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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It's possible to explore if you wish to. They will be able to locate us wherever we are with simple sound cues.
[He moves to the end of their current hall, glancing down each of the other ways available to them. And then he turns back to Kuzuryuu.]
Though...we could also wait and talk, if you'd prefer.
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[So many dead ends, Gundam. SO MANY.]
[He nudges some broken medical equipment out of the way with his foot and takes a seat at the foot of one of the filing cabinets.]
And I haven't found a single paper in these cabinets that isn't blank, have you?
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Mmm...not yet, no. So far my searching has yielded useless results. It's...frustrating.
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[He picks up the head of a broken stethoscope and tosses it across the passage, where it clinks against the filing cabinets and falls back down.]
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[Gundam watches the toss, eyes following it until it hits the floor. Then he looks up at the ceiling instead.]
This grows tiresome. Being thrown into these situations as if we are mere toys here for CERES' entertainment. This feels like just another game that we are being forced to play.
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Though...I guess this one is pretty tame in comparison. Worst I've had to deal with was that shit in the basement. And that was weak mental fuckery, by their standards. [He glances over at Gundam.] Did you get stuck down there?
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I did.
[Alright, he's going to make space for himself and sit down as well.]
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[Presumably, he means the weird ghost thing. He thought they were all kids but then Leon's was definitely older than four or five. What had Gundam seen?]
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[Embarrassing really...]
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[This is grumbled to the other man, Gundam burning a hole into the ground with his glare alone.]
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He was weak. [That's all there really is to say on the matter, unless Kuzuryuu wants further information. But he caught the question there and even though he didn't know exactly how it was supposed to end, the curiosity was there none the less. May as well answer it. He trusts his friend.]
Speaking with Jakuzure was more taxing than those apparitions. That attempt at digging beneath our skin was pathetic, compared to what they have done in the past.
[But saying that, he recalls a few people he'd run into down there as well. Leaning back against the cabinets behind him, the breeder scoffs.]
...perhaps, though, that is because we are more steadfast than most.
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[Even if Gundam wouldn't judge him for it, he still can't really bring himself to admit just how pathetic his younger self had been. Not in as many words, at least. So vague hinting it is.]
[He sighs, leaning his head back and letting it hit the cabinet with a soft thunk. He's not sure if he'd agree that the reason he'd handled his doppelganger so well was because he's "more steadfast than most." It HAD bothered him to see it, just not for the same reasons it would bother a normal person. It wasn't the murder reminder that had affected him so badly, but rather the reminder of how weak he used to be.]
[But even more than that, it's like Gundam said: this was a weak attempt compared to last time. But he seizes a different topic instead:]
That snake try asking you about who you killed too?
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The subject change is easily accepted, even if he doesn't really want to talk about her either.]
That woman is infuriating even without prying for information such as that. [Not saying she did or didn't ask about that though, but apparently whatever conversation they did have is worse?]
She insists on referring to me as "Scarfy" despite my repeated requests for her to stop and attempted corrections. She referred to Maga-Z as "Maggie" earlier, and if she continues this disrespect I may strangle her. Not to mention the childish comments for humor at my expense...being "surprised" that I did not claim to have been born a dragon. After explaining my heritage, she assumed my parents were "simple" or "boring".
[You know. Treating him like the chuunibyou he is. Not that he isn't used to it, mind you, but she's so much more persistent and aggravating. Gundam ducks his head down a little, sort of nestling his face into his scarf some.]
Humans have no sense of creativity. I would have expected someone from another place and time to perhaps have evolved better insults to use, but apparently schoolyard chatter is hard to overcome.
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