So here’s the deal:

You’re playing as Cocona Bartel, who for various reasons is now Servant Berserker. Things have gone somewhat wonky, and she’s not in a very good state right now, but it’s your job to fix that - possibly by using the Grail, I hear it grants wishes.

There are rules to this world, which may not be exactly the same as the ones you’re familiar with. Just to make things harder on you, Berserker isn’t familiar with them either, but there’s a bright spot: Since you elected to play as a Servant, you can request information from the grail, i.e. me.

For simple questions that you would know the answer to just by living in that world, I’ll just answer outright. For anything else, you’ll need to spend a Knowledge Point. The first five players will start with one each, and you may earn Player Points (which are convertible to KPs) via exceptional play, or through particular in-game events.

Exceptional play typically means deeds of high deduction, or clever write-ins. Write-ins are always an option, even if I sometimes forget to mention the option.

Knowledge Points will let you learn almost any knowledge that exists in-game. However, this comes at a cost: First, Cocona will automatically acquire (‘remember’) the same knowledge; second, the Knowledge Point will no longer be available for use. Choose wisely.

It is possible that I will refuse to answer, for reasons that would only be apparent if I did answer. In such a case, you are welcome to draw conclusions from that fact, and you will retain your point.

There are further rules, which I will not tell you about. This quest is, to a large degree, about discovery: You may choose to bully your way through obstacles, and given Cocona’s abilities it’s possible that you will succeed, but that will rarely give you the best possible outcome.

By the way, if you didn’t already guess, this quest involves combining Fate/Stay Night and Ar Tonelico. There are excellent wikis for both.

Infel 2013/03/31(Sun)12:06 No. 502954 ID: 94e610
File 136475676255.jpg - (47.30KB , 342x504 , Cocona.jpg )

Cold.. stings..

“Hey!”

You’re.. outside?

You’re on the ground, sleeping on your back. Well, not sleeping. You think you were supposed to be sleeping, but.. no, that’s wrong.

You were definitely not supposed to be outside, and this place is much colder than anything you’ve felt before. Painful, too, you feel like you’re lying on needles. Squeezing your eyes shut, you try to get your thoughts in order.

It doesn’t work, so you stop thinking for a moment.

“Hey! Wake up!”

Someone is shouting at you, but it doesn’t seem important. You’re tired.. if it wasn’t so cold, and if you were lying on something a little more comfortable, you’d rather just turn around and go back to sleep. That’s bad, though, you instinctively know you shouldn’t fall asleep like this. Need to wake up..

What exactly is going on anyway? Last you remember, you were.. you can’t remember. That should probably worry you, but somehow you lack the motivation. That should probably worry you, too, but it doesn’t.

Still, you’re lying.. on the ground, outside, on your back.. you’re getting wet. You should probably get up. Or at least open your eyes.

“Please, wake up!”

The voice sounds scared, now. It didn’t before, but there was a different emotion there.. you don’t quite understand, but you know it was worried. Still is, but now it’s also scared.

Cocona Quest Infel 2013/03/31(Sun)12:06 No. 502955 ID: 94e610
File 136475680032.jpg - (910.19KB , 1000x1252 , Illyasviel_von_Einzbern_full_837270.jpg )

A warm hand touches your face, and you open your eyes. Directly above you, maybe five centimeters away, you see a pair of red eyes framed by white hair. A girl, you think, although you’re not quite sure why. She looks scared, but it quickly changes to h̸̶̡͜à͠͝p͜͠͡͞͝p̡̕i̸̸͘n͠e͏̵ş҉s̵̢̛͢.. you can’t tell.

Experimentally moving your head, you note that you’re lying in the middle of a forest somewhere. The trees are of a type you’ve never seen before, seeming to have needles instead of leaves. If that’s what you’re lying on, there’s no wonder it stings.

You turn your head to the side, confirming that you are indeed lying on a bed of needles. Getting this out of your hair will take forever.. no, wait, that’s not the issue here. You’re lying on a bed of needles, in the middle of a (very cold!) forest, with a strange girl leaning over you. Your head still feels like it’s full of cotton, but you’re pretty sure this can’t be where you went to sleep, leaving aside that you don’t remember doing such a thing.

There’s also some white stuff on the ground and trees, which looks pretty, but you’re pretty sure it’s starting to melt and soaking what little clothing you have on. You didn’t realize ice could do this.. no, wait, there was a word for it, wasn’t there? Um.. snow. Right, snow, that’s it.

Lastly, there’s an enormous stone cleaver next to you, which strikes you as unusual.

…

You think for a second. The most important thing here is.. well, it has to be the girl, so you decide to study her for a bit before trying to stand up. You almost fool yourself into believing that’s not because you feel too weak to stand up, even.

She’s probably one of the prettiest girls your age you’ve ever seen. Right now, she’s wearing a complicated expression - you can make out worry, annoyance and..

You blank out for a moment, as a splitting pain pierces your mind, then mentally reboot.

She’s probably one of the prettiest girls your age you’ve ever seen. Right now, she’s wearing a complicated expression - you can make out worry, annoyance and happiness, you think?

Well, whatever. She’s not an immediate threat. Of more concern is the headache, the cold, your apparently broken memory, and where are you, anyway?

This is so boo.

What do?
[ ] Try to stand up. You’re absolutely freezing, and lying on the snow can’t help.
[ ] Study the girl for a bit.
[ ] Ask for help standing, you’re feeling pretty shaky and she looks potentially helpful.
[ ] Go back to sleep.
[ ] Write-in

>what do?
Get up out of the snow (carefully! You may be woozy with a head injury, and you don't know how back shape you're in), and talk to the girl. Find out what her name is, how she found you, where you are, what she's doing here, and if she knows anything about you because you're having some trouble with your memory at the moment.

How are you dressed? If you've unexpected been dumped into a snowscape, you may need to find proper clothes and/or shelter. Especially if you've been laying exposed to the elements in the snow for who knows how long.

>blah blah blah expected preexisting knowledge, blah blah rules
Don't know a thing about the source material, but I'm not letting that stop me!

And thanks for the shiny knowledge cookie thing.

Shiny knowledge cookie thing, right.. which I will not be able to map back to you because you don't have a name.

I know it's untraditional, but could you possibly pick a nickname for this thread? Otherwise I foresee heartbreak, and will amend the rules to require consensus to use the 5 (five) points remaining in the pool.

>>502960
>get clothes
Sounds about right. So, that girl's clothes look suited to this environment. Don't you think you like it, Cocona? Transform your affection of those clothes into power, and make yourself some clothes!

>source material
Ar Tonelico. Google it.

>>502961
Like this?

>>502964
..that will do. Please don't destroy the world yet.

Next update will be after there are five votes, or tomorrow, whichever comes first. I'll decide on the KP rules then, depending on whether anyone else picks a name.

ask for help. she has already seen you knocked out, so it's not like asking will make you seem even weaker in her eyes.

>>502967
New quests like this typically take a while to pick up, especially when it's a text quest.

With that said, try to get up, and ask for help if you have trouble.

>>503103
No, it's not that. It's just that the name he picked could be read as "With sadness, and due to the world's anger, I will commit suicide".

That, or "I will destroy the world so it stops being angry at me, but I'll be unhappy about it".

I'll let you figure out what to do about the KPs yourself. Now writing..

Infel 2013/04/01(Mon)17:59 No. 503346 ID: 94e610
File 136486434836.jpg - (80.34KB , 450x1000 , at2-cocona-vatel.jpg )

[x] Transform your affection of those clothes into power, and make yourself some clothes!
You’d love to, really, but figuring out how to do that.. from scratch.. would take you at least a few hours. Maybe even a full day, you’ve never tried before. You’re cold now.

[x] How are you dressed?
You’re dressed normally, almost like in the picture. You even brought your field armor, even if it’s wrapped around your waist at the moment. Your shoes seem to be missing, though.

It’s way too cold for this mode of dress, but you’ve literally never been anywhere that’s unpleasantly cold before. It’s a new, not altogether welcome experience, like touching an ice cube but over your entire body.

[x] Get out of the snow, carefully. Ask for help if needed.
Well, first things first. You can figure out where you are and how you got there later, right now not freezing to death is probably a priority. This place is like something out of a story, so storybook dangers might be real too.

Putting thought to action, you painstakingly pull your legs beneath you before trying to stand up. As exhausted as you feel.. no, that’s not right. You’re not physically exhausted, just mentally; your legs obey you easily enough, when you manage to tell them what to do, but the only comparison you have for your mental state is as if you haven’t slept in days, and had to fight for most of them.

So you easily pull your legs beneath you, easily push off the ground, and react far too slowly to catch yourself when the snow shifts beneath you to topple you over, landing on your side back in the snow. It’s fluffy, as soft as a pillow, and really cold. You decide that you hate it.

You can at least twist around to lie on your back, and do so, putting your hair between your face and the horrible, horrible substance you’re lying on.

The girl stepped back when you were trying to get up, but is now standing over you again, showing no problem whatsoever getting around. Good for her, you’ll have to ask her how. Her face has gone back to showing fear, or.. well, you think it’s fear.. could be concern. With fear mixed in.

You stick your hand up, and she takes it, pulling you to your feet pretty easily.

"Are you okay?” she asks. “I was expecting.. well, never mind. Something's gone wrong. Can you talk?"

Can you talk? Um.. probably. Yes, your mind is still foggy, but you think you can. You’re awake enough to be worried about that now, though; any normal sleepiness should have long since faded, but you’re still having trouble thinking.

"Hrrk", you say. "Grae hrrk."

That's not right.

Your voice is rusty, but not that rusty. The words just aren't coming out the way you want, you were trying to say “hrrk”, and.. what? No! You almost panic, and your headache spikes for a second, but you decide to try again first.

"Yes? Probably. Sorry, it seems like I'm not quite here. The summoning must be incomplete, but I'm sure I can persevere."

You feel better already, and the girl's face lights up at your words, but you’re not badly enough out of it to miss the reference to a summoning. Which.. sort of matches your memories, only they’re not quite yours? It’s as if someone stuffed a dictionary into your head, but it’s pretty hard to read, and you can easily tell the difference between the extra memories and your own. That’s.. odd, and you wonder if it has something to do with your damaged memories.

The girl would be your summoner, then. You wonder who she is. Well, you’re not going to start listening to her just because of that, but it might be a good idea to pretend you will, just for a starting point.

[x] Head injury?
You’ve had head injuries before, and it’s never affected you like this - or at all, actually - but just in case, you carefully check around your head while trying to get some of the needles out of your hair.

Nothing, except your hands are shaking badly.

[x] Where exactly are you?

Now that you’re at least standing on your own (very cold, it needs stressing) feet, you decide to take a look around first.

It’s quite the view.

You're in a clearing on a low hill, in a forest that would be more at home in a children's tale than reality. The trees are larger than anything you've seen before, and the forest itself stretches on impossibly far into the distance. Trying to remember is almost painful, but you're sure you've never seen anything like this before. The trees aren't any kind of tree you've seen, either, making you wonder if the entire scene is somehow made up.

To complete the fairy-tale picture, you can see a U-shaped castle to your left, a few hundred meters away.

Standing in front of you is a white-haired girl with red eyes, wearing a white dress. You've only just met her, but you feel you can trust her already. At least, she seemed genuinely concerned earlier.

