PHASE I [ 9 00 ] You open your eyes, and there is a chicken pecking at your face. It's not a very happy chicken, either, but if you can manage to fend it off, then it will be clear that you are in a village. It is... medieval-esque, in that video game sort of way; the details don’t seem too clear, but if you look to your left, there’s a cow! And to your right, a well! Ignore the clear evidence of modern technology in the buildings such as lights, gas, and 21st century plumbing; CERES is dedicated to authenticity.
Looks like the new ViViD level has finally been released, and everyone is invited to play, whether they want to or not.
The game (because this time, that's surely what it is) will start simple. Everyone begins in the same place and every NPC villager will say the same thing: to get out of here, you have to go through the caves. They’ll shove a stick at you (“take this, it’s dangerous to go alone”) and off you go, into the caves… !
Which are full of tiny rats and more chickens. They will try to fight you, but it’s really not very effective when they’re perfectly small and average (especially when everyone still has their typical powers and abilities -- CERES didn't mess with those at all this time). The caves are winding and circular and maze-like, and to make matters even worse, the only ones around are the other poor saps stuck in this situation.
But if you kill enough of the rats, you’ll get to hear the satisfying level up jingle. Congratulations! You are now level 2. It's probably satisfying just for a minute or so until you finally find your way out of those maze like caves and -- You're back in the village again. Great.
PHASE II [ 930 ] You’re carrying a bag. No matter what you do, you can’t take it off, either; it’s stuck with you through thick and thin. But it is awfully heavy. Maybe you should actually open it and see what’s inside?
The problem is, it’s going to take a while.
The bag has clearly tapped into its true hammerspace nature; there are items for days in there, and they’re all very, very strange. You might end up covered in hats of all sorts, buried in logs as you pull out one after another, or look like you have an odd fetish for pickaxes.
Maybe there’s 1/3rd of an evil turnip, half a piece of pie and an egg.
Geez, what in the world are you supposed to do with all of that?
PHASE III [ 1200 ] Eventually, you make it out of the caves the right way despite the harassment of the rats and chickens and the fact you'll keep perpetually getting lost. Hooray! You come out into a large, peaceful, scenic meadow, with a small river bubbling off to one side, and a house.
You'll immediately notice that there’s a bridge to cross the river, but there’s someone standing in the way of that bridge. When you approach to go past him, no matter what you try to do, you won't be able to. Asking him why he won't move will only get one thing in response -- “Bring me a fish. Cooked.”
Then he’ll shove a fishing rod at you and expect you to get to it. You can’t attack him, you can’t get past him -- looks like the only thing to do is to catch and cook that fish. Time to sit back, relax, and get to work. Or maybe you’ll team up with someone else and be the person in the house making sure that the fish gets cooked properly. For some reason, if you leave it too long it turns right into a pile of ashes.
Weirdly though, no matter how good you are at cooking or fishing usually, it’s as if you’re right back at the metaphorical level one. Any sort of seasoning or effort to cook it faster falls flat and in the end you'll only be able to place the fish in the pan and set it on the stove, whole. This may take awhile.
And if you try to cross the river itself, well... no, really, don’t try to cross the river.
At least if you get eaten, you’ll just respawn back in the village, but do have fun traveling through the caves again!
PHASE IV [ 1430 ] You made it through the caves. You made it across the river (with a slightly burnt fish). You’ve made it to the wide open world, and you can finally adventure to your heart’s content. You take a step forward on the road and --
A message pops up, bright red and in your face.
[ Restricted Area: Members Only ]
No matter what you do, you can’t go past that point. In fact, if you’re not careful and you’re going too fast, you might run face-first into it like it’s an invisible wall (which it is).
Then, just like that, you're back in the village. Again. Only this time, there's a nice, blinking message -- Pay a small subscription fee to access member's content. Oh well. No big deal, you can just start again.
Except then you see a cool sword and when you try to pick it up, you'll get that same message, and end up transported back to the village yet again. And again, with some shiny new armor. And again, with that attention-grabbing NPC over there. Looks like you're caught in an infinite loop here but no matter how much you inspect the pop up, there's no... actual way to pay the subscription fee (and why would you want to?). But at least you have company, because you can't be the only person who thought that sword was cool.
(It was really, really cool.)
BONUS [ xxxx ] What’s that on the ground in front of you? It looks like… some bunny ears? Or maybe it’s a chicken head, or a pumpkin head. Either way, the moment you touch it, you have a strong need to put it on your head -- and once it’s on, it’s not coming off.
To make matters worse, each hat has an effect associated with it; the bunny ears will, in fact, randomly turn you into a cute fluffy bunny for anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour before you pop right back to yourself, whereas the pumpkin hat will, in a complete reversal, turn you into Cinderella for a bit -- complete with beautiful ball gown and the ability to talk to all of those cute fluffy bunnies.
