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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[The vengeful dead can definitely be a handful at times... But Kashuu is, at least, nothing if not honest even when he doesn't want to be. His expressions tend to give him away every time he tries to lie, but he's not attempting to cover things up this time. Mostly because his answer isn't super helpful--]
He's like, as good as he always seems to be, I guess. It's hard to read that guy. [A big difference from the Souji he'd grown closer to.] He had some trouble the last time the spirits showed up, but I think he's fine outside of that.
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[ "As good as he always seems to be" is hardly a clear answer, but it seems to be saying "nothing has changed too much." ] Souji dislikes being read or having things assumed about him. [ It's always been difficult. Souji never revealed much, not if he could help it. ] But what sort of trouble...?
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[That's one thing they all seem to share, at least - the desire to hide away the things that they don't want seen.
But he's given pause, because-- well. He'd promised he wouldn't tell anyone else about what he'd seen in that alleyway, and while Saitou is a fellow captain, he doesn't know if he knows about those strange abilities. So he raises his shoulders a little, nose wrinkling.]
Some ghosts were giving him a hard time, but he took care of 'em.
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Still. ] Hardly anyone gives him trouble, unless this is demons we are speaking of. [ Demons, ha, ha...he hates remembering that one unfortunate fight. ]
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Yeah, these guys were something else. Not demons, but strong. Normal humans can't really fight 'em either, y'know? Since they can't be touched when they aren't possessing things.
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[ He would ask about the tuberculosis but...does Kashuu know. Where in this timeline of theirs is Souji at, even. He doesn't want to assume, only to have Souji think he is keeping secrets from him for his own good. ] So I take it these ghosts possessed someone, and then made things difficult.
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They possessed some robots, yeah. Some of those guys were easy to handle, but others were reeeally tough.
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Robots...those are the machines here fitted with a artificial brain, yes? [ He thought those were harmless. Not anymore. ] I understand now.
[ There's some more questions that he has, but they were once he would rather ask Souji in person. So instead he asks another question: ] Have there been any more tsukumogami who arrived?
[ Curiosity gets the best of him, because swords. ]
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[Cerealia just has to ruin all of their good things... As for the question:]
More showed up, but more left, too. Right now, there are - thirteen of us left, I think. [And then, because he feels like he has a good idea about where this question's coming from:] You haven't met some of 'em, but yours haven't shown up yet.
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Still, he's just a little bit disappointed by that news. ] I see. [ He wants to imagine how such a conversation would even go with his sword, but his mind draws a blank.
In the meantime, he's rolling up his sleeves so that his arms feel less muddy. ] Have you found any place here that's...dry? [ Or even grassy. Even grass preferable to mud.... ]
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But he leaves that stone unturned and keeps onward with the discussion.]
Nope, not at all. Considering who's in charge of these levels, I'd say this entiiire area is probably just swamp, swamp and more swamp.
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If standing still did not mean drawing creatures to you, I would almost suggesting sitting down to wait this out. [ Maybe they'd be lucky enough to glitch out. He holds back his sigh, shaking his head instead. ] Have you figured out the point of this level? I have tried, but not even these clothes are a hint.
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Mmm, nope. [REASSURING.] Some sort of healthy living exercise something something, but that's so vague it could mean just about anything. I tried manually logging out earlier too and it was a no-go, so I'm guessing there's at least one objective they expect us to meet.
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[ He saw that one rundown shack with drinks, didn't go in, and from some observance, he's glad he didn't. Dealing with it just now is bad, but every day? ] I have no intentions of meeting the objectives of this level. [ Maybe he really ought to just sit down and let a monster eat him...but wait, he's got no nutritional value...
Everything is so counterproductive. He sighs. ] While I cannot say I hate being back in this place again...I don't miss some aspects of it.
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