You've seen the flyer. Or maybe you haven't. Whatever your reasons may be, you've decided to log onto ViViD today at around 6 PM. At first, all seems normal as the game loads, and you prepare to start on what should be an average adventure. Maybe you'll do a little fighting, or some exploring, or even a little platforming. Either way, there shouldn't be anything unusual about this.
Right?
You couldn't have been more wrong. The moment you log in, something goes strange. The game glitches around you, whatever world that started to load seizing up and freezing with static, warping with strange colors. And then a different setting loads smoothly like nothing ever happened. The first thing you notice is that it's sprawling and beautiful, if not a little ostentatious. Should your curiosity draw you from the courtyard you've arrived in through the great double doors, you'll arrive in...
... a ballroom. Welcome to prom. |
PHASE I [ 6 00 ] There are tables scattered around the periphery of the room, and a DJ, somewhat out of place in this beautiful setting, is stationed at the back, spinning out tunes to help you get settled into the start of the night. On the scattered tables are... punch bowls? They look tantalizing, and they come in quite a rainbow of colors. Should you be brave enough to take a sip, you'll find interesting things will happen. Drink the red punch, and you'll end up in rococo fashion. Drink the pale champagne-colored punch, and you'll find yourself sporting elegant regency attire. How about that cool blue punch? You'll step right into the roaring 20's. What about that dayglo orange punch over there? How about some far out 80's, man? That futuristic purple punch will suit you up in Tron style. And then there's one last punch bowl on a lonely table in the corner. No one can quite identify that color. Is that ... brown? Brave this punch bowl and you'll be, uh ... richly rewarded with modern-day fashions. Will you step up and test these refreshments, for science? Or will you be the first onto the dance floor, or to make an insane request of the DJ?
Last but not least, certain Cerealians who glitch into the level may find they have a specific corsage attached that they cannot remove! If they stick around long enough, they'll find one other lucky soul with a matching corsage. This is your ViViD assigned date! No one is going to force you two to dance... but you might find that the longer you put off dancing, the tighter that corsage gets around your wrist, or the more it begins to prick your chest, depending on its location. Might want to rethink your position...
Dates: - Shijima Kurookano & Himeko Inaba
- Trucy Wright & Enomoto "Ene" Takane
- Adelina & Rock Lee
- Byakuya Togami & Lailah
- Archer & Touka Kirishima
- Sakuya Le Bel Shirogane & Maya Fey
- Leon Kuwata & Alisha Diphda
PHASE II [ 730 ] So you're here. Whether out of curiosity or you've resigned yourself to the strange festivities, you're in. Maybe you've been wallflowering it up for a while, even with the cool kickin music playing. Whatever the case may be, the DJ announces themselves (DJ Slim Shaydee, not to be confused with that knock off from Earth). You're welcomed in an enthusiastic manner. Also hey, if you're near a table, see those cute placards? Yeah the ones in the center pieces mixed in with the bowl of candy and flowers. You'll notice they have a neatly typed out list— DJ Slim Shaydee says whoever fulfills the criteria on the list will be crowned Prom Royalty. Who doesn't want that???
- Successfully complete a slow dance
- Do the cha cha slide OR do the electric slide without messing up the turn
- Make out in the rose garden out back
- Have a dramatic fight with a close friend and storm out (you may come back after)
- Comfort a crying friend in the bathroom
- If you're a minor, accidentally get drunk
- Successfully spike every punch bowl within a 20 minute time limit
- Confess romantic feelings to the object of your affections
To truly kick it off or maybe give those ambitious types a head start, DJ Slim is gonna play you (yes all of you) a group dance! Hope you know the moves to the Cha Cha Slide. If not, don't worry, the song will tell you every step.
Oh and one more thing — anyone who fulfills an item on the list will get a confetti surprise. What does this mean? It means a golden, multi-faceted little ball will spontaneously appear over your head out of nowhere soon after you fulfill a condition, hovering for a moment before it explodes into a shower of confetti. Enjoy!
