Swirly Sculptor Needs Food Badly

Ever since Att's been consumed with carving up that statue, Proteus has been looking in on him. Well, so have the others, but Proteus has been kind of hovering on the periphery when she's not away working on something else, usually returning in a while. Most of the time she just quietly has been watching. Other times she brings the man some food, usually some form of meat and rice and vegetables.

Proteus might not entirely approve of some of the other... donations to the cause, as one might expect when they look at her expression when she glances at the giant pile of sweets left on a table for Att to enjoy. It appears that he's acquired most of the leftover Valentine's Day sweets. "Is this even the proper time for it...?" Proteus mutters to herself as she arrives back in the workshop.

"Att, are you still here? I've brought you some more food." In her hands is a Duck Bento and some other containers of stuff. Also a familiar greasy bag.

Carving is right. The slab out back has been steadily cut away, gradually taking shape from a lumpy block. Inside, the workshop has once again undergone a great transformation, but this time, it doesn't have anything to do with a destroyed prototype.

Att Syne is presently emptying a jar of quivering red slime into a tremendous cauldron placed over a bright red fire. There's an assembly of some mad alchemist's dreams in the workshop, and it appears to be dedicated to... um, slime-processing, or something? It's hard to say. It's definitely part of the final product, or he wouldn't be so engrossed in it. There's a half-drained pitcher of water on a nearby workbench, and a gap in the Valentine's candy pile that has apparently been attacked at some point or another.

He sets aside the empty jar, then produces a big metal rod and a pair of heavy gloves. He stirs the bubbling stuff slowly, expression focused and clearly tired, but otherwise filled with a certain degree of satisfaction. Still, it seems more like a job for Whis. Att isn't the alchemist here.

He's humming something all the while. If Proteus is particularly familiar with Western musical traditions -- or worldwide phenomenons, anyway -- she might recognize Queen's 'Somebody to Love.' He stops when he's addressed, if slightly belatedly, but doesn't look up. "Yep. Right here. What's up?"

Proteus puts down the real food pointedly in between Att and the candy pile. Apparently even in this fantasy world there are people who believe you shouldn't stuff yourself with sweets.

That done, the magus turns towards Att and looks over what he's doing with the slime. "Is this some kind of... distillery?" She asks, approaching the bubbling vat and looking down into it, then back up to Att himself. "It looks like you're making progress, though." If Proteus catches the musical tune, she isn't making any sign of it. Instead, she gestures to the craftsman. "Just checking in on you. I brought some more food. Make sure to eat it, you need the sustenance." A pause. "I think. Still, better that than not."

She pauses again, her tail waving behind her in roughly the same pattern as the mesmeric pattern of the stirring. "Are you feeling... all right? You're still in good shape, right?" Her tone betrays the concern even if her face doesn't emote it so much.

Att looks up when he hears the meaty thunk of food-on-table, which is distinct from the sugary clatter of candy-on-table. He blinks a couple of times, then laughs. "Oh, right. Not-candy. I'll get to that in a minute, gotta make sure this keeps going." Stir, stir, stir. Stir, stir, stir.

Stir, stir, stir.

"Turns out starvation is a debuff just like exhaustion, but it's way easier to take time to eat than to commit time to sleep, so it's probably better if we don't engineer a way to get out of that one unless we really have to." Att looks contemplative. "I guess I could just make a hundred loafs of bread and bottles of orange juice and stick them in my inventory for a siege or something if I really had to..." Stir, stir, stir. One hand keeps going, pushing the red glowing slime-sludge around steadily.

"Mm? Pretty good. I mean, I'm in pretty good... shape. Feeling pretty shape." Sharp head-shake. "Pretty good. Finally making some progress. Feels great. Do I not seem all right?"

Whis appears from an unassuming pile of detritus, shedding a few pieces of marble from herself in the process.

"Guy I knew once ate nothing but sliced wheat bread and pasta sauce. He said it was nutritionally complete. I said he was a lunatic. Now I'm trapped in a game and refusing to sleep normally thanks to drugs."

"Hello Proteus, thanks for the burger."

Whis begins to steal fries like a gremlin.

"How's the..."

