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?
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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! |
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"Just don't blame me if you end up getting hurt."
Inwardly rolling his eyes, he starts off at her urging. No, he wasn't going to be in this spot one moment longer.
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"Don't worry about me. Watch your own footing!" A barrier popped out from her hand, blocking a flurry of tentacles while she directed a volley of magical bullets at the nearest three Lovecraftian creatures. Nanoha could take care of herself, especially when she didn't have to worry about trapdoors or random syringes in the floor.
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Still, on the plus side, she was happy enough to take care of everything by herself. There wasn't a need to waste any of Rin's prana nor his own to combat creatures who were better off rotting in some wonderland where they belonged. Besides, he was better at handling boss battles with his abilities.
"Just keep going at full power. I won't get in the way."
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"Going at full power is my speciality!" She never had problems using her own mana, and there was no reason to change that now. Beams fired out in every direction around her like she belonged in a game about girls with poofy hats, and they basically kept the grunts at bay.
Getting to the end looked like it was going to be easy, as long as they didn't run headlong into a boss battle. (Spoiler: There'll be a boss battle.)
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But since she was confident, he wasn't going to interrupt. No, just stick behind her for the time being. He was looking ahead with his archer eyes, just to make sure there were no surprises.
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So it was only a matter of time before they got to the end of the maze, taking the form of a single large room, a man-made lake smack in the middle, their prize sitting on the opposite side. It was empty as they approached, but a low rumbling made sure they both knew something was coming.
The stage boss rose out of the water. How could it have been anything else? With all the Lovecraftian monsters crawling around the level, of course the final enemy would be the big daddy himself.
The "patients" were continuing to converse on their position, and the boss itself was dropping writhing, tentacled masses all around it. This was going to be a big fight.
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But...he could pinion it in one place. And this girl could possibly do it. He had already labeled her as the direct firepower type so it was possible. But not with the amount of flailing that was going around now. No one could charge and fire.
Archer just dropped his hands at his side.
"Before you say anything, I can give you a chance. But keep these things away while I prepare that."
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"We'll take turns covering each other then!" That was perfectly doable, and the idea of doing a team-up appealed to Nanoha.
"Blaster 1!" She declared, calling the Blaster Bits into existence with a surge of power. With so many enemies, she needed a few more barrels to hold the line. Nobody was getting within striking range of Archer.
"Let's go with a Multi-Raid Buster!" The four orbiting Bits and the main body of Raising Heart were all now pointed in different directions, a second of charging all it took for them to momentarily fill the room with pink light with a loud "Shoot!"
The first wave was down, but the boss was not, and more enemies were streaming in. Time to keep going!
no subject
"I am the bone of my sword
Steel is my body and fire is my blood
I have created over a thousand blades
Unknown to Death, Nor known to Life"
Nanoha may be unfamiliar with the spell words but he was certainly powering up for something big. He just needed a little more time. He took what spare focus he had to create six swords, firing them at the boss. They weren't doing any good but it did keep the boss creature focused on the pain rather than trying to kill them.
no subject
She didn't know if she could read anything into the actual words of the aria, but it certainly didn't seem happy. If nothing else, it suited Archer, who was nothing if not grumpy.
Was he done? Nanoha wasn't bad at holding a position, but they were wide in the open and she couldn't fly freely while still staying close enough to protect Archer. She could take down one or a dozen of these tentacled creatures easily, but she wasn't blowing them away faster than they could spawn, and eventually they would be overwhelmed.
no subject
"Have withstood pain to create many weapons
Yet, those hands will never hold anything
So as I pray, unlimited blade works."
When the chant was done, a ring of fire appeared around him then suddenly enlarged, engulfing everything in the room. But they were going to his world, which meant he could pick and choose what he wanted to come along.
So Archer stood on that dreary hill, surrounded by thousands of swords, gears turning in the far distance. If there was anything that represented him, it was this place. Completely destroyed and run down yet still hard at work, never stopping despite the wear and tear. And all that came here was that big creature and Nanoha herself. All the trash mobs were left behind to be completely useless.
"It's going to be your turn now."
He didn't want to wait. No, every sword lifted itself out of the ground and launched themselves in a huge arc at the creature. Except the big, earth shattering weapons. No, those were tasked to pinioning its tentacles so its flailing would be reduced to absolutely nothing. A death by a thousand cuts would be impractical and not guaranteed though, which was why he was leaving the heavy lifting to Nanoha.
no subject
Still, she was experienced enough not to let that stop her for too long. She could appreciate this ridiculous magic after she was done turning that Lovecraftian menace to its base code.
Death by a thousand cuts was clearly not going to work. The writhing, fleshy thing just regenerated even over the swords pinned into its body, but Nanoha had never been one to wear her enemies down slowly. No, that was just not her way.
"Buy me ten seconds now, then I'll hit it with my full power, full throttle!" A magic circle appeared beneath her feet, and she pointed the business end of her staff right at the boss. Bits of mana accumulated in front of her, growing into a massive sphere of magic.
"Starlight..."
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At once, huge spikes of rock jutted out, impaling the creature again. He was using the sword that could move mountains. With this being his own landscape, imprisoning the creature here was a simple task.
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"BREAKER!"" She slammed her staff into the sphere of magic, and everything went pink. When the light cleared, there would be nothing left of the monster, and even Nanoha's own Barrier Jacket would be torn up and seared away, her own protection magic not nearly as strong as her shooting spells. Hopefully, Archer had taken her advice and protected himself. Nanoha wouldn't mind if he used her own body and barriers as cover.
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So he put up his own shield, able to easily create it in this world. It's seven-layer shield had a far easier time withstanding things when it wasn't the direct focus of the blast. No, thankfully it didn't shatter or he'd have some explaining to do to Rin about a gimped up arm it would cause.
When things were over, he could put it away, looking quite a bit frustrated at Nanoha as his world dissolved around them, depositing them where they originally stood before he cast the spell.
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"Hey Archer-san, you'd best take a copy of this." She says after reading the scrap of paper, sending him a digital copy. It was signed Bellaona Recreare, and somehow Nanoha doubted that this thing belonged solely within ViViD.
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Which was the best he could do. He wasn't really huge into the whole investigation of a digital world thing. That was completely and absolutely up Rin's alley and Archer was big on maximizing outcomes to his advantage. Of course, it helped that this was to everyone's advantage.