hears a loud voice that sounds very familiar... But it can't be. Would he really be here, on this world?
Curious, Terra doubles back and pushes the door open, and who he sees confirms it. Sure, the kid's gotten taller, maybe even as tall as Terra now. But that can only be one person.]
Zack?
no subject
He jumps still, at the sound of his name, still so used to standing at attention. But the voice, like so many as of late, is not one he recognizes despite the inflection assuming that he should. His shoulders slump slightly at the realization.]
What did I do this time?
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)