What their Eyes See: Finale

[voidtreckermods]

It’s been a weird mission. The Voidtreckers have been busy investigating, making headway in mapping and saving citizens from the video games and strange illusionary creatures. Those in the fourth tier have made contacts, followed leads and gotten close to the high and mighty of the criminal underworld.

Yet what exactly is happening here is still unknown. Their new found ally Anan is as stumped as the rest of them, but even so, the hackers and technological knowledgeable voidtreckers have been successful in isolating the virus to study and make an anti-virus. A netpoint network has been set up across the city, and enough access data stolen that they can start throwing everything into the systems and networks across the city.

While the illusions remain a mystery and how they got there, finally the world is purged of the strange virus as the anomalies begin to clear up by noon of day ten. Spectura victims wake up in hospital beds, dazed and confused, while no more sightings of the impossible plague those on the other tiers.


On the morning of day eleven, the once housebound and terrified citizens leave their shelters with the first tendrils of light reaching through the fog surrounding the enclosed city. An exodus of people, from fighters of tier four to elites of tier one, are making their way into the streets...and heading down into lifts and outside, out into the smog-filled wasteland.

“It’s so beautiful,” is heard, a rumbling through the crowd as people smile, laugh or wave into the fog.

”I won.” Fighters from tier four look around in wonderment. Other exclamations, about a blue sky, a greeting to a friend fill the air.

There is a pull. The voidtreckers will feel it too, though to them the world looks and feels no different. This pull is easy to resist, or they can follow and investigate it, attempt to lead citizens back inside the city. It’s not safe in the smog, no one has canisters, but none will heed the warnings.

Nor is there time for better efforts when a crackling sounds in the air, light and colours flashing in the smog, everywhere at once and too quick to get a hold on.

“STOP THWARTING ME!” booms out, and a great force pushes them back while pulling the citizens farther into the wasteland, sand and dirt kicked up in a frenzied storm. The voidtreckers can hear the civilians in the smog, but getting to them will prove harder than they may like.

Grabbing an air canister is highly recommended for those who prefer life.



CIRCLE ONE: THE MAZE
No matter where one leaves the city from, they will find themselves in a maze of walls, of metal sheets, each blending into each other. It feels surreal, as if nothing is quite real, nothing quite solid.

But it is solid. For those voidtreckers who cannot see illusions it will look like they are merely stood in the wasteland of the world. But when they begin to move they will learn those walls are tangible, and those that look close enough will see the same almost-light as the creatures that purple team have been fighting as the source.

For those who are not immune to illusions it is a strange place indeed. No smog to be seen, just high unyielding barriers. The pathways are different colours giving off hues of brightest pink, red, purple, neon green, glowing white, darkest black. Sometimes there are symbols on the walls, Capsule Corp, royal insignia, ravager flames, HYDRA, marks of royalty. They are emblazoned on the walls, the floor, sometimes even in the sky. And the deeper in they get...

➤ WINDING ROADS
It's noisy as they move around. As well as the distant noise of the citizens in the distance they can hear an acoustic guitar, erratic piano playing, the sound of bamboo on stone. Or perhaps an eagles cry, a lullaby or a song is heard as they move their way through the maze.

Objects stand in their way, blocking paths and needing to be moved or destroyed. Larger than life playing cards, red apples, flowers. Spears and daggers hang in the air as does the moon and the sun. Water often cascades through routes, making it difficult to move through or fire creeps up walls, nonthreatening but ever present. There are clouds of butterflies and ravens perched on walls, watching their every move, and the smell of sugar often hangs in the air.

But it’s better to navigate these turbulent passages with perseverance than violence. Daggers and apples will shatter and slice apart to attacks, creating a way through to begin with - but those that try the method of destruction to solve their problems will find these walls crowding them tighter, rising higher, becoming all the harder to destroy than they were before. They will become trapped, and will need assistance from the outside to untangle them from webs or jails made from crystal.
➤ STALKING THE STREETS
It isn’t just the Voidtreckers or locals who wander the maze. Wolves, dogs, zombie sheep and ghost animals mostly mind their own business, sometimes inclined to growl or bahh, but easy to pass. But other times, you may sense that you’re being followed, a presence hovering over you...while another companion will see as well the large shadow shrouding you before a decaying hand grabs at you from above, threatening to send its victim to some other part of the maze if not stopped.

