The thing about Cerealia is, there really isn't any nature to be found here. Sure, you can go outside the walls of the city and explore the land beyond but who wants to risk a terrible, horrible death just to sniff the flowers? Not you, that's who! CERES understands that, CERES sympathizes, and sometimes CERES decides to take action when such problems arise. As part of the company's current "Healthier and Happier YOU" initiative, they've decided to let everyone get back in touch with nature a little.
Via ViViD.
Of course, this being CERES, the nature they've sent everyone to is more of a swamp. The place is disgusting, a real marvel of ViViD ingenuity and it smells like the dead. There's strange rustling among the leaves from creatures that may or may not want to eat you, and random pits that open up right under your feet with the goal of sending you straight into the marsh. It's not really that fun. There's no welcome sign either, no nothing except for swamplands as far as the eye can see.
Welcome to ViViD!  This is Mosley. One of our programmers forgot to include a welcome greeting for the level this time. How incompetent can you get? He's been fired now, it's fine. Instead, I will greet you today. Lucky you! You've been invited today to participate in CERES's "Healthier and Happier YOU" level where we've combined both physical exercise and relaxing meditation into the ultimate ViViD experience. Isn't that fun? You can... go camping and stuff. Or whatever. I don't... know...
Honestly, I don't even care. Have fun.
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PHASE I [ 6 00 ] Welcome to your new healthy living training ground! What does a swamp have to do with healthy living, you may ask? Absolutely nothing! To make up for it, CERES has outfitted all players with the proper equipment for their new healthy living lifestyle. They also may or may not have let you keep your shoes based on how benevolent the ViViD gods were being at the time. (Not very.)
Oh, and all newcomers will have something additional on their fancy new yoga shirt. It will be displayed loudly and proudly all over the front and back of it. And if you're one of the few not wearing a shirt, it will be on the back of your pants. As in, your butt. It will be on your butt.
What’s ViViD trying to say, anyway?
Regardless, it probably doesn’t matter as much as finding your way through the swamp. Some sort of dry land would be really nice right now, wouldn't it? You'll have to watch out for the mud that will suck you right down under the marsh, and the creatures with lots of teeth that will never surface from the mud but won't hesitate to snap up an unwary foot or two.
CERES is sure you'll be fine. Totally and completely fine.
PHASE II [ 800 ] Eventually, if you try really, really hard, you’ll make it to a house. Actually, it’s more of a shack, really. If you clamber your way out of the mud and the gunk and the marsh into said shack, you will find it to be empty aside from a table. A table hosting a huge pile of... well, health drinks. See, there's totally a health theme in this level. CERES would never make a ViViD level that wasn't thematically appropriate. Never! Health drinks of all sorts and types and sizes can be found here and there’s even a sign too; it simply says:
Take one.
Well, that seems safe.
Unfortunately, you won’t be able to leave said shack until you do take one. And drink it. The door will lock shut and cover itself in more swamp until you do. Yay. Depending on your luck, the drink may do the following to you: ➟ Cause your ViViD experience to glitch. This may involve phasing through walls, seeing everything in 8-bit, or hearing really annoying old video game music everywhere you go.
➟ Cause status effects. This can include suddenly moving incredibly slowly, being turned to stone for a period of time, suddenly being on fire, suddenly being poisoned, etc etc.
➟ Be healthier. Mmm, kale and hummus smoothie. Taste those veggies. If you try to take more than one, that’s fine too, nobody will stop you, but you probably won’t get lucky more than once.
PHASE III [ 900 ] And back you go, out into the swampy wilderness. Don’t give up! Keep going! Eventually, you’ll find the end of this level. Probably.
Eventually, though, you may stumble across something in the mud and the muck. It’s... a little doll?
In fact, it’s a little doll of one of your most important people (or, alternatively, of someone you absolutely hate). It might be someone in Cerealia currently, or someone who isn’t, but either way, the doll is there and it’s clearly them (covered in mud and all). Be careful, though. If you toss it aside, you’ll suddenly see that important person being tossed aside. If you cut the doll, you'll suddenly see that person bleeding. Even if they aren’t present in Cerealia, whatever happens to that doll, you'll see it happening to them. Is it a hallucination or are they actually there? That's a little more up in the air.