Whis tries to analyze the bubbling muck Att is mixing. "... situation... coming along?

"Take your time." Proteus assures him. "The food isn't going anywhere. At least until the timers run out on it." She makes a face at that. "You'd think in a world where we don't have to model decay we could have food that doesn't spoil at an arbitrary time limit. Or at all. Remind me to find a way to stop that."

She then nods to Att. "I guess you've found that out from experience, huh? Well, once you get on a tear, it seems nothing stops you. Still, no need to make you suffer from debuffs you don't have to." She chuckles for a moment at the idea. The stirring continues on, and Proteus can't seem to help but keep following the motions, her head swivelling to follow along with the motions of her tail.

There is a pause as Att answers the main question, however. "Progress is good. I was getting worried that you'd snap eventually if you couldn't figure out where to properly begin. I've heard stories about people like that, you know?" There is a little sigh. "You seem... well, driven. I can appreciate it. I just am worried you might hurt yourself in the process of accomplishing your goals here. I want you to succeed."

She looks over at the half-formed statue, then. "I just don't want you to sacrifice yourself for it. That doesn't feel like a.... 'you' thing."

Almost on command, Whis appears at the mention of ALCHEMY. Proteus shifts, blinking at Whis' sudden arrival. She squints at the fry theft, but she doesn't say anything. She probably needs the carbs. "No problem." Proteus replies to Whis. "I guess with Nureha out, I'm the one trying to make sure people stay eating right." There's a little shift of her shoulders, and her hand snakes up into her hood to rub at the back of her hair in a slightly embarassed manner. "Glad you're here to help though, Whis." She says, trying to recompose herself. "I don't think you really need to do the drugs to prevent sleep though. I mean, why would a loss of consciousness result in any changes? Do you think you're like a computer with a pending patch or something, trying to hold it off by not rebooting?"

>> Checking Alchemy . . . SUCCESS!

The muck is the remains of MAGMA SLIMES. Att seems to be doing something like reducing it into its useful components. The actual setup seems to be an alchemical one that outputs to an expansive set of glazier's tools. So, he's making something out of glass in an extremely roundabout way, and with some weird materials involved.

"I don't really go in for the sacrifice play." The constant vat-stirring is pretty mesmerizing. The contents look like an artist's rendition of lava, as opposed to the realistic depictions occasionally shown in photographs. It's like a lava lamp, except with way more work involved. "I haven't felt any... uh..." He hesitates. "...strong urge to do anything like that, I guess. Or go crazy, or, whatever. I just have to be here, pushing forward, every day. I managed to get out to Giant's Seat a couple times to look over the improvements, but I can't stay long." He peers into the vat. Stir, stir, stir.

"Does that make you a lunatic," Att waxes philosophically at Whis, "or merely a fry-thief with a court-approved excuse?" He briefly looks like he's measuring the distance between table and vat, and maybe going to reach for the burger, but holds off while he's mid-whatever-this-is. "It's, you know, coming. I'm pretty excited about it. This is kind of a delicate part of it all and I want to get it perfect, you know?"

Att looks over at Proteus with a quick grin. "In it to win it, whatever 'it' is! It's no sand-cannon but it's still pretty big. I'm glad I'm not stuck trying all this on my own."

"Bread guy is the negative example, Proteus, Att." Whis confirms, peeeeeeering over the mixture. "The only features that mechanically matter is the assuagement of the meaningful negative effect on your debuffs. The burger is an efficient method - it is highly efficient for its cost."

Whis snaps her teeth - surprisingly *pointy* teeth - onto the fry. "But fried potato's high caloric value knocks a more efficient chunk off. Get them covered in cheese and relish next time, please. It will improve the efficency."

It sounds like she wants them animal style next time, Proteus.

Kicking a few more twigs under the cauldron and a powder scattering into the mixture, Whis holds her hand out to Att, in a clearly signalled 'gimmie' gesture.

"I wonder what the compulsion is about." Proteus muses. "Is it just you, or is something pushing you forward..." She taps her chin, musing some more.

This is interrupted by commentary on fries. There is a blink, and Proteus nods to Whis. "Sure, I'll get them for you with cheese and relish next time." She pauses. "Do they... actually taste good that way?" She asks, tilting her head curiously.