Monsters also stalk these paths from various realities. The dead will be met in robes of white while others in armours from medieval times. All are fast, unrelenting in their attacks, unconcerned with pain or stopping without being properly slain. Ghouls of all shapes and sizes search for prey, and many more seek victims.

How they act and how to defeat them may be known to some, but not all. Is it worth the effort to stay and fight illusions, however? Sometimes those illusions don’t give a choice, but in other instances, a person from the city may be found on the ground unconscious, the smog air getting to them. They’ll need help, and fast.

CIRCLE TWO: IS THIS HOME?
Voidtreckers will realise they’ve left the maze when they find themselves in an open field. It spreads out far with vineyards in the distance, a campsite, all of this leading into a forest of childrens board games. While the campsite is not a true campsite as many will realise, it is the first moment everyone will have to come together, to perhaps plan ahead. Air canisters are essential in this environment, and locals have been found needing, unconscious. Backtracking through the maze is a death wish for many, but with the talents of the voidtreckers, setting up a checkpoint here may not be that impossible before going on ahead.

And then, when they finally do…

➤ FAMILIAR
It is almost dream-like as they walk, areas changing without them fully crossing the distance needed. One moment they are in a shopping malls food court, the next the interior of a spaceship; streets of palaces, temples, and mansions line up as a mish-mash of glamour, while others offer more humble abodes, taverns, family homes, bakeries. Medieval structures blend into tech bases, maintenance bays and dark rooms. Beautiful gardens, beaches and dusty souks all share space. But as they move through it, they will be tempted towards what is theirs.

And these can be anything. Ships, palaces, home, and even singular rooms: all of these are seen, doors providing access, doors that draw your character towards it, as if they know what’s on the other side. Spaces personal to the viewer, and with the constant pressure of these illusions, somehow draining to be around, they will find it harder to doubt what they see. Even if their bedroom leads towards a volcano, a blacksmith housing hospital beds right beside it, it will not seem so bizarre to find these natural.
➤ DEARLY BELOVEDS
But it’s not only structures that exist in this labyrinth of streets: there are people, animals - family, friends and pets. Beloved mentors, a smiling loved one. The night sky will wash over, the ocean within view; your favourite plush rabbit, a worn jumper. Your favourite song playing, losing you inside this new reality.

Even people from the Voidtrecker Express are around, whether or not they’re still passengers. Feanor, Zetta, Noctis, Cassie Cage, Jin Ling; Elfnein, Link, Mami, Gyousou, Duo; Senku, Jiang Yanli, Olivia, Bucky Barnes. They walk this plane, friends and lovers of the voidtreckers, coaxing them further into the illusions. Assuring them everything is alright, offering reasons to give in.

Over all this though, they can still hear the citizens in the distance; their voices sounding more confused, frightened even. To push on the voidtreckers must walk away, ignore these temptations and push on to the third ring.

CIRCLE THREE: TWISTED HEART
For those who manage to get through the second circle, pushing away the temptations of home, they will find themselves back in the smog filled wasteland. But through the smog they will see more, always more. Once again the scenery blurs into impossibilities, from testing labs with padded beds, to other imagery associated with asylums of old, to dark cramped spaces, to hallways raging on fire. They sense fear itself, and even the most stoic will find apprehension digging into them as they make their way forward. Is this their fear? Or is it your own?

It may be hard to discern in this twisted reality.

➤ MISERY LOVES COMPANY
This time, as the scenery shifts around them, so does their own sense of self try to match what these places mean. The despair of being lost in darkness, the belief that they can’t be seen by others, all sound fading from their ears. They are on the moon, trapped there for years; at the edge of the vast ocean, on the bank of a river of lava, despair in their hearts. In a wrecked city, their own city destroyed almost beyond recognition. By opposing forces, by weapons of mass destruction.