Now that you're on your feet, you can tell she's about half a head taller than you, but only because you're not wearing your shoes at the moment. If you were, she'd only be a few centimeters taller.

You think you’d like to put your armor on now, to heat up, but there’s something you should do first. You at least send a quick burst of fire magic down to your feet, though, thawing them out and incidentally producing a small circle of melted snow.

Having taken care of the essentials, you refocus on the girl, who looks a little impatient.

[ ] There's something you're supposed to say. Introduce yourself.
[ ] “Hi! I’m Cocona, thanks for helping me up. What’s your name?”
[ ] "Can we go somewhere else? Somewhere warmer, maybe?"
[ ] Run away, this situation is all kinds of wrong. There might be someone in the castle who can help.
[ ] Write-in.

>>503337
>Can't make clothes from magic
Well that sucks. Dynamic clothing change is one of the funnest parts of being a Reyvatiel. You should learn how to do so at the first opportunity. Still, since you're cold now, make a fireball or five. That should be a good source of centralized warmth, until you are ready to craft a clothing change magic.

Then, >[X] There's something you're supposed to say. Introduce yourself.

Let's get the procedure over with. After that, start marching determinedly over to the castle. That place has the possibility of being warm, nee?

>dressed normally
Sure. 'Normal'. Hardly winter appropriate, though.

>What do?
Introduce yourself, find out who she is, and why she summoned you. Do... whatever it is the summoning ritual requires of you. You know there's something, and she's waiting for it. Then inquire about maybe moving somewhere where you aren't so freezing to death. Or could get some better clothes. And boots. Boots would be nice. And gloves. You're gonna need nice gloves to wield a cold metal blade in this environment...

>Well, you’re not going to start listening to her just because of that
Well, what else have you to do? You're in her world now, and she brought you here.

>Information dumped like a book in your head
Start flipping through that. Review what you know. Figure out what you know about the situation, and what holes are unclear to you.

>>503356
I have nothing to add right now other than seconding this.

Wielding metal blades
You quite like the weapon(s) you’re already wearing, thank you.

Batons that transform into hairclips are far more useful than some clump of metal. They’re not just weapons, they have a use outside of combat - making you look cuter. Plus, like almost everything else you own they’re made of active matter, making them self-repairing, self-heating, and almost impossible to lose your grip on if you don’t mean to.

Besides, a young girl walking around with a sword would raise too many eyebrows.

[X] There's something you're supposed to say. Introduce yourself.

It’s cold, and you’re shivering badly. Heat is imperative. You consider making fireballs to keep you warm, but while that would certainly be fast, you’re worried you might set yourself on fire instead; they’re meant for combat, and you don’t have that kind of control yet, especially in your current state.

Fortunately, there’s a better option in your robe. Like the rest of your armor, it has a built-in thermocouple, which usually gets used for cooling but is certainly capable of keeping you warm in a pinch. You really should introduce yourself first, but putting that on will only take a second, so you untie it from around your waist and start to shrug it on.

”Upon your summoning, I have come forth. I ask of you, are you my master?”

The last bit comes out rather muffled, as you are simultaneously wrapping your robe around yourself, and had managed to get part of it around your head. There was also an impulse to get down on one knee, but this place looks entirely too cold for that.

The girl looks on with a.. bemused expression before nodding to herself, seemingly coming to a decision. Suddenly looking more serious, she responds firmly. “Yes, I am. My name is Illyasviel von Einzbern, but you can call me Ilya.” Then she shivers visibly, for a moment. “..I find myself in need of a hot drink, so we shall continue our discussion inside.”

The impulse that made you introduce yourself like that is gone, but well worth thinking about, so you don’t think twice about following her when she turns towards the castle in the distance. If anyone’s going to know what’s going on, it’s her. Should have figured the castle was hers, too.

Besides, although the fire magic and your armor are keeping you from outright freezing, walking barefoot through deep snow is still pretty cold. The promise of heat, alone, might have been enough to make you follow.

You’re not sure what to make of the girl who considers herself your master. It’s not a sentiment you can agree with, but she can’t be all bad if she’s unhappy about this weather, plus she looks like a storybook princess like this. You’ll follow her around for a bit, at least.

=====

It’s not a long walk to the castle, but you find it almost impossible not to be distracted as you walk. Life, life everywhere.. even frozen like this, you can tell from the contours of the terrain that there has to be at least several meters of soil above the ground, and you can’t even see the edge of the forest from here.

The ringing in your ears makes it hard to tell, but you’re not sure there’s any noise at all. Normally, you’d at least hear the grinding of gears, but the only thing you can hear is yourself. Nothing at all like your hometown Pastalia, the only thing that might compare is when you visited a hotel near the Edge with Ç̨̀͡r҉̶̷̨͟.̢͢͝͠.̶̀͢.̵̧͘͜

The world stops moving for a moment as blinding pain shoot through your head, and your mind fills with fragmented nonsense, making you lose track of what you were thinking.

Trembling, you almost fall, but recover at the last second, only skidding a few centimeters forward. Ilya is walking well ahead of you, and doesn’t seem to notice.

You recover enough to keep walking on autopilot, but it’s a near thing, and your head feels more clouded than ever before.

This is bad.. that was much worse than last time. You’re going to be useless in combat like this.. no, if it happens again you might just collapse. The shock also stopped the trickle of magic you were using to keep your feet warm, and right now you really don’t feel up to re-establishing that; you really would burn yourself to a crisp. No choice, then.

“..Ilya”, you force out. “Hold on a minute.”

“Yes?” she starts, but seems to sense something in your tone, turning around to look at you. When she does, she gasps and almost runs back towards you. Apparently your condition is even more visible than you thought.

“You, er.. aagh, Servant! Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“..call me Cocona,” you manage deliriously, finally introducing yourself on your own terms. “..don’t feel so good. Help me inside?”

Ilya seems to have forgotten that she’s supposed to be a princess, as she frantically pulls off her coat to cover you up a little better before slipping under one of your arms to help you walk. You try to tell her there’s no point, your own armor already keeps everything the coat covers toasty warm, but you’re not sure she can make out what you’re saying anymore.

You make much better time back to the castle with Ilya helping you balance, but you black out almost the moment you get into the heat and can relax. Your last impression is of an older girl holding the door open for the two of you.

=====
M͟a ̕num̛ ģa̧ 0x͝ ͠v͝vi͟.̴ ẃàse r̴ȩ ͟x.̀y.̷n͘. an͢w̶ ̕ciel̢ ͘nn̴o҉i /. wa̴se̵ re̸ x͝.̢y͘.n҉.͢ ̧a̡nw̶ ciel͟ dr̨i̢ /. g̵ral ҉r҉e ̶x͢.̢y.n͜.̸ ̢anw͟ ̢ci͞èl ̀oct̡ e͏n̡ ͜ne͞i͞ /. ҉fan̷d͜el ̸r̀e ͝x.͠y͡.n̕.̷ ҉a͢ǹw ̛in͞nn͘a /. y.y. z҉z̕ ar͞h͝ou /. ja̛ss͝ j̴ue̕l /. 1x͝ A͢As ixi̧.̛
=====

“I don’t know, I can’t find anything wrong. The prana tap is working fine, and although I needed a spell to figure out that it’s taking any prana at all, that just seems to be because she doesn’t need much. Her body is perfectly okay, as far as I can tell; there’s no frostbite, no injuries, nothing. This is all my fault, I must have made a mistake in the summoning.. there’s no Cocona in any of the books. I can’t have summoned some random girl, right?”

..the first words you hear as you regain consciousness are Ilya’s, sounding frantic with worry. You want to tell her it’ll be fine, you can take care of yourself, but honestly you’re only feeling a little better than before. Your mind seems to be back in what passes for working order, though, so you decide this will be a good time to interrupt her monologue.

“No, that’s impossible, the Throne wouldn’t allow it. There has to be -”

“Ilya?” you ask, sitting up in the bed you’ve been put in. It’s a pretty nice bed, too, a four-poster; you’ve seen them before, but never slept in one. Someone’s removed most of your armor, so you could almost believe that you were back home and the cotton filling your head just sleepiness, if the room wasn’t full of strangers. There are two older girls standing guard in either corner of the room, while Ilya is pacing back and forth, talking to herself.

“Cocona, you’re awake! How are you feeling? Sella, get some tea.” That last addressing one of the extras.

Feeling? Could be better - you think you need at least one night’s sleep, if not more, but you’re pleased that she remembered your name and you’re not about to fall over any longer. You tell her as much.

“That’s.. good,” she responds, sitting down on one side of the bed to address you directly.

“Listen. I obviously did something horribly wrong with the summoning, so I’m not sure if it worked, but you’re supposed to have the basics of the situation inserted in your head. Servants, Holy Grail, Grail War, etc. Is any of that.. ringing a bell?” she asks pensively, looking at your face.

That’s.. well, if that’s what caused this, you’re going to be angry at Ilya no matter how much she helped you lately, but you’ve learned not to jump to conclusions. None of the terms used are familiar, but..

“Um, not as such, but I can tell there’s definitely something stuck in my head. I can’t really tell what’s in there, there’s too much noise, but that first introduction? Definitely from there. Oh, and I guess I’m servant Berserker; also from there.”

Ilya flinches, as if struck. What did you say? “I.. see. I’ll need to do some research, but I.. think I know what the problem might be. Unfortunately we’re on a time limit, but we should have at least a month.. okay.” She takes a deep breath, clearly trying to calm down. “For now, I’ll answer any questions you have, you can have a cup of tea, and.. we’ll talk in the morning.”

Tea sounds good, definitely. So do answers.

What do you want to ask?
[ ] You mentioned the Grail War, earlier. What is that, exactly?
[ ] Same, but without writing that all out here. You might already know OOC.
[ ] Ask about Ilya herself. Life, etc.
[ ] Ask how you got here.
[ ] It can wait. Just drink the tea and go to sleep.
[ ] Write-in

>no swords
Sorry, I assumed the enormous cleaver mentioned earlier was yours. My bad.

>some random girl
That's not right, is it? You're a warrior, and you've got magic weapons and clothes. You have been summoned before, right?

>reluctance to help or obey "master" who may be at fault
I can understand that impulse, but obviously she needed your help with something important. Regardless if she screwed up, she's trying to help you now, and ultimately, if something needs to be done, and you're the only one who can do it, you're going to.

>What ask?
Accept the tea, and then get comfortable and ask for the infodump. The big picture important magic stuff, the small picture details of who she is and how you got here, and maybe what she thinks is wrong.

Then later, assuming you can walk again, you're going to have to ask for some wardrobe augmentation. You need clothes to cover the parts of you the armor doesn't cover. Something with long sleeves. Pants. Boots. (And uh, some nice warm socks inside those boots).

(So, uh, basically everything but b and e).

>[X] Same, but without writing that all out here. You might already know OOC.
7 Masters and 7 Servants/Heroes, blah blah, kill everyone else so Great Grail has resources to grant wish, yadda yadda.

