⇨ THE GAME CUBE

[ringleaders]

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.

Comments

Peridot | OTA

[periphrasing]

After her less than stellar experiences with the Matrix, Peridot had straight up balked at the idea of entering another computer world again. Like, honestly, universe? The last time she went into a computer, she wound up getting her best friend shot. So she really doesn't care if this place is completely devoid of insidious Agent Smiths and a crazy human vs. AI war, she is not having any part of it!

But, as it turns out, the Mainframe has different plans, and now she's stuck right where she didn't want to be. The gem had just been hovering around near the Carnival entrance when the game had launched, and though she'd tried to make an escape, she just wasn't quick enough. So now she's here, along with numerous other carnival workers, rebooted into a new form and trying to make sense of the situation.

Her game form is that of a plucky little imp about the size of a housecat, and unlike most of the other workers trapped here, when she tries to access her personal programming information, she can find nothing about the sorts of attacks she's supposed to use. In fact, all she can find is dialogue. Lots and lots and lots of dialogue...

Turns out, that's because she's a tutorial NPC. A handy guide meant to teach Users how to play the game, except for the fact that they likely already know how to do so, so mostly she's just going to have people skipping through her attempted speeches.

For now, though, she can be found doing one of two things: Trying to make sense of all of her inane lines, or trying to make sense of her temporary bat wings. She's having about equal success with both, meaning one just has her muttering incessantly under her breath, and the other has her flying painfully into the dungeon walls.

[handwringing]

Elsa, now distinctly less blue than usual and instead wearing a white gown, with long black hair and long fingernails, has happened to just pour out of the wall Peridot must frequently bashed into as a pile of sand. She re-materializes just in time to see the other woman smack into the wall again.

It's kind of funny, actually. Elsa has to quickly swallow a laugh under the guise of coughing.

"Are you okay?"

[periphrasing]

Peridot yelps and stumbles backwards in surprise at Elsa's sudden appearance; she flares her wings out on instinct, trying to make herself appear larger, like an agitated bird. "What!?! You-- Where did you come from!?!"

So apparently she's at least okay enough to still be a rude little turd.

[handwringing]

"I came out of the walls..."

Elsa cringes a little, realizing that's a weird explanation. She doesn't really get it herself - she's moving on instinct at this point.

"Um... Nightmares can turn into sand and sift through cracks."

[periphrasing]

Her wings sag back down. "Nightmares," she repeats flatly, uncomprehending. "Wwwwhat are you talking about."

[handwringing]

"That's what I am right now."

She looks down at herself, then back up. "It's a monster from where I'm from. I don't know why I, um... booted into it, but I did."

Booted? Rebooted? She doesn't understand this terminology.

[periphrasing]

Peridot cocks her head. "Oh. So you took on a form of something familiar to your home universe. Interesting..."

She looks back over herself, frowning. "Lucky you, because I have no idea what I am."

[handwringing]

"Um... some kind of imp? I think. I'm a little less familiar with it."

It's the closest she can think of. With the wings, and the tail...

"You look a little more... doglike, than I would have thought, though."

[periphrasing]

"Doglike," she repeats with confusion, glancing down at herself, before looking back up with a frown. "I have no idea what an 'imp' is, but I know what dogs are, and I have to say I don't understand what evidence you are drawing that conclusion from."

[mirrortide]

Unlike Peridot, Lapis is used to having wings. Not so much hooves, but she's definitely gotten the hang of landing with them now, which probably makes her look about ten times more graceful than she actually is when she swoops down and lands in front of Peridot with a clacking noise.

"Need some help with those?" She leans down to poor Peridots' level. "You look like you're having some trouble, Peridot." And it's actually said as good-naturedly as possible? Lapis is low key super excited that her best friend has wings and can fly.

[periphrasing]

Peridot looks up slowly from where she's crumpled on the floor, and then yelps with delight. She is overjoyed to see another familiar face.

"Lapis!" she cries, and then latches onto her leg with all six of her limbs, plus her tail. "Thank the stars you're here!"

Peridot that's not necessarily a good thing

[mirrortide]

Lapis wobbles, but is ultimately able to stay upright despite the weird gremlin latched onto her leg.

"Yeah, I got caught up in this when that cube thing fell. It was the same for you, wasn't it?" She knows that Steven had actually gone into it of his own free will, but...

[periphrasing]

She bristles, her claws digging into Lapis's leg ever so slightly. "Darn right! And I wasn't even planning on going into this stupid world in the first place!! It sucked me in!!"

[mirrortide]

"Ow. Your claws are sharp." But Lapis isn't going to like, shake Peridot off her leg or anything. "We can probably find a way out, I think?" Well, first Peridot needs to learn how to work her wings, because she's fairly certain that they're not supposed to be used to cling like that.

[periphrasing]

Her wings are made up of long creepy fingers with a membrane in the middle, what ELSE are they supposed to be used for?

"Steven said there's no way out. We just have to play the game and try to keep the users from murdering us all," Peridot says, carefully clambering up Lapis to perch on her shoulder. "I'm supposed to avoid them so that I don't have to give them information on how the game works, but I don't know how I'm going to do that when I keep crashing into walls!"

[mirrortide]

"Maybe you should learn how to fly." Case in point, once Peridot reaches the top of her shoulder, Lapis extends one of her wings. Which, for the record, there's a leathery membrane there too. Just not long creepy fingers.

She gives it a small flap to further said point. "Not that these are what i'm used to, but they work just about the same."

[periphrasing]

"You're offering to teach me?" Peridot blinks, surprised. Her eyes narrow a little. "How?"

[mirrortide]

"Yeah? Why wouldn't I?" As for how... well, she managed to teach a small bird? Peridot is smarter than a bird, so clearly she'll take to it a lot faster, right? "It shouldn't be too hard to teach out." And she's... kind of excited at the prospect too.

[periphrasing]

"Um... Okay," Peridot says a little uncertainly. More uncertain about the idea of flying than about Lapis's ability to teach her, mind you. "How do we get started, then?"

[mirrortide]

"Might be easiest to start with a glide." But Peridot is going to have to do it from higher up, because for as small as she is, it's still not really much of a distance between her and the floor.

Lapis flaps her wings, and up they go until they're about an inch or so from the ceiling. "You know how to glide, right? It's pretty easy."

[periphrasing]

She makes a wordless raspy, creaking sound. "I do, but..."

Peridot leans out a little from where she's situated on Lapis's shoulder, her brow creased with uncertainty. This is the part where, if she were just an observer and not the student, she'd be bragging about how much she knows about the mechanics of gliding and how simple a concept it is. But now that it's her butt on the line? She doesn't seem quite so confident.

[mirrortide]

"It's fine. Just spread your wings and keep your arms tucked in for now." It's simple, easy, even. "Just look where you want to land and it shouldn't be a problem. And, uh, make sure that you bring your feet down on that spot too. Don't try and land with your face." Lapis cautions, like Peridot would actually do that.

Which is what she's worried about.

[periphrasing]

"What?" She leans out to the side to give Lapis a confused look. You lost her. "Why would I try to land with my face? That doesn't even make sense!"

[mirrortide]

"I meant don't crash face first into the ground when trying to touch down." Gosh, Peridot. Use your head.

[periphrasing]

Or DON'T use it, as the case may be.

"Oh," she squeaks, gazing uncertainly towards the floor again. And then more confidently: "Oh. Well obviously I'm going to try to avoid that," Peridot snorts, still very pointedly staying put right where she is.