GACHA CITY MINGLE - EARLY JULY

[gachahell_mods]

July 2017 Gacha City Mingle!

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GACHA HELL

You arrive alone, gaining consciousness suddenly in a spartan waiting room. In your hand, a ticket, with a number slightly above the "NOW SERVING" sign above the only door, currently locked. As the number ticks up, all there is to do is read the fun and informational pamphlets explaining your situation. Congratulations - now you're a resident of Gacha City, and the only way you can get back out is going to be by rolling some ultra-rare item from the great Gacha Machine.

Welcome... to Gacha Hell.

☆ UPON ARRIVAL

When the door opens, it deposits you into a huge indoor plaza, along with a number of similarly-confused individuals. The plaza is dominated by the Gacha Machine itself (might as well give it a whirl - your free ticket has an expiration date, after all), but beyond that, it appears to be set up for... a dinner buffet?

As you emerge, a giant screen overlooking the plaza lights up, showing what appears to be a blob of slime with a cigar.

"Eesh, that's all we get? Pretty lousy for a first pull."

"Okay, folks, welcome to the game and listen up! The name's Smokey, and this is a little place I like to call Gacha Hell, and it's your beautiful new home! In case you didn't read the pamphlets, here's the basics: Ten orbs to pull three capsules from the machine, cross your fingers to get an item, ability, or memory that actually belongs to you. If you're REALLY lucky, you might even pull a piece of the Escape Key. Do quests to supplement your daily login orbs. Beyond that, just try to have some fun, eh? It's not like we put you in a murder dungeon, you have apartments and extra lives and everything."

"Speaking of quests, I've got one for you already! Things went a little haywire with the connection to Slimeworld, and we've got something of a slime infestation in the city right now. Fortunately, if you all work together, then you can surelY HAHAHAHA just kidding! Nah, your quest is to catch a slime or three, sneak up on one of your fellow rare drops and just splash that sucker right onto their head when they're least expecting it. There's up to 2 bonus Orbs in it for you."

At this point, the camera is pulled away from Smokey and on to a rather old-looking man. Liver spots, hair in ears, and all.

"Or, if you're a little more proactive, you can listen to ol' Sensei and head out in to that Slimeworld! You all may not be what we were hopin to roll, but that doesn't mean you can't impress us! Smokey, Chika - you'll meet her later, she's out fixing her hair I believe - and I would like to see exactly what you're made of, and this is an excellent opportunity.

"Now, the easiest way to do that is to mix with those locals, get a feel for everything - how they work, how they live - and then, by golly, get right in to the midst of it! But with conditions."

That sure is a twinkle in his eye. That sure is somehow forboding. Sensei's grin broadens even more as he reaches down...and pulls up a pink slime.

"This here is one of the local favorites, mainly for how cute it is! Cute'n useless. Lucky for it, I'm of a mind that even the most one-star of folks can still be useful, so you're gonna go out and impress me by using these poor unwanted fellows - 'jokes', they call 'em, can you believe it? - to clear some dungeons. Every dungeon cleared with a team of 'em gets an orb, so go out and get sliming!"

There's a pause, a loud cough from offscreen, and then a shrug from Sensei, followed by a fierce claking of heels as a woman's voice comes from just off-screen.

"Oi oi! I'm here! Gimme that! You two have no patience-"

The camera swivels sharply, focusing on a young woman - brown hair with red highlights, glinting green eyes, and a full-toothed grin that could make a shark nervous.

"Why hello Gacha City~! It's your new favorite Chika, here! Don't listen to those two, I for one am sure to be very impressed with your hard work from here on out!"

"Smokes and the old man are the ones giving you quests this time around, but don't you worry~! Once I see just how talented you all are, I'll give you something appropriate to your skill level~"

"But, if those spare orbs are burning a hole in your otherwise empty pockets, you can always pitch a few to the local Orbstarter Campaign~! Sure, you won't have them for the next pull, but I'm sure there's something that'll tickle your interest!"

The monitor returns to Smokey. "All right, that's a wrap! If you have any questions, I'll take them later. If I feel like it." Without any chance to talk back, the monitor goes blank.

