PHASE I [ ?? ?? ] This time, ViViD is a deathtrap.
There is random magma everywhere, monsters will spawn at random, and at some points, the game is entirely unplayable. It’s like the dev team totally disappeared mid-constructing the level.
Oh wait, that’s exactly what happened.
Monsters may spawn on top of you, you may suddenly be standing in a poisonous bog, you may suddenly lose your powers, or your senses, or so many different things --
It’s time to get out of here, ASAP.
Thankfully, the exit is obvious. Like. Blindingly obvious. It’s got a big sign over it that says EXIT
And just like that, you’ll be out of ViViD and --
PHASE II [ 0830 ] When you wake up (and it’s strange, because you were sure that you were logging out just a second ago), it’s in a pile of bodies.
They’re cold, but not in the same sense that a dead body would be cold. While they are lifeless and look incredibly real, they don’t feel real. They feel like dolls, mannequins, empty models and nothing more. Their code doesn’t seem to be functioning right.
And what some characters may realize upon looking at this pile of bodies is that they are all of the characters who were sacrifices before. Any character that was dropped who had a high magical or spiritual affinity is there in that pile of bodies, lifeless and eyes blank and vacant. Even you might be there, staring at your own dead body -- but it isn’t real It can be touched, but it’s really nothing more than a lifeless body.
You’ll have to crawl out of that pile of bodies to get anywhere, and then you’ll realize -- you’re in the Sanctuary, a building built by the characters as a safe place from CERES. And it’s looking pretty run-down at this point. The technology in it no longer functions, there is no security on it whatsoever…
Oh, and now there’s a pile of bodies. Great.
PHASE III [ 1000 ] There’s also a robot.
It’s wandering from place to place, though it’s impossible to follow. One second it’s there, the next it’s just gone.
Also, it’s wearing this. Weird.
But even with that on its face, the robot seems focused on one thing in particular. In fact, it has a sign, and it says:
Down with CERES. Up with Robots.
That’s a happy, cheerful message. If you try to go up to it to talk to it, it will look at you before...bonking you on the head with the sign and running off. That’s incredibly rude.
Alternatively, you may be safe and sound in your home, but then the doorbell rings, and there’s the robot again. The duck mask is gone, but now instead it has a pin on his fake lapel, and then he’s shoving a pamphlet at you.
He tips his hat, and then he’s gone. Weird.
(Also, if you hold onto the pamphlet, it will lead you directly to the person whose picture is on it, and you’ll feel like you’ve known them and have loved them for years.)
PHASE IV [ 1245 ] But not all is fun and games and shenanigans. There is something...well, strange happening, and the first real realization of that will be when it starts to rain. More than just the localized rain that a few unfortunates have dealt with -- no, it’s raining completely and totally, and that’s when it might hit you.
For the first time in Cerealia, there’s weather.
It’ll rain for a few hours, and then it’ll stop and become hot and sunny. It may get humid, considering it’s a jungle planet. At night, it’ll get rather cold.
Seems like whatever was keeping Cerealia’s atmosphere stable is now gone -- which also means that characters may start to occasionally experience headaches, nausea and dizziness if they go too close to the walls. It seems safer in the center of the city, and the Residential District is still okay, but… there’s no doubt that the planet’s atmosphere is starting to encroach on the city.
BONUS [ why o'clock ] But who cares about all of that? More importantly, you are here in this… totally not shoddy city to have fun, and it’s still being advertised as a pleasure colony. Or, well, it would be if, you know, CERES was still around.
But close enough.
And as a pleasure colony, it would figure that the first robots to really get fixed are...well, the Pleasure District robots. Unfortunately, the Pleasure District is still a nice big mess, so now they’re wandering the entire colony, looking for people they can hug, massage or...try to drag into more explicit activities.
Welcome to Cerealia!
[ 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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His master's orders are absolute after all.
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She listens attentively, nodding at the end. What he says about his master's wishes and about the situation as a whole is the more experienced way of acknowledging what Chihiro's learned to see.
"Then I think you already had your answer, Ichigo-san. Is Haru-san also your master?"
Curious, because she's still not entirely sure how those dynamics work. Or where Haru's been, but she's barely met him over the network when they were talking about things like loneliness.
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"I do? And yes, he is. He is the saniwa sage who gave us our human forms. I've heard that he's here but I haven't yet seen him in person."
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Not to mention having it verified that he's the saniwa sage for probably all of the related sword spirits. Er, the ones who knew each other, not so much direct relations.
"You do. Everything you said to me sounds like a good answer, though... maybe you can talk with Kashuu or Tsuru or Sayo-kun to see if Haru-san has any special orders for all of you. I haven't asked about things like that." To be honest, she's never felt like it was her place.
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Granted, with how pushy they were being earlier, it seemed simpler to avoid the complications of fighting with them if at all possible.
