You're probably woken up by the explosion first. A loud, deafening boom comes from behind the walls of the residential district. When you look outside your window towards the darker, more secretive area of the city, you might see the structure around it... crumbling, the land falling in on itself slowly but surely. That might be what wakes you up first. If it doesn't, you may be awoken instead by the sudden jerking feeling behind your navel pulling you from where you are to somewhere... else.
It's dark. The first thing you notice is that it's dark -- and then come the scrabbling sounds of creatures in the dark, like metal being dragged across metal, a chilling, sharp sound. The first thing that becomes clear, as your vision adjusts, is that you're on a rickety pathway, metal and rusting and frail, above what appears to be yawning blackness. Far, far below, there's the faint sound of rushing water, a ways away.
The second thing that becomes clear is that you are very much not alone. Something is out there with you, and from the screeching metallic noises that come ever closer, it seems to be stalking you.
Thankfully, you're not alone -- right?  ...
...........
................
:)
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PHASE I [ ??? ] It’s drafty here. You’re below ground, that’s for certain from the echoes of the wind in the darkness. If you continue on forwards along the rickety, metal railing that serves as a walkway, the skittering noises of creatures in the dark follow -- but they don’t appear.
It seems everyone has been dumped along this pathway at random; you may be with friends, with enemies or with someone you’ve never met before, but either way, it soon becomes clear. There are only two ways to go along this path: up or down.
If you choose to take the path that follows a gradual slope down, the sounds of water lapping against a surface increase bit by bit, the air growing heavier and danker, until finally, the metallic platform gives way very suddenly (watch your step!) to a muddy bank. Down here, everything is darker, and not far away there’s the water. It’s cold and frigid and there are unfriendly creatures that await if you choose to delve into it. However, if you brave those creatures, and dive deeply enough, there is a mask. It rests half-buried by silt and rocks, but it’s there, and can be found by any intrepid explorers.
Somehow, it feels a little familiar.
And if you carry on in the cave system underground, eventually you will come across what appears to be an altar. There is blood on it -- not fresh, but not more than a month old -- and pieces of trinkets. Old bits of cloth, locks of hair, and some of them may even be familiar. Any dropped character who has a reasonably large amount of spiritual or magical power may have left scraps, such as pieces of clothing, trinkets, hair, or the sort behind at the altar.
Maybe that's why they weren't in the Nexus Code.
PHASE II [ ??? ] If you go up, you will eventually make your way above ground. It takes some time, and some luck -- you’ll have to avoid rusty railing and pathways, the path crumbling under you and that creeping sensation that something is following and watching you -- and then you’ll suddenly be in fresh air.
Well. It’s not so fresh, really.
The landscape is broken down and crumbled. It may have once been part of the city of Cerealia, but now it is in utter disrepair and decay. Buildings have crumbled, and debris is everywhere. There are signs of the same level of technology that Cerealia has -- but it is all broken down and utterly inaccessible.
And you’re not alone.
It seems the technology and metal and broken down destruction has gained sentience over its time sitting alone, waiting. And it is not happy to be disturbed. The creatures are made of pieces of everything around them, and when cut down, they’ll just slowly rebuild themselves from the debris.
It might be time to run.
They aren't happy about being disturbed, and you're in their way.
PHASE III [ ??? ] Above ground, there are a lot of broken down buildings.
Some can’t be accessed at all; some are too broken, too reduced to rubble. For those looking for shelter, they'll be able to find buildings where the doors can be forced open and they can camp out on the inside to various degrees of stability. Though the ceiling may cave in or the floor fall out from under you at a moment's notice, it's better than being out there. Be careful, because none of the architecture here can be trusted anymore.
And other buildings... are even less trustworthy than that.
There is a series of buildings in the midst of the wasteland, somehow still standing. They stand there silently, towering over the rest of the rubble in their two-story glory, and if the doors are forced open, it soon becomes clear that the building itself is full of mirrors.
