[ Loading scenario… ]
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Faint white and black blemishes sprung into color one by one turning into a murky dark blue. The pungent smell of rotting fish raided Amphi's nose, making him recoil and stumble onto a cold metallic railing.
As he adjusted to the headache, and his blurry vision took in the unknown shapes, he glanced at the railing he was using as support. Behind it, there were endless blue waves crashing together.
The sound of the sea drowned behind the louder sound of jazz, and the loud rumbling of the clouds which were equally dark and murky, covering the sky in a dreadful veil.
Amphi stared at the mix of odd blues in his sight; the railing in front of him was the only thing reminding him he wasn't inside the ocean but standing on a metal floor with the chipped pattern of muted brown wood on a large cruise.
"Where-" Amphi blurted out, the headache making it hard to recall where he was or how he got here. The feeling was similar to waking up from a deep slumber, however, instead of his room's ceiling, he awoke to an unknown ship.
His eyes darted around and towards where the jazz was the loudest and–bright yellow lights flashed his vision, making him stumble back again and pull his hands to cover his eyes.
He slowly opened his eyes to the sudden brightness, the shapes becoming clearer and clearer. Once he was able to see again, he saw a luxurious cruise before him, and a large crowd of people surrounding him at every corner.
'I don't remember coming here… was I drugged…?' Amphi thought, but quickly excused the thought, 'No, that makes no sense. Why would someone drug me and put me onto a cruise with so many people.'
'Did I drink too much?' He questioned himself, but no matter how hard he tried to recall, he couldn't remember the last thing he was doing.
To better understand the situation, he started looking around at the people crowding him. To his surprise, a great deal of them looked equally as dissociated and surprised.
[ Loading details about scenario… ] A loud sound cut through the silence.
Amphi looked around, and at others, hoping to find the source of the voice and to find someone who could explain the situation. But, they all were looking around at each other just as unknowing.
'..Or I guess drugs aren't that far fetched.' He thought as he leaned on the railing, slowing breathing so he could focus more and find a clue to explain his situation. 'If it's a wide scale drugging.. Then I've found myself in an event that might shake the media for the next century.'
"Okay, let's focus." He muttered to himself, closing his eyes as he recalled the message. 'A Scenerio: a play in a theater, a plotline, or a sequence of events..
A survival game?' Amphi shivered as he remembered the plotline of multiple hunger game stories.
'It's too early to conclude, but I hope I'm just making out of noth–,'
[ Player Name; Amphi *** Dementyev; Confirmed. ]
[ Main task: Survive for 3 days. ]
[ Side quests; [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] ]
'–Ah, fuck. It really is a survival game.' Just as he finished the thought, a loud, ear-piercing screech came, earning screams from multiple people. Amphi's vision shook, his world tilted as wobbled and dropped to his knees.
"Agh!" He screamed and clasped his hands around his ears to block the pain sinking into his ears, but even with his ears covered, the sound continued to shatter his eardrums. He clenched his teeth, and sweat pooled down from his temple. The people around him were in a similar situation, and screams came from all directions.
[ BEEP ]
[ Good luck, players. ]
After that announcement, the screeching noise finally came to an end.
"What the freaky fuck, owieeeee." Amphi whined, rubbing his ears to stop the echo of the static beep still ringing in his ears. He clenched his teeth, willing himself to get up using the railing at his side.
"Owie, owieee…" He complained under his breath as he stood up. Though he was no longer in pain.
'Okay, so, players-..' He paused his line of thought, an odd feeling of emptiness hit him preventing him from thinking further. 'Something is.. Missing..'
A tingle ran underneath his fingers, as if they were itching to grab something.
Without a clear goal, he started to rummage through his pockets. While searching, he felt the edge of a rough surface. He outlined its shape as he took it out to see, and found it was an old pocket-sized notebook with several papers sticking out.
A sense of relief washed over him, his shoulders slightly relaxing. A feeling of deja vu overwhelmed his senses when he stared at it. Urging him to open it.
His finger brushed against the rough edge of the notebook before opening it to the first page—there was nothing written on it, typical for him. He turned to the next page, and written with a marker was his name: Amphi Dementyev.
'Did someone leave this for me- No.' –He turned to the next page– 'This is mine. I wrote this.'
The notes were filled with significant events from his day, whether they were obvious occurrences or just peculiar feelings. One of the most recent entries read, "The furry black cat at burnams kept rubbing next to me. No matter where I ran she chased after me. I'm never returning, I have so much cat fur on me. >:(" Another note stated, "The. Window. Shattered. The. Moment. I. looked. At. it. The only explanation is that I'm handsome, must be more careful in the future."
'Yup, definitely wrote it.' He thought as snickered at his notes, the smile earning him some odd glances from the crowd.
Once that worry was over, he looked down at his clothes, raising a brow at the flashy suit. "This.. isn't mine. I would never willingly wear something like this."