"... then it's around this corner, and... the building there!" She smiles, gesturing toward it with her hand. "That's the one."
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He glanced up at the building she pointed at then looked around to study their surroundings, both scanning for danger and to commit the location of his new home to memory.
Then he looked over at the girl and nodded with a smile, ‘Thank you, Chihiro-chan. You've been a great help! What about you though? Where are you staying?’
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A small shrug of her shoulders and a wave of her hand is her version of dismissing it; she's not hunting for home here. Just places to sleep and eat and use restrooms and bathe, so yeah. She smiles, like it's nothing.
Promptly it begins to rain just in a few meter radius of Chihiro herself. "Ah! Man, not again..." She darts back and away to give Ichigo room while pulling up the hood of her raincoat. "Sorry, I'm never sure when this is going to happen."
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Then he smiles down at her. ‘Why don't you come stay with us? I'm sure the others won't mind and it can't be that hard to accomodate one more person. It'll be safer too to be in a group.’
Then he blinks at the oddly specific rainfall and he reaches over to extend his cape over Chihiro to shield her from the rain, not caring about getting wet himself. ‘What's going on, Chihiro-chan?’
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And he's being too kind, holding out his cape over her head. It makes her feel briefly guilty, because the rain cloud's only here due to her affiliation. One she hadn't known about before the weird element things had started happening.
"I'm raining. There are four elemental gods here, you know? It turns out the one I'm claimed by is Maris-sama. He's water." Her smile is small and self-aware; she finds her admission a little bit funny. What other element would she be? "Not that long ago people like us started finding weird things happening around us. Water people had it rain, fire people are lighting things on fire, earth people are making things bloom... stuff like that. So um, I'm sorry. I'm why the rain's just happening right here. You'll get wet if you stay too close."
He is, in fact, already getting wet, but it's a refreshing enough reaction (most often people have just gotten the heck out of the way) that she doesn't do the polite thing and move away again.
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She drummed up a smile over that memory. At least the bathroom was a place that couldn't be too injured by overabundant water. (That was a lie.) "Ichigo-san, you're getting really soaked. You'll catch a cold if you don't get away from me." She didn't move away either, which was more of a problem on Chihiro's end about enjoying positive attention and bonding, but she was aware of her own low-key health hazard effect for the time being.
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Ichigo glanced up at the rain, raising his hand to shield his eyes as he tries to see if the rain is really falling from the sky. ‘Really? That's interesting and a little strange... So it's just random?’
Ichigo looked down at his wet clothes and shook his head. ‘It's fine. Swords don't catch colds.’ At least he thinks so.
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The rain doesn't appear to exist more than a meter or two over Chihiro's head. "I haven't seen a pattern," she admits. She's unconvinced of his argument, pointing out, "Maybe not, but you can rust, and we don't know if we're all working like we should."
Which is a point, more or less, and she's concerned he may catch a cold precisely because things like water and fire are manifesting around the code-born.
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"Yeah, you're right. Rain helps put out fires. Do you not like fire?" It struck her as a little odd, but that was from limited knowledge and thinking about fires and forges.
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‘No, I don't like it at all. Fire is a terrible beast that robs you of everything you loved and knew. My memories were taken away by the fire at Osaka Castle.’
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Osaka Castle was once the site of the Tokugawa coming into power. Its destruction was the final lament of the same clan leaving power, in so many ways. She couldn't imagine what it would feel like to someone like Ichigo, when he had no way of escaping a building that was burnt and razed. Chihiro only remembered a portion of that history; she knew, in a vague way, that Osaka Castle was burned down when the new government of the time came into power.
History feels a lot different when talking to people (human or otherwise) who've lived through it.
"I'm sorry they left you behind. I'm sorry that the people who came after also hurt you. You didn't deserve that." No one deserved to be left behind and incinerated. Even if they were a sword; but she can't vouch for the concerns of people hundreds of years before her time. They may well have had less of an appreciation for history and historic significance and respect for the very art of swordmaking that did, indeed, fall out of favour once the samurai was out of the graces of the nation. Yet that hadn't been true back then, had it? She had no way to know.
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“Master was already dead, so I suppose they had forgotten me. I can remember only very little about Master. I remember that he loved me the most and that he had me adjusted so that I could always remain by his side. I remember that he was the one who gave me these clothes. I remember watching him die of sickness... I remember the fire and how I was unable to save Namazuo and Honebami who were in the flames like me. They are two of my younger brothers. I should have been there to protect them... but I failed them.
I remember being reforged... then I think I was probably asleep for a long time after that. When I woke up again, I was in a palace and there was one of younger brothers, Hirano. He told me we were now Imperial Treasures. Then other swords joined us - Tsurumaru-dono, Uguisumaru-dono and Shishiou-dono. After that, we were summoned by our current master. That's all I can remember.”
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