Everything is normal today during the early hours of the morning. There's really no hint, no way of knowing, no anything that could indicate that CERES -- and thus Cerealia -- is about to irrevocably change. There would be birds chirping, if there were birds, but since there aren't any, there's just the constant sounds of a city in motion, humming with technology even that early in the morning.
And then, regardless of where you are or what you're doing or how early it is, everyone's CereVices flicker on to show a perhaps-familiar, perhaps-unfamiliar face.
Bellona Recreare, the business owner of Cerealia and CEO of CERES, stares at everyone with a flat, cold look. She doesn't seem happy.
(When is she ever?)  It has come to my attention that there has been industrial espionage and corporate sabotage in CERES' personnel. Such a thing will not be tolerated.
Due to this, Mosley's employment with CERES has been terminated. Please now direct any public relations questions to 1-800-7322934844444.
Good day.
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PHASE I [ 6 00 ] Bright and early, not long after that sudden announcement by Bellona, you may decide to go back to sleep, or you may decide to get up and go about your day (or you may not have woken up at all).
Either way, it doesn't matter.
Because your apartment is broken.
The entire apartment. The door is locked shut (and that sucker is solid metal so it might be time to try a window), the HOLO(gm) is flickering wildly between settings, and the blender is out for your blood. Anything technological in any way (that is CERES-brand or has been tampered with by CERES) will be malfunctioning in a way that comes across as... oddly malicious.
Now's a bad time for the late sleepers to realize that the beds, too, have auto-control tech functionality. Hope you enjoy that electroshock wake up call, or the fact that the bed could fling you totally across the room.
PHASE II [ 1000 ] The rest of the city isn't faring so well either.
The trains are completely out of commission; even if the doors do open, it's probably not a good idea to get on. If you do, it looks like the doors will slam shut behind you, and the train will go hurtling forward at dangerous speeds with sudden stops. Many of the shops can't be accessed at all, automated doors refusing to open, and worst of all, every single last piece of tech in Cerealia now seems to have the sole goal of Making Your Life Hard.
The Pleasure District is flooded now that the spas are broken, but hey -- at least the perfume ensures that water smells good, and it's pretty warm. That's good, right? Maybe go for a nice swim.
The CERES police bots are out of control, chasing people down to arrest them for imagined crimes (What do you mean you aren't a closet voyeur?), and heaven forbid you're around any of the auto shops when everything goes totally wrong. The auto-drive feature in many of CERES's cars seem to be a little... finicky today. It doesn't seem like anywhere in the city is exempt from this. Good luck.
And towards the end of the second day of this insanity, the train, with whatever unfortunate passengers are on it, will derail. It crashes into part of the shopping district, leveling buildings and leaving the wrecked overturn husk of a train resting there uselessly.
Suddenly, things don't seem so harmless anymore.
PHASE III [ 1100 ] Of course... you're CERES-owned too.
Your code, rather, is made and owned by CERES, and it's inevitable with the craziness going on that it would soon affect everyone's code as well. So as the hour approaches noon, a few unlucky souls may start to notice that things are just Not Quite Right with them. Their powers may be on the fritz, functioning entirely wrong or not at all, or even stranger -- fire powers turning into water, ice into flame, electricity brings mud. Your clothing might suddenly change when your coding glitches, or it might be gone entirely. You may suddenly have an uncontrollable urge to start singing, or frolicking. You may suddenly be wildly in love with the first person (or robot or mirror) that you see, unable to stop it until the odd glitching wears off.
And then, just like that, you're back to normal, if a bit more tired than before. How troublesome.
There are also moments where what appears to be an ID number appears on the back of your neck in glowing light blue numbers. Each of these codes is a 7 digit number, with an E at the front of the number. It appears that the longer you've been in Cerealia, the lower the number is -- like a brand of some sort. You may not be able to see it yourself with it on the back of your neck like that, but everyone else sure can.
PHASE IV [ 1645 ] And, just like that, on the last day of this madness, the city goes dark. The lights cut out. The technology shuts off. Every last robot in Cerealia is completely and totally down, and can no longer be booted up. Even when the lights come back on in a few hours... the robots remain dead.
Cerealia's a lot harder to function in without those handy dandy robots running the place. It's also a lot more desolate, and rather quiet.
Slowly but surely, the rest of the technology will boot itself back up towards the end of the last day. But the robots remain broken, and cannot be fixed. In fact, opening them up will reveal that nothing's wrong with them at all... they just won't wake up.
As time ticks by, it doesn't look like Bellona will address anything on the network about the events and all people are left to do now is... learn how to function again. Without any help.
