Thoughts on Ezzo Revelations

    The bridge has become something of a thinking spot for Mizuki. Not too many enemies on the bridge, and there's a nice view of the water.

    Here she can sit and... try to unpack everything that happened.

"Oh, you're here," says Jazz as she stops on the bridge. She's spotted Mizuki, of course, on her own way out. In the dark. Again.

Did she learn nothing?!

"Looks like you've got something on your mind," she adds, stopping on her way.

    Mizuki's ears perk up. She looks towards Jazz. "Oh hey. ...Is it... that obvious?" She looks out over the water. "I was thinking about... what happened when I followed Kite to Ezzo. It was all... very strange."

"No, it's compltely not obvious that you're out here sitting on a bridge in the middle of the night with a thoughtful look on your face, Mizuki. It's definitely nothing you'd see in an anime, comic book, or movie," remarks Jazz, not looking at them as they move towards the side of the bridge and lean over to look down at the water.

    Mizuki looks at Jazz in alarm at that choice of words. "Do you think our lives are like an anime now? Ahaha... that sounds crazy, but... we're trapped in a videogame... and certain people have special powers and know about this whole secret world of CC Corp secretly developing AI and putting people in comas" she holds her hands to the side of her face, "and I'm a catgirl and we might not even BE in our bodies anymore and that makes us just as real as the Landers and all of this is completely insane but also real and it's like reality, somehow, is also an anime."

    One bunbun girl, to the rescue? Perhaps it's just to the comfort. Wisteria walks quietly, her zeta not clacking, and upon seeing Mizuki and hearing her and Jaz exchanging words, she just makes her quiet way over, kneeld down seiza and just wraps her arms around the feline girl with a soft firm squeeze.

    Mizuki could use a hug, so she just closes her eyes and leans against Wist for a bit. "I went to Ezzo with... with Kite. I saw things. He talked about things. Where should I start...?"

"...mmmn. You've been reading too much Kierkegaard."

Jazz has only an amivalent, noncomittal answer.

"Mizuki, anything and everything could be true. The most important question is whether or not you feel like yourself. YOu haven't experienced any discontinuity of consciousness and breathless specualtion over who you may or may not be isn't going to get you very far. In fact, it may just paralyze you when you need it least. I don't accept any answer that tells me I'm not who I am. I am exactly who I am inside of this." She gestures nebulously at herself. "We're not in an anime, but if the conventions help you, well... let them, I guess."

Gwen says "To be fair Anime is doesn't have quite the same meaning here in Japan now does it? As for CC corp making AIs? You mean more than just the script I have spoken my mind on it before. Reality is the input your mind gets via its senses right? For now, that's what this is one way or the other. Also oranges?"

She'll pull several Oranges out and will gently lob them to anyone who wants them.

"Kierkegaard?"

    Wisteria just squeezes Miz more. "Mizuki-chi, it's okay. We're gona find a way out. Until then, we just have to live our lives as best we can." she offers.

    "Who?" Mizuki doesn't recognize the name. She sighs a little at 'anything could be true'; 'discontinuity of consciousness' isn't a phrase or concept she's had to concern herself with. "I mean, I don't think I'm not /me/. I think. I guess at worst I'm a digital ghost of me? But that's still like... me."

    Then she kind of blurts out, "It was one thing when one or two or a few impossible things happened. But there's this whole, y'know, secret world thing going on that only a few people knew about and now we're /all/ caught up in it."

    "Obviously we are not literally on TV but I mean... Kite and Balmung /know/ stuff and Kite has this weird bracelet from Fragment and they knew people who got stuck in the game and ended up in a coma and it all had to do with Harald Hoerwick actually using Fragment as a tool to develop AIs, its primary purpose wasn't a game at all and now those AIs might be the Landers because of whoever stuck us in here..."

    She'll take an orange, trying to slice off the peel with her claws and then pull out a slice to pop into her mouth.

    "Mmm... haven't tasted orange in so long... thanks..."

    She sighs. "I'm rambling it all out but it all, it all kinda /fit/ back in Ezzo..."