Proteus isn't a stranger to pointy teeth though, she has them herself. That doesn't keep her from flinching slightly as Whis snaps that fry though. "I understand what you mean. I'm just... wondering if that's really the only concern. I mean, you can eat how you like. I'm not judging." Unless you want to just gorge on sweets. Then she will judge.

She looks from Whis to Att, then back to Whis requesting the STICK and back to Att. "With how much time and effort you've put into this, I can see why you're aiming for 'perfect'." She looks over to the statue, then. "But what is 'perfect'? Will you know it when you see it?" She does, chuckle, however. "I wouldn't want you to have to do this on your own. You still have to invent those cannons properly sometime. At this point, however, this... This is what Plant Duck is about, isn't it?"

Wandering past the area Seliana spots the trio of guildmates. Stopping she looks over, stares for a moment, and then seeming to have made a decision changes course to carefully make her way through the haphazard tools and crafting supplies in the area over to the others, holding the skirt of her black dress close.

As she arrives she looks over at each of the three with dull red eyes from behind her thin black veil, as if inspecting each. "Hello.. What's in the pot?" she says in a quiet monotone voice as she then moves over to the food and pulls out some wrapped candies to add them to the pile. It seems she may be one of the sources promoting Att's unusual diet.

Having delivered the food-like sustenance, she carefully moves closer to the others and peers in at the red substance, holding her hair with a hand to make sure it doesn't slip in. Then looking over at Proteus she comments, "Plan Duck is about cannons?" she asks in her typical flat tone, clearly only having heard the last part of what Proteus was saying.

"I would imagine compulsions are part and parcel with the game." Count V declares, as he joins the gathering in the workshop. His appearance is abrupt, probably largely unnoticed-- he emerges from a swirl of shadow, that indicates he probably walked in stealthed in some way.

"Assuming we were not bodily transported elsewhere, it has to be simulating quite a few things for us while our bodies experience quite different inputs in a bed somewhere. Hmm..."

He steals a colorful piece of candy shamelessly, pulling it out of its not-at-all-modern paper wrapping and asides to Seliana, "Flame Wall, actually."

Att passes the metal rod and gloves over without comment. He hops down from his slight perch -- the cauldron is suspended -- and snags the burger, unwrapping it and stuffing it in his face. He's vaguely chipmunk-like. Is this his true werefang form?!

"Mrmfmrfmmfrmfrmmf," he says, a short time later. There's a pause. He manages to regain enough speech capacity to muffledly say, "Def' Flame Wall," and then continue consuming this greasy sustenance as if it were some form of ambrosia. It just might be, given how little he's been eating.

G u l p .

"Phew! That's /good/!" He grabs the pitcher and chugs water he's been probably skipping out on, again. Then, he addresses Seliana, explaining, "Magma Slime goo. It's part of the project. I've got this great idea." He closes his eyes, holding his hands up and forward like he's holding something. "I can just... see it. It'll be amazing. It's going to be so much work," he sighs, "but it'll be worth it."

He opens his eyes again, then rubs one, jaw stretching with a yawn. "I think there's a whole, um... system... or, I dunno, quest trigger, maybe...? That's looking for particular elements. Or rarities. Or both? Or maybe there's actually a Goddess who's gonna judge my work and then smite me if it's bad."
"On the bright side, if I get smote --" He snaps his fingers. Fingerguns happen. "-- immortality!"

"Perfect is when it's done. Don't rush the process. Trust the artist." Whis decides - well, she declares, really - to Proteus' questioning. Like a koan, the sentence simply is and brooks little to no fiddling on the details.
"I'm not sure weight will be an issue, considering some people turn into animals or ceased to be their normal bodies and are now tiny sneak-thief devils."

Whis' words are casually cutting, perhaps, if you're Proteus, but she places no real intensity behind them. "So I'm not sure people's sliders will move if their diet is stale food-crackers and room-temperature bread tea."

Seliana approaching gets a startle out of Whis, the dark-haired girl retreating - momentarily - into her hood. "Ah, um. Hello! I'm Whiskey Sour. I'm a support player, please take care of me. Att-sempai invited me to the guild recently." Her whole demeanor, tone, expression changes with !New Person! on the field.