PHASE III [ 900 ] Whew. All these fast paced songs sure have you tired out, right? Maybe take a sip from the many punch bowls around the room if you haven't tested them out yet. Or try your hand at fulfilling another portion of that list from earlier—by spiking the punch. Better work fast though, the bowls themselves refresh fairly quickly once they sense contamination. See how many you can get in one go! Or if you're not a dirty prankster, see how many people you can catch spiking those dang bowls.
While you're doing that, the DJ seems to want to wind down the energy in the room. That means, you guessed it: time for that coveted slow dance. As the first chords of the song play, the doors to the garden veranda and hedge maze open. How romantic.
PHASE IV [ 1000 ] It's the end of the night, and maybe you've been trying your best to satisfy all those win conditions. Or maybe you haven't! Either way, it's clear from the mood in the air that the time is drawing near for the announcement of the Prom Royalty. The DJ brings the lights low, and spotlights hit his stand. He brings a mic to his mouth, and announces grimly that there will be no Prom Royalty. Apparently, no one satisfied enough of the win conditions! How can that be? Surely someone tried! Well, whatever happened, the DJ isn't happy, and the lights in the room will come back up. The DJ will mess with some of the equipment at his station, and all across the room, small panels will open up near the ceiling. Pouring out will come ... balloons? And not just any balloons - they're water balloons, and not only are they somehow floating, they're coming straight for you. How are they flying? We just don't know. If they come in contact with you, they'll frizz your perfect prom hair. Worse, if you apply even the mildest force to them, they'll immediately pop and drench you in freezing cold water, leaving you drenched.
The ballroom quickly fills with these angry little balloons, threatening to flood the room completely if too many of them pop. Will you flee and save yourself? Try to save your friends? Try to reason with the DJ and stop the balloon menace? No matter what you do, you'd better work fast. The floor is already getting dangerously wet...
BONUS [ hour ??? ] Remember that garden maze? From a certain point of the evening on, prom guests have been free to wander through as they please. They're beautiful, a rose maze by day that looks even more breathtaking at night with fairy lights glittering and winking in between all the flowers and leaves. Maybe you wandered out there to get away from the craziness in the party. Perhaps you want to be a true wallflower. But should you explore this maze with another at your side, you'll find it a pleasant enough trip, and if you manage to make it all the way to the center of the maze, you'll discover a secluded little gazebo that seems like it was placed there just for you.
Go in alone, though, and the maze seems like a completely different place. The fairy lights will be dimmer, less pleasant. You'll hear a rustling too loud to just be the wind. What was that sound? Turn around, and nothing is there. Too late you'll realize that the maze itself is alive, and has been watching you this entire time. It doesn't like lone wanderers. Better run fast or find a way to get out of the plant's clutches before you really become veggie.
However, if you get caught, you'll be trapped by the sentient vines that shoot out from the walls and bound to the side of the maze until another lone explorer finds you. At this point the vines will reach out and snap up that unlucky soul, too, wrapping you both up in a not-so-tender embrace. You'll both be stuck there until you can do whatever it is the maze wants that will convince it to set you free. What is that? Well, it does seem to be fond of lovers... and public displays of affection.
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cannonades) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
estoria2016-01-04 07:52 pm
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This battle was hardly your idea-- it was someone else's. And I'm not sure if a brawl was the intent at a social gathering...
[His hands tightened around his fan, prepared to move at a moment's notice if Doudanuki decided to strike.]
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[He sheathes the sword though and puts up his fists. If Koumei can't or won't fight him with a blade, then at least fists will do, right?
Please don't reduce this to a slap battle, Koumei. He hits really hard.]
So you gonna step up or what?
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[Koumei just sighed in resignation, really wishing that he didn't have to waste his Magoi on something like this. Casting a furtive look around, he drew his feathered fan and-- with a few choice words-- transformed his figure so that he could borrow the powers of one of the great Djinn in his world. Hair unbound, with the starry sky glittering in the folds of his clothes, he looked at Doudanuki with something akin to annoyance.]
I apologize for giving you a boring fight, Doudanuki-- Dante Al-Thais.
