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.
[ 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. ] |
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xion | ota!!!!
Class: Shadow
Current Quest: Collect 13 fire-breathing raccoons
[ phase i ]
[ Thankfully for Xion, she’s used to falling from great heights in the course of her normal mission work. Unfortunately, she’s not used to it being the very first thing she’s doing upon becoming conscious. It’s only sheer muscle memory that keeps her from going splat on the ground in the middle of town. Nearby watchers may see something strange happen - she dissolves in a fizzle of darkness about ten feet from the ground. It’s the alternate application of portals, something partners sometimes use on missions back home, and something she does without thinking.
Having been taken by surprise, though, when she rematerializes, it’s fifteen feet to the right of where she was going to touch down - and she crashes through the door of a shop, wherein chaos proceeds to reign. Cue the sounds of shattering and clattering and the angry yelling of a shopkeeper and Xion yelping “I’m so sorry!” as she runs out, covering her head.
Help her? Laugh at her? Or just be the hapless soul she runs smack into, since she’s not paying attention to where she’s going?
This is a rough start. ]
[ phase iii ]
[ It’s a huge relief to be out of that bulky armor and far away from that strange town.
It’s far less of a relief to be alone in a field surrounded by a ring of huge, bloodied neoshadows. Xion’s got her Keyblade in hand and a scowl on her face that is half-fear, half-anger as she faces them down. ]
I’ve never seen Heartless like these before… why are they here? How can this be? Is there something … wrong with this world? I can’t let them hurt anyone. I have to get rid of them!
[ Even so, there might be too many here for her to take on alone… but she has to try, right? ]
[ phase iv ]
I don’t understand.
[ Xion is up to her thighs in the lake, unable to stop herself from wading out, her fingertips trailing in the cold water. Whatever it is she sees, whatever it is she most desires, it seems to … confuse her. To haunt her. Anyone who spots her from the shore will see that she’s paper-pale and looks almost … scared? ]
I don’t understand why…
[ She advances so slowly, almost like she’s reluctant to go. The deeper she gets, the slower she goes. It seems like she’s starting to resist, but there’s a stirring in the water beyond her. Something is out there.
Slowly, she lifts her hands to press them to the sides of her head. ]
Stop…!
[ Anyone who wades out to help her, anyone who touches her while she’s in or near the water, will see a glimpse of two people.
What would it take for me to be like you? ]
[ bonus ]
[ You best watch out, or a short girl with a sweet smile will be plopping a flower crown on your head and giggling. ]
It looks nice on you!
[ wild card ]
[ Hit me up at
phase iv;
W-wait!!
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It's a good thing Mary is force enough to stop Xion dead in her tracks. She turns around, staring at her friend with bright, startled eyes. ]
... Mary?
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C-can you come back? You're going too deep!
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phase i
Disappears. ]
Jesus - [ NO REALLY WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED, WHERE DID THAT GIRL GO, WHAT IS GOING ON HERE
And then a moment later, the same girl comes spilling out of the nearest building. Still entirely nonplussed, Marty rushes over to her. ]
Are you okay? How did you - what the hell?
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Um--
[ Another yell from the shop, and without thinking, she grabs his arm. ]
Come on, we can't stay!
[ Did you want to go on an adventure, Marty? We're going on an adventure!! Xion will drag him away from the shop and the angry shopkeep that is starting to chase them. So much for staying away from the watchful eye of a world's locals! ]
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- could really use some wheels right about now -
[ Skateboard, car, whatever. He'd take anything. ]
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IV
Ignoring how mussed he looks from the rough day, Apollo splashes in loudly behind her. The suit's already beyond saving, anyway, between the multiple dunks in the water and the tears from fighting monsters. Grimly, he catches Xion by one arm and begins to tow her back toward the shore.]
Sorry to do this, miss, but we need to get out of the water. It isn't safe.
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[ At first, Xion wants to resist. The psychic pull that drew her into the water makes her want to keep going.
But all the pieces of her that had already started to resist are the pieces of her that make her move with him, that make her feet unquestioningly obey even while her mouth tries to protest. So he'll find she goes with him willingly even as she says those words, or turns her head to look back at the water.
Even those protests don't last long. A few dogged shakes of her head and she's entirely on board, stubbornly looking only at the shore - and then up at him. ]
... it's okay. I should be thanking you. I don't know what I ... was doing out there in the first place.
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Just don't look at the water. There's something making us see things... [The soft sigh he lets out now is a big hint that he fell victim to those visions, too.] Anyway, it's easier to avoid being lured in once you know what to look out for.
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phase III
She's not sure if these things can drown, but they probably don't appreciate a few gallons of the wet stuff, right?]
Are... are you okay?
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Xion stares in amazement first at the bubbles, and then at the ... mermaid?
(Something about her seems familiar. Like Xion could swear she's seen a mermaid before, but... she hasn't ever. Right?) ]
I...
[ Her lapse in concentration is rewarded with a surprise attack. One of the remaining neoshadows leaps on her, and she cries out and topples over under its assault. It gets blasted away with a Fire spell, and Xion hauls herself back to her feet, scuffed up and with a long, painful looking scratch to her face, but otherwise alright. ]
I'll be fine! Let's just take care of the rest of these! Please be careful!