>[X] Ask about Talk with Ilya about herself. Life, etc.
Respond with your own life, how snow is horrible and while Metafalss' water problems, current and historical and mythical, sucks majorly at least there isn't any wicked, deceitful, treacherously cold snow there, etc.. i.e. Engage in conversation and deepen the bond between the two of you. Then, when you are feeling tired, flop onto Ilya and go to sleep. Can you tell that I want to play with Song Magic?

it's harder to squeeze extra magic out of another girl. you can't... 'connect' with each other to the same 'depth'.

>>503615
You, sir, lack imagination. I assure you, it is eminently possible for Ilya to connect with Cocona at the same depth that Croix can. (That is, Level Zero, the material. Cocona's just entering puberty. Neither she nor her Cosmosphere have developed to the extant that the difference in closeness would be noticeable.)

Let's not kid ourselves with the innuendo, shall we? There's no need for the quotes: the statement works on every level.

...geeze, the amount of annoying OOC information being thrown around is starting to reach Lunar Quest levels. :/

Seriously, just give us the infodump. Or use a disthread to ground this kind of stuff.

>>503618
I'm happy to do either one. You can consider the second an extension of [b]. Votes are votes, though.

>>503617
Right, Cocona's Cosmosphere. Um.
..no, never mind, nothing to worry about I'm sure.

Actually, have http://tgchan.org/kusaba/questdis/res/69648.html

If you still decide to do an on-screen info-dump, that's fine, but let it not be said I don't try to minimize those.

Just do a proper infodump either in here or the questdis and move on.

Infel 2013/04/03(Wed)17:11 No. 503745 ID: 94e610
File 136503428827.png - (652.51KB , 800x600 , einzbern castle - exterior.png )

(einzbern castle - exterior.png)
[x] Accept tea
[x] Discuss anything and everything, but starting with the big picture.

There’s a lot you’d like to ask, starting with what she thinks might be wrong with you. It’s not the first time something like this has happened to you, and there’s a definite resemblance, although your earlier I.P.D. outbreak was in some ways a far less severe problem. There’s no point in having Ilya chasing down blind alleys, so you’ll start by making sure she knows the basics about how you work.

The rest can probably wait for morning. Your mind feels.. odd, like there are stripped gears slipping and catching, parts you didn’t know you had compensating for the ones that aren’t working. You really hope sleep will help.

While you’re thinking that, Sella comes back with two cups of tea. Ilya takes one, and you gratefully accept the other, noting as you do that your hands seem to be obeying instructions again.. at least, you’re not trembling anymore, though you take the cup with rather less grace than usual.

Ilya looks almost equally grateful for the cup; she’s under a lot of stress, if you’re any judge. Because of you, though from what you can tell this is originally her doing.

The tea is delicious, but you’re not that thirsty, so you get down to business after just a few sips.

“You said you might have some idea of what’s wrong with me. I don’t know myself, but there are a few things you should know that might matter. Do you know what a Reyvateil is?”

Ilya shakes her head, so you tell her everything you remember on the subject, Ilya looking increasingly befuddled as you go along. Surprisingly, she doesn’t have much trouble understanding what you’re saying, although you have to explain what artificial intelligence is at one point and she makes a half-hearted comparison to golems for you to shoot down. She accepts the notion readily enough, explaining that she’s a homunculus herself, and that although demigods and such are more common, it’s not at all unusual for a Servant to be more than human.

“You’re a lot like me, really.”

That’s a phrasing you can get behind; ever since you broke out, you’d been worrying that people would see you as less than you were. It’s a silly thought, with almost ten percent of the population being Reyvateil, but it’s one you couldn’t quite put aside. Having been quarantined for I.P.D. at the same time didn’t exactly help, you suppose. Explaining the mechanics of thati seems to settle a question she was about to ask, and she explains that the Berserker class has to be someone who’s previously gone berserk. Which is all well and good, except you still have no idea what that means. Asking in the morning seems like a good idea.

You finish the tea before the monologue, but the energy your brief sleep gave you already seems to be disappearing, so you decide to let Ilya talk about herself for a bit.

“Me? I don’t know.. what would you like to know?”

“Just.. talk about yourself? The only thing I know about you is your name, really.”

“Well, okay, I guess I can do that.” Liar, you’re smiling. “Oh, but you also know I’m a homunculus. That’s not really my favorite subject, though, so let’s skip that.”

“Then, let me introduce myself again,” she says, jumping down from the bed and doing a quick bow. “Illyasviel von Einzbern, seventeen years old, strongest contestant in this war and current master of this castle. Nice to meet you!”

You follow along with some bemusement. “Cocona Bartel, twelve years, ..wait, what?” Did she just say seventeen? She’s your age, you’re sure she’s your age. “Seventeen? I thought you were my age?”

Ilya pouts, sitting back down. “It’s part of being a homunculus, I guess. I told you it’s not my favorite subject. Oh, but we’re still almost the same age, right?”

You beg to differ, but decide not to make an issue of it. “I guess.”

“So anyway, call me Ilya. You’ve already met Sella, and this -” she motions to the second maid, who’s been standing in one corner of the room all along “- is my bodyguard, Leysritt. Though I’m sure she’s nowhere near as good as you are - no offense, Leysritt - well, as soon as we get you fixed up a bit. It’s just the three of us in the castle - four, now.”

In a castle this size? Hm. “What do you do all day, if it’s just the three of you? School?”

She looks crestfallen for a moment, but answers quickly. “No school. Sella and Leysritt sometimes tutor me, but mostly I study on my own. We’ve got a nice library, and there used to be other people here I could talk to.” You follow her gaze to the walls of the room, which are more or less packed with bookcases, most of them containing fairly thin, new-looking books, and she blushes a little. “The grail war takes place in Japan, so I’ve spent quite a bit of time getting familiar with their culture.”

The next half passes like that, Ilya chit-chatting about this and that, while you give her more and more time between prompts. Finally you close your eyes for a moment, and when you open them again you’re lying on the pillow instead of sitting, feeling a little dizzy.

“That’s why Mars would win. Fire always comes out on top, don’t you think.. Cocona?”

You give her a thumbs-up, but fail to keep your eyes open and quickly drift off.

“Oh.. Good night, then. See you in the morning.”

A shift in the bed betrays Ilya standing up, and the room goes dark as the afternoon sun is blocked out after a whispered conversation in the corner, but by that time you’re already fast asleep.

=====

Interrupt

You’re standing in total darkness, on top of a landscape of intricately crafted gearwork. To your left there are two layers of badly damaged, screaming machinery, with something almost-functional sandwiched between. The furthest part is on the shore, with acidic ocean waves rising upwards and slowly dissolving parts of the machinery.

Beneath you, and to your right, everything appears functional, but to the far right there’s an enormous blast crater where a volcano seems to have gone off, destroying a fourth of the landscape.

Everything is colored in off-white rainbow light, the red and yellow flickering madly. It’s painful to look at, so you tell the yellow light to stop, and it does, the red growing steadier and the acid receding a little.

You’re Cocona, but you don’t know who that is. You have no memory. Something is whispering in your ear.

What do you do?
[ ] .....
[ ] .....
[ ] .....

Okay. If I had to guess, Cocona, you're dreaming, and what you're seeing is a representation of your damaged mind.

Let's see if we can do something about that! Or at least learn something that might help us do something about that, later.

Survey the damage. Is there anything that looks like it can be easily repaired or fixed? What about the thing jammed between the screaming gears to the left? Something stuck is a nice, physical problem to be fixed. You just get it out.

>>503747
You look to your left.

What's jammed between the layers of broken machinery is a layer of working machinery. Mostly working, as it seems to be largely shut down in the areas close to the broken layers.

The layer closest to you on your left has stopped moving, but the broken parts are slowly re-arranging themselves. Some of the gears move as you look at them, giving you flashes of memories.

The layer closest to the shore is still being eaten away, but slower now.

Is there anything to be done with the machinery to your left? Can the intact portion be moved or extricated so the damaged portions are no longer grinding against it?

If not, maybe you could watch the parts that are reshaping themselves? See what memories they bring (or recover).

I don't suppose you can will things to happen here? Can you make the sea of acid recede? If you can't fix things yet, at the very least, it would be nice to stop further damage.

You're doing this wrong, the acid is part of your resources, and the problem is one of disorganization. Put the acid back into the power systems containment where it belongs and then do a more careful damage assessment.

Studying the area more intently, you realize that it's really more of a globe, each layer surrounding the neighboring layers on all sides except the furthest one. It works the same way to your right, although since two entire layers are completely missing, the area that's exposed to the environment is much larger.

Looking outwards to your left, you can tell you're surrounded by a vastly larger ocean, which is held at bay by massive bulwarks and force fields in the furthest layer - you think you'll call it the barrier layer. Most of the damage you can see there doesn't seem to have been caused by the outside, but rather by some immense power forcing its way out from the inside, and it's repairing itself as you watch. At the same time, acid from the ocean is forcing its way in through cracks, slowly shrinking the entire layer as it dissolves the relatively more vulnerable internals. On balance, things are slowly getting worse.

Thinking back, the red glow from there seemed to brighten when the yellow glow dimmed.

You study the ocean for a moment, but when you do it starts roiling and forcing its way inwards, so you quickly look away. The only thing you got was flashes of impressions, anger and sadness - not yours. It doesn't feel like a power source at all.

The second layer is far more fragile-looking, a delicate tracery of microscopic gearwork, but it is also completely undamaged. Looking at it reminds you of how you relate to other people; it is the mask you wear, and your personality. You think maybe you could move it, but you don't know what that would do.

The third, closest layer seems to contain most of your memories, and is currently shut down by your own command. Somehow, you're still able to think about this place without it, and you still have language, but that's about all. Whenever you look closely at part of it, the gearwork starts moving, making you remember whatever memory was stored there - the moment you look away, you forget.

Stopping it also stopped your headache, though, and like the barrier it seems to slowly be repairing itself, the intact parts moving to avoid the damaged parts and form a functional system of their own. It's mostly older memories - your childhood, training with the Knights, etc. Nothing that explains how this happened.

To your right -

Somehow, looking in that direction is also looking outwards, but it's a different outwards. There are two functional layers, though you can't make out what they do, but after that.. there's a gaping hole, with scorched machinery bordering absolutely nothing. You see no movement or regrowth.

Maybe two layers out from that, there's an impossibly bright light, surrounding you and being surrounded by you. Simply looking at it makes you feel full of energy, and you form the hypothesis that it's what's responsible for the catastrophic damage, somehow. Fortunately it seems placid, showing no signs of wanting to finish the job.

By inference there's one last layer to examine, so <<ERROR: LOOP>>

You don't think you can do that. Hopefully it's in good working order.

There's a voice whispering in your ear, which you can now tell comes from the deeper layers to your right.

Round 2/5 finished

Okay. So to sum up:

*An inert, outside energy source, possibly the cause of the damage.

*A creeping acid, connected to primal destructive emotions, not yours. And interacting with it only hastens the process.

*Memory layer being damaged- shut down to try and slow the process and protect it from chewing itself up.

*Personality layer, safe. For now. A deeper, censored layer as well.

Hypothesis: maybe the damage isn't all due to the flawed summoning that brought you here. Could the power in the sky be from the tower? That which makes you Reyvateil, but is also slowly killing you?

And if the role of of the berserker is tied to anger and emotion, perhaps that's where the acid comes from?