And if they are present in Cerealia, well... doing things to that doll might very well hurt them too -- for real, this time, though.
Be careful! Or don't. You do you, as CERES would say.
PHASE IV [ 1200 ] And then, eventually you reach a quiet, swampy area. Not that the rest of the swamp isn't swampy, this area is just extra swampy.
There’s very little happening here in this swampy place; even the birds are no longer squawking. And for a long moment, everything will remain quiet and peaceful, a place of reprieve... until the swamp begins to bubble. Then suddenly, a new friend will burst out of the swamp, showering mud and gunk everywhere.
Without warning, that creature is going to try to grab for the nearest person (it might be you!) and let out a mighty roar when they have them. Then, they'll hold them up to... read the nutrition facts on their shirt? What?
Of course, it will try to gobble you or whoever else it grabs if it finds, say, the salt content to be acceptable (the monster is watching their carbs). If it's not, then they'll just fling you away and move onto the next snack. For those without a handy nutrition facts label on your shirt, well, it might just take a gamble and try to eat you anyway.
Great. A health-conscious monster. That's just what this level needed.
BONUS [ xxxx ] Finally, you’re free of the game. Without warning, you’re dumped into Cerealia properly and you’re able to scrub the mud and gunk from your clothing (wait why did that come back with you and where are your normal clothes?). You're able to then make your way to your new place of residence (or old) and...
There is a tiny tree there waiting for you. Isn’t it cute? And if you take care of this tiny tree, it will eventually bear fruit! Tiny fruit. Itty bitty fruit.
Depending on which tiny tree you get, it will be one of the following: a tiny dildo tree, a tiny bacon tree, a tiny kazoo tree, a tiny carolina reaper tree, or a (dumb) tiny hats tree.
Everything will, naturally, be tiny. Enjoy your new healthy CERES gift!
[ 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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After two hours of walking around in this gunky mess with a label slapped on his bottom (that he was not even aware of), Cyborg was not in his better moods. Most people could shower this gunk off, but Cyborg was already starting to slow because of everything creeping into his joints. The discovery of a shack was a more than welcome sight. Even the oddly placed beverage was nice to find. Only now there was a persistent background song that had been on loop for an absurdly long time now. Even though he had long abandoned the shack, it could still be heard blasting all around him.
"Okay, OKAY! I get it! We're in a video game! Can we please skip to the next track!?"
4.
"I. AM NOT. FOR DINNER. TODAY."
Deemed to be of appropriate salt content, Cyborg could be found already inside a monster's mouth, only he was using legs and feet to keep the creature from closing its mouth on him. His robotic super strength might have been keeping him from being today's extra value meal, but it also wasn't helping him escape just yet.
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"Who are you yelling at?"
She looked up, also curious as to where that strange music was coming from. It sounded like a video game, but not one she had heard before.
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"Oh. Just the background music. Ain't it bugging the crap out of you too?"
Or maybe she was an NPC. He doubted she could even hear of it.
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Not that Taichi played very often. He was too busy with his soccer, spending every possible minute he could outside practicing. When they weren't busy trying to save the fate of two worlds from evil digimon, that was.
"They told me this was a game too. I wonder if they all play music."
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He liked retro games. He really did. He also liked that you could turn on your own jams to drown them out.
"But uh... what are you doing out here anyway? This ain't exactly kid-friendly territory."
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2
Because this guy sure does look like a cyborg.
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"Oh, sure it is. An hour ago, anyway."
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"When did it start happening? Maybe you just need to...move onto a new area. Or encounter a boss or something." Applying video game logic here is completely valid.
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Nah, couldn't be. The kid didn't even have henchman potential.
"If you know where I can find a boss, then by all means."
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"But...is it not coming from you?"