Once, the mirrors had perhaps covered the walls and ceiling. Once, this building might have been akin to something of a ballet studio, somewhere to express yourself creatively. But now the mirrors are shattered and broken into pieces and the building lacks the joy it might have once held. Shards of mirror cover the floor, some big, some not so big, but they still hang from the walls as well and everywhere you look, you can see yourself.
And then, the reflection changes. From one blink to the next, you see a memory playing in the mirrors. Your memory. You’ll see a glimpse of one of your most traumatic or life-changing moments, broken up but clear in the shards. Blink and look away, and it’s gone, only to show up again in the next mirror a few moments later. Surely it’s just a trick of the light, right?
Except if someone else is with you, they’ll see it too -- and you might end up seeing a bit of their own past as well. Hope you're fond of sharing.
PHASE IV [ ??? ] If you survive the monsters, the crumbling landscape and the untrustworthy buildings, you may eventually find a terminal. It is buried deep among the rubble. One turn around a corner, one stumble into a hole, and you will find it. It sits there, out in the middle of nowhere; the building in which it used to be housed is apparently long gone, reduced to nothing but rubble.
And if you turn it on, there is a brief message.
Transmission Broadcasting.
Transmission Connected.
And then, there is a face.
BONUS [ ??? ] For those who have been wearing their masks a little too much, they might also start to notice that there are some strange effects attached, which worsen the more they’ve been wearing said masks. How badly they worsen is up to your discretion.
➝ Broken Mask: An intense feeling of paranoia, focused on whoever your character is with. They might also begin to remember fabricated memories of being betrayed by those people.
➝ Barcode Mask: Everything will begin to have value to them. There will be whispers in the back of their mind of the worth of their friends, the worth of a monster, the worth of everything around them. An intense need to own and consume as much as possible and as quickly as possible.
➝ Dripping Blood Mask: An intense lack of self-worth, a hollow feeling and thoughts of being weak and empty. Feeling as disposable as possible and an intense listless along with it.
➝ :( Mask: A need to prove yourself, to show everyone how strong you are as quickly as possible. You can do things, you can be of worth to everyone around you. Why won't they see that? Why?
➝ Ivy Mask: A choking sort of terror from all things metal and technology based, and a need to lash out against it. An intense distrust for anything that they feel is against the laws of nature.
➝ Grey Mask: More personable than normal, more emotional, more empathetic. An intense feeling of kindness and gratitude to those around you and a renewed love of life.
➝ Feather Mask: A dulled, lack of emotion. A detached feeling to everything around you. A sort of bland curiosity towards things without any empathetic reaction.
➝ Bloody Fingerprints Mask: They'll feel absolutely fine. No change.
The effects of the broken mask can stack on top of the others, if they chose to break their mask after the other effects began to appear. No other effects can be stacked, as no other changes can be stacked.
PENALTY [ ??? ] For characters who die while in the dark parts of the city, things will get... a little strange. They will die as normal, but they will wake up almost immediately after their death -- in the Nexus Code. They will have a few surreal moments to be there, to see their friends who have left Cerealia hanging lifelessly from odd, glimmering strands (though there are some faces, of course, that are missing, anyone who was spiritual, or magical, seems strangely absent) and then --
They’re back to being dead.
When characters revive in Cerealia, anywhere from one IC day to three or four IC days later, they will find that things are… not quite right with their code. They’re glitching, for a lack of a better word. Sometimes, their fingers will phase right through an object, their own limbs registering as cold and lifeless. Sometimes, they will see a face watching them -- but when they turn around to try to see who it is, the face will be gone.
These effects will last an IC week, before slowly things go back to normal.
That was strange.
[ 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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no subject
[For some reason, Nice has decided that it's a great idea to keep going down. He'll go up, eventually, but he can check out both eventually.
He's gotten past the monsters and found the mask, and more importantly...he's found the altar. It's kind of eerie, he thinks, as he looks over at the trinkets, and he scratches at one of the bandages on his face as he stands there and considers it.]