Parenthetically to Seliana's question, Whis asides: "It's a glaze for the statue. He forgot an adherent agent. He also forgets to eat and drink. I just decline to sleep." Whis doubles back to Proteus' question. "--Because I don't trust this game to properly cease my awareness. Ever thought about that? Just ceasing to exist for hours at a time? It's definitely a problem, at this point."

The arrival of Seliana gets a chuckle from the Imp. "Cannons would be nice, but casual arson is more common." Proteus says, waving to the new member of the guild. "You would be surprised at how many things can be solved by setting them on fire. That said..." There is a shrug, and Proteus shakes her head. "I more meant the way that we help each other out. Att needed our help, and we're all pitching in to help him. They would do the same for me if I needed it. We would all do the same for you. It's more than most guilds do... And right now... It's more important than ever."

That said, there is a squint as Proteus sees the bag of candy, and her little shark-smile turns into a little disapproving frown for a moment, before she just sighs and shrugs, resigned at the moment to Att's nutrition being trashed. Instead, she turns to Count V as he makes his appearance... And as always, his pointed observation. "So you believe we are being actively manipulated? It's one thing to simulate some sensations, but this is behavioral modification, wouldn't you think that goes over the line?" She asks. "It's not like this is some kind of charm spell." A pause. "... Isn't it?"

Proteus refuses to look back at the horrifying sight of Att devouring the burger wholesale. "Magma Slime goo... Are you trying to distill and crystallize it? I can't imagine you would want to use it in liquid form unless..." She pauses, her tail wiggling back and forth as she ponders. "Maybe some kind of moving liquid inlay?" Smiting snaps her out of the musing, however, and she frowns. "If there is a goddess..." She says darkly, "They're doing quite a poor job."

Whis' comment causes her to wince, however. "I'm not a tiny sneak-thief devil!" She announces, suddenly feisty about it as she points at the alchemist. "I'm as tall as I'm supposed to be! And I'm not a sneak-thief! It's /archaeologist/." The indignant tone is real, but there's no heat behind the response, just an almost anime-esque snap-back. "Mmmmrgh." She grumbles. "I guess it might not be something to worry about, but... There's too much I don't know. I don't like it." She shakes her head. "I just assumed that the game just keeps you logged in while your brain goes through REM sleep patterns. I didn't really notice. I guess if we're going to be messed up by sleeping, it's too late for me."

Seliana passively watches as Whiskey Sour retreats into herself momentarily, "Hello, Whiskey Sour. I'm Seliana. I was recently invited to the guild by Proteus." She drones in an inflectionless steady voice. "I.." and she trails off into silence, looks off to the side for a moment, then looks back. "I'm still figuring out what I do." Then as Whis starts to question awareness Seliana comments. "When I'm asleep I dream. When I'm dead I dream. When I talk to others who died they say they don't dream though.." she trails off again.

As Proteus clarifies she listens, watching the small imp intently. "I think I was lucky you found me when you did. I may have still been there if you hadn't. I will do what I can." Then at the side comment Seliana turns to look up at the tall Spriggan, Count V, her ashen red eyes catching his piercing golden-yellow eyes. Then she turns to Att Syne as he confirms something. Flame Walls. Yes, Flame Walls. That also makes sense. "Ah, that matches." She says aloud, seemingly satisfied with the answer. The world was set aright once more.

As Att Syne continues his explanation of his project Seliana gazes over at the slab of stone that is just starting to be formed. "That.. is a lot of uncertainties.." Then looking back to Spriggan sculptor. "The Landers say the Goddesses are responsible for us being here now, but also say they never act directly. Only in subtle ways that are hard to see. Some don't even think they exist." She just continues to stare at him with an unmoving expression before continuing. "If you get smote. I want to see."

Nodding, the quiet 'mm mm, naruhodo' from Whis is probably due to some snap massive minconception she has made on contact.

"It's like that." A pan of gaze between Seliana and Proteus aroundabout the time of oaths and debt professions.

"Ye, ye, I want to see you get smote too, sneak-thief-sempai."

