Today life seems just the same, a hurdle of contradictions. Everything changes, nothing stays the same, yet you still call it by the same name. You can't walk twice into the same river, because the water you were in is no longer there, but geographically speaking, the river is still there, despite its main component being different. Things are promised, it's partly or not at all done. Human emotions clash and battle within one weak container and, despite their intensity and power, the body does not receive much harm, unless it causes pain to itself through outside help. The television talks about Global warming, but it's getting colder. People try to help and are called insane. Those who sin are saints. No wonder the two words start with the same letter. It's all the same every day. Someone dies. Someone is born. One person gains. Another loses. Those who can't handle the swing carousel of life simply fall off. The winners of the day are the ones who can be as sssweet as a snake. Yet we talk about rights, about telling the truth, about honesty. They say that every rule has an exception, but doesn't that mean that that rule has an exception as well? Humanity prides itself with the growth of communication, with the breaking of distance and language barriers, with how easily one can reach another. However, we begin to lack in basic speech when talking to someone face to face. And even now, as today brings the same ordeals in our ordinary lives, it's said that everything changes and everything differs from second to second. The further we swim in the stream of life, we both develop and fall into degradation and depravity. The more powerful and advanced we become, the more unnecessary we get in life, for we disturb the natural order. All of that happens each and every day, but most of us, if not all of us, don't notice it at all. If it's so easy to hide, to mislead and deceive, who knows what lurks in the shadows, where nobody dares to look.
Yet, none of that matters now, does it? Today will be repeated tomorrow. Everything is changing and stays the same. A world of contradictions. If there really are a lot of contradictions, is there one, which contradicts the world?
What this will be about: After that little intro, I'm sure you got almost nothing. Well, this is an Int.Che. so don't expect me to write down everything XD In any case, allow me to explain what this story will be about.
One day, you receive a message on your phone.
message said
To: (insert character name/username/address/e-mail)
From: 1.73
Topic: News
Hello and good yesterday.
Here are the news for our lovely city.
06:00 A number of newcomers have arrived. Please, threat them nicely~
10:30 The weather will be perfect. Indigo Square will have a sky of wonderful velvet. The vegetation in Last Part will continue growing uncontrollably. Aquatwist will be busy as always, but due to the overall sunniness, the chance of shadow-consumers is low. Akasan will have a medium fog snake factor. In the rest of the areas, everything shall be splendid as well.
13:25 Orangada offers 25% off on the drinks. Remember to get one, since the atmosphere will get warmer.
15:35 Construction on the new skyscraper will continue. Please, be wary of falling objects.
16:30 A murder will take place in Underpass. The murderer will be William Low.
Remember, keep your keys in your pockets and treat them with respect.
Have a nice yesterday~
Of course, you think it's something ridiculous, like junk mail, unless, of course, you believe in the almighty power of randomness. Once you close the e-mail, you get another notification from your phone. This time it says "Key App Installed". Never wanting such an application in the first place, you quickly check through your list and find it, an icon you have not the slightest clue about. There are three options.
If you chose to ignore it, the phone will keep beeping until you give it some of your oh-so-precious time.
If you were to attempt to delete it, you will feel the sensations known as a headache and fright, for you will not be capable of deleting it.
In the end or in the beginning, it all depends on you, you will open the app. What comes up is not a trickster's prank, something frightening or more spam. Simply an online shop where everything displayed to you is completely free. Not a dime at all. However, all the pages except the first one are locked, thus you can not browse around. The shop offers numerous keys, which look like those your great-grandfather used to have, but dug up and restored with a few adjustments and they always have some sort of keychain along with them. Overall, a place for fancy keys. Your basket has only room for one item and the no-price offer has no expiration date.
If you were to close the app again, your phone will keep sending you reminders. In the case you decide to simply throw the thing out the window and get a new one, you will receive the same message and go through the process again. Don't be rude to the poor phone, this isn't its fault =< In other words, you will be forced to 'buy' a key.
