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//TESTDRIVE.EXE
//TESTDRIVE.EXE
 The lights flicker overhead, music blaring from the speakers as you step inside, every sound drowned out except for that hypnotic tune. The walls are painted in an array of hypnotic colors, saturated to the point where your attention doesn't know where to land, and all kinds of screens hang from each corner, showing flashing images of ads, gadget after gadget appearing in a second to show you the best of what Ceres has to offer. Dancing bodies flank each side of the large ballroom, bodies with eyes that look hollow and their faces too symmetrical. They'll occasionally glance at you and smile, maybe even engage and offer to take you to one of the private rooms in the back. However, their words are interrupted when the lights suddenly turn brighter and focus on the center where a raised platform sits. A man appears in the center, one hand raised to silence the music while the other holds a microphone. He pauses to reach out for a glass, snatching it from one of the wait staff passing by before raising it to the crowd. "We've finally obtained our first victory here on Cerealia. The colony is ours completely and will be fully functional from this day forward. Please enjoy all the luxurious amenities we have put together, and join me in journeying towards a new and better future. Together, we will expand our territory here and reach even further horizons. And by all means, don't be shy with the staff. They're also here for your entertainment."He gestures around the room, smiling before taking a sip of his champagne. Applause echoes from the crowd while Julius steps off the stage, handing the mic to one of the staff before pausing for pictures and interviews from reporters. You stand in the crowd as the lights dim once more, lost in a sea of people and wondering where to go next. |
//SCENARIOS.EXE
PHASE I [ 18 PHASE II [ ?? PHASE III [ 21 PHASE IV [ 02 BONUS [ why[ The party will be long, so take your time enjoying each scenario... and dreading it. At the end of it all, things will be calmed down and you're free to enjoy the night as you please. Remember to keep things PG (the FAQ below elaborates!), and absolutely no forcing any R-rated things with anyone below 15-16 (so be sure to ask their age, right?) or the droids will have a little fun chasing you around! Do enjoy the pretty views of the gorgeous digital city though. Which seems strangely quiet, but at this late hour, why not, right? ] |
01 ]
The screens lining the walls inside even extend into the bathrooms and the back rooms, playing commercial after commercial, all CERES themed, as you mingle with the other guests, but occasionally, the image transforms into a flash of something else. It appears for a split-second. There's the face of a woman, lips parted in a soundless cry. She looks to be in pain, fingers pressed to the screen. It's so quick that most don't register it, barely even notice it's there unless they focus. The party continues without incident, otherwise. Because it's a pretty damn good party, isn't it? There's plenty of food, strong drinks - hey, no one under seventeen is allowed to drink - and many decorative people. Just ignore that feeling of being watched! You're just so good looking, after all.
//RUN.EXE
Welcome to CEREALIA's first test drive! Please forgive our appearance as we are going through the final stages game completion. While most pages are under development and/or hidden from the public eye, please don't feel discouraged, since knowing everything doesn't always make the experience. Your characters will know as little as you. For your convenience, we have compiled a mini-FAQ - please read it thoroughly before playing. Thank you! FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS HOW DID MY CHARACTER GET HERE? You may have been just been doing their day-to-day activities - be it swimming or fighting demons - but the next moment, a crack and blinding light - now you're here, in your best attire, celebrating. The memories of your at-home activities fade away like a fleeting dream, and it's replaced with the feeling of happiness. ( You haven't forgotten your past, just that anything you were doing seems far too distant to be important. ) Must be something in the air. You can't remember clearly fighting for CERES, and whatever this Julius Vincere is telling you might be complete bullshit for all you know, but something influences you to play along anyway - if you think about it long enough, perhaps you had fought for CERES after all...?WHO/WHAT IS CERES? WHAT IS CEREALIA? You mean... you don't remember? After all the help you gave it?WHAT FORMAT CAN WE USE FOR THIS TESTDRIVE? Action (brackets/prose), video/voice, and texting are all available via your CEREVICE at this moment. Most functions are currently undergoing a system update, but as long as it is still connected to the Auralia Network, it will be available for communicative uses.WHAT IS ViVID? An amazing VR game! The demo version of ViViD will be here to play, aren't you excited? It's played with headsets that immediately allow you to experience full-body simulation, without having to move out of your seat! You can enjoy the demo world, design your own, play alone, play with a team, but remember, the boss must be beaten! Please check the phase ii thread for details and interactions!SO... PHASE III? Sexy things can happen, you're getting hot and heavy on the dance floor, and there are rooms in the back that can be decorated to your mood, after all. REMEMBER, the age of consent is 15-16, please use your own discretion and don't upset people. For the test drive, any situation that goes above PG (beyond kissing/grinding/light making out... We're lenient) must go into threads in your own journals. Any creeper behavior or unwanted advances will get an IC boot into the Frozen Locker with "Let it Go" on repeat.POWER LIMITATIONS? Actually, no, the characters don't have any of their abilities locked or otherwise suppressed. More info will be i the official FAQ, but so long as you don't destroy the entire game ( and we trust you can use your powers responsibly— as does CERES! ), limitations are nonexistent.OKAY, WHAT ABOUT PREVIOUS GAME MEMORIES? It's completely acceptable to bring a character that has been in a previous game to Cerealia!THE NAME LOOKS FAMILIAR. . . Yes, a loosely related setting concept with a place called CEREALIA was pitched for an ExitVoid phase before the moderators decided to close the game for good. A few of us got together with the original pitchers of the idea since we thought it really awesome and with a lot of potential and decided to try our own thing with it!ARE THE GAMES RELATED? Nope. Not at all, it's been rehashed from the ground up and built to stand on its own as an original place and game.We'll keep coming back to this, so don't worry. |
toshizou hijikata << hakuouki >> phase iv.
