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
Hey, no problem! I'm glad you're not undead or anything...otherwise I'd have to...
Run. Very quickly. In another direction.
[He offers a slight laugh and stands, holding out his hand to both shake and help the newcomer to his feet.]
Darin Altway, Master Blacksmith at your service. Lemme help you up!
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[It's phrased like a joke, but his tone betrays it in that he sounds little more serious than joking would warrant. Still! This guy definitely seems courteous, so Jonathan is going to firmly shake his hand before bracing himself and standing up.]
Jonathan Joestar, husband and archaeologist, at your service.
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Joestar?
You got any relatives? Rides a horse by the name of Slow Dancer? I did some work for him awhile back.
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[Judging by the way he furrows his brow, he's pretty confused by all of this as well.]
No, not as far as I am aware. You're saying you have met someone with a similar name?
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Joestar doesn't seem like the kind of family name that you hear all the time.
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[That only complicates matters further, considering its close proximity to his own name. He can see why Darin was curious about this.]
That...shouldn't be possible. Right now, I'm the only blood of the Joestar family who's still alive.
[It sparks a bitter hope in him, that he's not the last one after all, but - well, how would something like that even happen?]
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Hey, maybe he's your kid! Or a grand kid! Or a great great great grand kid!
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[...Jonathan.exe has stopped working.
His immediate reaction is denial, but that's quickly tossed to the side. With everything that has happened today, he can't throw out any possibility. Then he comes to consider the timeline of how everything could have possibly happened - he wonders if he could have miraculously survived, but no, those wounds couldn't have been anything but mortal. Then how--
...oh. Maybe--well sure, once is all it really takes, but wow. People do sometimes name their children after family members...
And then there's the last factor to all this, which he's not familiar enough with yet to contemplate on his own.]
I cannot deny that is possible under ordinary circumstances, but hasn't my world been destroyed? If that is true, then how could I be a...?
[His heart is pounding in his throat. Fatherhood is a responsibility he hadn't dreamed of taking on for at least a short while, and even if Johnny isn't really his descendant and a lot more complicated bullshit is going on, it's a lot to take in all at once.]
no subject
There's something we're not being told by CERES...but either way, here's how I see it.
No matter what might have happened to our individual worlds, there's hope that we can get back. So maybe, if Johnny is your kid from the future or something, that's proof you make it back in one piece!
Either way, hope is hope...you know what I mean, big guy?
[Darin gives Jonathan a playful tap on the arm with his fist.]
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Even if Darin has no idea what happens to Jonathan back home, even if Jonathan isn't completely confident he'll make it back in one piece, they share many of the same ideals. Is it disconcerting that he's potentially not being told the full story by people who have immense power? Absolutely, but he knows that passion and unwavering courage can change anything.]
You're right. [He pats Darin on the shoulder with some restraint in return - it's always a little amusing when someone of a perfectly respectable height calls him "big" - and looks down at him.] No matter how you look at it, there are people back home that I need to protect.
[Even if it's only for a short while.]
no subject
That's the spirit. The way I see it? We were all brought here for a reason. I'm not too big on 'fate' and 'destiny' but I've got a father back home that I'd sure as hell like to see again, and a smithy I'm aching to get back to.
And on that note, I'd sure like to get out of this place because it's giving me a serious case of the creeps!
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[Unlike Darin, Jonathan does entertain the idea of destiny - at least, he has recently with regards to certain people - and he's confident that if he believes strongly enough, they can do it.]
I cannot argue with that suggestion. Do you want to lead the way, or should I?
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[/BADUM TSH]
What's the first thing we should be looking for?
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Well, I cannot say I specialized in abandoned hospitals during my time in university, but...
[He brings a hand up to his chin, glancing around.]
Light would be a good start.
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[He wanders into one of the nearby offices.]
Think you can help me find something flammable? Maybe I can make a makeshift torch.
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I hate to destroy any part of this establishment, but if I understood that presentation, then I don't think anyone will be using this.
[That's the line of thought that leads him to walk back over to the wooden shelf, grab it at the edge, and tear it off the wall.]
no subject
[He whistles as Jonathan just tears a shelf off the wall with his bare hands.]
So, as an archeologist, do you just dig up those ruins barehanded? [Because he's got the guns to show for it.]
[He grins and pulls out a piece of flint from a pouch on his belt.]
Not that I mind getting right into it, though. That's my kind of style.
[Darin takes the shelf from Jonathan and breaks it up rather easily. He wanders over to one of the many medical kits lying around, procures some gauze, and uses it to wrap and construct two long torches; one for each of them. He then unsheathes his dao and strikes it on the flint, setting the dried wood ablaze. In a few moments, voila! Two torches! He hands one off to Jonathan.]
This should last us.
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[He chuckles at his own joke. Sure, he's clumsy sometimes, but he knows when to be delicate. and it's with a great deal of delicacy that he takes the torch offered to him, rather impressed.]
Here's hoping. Stick close if you can.
[And off they go!]
no subject
[Wait, graduated from university? Darin stops.]
Wait...just graduated? How old are you?
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[He pauses as well once he sees that Darin's been...taken aback by something, maybe? He knows he's a spring chicken in the grand scheme of things, but it's difficult not to feel old once you learn you're essentially a relic of the past yourself.]
Oh! I'm 20 years old right now, but back home it would have been my birthday in around 2 months.
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BY FOUR YEARS?!
BUT...BUT YOU'RE HUGE!!
AM I REALLY AN OLD MAN?!
no subject