They have lost everything. There’s no fixing this.

A Pandora box of fears have been unleashed, with seemingly no hope. Your worst enemy has been granted a second chance, family stumbling towards you on the verge of death before your eyes; forces that you were meant to be dealing with back home have found you, surely leaving your own world in ruins, from titans to ayakashis.

Or they might stumble upon a graveyard, stretched out as far as they can see where every name is someone they care about.

There are even voidtreckers of now and old opposing you: Danny Fenton, Lan Xichen, Darth Vader, Vegeta, Xue Yang. Kerry stands pointing a gun straight at a fellow passenger while shadowy ravens and terrifying dragons swirl in the sky.

All this emotional turmoil will do a number on the voidtreckers, but there is strength in numbers. More civilians have fallen unconscious at this point, and those willing to aid them can take them back to the city. But no matter how the voidtreckers move, they must keep their nerve and hold onto hope as they cross the final hurdles.

Comments

III. Circle Three

[chalicejoker]

Hajime recognizes that guy from the train, doesn't think he will be recognized in turn. He's Chalice, why would he be? The guy looks like they're having some sort of issues in regards to a very sketchy-looking chair, and that's...a total shift in posture and attitude once the chair is destroyed.

Odd. "...are you alright?" He's holding a weapon, albeit at his side. Not being actively threatening.

[worthallthis]

The Asset looks over its shoulder at Hajime. At Chalice. Not a face it knows, though the voice is kind of familiar. Probably not a figment of this place, not if he's being reasonable. "No," it says simply. "But I am functional."

[chalicejoker]

"Functional's better than some of the alternatives." He'd rather not be sealed again, thanks.

Normally, this is where he'd take his leave, but the sudden shift in tone and manner has him concerned. (Dammit, Kenzaki, this is all your fault. Your influence.) Hajime knew he'd be a bit of a danger if his own manner shifted suddenly in the wrong direction, and that probably has something to do with it, too. "We should get moving, then. Towards whatever the end of this is." There's a pause. "Then I would assume we can fight whatever's causing this."

[worthallthis]

"We had better," the Asset says, and gives the fallen pieces of the Chair one last kick before turning away to the door. ... Hajime had come out through the cryochamber, same as Soldat had when Soldat was still here, so definitely not going that way. There's a door leading out, barred like a cage, and the Asset makes for that, giving it a kick, too.

It's mad, okay. Kicking things lets off steam.

[chalicejoker]

Hajime's content to hang back and let someone else do the kicking for a change. Attacking scenery is far less satisfying than attacking actual enemies that can fight back. Plus, it's allowing him to observe the other's behavior. "The environment seems designed to throw us off-balance. Battling past enemies to get this far was the easy part." He's not happy about that realization.

[worthallthis]

It's pretty satisfying when that particular part of the scenery literally made you-- or unmade you-- and you never had the power to tear it down before. The Asset is not made to protect the way Soldat is, but it is still protective, and Soldat needed not to see that. So now Soldat cannot see that.

"It is manipulating us," it says as they step outside into the underground hall that leads up to the bank proper, or wherever it will go here. "First the battles. Then the homes and friends. Now the fears. It is trying to stop us. It is afraid of us."

[chalicejoker]

"Good." Hajime looks up and down the hall. "If it fears us, then it knows we can defeat it." He considers that. "I'd defeat it regardless, but it's nice that it knows. I've fought too many self-satisfied and overconfident opponents lately." Not that he's in any spot to be judging such a mindset.

[worthallthis]

Uh-huh. The Asset isn't going to make a comment there. "Be wary of more illusions," it says instead, rifle leveled up on its shoulder at the ready. "It may try something that you fear or hate next."

[chalicejoker]

Hajime doesn't get a chance to reply to that, mostly because as they round the corner, something he hates very much is just...sitting there. Being a vaguely ominous twisted monolith. The Sealing Stone. He stops dead in his tracks. Knowing an illusion of something he disliked was one thing, seeing it there was another.

