Doctor Patient Confidentiality

    The necromancer was a terrible patient and the moment the doc wasn't looking he slippd out the window, climbed don the balcony and ran all the way back to Alne. Yeah not really, though Setsuna may have waited for the Doctor to turn in to the night and hobbled his way to Alne. Up the castle's stairs and then into his lab/room in which he passed out because well that entire thing was exhausting. Now however he simply sat staring out the window rubbing whatever he could find to pass as sand paper along a bone.
     Setsuna's pet is currently heavily chained to a wall who keeps making noises every few minutes with a sign above him that says 'Snowball'. Off to the side is maps of the Castle Eas territory that has a lot of X's over it. It seems the guy devoted a lot of his projects to staying busy. Finally though at the foot of Setsuna's chair is a pile of Saki bottles.

OH NO YOU DAMN DON'T.

Once it becomes clear that Setsuna has slipped away from his ABSOLUTELY MANDATORY RECOVERY BED, it doesn't take Prophylaxis long to begin the search. Fortunately, it isn't exactly hard to track a cripple hobbling their way through multiple towns, and tracking Setsuna back to headquarters of all places wasn't really a difficult task.

It's... kind of the easiest task in the world, actually. The doctor just had to ask the sentry at the gate whether he'd been by and that was that.

"I don't know why you thought you could get away," a voice says from the lab's arched entryway. "You might have snuck out while I was asleep, but you're still missing a damn leg." Prophylaxis sounds... just a little bit angry. JUST A LITTLE BIT. "What were you even thinking? Your wound could have opened back up. We have no idea what kind of long-term effects you might end up suffering."

Beat.

Prophylaxis looks to the skeleton on the wall, then to Setsuna, then back to the skeleton, then back at Setsuna.

"/Please/ tell me this isn't some really weird sex thing."

    " Long term effect of losing a leg is the loss of the leg last I checked. " Setsuna tosses back without missing a beat but he doesn't turn around yet, instead he continues to watch out the window for another couple of moments before breaking the silence again. "If I couldn't make it back here on my own I am pretty useless as an adventurer, as a summoner and a monster handler. Sides who knows death may have fixed me. " Setsuna places the bone aside and reaches down to pick up one of the bottles and tries to drink from it and finds it to be empty frowning and dropping it back to the ground.
    Finally Setsuna pushes himself out of his chair and does his best to turn around to meet the doctor eye to eye. Signs of exhaustion were obvious without even inspecting him and the necromancer slowly looks over to the Skeleton Knight and then back to Prophylaxis. " You really have a low opinion of me don't you? My title is necromancer, not necrophile. "

"You literally flirt with monsters and presently have one chained to the wall of your personal dungeon-slash-laboratory," Prophylaxis deadpans in reply. "If you didn't want to be interrupted, you could have at least put up a sign."

He sighs, shaking his head slowly. "And that excuse is hollower than that skeleton's cranium. The only thing that this flight into the night shows is a stunning capacity for reckless self-endangerment. There is a line between determination and madness, and hobbling out of the clinic on one leg and a city away definitely crosses it."

The exhaustion on the necromancer's face, though... That /is/ something worrying. "You've been up all night, haven't you? Setsuna, what is this really about?"

    Setsuna shrugs his shoulders with the final question, " I slept, kinda. Right there where you are standing. I hobbled in and passed out, or something like that. It takes a long time to limp through the wilderness and is rather exhausting. " He adjust himself to brace against the wall so he doesn't have to keep holding himself up. It appears that despite the obvious doctor's bedside nature Setsuna is continuing to face things with a rather hostile attitude which is certainly different from his jovial nature. " I've had a lot on my mind, and I'm sure in a different world I would be getting the line about how this is understandable and its a big life change and it will take time.... " He trails off looking at the floor before a softer voice asks, the hostility gone and instead replaced with a sudden amount of fear. " We are in a fake world right?"

