lostcarnival | ⇨ THE GAME CUBE

Who: Everyone who gets caught in the game.
When: Day 97
Where: Hellbound Hallows, the game inside of a cube inside of a city inside of a computer.
What: On Day 97, a massive Game Cube drops on the city of Mainframe, forcing those caught inside to fight against the User for their lives. This log is 100% Hellbound Hallows gameplay. Plotting deets are here.
Warnings: Diablo-esque violence, characters dying, and edgy video game aesthetic gore.

HELLBOUND HALLOWS↴
The Game Cube drops close to the entrance of the carnival - so much so that it will end up pulling a lot of people from it in, out of sheer terrible luck. Alternatively, your character may have seen it coming down and understood what allowing the programs to fail would mean, dashing in to be caught beneath it out of sheer heroism. Maybe you entered the game for some reason in between.

Either way, once the walls of the Cube have passed you, you'll find yourself in a new reality. You find yourself somewhere in the levels of a dungeon crawling game with a dark aesthetic. Some binomes and sprites from the city have been pulled in with you, and all oft them know what to do. It's time to Reboot.

Use the icon button the Ringmaster gave each of you. Tap it twice and say "Reboot", and you'll be able to assume your new form. Maybe it's useful, maybe it's not, but it's probably better than nothing. Probably.

Now, figure out where you fit in to the structure of setting, and wait for the Game to begin.

► LEVEL ONE: Level one is where the Users will enter. With a cold blue aesthetic, it appears to be some manner of underground fortress, filled with many hallways and grand archeways. In a standard game, the enemies here would be theoretically the easiest to defeat, but you are under no obligation to follow those rules. Level one is ruled over by Sora, rebooted into the form of a vampiric overlord. He must be defeated in order for the Users to gain access to level two.

► LEVEL TWO: The colour pallet shifts to purple here, the corridors becoming darker and only lit with scattered braziers and the occasional stream of lava. Banners and tapestries depicting some hellish god line the walls. The traps here are primarily fire based, with lava traps or geysers of flame becoming more common. Level two is ruled over by Yamato, who has rebooted into the form of a fiery hellbeast. He must be defeated to access level three.

► LEVEL THREE: As the colours shift into a sickly green, the Users will reach the final level. The architecture is shaped based on the screaming faces of the damned, and the rooms are large and dramatic, filled with vast obelisks and deep chasms. Subterranean plant life haunts the floors and shadows of this place, and poison traps become deadly and common. Level three is ruled over by the man Gongenzaka, the final boss of of the game. If he is defeated, the Users have won. Do not let this happen.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There we go. Scout nods both heads, because coordinating a body that's as big a disaster as this one is hard. "I haven't played a whole lot of games, honestly. Mostly simulations. But that makes sense. Especially if it means some of this space is empty and they have to wander for a while without finding anyone."

She knows what that's like. "We'd just have to make sure they find us before they get to whatever their end objective is."

"A boss monster. It's gotta be," Steven says, with the confidence you get from being genre savvy. He swallows, and looks up at her.

"What can you do? We... if we're gunna work together, it helps to know that. We can form our own party!"

"...Why's it called a boss? Oh, never mind. Tell me later." She doesn't want to get on a tangent at a time like this. The players are being sent to kill or assassinate a specific individual and doing so means progressing, that's easy enough to grasp.

She's got this, there was a blurb she can sort of open internally. Presumably it's some kind of bestiary entry. "The flavor text says I'm an evil, rampaging sea faerie that goes and causes sickness. I guess that's what this is about." From the lower head she exhales just a puff of gross heavier-than-air smoke. Don't come poke your kitty head into it, Steven.

"And that I'm fast and strong - I could've told it that - but sorcery and holy weapons put me down." Scout's trying to sound dispassionate and centered, certainly her face isn't giving things away, but unease keeps creeping into her voice. "Well, that means I'll have to keep moving. How about you?"

Steven will absolutely tell her all about boss monsters later, if they get the opportunity. Right now, he just sort of looks down at himself dubiously, flapping his wings experimentally.

"I think I'm just kind of... a cat guy?" He's trying to access his own game info, but he doesn't feel as scary as his monster type is apparently supposed to be. "My tail does poison damage over time."

He lifts the scorpion tail indicatively.

"And it says I have a fire attack? I think this is a fire level."

"It does look firey. I don't get why I'm here if I'm a sea faerie, but - whatever! Here, you should practice with your tail. Can you reach in front of your head with it? Is it only for things you're besides?"

She practices what she preached and lashes a long, spiked tail. It's definitely not for in front of her, but it seems like it should hit multiple targets. Probably the lower head and the awful arms cover all the areas it doesn't. "I can't believe this took my lightsaber. Ugh!"

Steven's tongue peeks out of his mouth as he concentrates, stretching out his tail and seeing how well it could reach over his head. He swings it forward a few times, his wings and horns mostly get in the way, the ball of the stinger bumping him on the head.

"Um."

He tries using it sideways this time, which works much better. Of course, him using his tail swipe attack mostly just results in him cutely wiggling his butt, with his front legs crouched down low. Everything this manticore does looks totally silly that way.

"I think I have to do like... a spin attack! And if I slash them with my tail, they take the poison effect!"

He looks more cuddly than a nexu cub. Scout has to laugh. "All right, that's something. Maybe you can get the backs of their knees - but, right, it's a game, that's probably not going to matter."

The back of the knee is a tender, blood vessel-rich spot that's rarely armored well. This setting doesn't seem realistic enough for that.

"We'll just both do our best, all right. How about the fire?" Scout sidesteps so she won't be in front of him and stumbles, bronze claw-hooves sounding loudly on the floor. Too many legs.

He's not totally sure how he's supposed to do his flame attack. He doesn't think he can cast spells and his only frame of reference for fire like that is when Alexandrite breathes it from her second mouth. Is that it, a breath weapon?

He nods and braces his feet on the floor, signaling that he's going to try it. He breathes in deep and then... breathes out hard. Nothing immediately happens besides him making a wheezing sound. He flushes, and breathes in again, holding it for a few moments, before...

He belches, and some embers and a puff of black smoke come out. Oh.

Oh indeed. She laughs again. "Here, try it on my plague smoke. Maybe we'll be lucky and it'll set on fire."

It's pretty easy to breathe it out. She just has to open the lower head's ugly mouth and exhale heavily. It happens sometimes when she's not even trying, when she's angry or whatever.

It has this distinct crisp quality you never see in real smoke. Seen from above, it's got very clear pixelated edges.

He sighs, watching her breathe out the smoke so easily. He knows it might not be the same, but...

"Man, I wish Lion was here. He would definitely know how to shoot stuff out of his mouth." Or, at least, sonic booms instead of fire, right? Except... wait.

"Wait! Lion! I'm a lion!" he declares, jumping a little, as if this is revolutionary.

"Are you? All right, then." When you come from Star Wars there are just too many animals to know all of them. "Is that a good thing?"

"I - kind of? But I mean, if I'm a lion... then I bet all I have to do..." He poses again, really to try his attack.

"...is roar!"

He inhales, and then... let's out the hilarious, squeaking cry of a lion cub, which actually sounds nothing like a roar at all. Yet, at the same time, a moderately sized blast of flame funnels out of his mouth, searing through the smog.

She shies back. That's bright! Scout's adjusted to the purple gloom here and she's looking right at the fire. It takes a moment for her vision to come back.

"Well. That should be useful," she says, for lack of something better.

Steven sits back and sneezes, a bit of smoke coming out of his nose, before he grins and wags his tail in accomplishment.

"Okay!" he says. "We can do this!"

⇨ THE GAME CUBE

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