estoria | //EVENT032.EXE

Entry tags:

//EVENT032.EXE

Who: CERES and associated intellectual property
When: OOC: 8/01 - 8/08, IC: 8/16 - 8/19
Where: Cerealia™
What: PR really was important. Who'd have thought?
Rating/Warning: Currently none! Please let us know if the log heads into R-related territory so we can lock it!

//event032.EXE

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.

//SCENARIOS.EXE

PHASE I

[ 600 ] 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. ]

//RUN.EXE

Welcome to Cerealia's August event! Please visit the OOC information here, and should you have any questions, feel free to ask them here! You can also check the FAQ for more general inquiries. This event will last from 8/01 to 8/08, or IC 8/16 to 8/19. Should this event log hit Captcha, there is an all-purpose overflow here. Thank you!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

-PHASE I-

[Luckily, Darin is the type of person to get up at the crack of dawn to get his morning exercises in before heading off to the spoon smithy. So, he was already out and about when the announcement was made. He didn't really pay any mind to it.]

[When he gets back to grab a shower before work, however, he's surprised to find his door is locked. And it's not opening no matter what.]

What the...

[If you're a neighbor or just going for a walk near his place, you might see him struggling to the point of absolute frustration. That's when he rears his arm back, and with one deafening punch, literally punches the metal door clear off its hinges and into his apartment.]

[Which, naturally, unleashes all of the appliances inside.]

Gah!! What the hell?! Hey, can you give me a hand here?!

[Do you join in on the melee against Darin's neglected appliances?]

-PHASE II-

[Darin had about had it with machines. Honestly, if he's had any conversations with you over the last month about how machines suck and doing things the hard way was better? Consider 'I TOLD YOU SO' the first words he says once he meets you.]

II-a.) [Police bots are swarming him. Why? For jaywalking as he was trying to dodge a malfunctioning vehicle.]

Look, I know I've had enough problems with the law, but this is getting ridiculous! Leave...me...ALONE!!!

[With a defiant roar, Darin is fighting off wave after wave of police bots. He cuts them down effortlessly with his dao, and smashes them with a whirlwind of punches and kicks. Believe it or not, Darin's more than a capable fighter, despite the fact that he's usually a goofball. He's holding his own as more and more bots join the fray.]

II-b.) [The sound of the train derailing shakes Darin from his focus on the police bots. It's not hard to pinpoint the direction and in a flash, he's moving through the city, smashing machines and taking down any resistance he can. He arrives at the scene of the train crash and immediately gets to work. He sheathes his dao, and starts lifting enormous portions of broken train and building to free anyone that might be trapped.]

Are you...hngh...are you okay?! Come on! I've got you!!

-PHASE III-

III-a.) [With technology going bananas in the worst way, Darin hasn't even bothered going back to his apartment. He's been out pretty much constantly, doing his damndest to help anyone and anything that needs an impossibly strong pair of hands. Truth be told, this is the most Darin's used his strength and abilities since he's left home. He's feeling a little...weak. Hazy. He places his hand on the nearest steel wall to rest...when suddenly his hand sinks through it. With a jolt, he retracts it...a massive steel gauntlet now covering his hand while a hole appears in the wall where the steel once covered.]

Wh...What the hell is this now?!

[It's definitely Darin's work, alright. The quality is easy to spot. Looks like Darin's creation magic is not only kicking in, but it's also on the fritz. In fact, everything he's touching is starting to shift and reassemble itself into something else! The ground around him erupts into spears! Those stairs he just ran up? They just restructured themselves into tower shields. Looks like no material is safe around him! And to make matters worse, he's glowing with a suspiciously dark aura. Can you feel demonic presences? Then there's a really good chance you'll feel this one.]

H-Hey! Hey! Someone! Help! What the hell is going on?!

III-b.) [So...with his powers sorted out...slightly, Darin is back trying to help people. He's no longer making things explode into weapons by accident now. Nope, now it's just his clothes. Every few minutes his clothes start to change into something else. Maybe he's a chef! Or in a pretty dress! Maybe in a bathrobe, or in a giant banana costume! It's completely spontaneous, he can't control it, and honestly, this is the least of his concerns. Your eyes just might find themselves catching a glimpse of more than you anticipated.]

What? What's your problem? Never seen a guy with spontaneously changing clothes before?

-PHASE IV-

[With the perpetual darkness, Darin's set up a base camp at the spoon smithy. He's places signs through Cerealia directing anyone who needs shelter or, more importantly, weapons in case the machines go batty nuggets again to his workshop at the spoon smithy.]

Hey, come on in and take a load off. Help yourself to whatever provisions I got laying around and feel free to take some armor and a weapon. I have a feeling we're going to need it.

[This has been a real shitty day. But, hey, alive is alive, right?

Navigating by cell phone light, Togo eventually shows up at the smithy entrance, looking thoroughly tired.]

Good to see that you're still alive, Altway.

[Alive? Yes. Has he seen better days? Definitely. Darin's been through the ringer, from fighting appliances and police bots, to helping people from a derailed train, to having his newly discovered powers reveal themselves and promptly go apeshit.]

[His clothes are pretty worse for wear...torn, bloody, and disheveled, but despite looking exhausted, he's actually completely unharmed. In stark contrast to his clothes, that is. Either way, his workshop is lit up with candles and lanterns...not to mention his forge is blazing. All of the machinery in the place has been summarily destroyed and dismantled to keep it from springing to life, and from the looks of things, Darin's doing what any healthy person would do in the midst of a personal crisis:]

[Burying himself in work.]

[All kinds of weaponry and armor are scattered around, and he's already hard at work on a helmet when Togo makes her presence known.]

Togo...! You're okay!

[He hurries over to help her inside.]

[Tonight, Togo's happy to accept the help. She glances around the chaos that is the smithy's interior, putting together the broad strokes of what must have happened.]

I can only imagine what it must have been like in here when everything started malfunctioning.

I barely gave it a chance to.

As soon as I got here I wrecked the place. Tried to make it as safe as I could for anyone who needed a haven from all of this.

[Darin grabs a chair for her and sets it out.]

You hungry? Thirsty? I've been ransacking vending machines left and right. I figure the police bots are already attacking indiscriminately, I might as well give them a reason.

[He jokes, but in his mind, right now the entire city is exploding into chaos and there's going to be people who need food and drink. At least he can provide.]

[Togo waves off the chair - she came in her own, after all.]

I don't feel hungry, but my body probably needs food either way.

[Darin rummages through his ~~loot~~ provisions and grabs a bag of those bite sized cookies and grabs a bottle of water. He brings them over and hands them over.]

Yeah, it's a good idea to get some energy back while you can. Who knows what's next for us?

[With that, he takes a seat in that chair.]

You doing okay?

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