Also the rats will love you, so maybe you should go back to the caves again.
Meanwhile, the chicken hat won't transform you into any odd creature, but it will inspire in the people wearing them a very real, persistent desire to build a nest. This will involve picking up twigs, trash, shiny things and whatever else catches your eye to try to build a nest out of it. You'll also try to pick up whatever food you find on the ground to eat, have the weirdest desire to lay an egg, and basically have all sorts of odd chicken-like instincts inflicted upon you.
At least you look festive!
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Ryuuga Dougai | GARO: Goldstorm Shou
[To be honest, even though this place is decidedly less dreary and confined than where he was previously, Ryuuga can't help but shake a very foreboding feeling from the pit of his stomach. Things seemed real enough, sure, but considering the enemies he has dealt with before, that's not saying much.
The poor chicken that had been pecking at him gets immediately grabbed as he lets out a groan, frowning. That certainly felt real. Once he realizes what he's grabbed, though, he immediately lets go of it, blinking incredously as he stands.
He's about to ask the nearest person where he was when it happens to be one of the NPC villagers, who then shoves a stick into Ryuuga's hands before walking away. He's a bit dumbstruck before he glances down to his hand, flicking open the visor that covered the skull ring mounted on his middle finger.]
Zaruba, please tell me you know what's going on around here.
I thought it was fairly obvious - we need to go through those caves. Or were you not paying attention?
.... smartass. [He shuts the visor before his Madougu could say anything else, raising the stick to inspect it. Just an ordinary stick, but in absence of his sword, he supposed it would work for now. First chance he gets, though, he's chucking it.]
phase ii.
[He's definitely not used to the weight on his back, and first chance he gets to get to a clearing of some sort in the cave, Ryuuga starts to attempt to pull things out of the bag that's apparently not leaving his person.
First, a large egg, which gets set down with surprising care.
Next, a handaxe. He's pretty sure this would be a hell of a lot more useful in Daigo's hands than his ..... if Daigo were even here in the first place. A couple scrolls of parchment in script he didn't recognize were next, followed by ... a disturbingly high amount of random food items, some of which he had no idea what they were or if they were even edible, to be perfectly honest.
At this point, Ryuuga's amassed a pile of things around him, and he's staring from the ever-growing pile back to the bag with something akin to stunned alarm. He's pretty sure that even D. Ringo, that crazy bastard, didn't have anything quite like this back at his shop.]
Where does this thing even end???
phase iv.
[After all that, it's finally nice to move along and just see what exactly this place is-
And it's about at that point when Ryuuga crashes into one of the invisible walls, not realizing the popup warning until it was too late. He rubs his nose, scowling.]
What the -
[An eyebrow is cocked as he stares at the text flashing in front of him, and he tries moving forward again - nope, wall was still there.]
wild card.
[Got something else in mind? Feel free to bring it up! Ryuuga's normal vocation is essentially a demon hunter, so he's great if you need muscle for something. Alternatively, he does also have psychometry abilities, so if you wanted to play with that, we can definitely arrange something!]
ii
So with little fanfare or even announcement, a slightly glowy blue butterfly has just drifted into the area and was landing on each item just long enough to illuminate them before fluttering to the next one. After exploring each one, it finally settled on the egg, wings lazily flapping as it rested there.]
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He recognized that butterfly.
And that wasn't a good thing.
He immediately stands, reaching for it, hand outstretched. If that was here, did that mean-]
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Of course, this was when Jinga would step into the room and stop, one eyebrow arching at the sight of one Golden Knight knees deep in a pile of random junk. He glanced at the butterfly and then the laughter actually could not be contained any longer.
So have the familiar sound of Jinga laughing at you, Ryuuga.]
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You - what're you doing here? [The demand probably would at least be slightly more intimidating if it weren't for the fact he's standing in the middle of a formidable junk pile.]
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What am I doing here? I was given a stick and told to go through the caves. [He shrugged, glancing at the creature on his hand before sighing and puffing on it. It took off to fly around his head and then to settle on the nearest bit of random junk, which he casually taps with his foot and setting the butterfly off again.]
I never knew that you collected worthless items, Ryuuga.
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Shut up - you honestly think I'd pack this much stuff? Ever? I don't even know how all this got into this thing! [He scowls, pointing at the bag, which for all intents and purposes, looks like an ordinary travel pack.]
You bring yours out, then!
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At least there was some entertainment to be found with the Golden Knight.]
No. [Have a slight grin, as if he knew something that Ryuuga did not know. The butterfly got tired of fluttering around and now settled on top of his head, and he reached up to catch it again.] For one, this idiot will not leave anything I take out alone. For another, I do not feel like tripping over more junk in this maze, or haven't you noticed that the tunnels are twisted enough that we keep going through the same spots?