[ With no further ado Xion leaps properly into the fray, her Keyblade slicing into the neoshadow that leapt on her while fire and lightning spells tear into two others. ]
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[Wow, acrobatics and magic. Keimi couldn't keep up with that. Her style was far more defensive, aiming for legs and heads to stun and trapping the monsters in bubbles.]
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phase i!
At least Kon can say he's seen some strange things by this point in his life, so watching a girl dissolve into shadows isn't the strangest by far. No, that honor goes to a lot of the shit ayakashi have done in Amatsuki, so he just sort of... looks around to see where she might rematerialize, and - yep, there she go.
He winces as she crashes through the door, but then he's moving as he hears the chaos inside, because he has a feeling that the NPC inside probably won't appreciate her patronage like this. This place is weird, but at the very least the game characters seem a little more lively, despite the creepy, unhelpful, repetitive crap they keep spouting out.
Case in point: angry yelling, and poor girl running out. Kon takes the opportunity to reach out once she's close enough, gently tugging on the back of her hood to pull her out of the line of fire. Hopefully this doesn't result in him getting hit or, you know, turned into shadows or something. Who knows what people can do with their abilities. ]
C'mon, better get out of their range.
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But he does manage to tug her safely out of the way, and once she's out of the doorway, the shopkeep seems to forget she exists. Objects stop flying, and the chaos immediately ceases. ]
... huh.
[ For his help, Kon gets a big grin, sweet as sunlight. ]
Thank you so much!
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bonus because I already have too much sad shit with you
Uh...thanks? But I think that's up for debate.
GOOD LET'S HAVE SOME CUTE, AGGRESSIVELY BARFS RAINBOWS
I think it's cute.
GOOD BRING IT TO ME X-(
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bonus;
Oh, thank you! [ she claps her hands together in delight. being told she looks nice is one of the best compliments she can ever get. it boosts her ego. but when she opens her eyes again after smiling, that's when she realises— ]
Xion?
[ this can't be a mistake, can it? it's xion! one of her good friends; she's back? thank you, coders for bringing her back! athena's just absolutely filled with glee. ]
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... oh dear. She frowns a little, but her reaction isn't as severe as it was her first time in ViViD. Now she just looks concerned. ]
That's right. But ... I'm afraid I don't remember you. I don't remember my first time in Cerealia at all. I'm really sorry.
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Phase I
So he may
accidentally
tackle her over.]
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is what he gets for knocking her over. They go down in a tangle of limbs and yelling girl, especially as he lands on top of her and it's quite a painful landing. ]
Ow....
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phase iii bc lbr, everything will hurt no matter what
at least, he's pretty sure that's the case, since that's how it's been pretty consistently since his arrival. but new people also means he has to go looking for the people that matter most: xion and axel. after having seen xion briefly before, his hopes are a bit higher that she'll actually be here for real this time, so it's only natural that he's willing to put himself through one of these games. which seems to have its payout when he finally does spot her.
you know, save for the fact that she's surrounded by neoshadows.]
Them again!? [he's only seen the neoshadows once before; it was also the only time he fought side-by-side with riku out of necessity. these guys are tougher than the regular shadows and seem to multiply quicker too, so roxas doesn't hesitate to summon oathkeeper and oblivion. as he leaps towards xion and the shadows, he summons a set of spot beams to try and break up the circle around her and give her some room to fight.
he may have learned a few tricks since she last saw him. funny, what grief can do to a nobody, right?]
Come on, Xion. We can take them down! [there's no time to talk about much else—not about his keyblades or his new abilities, not about how it seems like she's here to stay after all. first order of business is taking down the neoshadows.
it's kind of like old times in a way, even if the nostalgic feelings is completely overshadowed by what needs to be done right now. the rest can come later.]
I LOVE PAIN
[ Her relief on seeing him is so mixed. They'd managed to work things out during their first run-in, sort of, even if it was a strangely tenuous truce. She wasn't entirely willing to believe that everything really was as alright as he wanted to assure her. She was still so scared that her existence might risk his safety, that any belief on her part of it being okay was really just her being selfish. And she just didn't know how to explain that to him. But as long as they were here, they could at least work together.
It seemed they'd be doing that pretty literally right now. Even if his strange new powers make her eyes go wide. He's not using their normal Keyblade at all, and ... he's got two of them. Why... and why can he use all that Light? What's going on?!
They'll have to talk about it later. If there's one thing she does know, it's how to fight at his side, and she falls into the familiar groove without missing a beat. ]
Right!
[ As soon as he gives her the berth she needs, she's off, her Keyblade whipping its way through a Neoshadow while a Blizzaga tears through another. Keyblade and magic both fly while she tries to keep a surreptitious eye on Roxas. What else can he do now...? ]
GOOD bc that's gonna happen eventually anyway
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Phase I
Hope she doesn't mind bumping into a 7 year old kid and his Digimon because she sure did now!]
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