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! |
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[ He's not quite relieved to see her, given the circumstances, and he's not convinced Kirigiri will allow herself to be used as a tool to navigate the maze. But working together with her would still be better than working alone. Maybe if he weren't distracted by the situation right now, he might ponder how not all that long ago, he wouldn't have thought that way about the values of cooperation...
Since he is distracted by the situation, he crosses his arms, staring Kirigiri down. ] What is going on here? Tell me everything you know.
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We're in a level in ViViD, the virtual reality game that CERES has developed. All we have to do now is make it through the maze. Of course, there may be a battle at the end of it.
[ Since that seems to be the way things go in this game. ]
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[ He's already a little sick of these experiences, and he's only just started having them. But there's no real choice but to adapt. He doesn't have anything on him that's appropriate for a battle, right now, but he can cross that bridge once he comes to it. ]
So we're looking for an exit.
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Yes. I assume you know the tricks to navigating a maze.
[ She places her hand on the right wall, following it as she begins walking. It may not work in ViViD, but it's better than walking around aimlessly. ]
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[ He does feel a little silly now, though—why couldn't he have just done this on his own from the start? But he supposes he hadn't decided what his goal in this maze should be, when he first wound up down here.
He follows after her, putting his own hand on the wall. If nothing else, he'll be ready to grab onto a file cabinet handle if the floor falls out from underneath them. ]
no subject
[ They continue walking for a while, and it seems like the maze is never going to end. It's also eerily quiet, as they haven't seen—much less heard—anything. ]
I wonder how much longer we will be here.
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If this is VR, then it is possible that the maze continues indefinitely, or at least on a scale larger than any human can realistically navigate.
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It's very possible. I suppose we just continue walking until we no longer can.
[ If there is an end to this maze, Kyouko's determined to find it. ]
no subject
Do you want us to end up collapsing from exhaustion?! What if it's programmed to open the path to the exit only once some other condition has been satisfied?
[ So maybe we should try something else other than just following the wall for the rest of our lives! ]
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What condition do you suppose needs to be met?
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I've already attempted searching the file cabinets, but it seems like a waste of our time. Still, I haven't tried interacting with anything else I've listed.
no subject
[ So that would leave... ]
We could attempt going through one of the trapdoors.
no subject
[ He does think that's one of the likelier options for getting something to happen... It seems dangerous, but on the other hand, this is virtual reality. Worst case scenario, they die in the game and finally get to escape to the ostensible "real world". Or, maybe they end up lost somewhere else, instead of being lost here. Really, he doesn't think they'll end up in a situation worse than the one they're already in. ]
I don't think it can hurt to try.
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[ It isn't long before they come across one, and Kyouko approaches it. ]
Stepping on it should immediately drop us down. [ She eyes it. She hasn't really dealt with trapdoors before, so she doesn't know how this one will work. ] It's probably best we activate it at the same time to ensure we both end up in the same place.
no subject
On the count of three, then?
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One. Two. [ She readies herself, to jump in. ] Three!
[ And down they go! Surprisingly, they land on their feet on another level. Too bad it's completely dark. ]
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He's a little disoriented when they land, but—at least they seem to have succeeded in... something. ]
...Are you unharmed? Where are we?
[ He doesn't have anything on him to use as a light... ]
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Who knows. It must be some sort of basement. [ Kyouko lets out a small sigh. ] We may as well start exploring the area.
[ She puts her hands out in front of her, beginning to search for some sort of wall. ]
no subject
[ He's conflicted for a moment whether he should follow her or go in a different direction, so he compromises by going off to the side rather than forwards or backwards, feeling around there. ]
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She approaches what may be a wall, nodding to herself when she feels a solid surface. As she moves her hand down, though, Kyouko feels what seems to be a doorknob. ]
Togami-kun. I found a door.
no subject
[ He turns around a little too quickly, knocking some unidentified objects over with his legs, which makes a noise that is just loud enough to be embarrassing. ]
—Ugh...
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Yes, it is. Maybe the key is among one of the objects that fell.
no subject
[ He wordlessly stoops to dig through the scattered items on the floor. He can at least try to take responsibility for knocking things over. But it's tough going, trying to sort through things in the dark—and since they seem to be more medical supplies, he has to be careful not to prick himself on any needles, too. ]
And if it isn't?
no subject
Then we'll continue to look for it. Unless you have another plan?
no subject
[ Oh, hold that thought. His hypothetical imaginings get pushed to the side as he gingerly moves a needle to uncover what seems to be a key. He grasps it in his hand, standing up. ]
—This might be it.
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