☆ GACHA CENTRAL

Food from a dozen worlds and cultures is laid out in an extravagant spread for all of the newly-rolled characters to enjoy. Beverages as well - there's no concept of a drinking age in Gacha City, so booze is included and available to whoever wants it. All of it is free, as a sort of impromptu welcoming party for the newcomers.

There's nothing forcing you to stay here, though. Whenever you want, you can head out and see Gacha City itself, or find Gacha Heights to check out your new home.

Prompt 1 - Do a Pull. Each of you has a ticket for a free pull, equivalent in value to ten orbs. They expire in a few hours, so quick, line up to get your three capsules of fate. Your results are here - will you open them now, or wait until you reach your apartment? Either way, the results are bound to be worth something, right?

Prompt 2 - All You Can Eat. What better way to acquaint yourself with your stranded comrades than this? Stack your plate high, get totally wasted, and introduce yourself to a stranger. There's not enough tables for everyone to eat alone, anyway.

☆ GACHA CITY

Your situation doesn't get any less weird once you leave the building. You're armed with an Orb Card with six orbs on it, a paltry sum of Gold, and the address to your new home (the Orb Card acts as your key, too). If you want to live comfortably, you'll have to find a new job in the city to supplement your basic allowance.

To make things more complicated, just like Smokey said, there are invasive slime species clogging up the city at random. Where did all these things come from? They're delaying the subway, holding up traffic, and making a total mess of Gacha National Park. Until this is dealt with, you'll have to try to dodge your way through roving bands of out-of-control slimes if you want to get anywhere without getting doused in goo.

Prompt 3 - Late for School. For all minors, or people who look like minors, it seems like you have mandatory school attendance! It starts the day after you arrive, but there's a catch - some kind of system error seems to have set everyone's alarm clocks ahead. Almost every teen in Gacha City is looking like they're gonna be late for school on their first day! Toast encouraged but not required, hope you don't crash into anyone. It happens more often than you might think. Also, once you arrive, you might find that your class list is a little bit strange...

Prompt 4 - Slimehaver's Creed. There's a quest afoot! Stalk your new friends from the shadows. Then, when they're least expecting it, slam a big, gooey slime into their head. It doesn't hurt, but it's super gross and takes forever to wash out. Or, you can try to talk someone into taking the hit willingly, for partial credit. This'd be a good one to do some advance plotting on.

☆ EVENT WORLD

It seems like the teleport station is already powering up. Where will it take you? Step through and find out.

Comments

Ember Resuine

[itemer]

[ Just Arrived: Pre-Pull ]

She was used to dealing with video game systems in real life. This wasn't... completely new. But not like this. How did she even get stuck in this place? It's not like she was playing a virtual-reality-gacha. She was already trapped in a game.

Ember tried to summon up a menu and... nothing. Not even a gacha-game-style menu. She was cut off from her usual methods, it looked like. She glanced down at her ticker and orb card. "All right. Nothing else to do, then... Right."

Her outfit was currently a mismatched set of regular clothes that looked like they were pulled off the rack of a thrift store - a cheap green windbreaker, a yellow tanktop, and aqua-colored shorts. The colors didn't go together very well. Maybe she could 'pull' some better clothes. Maybe even her own - if things were as they seemed, her own outfits were probably somewhere in that giant gachapan machine.

Nothing else to do then. Right.


[ Post-Pull: Clothes Shopping ]

No items. Nothing of hers at all, really. She could remember a botched run of the ghost ship, now - odd that she had forgotten it, but regained it in what didn't seem to actually be her memory. She would never pull a Leeroy. And also wasn't a tank or DPS.

And then an item... fragment. And something else? She felt like she gained a cross-class ability, almost.

Still, no new clothes. This was... lamentable.

Which was why she was heading through Gacha City looking for clothing stores. She had an orb card, she was sure she could trade an orb or two for some better clothes.

Please have clothing stores, Gacha City. Ember couldn't take having to grind out dailies to get a better outfit.

Li Kuugo

[xin_shan_quan_girl]

[Post-pull]

[Li had shown up with little more than a name, a face, and the vague feeling she's done something like this before. Which would be easier to deal with if she could remember a goddamn thing.

The whole situation is sketch. First she gets greeted by a blob of slime and a bunch of other shit. Then she gets a bunch of things to do. And then she's told if she wants to remember ANYTHING, she's gotta PAY for it? What a fucking scam!