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Though he does grudgingly bring up a good point in the fact that this would definitely impede the way for anyone else, and he sure as hell wouldn't want to deal with it either.
He gives a bit of a huff before starting to put things back in the bag, though no matter how large or normally cumbersome it would seem at first, the bag itself doesn't seem to change shape, or even show signs of filling up further. He does, however, leave one of the snacks out one everything else is inside, proceeding to munch on that while preparing to move out in a "screw you, I'm outta here!" fashion. Starting a fight in cramped quarters was probably a very bad idea, anyway.]
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Free again, it fluttered around the cave, taking its time to circle Ryuuga before coming back to Jinga and settle once more on the his silvery mop of hair. He sighed, shaking his head and started for the entrance across the room. He saw no reason to back track, and really without the room to fight, Ryuuga was just one more annoyance that he had to face since waking up.]
I'm hoping that we have another one of our amusing duels when we meet again, Golden Knight.
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For your sake, let's not.
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[He flicked his fingers in a casual dismissal of Ryuuga's words before ducking out of the cave. Next time, they might actually fight but for now, there was no need of it.]
wild
But it's still pretty bad. Tony is thinking about this when he turns the corner and nearly runs into another person, also apparently armed with a stick. Of course, Tony is mostly using his to gently shoo away the rats in the cave, but at least he's using it.]
Oops- Hey, uh, you haven't seen the exit around here, have you?
[He really hopes the stick means this guy isn't just another NPC that happens to be placed in the cave.]
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Honestly, the only challenge for him had been trying to navigate the caves - urban mazes he could handle, this ... this was a whole other story, virtual or no.
But another face, well, that was definitely a bit more of a relief than he'd admit.]
N... not really. I think that we're close to it, though? Maybe?
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The maze was actually kind of a challenge, though.]
I'm going to be honest. Usually these kinds of puzzles don't last long. They are written to be a limited challenge, but... I dunno. I've been wandering around here for a while.
[And getting more lost.]
I guess you wouldn't happen to have any breadcrumbs on you.
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[Forgive him, Tony - Makai culture doesn't allow for much in the way of technology-based entertainment, let alone puzzling through mazes outside the occasional illusion set by an enemy. (Even then, recent experience had him a bit more wary about his surroundings. Being trapped inside a demon mirror for an unknown amount of time before being "woken up" will do that to a person.)
So some of what he's saying is going right over Ryuuga's head, though that second part -]
Nope. And I don't know if I want to try digging in my bag again.
[Unfortunately, this was probably before he had met up with Yuri, so the Mirrorstones were right out at this point. Though, one thing that had been puzzling him currently was this-]
You alright with being in your armor for that long? [Granted, it didn't look like Makai Knight armor, but still...]
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[Tony answers honestly, because the truth is, he does end up in situations like this fairly often. More often than civilians, at least, if not necessarily as much as other heroes. They can't all be dimensional experts.
He laughs a little at the comment about the bag, because he knows his own inventory is probably just a mess by now. He hadn't really been paying attention to what he was picking up along his walk. The question, however, confuses him back to the conversation.]
Alright? Well, it's got climate control, but I don't think I'm technically using it since we're in a game.
[Tony realizes partway through his explanation that he doesn't even know if he's addressing the right concern, and he pulls the helmet off to prove that he is, in fact, a human under that armor.]</small? Yeah, I'm fine. See?
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He's still not sure if he can even believe half of what he's been told, though at least by this point he knows he's definitely not alone in feeling that way.
And there's a small sigh of relief that he really didn't realize he was holding in until this point. It's been a weird last few weeks, never mind what just happened within the last few hours.]
Good. I, uh ...it's a long story. The whole worrying about you and your armor thing, anyway. [He's mostly being intentionally vague to avoid having to really talk too much on specifics. Granted he tended to play more fast and loose when it came to the Makai Order, but in the case of situations like this, sometimes he can't help but be surprisingly cautious for once.]
iv
Looks like a dead end.
[an irked sounding comment made with an accompanying irked sigh. someone's obviously not happy with this turn of events. members only without specifying how to be a member? sounds right up a shady, pain in the butt organization's alley.]
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Shady organizations or asshole Horrors, both are incredibly viable to be honest.]
Guess so. You find any alternate routes? [Because if they can get through this, maybe they can get out of here and ... actually do something of real merit.]
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No luck. The route I took lead here and there weren't any other paths along the way.
[lucky him got met with a lovely dead end. yup, sounds about right. maybe he should consider buying a good luck charm at this point. it can't make his lucky any worse, at any rate. riku touches the invisible wall while giving a thoughtful hum.]
Maybe we can break our way through.
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Maybe. It's worth a shot, at least.
[Surprisingly, he hadn't thought of just simply breaking through, he'd been too confused about the message that popped up in front of him in the first place to really think anything of it. There's no point in not trying - what's the worst that could happen?]