[--and a starlit portal appeared above Doudanuki's head just to drop a bowl of punch from the nearby tables on top of his head.]
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PUNCH BOWL.
He jumps to the side and narrowly misses getting clocked over the head with a heavy glass bowl. He can't avoid the splash of fruit juice, however, and it soaks the hem of his pants, throwing speckled colors up onto his shirt and vest.
For a second, Doudanuki is stunned, not only by the sudden appearance of a punch bowl out of nowhere, but by the random magical girl sequence that just happened before his eyes. Then his confusion gives way to anger and he's charging forward, aiming a fist at Koumei's face.]
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Sorry, Doudanuki. The derp doesn't play nice in a fight.]
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And freakish. No one should ever see their hand just disappear and reappear when it punches the owner in the face.
Doudanuki stumbles and and snarls. Light damage, sure, but it isn't anything that he's going to have problems with.]
Asshole! Fight me, don't run!
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[These powers are actually great for fighting, but they're cheap. You could take an enemy's barrage of arrows and turn it back on them. Let the enemy fight itself. It's a coward's way of fighting - avoiding the fight altogether, but still winning.
And it leaves a sour taste in Doudanuki's mouth.
He spits and notices the red stain on the floor.
The sour taste was blood.]
That's your way of runnin' from the fight. A fight's about facin' your opponent with fists and steel, not hiding behind magic and this- [He waves a hand at the black star portals] -whatever the hell it is.
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Mountains could be dropped from the sky itself.
But, for single combat? His skill was sorely lacking.]
Like I already told you, [he said patiently, not even batting an eye at the sight of blood. After witnessing beheaded women and children left in the open to make a statement to the enemy, hardly anything makes much of a difference any longer.] It's not practical for me to enter the battlefield like this. I'm a tactician, not a brawler.
Also, I'm hopeless with a blade. The tutors that were brought in to teach my brothers and I gave up even trying.
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Just 'cause you ain't a swordsman, don't mean you don't have hands and feet. Relying on a power like that all the time?
[He picks up the glass ladle and throws it at Koumei.]
No wonder you can't fight!
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Actually, [he muttered, irritable now.] I was born with a weak body that never stood up to any kind of physical activity. Even jogging outside in the sun was enough to make me pass out, and not even the ripened peaches on the trees in the courtyard was enough to recover for.
Only my books and my pigeons were of any help. Surely I would have died without them.
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Weak bodies can be trained if you work hard enough at it. Didn't anyone train you properly?
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They tried, but it just didn't work. My skill is meager, if anything-- and it is as pale as snow in comparion to the skills of my older and younger brothers.
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[No, seriously. Who? Doudanuki doesn't understand why people are so obsessed with comparisons.]
You either get strong or you're useless. And if you're useless, you'll get melted down for parts.
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...You can't easily melt down the second prince of a growing empire. That's why I put my mind to use instead.
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[UGH, human society is so hard to understand. And Doudanuki apparently has 0% of an idea of what humans do in their spare time.]
You should still know how to fight - actually fight - as a prince. Especially if your country's at war. The hell you going to do if it comes down to just you? Roll over and say "Well, I can't fight so take my people from me?"
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I've safeguards in place among the conquered lands to prevent rebellion, and Kou's military is among the strongest in the world. My strategies combined with our soldiers might is enough to overcome enemy countries who try to cross into our territories.
[His eyes narrowed in reflection, letting other details remain unspoken. Perhaps he had been blinded by his own feelings, because his strategy wasn't enough to overcome an attack from within those borders, from one of their own.
Betrayal was a tough drink to swallow.]
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Betrayal from within one's ranks was just normal.]
Yeah? And what about the guy right next to you if he decides to stick a dagger in your gut?
You can't fight, you're gonna die.
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[w o w. Doudanuki had no idea how close his words struck at a physical and psychological wound that he was still recovering from. The final piece of the puzzle that had been bothering him during his adopted brother's rebellion had fallen into place-- but it had come from an unanticipated source.
It was too late to do anything about it.]