He grumbled slightly before forgetting about the dress ordeal to rummage his clothes again. "If memory serves me right, there should be a pen too."
He rummaged through his pockets again, trying to find anything he missed when he felt a bump in his other pocket and pulled out a long metallic object. It was a small pen, the color was a deep, muted red, reminiscent of the notebook. In his mind, they complemented each other perfectly. This was exactly what he was looking for.
He clicked the end of the pen, and the tip extended like a normal everyday pen. Because that's what it was. Nothing more.
"Survival; three days," he muttered, black ink trailing behind the pen's tip as he wrote. While the memory of what it said was unclear, he remembered some details and wrote down the ones that felt the most important.
The more he wrote, the more his memory returned. With his heart now more relaxed, he could recall more.
"Four things that weren't visible: Something in between my name, and three side quests that showed up as redacted." He muttered as he scribbled, his pen guiding him as he lost himself in a trance writing. "Keywords are: instance, tasks, players."
He paused, concluding that he had written down everything he needed. Looking up from his book, he noticed several gazes directed at him with curiosity. He stared back at them with his slit eyes, wondering how long he'd been muttering to himself.
Upon making eye contact, they all looked away. Amphi couldn't help but chuckle at the familiar sight–
–Wait, familiar sight?'
He paused. What familiar sight? He didn't remember doing this in the past… What did he even do in the past?
His head began to throb with pain again as he leaned on the railing again for support. Images flashed in and out of his mind, making it a struggle to grasp and hold onto them.
Pens… Documents... Clients…
"Detective!" He shouted, sweat dripping down his head as the throbbing subsided.
The shout attracted the glances of even more people who exchanged puzzled glances as they looked at Amphi as if he were an escapee from a psychiatric ward. Amphi on the other hand was too distracted with his epiphany to care.
While Amphi was in his corner acting like a mental patient, a man from the other side of the cruise ship spoke up.
"Does someone know where we are?" The man's voice was loud and raspy. Amphi turned to the source of the sound along with everyone else. It was a big, burly man wearing a tight blue suit. He resembled a bear but his shoulders were tucked and he appeared meek.
Feeling the weight of others' gazes, he retreated, nervously fiddling with his beard. It seemed as if their stares would consume him alive if they persisted.
"I have no idea! I don't even remember boarding or booking this place!" A woman shouted from the crowd, and soon more people joined in with their stories that matched the mass amnesia theory.
"It said to survive for three days. Maybe it's like a survival show?" A meek voice emerged from the crowd; it was difficult to pinpoint who exactly said it, but it sparked more conversation among the people.
Amphi observed the people around him, engaged in conversations as if this situation were merely an everyday annoyance. Their expressions revealed only irritation; there was no sign of fear. This struck him as unusual; usually, he would expect them to panic, to cause a commotion or cower in fear…
He withdrew into the background as he listened to the conversations. An unusual distance separated him from them, though this was typical for him.
The loud horns of the cruise ship suddenly blared, snapping everyone out of their spiral. Some people screamed and cursed at the horn, seemingly just as taken by surprise as Amphi.
"We've arrived!" A man shouted through a speaker. It was loud and static, earning more grumbles and curses from the crowd.
Amphi looked up at the top deck, where one man stood. A man in a uniform, his large belly emphasized by the fabric, and an even bigger, grey beard, and his smile was wide and toothy revealing uneven and missing teeth. His demeanor was authoritative, like a captain, which was further evidenced by the hat on his head.
"About damn time!" a boy grumbles. His clothing was relatively more modern compared to everyone else there. He wore a neat white suit with a contrasting oversized jacket on top. His hair was neatly combed back, a rich blonde color that sparkled even in the dark.
He surveyed everything around him with an air of disdain, and arrogance. A permanent scowl marked his face, which made a terrible first impression. The only favorable feature he had was his handsome appearance.
Before anything could escalate further, a woman spoke to the captain, perhaps the only one thinking rationally. "Excuse me, where are we? Is this a survival show? Why would ask us to survive three days–
"Ahh!" Her scream echoed as she stumbled backwards, her bag clanking against the metal floor. People looked in worry only to scream in horror as well once they looked at the captain's face.
What was once a normal human face was now void.
There was no mouth, no eyes, no nose—just skin covering what everyone once recognized. He didn't move or say anything, but despite his stillness, it felt as if he was staring at everyone.
[ ____ failed side quest [ redacted ], reducing overall 20% of all points ]
The metallic voice spoke once more, earning gasps from the crowd. Only Amphi had a notebook out amidst the chaos, writing everything down.
"Everyone, as you can see on the side, we've arrived at LoVel Island!" The captain shouted, his face had returned to normal, a toothy grin, his voice vibrant and cheerful. As if none of that had happened.
Upon seeing the unnatural sight, people's expression shifted to fear, as if the shield of normalcy had been shattered and their eyes had been revealed to the real horror of the situation.
