open log » ❝ The VR Program ❞

[initiatesnpc]

Date & Time: August 5th, mid morning.
Location: Anywhere characters happen to be/the VR.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: From August 5th to August 8th, characters are plunged involuntarily into the VR Program.
Warnings: Potential violence within the threads.

When the chance arises, she's quick to take it. The programming is incomplete, she knows; the simulation isn't ready — but she's not likely to get another shot at it. And so she moves, slipping through security codes to input the command. The machines hum to life with nothing but a flicker of a green light in a dark room, and it takes only seconds to establish connections. The signal is sent out; the weapons respond.

In a single pulse, reality drops away.

There will be darkness at first as the mind realigns itself to the signals being sent it. Slowly, the darkness fades, forms take shape. People take shape. The setting is terribly familiar, plucked from the user's own mind. It might feel like a dream at first, with events playing out as if predestined, the would-be dreamer moving through a familiar and unalterable route in them. But as things begin to feel more and more realistic, as more senses more fully connect to the simulation, awareness will change. This is not a dream. This is more than a memory.

Welcome to the VR.

Only 20 minutes later, in some underground quarters, Doctor Sponde is roused from an undignified sprawl. He's hastily briefed and shuttled toward the command center, looking grim. He knows the problem demands an immediate fix, but… well, this is some complex machinery. It could take some time. It could take days. He gets to work.

Comments

[biwinning]

He weakly waves Jericho away, trying to get him to focus on other tasks. He feels another bout of nausea coming on and tries to breath steadily to calm it. The pain in his head as he's sure his brain is on fire and bleeding from psychic strain, he slowly slides to the floor against the machine. And then he points, "take that," he points at the dowel. "To that platform," and he points toward the alchemiter. "It hath... to make an entry object."

[eyecontact]

Jericho picks up the that, doing a double-take toward the Alchemiter Sollux pointed to before moving. Carefully shifting the weight in his arms, he moves, hopping over a mess of...something. With bees? He's not even going to ask just now.

[biwinning]

"Once it'th there, an item should appear. I think... it'th a..." and then he drifts off, leaning against the machine and silent.

Meanwhile, once the carved totem is on the alchemiter, Sollux's entry object appears in the center of the platform, a yellow box of matches.

[eyecontact]

Jericho's attention splits from the item in question; another time, a time with less blood and meteors, and he'd have questioned why matches? What does that even mean?

He does a double-take before it clicks that the instructions were stopped for a reason. Color draining from his face, he practically abandons the box, blindly grasping in its direction before fingers closed on it while he was already in motion. He slid on his knees most of the way, leaning into Sollux's space and pressing his free hand on his chest. No!

1/2

[biwinning]

Sollux starts up coughing, wow he's such a mess, there's blood everywhere- but he's awake again, and grasping for the box of matches.

"Gonna die," he says quickly, just barely smirking. He shakily holds the match box, and pulls a match out, his fingers trembling. "B.R.B."

He strikes the match, and then dies.

[biwinning]

At the same time, a flash of light completely fills the room, pure blinding light and the whole hive stem is transported into the Land of Brains and Fire. Sollux would be awaking on Derse, when Feferi arrives to kiss his corpse... or at least that's what would happen, if this was actually a true reliving of what happened. Instead, while the landscape outside changes to a strangely textured land where the ground is made of brains, and flames plume out of nowhere, Sollux's dreamself body doesn't come flying through the giant hole in the wall. His corpse-like, blood covered self just slowly blinks his eyes open again, confused and still totally gross.

"Oh, okay. Tho thith ith different. Thup Jericho."

WEEPS.

[eyecontact]

It's all very disorienting for the boy. Why shouldn't it be? Pick up this? Transform that? Blood and meteors and friends dying right in front of him? Jericho might've been trained to fight, but none of that prepared him for something so out of his league.

Needless to say, he spends those early seconds blinking furiously to adjust to the change of environment, seeing but not really understanding.

He startles, snapping his attention back to the...not-corpse? His heart skips a beat, breath held. He can hardly believe it. You're alive...!

[biwinning]

Sollux wipes a bit of blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, and then tries to find some kind of cloth nearby to clean himself off with. Unfortunately, there's none. He'll just have to deal with this stuff. The yellowblood pushes himself to his feet, still weakily because he did kind of just lose a lot of blood. He leans against the lathe, and breathes. "Tho that wath thomething, right? Yeah, be ready, there'th gonna be more shit to deal with thoon. Not nearly ath bad ath all that, but thtill. The impsth."

[eyecontact]

He's alive!

Jericho's slow to stand, gawking up as once-dead Sollux gets up and scopes out the place like it was no big thing. Crazy!

All that good advice more or less floats over his head; Jericho gets up, too, still staring at him in disbelief. All caked in alien blood and all that...Obviously trolls were made of hardier stuff than humans were. Maybe even superpowered humans, too, but he's not much by way of a good example of that. His head shakes a little, exhaling in a huff. He still can't believe it!

And, as he shakes his head, his eyes flicker down. Past the bi-colored sneakers, he sees...His face twists in a new kind of baffled surprise.

What are we standing on—?!

[biwinning]

"Oh. That'th brainsth. My land ith of Brainsth and Fire. It'th really thquishy ithn't it," Sollux says, partially in fascination, and he kneels to the ground to touch the twitching pink brain that's taken over. "Ithn't it really cool?? Oh, and there'th gonna be floating brainsth too. They're neat too," he adds with a grin, knowing this is probably weird to the human, but never the less, Sollux still thinks it's kind of awesome.

[eyecontact]

Brains.

Jericho's stomach does a bit of a queasy flip; two times, seeing Sollux feeling around it. No big deal. Just...just brains. Standing on brains.

He no doubt turns a little green in the face, but purses his lips as tight as he can to stay off any chance of throwing up. Blood and death and squishy brain worlds...It's just a little overwhelming! The effort into keeping his head on straight keeps him from giving Sollux much of a more definitive response, just the big-eyed stare which is slowly drawn away, glancing over his shoulder about and up.

Floating...brains...

pretending this isn't a month later, now with picture reference: http://i.imgur.com/4aK0G.png

[biwinning]

"Yeah, I think thith ith literally the weirdetht land element pothible too, of courthe I'd wind up with it," Sollux shrugs. "Tho we should probably go outthide before the impsth come, and thtart wrecking all my shit. You ok for thome flight?"