She doesn't mean this in an accusatory way, her tone calm and neutral as she stares at him with a curious tilt of her head. Even through the mud she could still see the glint of metal and wonders what he is.
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"Please, I got way better taste in tunes than that noise."
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Not going to comment on his taste though, since she knows nothing about that. "May I ask why it is that you seem to be playing music, then?"
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"This background music don't even fit this setting."
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The voice coming from behind Cyborg sounds too upbeat for someone who's slogging through a swamp. It's impossible to tell if Peter's grinning behind that wooden mask, but from the bounce in his step (as much as he can bounce when his feet are getting sucked into the mud, anyway) and the cheerful tone in his voice, grinning seems like a safe bet.
"Could be worse, right? It could be a MIDI-fied version of one'a them pop music hits!" Peter phases through a tree as he shrugs, coming out the other end in a pixelated haze before he reforms properly. He either doesn't seem to notice, or doesn't think it's worth mentioning.
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Ugh, this was gonna be awkward.
"Yeah, well, this ain't exactly Moonwalker. So we got that at least."
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"Somehow, I think Michael Jackson would have a hard time doing slifty dance moves in this muck. Although really, this whole situation is so weird that I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see him Thriller his way outta some bushes."
He phases through a couple more trees and a bush, and when Peter speaks up again, he sounds... not less cheerful exactly, but a little more serious.
"More to the point, though, once we're out of the aforementioned muck - and my apologies in advance if this is too forward - would you like a hand getting the muck out of your joints? The robots back home always get gunked up if they're out in mud, and from what they've told me, it ain't comfortable."
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Comes the oh so helpful commentary of the one about to spoil the poor monster's meal. No rescue is complete without some sass, right? Riku sure thinks so. He also thinks that this thing can stand to go on a diet so no eating people or robots today. Canceling that thing's dinner plans looks like more than a one man job, however, and doubly so when said man's a small slip up away from getting digested. This is why he wastes no time in summoning his keyblade and casting off a blizzaga while taking care to aim so not to strike Cyborg with the ice attack.
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"HEY! Watch it!" Cyborg would have had more warnings to shout, but the beast was thrashing about wildly and it gave Cyborg just the opportunity he needed to slip free. After rolling into a gross and boggy landing, he arose a swampish looking thing with a sonic cannon glowing hot.
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Fighting will prove way easier as a 2-on-1 but can Cyborg fight and is he up for it? Riku scans the guy over quickly to make sure there isn't anything serious in the way of injury. What prevents him from figuring that out, however, is the swamp monster impression going on right now. Nice cannon, though, and it pretty much answers the question of the guy can fight. "You in one piece?"
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"You know CERES isn't actually listening, right?"
Okay, maybe not the friendliest, but at least she's not yelling.
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And why him? Wasn't extradimensional world doom shenanigans more of a Raven thing anyway?
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Her tone softens a little bit. It's not that she can't remember how confusing things were when she first arrived.
"They seem to think it's a big joke, unfortunately. I'm sorry you're having to go through with it. This is one of the more ridiculous scenarios."
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Rip had appeared on the path, having been drawn down it when she heard a struggle and just had to pause to see the strange sight before her. Was that kid made.. of metal and computer parts? She just stared for a moment before glancing to the beast attempting to eat him and sighing.
She really wished she had her gun. The shot would have been perfect right now.
Instead she went for a tree branch and broke it off before rushing in. Damned orders... Rip rushed the creature to slam her big stick into the side of its head several time with a force that a woman her size shouldn't have. Lets see how it likes that.
...and it felt good to just hit something right now.
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"I appreciate what you're doing - but - I don't think - oof!"
Suddenly a big ugly tongue came up from behind him, wrapped around his chest, and yanked him back. It was down the hatch he went.
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The question was, who was the cat and who was the mouse?
Rip glanced towards the metal kid just in time to see the slimy tongue wrap around him and yank the kid back. She paused enough to tightened her grip on her stick before diving in, sliding to avoid tentacles so she could slam her weapon into it's underside with all her might.
...Which she barely managed to do before getting caught by tentacles herself.
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