'Asked place and event. Failed a side quest. 20% reduction.' Amphi wrote all he understood, 'Now to figure out what the fuck that means..'
"Is one of the quest's requirements that we don't talk to those things about the quests?" He asked the air, hoping the metallic voice would answer his questions.
Nothing.
'Does it not answer? Or was my assumption incorrect?' He questioned himself, but before he could continue his train of thought, the captain spoke again:
"LoVel Isle needs no introduction; I'm sure everyone is already familiar with it! It's a land of beauty, untouched by factories. There is no waste, no unsightly buildings, or cars to mar its beauty!" He laughed like a certain old man, Amphi couldn't remember exactly who, but he recalled winter and red.
"This guy talks too much." The arrogant guy from before spoke again, the group of guys around him nodded and laughed at the captain, mocking his appearance here and there. "When I return home, I should talk to father. A captain for us should at least look the part."
Amphi listened to the entire ordeal. He wasn't concerned about the petty words but rather the words: "Back home."
'If I remember correctly, he's also the one who said, "About damn time." As if he was always aware of our journey..' He thought as he rubbed his chin, his eyes shining with an epiphany.
'He's normal,' Amphi smiled. The man and the group around him were one with the captain. And the people around him were like him, confused with barely any memory.
'His acting must be subpar, he perfectly embodies the spirit of a spoiled rich bully, but if he really was one he would have spoken up when we were all screaming–' He suddenly paused, remembering the face that disappeared. ' –If he's even a human.'
While trying to advice a plan to get more information, another man shouted, "I don't know what the fuck is going on, but you guys better let me go home. I'm not dealing with this shit, I have a family-"
The man's eyes widened as the captain's face vanished once again, and it was confirmed that the instance wasn't just the wind.
Amphi glanced at the group of guys, and as aspected, their faces were gone.
The system's metallic voice sounded again:
[ ____ failed side quest redacted, reducing overall 20% of all points ]
Everyone fell silent as they looked around at who had failed; eventually, all eyes were on the man who looked as pale as a ghost.
Amphi rubbed his hair as he thought over everything.
"The task is not to be OOC to the faceless!"
"The task is to not act out of character and to avoid alarming the faceless." Amphi said, though his voice was lower than the other person who spoke at the same time.
[ ____ has identified the side quest: Do not alarm the NPCs. Increasing overall 30% of all points.]
Gasps echoed through the crowd as everyone yanked their gazes to the guy that screamed. He had dark brown, almost black messy hair with purple strips. He was tall but unusually thin, as if he was malnourished. His skin was pale, as white as porcelain teacups, as if it had never seen the light of day. His eyes were sunken, and his dark eye bags were so pronounced that they were visible from a distance, even with the mess of hair covering most of his face.
From the small gaps of his bangs, people could see a feverish expression of someone running on adrenaline. His figure was hunched, and closed off, making it obvious that he wasn't used to the attention.
While some looked down on him because of his weird demeanor; many eagerly gathered around, showering him with questions and compliments in hopes of gaining his favor.
He answered all their questions nervously, stuttering at times, yet he still maintained his presence. This was enough to convince most of the crowd, and soon everyone started flocking around him, making him even more anxious than before.
The only one who knew the truth was Amphi, he was the only one who heard the words;
[ Amphi Dementyev has identified the side quest... ]
He shrugged his shoulders, a small smirk tugging at his lips at being a second quicker than the guy. Unknowingly, the other had gotten into a one sided competition with Amphi, and would be remembered.
He noted down details about the malnourished-looking intelligent man in his notebook.
The guy felt a shiver run down his back but choked it up to the people crowding him with questions and introductions.
"Do not push each other! Descend in an orderly fashion!" the captain shouted suddenly at a small crowd of people crowding at the doors of the boat.
Amphi looked outwards, and saw that they were next to an island and the shit was stopping near the dock. He couldn't help but rub his neck, the whole ordeal was doing a number on his observation. He would have never missed this entire island nearing them any other day.
The unaware group exchanged glances, wondering what they should do. However, when the disheveled looking man (who was being hailed as the one who guessed the first puzzle) started following them, the others followed along.
In their last moments on the ship, Amphi examined the moving crowd more closely.
A man in front of him had his hair cut neatly in a slicked back style. He wore a dignified button-up shirt paired with tight jeans, which accentuated his long muscular legs. Although the outfit suited his stature, he seemed out of place in it, resembling a caveman who had suddenly put on a luxury suit.
Many people who appeared out of place (like him) seemed equally out of place in their clothing. A girl, who looked as if she wished the ocean would cover her, wore a dress that was as revealing as a bathing suit. Meanwhile, a man who seemed old wore a juvenile style of clothing that he seemed to detest.
'The outfits and our other items may relate to the characters we're 'playing'–' Just then, someone's shoulder bumped into Amphi, making him stumble back.
"Sorry!"