PHASE I [ 10 00 ] The “cleansing" doesn't begin too strangely. No, instead it starts with some minor inconveniences. After Mosley's broadcast, anything running on electricity seems to be… mildly on the fritz. Characters will find their home appliances suddenly rebelling just enough to be troublesome. Anything that uses electricity within the bounds of the colony will start suffering from some small malfunctions. (Do we have any cyborgs in the crowd tonight?) Toasters burning your breakfast and shooting the crispy things at you. Televisions suddenly exploding in a haze of smoke before working perfectly fine a moment later. Hair dryers suddenly running a little too hot and whoops, your hair's on fire… Well, this is all still just a small issue. Probably. Here's hoping the fire extinguisher doesn't run on electricity too?
PHASE II [ 1200 ] It's only glitches for a day or so, but by noon the next day, things get a little weird. We interrupt your regularly scheduled routine to bring you this important message: Welcome to ViViD. … Wait, what? Yeah, sorry about that. Whether you wanted to or not, you've found yourself in the virtual simulator… except it doesn't seem very… virtual anymore, no. The monsters look a bit meaner, and they seem to be after you in particular. You might suddenly be glitched into a dead end, or a level that actually doesn't seem to be beatable at all, with people you've never seen before as your party members. Endless mazes! Boss battles with a wooden sword! Dungeons with no walkthroughs! When you finally make it to the end, you might even find a giant wall blocking your way, or a moat where there was once a path. Now that's troublesome.
And make sure you don't get hurt by any of those monsters. Not like it matters, it's just HP, right? Wrong. Rather, it'll actually hurt quite a bit, just as if you were injured in real life.
If you're lucky, you'll find yourself glitched back out maybe half an hour later -- your wounds still fresh from the experience and still bleeding. Just don't die. You don't want to see what will happen if you die.
PHASE III [ 1800 ] It's the day after, and you've survived your unfortunate ViViD runs (though there's no promise that you won't end up there yet again). But for now, you've finished your work day without too many electrical object malfunctions, and you're on your way home. Normally the transit system is so very reliable. From district to district, the metro is your only way of travel and today? Today it's stopping with an ugly screech. Hopefully you don't need to be anywhere because it's safe to say that you're not getting off this ride any time soon. The lights aren't only flickering anymore, they're completely out. The darkness settles in uncomfortably as you're only left with the other people who were making the same trip. A second later, things start to get weird. Cold breath down your neck. The scratch of something sharp and angry against the outside of the cabin. Seconds pass in silence, the presence of something outside growing more and more frightening. If you hold your breath and stay very still, you might make it out just fine. That is until a forceful SLAM sounds behind you and there's something against your window. At least you know what's been making all that noise.
Of course, should you pry open the doors, there's nobody there, but… you couldn't have been imagining that, right?
Looks like the entire city's blacked out… and without the hum of technology and warmth of the advanced lighting system, some ghosts have come out to play. But they can only be seen from the corner of your eye, a glimpse, a breath, a nondescript whisper on the air and then they're gone. Who knows what they want from you…? Either way, they're not saying, staying just out of reach and mostly out of sight… but always there, watching and waiting.
PHASE IV [ 0000 ] Here you are, finally: day 4. You made your way through the dark, avoided the things that go bump in the night and found your apartment. Your pants are gone, your door is locked, and you've managed to stumble right into your bed/nest/cocoon/what-have-you. Your unbearably long day is finally, finally about to come to a close but then something glitches, worse than before. Suddenly you're not all cozy in your bed, but rather suspended in an unidentifiable space. In this darkness, there is screaming and only screaming. You try to move your limbs, use your voice -- and there is nothing. Rather, you can only look on as the space shifts and you see two figures appearing in the darkness, glowing in the same digital blue that lights up the rest of the colony. As you get closer, the screaming grows louder -- a woman's screams, you can hear now. It sounds garbled, like broken pieces of sound bytes. She's being strangled, you can see now. The other figure strangling her is a robot, metallic and ruthless. He turns to see you and his eyes glow with the same blue shine. As the woman -- LILITH, for those who have seen her or heard her voice may recognize -- finally begins to lose her strength to scream, the robot's mouth slowly spreads into a smile as he maintains eye contact, cold and yet somehow pleased.