"Perhaps instead of 'smote', you get 'banned'." Count V offers to Att, with a rather ominous smile, "That would be more like death to us right now than death actually is."

It's hard to tell how serious he's being. Apparently the idea doesn't worry him too much, because he carries on in a more casual tone towards Proteus, "I think it's possible. I don't know that I'd describe it as 'over-the-line' though. The ethics of interface with a human brain are all over the place. As it is, I don't think it is any 'worse' than actually transporting us to some alternate world. The subjective experience isn't meaningfully different, so the only people it matters to are on the outside."

"Being M-I-A is a lot less decisive for the people outside. If we're all vegetative, that's a different shade of problem altogether. It'll be a piece for the history books either way, but whether or not people get closure is the question."

Count V flashes a smile towards Whiskey, its meaning unclear.

"At any rate," He waves his staff, "there's no use worrying about what's already done. Perhaps sleeping is no good, and perhaps it isn't. If I had to guess something to be truly still best avoided though, it would still just be death."

"Unfortunately, we've been trained /not/ to be TOO careful about that for a long time..."

Att looks between Whis and Seliana, and then remarks aloud, "Ohhh, you hadn't met before..." As if this makes something or other make total sense.

"Eugh, that would be awful. I guess getting banned might answer the question about what's going on outside, but man, it would suck if I couldn't then somehow just..." He makes some kind of grasping hand gesture. Wiggly fingers ensue. ".../get the info back in/. Bleghhh. Smiting is pretty public, though. I bet you could get front-row seats if you're here at the unveiling!" He's way too chipper for someone who may be struck dead by divine might or something.

"I haven't spoken to too many Landers about it, but I picked out one of the Goddesses and came up with my own take on her usual depiction. It'll still be good. But I think that because it's a Goddess, I needed the higher-grade materials, otherwise maybe the original," presently a pile of stone chunks overflowing from a crate in the corner, "would've been perfectly fine. This stuff..." Att moves over to the cauldron, peering in, then starts messing with the glazier's tools nearby. "...it's got to adhere to the stone, but it's going to be a sort of -- of --" He grasps for words. Instead, he yawns.

"...y'know, a thing? It's a --" Another yawn. "-- thing."

"I'm not getting smote!" Proteus protests. "I haven't done anything worth being smitten for!" A pause. "Well maybe I plundered a few tombs. And abandoned temples." Another pause, and she points. "BUT THEY WERE ABANDONED! They don't count. And I'm not a sneak-thief!" She doesn't seem to object to the sempai commment though, which seems the be the only thing Proteus didn't object to.

She turns to Seliana and gestures. "Do you think Att would be smote? I mean, the fact that they don't seem to do anything seems to indicate that the Landers are basically using this as an excuse for nonimplemented or undeveloped content. Maybe we can find out more." She finally goes quiet for a few seconds... And then she nods. "I'm... glad I found you when I did too." She says quietly, pointedly turning her hooded face away from the others to pretend to stare at the statue for a bit.

Count V gets back to neatly demolishing Proteus' hopes that there's some shred of ethical design left in this latent horror show. "I don't... know what's happening outside... in the old world. I don't really think about it. At the moment... I feel like I'm in a race against time."

Proteus steps back, then, and leans against one of the tables. "Just... try to get some rest when you can, Att. You look like you're burning some kind of candle from some kind of number of ends."

Looking to hooded Imp, Proteus, she replies. "No. I don't think the goddesses do anything so direct, at least not that I've found out. That's why I want to see it. It would answer so much." Then a pause. "More questions too." Another pause. "This.. game.. if we know what players exist behind the scenes.." and she trails off into thought as she follows Proteus's look over to the statue.

Then turning to watch the tall, nobly dress Count V she stares patiently up at the man as he theorizes possible impacts to the outside. "Optimistic." She quietly says, then glances to Proteus again as she comments about a race against time but doesn't comment further.

Then looking to Count V again. "Is the fear of sleep or death that it may cause change? Some unknown permanent change? It seems that is happening regardless." She comments in a flat tone, perhaps seeming somewhat less concerned with the potential consequences.

"Smote," Att asides. "Smitten is something else." He does that one heart gesture with his hands. There's probably a sound effect. Att wouldn't know if he's hearing things.

