Lightning flashes. Thunder booms and rain patters on the roof. It’s all about ambience here in ViViD, of course. You gotta set the mood!
Welcome to the Pleasurable Super Youthful Caring Hospital Stage, PSYCHward for short. It works, shut up. It’s a stage created for your well-being, health and happiness. Be careful, though. The first step you take in the dilapidated asylum carries you right into a puddle.
Look down, and the puddle is red.
Ah.
Of course it’s blood.
It’s only going to get even more fun from here.
 Good Day. I Am The New Introducer For ViViD Levels. Mosley? Who's That?
Anyway, Please Have Fun And Remember To Be Safe. Safety Is Our First Priority At CERES.
Thank you. Enjoy.
|
PHASE I [ 4 00 ] The first room any people familiar with the ViViD song and dance routine will find is one that is...wonderfully full of body bags. Body bags everywhere -- on the floor, on the shelves, uncomfortably tossed over the back of a chair...and each body bag has a helpful tag.
Handy.
Of course, within each bag is a newcomer; they won’t be able to escape the body bags until someone else unzips them. They’re dressed in little more than hospital gowns, toe tags still attached to bare feet.
Welcome to ViViD! Enjoy your stay.
Of course, there has to be an element of surprise to it. Some body bags contain living, breathing newcomers, yes. But the others?
These contain corpses. The toe tag on them indicates a loved one or someone important to you -- or someone you hate beyond all else. You open the bag, and there is their face, achingly familiar and frozen in death...but blink and suddenly they’re the corpse of a nondescript stranger.
PHASE II [ 600 ] Step out of that room and now it’s the asylum proper. Lights flicker. It’s dark, but it’s still more than clear to anyone with ears -- something’s stalking everyone in this place.
The shadow flickers on the wall, the lights go out -- you turn a corner and there it is, jumping out at you with an unearthly cackle --
A puppet.
It hangs there limply, utterly harmless.
All around the facility, these harmless puppets lurk. In lockers, behind doors, in dark halls…
But they’re all literally inanimate and harmless. Whose dumb idea was that?
PHASE III [ 1000 ] But slowly, the atmosphere changes. Go in deeper, and the sounds around deaden until there’s nothing left but the dark all around and the sound of your own breathing. And yet, irrevocably you know, whether as an aspect of the level or something else entirely --
Something is actually hunting you now.
It makes no noise. It can’t be seen. But it’s stalking, and it’s on the hunt.
To make matters worse, now the asylum seems to have become a proper maze, with dead ends everywhere, and practically no light to see them by.
And the only other souls you’ll see are the other people stuck in the maze -- but there’s something not quite right about them either. You can see...bits of their code, lurking under the surface of their skin, and as you watch, it’s being corrupted, bit by bit, the longer they’re in the dark.
If you look down, it’s happening to you too.
Better hurry.
There’s only one way out.
PHASE IV [ 1400 ] And then you step through a doorway into light.
You escaped the maze, but this is an asylum, and you’re about to see why. There are rows upon rows of cages of aliens. They cry out and reach out through the bars with webbed or clawed hands or tentacles, begging for release.
Let them out, or don’t -- the exit to Cerealia proper is right there at the end of this room, inviting and safe.
But if you do elect to let them out, the entire room suddenly goes silent.
And there, in that cage you opened, there is no longer an alien, but instead a doll. And it’s watching you. Stay any longer, and the doll with start to move, reaching -- and if it touched you, suddenly you’re the one locked away behind bars.
On the plus side, when you take the exit to Cerealia, it’ll deposit you in the Pleasure District, where massagebots will reach for you to try to drag you in for a sensual massage.
Welcome!
PENALTY [ ???? ] You were caught in the maze.
It’s hard to say even now what it was that caught you, but now you’re strapped down to an operating table, and there’s a flat-faced doctor standing above you.
The restraints can’t be broken.
There’s a prick of a needle, and you fall unconscious -- and that’s probably a mercy. When you wake up, you’ll be back in the asylum somewhere, but missing a sense -- the one from your character’s application will be gone. A character who is sight will have been blinded, for instance, and a character who is touch will feel nothing. This will last until they log out of ViViD and get into Cerealia.
