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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phase ii-a;
and that's why he's moving at a breakneck pace...
and crashing right into hiro with a bit of gusto.]
—Oooof! [good job stahn. you're totally Helping right now.]
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[THANKS, STAHN. Hiro ends up falling back as he hits the pavement and hears the steps of the robo-cops in the distance. Quick to stand on his feet, he pulls himself up and offers a hand to Stahn.]
Owowow... H-Hey, you okay?! C'mon and get up! We're enemies of the law now!
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[he'll take that offering to get back on his feet, though there's something more important happening here.]
Wh-wh... What do you mean, enemies of the law?!
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[Despite saying that, Hiro laughing cheerfully as he starts to run and pulls Stahn with him.]
According to those robots, we've done some crap that we aren't responsible for! I don't really get it, but this is exciting!!
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[he's a little alarmed here; even if he's sure this is probably not going to amount to much in the end because it's cerealia. stahn will still follow hiro's lead anyway.
(even if they could probably take out the bots pretty swiftly.)]
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[And right on cue, Hiro turns to the sounds of gatling guns unloading from their arms.
Ah, they're starting to up their ante now.]
TARGETS REFUSING TO COOPERATE. PROGRESSING TO LETHAL FORCE.... THAT IS NOT GOOD!
[As they take aim to fire, Hiro quickly pulls them around ANOTHER corner.] Crapcrapcrap! They're seriously serious!
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[which is probably the dumbest thing to say when he's armed with a weapon. a weapon that is definitely not going to take this lying down.
ready for a motivational speech, hiro? because today, with everything going haywire, he'll have no problem hearing the sword.]
Hey, Stahn! Stop panicking! [okay, maybe not that motivational at all, whoops.] You can't outrun bullets, but we can deflect them. Keep your focus and be ready!
[which is to say "stop trying to run and just destroy the robots, you idiot," but it comes with an added:]
Hey, you! Can you hear me?
[polite... he's so polite...]
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Oh, yeah! Loud and clear! I've never met a talking sword before! It's straight outta an RPG game!
[Danger? What danger? There's a really awesome sword speaking rudely to him here!]
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[he knows what an rpg game is now after months of being in the city, but stahn isn't sure he's comparable. either way? probably not time for that.]
Stahn, now!
[since they've stopped and now the robots are even more pissy, but stahn is holding up dymlos...
and summoning a wall of flames in front of them, because naturally magical fire is the way to deflect bullets and put some space between them!
(they can talk about that rude sword in a minute, if hiro is so interested.)]
1/2
Whoa! That's even cooler! [...] Okay, my turn!
[He's certainly determined to survive and show off while doing it! Deciding not to be outdone in the spell casting department, Hiro decides to pick up a steel pipe and decides to floats up (awkwardly) into the air as he sees the robo cops in his sights...]
Here we go! Um, um... [Attack names were the hardest part! The pipe will glow red as he channels some Agi magic through the metal and-] KAGEYAMA FLAMING SLASH!!!
[Hiro gives the pipe a hard swing as a flaming arc bursts out through the air and straight into the cops! There's going to be a nice series of explosions as those cops start blowing up in a domino effect.]
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... Ouch. Shit, ugh... G-Gotta work on that.
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[cool as hell. stahn is actually stunned silent for a moment by that. because it's cool and stahn himself is very easily impressed, especially by someone else who can also use fire magic.
considering he only knows one other person back home who can use any fire, and not to the extent he can, it's really impressive.
(he's absolutely going to ask if hiro can teach him how to do that later, but first—)]
...Are you okay?! [more important, he realizes hiro kind of wiped himself on that one, so he'll close the gap and offer out a hand to help him up.]
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[Despite feeling slightly tired, he laughs and takes Stahn's hand as he pulls himself up. Though he'll be holding up the pipe that was in his other hand and it was melted after that attack of his...
Note to self: Either A) Channel fire magic less strongly or B) Find a harder metal to channel it through.]
Now you gotta tell me 'bout that talking sword... That's a pretty sweet companion you've got there.
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