And, of course, just like any other place that people are given too much to distract themselves with, it's far too easy to get stalked and cornered into a place that is probably not the best place to be—somewhere quiet, somewhere with less people and less bodies to create a chaotic mess if someone were to just ever so casually gut someone.
Not that Hijikata is worried or anything. Not at all.
Actually, he's not sure if he ended up here subconsciously because of that noisy sound or because that's just how his and Kazama's cat-and-mouse game happened, but... well, the fact is it's happened. However, while he is aware of the sound, it's not as pressing as to turn to see if he has time to do anything to further—
It stings his eye when it manages to drip into it after splattered on the very edge of his brow, but before he bothers with the aggravating sensation, he feels the warmth.
Most of all, though, he smells it.
Jerking his head up immediately, Hijikata's eyes narrow as he locks gazes with the hollowed and lifeless eyes of the freshly mangled corpse. (Didn't he just say this place was way too convenient to have something like this happen?) His jaw clenches tightly shut when someone happens to wander over, noticing him staring so intensely upward and everything just explodes into a rush of chaos.
Security, people, loud noises, pushing and movements he can't register, Hijikata somehow manages to get enough away that he can breathe. Or, so he thought, because the second he inhales one of the lights smashes to the ground—the final light actually—and he ends up holding his breath as it barely misses him. He doesn't even really turn to look upwards, though, because even if he didn't really hear it appear, he knows somewhere between that light dropping and now, whatever it is is no longer up above. Raising his head, he locks his own stare with ... eyes. Lots of eyes. Of course.
"Oh, son of a bitch," he releases his breath on exhale of his words, them both quieter and louder than he intended and his hand already instinctively reaching for the hilt of the longer weapon strapped to his side.
This... well, this is a first, he can safely say.
And that? That says a hell of a lot more than his initial impression of this place, by far.
( so much for that fat squirrel theory. )
no subject
That wasn't about to happen when finding herself faced with a monster with many eyes and tentacles by the looks of it.
"Ah-!!" She instinctively reaches for Artemis at her leg, only to remember it isn't there. "Oh, no..." She had no weapon but the ones she was born with but some how she doubted she would even put a dent in it with her limbs, let alone biting it. It's blood would probably taste as horrible as the creature smelled.
"We should leave! You-you shouldn't fight that thing." She runs up to the stranger standing in the room with her, watching him reach for his sword. That wouldn't be any good, would it? Maybe he'd be able to cut it but kill it? Hardly.
no subject
But Hijikata does know that this isn't going to be made easy for them whether they fight or take flight. It's got the eerie presence of a predator and hunters will always chase down what tries to escape their decision on the victim's fate.
"Leave and go where, kid? Because I'm all ears if you got a real idea!"
no subject
Sighing, she lowers her head, embarrassed that she can't think of a good enough plan that might satisfy someone like him. He reminded her of some hunters, battle hardened and all that. Looking around, she sees a chair thrown to the side and immediately runs over to grab it.
"Well if you won't leave then maybe we can just scare it of!" With a sound of exertion, she lifts the chair up and throws it at the thing only to watch it bounce off. All of those red eyes zero in on her. "Uh- or-or maybe you have a better idea?" Hopefully it wouldn't try to kill her? Even if Artemis couldn't do much in this situation - only useful for injuring vampires - she really wished she had it.
no subject
She should run too, she realizes this objectively, but what oes she care for a few murdered humans? She watches them run,aggravated when they shove her aside to get away. How typically human, each one scrambling to get out, willing to shove others under to raise their head over the waterline-- so to speak.
But there's one actually facing the creature, it's hard not to notice it staring the human(?) down. Idiot, she thinks, but despite her earlier internal insistence that these humans lives meant nothing to her, it's a bit different seeing one actually facing it down. Something uneasy twists in her gut (a conscience? Her? Damn it).
The empty wine glass is mostly intact, thankfully, and she grabs at several, ignoring the sting in her feet from the broken glass,and hauls one off. It hits with a satisfying crack, and she lobs another. "Do not just stand! Idiot! Run or kill!" She snaps at Hijikata, taking a step back as she readies another glass.
no subject
His head throbs from the drinks he's had, but (luckily for him) at least he's not drunk off his ass enough to not realise this is a pretty damn bad situation. But the Shinsengumi have always found strength in numbers, and surely they can count on that as well.
.. Besides, he's had to help Hijikata's ass out of enough situations by now, so maybe Hijikata can make up for it in return now if he doesn't have his usual accuracy entirely with a few drinks in his body already.
"Hijikata-san!"
Besides, Shinpachi's hand is also already on the hilt of his sword, because no way shit like this goes down the easy way ever for them.
no subject
But this was hardly the time to dwell on such idle thoughts and he's jumping back when the thing crashes down between him and Hijikata, taking their standoff at high noon to a different, much less tense moment or two as the thing between them hisses.
"I see you brought your friend along to play, Hijikata. Did you really doubt your ability to take me on once again?"
Kazama quirked an eyebrow over the alien creature, as nonchalant as ever although he didn't allow his hand to stray too far from the hilt of his own sword. He remembered how dangerous some of the creatures in the Mist had been once; he knew better then to underestimate the unknown (even if he did think that guy could use a breath mint, w o w).