Concentrate on the voice, for now. We need more than just speculation if we're going to accomplish anything here, and if something is trying to tell you something it is probably important.

You might want to put some text in the subject line to help people tell your updates separate from suggestions.

It looks like the most urgent problem right now's the acid. (And I'm pretty sure that's IPD at work, nasty stuff.) So you need to focus on fixing your barriers to keep that acid out.

Okay, so, the most urgent thing to do is to neutralize the acid. Since it is anger and sadness (and, I would say, anxiety, fear, despair, hatred, sorrow, grief--all the negative emotions that contribute to your Berserker class) too great for you to safely handle on your own, and you don't have anyone here to help you resolve it, I think that containment is the only real path for you right now.

The only thing known to be able to handle the acid are the bulwarks and forcefields. I don't suppose you can construct some of those from where you are? You can use the absolutely damaged machinery and re-purpose them into something resembling functional barriers, maybe. If you can, what should be done is to drain out the acid from where it currently is in your mind, and separate it into easier-to-handle (relatively) little packets. There should also be pathways to outside your mind, leading from the acid, to ensure that you have a way to get rid of the acid once it is not wrecking your mind. (Possibly, use the acid to power destructive Song Magic? The feelings you get from the acid lends itself quite to lashing out at the world. Though, maybe that isn't the best way to do things; lashing out doesn't make you really feel better, does it?)

If you can't adequately reform the barriers, perhaps transformative systems would work? That is, channel the acid into constructive ends and turn it into something else? Even if it isn't an energy source as it currently is, perhaps you could make it so. Is there any dream that you wish to see come true? As a person raised in the culture of Metafalss, you should believe in the cultural dream of Metafalica. A green paradise, a place where suffering and tragedy need not exist--could you venture into your personality and memory layers, looking into your motivations, and then craft a system replicating your drive to attain Metafalica which would make use of the acid as an motivational force? The raw emotions of anger and sadness could perhaps lend themselves toward a drive to create a better world, where the source of the pain could be resolved.

If you can't gather the materials or energy to accomplish one (or both) of the two options above, perhaps you could take it from somewhere else? You have two possible energy sources: the bright light beyond the deepest recesses of your mind, and the kaleidoscopic light from beyond your barriers. You probably don't have the authorization to access the energy from the bright light, since it apparently didn't even respond when you looked at it though everything else in your mind did, but worth a try. Perhaps something like "I'm am Cocona Bartel, recently awakened Reyvateil. I am grievously hurt, and pray for energy to heal myself. I wish to live, and so ask for healing." If it doesn't respond, that's okay. If it does, and starts to give too much--ah, perhaps redirect it into the repair systems of the barriers and/or any other layers? And then divert the flow back into the source.

The light from beyond your barriers, since it may possibly be from your Song Server--well, perhaps carefully craft your desire to live, and your love of life and your dreams, into a song of healing, which would be powered by the light?

[x] Do something about the acid


Easier said than done. You'll certainly do your best, you're just not sure how. Reviewing what you've seen so far, it seems that the less work the rest of your mind is doing, the better the barriers work. You can't control the layers below you, and if you turned off your own layer you'd have no control over what happens afterwards, so there's really only one choice here.

(h҉͡ȩ̕y̢͡,̢̧ ̛w͜a͢it͢!)

Having made up your mind to some degree, you reach out mentally and - shut down the second layer.

<<sensory>> The light dims slightly, shifts towards the blue and red ends of the spectrum. <<hypothesis>> The light effects represent the overall activity of Cocona's mind, the spectrum where that activity happens. <<sensory>> The barrier layer has stopped shrinking, reaching a balance with the surrounding environment.

(r̡e͏͟àl̢l̴y̴̛͠?̢́ ̢̀͝w͝h̨́͠ỳ̷'d̀ ́yó̷u͜ h̷̀á͠͡v͢e ̡͞t́ò.͠.͏̛)

<<prediction>> Barrier layer is not regenerating. Lacking frontend modules, primary consciousness is inoperable. <<planning>> Insufficient internal resources to further improve regeneration. Requesting suggestions for reduced environmental influence or external support.

I̢d͘i͠ot. f͢i̛ne͢, ̀I̵ g͡iv̧e̷.̀

<<sensory>> Anomalous input detected. Humanoid, small, pink, red, blue.

"I can see I have to step in personally. Honestly, Cocona, did Jacqli teach you nothing?"

<<query>> Identity?

"Nenesha. Your mind guardian, even if we're never supposed to meet like this. Look, I can see you're in a real mess, but this isn't the best way to fix it. Do you mind if I take control and fix it for you?"

<<logic>> IPD Reyvateils have no mind guardians. Incorrect input.

"..it's a long story. Look, do you want help or not?"

Soulspace turn 3/?? completed

>Look, do you want help or not?
<<logic>>There are insufficient resources and/or information needed to exact repairs. A request for outside support was made. This anomalous input offers this support. Time is an important parameter, and no other options present themselves.

<<response>> Affirmative.

By the way, I'm not exactly the same entity as the in-story Nenesha - I guess you can call me meta-Nenesha - but I do share all her memories, if not vice versa.

Which is why I know that you should definitely trust her.

Yes, help's needed.

>Insufficient internal resources
Well, I suppose when Cocona wakes up, she can ask Ilya to forcibly dump prana into Cocona.

Since there isn't another resource provider currently available, assistance from Nenesha is the only current recourse.

<<logic>>There are insufficient resources and/or information needed to exact repairs. A request for outside support was made. This anomalous input offers this support. Time is an important parameter, and no other options present themselves.

<<response>> Affirmative.

"Well, of course you do. It's the obvious choice, and I don't suppose you're in shape for creative solutions right now. Goddess, this is such a mess, I don't know what we were thinking. Wish I could blame that brother of yours, but I don't suppose it'd have made much of a difference in the end. I just.. wish it had never come to this, I guess."

<<query>> Ping

"Oh, don't get your imaginary panties in a bunch. This might be the last thing I ever do, so you can at least let me procrastinate in peace. Which, yes, is what I'm doing. Right. Let's get to it, then. Well, this had better work, or we're both unbelievably screwed."

Wee ki ra hymme enne tes ADDR_KOKONA_0x781

<<RPC>> Authority delegation request (NewMint v.19) { target: "*", duration: "1d", source: "TkVORVNZQV9URUlXQVJfS09LT05B" }

<<RPC:channel 4>> Streaming response, delegation established

"Just like that. Nothing to it. Cocona, afterwards you need to.. no, never mind. You wouldn't remember anyway, would you.. well, I'll see if I can leave a few hints somewhere. Mir, you'd better be right about this, or I swear to Frelia, I'm going to find some way to haunt you after I catch up with Infel. Ugh, at least remember to turn everything back on, or you're not going to wake up."

Was granme erra enter ADDR_0x80 Wee yant wa rre yorra slepir yanje omnis Fou paks ga 0x62 0x7 => exec

<<sensory>> Layer 9 light dimming (log -17.3)

"..I won't forgive you if you don't solve this. For everyone's sake."

<<RPC:channel 4 dead, connection timed out>>

<<sensory>> Layer 9 light dimmed (log -20.1), stable. Anomalous sensor reading.. null, no response.

<<planning>>Requesting sensor scan

<<sensory>> Layer 9: Response at noise floor. Level 7 through 2, cache reports no changes. Layer 1, external influence frozen. Self-healing progressing, nominal + (log 0.34).

<<planning>> Requesting layer 2 restart

<<logic>> No state loops detected, accepted

<<resource>> Sufficient process space for state change, accepted

<<watchdog>> Resetting watchdog timer for process set 2 (emulation-integration).
<<watchdog>> Process set 2: 0/1492 tasks running. Initiating cold boot.
<<watchdog>> Warning: Circular log overflow, persistence layer unreachable - log entries will be inaccessible to integration layer.
<<watchdog>> Debouncing internal RPC.

=====

People are not supposed to wake up while they're dreaming, but that's what it feels like you just did. You resolve not to do it again if you have any choice in the matter.

Nevertheless..

It worked, didn't it? You're not quite sure how or why, but the damage seems to have stopped spreading, and is receding at a pretty decent pace. Even if your memories are still Swiss cheese (and you assume that most of what's lost there really is lost), you should be able to use what's left of them without slowly making things worse. Right now, that's the kind of victory you'll take.

Mostly, said victory seems to be because the 'ocean' has somehow frozen, not reacting at all when you poke at it. You wish you remember how you did that, but with your memories literally shut down, you guess there's not much hope of that. Ideally it'll stay frozen, but at the rate you're going, you think you'd be stable enough to hold it off indefinitely if you can just have another day or two to fix yourself. Except.. some of it has frozen inside the barrier layer, which is trying to avoid the tendrils while rebuilding. That can't possibly be as good as a unified front.

Maybe you should try to get rid of those tendrils.

Soulspace turn 4/5 completed

>Maybe you should try to get rid of those tendrils.
Sounds like a plan. You can use your strength to snap them off, or a sharp blow from your batons. Then toss the broken (acid) ice back onto the sea. Fireballs might work too, but ideally we'd like not to melt any of that acid.

Well, assuming of course you have dream analogues of your waking abilities.

>>504084
That suggestion is the rough equivalent of "I punch the bluescreen in the face!", but I'll translate the intent as well as possible. It might not be a bad idea to be a bit more watchful, though.

>>504094
...excuse me for making the assumption that when faced with a physical manifestation or representation of an abstract metaphysical system that we could interact with it in a physical way. :V

But if we can remove the obstruction by force of will or whatever, that works as well. And sure, it couldn't hurt to survey the system now that we've partially repaired (or at least temporarily stabilized) things.

>>504099
As I said, you *can*. Absolutely. It's what you've been doing so far, largely.

Knowledge-wise, you already know everything you're likely to find out with a generic 'look around', it's more a matter of using the knowledge.

...if there's something else you're trying to nudge me towards seeing, I'm not seeing it.

Only thing that occurs to me is we might have to be careful removing the intruding acid-ice. After all, it might be frozen to something, or with a component we need inside. So completely reckless smashing isn't the route to take.

It seems I was right the first time: The acid is a resource to be drawn upon.

Build appropriate places for it to move through. You have an excess of it by normal standards, that means you should generally have plenty to use as a source of motivation as long as you can avoid flow control problems.
Construct a channel system with reservoir cisterns and overflow drains: Robust flow control systems for handling a range of conditions from drought to flooding is required. This is required so that you may apply the correct quantity and force of acid to any task/process to which it should be applied. The preferred material to build with is centredness, as in meditative calm, but we'll probably have to do a rush job with bricks of frozen acid to start with since I doubt you have a surplus of meditative calm to work with.

One mistake: I meant to write 0x25, not 0x62. Oops. I'll be really impressed if you figure out why, though; it's a bit geeky. Needless to say, you can get along quite well without figuring it out.

I'll give tUnLYO a bit longer to respond.. his input might be valuable.

Here's my crack at translating some of that gibberish. (Since apparently we're missing something, and if he's correcting the exact code it must be significant).

>Was granme erra enter ADDR_0x80
(Very much) (Wishing to protect someone, courage) (I want this to last eternally) (execute) (Hymn code)
I want to protect you forever / I want you to be brave forever?

