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
He's found himself a quick study, then. Good. Great.] ViViD is a game, yes. Whatever happens here has no physical consequence on life outside of the simulation.
["They". Did she even know who 'They' were?] I can't speak for CERES; I don't know what they're trying to get out of us. [Entertainment, information, service, all or none of the above.] Anyway, right now we focus on finding the exit. Just because ViViD is a game doesn't mean things can't hurt.
[Meaning--] I suggest you don't go around petting every strange thing you run across.
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[She pulls her hand back, looking at it as though suspicious. This is a game. She's made of code. Yet it feels real.] Other than pain, are there any possible consequences for failure? Lasting effects?
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Her senses-- he can't understand, but he huffs out a breath that might be amused any other day. So that made two of them wandering around blind. He won't ask. He'll shake his head instead.] Death will either have you wake up in the actual colony, at the starting level of the game, or right where you stand.
[Death's cheap, says the dead guy.]
Sometimes people wake up in embarrassing outfits, if that's damning enough for you.
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What happens to our real bodies while we're in here? If, like you said, we can wake up with our clothes changed.
[She's mildly curious what 'embarrassing' means...]
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is actually a very good question. Neji shakes his head.] No, usually we are allowed to exit the games when we wish by bringing up the menu screen. [Which is a whole lot of nonsense words brought together to somehow, miraculously, make... sense.
Neji sweeps an arm in front of himself, palm down.
There.
That's how one brings up the menu screen.
When there is one.]
However, sometimes, such as when new people are brought into the colony, that isn't-- possible. [Available.] Whether there are games that will trap you inside indefinitely is something I can't answer. I try not to find myself in ViViD in the first place.
[That's it. He can't answer the part about their real bodies, because he hasn't got a damned clue, so why bother trying?]
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If there's nothing amiss, it's unlikely that this will the the game that keeps us trapped. [A pause.] Still, it's a possibility one has to consider.
Have you been here before?
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[So cue the slow shake of his head and a questioning step ahead and forward.] If CERES does intend to keep us here even after we find the exit, it's because they need to fix whatever's gone wrong in their colony and that is what they want us to see. We won't be here forever.
[But imagine that hell. Neji would rather not.] I haven't been in this level before, no. I'm going to move on-- are you going to wait for someone else or come with me?
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If they're willing to do this just for their own entertainment, I'm not inclined to think of the operators as benevolent.
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They'd do it out of convenience, not benevolence.
I can't know if it's been done before but before I found myself here, the technology in the colony had been going awry. Add to that, that it seems our very generous P.R. representative, Mosley, has found himself out of a job in introducing these ViViD levels, and you'll have to excuse me for the suspicion.
[...] I heard someone say they saw Mosley bleed oil like the machines of the colony do. If he's been affected by whatever has compromised the rest of CERES' technology, then maybe CERES doesn't want us to see their mess or their next quick fix. If you'll ask me for proof- I don't have any. That's it. [Does he sound paranoid yet? Neji takes a moment to sigh, long-suffering. Yes, he knows he sounds like a nut. Thanks. This isn't his idea of sleuthing, either.] If I'm wrong-- I still don't like it. [Okay, now he's done.]
no subject
The obvious conclusion is that we're in here to prevent us from seeing something.
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[!!
Up springs a puppet from a footlocker, up springs the Hyuga's guard, and if looks could kill, etc etc fuck. But look at him pretend that hadn't just freaked him out.] Should we try the door ahead or keep going?
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She has no chance to say anything, though, before there's motion in front of her, and just as he's guarding, her revolver is coming up... ah. A puppet.] The door. It exists for a reason.
[Something else she'd noticed...] You're hand-to-hand combat trained, aren't you?
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[...he still has no idea what a gun does, mind you, so:] And I can at least assume you've put some thought into how to defend yourself? [Which isn't a mean question, it just... is.]
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...you're telling me you're a ninja? [Like, an actual one?]
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That question had been odd, before. Now it was just bordering on amusing.] That's right. I'm a jonin. [Which he wouldn't mind elaborating on, mind, but maybe he's still holding out hope someone, somewhere, at least understands ranks. Neji dips his head in a small nod-passing-for-a-bow.] My name is Hyuga Neji.
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She moves further into the room, carefully sweeping it with her gun held at the ready.] I'm assuming that 'jonin' is some sort of classification or rank, then? [She'd have to see it written down to know for sure.]
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[The room is as dimlit and poorly arranged as the one they'd just left. With Shirogane seemingly on the lookout for enemies (hand puppets), Neji strains his eyes to make out where the next door is. Far across, a sign signals 'Dormitories'. Neji gestures lightly towards it.] This way, Shirogane.
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[So indeed, she'll follow him, her revolver in both hands. She practices good gun discipline.] How large was your village? If it had its own armed forces.
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Large enough to need them. [It'd grown larger since the restoration efforts. With the war-- and after it, Neji realized-- it might have shrunk down again. But it'd grow. It had grown. He pauses.
So was this exploration game going to gain another level?] Of the Five Great Shinobi Nations, Konohagakure is the largest; we're also the strongest. [--just getting that out there.] First and foremost, shinobi exist to protect the village and preserve its peace. We take missions to serve our respective countries, and defend its land and citizens. The ninja of Konoha are the Land of Fire's strength, not only the village's.
[...]
What do you defend?
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[She'll revisit the idea of his village in a bit. Five countries of ninjas... it sounds like something out of a comic book. But he doesn't sound like he's lying.]
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Neji hopes he's wrong, the dark and his inability to penetrate it slowly frustrating him. He gives another small nod of his head to signal Naoto to go ahead. Ladies first-- kidding.] You have a long-range weapon; take the lead. [And he'll have her back.]
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[So she'll start climbing the stairs. She turns... more stairs. Huh. How far up do they go?] You say five shinobi nations, but you also talk about a village. Are the two interchangeable? City-states, perhaps?
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Whether or not she sees, he shakes his head at the question.] No.
The Land of Fire saw it fit to create the hidden village of Konoha years ago to act as its military force. The village then protects the nation, as dictated by the Fire Daimyo and Hokage. Our Kage leads the village, the Daimyo leads the country. [And resides in the capital, doing whatever it is important politicians did- like an awful lot of nothing, and having to find the words to make that Nothing appear as Something. Neji figures it must be a very tiring position indeed.
Kind of like going up so many stairs. --is this it, is this the game? He preferred the puppets.] Neither the village nor country could sustain itself without the other.
no subject
[Geez, this is actually getting pretty annoying. Three flights, and no sign of a new floor yet.]
And to be clear, despite the language and terminology you're using, your homeland is not Japan. Fascinating.