Oh well, might as well do the pull. The first thing she gets is a piece of... something. Great. Maybe the next two pulls will be good.

Okay, the memory pull is... concerningly possible considering her temperament, except she's pretty sure she isn't a cat. Maybe she can pawn this one off for a few orbs or something more swiggity-swank. Especially since it sort of feels like blackmail material. Score? All right, let's see what's in pull #3 -

...

Let's get something straight here. Li, even without memory, still has the basic mindset of a girl from whichever point in Historical China involves lots of people hitting each other with fancy martial arts moves. In other words, she has *literally no mental conception* of a modern-day battleship, and to suddenly get the sense that she's not just Li Kuugo, but the CMS Li Kuugo is enough to disorient her even WITHOUT trying out mounting guns or walking on water. So excuse us if she's just sort of standing there dazed right now trying to rewrite her world paradigm.]

[senkan_yamato]

[ You Gonna Eat That? ]

She went through the buffet line more or less on automatic, pulling things that looked good onto her plate, and occasionally putting them beside her plate. A large bowl of rice, three ehō-maki the size of sausage buns, another bowl of sumo-wrestler feeding stew, two steaks, a hamburger, big scoops of green vegetables, pickled vegetables, everything piles up and up, her face downcast, looking at the food, but not really looking at it.

So when she finally sits down to eat, she's got like enough food for ten people. At least.

If you wait any time at all before questioning this, she'll start eating it at a fantastically rapid pace to.

[ Not How It's Done.]

"Umm, excuse me."

She's standing there, near the entrance to an alley, holding a slime that looks extremely happy to see you. And it's getting gunk all over her. She looks extremely disgusted by it, but she has something important to say.

"I was thinking...maybe we could...put the slime on each other's heads? It seems rude to just ambush people."

Maybe you agree with her-or maybe you're setting her up.

Heartful Punch

[totaleclipseofthe]

[Pulling]

Heartful Punch was not really familiar with the mechanics of Gacha games - the only game on her phone was Zombies, Run!, which she had cleared every stage of. But this seemed straightforward enough: insert Orbs, get stuff.

The first capsule she popped open contained a 4 star gothic lolita dress that absorbs Dark magic.

"Hmmm," she says uncertainly as she holds it up to get a better look at it. "Not exactly my style."

[Party Time]

"Hmmm..."

Usually, she'd just pound down some protein powder and supplements for her lunch, but that doesn't seem to be an option here.

"Well, I guess I'll go for some pasta, then. At least that'll be a huge load of carbohydrates!"

[Late for School...or is she!?]

Heartful Punch's alarm clock may have been set ahead, but that didn't matter because she was up at the crack of dawn jogging anyway. It was...difficult, which was unusual for her. It was like her overall fitness level had been sucked out of her and stuck in one of those dumb Gacha orbs (which, in fact, is precisely what happened). But that was no excuse for not getting out there and working out; in fact, that made it all the more important, so she could get herself back to where she was.

So as you run down the street, toast in mouth, late for school...you run right into her, sweaty and exhausted, jogging the opposite way.

Orion - 2

[willworkfordps]

[ Well. Free food is free food, I guess.

Orion hazily drifts by the buffet, towering a plate with random, unrelated food items - some chicken wings here, some sushi there, some pancakes, and he's not even sure what this thing is, but hopefully humans can digest it.

He sits down at an open table, then proceeds to stare blankly at his incoherent food pile for a solid minute, not moving.]

Is this just what my life is now?

Courtney "King" Barker

[silentmonarch]

Pre-Pull

An imposingly tall woman stood in the plaza, looking around with the bewildered air everyone pretty much everyone has right now. Sure, her life was weird, but this. THIS was a whole new level of fucked up she'd never encountered before. A whole new strata of weird she had never even been aware of the existence of. What antediluvian oddities awaited her in these stupid depths awaited her?

She turned to try and express these thoughts (or to paraphrase them. She'd never actually use the word "antediluvian" in real life.) to one of the other newcomers, opened her mouth to speak, and let out a pathetic croaking sound before breaking down into a silent coughing fit.

Give her a minute.