"Usually that talk comes after the patient wakes up in their hospital bed, not after they hobble out into the wilderness for a day and a half." Prophylaxis looks every bit like he's been chasing the missing Necromancer for about that long. That frustration seems to be clouding his sense of emotional awareness, or perhaps just makes Setsuna's unusual hostility seem indistinguishable against the backdrop of Prophylaxis' own simmering anger.

But then he asks... that question.

Hooooh boy.

Prophylaxis goes quiet and sinks himself into the nearest chair-shaped object. "...I don't know anymore, Setsuna," he admits, quietly. "I had thought that the red energy that showed up when we're injured was just... Some way of abstracting something that the game couldn't properly render. But then those monsters hit you and Mizuki, and I could /see/ the arteries and the anatomy. I recognized all of it. It looked almost like the 'game' was overlaid on top of something terrifyingly real."

He looks to the necromancer then, looking every bit like the full weight of the world had been set upon his shoulders. "...So to answer your question, I don't know. But I do think it's much more 'real' than I had previously thought."

    Setsuna takes a deep breath and it gets stuck in his throat for a moment , his head still hanging down towards the floor as the room suddenly felt cold. Setsuna tries to work something else out to say, anything , every so often he manages to make a sound as if he is about to start saying something but then stops himself. Finally he manages something, " So then...what now?" It's all he can manage , it's really is the second most nagging thing in his head. The first being trying to focus on something to avoid thinking about the second. "Is Giganpor right? Do we seal the tower and stop climbing it ? Do we accept that this is our world now?"

That's the billion yen question, isn't it? What do they do now? Prophylaxis sighs-- he's been doing a lot of that, lately. With how heavy everything seems, how dire the situation has become, it feels like every act that isn't simply succumbing to despair is just absolutely exhausting. It's a feeling he knows too well-- and one he cannot allow himself to succumb to again. So he sets his jaw and clenches his teeth, and looks Setsuna in the eye when he answers: "No. No, we continue the climb. Whether what's at the top of the tower is salvation or damnation, what is clear is that every step we take, more of the world's true nature is revealed. If what awaits us is a way out, then so be it. If not, and all the chaos does is drag the truth out of where it has grown fat and comfortable, then so be it. But I will be damned if I allow us to sit still and wallow in our own misery when there are still steps we have yet to take."

"Köinzell was clear about one thing. If we take him at his word, then The Scrapped Princesses still live. That means the story of the heroes who overcame them is false-- and that the present status quo is playing into the hands of entities which all but certainly do not have our best interests at heart." Setsuna's missing leg is testament to that. "If this /is/ now our only world, and I'm not saying that it is, then we must at the very least reveal its true nature. And if climbing the tower pushes the envelope enough, destabilizes the world-as-it-is enough, that the masterminds must reveal themselves, then /that/ is reason enough as any to continue the climb. And if it /not/ our world, then maybe this long shot goal really is what we're looking for."

    Setsuna leans and listens to the doctor as he talks about the next steps, it was a good speech if nothing else. Enough to at least get Setsuna to stop looking at the floor and nods his head. " A single moment of hope. " It was said obviously for Setsuna's own ears versus any others, but when the only thing making noise is the two occupants it wasn't hard. It was something so Setsuna replies to another earlier comment made, his aggression deflated for now, " I only flirt with them because they are intelligent idiots. Intelligent Monsters, they are pretty rare, the ones I flirt with get flirted with because one catches more flies with honey. Information comes easier if I am enamored or act like it. The ants hive is in town in the move heavily guarded spot, they don't leave at least the majority. They don't have any form of but the shallowest personalities and they don't know how to deal with questions outside of there role very well. "
     Setsuna begins to do his best to fiddle with the chair to turn it as he continues, " The vampires , one of them took a kid. I had hoped they would take me so I could find the kid. Sadly , obviously it didn't work but it was worth a shot playing the fool to save the kid." Setsuna felt it was the least he could do to lay out reason to the doctor , his anger was pretty drained from his voice but the jovial jokes and sound in his voice doesn't return. Without second thought as he takes his seat again he picks up the bone he was working with and continues to slowly sand it down...what he wouldn't give for a dremel.