BONUS [ ???? ] If you were a stupid brave enough soul to log into ViViD during this time (or were unfortunately glitched there, which could happen), you will find that ViViD is in... safe mode. It's struggling to boot up, and even when you finally enter, you'll find yourself wandering through skeleton levels of half-completed scenery and incomplete quests. There are readings in the corner of each level that can be seen now, one about Energy Gain and one about Energy Loss, and just as the gain goes up the longer you are there, the loss, too, rises. At first, it's fascinating, and it isn't particularly dangerous... but then it becomes clear that you can't actually log out.
You can't exit Safe Mode at all.
Slowly, it feels as though you can breathe less and less, that the empty walls of the level are closing in on you... and there's nothing you can do. Unless you are or find a particularly genius hacker and they can access the source code and find the exit buried inside that code within the next few minutes... there's nothing to be done.
And then everything goes dark.
You'll wake up the next IC day, with those same energy readings marked on your wrist like some sort of bright blue digital tattoo. When you wake in the mornings, it will read at 100% and slowly go down during the course of the day until you sleep. It will fade after three IC days.
And from now on, ViViD always has those energy levels in the corner, even when it's fixed. They always seem to be recording you, every time you're in ViViD. 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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[It might be lucky, it might be unlucky, but Eiji's in the shopping district trying to make the most of this chaos. After all, he's still got to work, right?
And then he hears screeching and sees something very wrong.]
The train...
[Within seconds, he transforms and leaps for the track to try to stop the train or rescue the passengers, but with just basic TaToBa, he's not going to be able to get very far. Help!]
Phase III: I've Got A Screencap For That
[Eiji's code is altogether out of whack, not that he can do much about it. So throughout the week, you might see some very strange happenings with him:
a) You might find him in nothing but his boxers, in the brightest color and gaudiest print possible.
b) Or maybe you're near one of the fountains, and he suddenly ends up aggressive, tackling you into the water and fighting you in an unusually sensual manner.
c) Or you might be the unlucky person he's rescuing from a police bot when his transformation glitches and he looks adorably harmless. Uncontrollable crush with the silliest proclamations of love optional.]
Wildcard
[Life goes on, anything goes, coming up OOO!]
II
Tch. What is he doing?
[Getting himself in trouble trying to save people, as usual, of course. But what's he planning on doing with just TaToBa? Ankh spreads his wings and flies over to catch up with the rest of the medals before Eiji manages to get himself killed.]
Re: II
Ankh, hurry! I need SaGoZou!
Re: II
Already got it. [He tosses Eiji the medals as soon as he asks for them.]
Re: II
Not so much in practice, since now it's a large, very heavy object still intent on crashing into the buildings ahead of it, and he's straining even worse to control it.]
I...I can't keep this up.
Re: II
Re: II
Eiji, for his part, doesn't have much time to worry about it before he drops to his knees and transforms back, losing consciousness.]
Re: II
Re: II
Not that he realizes either of those things as he tries and fails to sit up, cringing in pain before putting his head down again.]
I failed, didn't I?
Re: II
The train crashed, if that's what you mean.
Re: II
I've got to try to help.
[And again he tries to get up and completely fails. When he opens his eyes this time, they're back to purple, and he's just as tired as ever.]
My arms and legs feel like jelly.
Re: II
Then stay put. There are other people helping already.
Re: II
It's not that bad, really. [Never mind you were the one to start complaining about the pain, Eiji.] I can...
[Nope. He collapses again, this time squeezing his eyes tight as a burst of pain shoots through his head all of a sudden.]
Re: II
How are you going to help when you can't stand? Just stay there.
Re: II
[Or so he says, but he's still cringing as his eyes continue to glitch.
It takes a while before he reluctantly lies down.]
Maybe it's a little worse, okay.
Re: II
Re: II
What's wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?
[He glances down, just to be sure he hasn't somehow turned into a Greeed or anything, but nope, still human. So what's up?]
Re: II
Your eyes keep changing color.
Re: II
[He almost says "Let me see," but it's not like they have mirrors around there.]
Re: II
[Back and forth, over and over again. He wasn't going to say anything because he would have expected it to stop by now, and chances are when they do stop they'll stay purple anyway.]
They're purple right now.
Re: II
That doesn't make sense. Why are they changing all of a sudden?
Re: II
[He can't help bristling a little thinking about that again, though at least he hasn't had any more issues with his wings since then.]
Re: II
So it'll pass, and I'll be back to normal.
[He tries not to sound too disappointed.]
Re: II
[That's why he hadn't been planning to say anything about it.]
Re: II
If he falls asleep in the meantime, then it's also not too bad, since he'll have the energy later to help dig people out.]
Re: II