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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[... But yeah, they should definitely be getting out of the way. Karl will be doing his best to push himself up into a standing position.]
Yeah... and it'd be a problem if you were hit too.
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[But he'll hold his hands out anyway, waiting to see if Karl would be okay with a little roadside assistance before helping him over to the sidewalk.]
Just be careful next time. These things always go crazy when the technology is glitching around here. It makes getting things done a real pain.
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[He'll be taking Kashuu's hand, on account of the fact that it'd probably be kind of embarrassing to promptly stumble and fall.]
... Does the technology around here have a history of being unstable?
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[Unlike SOME PEOPLE who will remain unnamed... For now. But anyway, he'll just lead Karl on over and then try to get him to sit down once they get to the sidewalk. He'll stand guard in case any other stray cars come flying around the corner!!]
Kind of, yeah. More like... whenever something goes wrong up at CERES headquarters, we get the brunt of it. ...Or if ghosts show up.
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Well, that's not surprising. It's usually the people living under their thumb that suffer the most when the upper echelon can't handle things...
[He'll remain standing, thanks (however humble he can be, Karl would be lying if he said he didn't have his own brand of pride)!!]
Ah, right. I read about the ghosts in the document provided by Athena. I don't suppose there've been any pleasant encounters with them?
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Yeah, that's how it is in most worlds, I think.
[Funny how that works out...!]
And they haven't been super great, no. I mean, I get it! Vengeful ghosts are gonna be mad, but geez, the cause a lot of trouble.
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Yeah, hostile spirits can definitely be a handful...
[And then he pauses, as he realizes how that might sound and he immediately starts backpedaling—]
—as is anyone that's hostile, I mean! Not just spirits...!
[HE SWEARS HE'S NOT TRYING TO INSULT YOU, KASHUU.]
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It's fine, it's fine. I know that we can be more troublesome than a lot of things when we're hostile. That's just the nature of something that humans can't really understand or interact with, right?
[IT'S OKAY, he knows that hostile spirits are dangerous... He also knows that hostile humans are dangerous, of course, but generally they can't possess other people or create despair voids or rifts in time or anything.]
Those guys haven't caused any trouble in a while, at least.
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In that sense, it might be humans who are honestly the handful.]
That's... Well, I was gonna say "good", but thinking about it, that just sounds like we're due for another encounter with them.
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Much too complicated for Kashuu.]
Hey, hey! Don't say that or you're gonna curse us for real.
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Haha, sorry! But seriously, even if it happens, I'm sure we can handle it.
... Once we deal with all this, anyway.
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You sound pretty sure of yourself for a guy who just got hit by a stray car. Like, no offense or anything.
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But I'm fine, aren't I? See? It all works out.
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[WHY IS HE LIKE THIS. But look, beneath the rude shittery, he is genuinely worried... Though it's becoming apparent that Karl isn't exactly suffering from any life-threatening injuries here.]
How're you feeling?
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It'll be fine! I'll be careful. Promise!
[Maybe his Impiety Orb will alert him... do stray cars count as impending disasters...]
I'm all right, I'm all right. I mitigated the damage before the car struck and I'm healing my wounds now, so seriously, it's not like I have to go to the clinic or anything.
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You're lucky you can heal. Those things really do a lot of damage, you know.
[As if he didn't FEEL IT FOR HIMSELF... Kashuu will lean over to get a closer look though, just to make sure his bruises are really healing!]
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[He's leaning back a bit, because personal space, Kashuu, don't you ever learn!! But really, his bruises are healing over time—his healing isn't instant, admittedly, but hey, it works.]
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Should I walk with you to make sure you don't get hit by anything else? I mean, I don't really have anywhere to go or anything.
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[It's the "probably" that seals the deal, okay. ANYWAY--]
Where were you trying to go, anyway? I'll at least help you there.
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[HE'S JUST BEING HONEST, ALL RIGHT.]
... You wouldn't happen to know of any place where the tech isn't trying to kill someone, would you?
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But that's something he actually has to stop and think about, given the high-tech nature of the entire dang city.]
...The park, probably? The only tech stuff there are like, street lights and the robots that come through to clean up the paths sometimes.
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[A sympathetic look...]
No, there aren't. And lucky for you, I know where the best hiding places are to get away from 'em anyway!
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