⇨ 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

[otoko]

"This is true..." Well, it's certainly odd to see Jimmy coming closer in this state, but at least they can properly see the other. He jumps, the sound of tensing chain catching him off guard. Well, there goes that idea...

"I, the man Gongenzaka, can certainly try to reach," he replies, straining over, "But I am also fairly large..."

[empty_vessel]

"As long as your... hand or whatever is open, I can try tossing the bag in. And even if the bottles break, the users won't get them." Jimmy still wants a few words with whoever thought sticking him in a harness was anything resembling a good idea, though. How would you expect to sell this to female gamers? Then again, considering how dated they look, the studio may not be in business anymore.

"So move your hand over here and I can toss you the bag." Jimmy tests the weight and he's pretty sure most of the bottles will survive, when he throws it.

[otoko]

"Aauh, I, the man Gongenzaka, shall do my best..." Unfortunately, he doesn't think his hand has much reach. His best chance? He stretches one of his heads as close as it gets, opening wide.

Please don't miss, please don't miss... "AhHHHHHH...."

[empty_vessel]

Well, throwing the bag at Gon's face wasn't something he'd anticipated, even though it does provide him with a much larger target. "... I don't know if they'll survive, so be careful when you open the bag, and if any do... We'll have our answer whether or not the potions work on you."

He does take a few minutes to scavenge some old rags from a skeleton and pack the bottles a little more carefully. "This will probably taste terrible, Gon, and I'm sorry." He hefts the bag to get an idea of the weight before he gives it a few spins, ready to chuck it at Gon's mouth on his say so.

[otoko]

"Hmmm!" Understood, in other words. The bag lands just as Jimmy gives his warning, and Gongenzaka chokes somewhat as the parcel lands. Pulling back, he does his best to let them land in his hand..

...Only to gag and sputter. Oops. "KFUGGG...You were not kidding..!" Whoops they broke.

[empty_vessel]

Jimmy winces as the potions shatter, leaking shimmering streams of purple and blue everywhere. "... At least the users won't get them?" It would have been helpful for Gon to use them, but denying them to the users was better than nothing.

"And I'm pretty sure you don't want the fire potions." He looks at the glowing orange potions before shrugging and popping the top off. "I'm.. kind of tempted to try it, to be honest. See what they taste like."

[otoko]

"M-Most certainly not..." Though, hey, if Jimmy wants to try...

"....Perhaps you could move from being a 'pleasant' surprise to an 'unfortunate' one?"

[empty_vessel]

"I don't know if I can. There's only so many animations coded into this." He waves a hand, indicating what he rebooted into. "I have a feeling I should be glad I have a walk cycle." There's no mistaking what did get the most attention, but he can walk, so that's that.

A tentative sip of the firebreath potion makes Jimmy flush. "Well, I wasn't expecting it to taste like Fireball, but I probably should have." He coughs once the burn hits and there's a small puff of smoke. "I wonder if we can keep these...."

[otoko]

"Aaah, that makes sense..." Yikes, he really is lucky, huh...Gongenzaka squints, but immediately shakes his head in response to the question of potions. After all- "Most likely not. These are merely coverings and additions from the game, after all. When the game vanishes, the potions will likely go with it."

[empty_vessel]

"Darn. This is pretty decent stuff, really. I guess the sigh animation can fake me taking a drink and blowing some smoke."

"This is the green level, huh?" At least, going by Gon's makeover it is. ""Level one was blue, level two is purple, and this one's green. At least they're going down the 'creepy color palette' checklist at a good clip." Jimmy takes another sip and blows out another small puff of smoke.

[otoko]

"Hmmm? Is that so? We're those levels also themed...?" He asks, curiosity admittedly piqued for the moment.

[empty_vessel]

"Kind of? They went with a lot of fire damage in level two, which kind of lost me with it all being purple, and level one is all 'Blue=Cold'. Although I do have to give the developers credit for changing it up a little on two, though." He shrugs, taking another sip of the potion and making an attempt at blowing smoke rings. They're not very good, though. He's really rusty at it.

