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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guess who's procrastinating housecleaning?
He's not calling her smart so much as calling her out on (clearly) trying to make him feel dumb. Which he does, so she clearly is evil. "OH YOU DON'T REALLY WANT THAT." Because...he has no idea how he'd do it, except headbutt her smart-word-owning face. Maybe knock all the smart big words right outta her mouth. Where they'd probably get stuck all over his helm and then he'd have to wash them off and...yeah, nobody wants that!
His pandachucks aren't so much pummeling as 'randomly flailing' as he tries to swat her away. And he's stepping backwards, too, to try to avoid the wiggly tickly thing in his midsection, which means he's probably gonna trip over something, with his luck.
best kind of procrastination IMO
winnernot-loser?But wow Flashpoint can make him feel things? But only dumb things, it's her talent. She DID offer to teach him stuff; it's not her fault he can't take the examples she gives! Learn stuff and then you'll feel less dumb, Deadlock. Ancient words of wisdom right there.
"Don't tell ME what I don't want!!" Wait, that makes it sound like she wants him to boss her around. That's not what she meant! Though if he wanted to give her mouth something else to do, there might be fewer big, smart words coming out of it. Just a suggestion as alternate tactics go.
Falling on your aft is certainly another option, and taking her with him, which is what's happening right here. That fluffy bunny he almost steps on gives him quite the look of righteous indignation, but it's going to pale in comparison to the one Flashpoint gives him later, after she comes down hard, landing with her secret weapon wiggle wand trapped between them.
Holidays: over!
HAHAHAH like that's ever gonna happen.
Sure, it's easy to say, Flashpoint: learn stuff and feel less dumb. But that's HAAAAAAARD and Deadlock is lazy. "I'll tell you what you don't want if I want to!" First Amendment, or something, right? Also, hey, what is she gonna do about it?!
...besides fall on him. Strangely effective for knocking a bunch of sounds that might have been likely unprintable words from his vocalizer. Whatever the sound was, it was enough that the bunny bolts away, after one flick of its cottonball tail. And there's still the weird tickly thing, and all he can do is swat her with his pandahat, and push weakly at her (because he's kinda almost laughing but it's totally not his fault because that tickles!). "G----get off me, you fraggin' weirdo!"
WOO! \o\ /o/
Lazy is the key part of that statement there. She knows Deadlock is smarter than he looks, and acts, it's just practical smarts not book knowledge. And you know, if he listens more instead of shouting all the time, he'd learn to fake a big vocabulary just like Flashpoint does.
Is that funny noise a commentary on Flashpoint's size? If so Deadlock can make it all he wants, because she likes being a heavy weight. And throwing that weight around apparently too. Landing on squiggly things and trapping her hand between them isn't necessarily in the program though, frag Deadlock and his improvisation! There's a whole lot of flailing and cursing and yes okay LAUGHTER because damn that thing DOES tickle! She's pushing at him with her one free hand, trying to free the other one--which is wiggling plenty on its own, sorry Deadlock if it's in an inconvenient place--all while under wiggle wand and pandachuk assault. "Well stop hitting me, dumbaft!"
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Deadlock listens plenty, excuse you! He has all of Megatron's speeches in his long term storage, and everything. All he needs to know is that Autobots and the Senate are why mechs like him never had a chance.
"You attacked first!" Deadlock's holding the moral high ground here...and the pandachuks. Because he sure has lost his grip on his dignity. "And stop trying to cop a feel!" PERVERT!
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Well then, he can't complain that he doesn't know stuff!!! Why didn't he learn any big words from Megatron, huh? HUH?
"Of course I did! Always press the advantage!" Like she is here. Er, kind of. She's on top anyway, that's an advantage! In all her scrambling she at least gets her knees under her, making it easier to get control of that hand. Which she, of course, misuses. "Okay I'll stop trying and start succeeding!" Tickling you now Deadlock. In addition to the wigglewand which seems to be...doing whatever it wants.
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Flashpoint. Have you SEEN Megatron? Excuse you, but clearly not, because if you had, you'd understand that Deadlock has a tendency to swoon in the warlord's presence, and you can't swoon and look up big words at the same time, DUH.
"You don't do that on ME!" Especially when it seems so pervy! "AAAAAAAAUUUUUGHHGHG!!!" Enjoy you some Flailing Deadlock, Flashpoint. If he's lucky, one of his flailing arms is gonna clock her in the head, but he's probably not that lucky.
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Well, maybe Deadlock has a point there. But to hell with seeing Megatron, now she wants to see swooning Deadlock. Can that happen? How can she make that happen?
Does he have to put on a Megatron costume to do it?"Tell me you wouldn't do it to me and I'll stop then! Ha-ha! One condition though..." Maybe that is some cackling in there. What can she say? This is too much fun and she doesn't have nearly enough shame. Not that Flashpoint completes her sentence, because that sure is a palm to the face. "You gotta mean--afdjkjfkljs!!" Sorry for the static spittle on your hand there Deadlock. It's your own fault for resisting!
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But scrap, she caught his obvious plan, which was to LIE LIE AND LIE SOME MORE to get her to stop...as soon as he could actually make words. But hey, now it's his turn to press an advantage, despite the flailing start, so now it's HIS turn to tickle. "You callin' me some kinda liar, Flashpoint?" Are you?
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Press the advantage. Meaning that palm smashed into her face. She blindly flails at him, trying to strike back; when did Deadlock get such long arms!? And hey, hey HEY NOW, what's the other one doing!? "EEEIIIYYYAAAHH! That's not fair!!!"
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What? He's a swoony idiot but he has his pride!
"Oh, NOW you care about fair?" Too late, Flashpoint. Deadlock and his tactically skilled hands are all about taking advantage here. "What are you gonna do about it?"
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At least Flashpoint likes both parts of him, both are fraggable but the swoony part is cuter.
"Of COURSE! That's my advantage you're pressing!!" Also parts of her anatomy that are reacting in ways not meant for public display, especially not where her ego is concerned. "What am I gonna do---!?!" She's gonna scrabble for that wiggle-wand thing with one hand while batting at his with the other. "Retaliate!"
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With his blaster.
"Kind of dumb of you to keep your 'advantage' within such easy reach." Oh, someone's feeling cocky. Taunting is just who he is, okay? Don't hate.
But hey, that wiggly thing feels really...weird and why does it feel Gross and Wrong against his cheek as she smacks him with it? "You can't retaliate on my retaliation. That's reretaliation, which is NOT a real thing!" It's not a word, therefore, not a thing. So stoppit.