[ 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. ] |
Welcome to Cerealia's July intro log! For your convenience, we have compiled the characters' arrival experience here, and should you have any questions, feel free to ask them here! You can also check the FAQ for more general inquiries. Should this event log hit Captcha, there is an all-purpose overflow here. Thank you! |
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no subject
Even now, when her Aura has been been whittled down by defeat, leaving her defenceless. She hears it and - it sounds far too close to a dirge. At her side, Pyrrha feels her hands tense and release, the fabric of her gloves rustling.
She doesn't remember seeing Ruby at the top of the tower, because by then she had been - she was, is —
Pyrrha lifts her head, turns. Key identifiers are absent - her circlet, her weapons - but she's still her. Shying away from Ruby never even occurs to her, even if her chest does warm to an uncomfortable blister.
Seeing a familiar doesn't prompt much change to her expression, not really. But the deeper creases do relax. Like a newly relit candle, some brightness finds its way back into her eyes, her complexion. ]
... [ She breathes before speaking. ] Hello, Ruby.
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Pyrhha, kneeling. Cinder, prepared to fire.
Ruby's eyes fill with tears, and her breath hitches, and she's frozen in place, unable to decide which way she should be moving, or what she should be doing.]
It's...really you? You're really here? This isn't...CERES being CERES or-- or anything like that...?
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...
She looks back up at Ruby, forces surety into her expression. ]
Yes, it's me. I'm really here.
[ Less than she was, maybe, but here. ]
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Pyrrha's here.
And she's real. She even sounds like Pyrrha, and that's...
... She'd deserves so much more than she got.]
I'm sorry...! I'm sorry, Pyrrha, I was-- I was just too slow and I--
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Shhh. [ Soothing, she rubs a soft circle against Ruby's back, the gesture imbued with all the warmth of a Team Mom.
Needing to step into that role gives Pyrrha some of her old spirit back, strengthening her voice. ]
It's alright, Ruby. I know you did everything you could.
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[She says that immediately, shaking her head fiercely, tears spilling over--but selfishly, she doesn't pull away. She stays holding onto Pyrrha like a lifeline, unable to let go for fear that she'll disappear. she's not even sure what she's looking for at this point.
She should probably be the one comforting Pyrrha, but right now?
Right now she's 15 and lost, and she doesn't know what to do.]
I... I wanted to save you.
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But - I wanted to save you.
To that, Pyrrha has no idea what to say.
As if to make up for that bit of foundering, Pyrrha's arms tighten around Ruby. Not enough to be restrictive - it's not a crushing Yang hug by any means - but enough to reinforce her own presence, her solidity. ]
I know.
[ On the heels of the worst - longest - worst day of her life, this... is simple. Pyrrha is patient, letting Ruby cry herself dry. ]
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That Pyrrha doesn't deserve this on top of everything else.
But she can't help it.
And even as she calms a little, it's more out of shellshocked confusion than anything.]
I... I'm still sorry. I just...
[...What is she even supposed to do here? Pyrrha is alive and real, but...she watched her die.]
... I don't know what to say.
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Forcing some of her old rueful humour in her voice, Pyrrha says, ] - I think this is new territory for both of us.
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It's not right.
And Pyrrha...should've never died.]
Are you...okay? Like...for real, Pyrrha. Really, really.
[How could she be, really? But...even so, Ruby has to ask.]
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It's a bit too soon to tell.
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[Ruby just nods quietly at that, sighing softly--and then she takes a deep breath. She...can't crumble in the face of this, even if she's still not sure how to handle this.]
Let's... keep going. We should get out of ViViD, I think.
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Does any of this look familiar to you?
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[Since, you know, ViViD.]
It'll be fine once we find the way to log out. Cerealia hasn't changed much.
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[ You can absolutely hold her hand if you want to, Ruby. ]
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Very closely.
Sorry, Pyrrha.]
So like... is it just me, or is it getting darker?
[Try for normality here!! Or, as normal as ViViD will allow for.]
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It's not just you...
[ Uncomfortably spooky, tbh. ]
Do you hear that?
[ Hint: she's referring to the utter cessation of sounds. ]