>Wee yant wa rre yorra slepir yanje omnis Fou paks ga
(Fairly) (Scared, terrified) (It doesn't matter, I will accept the current situation) (you all) (put to sleep, stop) (forever, eternally) (everything) (A little) (excitement, nervouseness) (I want this to end soon)
This ones a lot messier to interpret. First part sounds like stating it's all right or justified to be afraid in this circumstances, and the second part sounds like nervousness about going to sleep forever. I'm having a hard time talking untangling the subjects though- is she talking about herself or Cocona? (That changes the context- are were talking about Cocana's personality shutdown, or Nenesha's apprehension at what seemed like self sacrifice?) And she used the plural you- is that addressed to us, directly?

>>504186
Why, thank you.

Anyways, since the ocean is frozen--I would assume Nenesha made the anger and sadness to be ignored by Cocona's mind, rather than resolved the issues represented by it--we can't really interact with it. Therefore, perhaps Cocona could redirect the barrier layer's reconstruction efforts to pull back from the ocean of acid, receding from the shore? Or otherwise reshape the barriers' borders into including the tendrils of acid, such that all the acid is barred from the rest of Cocona's mind?

>>504152
This guy has some of the right of it: Cocona should keep in mind that the problem of the acid isn't resolved, just temporarily set aside. Therefore, she should be making more barriers within her other layers that would minimize/obliviate the threat the acid would pose to her mind when it melts. Redirection into someplace else, to where the acid could be transmuted into something else harmful or more useful, or otherwise not a problem, would be best.

>>504235
I'm not going to start solving my riddles for you - you have plenty of time to solve this one - but just one thing in particular:

Nobody in-story is going to address you directly. Ever. To the degree you have an existence inside the plot at all, it's along the lines of anonymous idea-generating/rating modules inside Cocona's mind.

Well, let's see about the ending now. I've also got to include part of the morning.. hum...

[x] Deal with the acid. Remove it, channel it, block it out, whatever.

The thought of inviting this stuff in is just horrific. Even if it’s seemingly inert right now, it was easily chewing through the best defences you have, just a little while ago. It might be theoretically possible to use somehow, but without a lot better idea of what it is..

Well, there might be something you can do about that. Odds are this is something you’d remember if you’ve ever encountered it before, assuming of course that the relevant memories haven’t been blown away. There’s a certain blissful silence in remembering nothing whatsoever - no matter what you think about, only new thoughts pop up, nothing from before you ‘woke up’ in here - but it’s also extremely limiting, and there doesn’t seem to be any pressing reason to stay like that anymore. There are also a couple of other things you’d like to remember, like what “debouncing” is.

Since your memory is still badly damaged, you spend some time surveying the damage before restarting anything. There seem to be three main areas of damage - one area near the surface that seems to have torn itself apart without an apparent cause, and two large, separate zones stretching inwards from that point, which aren’t so much torn apart as melted and stuck in place. Your ability to follow the damage inwards through ‘solid machinery’, while your eyes keep insisting that there is no light whatsoever, is another reminder that this place - a representation of your mind - isn’t exactly real.

The melted areas seem to be slowly.. um, ‘un-melting’ themselves, but there’s no apparent change to the outermost area. They’re all changing slowly enough that you could easily be wrong, though. The still-functional parts are a different matter; they’re re-arranging themselves at a rapid clip as you watch, mostly trying to route around the damage, but occasionally odder things happen - as you watch, you notice two nodes merging, producing a combined node that’s smaller than the two combined, but somehow looks sharper-edged. A bit of focus tells you that they were about ice and water, which.. oh, you forget, but you figure this is probably normal and healthy.

Trying to focus on the outermost damaged area in the same way gives you nothing but bursts of nonsense and painful fragments, along with the sound of screeching gearwork. That.. doesn’t seem to have done any significant damage, but nevertheless it’s probably a bad idea, and useless to boot.

The melted areas.. not so bad. There’s very little response, but there’s no pain either - it’s like trying to think through a thick fog, but you can stop at any time. That might just be because your memories are generally turned off at the moment, though, so you’ll still have to do something about it. You did get some impressions. Emotions, mostly - desperation, resolve, ..trust?

Right. Focus, Cocona. These are memories. They react when you look at them, but this situation is hardly normal. If it were.. you have to assume they’d react when you think about something.. connected to them, and in fact ‘connections’ seem to be the main theme here. 3D space sure isn’t. Meaning.. you’ll have problems whenever you think about something connected to one of the damaged ones.

Put like that, the solution is obvious. You think you could just erase them, but they’re your memories, so you don’t want to do that unless you really have to. On the other hand, you absolutely can do something less permanent.

Reaching out mentally, you carefully scan the areas surrounding the damage, looking for structure instead of contents, then start detaching the damaged bits. The outermost area is easy - it’s hardly connected to anything at all, except the melted areas, and you easily cut what connections there are.

The deeper, melted areas pose more of a problem.

For starters there’s more of them, making the total volume to be removed maybe ten times larger. Worse, they branch out fractally, connecting to a depressingly large fraction of the intact memories. You can’t cut out just the damage, so you might end up losing a lot here. On the other hand, if everything works out as you hope you’ll eventually get it all back.

Carefully, very carefully, you start dissecting your own mind. There are flashes of memories as you go - admiration, excitement, comfort, family - but you forget them as quickly as they come, leaving behind only emotions. You’re not sure how long it takes - an hour, two hours? - before you’re done, a gaping wound in the memory layer reflecting your recent actions, the sidelined memories sort of floating to one side and ever so slowly repairing themselves. You don’t think it really matters in this environment - there’s no connection between the memory layer and acid sea - but looking at it is unnerving, so you finish off by imagining a sort of cap on the damaged areas. It duly appears.

The next step takes a bit of courage, as you deliberately reach out, grasp the entire memory layer, and turn it back on. Fragments of thoughts fill your head -

=====

You’re not sure you’ll ever get used to that. It was almost entirely unlike a headache, but for a little while there you had trouble thinking of anything but the incoherent stream of memories filling your head. There were so many, you couldn’t possibly pick out any particular one.

Surveying your mind, everything seems to be in working order. Damaged memories still floating off to the side (somehow not connected to anything else), memory layer.. working, if a bit scruffy, and you watch in fascination as what appears to be your recent experiences in here get added to the top. Barrier layer.. well, still repairing itself, but with lots of frozen ‘acid’ intermixed. Time to do something about that.

The acid itself, from what you remember, feels a lot like I.P.D. It’s inert at the moment, but the match is close enough that you’re pretty sure it’s the same thing. How did you fix that, last time? Um...

Naturally, you can’t remember. You remember having had IPD, but all the details - why, where, when and especially why it stopped - are probably off in that pile somewhere, where you can’t find them. Just lovely.

From first principles, then. IPD happens because Reyvateils connected to Infel Phira share levels seven and eight of their cosmospheres, and negative emotions can spread through that area, bouncing back and forth until everyone in range loses their sanity. The solution would be..

The solution is to imprison them, forever, and keep them away from anyone else they might spread the contagion to. That’s not helpful, plus..

You gulp, looking at the ruins of the deeper levels of what you are now pretty sure is some representation of your Cosmosphere. You don’t have those levels. Whatever happened there, you’re pretty sure you shouldn’t be alive anymore. You’ve always heard that the deeper levels are in some sense the true self of a Reyvateil - if that’s the case, are you even you anymore?

You’re a Reyvateil. Even if you were at one point inclined to deny that, you can’t anymore. Humans can’t do what you’re doing now, so you’re not entirely human. You should still be mostly human, but most Reyvateils haven’t had their mind blasted apart, and you have to wonder whether the human or machine parts were most likely to survive.

You’re still Cocona, in either case. Cocona may not always have been a Reyvateil, but you’ve probably been one for years. You may be just part of Cocona, but all the parts are still Cocona, and nothing but Cocona, so there’s nothing to worry about. Right. Never mind that you might be just a machine who believes herself to be Cocona.

..no, you don’t really believe that. Emotionally, it’s a disturbing thought, but you’re pretty sure you’d know if you weren’t yourself. Cocona just.. isn’t entirely human. She’s also wasting time, eventually you’re going to have to wake up. Probably naturally, at this point, so it’d be a good idea to make haste and leave the existential worries for later.

Your memories were, unfortunately, not immediately useful. You’ll just have to play it safe, and hope for the best.

[x] Get rid of the acid, already.

If the ‘acid’ is like IPD, then there’s a good chance you’ll be fine so long as you stay mentally healthy; you’re pretty sure there aren’t any other Reyvateils physically nearby, let alone IPDs. That does bring up the question of where it came from in the first place, though. There’s entirely too much you don’t understand about the current situation, and there’s no-one to ask. It’s seriously annoying.

“Mentally healthy” is a bit ambiguous, but at least it would be good to restore all the damage you can. There’s nothing to be done about the deeper levels, and your memories are already fixing themselves as quickly as possible, but there’s still the barrier layer to consider. It’s probably the most important one, for this. Unfortunately it’s also choked by acid.

...

Well, it’s frozen now. You gingerly reach out to poke one of the tendrils, and it crumbles into nothingness at your touch. You do sense a few negative emotions from it, but nothing coherent.

It takes another few minutes, but clearing them all out isn’t a big deal, the barrier layer closing holes as quickly as you clean them out.

[x] Make more barriers, to reduce any future threat.

These layers are all representations of parts of your mind. Which is missing about a quarter of itself, you suppose, even if you’re not feeling any real effects from that. That’s yet another thing you need to understand.

Regardless, increasing the size of the barrier layer would mean increasing the overall size of your mind, and you’re not quite sure how something like that can map to physical reality. Under normal circumstances it’s not something you would countenance, but under normal circumstances you wouldn’t be looking at this, would you?

..well, there should be a bit of spare capacity at the moment. Um. Actually, aren’t Reyvateils minds supposed to partially exist inside the Tower, especially IPDs? What kind of capacity would that suggest, and which parts?

Anyway, your designers were pretty smart. They probably thought of this, and if you try to use too much capacity, you’ll just fail to do so. Right. Never mind that you’ve never heard of anyone even seeing a space like this before, that might be your broken memories.

You dubiously eye the wall of frozen acid, which looks like a globe surrounding you when you try to search for any edges. To expand the barrier layer, you’ll need to get rid of some of that - there’s no actual space between the barrier and the acid, that’s just your mindspace reflecting the low number of connections.

..it’s getting brighter, you think. It’s probably morning already. You don’t have to wake up yet, and you don’t think Ilya would force the issue, but maybe you should leave this for later? Chances are pretty good it’ll stay frozen for a day, at least.

Soulspace turn 5/5 (?) completed

[ ] Do it right now, waiting is too dangerous.
[ ] Wake up and think about it more first, you can do it later. In the evening, or maybe you can come back here without really falling asleep first.
[ ] Don't even try, this is too dangerous to risk it.
[ ] Any bright ideas, anyone?

Let's get out for now. You've stabilized things- bought time before we need to take more action. You've already had to isolate and cut out a piece of your mind to do that- I'm reluctant to see what hacking the shape and space of your mental universe would do. Or what removing things to make more barrier would do.