[worthallthis]

The Asset has no idea how a big ugly art deco installation can be a fear or a hate, but clearly it is, because Hajime is stopping. It can't tell whether he's staring, because of the helmet, but considering Soldat's response to their own hated thing, it can guess. "It isn't real," the Asset reminds him. Then, because it had been what Soldat needed, it adds, "We can tear it down, too, if you need to."

gonna try not to mess up the html this tag yeeeahhh, cw giant bugs

[chalicejoker]

"I..." The Asset has not yet leveled up in friendship to the degree required to unlock tragic backstory details, and Hajime's scrambling to think of something to say, do something, anything other than stand there and stare at the Stealing Stone in horror before something else goes wrong.

He doesn't get a chance. The Stone pulses, and man-sized bipedal cockroaches start spilling out of it.

Normally, Hajime would be all about smashing the illusory--they aren't real, none of this is real--monsters, but he's too horrified at seeing them and too afraid of what else the Sealing Stone might do to act.

[worthallthis]

That doesn't look much like a bug, Hajime. The Asset, however, is not stunned or afraid or horrified, and simply starts shooting. One bullet to the head of each not-bug. "Would not mind a little help here," it suggests after six shots, as more simply keep coming.

[chalicejoker]

It's not real, Hajime reminds himself. It's not real, the world isn't really ending, he didn't create the Darkroaches, it's not real.

The gunshots, as well as the request for help, jar him out of it. He doesn't charge at the Darkroaches and instead removes his belt buckle, slots it into his bow, and swipes a card through it.

"BIO," says the weapon as it starts lashing out at Darkroaches with a series of thorned vines.

"They won't stop. They're...wired to destroy things. Destroy everything."

[worthallthis]

"Then we stop them." One shot, one bug down. Another shot, another bug down. A third, that time only winging it. Fuck. There are a lot of them, all surging their way. It's going to have to swap weapons here in a second, ugh. "Will destroying the stone stop them from coming?"

[chalicejoker]

"The stone can't be destroyed." Hajime's frustration and--sadness?--is coming through in his voice. "At least the real one can't. I don't know about illusions." Why this? "It's how my world's supposed to end. But it...it hasn't happened. It can't happen now."

The Darkroaches keep coming.

[worthallthis]

"These are illusions. They only have the properties you give them. If you believe it can be destroyed, then it can." The Asset slings the rifle back over its shoulder, next to the canister of air and the lantern with its dangling charms, and wades in physically, laying about with a metal arm and a knife in its flesh hand. It is going to get to that stone, and see what can be done with it.

[chalicejoker]

"Belief. Right." That isn't the real Sealing Stone, it couldn't be. He's still himself. The Darkroaches aren't particularly drawn to him beyond as another enemy to mindlessly rampage at. None of this is real.

"Hit it with everything you've got." And he's charging at it now too--he could use more power, could take Wild Chalice's form, but no, this is his illusion, and he'll allow this other person to help him smash it, without even using his full power.

[worthallthis]

The Asset reaches it first, mostly because it started towards it first, and it swings the metal fist at it heavily, with as much of its considerable weight behind it as possible. If it dents, if it cracks, then they'll have a chance.

How strong is your power of belief here, Hajime?

[chalicejoker]

He is trying with that. Trying very hard. Hard enough that he'll join the Asset in attacking the stone, opting to leap into the air and attack it with a flying kick of his own. Between the two of them, the stone shatters, dissolves, and with it so do the Darkroaches.

"Whoever is responsible for these illusions needs to pay."

[worthallthis]

This armored man is very dramatic, the Asset decides. Flying kick? Seriously? But he's at least effective, and the stone is gone. "Yes," it agrees flatly. "Whoever is responsible for them has been behind three missions now. And they are manipulating us." Clearly they need to be taken out.

It slings the rifle back around, separating the strap from the lantern's strap, bringing it into ready position. "Come on. The turns are coming more often. We may be getting close to the center."

[chalicejoker]

"Good. I'm saving a few tricks for whoever is responsible for this." It's a nice thought, Hajime decides. "We need to shut this down." He holds his own bow at the ready though judging by his body language, he could go either way as far as shooting it or using it as a bludgeon.