What of long distance strikes that you don't see coming? Strikes that are nothing more than an assassination attempt on the enemy general on the battlefield?
Doudanuki, I have already made peace with the fact that I'll be branded a traitor by history, should I survive the current battle. Exile would be kind, but I doubt the compassion of a man who has cursed his own fate-- even if we are brothers.
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[All of his masters have been warriors, even the generals who later rested on their laurels. They started on the battlefield, wading across the Japan Sea, taking heads and bringing back trophies. To think that anyone involved with a war wasn't a warrior themselves was against everything he stands for.]
Humans are going to kill the hell out of each other, whether they're related or not. It's all the more reason you need to learn.
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[Because not even the sons of the first emperor or their young cousins were spared from witnessing the atrocities of battle, and all the manners of indignities that the defeated warriors had to face at the hands of those who conquered them. Beheading was mild-- and even a ten year old child, with his legs shaking so hard from the terrified sobs that wracked his slender little body that he couldn't stand, had come to understand what it truly meant to 'conquor' or to 'be conquered.'
Drawing in a breath, Koumei let those memories churn away in the depths of his unconscious and dropped all pretenses and levity. Although he wasn't a warrior of the same calibur as Doudanuki, he had seen far too many things to be 'innocent' and 'untested' any longer.]
And your words right there are why my Brother and King strives to conquer the world-- so that there can be no more senseless wars, and so our grandchildren's grandchildren never need to see the blood that soaked the soils of our birth like we had to. Like our father and his father before him.
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[It's equally horrible, sure, but in different ways. You can watch a person starve to death and have it effect you, but it isn't the same as starving to death yourself.
Doutanuki shrugs and waves Koumei off. If the guy is THAT against learning how to fight, then that's his prerogative.]
But it's your choice. You don't wanna fight, then fine, but you do understand the irony of what you just said, right? You're going to conquer the world, put people through all kinds of horrors, just so war doesn't happen anymore? That's like a bubble on the water. The peace might come for a bit, but it ain't gonna last.
You humans get dissatisfied and end up fighting again eventually.
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[Koumei said tersely, averting his eyes from the painfully honest man before him. Doudanuki's suggestions were aspects that he had already considered, and time after time he found himself asking if using the evils of his world to create something better was really worth it. What would they say? His late cousins and the first Emperor had urged him to look beyond the gates of the capitol and beyond the boundaries of a single region--
What would the dead say if they saw the shape that the wold was in now?
...But the dead didn't talk. They had no say in the affairs of the living.]
...My apologies, Doudanuki, [he sighed wearily, brushing his heavy bangs out of his face with a single hand. Suddenly, he felt the weight of everything on his shoulders again, and it was compounded by his unwavering belief that the story of his world's destruction was a lie.]
This wasn't a conversation I intended to have with anyone so quickly. I know how hopeless and fragile my brother's and my idea really is, but it doesn't sit right to let the dreams of the man who taught us all we know follow him to the grave. I may not have gutted anyone with a blade, but I've done more than my fair share of unspeakable deeds in this lifetime. Is it really wrong to hope for the best in the next one?
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[He's never fully understood peace, but he's never seen it actually work either. Sure, the full scale wars were gone when the Tokugawa enforced their rule across all of Japan, but they hadn't been able to eliminate strife entirely.
Maybe it was just something a war sword couldn't understand. He didn't want people to suffer, but he also didn't want to be useless. He wanted there to be a war so he could be of use. It was what he was made for.]
It's never wrong to hope for anythin'. Don't know about the next life though. All that afterlife talk is stuff I've never understood. Why wait until you die to start livin'?
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Koumei stared at Doudanuki, thinking of a different young man with an honest heart and fire in his eyes. Chuckling bitterly, he shook his head and trained his eyes on the floor.]
That isn't the first time I've heard something similar. You remind me of someone who died well before his time.
[Someone who would have been a better King than either Kouen or Koumei himself, once the young man learned more of the world. Someone whom Koumei was prepared to think of as one of his trusted brothers-- even if through the bonds of marriage.
Thus was the nature of war. The good ones always had to die first.]
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