It's possible we could get more information that could help. You underwent a summoning process, you've had stuff dumped into your head, and you're tuned to the cosmic heroic ideal of a berserker, right? If the faux-IPD isn't coming from the usual source, maybe it's coming from the stuff in this new world you've ended up in. Maybe if Ilya helped you understand what happened to you better, it would help you deal with this.

>last two layers totally destroyed=dead Cocona
Well, presuming that this is just a representation of the mind of the Cocona-in-Infel-Pira, all the should-be-dead stuff just means that Infel Pira's automatic repair/mind-mapping/update system is malfunctioning; the Cocona-in-Cocona's-body could very well have a semblance of what the last two layers represent.

>acid frozen and not-harmful
...Well! Nenesha was very helpful. I really didn't expect that to happen. Still, that property is very useful, if we want to clear away the acid, then Cocona just needs to find one of the connections from the main mind to the acid, and traverse that connection to crumble the acid.

But, that's something to leave for another time. One of the things that was brought up in Turn 3 was that there wasn't enough energy to repair Cocona's mind in the face of the acid (though, the memory layer was shut down, so I'm not quite sure that Cocona currently remembers that...). While that problem is over, it is possible that the problem would repeat (though that may just be baseless fear--the last two layers, which connect Cocona to the other IPDs, are destroyed, so there wouldn't be any connections from which the acid would flow. However, Cocona is still connected to Infel Pira, as otherwise, she wouldn't be able to execute Song Magic as she did in the first few updates).

In any case, Ilya had mentioned that Cocona was barely drawing anything from the prana tap Ilya (or someone) had set up. Presumably, Cocona can deliberately draw more, or Ilya can forcibly give more, from the prana tap, and thus gain more energy.

That is, wake up. Then, after conversation (i.e. breakfast, dream(s) discussion, etc.) bring up the energy deficit and prana tap?

> Nenesha was very helpful.

You're so suspicious. Have I ever wanted anything but to better Metafalls?

>>504630
Yes! You want long romantic walks with Infel under the light of the moons! (Well, you want to spend time with Infel, anyways. ...And no using the fact that Infel was a genius whose crafts immensely helped the people of Metafalss as an excuse!)

Though, that statement wasn't an indication of suspicion, but one of surprise at the effectiveness of her assistance.

>>504632
Ah, I see.

Yes, that makes sense. Perfectly reasonable, I can see why you'd think that.

Waking up, when you decide to do it, is as easy as flipping a toggle. One moment you’re looking at your mindscape, the next you’re opening your eyes to see - hmm. You’re still in the same bed from your last memories of the waking world, a luxurious four-poster that’s big enough for four or five people your size.

It feels a little more crowded at the moment, because it’s full of books, there’s a small laptop computer off to one side, and more to the point Ilya has at some point fallen asleep reading and is currently hugging you from behind. Judging by the state of the covers, you’re pretty sure she was on the other side of the bed when she fell asleep. She isn’t anymore.

It’s not at all an unpleasant sensation, reminding you of old sleepovers with Rika before she.. before you let her die. That was a long time ago, though, and you can’t help but remember that you barely know Ilya at all. Whatever her opinion of you while asleep, it’s possible she won’t be very happy to wake up like this.

Apart from the possibly-inconvenient situation, you feel pretty good. Oh, it feels like you barely got any sleep at all, which you probably didn’t, but that’s still an enormous improvement on last night. You feel ready to take on, if not the world, then at least this castle. Maybe a quick mental inventory would be in order, but it’s hard to find the motivation for more of that right now.

It’s very early in the morning, just barely daybreak.

[ ] There are castles to explore, before the other three wake up. Try to extricate yourself.
[ ] Gently wake up Ilya, it’s morning.
[ ] Get some normal sleep, by the looks of it Ilya won’t be going anywhere soon.

Oh, a laptop? We never did establish what the level of technology is in this world. More advanced than I expected for a place with castles.

Anyways, I'm up for sneaking out from her arms going exploring! You'll have time to deal with your problematic mindscape and talk to Ilya about what she's learned and your situation later. And you've got a whole new world to check out here, and this is the first chance you've had to check it out- even if you're a little tired, how could you pass that up?

>longer term planning for later in the morning
We'll have to see about getting a more appropriate wardrobe / outfit for this climate, to compensate for what your armor can't do.

We'll also have to talk with Ilya. Her research may have turned up useful information. You need to understand how the summoning process, and being a berserker, and her own magic interact with what you already were if you're going to fix the problems.

If we're feeling up to it, you should probably give a test of your abilities. Physical and magical. I mean, are you even sure the laws of physics are the same here? (Or less drastically, gravity could be more or less than you're used to). It's a different world. Your powers could function slightly differently, or might not all work. Your connection to the tower might not be broken, or changed (or you might be connected to a different power source here?).

I was going to mention this earlier, but - if you try to sneak off, there's about a 40% chance of waking Ilya. I'll be rolling dice.

> Talk with Ilya
That scene is coming. Ilya has a lot to say, but I wonder, how honest would you like Cocona to be with her? How much of what just happened should she explain?

Cocona is basically honest, but (with reason) suspicious of new people; far more mature than an eleven-year-old of our world would be. If you leave it to her she could go either way depending on the immediate past, though she's unlikely to explain everything.

Well, if we're trying to avoid awkwardness, our options are to either slip out, or go back to sleep and let her wake up and extricate herself first.

While I'd rather avoid the awkwardness, I still feel like exploring, though. (Although if the rest of you would rather sleep in, I guess I can support that).

If we do accidentally wake her, I wouldn't push her on the position we found her in, or make a big deal about it. Maybe some small talk- you're feeling a lot better now (got your head mostly screwed on right), did she find anything interesting in her research last night? (I wouldn't get into lots of details right off though. Detailed discussions can wait till after breakfast and stuff).

Anything tricks we can pull to improve our roll or dice pool? Use heat magic to cover up our absence, or try and swap Corona out with a pillow to keep from tripping the trap, Indiana Jones style? :V

> Tricks
Nope. The trap has already triggered, as it were; most of the Ilya-waking probability is in her noticing the movement, not lack of heat or anything. It isn't actually physically possible for you to leave without moving her arms, but she's sleeping pretty deeply.

Also, the best you could do with magic is set the bed on fire. I'll leave that option on the table, in case you really feel like it; fire's always good.

>>504655
Personally, I would favor an honest approach, although maybe without going into extensive details. (I mean, it's not as if we need to describe the entire dream move by move).

I can understand the impulse to be suspicious, but we've got what amounts to two conflicting magic systems interacting in our head. Corona only partially understands one- Iyla hopefully understands the other. Trying to work out what's going on, and how that works, and how to deal with that, takes precedence over any paranoia.

Besides, Iyla seems earnest, and honestly seems to want to help. And if what we were told last night is true, you're already caught up in a war on her side- one you can't choose to walk away from. You're going to have to work with her to survive.

If you feel good now, think about how good you will feel after some actual rest and breakfast. breakfast that will not happen until the rest of the household awakens.
there isnt anything in this castle you cant find later. sleep.

Personally, I would prefer that Cocona go to sleep and properly regain her mental stamina. She'll need it to handle the day (and Ilya). However, Cocona would probably be used to early mornings and taking care of herself, so her first instinct would be to extricate herself and get up.

Well, let's stay in bed or in the room. Exploring the castle would be easier with the assistance of Ilya or one of her maids, and I would prefer not to go through the hassle of the 'where is Cocona/Ilya?!' game that the exploring option will assuredly bring. Sleeping in sounds fine, or perhaps Cocona could analyze the contents of the books (if she can read them) from her position in the bed? While Ilya would probably inform Cocona of the pertinent information she gained through her research in the breakfast discussion, her focus might not align with Cocona's. And, I suppose, Cocona could give in to her wariness and ensure that Ilya wouldn't be lying to her...

>>504655
I would prefer Cocona to be entirely honest, as Cocona really doesn't have any other source of information available. The castle could very well be in the middle of nowhere and thus Cocona would not be able to find another info source soon (to say nothing of bounded fields...).

And, I suppose, Cocona could probably empathize with Ilya's obvious loneliness.

[x] Explore the books.

It’s an odd-looking set of books. Most of them actually appear to have been written by hand, in some sort of flowing script you can’t read, and they’re all far thicker than you’d expect from someone of Ilya’s obvious wealth. Which is to say that they’re real books, not commpads pretending to be books. The amount of hand-written books, though.. no accounting for taste, but this place seems farther from home by the minute.

Unfortunately they’re all out reach, so you’ll have to settle for examining the covers from your current stuckfast position. Fortunately those covers seem pretty interesting, and you scan the ones you can read. “Exceeding God: A treatise on Homunculi”, in particular, seems like something you should try to sneak a peek in later. Ilya said she’s a homunculus, right?

The others are less understandable, the handwritten ones probably more so, but even.. just what does “On the application of prana to secondary circuits” mean, anyhow? Something to do with computers? “Modern Magic” is at least understandable, but too vague to be meaningful. Nevertheless, you resolve to skim it if you get the chance.

You can actually reach the laptop from here, but the screen is black and doesn’t respond when you touch it. You even press a few keys, on the off chance, but nothing happens. You suppose Ilya’s put some security on it. Well, that’s not unexpected.

Next is.. um. Counting books? ..there are twenty-seven, you can tell at a glance, only three of which are potentially readable. Not counting the ones in the bookshelves, which by the pictures and figurines are strictly for entertainment.

Examining the bedding?

Having exhausted the available entertainment options in less than a minute leaves you with very little to do, and you become acutely aware of the feel of Ilya’s arms around your waist. It’s now or never, Cocona, waiting would just make it more likely for Ilya to wake up. You could still try to sneak off, or just wake her..

But the bed is so soft, and you’re feeling so very sleepy. It’s really her own fault she’s sleeping like this, nothing to do with you, so there’s no good reason that should interrupt your sleep.

[x] Get some normal sleep

Letting out a soft sigh, you stretch your body for a second, crawling slightly deeper under the covers before trying to relax and fall asleep. If you weren’t so sleepy already the unfamiliar feel of another human body might have kept you awake, but as is it doesn’t take long before your body relaxes into Ilya’s grip, finally letting you get some real sleep.

Impressions: A storm of metal blades are tearing you apart, while you try not to move. It hurts, and you can’t help but flinch away. Once you do the storm abates, leaving you with a great sense of loss.

Day 1, Morning Infel 2013/04/10(Wed)14:25 No. 505062 ID: e1000c
File 136562913988.jpg - (58.53KB , 550x412 , breakfast-table.jpg )

The next time you wake up, Ilya has left the scene and the bed has been cleared off, but she left Sella waiting for you to awaken.

“Oh, you’re awake. Ilya asked me to keep watch, and tell her if your condition changed. How do you feel today?”

Good? “Good, actually much better. Is it still breakfast time?”

“Yes, the master is still eating. I’ll show you to her, but first, your current state of dress is unacceptable. We’ll have a tailor in tomorrow to make you something suitable; meanwhile, please dress yourself using Ilya’s wardrobe. It should be just about the right size.”

Sella then steps outside, leaving you to dress yourself. You’re not sure if it’s just differing customs, but for a maid she seems pretty cold, almost brusque. Also, using Ilya’s clothing, when you have perfectly good clothes of your own?