In the next second, you have been returned to your body, echoes of screaming your only lullaby. Sleep doesn't seem as likely anymore, does it?
BONUS [ whyo'clock ] If at all possible, the darkness just got darker. How, you might ask? Well, it seems like someone just put a bag over your head! That's a little inconvenient, but it looks like you're suffering from an old school kidnapping at some point through these couple of days, complete with your assailants pushing you around asking, “Where the hell is the money?!" As they shove you into their shady kidnapper van, you can hear a certain song playing which is… a bit too on the nose for this situation. As the wheels of the vehicle stop and you're pushed out, the bag comes off and you're facing down your friendly neighborhood debt collector. He's slow to get his words out but they are very menacing indeed, something about threatening your family and sleeping with the alien fishes in the park. When you protest, insisting that you don't owe them any money, they pull out a CereVice and show your bank account, which does indeed seem to be approximately 50 million credits in debt.
They'll do this even if you're not in debt at all, and, in fact, it is impossible for you to be in debt, as CERES doesn't loan money to you people. Looks like the glitching did a number on your bank account though, and the numbers don't lie.
Looks like you're out of luck, friend. Why not have a friendly chat with the other half a dozen people who have been bagged and kidnapped as well? There's even a small table with snacks as you wait. Wait for what, they haven't exactly said yet. Maybe you should just leave through the window.
PENALTY [ xxxx ] Should you be unlucky enough to die in ViViD while it is glitching and injuries are being sustained, you will find yourself in a penalty game. Even more than usual penalty games, this one is increasingly unnerving. There is nothing but a dark room, a single light hovering over two masks on a table. One might recognize them as the masks of comedy and tragedy. In front of the player, red words slowly illuminate the room. Pick one. Well, that's an easy penalty game, isn't it?
Yet as you reach for one, the masks will suddenly turn into the faces of the two most important people to you. Their voices whisper, growing distressed as time goes on, “Pick me, pick me, pick me." The red words turn into a countdown if you take too long -- your hand forcibly moved to pick one mask or the other if the timer runs out. Yet once you put on the mask, you will see the person who was not picked, suddenly and brutally murdered right before your eyes by a shadowy figure, wearing the mask you chose.
With that, you will return to the colony, good as new. Though on occasion, you may see the person whose mask was not picked in the corner of your eye, dressed in black and wearing the very same mask of tragedy.
[ 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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[ Another wave, and a twirl, then she points her staff at Ryuko. This causes some glitter to fall on Ryuko, and nothing else. Some characters (-2) in red suddenly appear above Athena's head and quickly drop to the ground, then disappears. What was that?? ]
... oh no. I'm pretty sure I just used some magic when I didn't have to.
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Just let's not use me as a test subject... ha...
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[ Cheese aside, the giant manticore they have to fight moves three squares forward. It's about two full turns away from reaching either of them, unless they move farther from the center of the map. ]
We have to beat it!
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[ Ryuko starts dashing towards the enemy, but only moves three squares again until she freezes. These game mechanics, man. ]
--what the?! Who came up with this shitty game??
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Maybe if she moved forward...
Ah, there we go. Her staff glows again when she points at Ryuko, but she doesn't cast anything. ]
Maybe this is like tetris. [ What??? ] That game has blocks too, right?
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Think more like chess, Athena!
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... so, if we just treat this like chess, we'll be able to clear this stage!
[ Determined as she may be now, fear strikes her as the manticore moves again, moving forward. It even lets out some kind of roar, and it calls forth some smaller monsters into the map. ]
Uh-oh.
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[ She's getting so impatient with this board game thing. Yeah, it's a board game to her. ]
I suppose it's my move now, huh?
[ If she could have it her way, she would slaughter everything here within a minute. For now, all she can do is move two square to the left and intercept a rabite. At least they go down in one hit, but it looks like the next one is positioned to attack Ryuko and she's out of moves. ]
Just... it's right there, why can't I attack it now?!
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[ She clutches her staff, slowly approaching one of the rabites. Unlike Ryuko's attack, Athena's isn't very effective.
Now that her turn has ended, a bunch of rabites start surrounding both of them. Once close enough, they start biting on their targets. ]
Ow, ow, ow! [ Athena starts jumping around, unable to do anything else like whack the bunnies on the head. ] This hurts!
