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

FINALLY....

[fintastic]

Feferi doesn't expect to happen upon the memory of a young human male having his head hacked off, but she arrives a second too late. Detached enough from the scene that her arrival doesn't cause a stir or a distraction, she struggles to size up the situation. There are strangers, lots of them, even the dead human seems weirdly familiar but not. But the human on his knees at the foot of the others is familiar; even if his name doesn't come to her easily, the impression remains.

And she knows (from brief, stilted conversations) that he's too good-hearted to be having any kind of weapon brought down upon him.

Metal clashes on metal when she leaps into action, equipping her best trident. She doesn't really think about it, she just does it. She doesn't care what's going on here, or why. All she knows is that no one needs to

She catches the blade in one prong, giving a twist to try and arrest the stranger's movement or, better yet, disarm him. It's not a move she's practiced, or that she is even naturally adept at, but it's a start. If anything, there will be no heads rolling at that particular moment in time. It never concerns or occurs to her that changing a memory might not be possible, and even if it was? It would hardly be a deterrent.

[stonefaith]

Bariyan winces. First because he expects the blade to lop his head off, then because of the screech of metal. He opens his eyes back up just in time to see Catsovi blink in surprise as the trident twists his sword out of his hand. Bariyan's gaze travels along the trident, and finds Feferi at the other end of it.

This girl... one of the trolls? Yes. He remembers her. (Something about whales.) She's certainly not from this time and place, though.

"Feferi...?" Bariyan says, the name strange on his tongue. But he doesn't have time to ask her how she arrived here. He hears more metal scraping, as Catsovi draws his second sword.

Bariyan makes a dive for the first one, the fallen blade. Too late. Catsovi's already advancing on Feferi, his new blade swinging through the air. This time towards her head.

[fintastic]

It's not like Feferi has much time to chat. But for as young as she is, she swings her trident around to parry the next lunge. She diverts the blade from hitting home, but as she follows through, it slices through her upper arm. Wincing but not deterred, even as the Tyrian purple blood being to flow in large quantities from the wound, Feferi stands her ground.

"Stop it!" She bares her teeth and comes just short of snarling at the mystery assailant. For as much as she squares her shoulders and plants her feet, Feferi isn't really the aggressive type, and it shows; she couldn't actually look intimidating even if it was to save her life, which might actually be a thing right here and now. It doesn't matter if she's outpowered or outnumbered, though. She can't just sit by and let the deaths pile up. "No one has to die right now, and no one should! No one!"

[stonefaith]

Bariyan freezes when he hears Feferi's statement, and immediately starts to feel dread. Even if these people were real -- and Bariyan is beginning to suspect they aren't, what with Feferi being here -- they wouldn't care to hear anything that Feferi had to say, after that.

Especially not Cat, who merely seems interested in the color of Feferi's blood. Cat had paused to cock his head at Feferi's short speech, but now he's on the move again. Bariyan swings himself forwards -- still hesitant about running Cat through -- so he barrels into Catsovi's back instead, knocking the other man off-balance.

Bariyan rolls right on over him to catch Feferi by the shoulder.

"They're not going to listen," Bariyan says, sounding and looking panicked. "Go."

[fintastic]

It takes a minute for her muscles to relax to the point where she can even think about taking a step backwards, but her gaze is no less fierce when she wrenches it away from her opponent and turns it to Bariyan.

"You go first, I can take them."

Something about her tone and her body language says she's not going anywhere first unless it's ass-first and she's being touted on someone's shoulder.

[stonefaith]

He's taken aback by her ferocity, not something he'd expected from someone who'd been nothing but cheerful in all their previous encounters. But his shock only lasts a moment before he stiffens and -- reaches over Feferi, stepping past her, locking both hands around a man each to put them to sleep. The soldiers have caught up. More are approaching.

"There's at least fifty," Bariyan says, as he lets go of the bodies, "and those bastards back there to deal with." Cat, who is still getting up, and the other three mercenaries whom Bariyan can't see. "Feferi. We have to go."

[fintastic]

"Then go! I don't know where I'm going!"

She's hesitant to turn her back on an enemy. She might not be the greatest warrior the world has ever seen, but she knows a few basics, she likes to think. Imps never exactly played nice, though they weren't the craftiest of opponents at time. Even if they had the homefield advantage, she could take on two or three of them. Maybe five, maybe ten, maybe twenty-- one at a time. But she was one girl, easily dogpiled if she didn't have a plan. (She never did.)

[stonefaith]

If there'd been any blood left in him, Bariyan would have paled at the idea of running off and leaving Feferi behind. He couldn't; he would sooner die again than leave a child in the middle of what was now a battlefield. One that was quickly convening on them.

So Bariyan gives up on words and persuasion. No more time for that. It's clear that she won't listen, just as very few of the children in Exsilium will listen. Very few, or none...

"Never mind." Even as he speaks, Bariyan's already on the move. He steps to the side to approach Feferi from behind, dodges her trident, and reaches out with both hands to pick her up and sling over a shoulder.