"I'll sleep when this leg of it is done," he says, waving a hand. "Or, well, nap. Or... try. Unconsciousness. You know. It'll... happen." He tries to smile reassuringly, but he's got Whis' sort of sleepy-complexion, so it's not super effective.

"This is the sort of story..." Whis begins, sour and hovering over the cauldron as Att continues to resist her doing much more than Quality Control.

The project must be completed by Att Syne, it seems, and Whis's meddling is moral support at best because of it.

"... where the final boss will cackle something like 'you fools! you fell asleep! you've already died in the game!' and we'll all gasp in shock. Don't... worry too much about it. It's also the kind of game where--"

Her fingers point at both Seliana and Proteus. "Other sorts of cliche things happen. Tell me about your dreams sometime! Or, now, whichever."

She leans conspiringly towards Count V. "You don't dream when you sleep, right? It's not a metaphor?"

"Everyone is always in a race against time, Proteus. And everyone is always losing." Count V says, simply. He seems utterly unconcerned with this notion.

Turning his attention towards Seliana, he shrugs, "It isn't my fear, so there is no purpose in asking me. I feared sleep for a while, as a child. Then I got over it, and moved on. Continuity of existence is a subjective thing. If I am not experiencing problems, then it does not warrant dwelling on."

He winks, "If teleportation was invented, I would use it in a heartbeat."

To Whiskey Sour, Count V shrugs theatrically, "I don't *normally* dream, so the question is a bit academic. I haven't dreamed since this began, at the very least."

Sighing heavily, he asides to Att, "You'd think for having given you a compulsion, they'd give you buffs to get through it-- even if you did so unconscious."

"Someone... or something triggered the Black Wave. When that gun fired...." Proteus shakes her head. "We're going to find out all about it... eventually. There's more to all this than we know." At this point, she seems to have given up on keeping Att doing things in a healthy manner... for tonight, anyway. She'll be back to pestering him tomorrow.

That same resignation comes from the Imp as she is pointed at, and she shrugs. "I hope whoever did this wouldn't be that cliche. I'd be disappointed. Even so..."

There's a sudden 'tch' from the Imp as Count V cuts in and sideswipes her statement. "Are you sure we have to lose?" Proteus replies. "What is this world, Count V? Why do we have to settle for being bound by things like that anymore?" There is a little smile, then. "Teleportation... might be closer than you think." Again, she shrugs, and this time she just turns away and begins walking off. "Don't work yourself to death, Att. If you do I'm going to be waiting at the Cathedral to beat the crap out of you for it."

Att definitely has to be the one to do the work. For all Whis is doing making sure he doesn't forget steps, the lion's share is on his shoulders. That's not to say that the constant resupplies aren't valuable, or necessary, because they're both of those things! But as for the manufacture of this... thing, this piece of art he's so obsessed with, even compelled to create, it's all on him in the end.

Which is why he's currently playing with molten slime-goop. He's got a thing like a big wooden spoon, and he's lifting and dropping it expectantly. Eventually, he nods, then makes hand gestures approximating menu commands, scrolling through a list. Jab-jab, two touches. Two things appear, then drop to the ground with a loud CLANG.

They're pieces of metal. It looks like they're battered and twisty pieces of metal to boot. The crafty among them might pick up the fact that they appear to be parts of a mold instead of chunks of scrap iron. Att fiddles with them underneath the glazier's tools, humming to himself again. He's back on his Queen kick, as per usual.

"Not much of a challenge if I have the resources to finish it handed to me, is it?" he asks V. Att looks up as Proteus withdraws. "I won't! After all, it's a long walk from there to here."

"You know" Seliana looks at Att. "No matter how many debuffs you have, if you die they all get cleared up. You feel fine again." She looks around at the others briefly, her expression unchanged. "Though most don't advise it." She does look back to Att. "But.. If you want to try.. You might be able to help me with my research.." She just leaves that hanging there. Her passive face not showing any gleam of hope. Definitely not.

As Whis points over at her she just stares back at the black haired woman, blinking a few times without responding. Then there is the comment about dreams and she responds. "When I sleep, it is somewhat like before for me. I'm myself, but world shift around me like a tangled story. I only remember snippets of the story when I wake." she looks off to the side, seeming to look into the distance. "When I'm dead.." she lapses into silence. "Perhaps another time.."