[betheman]

"Hmmm. So I see..." ...Those rings are a little...odd, yes.

"...Auh, what are you doing exactly, with the smoke..?"

[empty_vessel]

"Trying to blow smoke rings. I used to be pretty decent at it back in college." Jimmy takes another sip and falls back on the 'tapping your cheek' trick to produce a much better one. He smiles faintly as it drifts upwards. "Quit smoking when Claire came along, and that was... Well, it's been a while."

[otoko]

"Aah, I see..." ...Huh, interesting. "...I, the man Gongenzaka, heard that was easier if you keep your breath steady..."

This is probably a rumor.

[empty_vessel]

"Nope. The trick is to get a little puff of air, kind of like you're coughing. And that gives you that little puff of smoke that you shape into a ring as it's coming out of your mouth. You can totally cheat by tapping the side of your cheek, though." Which Jimmy does, sending out a few small, rapid rings in quick succession.

"It's a filthy habit, though. I wouldn't recommend it if you like having clothes that smell decent and actually having money."

[otoko]

"Believe me, I, the man Gongenzaka, have no intentions to take up the vice."

Ooooh, now that's a way to put it. Though- "I, the man Gongenzaka, would have thought that a steady form would create a somewhat steady shape however..."

[empty_vessel]

"Nah, you only blow for a little bit and then stop. If you keep blowing, you just exhale the smoke and wreck the ring." He proceeds to demonstrate, puffing out a small cloud of smoke, rather than the neat rings from before.

Jimmy shrugs, smoking is what it is. "So you got turned into a giant plant dragon, Gon?" Initially, he'd thought the sound of leaves rustling had been Gon's head moving through some bushes, not bushes growing out of Gon's head.

[betheman]

"Aauh, it seems as much..." And hmmm, that does make sense. He watches the cloud fluff around, before looking himself over. "There are petals instead of scales over the wings, though I, the man Gongenzaka, am not entirely certain as to why there are wings at all..."

[empty_vessel]

"Intimidation factor, probably. Plus some rule of cool in there too." Jimmy shrugs and takes another sip of potion. "And people expect dragons to have wings. Western ones, anyway. And you don't really look like a Chinese dragon to me."

"The users are making headway, but I've been sabotaging where I can. Dumping out healing potions, handing out the beneficial ones to the NPC's, that kind of thing. Hope it works."

[otoko]

"Hmmm, this is true...indeed, I, the man Gongenzaka, have never seen such a dragon with multiple heads..." As it is, Jimmy gets an approving nod. "It is good to hear that you, as well as the others, have been working together however. We should most certainly get out of this fine..!"

[empty_vessel]

"I hope so, Gon. I really do. I hate wrecking someone else's fun like that, but we've got a lot more at stake than they do." Another sip, another smoke ring. "Although I should probably be offended that I'm tarted up more than a bakery display case."

[betheman]

"...Tarted?"

He is Fourteen.

[empty_vessel]

"Sorry.. An over-emphasis on 'sex' or 'sexy'. Either to sell your product or cater to what you perceive as your target audience." Jimmy waves his free hand in an up-and-down gesture to indicate himself. "Take this model. I could have been anything. A table with a few bags of money on it, a chest sitting on the..." He stops, wincing at the implications there. "... Okay, let's move away from the too on the nose social commentary."

"But you see what I mean. The bonus reward object in the game represented by this model could have been anything, and the people that made this game opted to make it a sexy slave girl." Another sip of firebreath, and he shakes his head. "This model is pandering. Possibly with some copyright infringement, depending on how closely Star Wars is watching it's IPs." He shakes his head, getting back to his point. "Anyway. The point is, that making this reward object look like this is catering to one particular demographic... One particular group of people... But it's potentially losing a lot more."

[otoko]

...Table? Floor?? Okay they're moving from commentary, apparently.

He does his best to listen-he doesn't catch what Star Wars is referring to (maybe it's like Kozmo), but he does his best to understand. After the explanation, he can only really say one thing-

"....You seem to know quite a lot about how these matters function..."