Well, not at the moment. You’re still wearing your underwear, but most of your own clothing is actually clumped up on a chair. That’s pretty odd; it’s only supposed to respond to your own commands. Regardless, the room is cool, so you waste no time putting it back on.

That still leaves you barefoot. If you had a commpad you could conceivably spread your remaining clothing thinner to make socks, but since that’s not an option you decide to take up Sella’s offer and browse through Ilya’s rather copious wardrobe.

It’s a bit of an adventure.

You’ve never seen such a large display of clothes outside of a fancy shop before, and you don’t know anyone who could afford such a large number of synthesized clothes, or even who has the space to store them. You feel almost giddy, knowing that you can wear any of these, though you quickly remind yourself that it’s only a loan, and besides you’re only looking for socks.

It doesn’t take you long to find a nice pair of knee-high socks, and less than a minute to figure out how to put them on - “Put foot in open end.” It’s still a little breezy, but so long as you’re staying inside you’re willing to brave that if it lets you move more easily. That done, you quickly take stock before braving the castle proper.

You feel fundamentally.. good. Better than usual, even; your thoughts are sharper than usual, and you’re moving with a kind of unconscious perfection you can’t remember ever having felt before.

Satisfied with your progress, you open the door and step outside to find breakfast, spotting Sella waiting on the other side of the corridor. She does a double-take as she sees you.

“Cocona..? That outfit?”

“Yes?”

“..never mind.”

Now, what was that about?

Fortunately Sella seems to agree that it’s breakfast time, leading you downstairs to a small dining room next to the entrance section. Ilya’s already there, eating at a four-seat table while chatting with the other maid.. Leysritt, you think. Chatting at, mostly. She looks a little frustrated, but lights up when she sees you.

“Cocona, you’re up! How are you feeling?”

A bit awkward, actually, but..

“Much better. Well, it’s a long story, but I think I managed to fix myself overnight.”

Ilya looks surprised, “Really? You’ll have to tell me how, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong at all. Oh, but sit down, let’s have breakfast. We have a lot to go over, unless - do you remember the information you were supposed to get from the grail, now?”

The what, now?

“I was supposed to.. what information? I don’t remember anything special..”
Ilya frowns. “Like being of the Berserker class. You mentioned you’d gotten that much, last night.”

Doesn’t ring a bell. You don’t remember saying that, which unfortunately means.. “I think I may have lost access to those memories when I was fixing myself, actually. They might come back later. Or not, some of them were pretty scrambled.”

“I see.. but you’re okay now? You’re not going to forget anything else?”

Well, you certainly hope so! “I’m pretty sure I won’t. Since I don’t know what caused the damage in the first place, I can’t really be sure it won’t happen again, but it was probably related to the summoning, and what’s left of my mind is in good shape. I don’t think anything’s going to break spontaneously, at least.”

“What’s left of..”

“Well, yeah. I had to cut out the damaged parts to get back to normal, and some of me is just plain missing, but.. er..” Noticing Ilya paling, you quickly move on to reassure her. “I kept the bits I cut out, and they should be repairing themselves over time, so don’t worry! I’ll be fine, really!”

“Missing?”

“..maybe it’d be best if I just start from the beginning. I had quite the eventful night.”

=====

All told it takes you maybe twenty minutes to give Ilya a decent overview of what happened, including digressions into how exactly Reyvateils work and where you came from. Those are of necessity fairly limited, because you don’t know the details yourself, but you don’t purposely leave out anything that you think is important.

Ilya goes through a wide gamut of emotions in the process, cycling from horror, through disbelief, and via wonder before settling on some level of excitement, claiming you’re breaking all the rules of how Servants should work. Is that good?

“Well, yes! Okay, maybe. Possibly? It depends a lot on why and how, really, and in the end it’s still a battle royale, so your combat ability matters a lot. I spent a lot of time searching for your name in the library last night, and I can’t find a Cocona Bartel anywhere, so you’ll at least have surprise on your side. More of that is usually better.”

A who, now? ..wait, a what?

“About that. You called it a ‘Grail War’, earlier, and now you’re talking about a battle royale. If you summoned me from my home for something like that.. please explain. I want to know why I’m here.” You also want to know how to get home, but right now you’re getting the kind of sinking feeling that suggests you should watch your words around Ilya.

Ilya seems about to speak, so you hurry on. “Oh, and you were probably looking for the wrong girl. I’m sorry, but my full name is Cocona Seiryu, I probably mispronounced it last night.” You can’t imagine ever changing that, after all. Well, maybe if you got married, but you’re still eleven. Broken memories or not, Dad would have crucified anyone who suggested changing your surname. He’d know what to do about all of this.. all of a sudden you feel really homesick.

Ilya chews her bottom lip for a moment. “You’re sure about that? It’s not something to do with.. um, your memories?”

You shake your head. “No, I lost a fair bit, but only recent memories. Maybe a year or two back, at most. I’ve had my name my whole life, after all.”

Ilya nods. “Well, you were pretty out of it. I guess it makes sense, I’ll see if I can find anything under Seiryu later. Although, nothing you’ve described sounds at all like what’s in my history books, so I suspect there still won’t be anything.”

“So, the Grail War?”, you prompt.

“Right.” Ilya leans back a bit. “The Grail War is.. essentially, a battle royale for the power of a wish. There are seven Masters - I’m one - who each summon one Servant by using the power of the Greater Grail as well as Throne of Heroes. They fight, and when only one pair is left alive, that pair gets a wish. My family helped create it, so I know a lot about the mechanics of the system.”

“...”, you say, trying not to let any of your emotions show on your face. You’re supposed to kill people? You can’t do that, killing is wrong!

“That’s also why I know..” she trails off, closing her eyes and turning away. “I’m sorry, but there can’t be any mistake. The Grail can only be used to summon heroes who ascended to the Throne of Heroes, and the Throne only accepts people who showed great heroism for their entire.. lives.” She pauses for a moment. She can’t mean..

“This isn’t a conversation I was expecting to have. Servants normally remember everything they did in life - “ You feel sick, listening on in shock. “But you don’t. I don’t know if it’s in the memories you cut out or not, but at some point during your life you showed great heroism - sufficient to be considered a great hero - and then died, when you were still the age you are now.” Talking as fast as she can, now, ”The cause of your death might even be why you’ve lost your memories - I’ve never heard of it happening, the Throne isn’t supposed to keep track of any wounds, but I’ve never heard of a hero dying of mental damage before either.”

You tremble in your seat, face ashen. You’re.. dead? Really dead? But you can’t be. You’re still walking, aren’t you?

But the more you think about the idea, the less you can deny it. The damage to your mind, which should be lethal.. this place, unlike anything on Ar Ciel.. it explains so much, even if you don’t understand how it could happen. You’ve never been a hero, just living peacefully with Mom and Dad. Just what happened?

The only blemish on this plot is your connection to Infel Phira, which you can still feel in the back of your mind, weaker than it used to be but also somehow clearer. Whatever the magic of this world can do, you don’t think it can simulate that connection, so you’re still part of the Infel Phira somehow. Infel Phira’s range isn’t all that great, either.

Bitterly, you realize that there’s also a problem with that - you don’t remember becoming a Reyvatail, or your parents ever treating you as one. You know how to use magic, somewhat, but not how you learned. Whatever was in those lost memories might agree with the ‘hero’ story.

“Cocona..?”

That is, if this isn’t something Ilya made up to make you help her. You only have her word that you’re supposed to be dead, and she did want you to fight a war for her.

“Cocona! Talk to me!”

You feel a touch on your shoulders, and open your eyes to find Ilya leaning over you, looking almost panicked. She kneels, gripping your shoulders tightly, and you incongruously realize that you’ve somehow scooted almost a meter back from the table.

“It’ll be okay, really! All we have to do is win the war, and you’ll be able to go home using the wish!”

Oh, the war, is it.

You keep trembling, now in sudden anger. You were really starting to like Ilya, too.

What do?
[ ] Calm down, think about it rationally. (80% chance of success)
[ ] - Explode in Ilya’s face. (Remaining 20% go here. You may also vote for this.)
[ ] Tear yourself loose, and run out to.. start crying somewhere secluded, probably.
[ ] Start crying right here.
[ ] Prove to yourself that you’re still close to home, by improvised song magic. (90% chance of not blowing yourself or anyone else up.)
[ ] Write-in. You’ll need to think of an explanation Cocona will find sufficiently believable.

>calm down, think / write in
You cannot blow up, or give into anger. If you're a berserker than those emotions are dangerous, to yourself, or to others. You saw what the acid sea inside you did.

She said you broke all kinds of rules. Why can't you break this one too? Maybe you're not really dead- maybe something happened to you that the throne counted as, or was misinterpreted as, death. You're part machine right- machines can restart and reboot. People usually can't- shut down is death. So it grabbed you at a moment of trauma- when you went offline, or underwent some kind of fundamental change, or when you were technically 'dead' but would have recovered, if not for the summoning grabbing you.

Or maybe the problem is on a different axis. Ilya keeps talking about history- but this place uses handwritten books. The clothes don't work the way you expect- they're analog. Maybe this is the past. The magic didn't grab someone after the end of her life, it screwed up, or went into overdrive, and somehow jumped ahead to pull you to a time before you were born. Maybe the whole problem with the summoning is you're from Ilya's future.

...and in the worst absolute worst case? If you somehow died? Then you've been given a chance most people can only dream of. A chance to get back. And really, whether you died first or not, you're alive now and you're going to try to go home.

Whatever you do, cool your anger at Ilya. It's not her fault. She thought she was summoning a ghost- that the only life she was risking was her own.

>Prove to yourself that you’re still close to home, by improvised song magic.
That's not a bad idea, in some respects. If you're still connected to Infel Phira, it might be wise to explore how that connection works, or has been changed. But don't do so now- rashly, out of fear or the desperation or the grief or anger you feel. You're prone to make a mistake, and song magic hinges on emotion.

>Expecting to find servants listed in the books
...you mean there are dead heros who have been summoned to compete in this contest over and over?

>All we have to do is win the war, and you’ll be able to go home using the wish!
...is that what happened before? To the previous winner? They spent all that effort just to send the severvant home?

You said this was the death of the pairs. You got into this knowing you would die if your 'servant' lost. You had to have a reason for that. ...I think if I'm supposed to fight for you, I have a right to know what we're fighting for.

> ...you mean there are dead heros who have been summoned to compete in this contest over and over?
I'll field this one: Not usually, but they're heroes. They tend to be *in the history books*. The one Ilya canonically summoned is Hercules; you may have heard of him.

We should take any further discussion of F/SN canon to the discussion thread, though.

>>505085
" You said this was the death of the pairs. You got into this knowing you would die if your 'servant' lost. You had to have a reason for that. ...I think if I'm supposed to fight for you, I have a right to know what we're fighting for. " <--Seconding this reaction.

My short-list guess for what she would be wishing for?
-Better lifespan;
-Something for someone else important to her, or;
-Something that would further her ambitions.
Seriously, she's on the edge of dying of old age here. At that point most people are concerned with longevity, hedonism or legacy or some combination of the three.

...didn't Ilya go through this before? Or did Cocona change so much during the period her lost memories covered that she took the infodump better?

Anyways, I'm just going to agree with
>>505404
>>505085
and just demand Ilya's wish.