Interestingly enough, about 5 minutes after you chose your desired object, your doorbell will ring. Upon opening the front door, there will be no one there. After closing it you will notice a package on the table, desk, bed or simply a location you enjoy most in your home. Yes, even the toilet. By now, you're either freaked out, keeping your cool or insanely happy. Once done with the unboxing, you will find a smaller box, which corresponds with the fashion of the key inside it. Other than that, there is, remarkably, a note with instructions. It reads as follows:
1. Use on any door, gate and lock.
2. Keep in a dry safe place, away from small children, pets, your parents, other family members and basically anyone you know.
3. It's suggested you let the key sleep in its box.
4. Do not molest the keychain. An auto report will be sent and you will receive punishment. ＼(｀0´)／
5. To link up the key with your phone or Ipod, simply get them close to each other.
6. Do not tell anyone about this, otherwise the key will unlock you, which results in releasing your soul from your body.
7. Play nice (☆^ー^☆)
Simple enough. At this point you can continue as if nothing has ever happened, but, honestly, you have to be at least a little curious about this nonsense. Regardless of the time period, once you insert the key into a door, if you were to lock it, in most cases, nothing will happen other than a strange voice starting to speak to you in your head. If you were to unlock a door, the moment you push it to get on the other side, you'll be transported into a whole new world. The scenery will instantly change. If you live in an apartment, you will still be getting out of the apartment which belongs to you, but will be in a building totally different in comparison to your original dwelling place. The same goes for houses. Everything will change, but everything is the same, because it's different with the exact same core.
What happens after that? Well, the city is pretty unique. The areas are divided into 8, with different aspects to them. Some have streets, some don't. In some you can fly on hoverboards or ride giant fish, in others you'll have to walk as if you were in a labyrinth. And what is the point of all of this? The game, of course.
The message states that William Low will kill somebody. If you were the said murderer, you have the two obvious options: to kill and not to kill.
Killing someone results in getting their key and points. More points means more experience for you and your key, which will eventually lead to a level up. More keys means more power. Think of it as Pokemon. The more, the better. If you kill someone of your own rank or near it, you will get their points and key. If you kill someone weaker, you only get points and not their key. If you kill someone advanced, you get their key, but no points. However, killing someone in this world means that they die in real life and, well, no serial killers are involved in the beginning of this program, thus there is some moral weight to murder, wouldn't you say?
Not killing a person means defying your destiny and basically means you'll die.
If, however, you are not a murderer, you have a couple of options: run, hide, be the victim, help the murderer, stop the murder.
The first three are self-explanatory.
The forth will result in you getting a few points, but not the key.
The fifth may be carried out in two ways. One involves killing the murderer, which isn't a bad option. It lowers the chances of you being the next destined murderer and grants you points and/or a key. The other involves stopping the murderer through words and/or force, which in turn has one out of two side effects.
1. The destined murderer dies, because they couldn't complete their mission.
2. A miracle happens. The murderer loses their key and returns to the normal world, where they have no recollection of what occurred. Nobody gets their points and key.
While this is a whimsical place, where most of your dreams can come true, miracles rarely happen. It involves direct change in one's mindset and soul and is basically a lot of work for the short time you have. But it's not like you can't try. Be careful, though. Just because you're trying to help doesn't mean you can't end up being the victim.
Oh, and everything takes place yesterday
What are keys? In our material world, they are simply what the word means in the dictionary. An item, usually made of metal, which locks or unlocks. They can vary between overly fancy, such as the custom made ones offered in expensive online shops, or plain old rusty thingamajigs your grandpa used to have. They have such a shape and form, in order to not attract too much attention to themselves in our world, as well as because of the overall purpose of a key. To open and to unlock.
"Keys" are spiritual beings, which possess supernatural, as we say on our side, powers, which in fact are not odd in the City at all. Each is unique, like us humans, and harbors different skills. Once you unlock a door and get to the other side, the spirit will materialize. What kind of creature it will be was all up to you when you were picking your comrade in the app. Usually, the spirit corresponds with the keychain, design of the key or both. Some are rather obvious, such as having a cat plushie on your keychain means you'll get a cat or cat-like being, but some are more abstract, like stars, letters, words, headphones ( lol ). Each key can either carry a literal or metaphoric meaning, so you never know what you'll actually get.
