PHASE I [ 6 00 ] You wake up, and you're in a camp ground. The graphics aren't bad here, not really, but they're definitely last gen -- not the type of quality expected out of ViViD. On top of that, every once in awhile, the scenery sort of... glitches before going right back to normal as if nothing ever happened. If you're particularly unlucky, your own body parts might glitch out for a moment too, appearing as nothing more than broken code and then back to normal. Pretty weird, right? Oh well, don't worry about it. Totally harmless.
Glitches or not, you're still in a camp ground along with everyone else. There's a fire, there's some tents, some trees. Maybe some s'mores? You got it all. You're also not wearing what you were before. No, now you're wearing some sexy shorts, or maybe you've got a whip at your side, or maybe you've got a really classy fedora. And if you're one of those lucky few who have all three at once? Good for you! Try not to blind everyone with all that sexy.
Or, you know, the game will glitch out again and you'll be stuck wearing something else. That's definitely not as sexy.
PHASE II [ 730 ] If you decide to finally go exploring that crazy jungle, you'll find that you have a wide range of exploring options. Seems ViViD's taking a crack at their very own open world game -- this one modeled after your run of the mill adventure game. There are rivers to swim through (complete with alligators)! There are cliffs to scale (complete with angry birds ready to peck at your face)! There are even ravines to swing across on vines (just like Tarzan)!
Actually, the game is made to allow you to do just that -- those vines are all conveniently lined up for everyone to use them to swing across. Go on, it'll be fun. If you miss, you'll just lose a life, right?
Of course, if you overshoot your goal, you might run into one of the other glitches; the white space that you'll stumble into implies that you flew right off the world map and are now in unprogrammed space. Don't worry, you'll dissolve eventually, slowly but surely, and will reappear on the cliff so you can try again. There's no other way around that ravine either. Still, it's only a little frightening watching your body disappear piece by piece, right?
PHASE III [ 900 ] If you manage to scale one of those cliffs or swing across that ravine or cross that river, you may find yourself a chest. It's a treasure chest, and you don't even need a key to open it! Open it right up, a cute little jingle will play, and… nothing will be there.
Or the item will be there, hovering in the air, something amazing, fantastic, incredible that you've always dreamed of having and wanting, and -- you can't touch it. No matter what you try, it hovers right out of reach, and you can't interact with it at all.
Oh, and the cute little jingle is going to follow you around now, on constant loop.
PHASE IV [ xxxx ] So you died.
No big deal. Perhaps you got eaten by a crocodile. Perhaps you fell off a cliff. Perhaps another player stabbed you (that's rude). Either way, you've only lost one life and you have two more so it's nothing. After all, this is just a video game, right? It's fine.
Except it's really not fine.
You'll find yourself in a graveyard, tombstones all around you (maybe one of them has your name on it -- hope the epitaph doesn't suck). It's nighttime, it's foggy, and you're with the other players who have also lost a life. For a while, nothing will happen. The cold and quiet of the night will start to seep into your bones -- and then a figure appears. It can't be killed, it is silent and grim, and it does not speak.
Instead, it approaches each person there, reaches out and touches them on the forehead. Even you. All you can see for a long moment is corpses around you, the dead faces of everyone who had been with you in the ViViD level, flesh rotting away and faces caught in expressions of horror --
And then you're all dropped back into the camp ground together again. It's sunny and cheery and everything is fine, and you're down to two lives. Just, you know... don't lose the rest, okay?
BONUS [ xxxx ] You have a butler now, congratulations! He's following you around everywhere. He's an NPC, and not a very well-made one; sometimes his face glitches out, and he doesn't so much walk behind you as just… appears right next to you. He's handy though because if you ask him to, he'll pull up the start menu. You can sort out your inventory there and exit the game if you wish (except no matter how many times you press the "quit" button, you... can't).
Sometimes, though, that doesn't work out so well. Not the start menu but the butler himself. He might appear next to you on a narrow cliff face, knocking you right off the edge, or appear right on top of a hornet's nest, making them angry enough to go after, well, you. Maybe he accidentally summons a bear when all you were trying to do was ask him where the next dungeon is. That's unfortunate.