There's alway got to be something creepy, huh?
[He's not really talking to anyone in particular.]
phase iii;
[He really hates it when he comes across things that shows him glimpses of home. For example, he's trying to avoid looking at the mirrors, because he knows what he's going to see. His friend, who he'd thought was dead, standing behind Nice as he knelt forward to investigate a dead body.
That same friend, putting a gun to the back of his head as Nice kneels in shock. Art looks pretty grim as he does it, not like the person Nice knew at all.
And then Nice is moving, trying to get away from him, and he gets shot in the shoulder in the process.
That's when he stomps on the mirror completely, gritting his teeth and hoping that it shatters even more. While he's not generally the type of person to lose his temper this badly, he's really tired of seeing it. He's moved past it, even.
He just doesn't want to relive it.]
penalty;
[Well, dying doesn't really shake up Nice as much as it really should. It had shaken him up, seeing Sousei in the Nexus Code, but he's going to make himself not dwell on it. He can't dwell on it. That just simply isn't productive, right?
But what's even less productive is the fact that he's phasing through what he's touching, which this time seems to be some fries that'd come with his meal. He's in a pretty foul mood because of it, and he groans before leaning back on the bench he's sitting on.
At least he doesn't phase through that.]
A guy's gotta eat, you know! [He's yelling up at the sky, as if he's going to get anything done by doing this. But he's so frustrated...and there might be a little bit more underlying frustration that he's not going to acknowledge he has, either.] At least let me go through something useful, for a change. Like the wall of a hot springs or something like that.
[Well.]
Maybe not the hot springs. I don't know what I'd want to go through. I don't really want to go through a safe or anything like that. I don't really want that much money. Maybe somewhere that I can scare that old hag and have her stop jerking us all around.
[As if he knows someone is around him, he'll suddenly sit up and look at them:]
I bet you'd go through the hot springs, right?
[Humor him, distract him, or something...]
penalty;
Isn't that the sort of thing perverts do? [automatically assuming that Nice would phase through hot spring walls with ulterior motives...] I thought you were the sort who'd stop people from doing things like that.
[like some kind of mercenary Chaotic Good dude.]
no subject
Probably. But everyone has those thoughts sometimes, right? Like "wow, I really want to peek in a changing room" or something like that. But if you're a good person, you're not going to do it anyway.
[Because that makes a lot of sense...]
no subject
Are you saying that because everyone's a pervert, it's okay for you to be one? [she giggles....] Perverts sure come up with all kinds of excuses!
[none of that made sense nice..........]
no subject
phase i
Really? What's creepy about an altar with blood all over it? This is totally fine.
[ His delivery is quite dry. ]
no subject
They're great at haunted houses.
[And he's going to pick up a rock or something so that he can shift around the items on the altar.]
Or maybe a bunch of people just used it as their trash can. Littering's bad.
no subject
no subject
penalty
....I would not.
[Because there would be a door.]
But if you wish to eat, I can feed you.
no subject
[This is an important conversation, ok.
He considers her offer though, and then reattempts to grab a fry because he's stubborn. But...it doesn't exactly work, again.]
I might be fine with that.
[A cute girl feeding him???? Yeah not complaining too much...]
no subject
[Or at least hot springs never seemed really closed off to her?
She quietly watches him to try to grab a fry, taking a seat when he fails.]
'Might'?
[Does he want her to feed him or not...]
no subject
phase iii
She's not going to reach out but she does raise her voice over the sounds of him stomping that glass to death.]
...What good is that supposed to do anyway?
no subject
That's what he does, especially since he's not alone now, and he rubs the back of his head as he looks over at her.]
It's one less mirror I have to look at. It's annoying.
[He really doesn't want to relive Art's rebellious phase, okay.]
no subject
[She kneels down and looks into the little fragments.]
Who is that, anyway?