PHASE I [ 6 30 ] You really have arrived, finally.
Too bad the welcome isn’t so great.
Upon arrival, you will literally be dropped out of the sky.
You may land in the lake (watch out for the fish). You may land on the roofs of the buildings in the town (watch out for the spires). Or you may be unlucky, and fall all the way from the sky to the ground, at which point you die and lose a life already.
Don’t worry, you’ll respawn in the air and you can try again.
Good luck this time!
If you do manage to finally land in a way that doesn’t break your spine and/or drown you, you’ll find that if you’re a newcomer, you’ll have some strange words hovering over your head. They seem to be a set of your name, a level, a class and a quest, something like --
Ima Adventurerer Lv. 9000
Class: Dragon Slayer
Current Quest: Slay every dragon
-- but aside from existing, they don't seem to have any actual impact on your abilities or requirements. But you can do the quests if you really want to. Everyone will clap politely for you if you do. There might be confetti, even.
They would appear to coincide with a scroll or two posted up in the middle of town for everyone to see.
At least it’s easy to tell who’s new this round.
PHASE II [ 745 ] Once you’re safely on the ground (hopefully no broken bones!), it’s time to get a feel for the game. As free range as it seems to be, you have all sorts of choices in where to go and what to do. You could take on some quests! You could go hunt down monsters! You could...pick up that fancy looking armor over there!
Except you may not actually want to do so. As soon as you touch that armor, it will equip itself, no ifs, ands or buts. Of course, it isn’t so bad, at least, not for the ladies. For the men who equip the armor, they may find it to be a little breezy. In many different variations.
To make matters worse, be careful what you touch in your inventory, unless you want to equip a fish instead of your sword, or whatever the hell this is instead of your cool, awesome, special weapon. Good luck.
And the only way to unequip it is to find something else to equip. There’s motivation for some questing, at least.
PHASE III [ 1000 ] Eventually, you have to venture out of the town, however. There are NPCs ushering you to quest onwards, and there’s nothing in the town worth poking your nose into; none of the doors open, and all of the NPCs say the same, looping lines in a creepy monotone.
There are quests to be done outside of the town, they say, over and over.
So, off you go. However, the moment you step out of the town, you’re…somewhere else entirely. Look behind you, and the town is gone. Look around you, and there’s nothing but flowers, fields and the other people who have stepped out of the town themselves, looking equally confused. The bizarre armor is now gone, and you're back in your proper clothing; the strange floating titles and levels and the like are also gone. Otherwise, it is silent; there isn’t a single other soul. No bird song, no buzzing of bees -- just silence.
Of course, it won’t last. Soon, the monsters show up...but strangely, they seem to be monsters from your world, if your world had monsters. If your world had animals, they are those, or robots, or any number of combinations. But they seem...different. They’re meaner, larger, nastier, and all dark colors and bloody, dripping claws and fangs.
It seems everything’s been a little corrupted here -- even things from your own worlds.
PHASE IV [ 1400 ] If you persevere through the monster-infested fields, trampling your way through flowers which did nothing at all to you, you’ll eventually find yourself at a still, still lake. It’s a beautiful place, quiet and hushed and untouched, and totally monster-free; it might be a good place to take a breather.
But if you look into the lake, even for a brief moment, you’ll see whatever it is you want most in the world. Whether it’s a person (dead or alive), a thing, a title… it doesn’t matter; the lake will show it, tantalizing and right there, so close to being in your grasp.
If you don’t pull away immediately, you might find that it’s hypnotizing, in fact; you’ll feel the need to go closer and closer, even if it means wading into the lake to get closer to that goal. Just...don’t go too far. Something is waiting for you.
If you touch someone to try to help them, you’ll see what they are also seeing in the lake, for better or for worse. It might be a good chance to get to know them, if you weren’t, you know, in danger of being eaten.
Thankfully, with some perseverance and good friends, the hypnotism can be broken. You do have friends, right?
If you survive all of that, you can finally log out and join Cerealia proper -- hooray!
BONUS [ xxxx ] There sure are a lot of flowers in this field of flowers. There are flowers everywhere. Which isn’t a bad thing, unless you’re allergic to flowers (if you are allergic to flowers, CERES apologizes and suggests you take their special, patented ClariCERESclear to clear that right up). Except...the longer you’re in said field of flowers, the more you may notice that things are a little...strange.
Some of the pollen of the flowers has some strange effects on your bodies, it would seem. You could stumble across any of these (or none at all), and they could last anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour or two, depending on how much of that pollen you breathe in.
The effects are as follows:
➟ The urge to princess-carry the nearest person
➟ The urge to serenade the nearest person, regardless of your singing ability
➟ An awakened urge to be really aggressive towards the nearest person, even to the point of fighting (it's time to pvp)
➟ Uncontrollable crying
➟ An uncontrollable urge to make flower crowns and place them on peoples' heads (which thus further spreads the other effects).
Don’t trust the flowers.
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bonus.........
[It's not the awful singing that snaps him from it and draws his attention to Stahn - it takes all kinds to make a world, or something - but the suggestion of selling flowers. That's... That's ridiculous! To think someone would consider a flower, a tiny growing soul, a good for exchange!]
Ah, but why would you sell something so pure in the first place? [He looks almost offended at the mere suggestion.] Flowers like these are meant to be free, and exist where they grow. Each is a small soul; money ought to touch none, even the ugliest.
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but hey, at least he's not getting his singing criticized.]
Do you think so? [people sell flowers in his world all the time. not that he can't appreciate wild flowers, but he never considered it so deeply in the least. he hums a little, mulling the thought over, but it kind of goes over his head a bit. that wasn't even really the point of the song anyway!]
I'm not sure Rutee would agree. [she'd sell most things if she thought she could make a profit on it. but stahn shakes the thought off.] It doesn't matter, though. The whole point is nobody would be able to sell these! They're too pretty.
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Yes, yes; the point is that it has moved you to song. If only this sort of field were easier to come by in the colony proper, rather than just in this game...! [There's a deep nostalgia in Chibi's voice, speaking of years past, napping within the fields like nature's old friend... How nice it would be, to have those days back.]
[But Stahn isn't the only one affected by the flowers, here. Chibi sneezes into his sleeve, then kneels to the ground, carefully picking a few flowers with wide, callused hands. He looks once to Stahn's head, trying to judge how wide around it is, then continues his weaving.] Hold on just a moment, if you will. [Let him make you pretty, or something.]
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[he can hear the nostalgia in his tone. it raises the question of why flowers would be so hard to come by away from this game (which is a concept he's still trying to wrap his simple head around), though he'll figure that part out later when he actually sees the city proper.
in any case, he can appreciate the fact that chibi seems to have a lot of care for them. he's a fan of nature himself, having grown up in a small village in the countryside. big cities and technology can be a bit overwhelming for him sometimes for that very reason.]
Oh... mm, okay! [that's his only response when chibi asks him to hold on. he's not sure what he's holding on for, but he's watching with interest—what's he making?]
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And now you can wear twenty or so of them on your skull! [That's not remotely how it works, but details, details...! Also, the morbidity of wearing a bunch of dead people on your head doesn't occur to him. He stands, holding the newly-made flower crown in his hands, and gingerly places it atop Stahn's head.]
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