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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no subject
ANYWAY here he is, still turning, trying to check over his own shoulders so he can see if there are any out-of-place pieces to his ensemble.]
If you're saying no one else will notice, that means something is wrong! Fix it! Or at least tell me what it is so I can fix it—
[Even if he can't reach shit... THIS IS FINE.]
no subject
Hence the blank stare.
And the fact that she's going to go ahead and change the subject.]
Anyway, it's been a rough time for everyone else too, so shut up. Unless you got thrown out your window this morning, I don't want to hear your complaining!
no subject
[Little does he know...
Anyway, despite her attempt to derail the subject, Kashuu will just fussily continue checking himself until he's as sorted out as he can manage. After patting his jacket down and fixing his hair clip, he finally faces the tracks and oncoming train.]
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[She might stomp her foot a little bit.... even as she follows after?! UGH, SHE NEEDS BETTER FR....ACQUAINTANCES.]
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Wait, seriously? By what? Was it a robot again...?
[This is what she gets for having an overly-fancy bed!!]
—And don't you live on a high floor? [CONCERN.]
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[LISTEN, SHE'S GOTTA HAVE HER CANOPY? But she's just going to set her hands on her hips at that.]
But I'm fine. No thanks to you or your lack of compassion.
[do you just expect Kashuu to always be there to save your reckless ass, Lili]
no subject
[Like LILI'S. Also wow, rude!! He frowns, but he can't give her as much of a disgruntled look as he wants since he has to look forward while stepping into the train. It'd just be embarrassing if he got his heel caught in the gap or something...]
Hey, I would be worried if you like, didn't show up or walked with a limp or something! But you're fine.
[He says, and then promptly turns around to watch her, looking for a limp.]
no subject
[FUTONS ARE FOR PEASANTS and... swords... Hm. She'll have to rethink that one.
Regardless she'll be joining him then, tossing her hair over her shoulder and - well, Tsurumaru absolutely let her fall and sprain her ankle but. Uh.]
Otome can heal, so it's fine.
[so
yes? she got hurt? uh.]
no subject
[Anymore... LOOK, FUTONS ARE COMFORTABLE. And who doesn't like being able to roll away their bed during the day to have more space??
Also wow, what. WHAT.]
Hang on - are you saying you did hurt yourself? Shouldn't you go see Otome first?
no subject
[CLOSER THAN SHE DOES. Putting her hands on her hips at that, though at the question she's just going to give him a glance.]
I already did. It's fine. [Sometime after she was chased by police bots. It's been A Day.] I'm better now.
[??? sure?]
no subject
[FOR SOME REASON. Probably because she's intending to be rude like a punk.
Anyway, he's giving her a very dubious look. It's almost like he doesn't believe she'd be entirely honest if she was injured or something!]
Are you sure?
no subject
[Do it. Drag her.
Regardless that dubious look is just going to be met with a puff of irritation.]
Of course I'm sure. Why would I make myself go through the nonsense of continuing my day injured? That's stupid.
[Regardless, she'll do a little turn of her own - more to show that she's not injured rather than to check for problems with her outfit, though.
Which is of course
when the train suddenly speeds up out of nowhere and throws her off-balance
she's beauty, she's grace]
no subject
[JUST SAYING!!
But he'll watch as she does her little turn, still SUSPICIOUS-- But mostly the "I'm just being huffy to be huffy" kind of suspicion, which promptly shifts to vague concern once the train starts, and then outright "AH" when she pitches over. LILI!! At least his reflexes are good enough to allow him to reach out and snatch her wrist before she can actually fall over or anything...]
Geez...! Be careful.
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Don't say it like it was my fault...!
[it sure does seem like the train is moving a lot... faster... than it should be, look at that skyline just flying outside the window]
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[Ergo, Lili's fault!! It takes him a second to actually realize just how fast they're going though, considering he's taken the train so many times by now that he automatically tunes out the scenery whizzing by. Plus, he's focused on making sure Lili doesn't somehow spontaneously die in the meantime, which seems VERY ALARMINGLY PLAUSIBLE.]
Let's just see if we can find some seats already.
no subject
There are a lot of seats....
It's... actually kinda empty?
Probably because other people aren't idiots who will board a faulty train?]
... there wasn't maintenance today or anything, was there?
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[HUH. Well, now that he's actually looking around, he notices the quickly-passing scenery too. Instead of going to a seat, he carefully makes his way to the side of the train, pressing a hand to the glass.]
...This is faster than we usually go, right?
[Maybe it's just an optical illusion because no one's in here?!]
no subject
Still though, Lili's just going to aim for a seat because she's not really interested in toppling over again, holding onto one of the poles for good measure. A look to outside the window and frowning.]
It would appear so....
[except it's also time for this crazy train to get crazier
aka it's also going to come to a sudden stop right then and there, even though they're nowhere near the next station]
no subject
Anyway, Lili was the smart one here and Kashuu is the moron for not taking his own advice. He's still standing over by the window when the train comes to an abrupt stop, which means he goes pitching over...]
WAH—!!
[At least no one else is here so he just crashes into a set of empty seats instead of awkwardly landing on someone's lap or something!]
What happened—? Did we seriously just stop?
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We... have?!
[Yeah. Total standstill. It's... not like they can exit here though?]
What's going on - this isn't a stop!
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Geez... Seriously, even the trains?
["Are freaking out", he means, but he doesn't yet think it could be anything serious because HE'S A FOOL but also a fool whose only experience with modern transportation is basically this right here. CERES trains.]
Maybe we should just get out and walk. We'll probably be stuck here for ages otherwise.
no subject