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Damn it to hell!!
[ Now she's really worrying for Athena... ]
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[ At least after some time, the rabites stop attacking both of them. They're still surrounded, though!
Now, it's the manticore's turn to move, and it just stops right at the tail end of where the rabites are. ]
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Maybe...
--Athena! I'm gonna try drawing 'em towards me, okay? Think you can keep me alive with your magic?
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Right! I'll do my best!
[ There's still some fear in her, but if it's for Ryuko, then she'll just have to stand strong. ]
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[ Never one to do things half-assed, Ryuko starts off with her strongest class ability by moving herself in between all the rabite units. Once in position, she casts Unholy Sacrifice. It's a move that trades a lot of her own HP to deal extensive damage to all units around her, essentially defeating all the rabites within range.
All it leaves them with is the boss, but Ryuko's HP is dangerously low, and without her own supernatural abilities, there is a chance she may die for real. ]
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Now that Athena has a better clue on what to do, she stops with the small talk and moves a few squares closer to Ryuko to make sure she's within range of her healing magic. ]
(It's up to me to make sure that Ryuko's HP doesn't go to 0. I'll do everything that I can to make sure it doesn't happen!)
[ She raises her staff again and waves it at Ryuko to send some magic her way. It takes out a bit of energy from Athena, but it should heal any cuts Ryuko has, and replenish her HP. ]
Do you feel better?
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[ Apparently Ryuko only likes videogames if she can win in them. ]
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It moves a two squares forward and is now in front of Ryuko. Though since it's a pretty big monster, it's taking up more squares then they are. With a trumpet-like roar, it raises a paw and claws at Ryuko's torso. ]
Ryuko!
[ EVEN IF THIS IS A GAME, IT'S STILL PAINFUL TO SEE PEOPLE SHE LOVES GETTING HURT. ]
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Ack-- shit, you were right! These things do attack for real! What the hell?!
[ One hand over her bleeding torso, her survival instinct combines with her need to protect Athena, and she attacks with critical damage against the monster. It takes about a quarter of its HP. ]
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You'll be fine! [ Insert cure magic here. ] I'll do whatever I can to make sure your wounds heal!
[ And she looks up at the Manticore to scowl at it. ] You— I'm gonna get you for this!
[ But now that her turn's over, she'll have to get her revenge later on. ]
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Good job, Athena! Let's finish this!
... Gimme a sec.
[ Ryuko goes through her available abilities, not sure what they do but she picks the coolest sounding one (it's hard when they all sound cool). ]
Let's finish this!
[ She uses the Crushing Blow ability, her sword emanating a sinister aura as it deals Dark damage to the monster. As a side effect, it also cast the Stop status on it, but again, Ryuko isn't sure what it does?? ]
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Woah, you did it! Now we just have to bring it home!
[ Not literally, of course!!! Though since she did plan on getting revenge on the Manticore, she moves away from Ryuko and closer to the monster and hits it!!!!!
YEAH!! TAKE THAT!!!!!!!
It's not very effective. ]
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You... didn't have any offensive magic?
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I didn't even know I could use magic to begin with!
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D-Don't be so reckless then! [ wow, hypocrite?? ]
I'm gonna do my special move again!
[ ... ]
What the hell?! I can't use it? I hate this game, nothing makes sense! Fine, take this..!!
[ Ryuko moves in on the enemy and uses a basic attack. It's down to critical HP, one more decent hit should finish it off. ]
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You're almost there!
[ Yeah, just "You're", considering Athena isn't even doing much in terms of killing the boss. She hits the monster again, though the twhack is once again, ineffective. IT SUCKS WHEN YOUR ATTACK POINTS IS LIKE... 9.
The manticore roars again, and it starts glowing. Maybe it's what happens when its HP is almost at 0? Some bosses in the games Athena's played evolved into a stronger and second form towards the end of the battle. Its scorpion tail begins to wag and it moves to attack Athena, leaving some cuts on both her arm and cheek.
And that's just the first of its attacks. It roars again and stamps on the ground, causing the ground beneath them to start shaking.
Is that an earthquake?
Yeah. . . ]
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