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
Um, maybe we can do sexy photoshopping after we sort out this... thing...
[He gestured lamely at their apartment, which still looked like it was part of some kind of surreal painting, what with the frozen flames and twitching kitchen appliances]
Like, I dunno when those flames are gonna, uh, melt and start burning stuff down again. Or, turn into water. Hot water? Or lava. It'd be my luck if frozen flames melt into lava. [He turned to the closest chunk of frozen flame, something strained in his tone as he said;] Please don't turn into lava.
no subject
Said chunk of frozen flame shakes for a few seconds before thankfully fizzling out.]
It should be safer at the park...at least we can put out any flames on our own. [Minato gets up then, wiping sweat from his brow with one hand and patting down his clothes with the other.]
no subject
....I wouldn't be surprised if this is somehow their fault.
[Besides, Hyoubu will give them a new apartment. She's sure of this.
That or they'll take over his. Once they air out the old man smell and throw away everything questionable, it might even be livable.
Despite how dangerous the situation is, Shiho is noticeably sluggish as she gets up, having spent most of the night nursing a headache, worrying about Kaoru and Minato and Kaz and even Hyoubu.]
What are we waiting for, then? The lava?
[She's very unsteady, but she stands, swaying just a tiny bit.]
no subject
[Occular implants? Who cares! Their teacher is a bonafide lawyer! He could totally get them off the hook.]
Well, if it turned into lava we could always play The Floor Is Lava: Life Or Death Edition.
[Probably there are people who wouldn't make a joke out of this. But she's hardly going to be That Person.]
Fair warning though: I always win at that game. [Pause.] Not that I've played with real lava before.
[She sighs though.]
Normally, I'd offer to fly us there, but... [She'd rather avoid any potential accidents. But one of these days she will take them all flying at night, P*ter P*n style.] Let's use the door this time.
no subject
I guess we should go, but... [he obediently shuffled to the door anyway, avoiding the various, supernatural obstacles with a suspicious eye] Using the front door, of all things, to leave the apartment. It feels so wro-
[THUNK.]
-ng...?
[Kaz's voice pitched in obvious confusion when his fingers seemly went through the door handle and said handle suddenly ended up in short, narrow pieces on the floor. He only had a short second to puzzle over this bizarre happenstance, however, before a sharp, blooming pain pierced right into his hand, followed by a disgusting sensation of something wet and warm dripping between his- oh.
Kaz looked at his hand, a feeling of dread rising in him, and saw that his suddenly manifested claws had decided to make an appearance just as he had moved to clench his fingers around the door handle. The claws must've just sliced right through and proceeded to stab him right in his palm. There was... blood. Okay. That's a lot. Okay.
What had he done to deserve this? The three people who Kaz didn't want to show his ugly monster side to and here his body decided to reveal to them in the most embarrassing and painful way ever. His mind was just blank on how to even react to this]
Um. [He should have risked spontaneous mid-air combustion, he thought despairingly, as blood began to drip at his feet] It, uh, it appears we can't use the door right now. It's... broken...
no subject
> Create a bigger distraction
> Stand in front of Kaz
> Do nothing]
You're bleeding. Hang on...Cybele! [There's a noticeable strain in his eyes as he presses his Evoker to his head and pulls the trigger, and he only breaths again when he sees Kaz's wound healing as intended. In spite of his apparent calm he's well aware that all of them pose dangers to themselves and each other, and it's not a good feeling.]
no subject
The claws aren't new. Hatsune could do something similar. Not to mention the fact that she regularly acted like a complete animal and Shiho could almost see her carrying a whole human being away to a lair if Akira wasn't there to ground her. (Or be the one getting carried away. The world thanks you for your sacrifice, Akira.) Instead, her first thought is a numb surprise, especially when Minato follows it up by shooting himself in the head.
Again, it's not something she hasn't seen, but still, it's just yet another thing for her to sort through and it's clear she doesn't have the necessary brain power to do so.]
That's...that's helpful?
[The claws or the Evoker? She's not sure.
Both??
Unsure if she should walk forward (or if that would only make Kaz more uncomfortable since she was a psychometer, after all), she stays where she is, obviously very worried and entirely awake at this point.]