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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He can't think of any reason why she'd know something this classified either, unless...]
That's right. [He nods politely, seemingly paying no attention to the more morbid implications of her words.] You also know then that the supernatural is just as real as science, even if it can't be explained. [He's thinking Naoto's more likely an ally than a foe, but what he's more curious about now is if she's also a Persona user.]
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[So it is him.
She's sort of offhandedly aware that she'd just bluntly accused him of being dead, though she hadn't really thought of the social implications when she'd put together the clues. Oops.] I'm sorry, I probably owe you an explanation for how I know this. My name is Naoto Shirogane; I'm a detective. I've worked with the Kirijo Group's Shadow Operatives before on Shadow-related incidents.
Kirijo-san allowed me access to some of the Kirijo Group's case files for the sake of investigation. That's where I came across your photograph and profile.
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What Naoto does have to say is more interesting than debating something he already knows anyway, and he's not about to touch on the matter of his existential state. Shadow Operatives? He's aware that Shadows still exist thanks to people like Yu, Rise, and Yosuke but she does make it sound like the incidents are even more frequent than before.]
It's nice to meet you, Shirogane-san. If Mitsuru-senpai's let you seen this much that must mean that you're a Persona user too, right?
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I... imagine you'll be happy to know they're doing well. [She knows he's a dead man by the time she's met the Kirijo Group agents. She suspects, from the things he's said, that he knows he is, too.]
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To hear that his friends are still fighting against the Shadows, never looking back...it might not be much compared to people who smile all the time, but he's smiling faintly in response to that news.]
Yeah...thanks. [He figures Naoto might have told him about his friends because she knows how it feels like to not know what your friends are doing, and he appreciates the gesture. That being said they've stayed here for a while now, and there's no telling what else is lurking within the shadows.]
We've stayed here for a while though. Let's go.
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[A pause.] My group of Persona users was only able to activate our Personas under... specific circumstances, but the Shadow Operatives I worked with were able to use theirs at all times with an Evoker. May I presume you possess the same ability?
If so, you might be more useful in a fight than I am at the moment, even with my firearm.
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How about you give it a try before we go ahead?
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And during the P-1 incident, I was able to use my Persona in the alternate version of Inaba... [Don't mind her, Minato, she's talking to herself.] It's worth a try.
[She reaches up to tug the brim of her cap down over her eyes.] Yamato Sumeragi!
[There's no tarot card glowing in midair to shoot, at least not this time. But she's enveloped in a blue glow, and a ghostly figure appears behind and above her: A figure with long hair, dressed in strangely archaic clothes, and carrying a banner that almost looks like a flag.]
So it's true, then. Fascinating. [As Yamato Sumeragi vanishes as it had appeared, she looks up, and it's her own turn to smile.] This certainly expands my options for dealing with any monsters or other foes.
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She reminds him of Mitsuru in a way, both formal to the point of awkwardness and with the tendency to analyze everything. He wonders if she's even still here after all this time, and in wondering about that he recalls that Yu and Rise themselves could also still be here.
There's a deliberate pause on his part before he speaks up again, noticeably a little more silent than before.] ...Shirogane-san, this might seem sudden but I've something to ask of you.
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On the other hand, she has no reason to think he's lying.]
Of course. If it's something I can answer, I'll do so gladly.
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It's not a question. [He once again fails at his attempt to stuff his hands into pockets because there aren't any, and it's really not making things any better.] Yu-san and Kujikawa-san were still here when I left...I don't know if they're still here or if anyone else from the Investigation Team has shown up, but I don't want them to find out about what's happened to me.
[He might not have spoken to either Yosuke or Rise much before he'd left, but he understands that Yu's ties with them were just as unbreakable as the ones he had and that one of them might inevitably ask Naoto about what she knows. To ask this of her is a heavy matter, made even more so by how they barely knew each other...yet he doesn't want any of them to think or act differently around him simply because he's dead.
