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!
[ 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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Guess who just leveled up?
[ he's going to reach you soon if you don't hurry up, fushimi. ]
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So annoying that he's not even answering, just clicking his tongue and turning around to head back the way he came. Maybe one of the turns he didn't take will be more productive.]
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by which i mean yata is going to keep on (unintentionally) grinding and turning in all the wrong directions. what else is new? ]
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He's not even surprised when he sees Yata again.]
Misaki. Stop following me around. It's becoming sad that you're doing it.
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yata is so offended by fushimi's comment because it's not like he wanted to follow fushimi in the first place! as if he'd ever do something so gross such as that! ]
As if I'd ever follow you, stupid monkey! [ ... hey, he can turn this around. ]
Maybe you're the one following me, thinking you could get out of here if you do.
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If I wanted to run around in circles yelling at nothing, maybe. The only thing preventing anyone from leaving here is the poorly designed layout of the entire maze.
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I- uh... [ he turns away, arms crossed, and cheeks beet red. ] Maybe we can get out of this place if we formed a party.
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Still, he's not about to give in and go with that sort of idea so easily, not when Yata is the one who came up with it. He doesn't try to keep the sneer off of his face or the derision out of his voice.]
Our own little RPG group, is that it? I suppose, if you can stay out of my way and not overreact at every little sound, you might as well walk where I'm going.
[As if he'd ever admit that they might work on something together.]
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That's- [ act cool, misaki. act cool. ] I think I'm supposed to say that to you...
[ he visibly deflates, looking up at the ceiling because things have just gotten really awkward for him right now. god bless this tiny soul. ]
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At least he knows what to expect with Yata, and this way he won't have to deal with having him pop up out of nowhere and yell every few minutes while accomplishing nothing.]
Come on, Misaki. If you fall behind, I won't slow down so that you can catch up.
[Stand there being the world's shortest statue or don't, but he's leaving again.]
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but as fushimi says, he follows behind his former (???) friend, maybe even waddles next to him. he's excited, okay? ]
You think there'll be a boss fight here? Maybe we should grind some more.
[ fight more rats and chickens like it's final fantasy xii. ]
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If there's a... [How stupid that he even has to say this] boss fight, then there's a boss fight. I'd rather focus on not being in here any longer than playing around with meaningless things like that.
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yata does look a tad bit disappointed, though. he thought they might be able to level up together, too. but maybe it was too much to hope for. ]
Well, that's no way to look at things. We can't get out of here if we can't beat the boss... or something.
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How do you know that for sure? Maybe it's puzzle-based. Maybe there's no way out at all, and everyone is just supposed to run around uselessly forever.
[Or until they can finally log out. Same thing.]
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Shit. [ if it's puzzle-based, then he'll definitely be useless. good thing fushimi's around to "help" him out, he supposes. not that he'd say that particular thought out loud. ]
This is the first dungeon, of course there's an exit.
[ even yata's smart enough to know that. ]
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It could be improperly coded, or it's possible an idiot forgot to even program in an exit.
[Not that that's stopping him from trying, of course.]
Or we just haven't been looking hard enough. Playing around with the monsters probably hasn't helped.
[Never mind the fact that he bragged about being a higher level than Yata, ssshh.]
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Ah, but you can hack into things, right? Maybe you can hack the game and find an exit.
[ then it hits him that fushimi would have probably tried that already if it were possible. what else is there? ]
Should we just break through the walls of this cave or something?
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And Yata's correct for once; if it were that easy to fire off a hacking program for unfamiliar code that easily, he would've have already attempted it.]
Just breaking down the walls, of course you'd think of doing something like that.
[And then, though it annoys him to admit:]
It's not something I've tried already.
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fushimi saying he hasn't tried it yet is pretty much yata's sign to wield his baseball bat and swing at the walls, his red aura pouring onto the end of the bat as he does. of course, that doesn't work, and instead, the bat just bounces back as if the cave wall was made from rubber. ]
The fuck just happened?
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He watches without knowing what to expect when Yata swings his bat at the wall, clicking his tongue when the end of it bounces away uselessly. He decides to try on his own, flicking a knife that's bright with a blue aura at the wall in a different spot. That bounces away too, landing on the ground with a dull clink as the aura fades. Well, that's disappointing.]
Useless.
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[ working with fushimi has really gotten yata's spirits up. any other time, he'd be completely pessimistic about this whole thing, or even worse: violent. he'd probably take out all his anger on the damned walls and keep bouncing back like he's inside an inflatable castle.
and with that, he walks off to a random direction, hitting a couple of rats along the way. ]
Come on. We haven't tried this way yet.
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Who said you get to decide where to go? [But that's mumbled to himself, and he does actually follow, not wanting the idiot to get even more lost on his own.]
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but they've reached a part of the cave that they've never passed through before, or so yata thinks, anyway. at least that's progress? except... there's a fork. ]
So, uh, where to?
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He honestly has no idea, and both paths looks almost exactly the same. But... he doesn't want to stand here all day trying to decide, and the maze doesn't seem to follow logic anyway. Might as well not put any thought into it.]
The right.
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but hey! there's some light coming from the direction they're going. so maybe going right was a wise decision. ]
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