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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Phase III
And has Master Kaz just said Belzaboul? BELZABOUL? REALLY?]
no subject
K-Kevvy...?
[But the angel's showy appearance thankfully drew Kazuya's attention away from it, the scattered black flames having simply brushed over his body as harmless as water. He was embarrassed at his own reaction, even if the memory of Belzaboul was still a horrific traumatic event that visited him in his nightmares from time to time. He waved a hand, dispersing the lingering embers that drifted through the air, and focused intently on the angel with a pale, drawn face]
Sorry, I... I got startled. I didn't realise you were here too. Uh...
[Kaz glanced at the mirror again. Yep. Belzaboul was still there. He shuddered]
no subject
Is that the end of the world?
[But it is all sorts of wrong. For starters, they are supposed to win.]
no subject
[Came Kazuya's garbled reply, as he was currently stunned at the sudden hold he was pulled in. He didn't know how to react, so he didn't, just standing there with his hands hanging limply by his side, able to see the scene play out on the cracked mirrors with something like morbid fascination.
He knew how it went. He saw it in his nightmares every so often. But he still couldn't look away. Belzaboul's wave of his insect hand, the flies that erupted from the demons' bodies, swarming into the air - he could still hear that horrible buzzing at the edges of his hearing - Belzaboul moving closer, hands reaching out...]
...yeah. It was... the end of the world. [He finally managed to say - a world that hadn't stopped ending when he got dragged here. The sky was still cracked open like an egg, the barrier not yet restored. He focused more on that than the Lord of the Flies in the mirror, the swirling hole almost hypnotising] And that's Belzaboul. He... ugh, I don't wanna remember this.
[Because any minute now, it was going to happen. Where Belzaboul did the same to him and his friends, where those horrible demon flies would spawn and eat their way out of his body, buried deep in his guts, in his organs, ugh, no no no, he didn't want to remember it...]
no subject
Disgusting!
[Truth be told, the word feels nice on his tongue. And he realizes he relishes his self-righteous and perfectly justifiable outrage. Oh, if only demons were always that ugly. Young master would never give them a second thought! But wait a minute, are flies coming out of Master Kazuya's body? That is definitively not allowed.]
OH FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, LEAVE HIM ALONE!
[Kaz may or may not be smothered against Kevin's chest as he starts attempting to smite the mirrors, which, of course, only manages to create more and more shards.]
no subject
Kevvy... [He tried to wriggle out of the angel's death-grip, suddenly feeling claustrophobic] It's no use, let's... let's just leave. I wanna leave.
no subject
Kevvy is used to gruesome scenes. Needless to say he was personally responsible for more than a few gruesome scenes in his long and eventful life. No, what bothers him most is that the part of him that will always recognize regret and guilt knows that this was something that really happened. A memory. Not a nightmare. Not an illusion. And humans just don't survive demonic fly parasitism.]
Master Kaz?
[Is he still seeing those flies?]
no subject
... I'm fine.
[No more flies, though Kaz could still hear the phantom buzz at the edge of his hearing, feel the itchy, crawling memory all over his skin and his insides, making an irrational urge to start clawing his skin off rise in him. He squashed it, since the last thing Kevin needed was him freaking out the lunatic he was. Instead he gently gripped his wrist in one hand, carefully digging his nails right into the skin so the bite of pain kept him grounded]
Totally fine.
no subject
[Sorry, Kaz. Kevin is checking for fly worm holes. On your body. All over your body. It would be bad enough if you still had them, but can you imagine if you passed them on to young master? He would have to kill you, and he really doesn't want to.
So...first things first: shirt off.]
How did you survive?
no subject
[Kaz didn't quite vocalise his confusion, but he still made some sort of noise - to be honest, he was kind of befuddled as to what... wait, is Kevin trying to strip him down? At least that managed to shake him a little out of his trauma-induced disassociation]
What are you even-? Stop that. There's nothing there.
[Kevin won't find any fly holes here! Those wounds had long been healed over during that horrible battle, with only the barest of scars that resembled something a bullet would leave peppered over his stomach and chest. Flies liked incubating in intestines and stomach organs, who knew?]
I survived 'cuz, well, if you're quick enough with a healing spell, you can stop anything, y'know, up to and including demon parasitism. It was almost a learning experience - I got reeeally well-acquainted with my own organs. Hah... haha...
[Kazuya let out an odd laugh then - odd, because it just didn't sound completely... there.]
And Atsuro's. And Yuzu's. Midori's. Amane's. Everyone's, really.
no subject
...Are you telling me you could heal them all and still heal yourself?
[That is a lot of power and self control for one tiny human, even a messiah. And yet Kevin can't help but imagine how terrible and painful that whole business must have been.
He helps Master Kaz with his shirt. There, there, no more investigation.]
While the sky was splitting open?
no subject