It was a good speech, if nothing else. Prophylaxis still can't help but to shake his head, though. "...I wish I knew for sure what was up there. But when we all arrived here, do you remember? That strange man said something about climbing the Tower, and... Of a gift that he left behind, and a curse. Whatever he meant, surely climbing the tower must hold the key to... at least understanding what it is he meant."

Or maybe they're walking right into someone else's hands... But even if that is indeed the case, what then? What can they do but keep moving forward?

He watches Setsuna as the necromancer continues to scrimshaw his bone. The explanation is... Valid, if nothing else. Prophylaxis shrugs, "You've done foolish things, Setsuna. But if those are your reasons, I can't exactly gainsay them. But... Let me at least check your status, make sure that you're not... Still bleeding out, or something."

Pharmacy is a hell of a skill sometimes. If he wasn't the person that he was... What would have happened to Setsuna back there? To Mizuki? He doesn't want to think too hard on it.

    Setsuna doesn't stop the doctur, nor does he stop the work. Truthfully , he probably doesn't even notice he is doing it but you know idle hands are the beasts plaything. " Curse , gift, whatever is up there. I hope the asshole who did this is up there too. " His eyes glance down to the missing leg and stares at it for a moment, " I don't know if it still hurts or not. In some way I'd swear it was there when I'm distracted enough. " Looking over at the map of the area around Fort Ouph , " So what do you think? Mount hunting dire wolves near Fort Ouph probably needs to be postponed hmm?"

"If any one person /is/ responsible for this. Honestly, I'd peg it as some lead developer accidentally pushing a button that they shouldn't have. Something about what rocking-chair man said seems to suggest some serious hubris was afoot." Prophylaxis mutters with all the huffiness of someone who has /definitely/ witnessed the kind of disasters that can only result from a gross overabundance of personal pride. It passes as bedside manner as he reaches out and conducts his scan...

And sees... something that wasn't there before.

"Phantom limb syndrome is normal. Your brain still has the connections that correspond with the nerves that no longer exist in your missing leg. Hopefully it... eventually grows back. Somehow. I know my arms have, but those were somewhat different circumstances." Beat. "Well. I know what's happening now, at least."

"Mujou..." Prophylaxis explains. "That's one of the Moonlight statuses. I think that you're going through something similar to what I did last month." What's this about Resonating with the Song of Earth though...? Maybe he should ask a Lander.

    Setsuna looks up , not even paying attention to his hands till sanding away trying to get a certain shape out of it. Maybe he could sand blast it to the shape he wanted somehow, they did that stuff back in the real world right. Either way the necromancer reesponds to the doctor as the comment about Moonlight. " But doctor I have no urge to suddenly ask to randomally treat people with expermental spells or alchemic reactions. I mean that happened months ago , and I was perfectly fine. " His eyes shift over to the knight before back to the doctor, " So phantom-limb, moonlight, and missing leg. So back to Tolbana for bed rest?"

"No, but an obsessive urge to pursue a particular personal project, to the exemption of pretty much everything else, including all good sense, /is/ symptomatic of the Moonlight... As far as I'm aware." Prophylaxis shakes his head slowly. "...I think the best way to treat it is to get it out of your system. So gather what you might need for that project, whatever you can safely bring to the clinic, and you have my permission to work on it there while you recover from your injuries and exhaustion. After that, we'll just have to make sure you don't forget to eat while you get... whatever it is done. Sound good?"

    Setsuna sighs and looks around before picking up the two bones and his carving tools. For now that would be all he would need and with that he would usher the doctor out the door before they would work on returning to the Tolbana clinic.