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

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.

Eiji is dragged, yes, but he fumbles with the OOO belt all the way--kind of hard to do it mostly one-handed.

"I'll be okay to jump. Save the rest of your Medals in case we need them."

After all, if all of this is going on inside, there's no way to know what's outside--it's unusually wise, coming from Eiji.

The door gives him some trouble, sticking at first like it won't budge and then suddenly sliding open. It knocks him off balance for a second, but he quickly recovers and gets outside. At least everything out there looks fairly normal, but there's no guarantee it'll stay that way. For now, though, he hops off the balcony, spreads his wings, and floats down to the sidewalk below, keeping an eye on Eiji to make sure that jumping from there is, in fact, okay.

Oh, Eiji's okay, for a bit anyway. Until he suddenly sees a police bot hovering toward them, shouting, "Halt! You are under arrest for flying without a license!"

Eiji manages to leap off it, yelling, "Ankh! Watch out for these guys!"

Just as another robot grabs him from behind, citing assaulting an officer.

Ankh is... not entirely okay. He lands fine, but it might be obvious he's a little more shaken than he should be. The police bots are almost a welcome distraction from wondering just why the walls decided they wanted to be on fire.

He manages to land a solid punch on the bot that was coming toward him, leaving it apparently disoriented if not disabled, then goes to help pry off the one that's trying to drag Eiji away.

Ankh manages to get one of Eiji's arms free, and that's enough for him to punch the bot and get it to let him go.

"Do you have Cheetah ready? We should put some distance between us and them."

Then they can figure out whatever's going on.

He doesn't quite have it at the ready, but it doesn't take him long to get it and hand them off to Eiji. While Eigi swaps out the medal, he flies up a bit to get a better vantage point over some of the nearby buildings to figure out where they should be trying to go. It seems like those police bots aren't the only ones out and about right now.

"Tch." Why is everything suddenly complicated? Though he does manage to find what seems to be a clear path for now and point it out, calling back down to Eiji. "That way!"

"Okay, come on!"

Eiji reaches out his hand--yes, he's going to try to carry you, Ankh. After all, they both need to get out of there together.

Ankh just looks at his hand, then very intently tries to hop back into the air. He can fly and keep up that way, thanks. Or he should be able to. Before he can take off, his wings disappear on their own, leaving him confused and off-balance and... alright, fine. He doesn't have the energy to deal with figuring out what just happened to his wings right now, and in the short term that means he can't fly.

He'll take Eiji's hand.

Well, that was...disturbing. But there are still angry robots behind them shouting several "crimes" up to and including Eiji's underwear being 10 times the legal limit of ridiculous, which is completely unfair, really.

So it's carrying Ankh after all, and if you're embarrassed that Eiji's basically bridal-carrying you, Ankh, well, tough. It's the easiest way to carry you and he really needs to hurry.

"Did we lose them?"

Ankh may or may not have snickered at the one about the underwear in the midst of being irritated about this whole situation. It's hard to see much when he's being carried like that, so he doesn't have much input as to whether they might have actually lost them or not, but there at least doesn't seem to be any indication of police bots nearby for the moment.

So he doesn't waste any time in shoving against Eiji in an attempt to get down.

Well, that's just rude. Still, Eiji is at least gentle when he lets him down, then deactivates the belt.

He really doesn't know what to say, but a part of him is defintiely shaken at losing yet another relatively safe space.

"We should probably stay away for a while. At least until it calms down more."

He takes a step away once Eiji lets him down, trying in vain for a second to get his wings to come back, then leaning against a nearby wall when it doesn't work. Both of them have plenty of reasons to be shaken at this point. The lack of anywhere safe, and the fire, and his wings being taken away from him again... When Eiji suggests staying there, his only response is a nod.

Eiji really doesn't want to bring up anything about the wings, since it scares him too and he is really trying to keep it together. He's had way too many scares over the past year.

He can get it together, and as Taka makes its way back to them, he warns, "Can you tell the others not to come too close? We want to stay hidden for a bit." It nods, and he adds, "Okay. Keep an eye out for us, thanks."

There. Something's under control, and he looks back at Ankh, definitely not ready to ask if he's okay but knowing he should try.

"You're...you're not hurt, are you?"

At least they have that much. The candroids are useful in situations like this.

"No." It's almost too quick, and a little snappy, but at least Eiji gave him something he could answer. It's a much simpler question than whether he's okay.

Eiji nods, a little hesitantly, before rubbing at the burn on his arm. It's sore, but not as bad as it could have been. No blistering, at least.

"When it calms down a bit, we should probably make our way toward the stream. At least then, we'll have some water."

It's his usual go-to for camping out, at least.

"If those stupid robots don't try to arrest us for stealing the water or something."

With a slight huff, he glances back in the direction they came from. At least it seems like those robots still aren't catching up. They probably got distracted by someone else who hadn't done anything. And despite the snark, he's not complaining about the idea. Camping out isn't ideal, but if they can find a good spot for it, then it's better than being in an apartment that randomly decides to set itself on fire.

He nods, not that he's surprised. If he manages to calm himself down, he can find it similar enough to the neighborhood chairman's wife taking over Yumemi-cho and kicking them out of Cous Coussier...not that that was a particularly good memory, especially since Ankh had disappeared into his imposter soon after.

But it does lead to a thought, some kind of action, and that clears his mind a lot.

"We might have to try to find the source of this. Like we did before."

"Probably something to do with whatever happened with CERES." To be honest, he only halfway heard that message. He was asleep when it started, trying to go back to sleep when it finished, and then being dumped out of his bed about as soon as he succeeded. But there was definitely some message and what he got out of it sounded like Eiji had been right about the sabotage theories from before.

Now that there isn't something threatening them every five seconds, Ankh finally starts to relax a little bit, and only now does he remember the day before. When he'd fallen asleep, Eiji was still pretty mad at him about the Yummy. Whether it's been forgiven or just forgotten in all the craziness isn't entirely clear, but he's glad that at least isn't an issue right now, either way.

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