Post-Pull

This really felt like one of those cryptic phone games Ember and Orion were always talking about that didn't have any gameplay as far as she'd been able to tell. Just endless micromanagement and grinding for drops. Pass.

Except she couldn't, now. At least it was in what felt like real life.

Her first pull had had two of those fragments, and a gun. Well, King liked guns, even if this one was kind of fancy and colorful, and this was a town, right? So obviously no PVP here. That meant it was totally safe to just point the gun at a nearby wall and fire.

When the smoke from the resulting explosion cleared, King climbed back to her feet and peered at the damage the giant energy beam had caused. A perfectly round hole had been burned through the wall, as well as about 6 more walls behind it. As she stared back and forth between the property damage and the inoffensive looking gun, a smile slowly spread across her face.

[priforprincess]

[ I. All You Can Eat ]

Falulu wanders into the buffet area with a fascinated smile, head turning this way and that, absurdly bright green hair flowing behind her. She has no idea how she got here, or most of what all those nice people had been saying, but she picked up her funny capsule things and is excited to open them soon.

Mostly, though, this looks like where all the people are. And that makes it the best place to be.

"Wow," she says, looking over the spread. "So many new things!"

Delicately, she picks up a glass of something gold and fizzy, enjoying watching the little bubbles. "This looks like it's having fun."

Should she drink it?

[ II. Slimed ]

"Ahahahahaa....."

Falulu has slime on her head: apparently some of the slimes want in on those extra Orbs. That, or they just don't approve of someone trying to walk where they were planning on oozing.

Falulu herself, however, just figures this is how the game goes. So she picks up the nearest slime and attempts to deposit it atop the nearest person. "Here!"

[ III. Late for School ]

Falulu is skipping, absolutely skipping, down the street. School! She gets! To go! To school! And as a high schooler, no less!

She doesn't fully remember why this is such a big deal, but she does know one thing. For her, Falulu, that makes this the best day ever.

[effthecops]

[All You Can Eat Drop (Post-Pull)]

[Listen. It's not every day you get kidnapped by video game characters for a game you never played and get told you're a medium-level drop. Normally, this would cause a lot of people considerable distress.

This has caused Mae Borowski considerable distress. Which she is attempting to alleviate by comically piling multiple plates high with pizzas and tacos and manjuu and sushi and pierogis and whatever she can get her paws on. Certainly way too much. She's not gonna be able to eat all of it, no way, but eating is the only way her brain knows how to deal with the weirdness after all.

She's not watching where she's going at all, though, so... it's really, really possible for her massive mountain of grub, which is obscuring her vision, to end up all over an unsuspecting passerby. Oops.]

[SLIME TIME IS ALL THE TIME]

[The ability to do Pranks and Crimes for profit?! Hell yeah! This is the life! Mae has managed to stuff a bunch of multicolored slimes into her inventory before taking to one of the tree-lined parks around Gatcha City. She's agile and acrobatic enough to scramble her way into some foliage, waiting for the chance to drop her payload onto an unsuspecting passer-by, then jump her way to safety.

Watch your step.]

[ladyporthos]

Pre-Pull

Nira is holding her head, glaring around at everything around her like it's personally offended her. To be fair, whatever dragged her here probably has done that.

"What the-that's not funny!" she snarls. "I have to get home-get home to-" She grips her head again, rubbing her forehead. There's someone important back home...right? But for some reason the words won't connect. "What did you do to me?"

Post-Pull

Nira is actually sitting down on a curb, holding her head even harder and patting herself over. "That-that didn't happen, did it?" she mutters. "I'm pretty sure that never happened..." She's also looking curiously at the royal-looking seal that came out of one of the other orbs. It's not any symbol she actually recognizes.

Satania

[archdemonsatania]

Post-pull
[Satania is standing out of the way in Gacha Central and has a book lying open on the floor in front of her. She reads it for a minute and then starts throwing punches at the air, she's talking to herself while she does this.]

"Hi-YA! Of course the machine would recognize my magnificence and gift me with a training manual. Once I know these sweet moves I'll be able to show those dumb slimes who's boss."

Late for School
[Satania bursts into the school building with the remains of her breakfast covering the front of her shirt.]

"Hey does anyone know where the extreme music classroom is?"