"Father of existentialism. God, does no one read books anymore?" says Jazz, a twinge of sarcasm in her voice.

She glances towards Gwen and holds out a hand towards her. An orange? Yeah, she'll take an orange. Especially if it tastes like an orange.

"And see? You get it. Good chance we'll be able to get back to our bodies eventually. /Naybe/ not, but for all we know, only a minute has passed in the real world since all this started. If we're talking about shit like quantum processors and more, we could simply be moving at the speed of light." There's a smile, though it's a somewhatq sardonic one.

"We'll get answers before long. I'm sure we'll be out of here eventually, too." She now lets out a breath, not looking directly at Mizuki. "Like I said. Coproate malfeasance. Explains why we're in the dark, too."

Gwen looks at Mizuki "You are someone. What does it matter? While we are here we can be whom we wish no? Enjoy!"

She notes as she eats of her own.

"I played Fragment but never heard anything like that. Save when Balmung flipped his lid back at New Years. You are running at this full bore that you must get it don /now/. You are going to burn yourself out and make mistakes if you do. If the tower is even the way out? It isn't going to be done next week. It's going to be hardcore progression raiding it will be soul-crushing grinding. If you rush it. Sides there are things to worry about. Been looking into some things myself, and you preusme it's just Coporate or anything we don't know at this point we're all fumbling about in the dark. We're not alone at least right? Ha that be a thing if we were all overclocked."

    Wisteria takes an orange and leans against Miz's back. "We could kill something? Make you feel better?" of course grinding dungeons, working out with her sword, and exploring spooky forests is more Wist's thing... but she's not good at having friends who aren't also on a nationaly ranked sports team. Well she has one but that one was always taking care of HER not the other way around.

    "Existentialism? Metaphysics is a load of crap, 'is stuff real' is stupid, I agree. Worst case, even if I didn't know what we were, it's at least clear that we're /real/."

    Mizuki looks at Jazz, then at Gwen. "I don't know why, but Kite and apparently Balmung think we're not in our bodies any more. That's why their friend who got trapped in Fragment was in a coma... It'd also explain why they haven't just pulled the NerveGears off us. ...There's stuff they're still not telling us, but obviously what happened to their friends is a sensitive subject. And if they could... do whatever they did to pull us /out/, it stands to reason we can be put back /in/."

    She leans back against Wis. "I did that already. I need to talk with you guys for a bit. So we can all share in this craziness and I'm not just holding it in."

"I'm sure that the people who attempted to discern the nature of reality and whether or not its a simulated thought experiment or more will be of no use to intellectual queries as to the nature of our present, very simulated reality," remarks Jazz to Mizuki with a roll of her eyes. She then peels her orange, slowly, taking her time about it. She's fascinated by it, it would appear.

Gwen says "Bingo! We're real and that what's matters right?" Gwen goes back to her own snack as she just listens for the moment the look on her face is hard to read. She seems lost in though then she gets a ping.

"What? Right someone's looking for me? Thanks Uther..."

She closes the calla nd looks to Jaz, Mizuki and Wis.

"I need to get going there's a client I need to go deliver something to."

    "There was an unbreakable wall we couldn't figure out how to get past, but /someone/ has been coming and going from it. I saw the bandit King but she doesn't remember the time she was posessed. And I've been wanting to take a trip to the Ninetails Dominion, now that boat travel's opened up, to see what's changed since the Apocalypse... and check in with a questgiver NPC I saw before the Apocalypse, see how /they've/ changed and if they have any new jobs for us. Does anyone want to go with me?"

    It seems, though, that pondering all this has been keeping her up, and she's finally running out of steam, eventually all but falling asleep in Wis's arms.

    Wisteria nods her head "Sure I'll go, you know I love to find new stuff, maybe there's some dungeons or something worth running, or some good quests or something. Or at least maybe some new merchants and stuff?"

"... how far is it?" asks Jazz, then she shrugs. "If you want me to go with you, I'll go." She doesn't seem to mind it much, really, a bit passively amibvalent about it all. She raises a hand in GWen's direction.