PHASE I [ ?? ?? ] It's impossible to tell time in this place, and everything looks the same, but it won't be long before you're probably sick of the tower. Time to get down -- unless you have magical powers or can fly or something, it'll probably be pretty tough, too. You could try to climb down, but the walls look pretty slick, and -- oh god, your arm just went through the wall, what the hell.
Whatever you do, don't fall.
If you fall, you'll be stuck falling forever. And ever. And ever. Looks like they didn't put a failsafe into ViViD for falling, so now you're stuck. You might see some other people stuck in the same glitch, falling forever a la Alice in Wonderland, but honestly? You're stuck that way until your game resets itself.
PHASE II [ ???? ] Either way, you've made it to the ground (somehow). The ground looks like... a half-finished city, really. There are streets, and houses... but some of the houses are unfinished, just four walls and no roof, or only three walls, or nothing inside, and a lot of the NPCs are completely faceless, or only have one line they repeat over and over again.
It's honestly pretty unnerving, especially since there's no soundtrack at all. You can just traverse this creepy hellscape in complete and utter silence.
And then the cars start to fly away.
That's definitely normal (is there anything about this game that isn't faulty?).
PHASE III [ ???? ] It's not safe.
You could be anywhere in this level, wandering, searching -- and then suddenly, it's there. As it appears, a battle theme starts, but it's distorted, eerie and off-pitch. There's something very wrong about this enemy, that's for sure. It can't be defeated, either. Attacks can harm it, and it can be tossed aside or fought, but it just gets right back up, bloodied and beaten, as if unstopped by anything it's feeling.
Over and over and over again.
Just don't let it touch you.
Because it will start to absorb you, code bit by code bit, until there's nothing left of you. It's a cannibalistic distorted monster, wonderful.
PHASE IV [ ???? ] If it wasn't apparent already, physics is a little weird here. One second you're walking along, and the next there's basically no gravity; you could jump wherever you want, clearing buildings in a single bound like the superman you were always meant to be. One second you're your normal amount of strength, and the next you could life cars (if you so chose), for no apparent good reason.
Sometimes the world just tilts, making the ceiling the floor very suddenly, and sometimes the floor drops out from under you entirely.
Anything that could go wrong with the physics here does go wrong.
Just try not to get caught halfway through a now-solid floor. That sounds really, really uncomfortable.
BONUS [ ???? ] Of course, it wouldn't be glitch central without something weird happening to you. And it could be anything -- one second you're fine, and the next your arm is twice as long as it should be, and totally noodly. Suddenly you have a mermaid tail or animal ears, or your head has rotated upside down (how is that even happening?). You're suddenly able to walk through walls, or drag objects to you by pointing at them.
If this was a video game (it is), it would be the faultiest game to ever exist, that's for sure.
(Still, teleporting from one side of the world to the other by jumping on a single spot on a flowerbed is kind of entertaining, if nothing else.)
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that's a good thing!
I was wondering if it just has a thick shell or regenerative powers. Looks like it's the latter.
[Or is it something else? Meteora didn't so much as leave a scratch after the smoke and debris cleared away, and that stab wound healed up in the blink of an eye. Izumi's gaze flickers to his wrecked arm before he summons another couple of cubes.]
I'm going to keep firing. Use that to put yourself and your partner in a favorable position.
[And so goes Asteroid, with the the full intention of hindering the enemy's movement more so than damaging it. Izumi has his doubts about being able to injure the creepy thing.]
............. it is
Got it.
[Regenerative powers, huh... Maybe sickness would work, although everything this place throw seems to have a way of circumventing his skills. Still, it doesn't hurt—neither would inflicting some damage over time effects (well, it wouldn't hurt him or his newfound ally).
With that in mind, he swings his halberd again, but this time, it doesn't connect. It doesn't need to, either, as he sends his own storm of ice, mixed with light, at the enemy. It connects, even if it doesn't seem to have succeeded in inflicting any status ailments; however, even without further attacks, new wounds to continue to open up on the monster. Woo, DoT.]
Should we escape? Or try and keep it here?
sparkles
Until we find out its weakness, we won't be able to inflict actual damage. How annoying . . .
[If only Tachikawa were here. Izumi hates to admit defeat.]
Let's retreat for now before it touches us. It's slow enough for us to outrun.
squints some more
[As he backs away from the monster, the spirit behind him lets out another blast of wind in an attempt to encase the enemy in ice. Karl doesn't doubt that it'll break free, sooner or later, but hopefully, that'll buy them some extra time, just in case they can't outrun it.]
she's blinded by my love
[He thrusts a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of said tower. Once Karl acts with the enemy sufficiently preoccupied, Izumi runs along a path of incomplete buildings and makes a sharp turn to block out his visibility. Behind a single wall, he fires Hound as a signal for Karl and continues his retreat the second the bullets leave his side.
See you soon, partner . . . ]
squints harder!!
Once Izumi fires, Karl allows the draconic spirit to disappear, putting on a burst of speed so that he can outrun the monster now. He turns in a direction away from Izumi—hopefully, if neither can lose the enemy, then it'll follow Karl as he'd rather have to deal with it than make Izumi, but ideally, his reunion with Izumi will be monster-free.
... Running to a soundtrack in the background is weird, and not just because the theme itself is eerie, but if nothing else, it helps to let him know how far away the thing is.]
sparkles brighter!!
On his end, Izumi glances over his shoulder while maintaining his sprint.]
The creepy music stopped . . . Guess that means the virus freak isn't following me.
[He's so tempted to go back and give it a pounding with one thousand Meteora shots. Maybe he should have done that from the start.
Anyway, his goal is to meet Karl at the designated location. Because he had a head start on the favorable, Izumi is the first to arrive. He sits on the edge of a wall without a rooftop, looking both ways for signs of alien blue hair.
Then he looks down at the mangled arm, and lets out a loud sigh of annoyance.]
At least it's not spreading. I should have busted that thing's arm.
is jae attempting to transcend into a star
As soon as he spots Izumi, he grins and gives a wave with his free hand. While the music's stopped, so the thing is probably far away enough, Karl won't risk it by calling out for him. His pace, having slowed down when he figured he wasn't being followed anymore, quickens again so that he can hurry and catch up with Izumi.
When he reaches the base of the wall:]
Hey.
are you saying i'm not already your moon and stars
Hey! Did that virus freak chase you?
[Because it sure didn't go after him.]
this is true, jae is my moon and stars and my sun u3u
[Luck doesn't last long in ViViD, but.]
I'm glad to see you're... I was going to say "unharmed", but I think I'll amend that to "not more harmed".
but if i'm also the sun, what are you to me??
Oh, that again? This isn't my real body, so it'll fix itself.
[He waves the wounded arm. No pain, no biggie. Just annoying to think about its origin.]
That was pretty bad, though. No matter what we did, that thing kept coming.
you
[It's odd, watching Izumi wave his arm around without any signs of pain, but he'll take his word for it.]
You looked like you were handling the situation pretty well, though—arm aside.
so smooth . . .
[Unfortunately, brute forcing a win didn't work. He sighs.]
Too bad. I wanted to return a hit before we retreated, but that'll have to wait.
By the way, what was that you summoned earlier? It was pretty amazing!
hehehe
[... Oh. Uh, well.]
Haha, thanks... It's kind of hard to explain! I'm a Summoner, though, so that's the sort of thing I do.
[Even if that wasn't quite a conventional summon, but Izumi doesn't need to know that.]