You can't seem to get rid of him either, no matter what you do. How annoying. Hopefully he doesn't cause you too much trouble because that bear... well, that bear's pretty angry.
[ 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. ] |
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
[ And it wouldn't even really be borrowing, considering you don't give back half-smoked cigarettes.
Rosinante looks down at his half-dissolved feet with a mild frown. Yeah. He's been laughed at for lighter blunders than this anyway. It's not that it's particularly less disturbing to watch himself disappear a little at a time the second time around, either-- no, there's no getting used to that in short order-- but the expectation is good to keep a lid on his thoughts.
Perhaps more important to the heart of any controlled reaction, he has an audience to consider this time. Appearances, in some ways, are everything. ]
You'd think smoking would tamper with a cook's taste, though. Interesting choice for your friend.
no subject
[he quiets down and just sort of observes this guy for a bit]
Not sure what's so important on the other side that they want us to go there, but they sure didn't make it easy.
no subject
Of course, with the way this is going, it's hard to say if getting there is gonna be worth it. [ There's just nothing better to do, as far as he knows. ] Is that why you don't seem eager to jump in?
no subject
Pretty much. It's all a game anyway, and I don't feel like playing it. Unless the exit is over that way.
[hmm, that was a thought he hadn't entertained. Zoro sits up from his nice rest, flopping his arms in his lap.]
It would be just my bad luck that the exit is on the other side of a ravine you can't cross.
no subject
[ But bring a coloring book or something, hanging in the air is very stifling. ]
I've never been very good at giving games up.
no subject
I'd almost feel ashamed that I'm just sitting here, watching you try. But if you wanna take a break, this is a pretty nice tree.
no subject
[ Take some freedom if you can get it. He presses his lips together while he considers the offer, thinking through options as quickly as he ever has. Whoever this guy is, he's at least lacking in some depth perception and hasn't made himself seem too aggressive.
Which is nice enough in itself, regardless of whether or not it sticks. There's not room for letting his guard down completely on a mission like this, but there's room to breathe and a variety of places to go if the tree issue becomes a genuine issue.
And he still can breathe, so. Honestly, not too much to complain about. Corazon grins. ]
Why not? If I'm stuck in one place either way, I might as well get to choose.
no subject
Eh, you know. When people are working hard around me, it makes me look lazy. You got a point, though. No sense in worrying, the vines and the cliff'll still be there in half an hour.
no subject
Corazon waits out what little bits of disappearing he still has left to do, and pops back up on the cliff as promised, if with a bit of a stumble. ]
Tch. How pointless. [ And he promptly takes a seat in Zoro's vicinity, one knee pulled to his chest to better rest an elbow on it. Do people grow accustomed to dealing with a total lack of reality? It's been one of those matters he knows to anticipate well enough, only to be just as unsettled when it eventually proves itself true. Not a mindset he can afford to patiently wait out. ] You have a name?
no subject
Roronoa Zoro. You?
no subject
This tree of yours is better than the campgrounds. Maybe getting from one to the other really was progress.
[ Maybe when he's tired of being tired of swinging on vines, he'll get across and find a treasure chest full of cigarettes and wine. Wouldn't do much good in the real world, but this place could use it more direly anyway. ]
no subject
...hmm.
Nope, not coming to him right away. But he'll keep thinking about it.]
Nah, that works. [heh!] I heard about that, sounds like I made the better choice just striking out. You can't get anywhere through the main camp, though, especially not out.
no subject
Yeah. I'd say it's just incentive to get to the cliffs, but it's heavy-handed. [ It's supposed to be that almost anything is possible with coding, right? Something so forced and disjointed doesn't give much incentive. ] If a rat in a maze can't smell cheese, who says it's gonna bother walking?
no subject
Dammit now he's hungry]
No kidding. Now, if there was a trunk full of booze on the other side, you can bet I'd try a lot harder to get there.
no subject
If that's what I find, then I'll send you a signal. Spare some unnecessary work.
no subject
[he can't help his good mood, but he likes this guy already. Now if he could just remember where he's heard that name before! It's right on the tip of his tongue...]