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 - Locked to Eiji

Ankh is a light sleeper, but even he takes a few moments to react to something like the place he's sleeping suddenly deciding to move on its own under him. His bed, in fact, does not fling him across the room. It just gently tilts and rolls him off of it... and directly onto Eiji's bed. On top of Eiji. How nice of it.

Phase III

[As he's just walking around, Ankh might seem even more wary and antisocial than he usually does. That's because stuff like this keeps happening:

a. Normally Ankh has an ability to sense people's desires, except that's gone haywire for a minute, and instead you're feeling his. In fact, this has projected onto you and you suddenly really desperately want a popsicle.

b. See this rude grumpy jerk here? Yeah. He's suddenly hugging you. And for some reason there are red feathers gently wafting all around you two. It's like a scene from a shoujo manga, except for the part where he is going to hate everything about this in 3... 2... 1...

c. All of a sudden, Ankh's clothes disappear, and he finds himself wearing nothing but a certain someone else's ridiculous underwear. First off, you have probably never seen someone be this indignant about their underwear before. Second, unless someone stops him, he's going to get rid of his one remaining piece of clothing because he would actually rather be naked than wear this stupid thing.

d. Or the serious option, in which there is suddenly a small flame, like you'd see from a match or a lighter, except that it's floating in the air just above his fingers. He's holding his hand up in front of him and staring at the mysterious fire, wide-eyed. He looks scared.]

Wildcard - Choose your own malfunction.

((ooc: Ability permissions here!))

The scream that comes from Eiji a second later was never meant to sound as pathetic as it does. But it just figures that the same time Ankh lands on him, a jolt of electricity goes through the bed. It's nothing that'll seriously hurt him, but it does result in a really embarrassing shriek.

So not only does Ankh get tossed out of bed, he gets to deal with electricity wherever he's made contact with the bed itself and Eiji screaming in his ear. Not that Eiji is the only one making surprised noises here, but at least Ankh doesn't scream. He just flinches a bit when Eiji does and claps a hand over his mouth. "Shut up before I go deaf."

Eiji nods, blushing slightly. Then a muffled, "Sorry."

Ankh doesn't say anything in reply, but he at least moves his hand from Eiji's face and rolls over so he's not laying on top of him anymore. Thankfully the electric bed phenomenon only lasted for a second.

Eiji gets up a minute later and reaches for the candroids.

"I don't know what that was about. If it's a short circuit, I don't exactly have Una here to safely look for it."

But a short is the least of their problems as the heat suddenly cranks up to extreme levels and the walls begin to glow red and flicker, almost as if they're on fire.

Ankh gets up as well, looking around the room for anything else going wrong. It doesn't seem like there is, until suddenly it's hot. Very hot. And the walls... His eyes go wide. Normally he wouldn't have any problems with fire, but right now all he has is the memory of the forest at Inugami and being surrounded like they are now. He takes a step back from the closest wall.

"What the hell is going on?"

Definitely time to activate all the candroids as Eiji steps back too. He's not quite as skittish around the flames, but that heat is real.

"We need to get out of here. I don't know about you, but I can't handle this heat for too long."

He tries the door, but it doesn't budge; worse than that, it's hot, and he pulls back with a shout, clutching his arm.

"No luck there--it's metal."

Of course he can't handle the heat. Ankh can't either, not with a human body and no way of covering it in more than a hand's worth of armor.

"Eiji!" Leave it to the idiot to go get himself burned trying to open a door. Ankh pulls him back away from it even as he draws back, himself. But now what? He looks to the exit he usually uses--a door to the balcony. The handle there is metal, too, but at least that isn't quite as much an issue for him. "This way!" He practically drags Eiji across the room with him, then grabs at the door with his Greeed hand.

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Phase I

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