Every Key starts off with four skills: two active, one passive and one auto.
The two active skills are the two main powers consciously in usage. Their nature can be of a magical kind or physical kind and those two branch out in different sub-classes. If someone has until this point never played an MMO or has no idea what kind of nature their desired skill is, simply ask me and I'll tell you. But here's a simply example:
Flame manipulation || Elemental Nature || Active skill
Redirection of inner energy || Physical Nature || Active skill
Passive skills are those used during a battle and are often either enhancements, nullifications or drainers. Enhancements are a power-up either in the defense against one nature or increase the effect of an active skill. A nullification nullifies the damage from one type of nature. Drainers suck the power of the specific nature they are affiliated to, which results either in healing or increase of power.
Unlike passive skills, which specifically activate during a battle, Auto skills are active at all times. They are not of any nature or kind and do not deal direct damage. Such a skill, for instance, is flight or passing through objects.
They also possess several stats:
Strength Basically how physically strong the Key is.
Speed Self-explanatory. It is needed in order to increase agility skills, thus one can not have high agility but very low speed.
Agility Self-explanatory as well. It's vital for evading and accuracy. Special moves often require high agility, because it influences movement.
Endurance How much damage the Key can take. If high enough, attacks from foes can even be ignored.
Psyche All forms of magic are based on this. Most spirits have high Psyche from the very beginning, but there are cases where it is low, yet that is compensated with high Strength. It depends on the type of Key, after all.
Sanity This is a vital stat in the game. It is directly linked to the player's Sanity stat and if theirs drops, the Key's goes down by half. Of course, Sanity can drop on its own for Keys as well, but in that case the player takes as much damage as their partner. Sanity plays a role in detecting foes, traps, clues and the like. It also provides a certain stability in the other world and guarantees you won't fall out of place. Those with a low stat have a high chance of being murdered or killed and those with a high stat have a high chance of surviving, not only because of the fact they will be able to sense incoming danger, but also because Sanity accounts for resisting psychic attacks, the most dangerous kind of all skills. Unlike all the other stats, Sanity can be viewed by simply unlocking your phone or Ipod, because it is show as a meter on the display.
Luck You'll need it.
The more points you gain in the game, the more experienced you get and, eventually, you and your Key will level up. The mechanism of the game is simple. Someone loses, someone gains. It's possible for your Key and yourself to gain new skills by leveling up or doing some tasks around town, but it's also possible to lose certain skills if your stats go down. At any given moment a stat may decrease. It solely depends on your state of mind. During the role-play I might decrease or increase your stats, because of some action you make. Think of it as me being the system, which gives you rewards or penalties =3 Of course, you can intentionally decrease some stats of yours on your own, in order to make a dramatic scene, but that's all up to you.
When first obtaining the Key, it's highly recommended that you link it up to your phone or Ipod. This will allow the spirit within the key to travel from it to the mechanical devise, allowing you to make first contact. The spirit may speak to you telepathically, but nowadays they're told to appear on the screen and talk through the devise, rather than frighten the human off. Not that the sudden appearance of some fantasy character on your personal possession won't frighten a normal person, but statistics point out that this method is less traumatic. While on the normal human side the spirit can communicate with you through the already mentioned two ways. On the phone or Ipod it will appear as a moving anime character, much like a Shimeji. As mentioned above, Keys have different personalities and there have been cases of them entering other devises without the permission of their owners, such as laptops, computers, microwaves, even other people's phones. In the end, they have to return to the Key to recharge, so they won't go too far. The havoc a Key can cause in the human world is entirely on your head and is of no consequence to the staff at the City.
Places
Basically some pictures of the places you'll be able to go. =3
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How I came up with this: This is what happens when you try to ignore your studies and start wondering random things XD
