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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welcome to my reality
it's fine, because dymlos is there to be the scolding dad sword; he's already completely not amused with this situation, and not because it's exhausting the hell out of stahn. it's weird and embarrassing, he's a sword and a former military commander, not a musician of any sort.
stahn's barely noticed that kashuu is even there, considering he's still muttering at dymlos over even noticing that dymlos has begun scolding already.]
I wonder if this is how Johnny feels every time he plays a song... how does he do it all the time? [why is the spoony bard never this tired when he sings?]
i cant believe this
[He does not sound sorry in the least...
But he'll come trotting over to where Stahn rests against the wall, looking all worn out like the poor guy forced into surprise performances he is. He reaches out, gently patting his shoulder in a THERE THERE sort of gesture.]
You okay? Might wanna sit down if you're really that tired.
i die every time i remember this is real
stahn, on the other hand, is clearly exhausted and appreciates any sort of support right now, even if kashuu is also laughing at him a lot.]
Yeah... I don't know why, but every time something like that happens, I just want to take a nap.
IS THAT PART OF THE CANON......
[The... the dancing part, anyway. He's pretty sure no one goes into battle singing unless it's some sort of dramatic war movie.]
Can you take one? Maybe if you fall asleep, you won't sing anymore. I mean, assuming you can't stop.
LMFKJSS no??? it's just a hilarious coincidence
[being attacked by your bed while you're still in it and groggy? terrifying.]
omg I WAS LIKE IS THIS SOME BIZARREASS DLC
[So many people have been having bed problems and he's never been more grateful to have a futon than he has been today, honestly.]
pls stahn predates dlc there's just legit cds of seiyuu singing disney
And my closet.
...The kitchen wasn't any better, either. [though leon was the one who dealt with that, mostly.]
im so glad that that exists... oh my god..
[He's kind of impressed, honestly!]
Can you even get back in, anyway? I know a ton of people who're totally locked out now.
same, there are so many magical, dumb things
[he's not proud of it either here, okay.]
I haven't tried to get back in... I didn't think things were going to be this bad. I didn't really want to stay anyway, we were stuck inside all morning.
WAS IT JUST THE ONE SONG
[Just in case it decides to fight with him again...
But he'll nod as Stahn talks, since that makes sense to him! He sure wouldn't want to go back to a building that kept him trapped, either.]
Guess we'll have to figure out what to do about that later. People are just gonna end up sleeping in the halls or something otherwise.
with those two? yeah but there's other stuff with stahn and leon's seiyuu tbh
[or it might get worse, though stahn is really hoping that doesn't end up being the case.
(though this is cerealia, so he knows what they're up against here.)]
This isn't really the worst thing here, but it's definitely annoying...
im so glad, bless them all
[Which is to say he sure doesn't believe things going wrong could only last a day... Though he doesn't want to be a negative nancy either, so:]
You having any problems outside of the whole new singing sensation thing?
i'll show you sometime
[for whatever that's worth, though he's not so sure that won't change.]
What about you, Kashuu?
ill die for 100 years
[And it sure didn't tire him out like constant outbursts into song and dance would...]
A lot of people I've bumped into have been dealing with waaay worse. Like, I'm pretty sure one of my comrades fell in love with his reflection.
good remind me later then
[well, he's glad that kashuu doesn't seem to be having it too bad, at least. it's not like he'd wish that on anyone else; he's definitely not the "if i have to suffer, so should everyone else" type in the least, after all.]
That sounds like it would be really hard to deal with...
WILL DO
[He of great compassion, that Kashuu Kiyomitsu...]
But I guess he probably couldn't help it any more than you two can, so I'm guessing this is just another one of those stupid things and we'll probably never get an actual answer about why it's happening.
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[which is disconcerting too, even if stahn doesn't necessarily trust mosley either.]
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I wonder if there's any way we could find him... I mean, that lady said he was fired or whatever, but I can't tell if that's code for "we mega-killed him" or if he managed to get away.
[Since he sure doesn't think a veritable spy in the ranks would not be killed if caught.]
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[even if they get no answers in the end, stahn still thinks it's better to try than to not try, at least.]
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[Imagine trying to break into a top secret facility or hunt down a wanted man but having to stop for singalong breaks in between...]
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[being able to sing is fun. on his own terms.
(though that's when his singing is awful, don't let him sing after this, kashuu.)]
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Can you tell when you're about to start singing? Maybe if someone distracts you, it'll stop... Or I could just put my hand over your mouth or something.
[Ye olde solutions to problems!]
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[he would really prefer no hands over his mouth. besides:]
I don't think that would work on Dymlos anyway.
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[Dymlos will just have to suffer then, clearly. Kashuu can't help if he doesn't have a mouth to cover!!]
Maybe if you're just busy doing other stuff, you won't sing. Like, does it ever happen in the middle of a conversation or whatever?
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[this musical phenomenon is still pretty new to him too.]
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