Maybe it's selfish of him, but being here again like a dream- one that he knows he'll never wake up from.]
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For one, he'd been here before, but apparently 'left' at some point. As to what that means, she's not sure, but makes a note to ask later. Either way, he's familiar with not just this place, but also her teammates (at least, two of them). Closer to Yu than to Rise, judging by how he refers to them. Meaning that at least two of her friends are here as well.
Which means not only does he know them, he knows about the Investigation Team and the 'group of Persona users in Inaba' she'd referred to. That's why he'd known she could use Yamato Sumeragi without being inside the TV world. And they don't know he's dead.
This leads her to an interesting set of possible conclusions, or possibly more questions. Between Yu and Rise, one of them would have likely asked him questions about his own group of Persona users, and would learn about SEES, the precursor to the Shadow Operatives. Her teammates should have been able to put together that he was a member of SEES who wasn't in the Shadow Operatives... but they hadn't asked?
What is she missing here?
She doesn't verbalize any of this out loud, of course. She nods slowly.] All right. Unless it's absolutely necessary for some reason, I'll keep your secret.
[Time to start unraveling this tangle she's stumbled on.] Did you not talk about the other members of SEES with my friends? Yu-senpai and Rise-san have met Kirijo-san and the others; they're not exactly very easy to forget.
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There doesn't seem to be any immediate danger around them right now, so he's at least open to answering the questions Naoto has.] That's true, but they didn't seem to know about SEES at all...for Kujikawa-san at least. [That's when he stops for a while, recalling something interesting Yu had mentioned after he had re-appeared.] Yu-san was the same way too until he disappeared for three days...he claimed that he had been gone for two months and he referred to Mitsuru-senpai by her first name in his post when he hadn't before. Do you know anything about that?
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When you say he'd been 'gone' for two months, where did he go? Haven't our worlds been destroyed? [And how can Rise not know SEES? She'd wanted to develop combat potential specifically because of the Yamagishi girl...]
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He stares at the door momentarily before opening it, revealing yet another dark hallway with broken lights. Fun.] You might be able to get more answers when you're in the city though.
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...we don't know when our worlds are allegedly destroyed, after all. Your presence here is proof enough of that, isn't it? [That is, he's not around as of a year before any of the IT ever met each other.
Curious.]
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As for that...CERES should know when our worlds were destroyed, but they haven't said anything about it. [Translation: They're not to be trusted.]
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That doesn't seem physically possible, though I suppose when dealing with interdimensional travel, anything can happen. [Sorry, there's a mystery in front of her now, Minato.]
May I presume that the things you last remember are from 2010? [It's a little blunt, to be honest...] It's entirely possible that, if we're actually being stored as data, CERES isn't sending us home at all, but rather unlocking more of our memories in the code.
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As for why they'd do that...it's hard to say. You should look for a girl named Athena Cykes if you want to know more though, she's been here for a while and maintains a file on the things that have happened so far. [It's not even that she's the only one working on it, but Minato does feel strangely more at ease with her than with most people.]
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[She's quiet for a few more moments as they walk, getting her thoughts in order.] Our worlds are supposedly being rebuilt, but would that include reconstructing the timeline?
Your final memories are from 2010. My most recent memories are from 2012. Even if the actual destruction of our world occurred the day after my most recent experiences, that's two years in time between what you remember and what I remember.
Are there any other timeline discrepancies you know of?
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We really should be moving though. There's something I saw here that gives me a bad feeling...have you looked at your toe tag, Shirogane-san? [He really wouldn't feel uneasy about it if it wasn't that the Flamines did already say they were coming, and that it was unlikely anyone had found a way to defeat them.]
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Why do you ask?
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Neither option sounds particularly good.
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[Both sides are equally unappealing to him, to the point that he's starting to press forward.] That's about what we learned before I left, and I think a few things have happened since then. Let's hurry, Shirogane-san.
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