To Count V she lets out a quiet "Ahh, yes. I agree." She considers a moment, but then turns to watch as Proteus departs before turning back to watch as Att works.

"M!"
"O!"
"R!"
Whis obviously gets tired of the bit. "BID! Gahhh, this is morbid. You need to get cheese fries next time. Little bits of pickle on top. Or kimchi! Or..."

Whis makes that drooling 'slururp' sound with an inhalation of breath. "Well, you know. The good stuff." She finishes with an exhausted 'ehehee'.

"I wouldn't mind living for a while longer. Look, it's my silly little ritual, okay? If I die, I'll definitely tell you about it. Okay? Until then, well, P can work on life, and you can work on death, and I'll meet you in the middle somewhere."

"Whis has got me covered with fungus-based pharmaceuticals," Att says, waving off the suggestion 'just die maybe?' as if it was kind of a normal idea. "I don't want to waste the time being dead. It's why I need to get reminded to eat, right? Otherwise this whole thing will get set back even more, and I'm still..." He pushes out a breath. "...days, weeks away, I bet. Being dead, though... do you think it's just an area transition here?" He taps his lower lip with what looks like a chisel.

Att looks at Whis quizzically while he wrestles with the halves of the mold. "What's in the middle of life and death?" His eyebrows scrunch. "L... i... ath? De... fe? Liath, defe? Working retail?"

Att promptly laughs like a goblin for a solid thirty seconds. He gets zero work done in that time.

Seliana gives a little hum and to Whis she says "Okay. Just let me know." Then as Att interjects about the lost time she responds. "Oh, the 24 hour delay happens. You do want to make sure you are okay with losing some time and don't have anything coming up. That's the main problem with it. It would be so much better if it was still short like before." She laments in monotone.

She then moves a bit away to a stack of supplies that seems relatively flat and stable and tucks her dress carefully under herself as she sits. From this vantage she continues to watch Att work the dull red of her eyes leach away until they are a pure white.

"'Why do we have to be bound?' Because closed systems have rules. If we are in a different universe, then the rules are different, and there are things to discover and define. If we are in a computer, that changes things considerably. The limit of our bindings is simply the capacity of the computer itself. Computers have gotten pretty wild recently, though. Have you ever heard the notion that..." Count V gestures into the air, producing a series of sparkling lights that move about like a solar system, "it is likely that if simulations of reality are possible at all, it is more probable that we are a part of a simulation to begin with than that we are in 'prime' reality?"

"I think about these things. They just don't bother me in the slightest. As for teleportation /here/, that is not quite what I meant. But I would definitely like long-range transportation to be more practical." He adds.

To Att, he says, "That's arguable. Do you think that it was unchallenging for the Mona Lisa to be created? The Sistine Chapel? The Pyramids? The resources existed, the physics existed, the people existed. Putting it together then, must have been simple, yes?"

"Having what you need," he says, "is not diminishing the task in itself. That sort of thinking only exists in games like this."

Count V angles his staff towards Whiskey, prodding her lightly with it, "Given our circumstances, I wouldn't call this morbid at all. Your compromise is perfectly agreeable. And... Att, please think twice about dying deliberately. We do not know what the cost is, if there is to be a cost, but twenty four hours of quasi-nonexistence is disturbing enough itself."

"As for what's in the middle of Life and Death, that answer is simple. It is 'life-after-death', eternal life, that is life. Life as we understand it, /that/ is what is in the middle."

Count V smiles mysteriously, and lapses into deliberate silence.

"At this point, if he dies for science and that resets his progress, I'm for-reals killing whoever did that. It'd be the worst." Whis confirms.

She's prodded by a staff. "I really meant like, big life. Immortality. Between all the life and none of the life is 'enough', I guess."

"But V's answer is better. So let's do that."

"Dang foreign princes, being all mysterious and enigmatic at the drop of a hat..."

Att drops into muttering not-quite-obscenities after that. He'll be fiddling with aligning the mold for a while, too. It's sort of like an idle animation for his mouth.