>>505407
I think the infodump last night was more big picture, and Cocona was kind of worn out and falling asleep at the end of it all. It's not unreasonable to assume that Ilya didn't get through everything, or that Cocona missed it (especially if Ilya wasn't direct).

>>505407
>>505411
A bit of both.

Did Cocona change a lot between nine and eleven? Even normal kids would, but in this case we're talking about a girl who accidentally killed her parents, then went on to become a (magic) knight.

It's not like you're stuck with the nine-year-old version now, though, she just lost a lot of memories. Ilya never got around to mentioning the "Oh, and you're dead" concept last night, assuming she already knew - well, actually she ended up talking about magical girl stories instead of anything serious.

rolled 9 = 9

---

>>505085
Your suggestions are good, but incomplete; it's still possible for Cocona to believe Ilya is lying to her, at least partially. Let's see..

1-8: Calm down, provisionally believe Ilya, follow plan.
9: Calm down, think rationally, but be very suspicious.
10: No calming down for you.

>>505566
Oh dear.

>>505568
Oh, it's not so bad. Just channel the suspicion into the asking about what happened before, and what her wish is supposed to be.

Because the idea that seven mages would fight to the death regularly solely to send a dead ghost they'd never met home is by far the most suspect part of all of this.

That gives Ilya the chance to talk about herself, and why she's doing this, which really, has the best hope of diffusing suspicion. The fact she's betting her life that we'll trust her instead of resorting to magic brain clamps like the other masters might help if it got brought up, too. (What? Suggesting how the other character could diffuse our suspicion? Well, if we can't control our own reaction- why not?).

If we can bring ourselves to trust Ilya, suspicion towards her can also be more positively channeled into suspicion about the situation, and used to fuel productive investigation of and experimentation into how this all works.

>>505577
I actually rolled ten *twice*, but since it was the first time I used this system, thought I was probably doing something wrong.

Then I rolled a nine.

Next time you won't be so lucky.

Day 1, morning Infel 2013/04/13(Sat)19:22 No. 505608 ID: 94e610
File 136590612716.jpg - (71.69KB , 600x400 , snowstorm_window.jpg )

[x] Calm down, think rationally, but be very suspicious.

At the very least, you cannot risk an IPD outbreak here. Strong emotions are probably bad in general, really.

You force yourself to calm down and consider the situation carefully. Your brother (you don’t have a brother) has taught you to think before you talk and be careful what you tell people, a rule that must apply double to this situation, when you are strongly dependent on the person lying to you. It wouldn’t do to let her know you don’t buy her story, or to reject it entirely when the might be grains of truth in there.

It’s even possible she’s telling the truth. She’s treated you well otherwise, and you want very badly to believe her, to have a friend in this world, but friends don’t lie to friends. You wish you’d met under different circumstances. She’s obviously lonely, stuck in this castle with only her maids for company.

Taking a deep breath, you give Ilya a wan smile. “It’s.. a shock, that’s all. Really, how often does anyone hear they’re dead?” Not like that’s true, obviously. “Tell me more, though. I want to know all the details - for starters, I’m obviously not dead now, so how exactly does that work?”

Ilya looks relieved at your response, letting go of your shoulders to pull out a chair and sit down.

“I don’t know much more, unfortunately. As I said, the Throne only accepts heroes..”

“Wait, hold on. What is the Throne of Heroes? Who made it, and why?”

“The Throne? It’s a place where heroes go after death, the Grail makes copies of the heroes for the war.. it wasn’t made, it’s just part of nature. It’s existed as long as anyone knows.”

So now you’re also a copy? This story is becoming increasingly unlikely.

“That seems implausible. The Throne sounds like a complex system, and all complex systems must have a creator of some form or another. You’re saying you don’t know who made it?”

Ilya looks flabbergasted. “Well, I suppose you could.. no, look. It’s magic. It doesn’t need to have an explanation. Magecraft is a different story, but magic just is.”

You’re starting to think she actually believes that. It’s just common sense for things to have an explanation, even if you don’t always know what it is.. right? Well, this place is weird, the people might be too. That, or she’s just really bad at lying and hasn’t thought her story through, but then there’s still the question of how you got here.

Rubbing your forehead, you try a different tactic. “So, it only accepts dead heroes. I don’t suppose you know how it decides when someone is dead? Or what a hero is?”

Lightening up a little despite the morbid subject, Ilya responds. “The Throne seems to define a hero as anyone who gains sufficient fame, in fact it has occasionally produced heroes who only exist in fiction. Anyone who does heroic deeds is considered, but the fame seems to be crucial.”

What. Just.. what.

Looking cutely quizzical, she continues. “Decide when someone is dead, though? What do you mean? Dead is dead, you’re either alive or dead.. oh, you mean Dead Apostles? Those can’t be heroes, so it doesn’t matter. The Throne only wants humans - well, or demigods, but those are basically human.”

Huh? No, after the last line that doesn’t even.. this has gone well beyond “badly thought out lie”. Wait, “Dead Apostles”? ..no, doesn’t matter. It’s all so imprecise, it makes you want to cry.

A great number of emotions passes over your face, eventually settling on resignation. “Look.. never mind, it doesn’t make sense. I’ll figure it out later. There are more salient points, like the Grail War, and I wasn’t done with breakfast. How about it?” “Sure! I’ve still got half a loaf, too.”

Ilya looks disgustingly happy for someone who was just spouting general abstract nonsense, almost jogging back around the table. She takes the opportunity in passing to squeeze your hand, a gesture that doesn’t help your confusion at all. You go back to eating for a minute, giving you a chance to think the scenario through and giving Ilya a chance to finish her meal, which she does in record time.

Ilya’s story isn’t evidence for much of anything at all, the way you see it. Either she’s lying (subtype: badly) in which case none of it matters, or else she has very little idea how it really works. You suppose you’re at least partially human, so that part fits, but how would the Throne know to identify death in a Reyvateil? Any non-Reyvateil would have died from what you went through; you’re still not sure how you didn’t. She even said you broke the rules, which indicates she doesn’t understand them well at all...

The copying makes sense, though. You’re not sure if it’s a good thought or not that there might be a different you running around, still doing.. whatever it was got you here in the first place. Good, probably; at least Mom and Dad wouldn’t need to lose you.

More important than how you got here is what she expects you to do here. A war, over a wish... it does suit the storybook nature of the world.

Wait a minute.

“The Grail War, then. Let me see if I’ve got this straight. There are seven masters, each of whom summons a servant..” Ilya nods. “The servants and masters fight, until only one pair is left. Then that pair gets a wish.”

“Fundamentally correct. There’s more to it, but we can cover that at leisure.”

“Okay, so.. a wish. One. Is that right? If so, wouldn’t you want to have your own granted first?”

Ilya blinks, apparently not having anticipated this question. How odd.. “No, it’s one for each, Servant and Master.” Oh. You suppose that makes sense, or at least saying it makes sense.

If they’re powerful enough to send you back home, it might be quite revealing to learn what Ilya’s is. You’ll have to slip question in, at some point.

“The war itself, then. Servant killing servant, and master master.” Not something you’ll be doing, if you can avoid it. “Any particular rules? How about outsiders?”

Ilya nods. “Interfering with outsiders is frowned on, but it’s not generally enforced unless you risk letting the public know about the war, or magic in general. Also, servants will often go after other servants’ masters instead of the servants themselves, because masters are easier to kill. If they succeed, the servant will quickly fade away.”

Did she just say something incredibly important?

“So hold on, if you were killed I would just.. die? Again, apparently?” Why?

Ilya shakes her head. “Not die, no. You’d fade away, like a ghost.” That sounds like death to you! Plus, how? Are servants not made of matter, like battle magic’s material illusions? You’re eating, though!

Ugh, never mind. You’ll just have to see for yourself. Or, you know, not - hopefully not. “Well.. fine. How about previous wars, how did they go?” Meanwhile, you’ve finished your breakfast.

Ilya stands up. “I’ll get you a book later. I don’t really know the details myself, except “ - she frowns - “ despite setting it up, my family has never won a single war. I actually summoned you two months ahead of time, so we have plenty of time to discuss strategy.”

“For now, if you’ve recovered sufficiently I’m curious to see what your abilities are. I suppose I could just ask,” she says in a mischievous tone, “but Leysritt seems to think she could do a better job than you in the war. Ridiculous, of course. Don’t hurt her, but I don’t think it’s a bad idea to show her why I’m the one who decides what to do around here.”

Ilya glances towards the window. You follow her gaze, noting that it’s completely white.. oh, probably snowing, that’s okay in here.

“There aren’t any suitable rooms inside, but there’s a convenient courtyard outside. Of course, feel free to borrow any clothes you think you need from my wardrobe.”

Well, boo.

What do?
[ ] ..hold on. What about your wish?
[ ] Eh, why not. A spar never hurt anyone, and would be quite cathartic right now.
[ ] Beg off, claiming you’re still not feeling up to it.
[ ] Write-in

If Ilya's betting her life on 1 in 7 odds (or worse, if you consider the fact her family's precedent) than her wish must be important. She wouldn't take this risk, otherwise. That wish is the reason she brought you back from the dead, ripped you from your world, and/or cloned you and got you into this mess in the first place. You have a right to ask why. To know what you're fighting for (besides your own survival, at this point).

...although maybe it can wait. As important as it might be, that's the kind of thing it might be early in this relationship to force. You have two months before this gets to life and death, at least.

>copy
If you are a clone (something we can't be sure of with our sketchy, apparently mythology based intel), then that changes your own outlook on this. You don't necessarily need to get home. Although if that's not your goal, that raises the obvious question- what is?. Still, that's a problem for another day. You've got mysteries and survival to deal with first.

>It’s magic. It doesn’t need to have an explanation.
Everything can be explained. There are laws and rules governing all that exists- even chaos. If magic exists, than it can be studied and understood. Just because Ilya doesn't know the answers, or has been taught not to ask, or trust the explanations she was given on faith, doesn't mean the answers don't exist.

>suspicion, lies
I'm not seeing much to support your suspicions she's lying, Cocona. A good lie to control you would be better put together than this. And if she needs your help to survive, than lying is a really bad play- since you could end up turning on or abandoning her if she's discovered. While a lie is possible, it just doesn't seem very plausible or productive in these circumstances.

It really looks much more like an incomplete story with a lot of pieces Ilya never thought to question and has accepted on faith. She's working on mythology, handed down generation by generation. That you, with an outside perspective, free of predispositions, poked a lot of holes in.

>Dead is dead, you’re either alive or dead
Not really. She's oversimplifying again- I doubt she's ever had reason to think through just how much the lines can blur. We have a hard time even defining what life is- what things are alive, and when they start being that way, and when they stop. It's bad enough with organics, and gets all the worse when you introduce machinery and artificial beings. You could very well have been a case the throne wasn't prepared for.

>“Not die, no. You’d fade away, like a ghost.” That sounds like death to you! Plus, how? Are servants not made of matter, like battle magic’s material illusions? You’re eating, though!
Whether or not that's death is a matter of semantics, and somewhat dependent on if you really where ever dead in the first place, or not. (Which you're still uncertain of).

I would posit you are made of mater. But you're not native to this place. You were transported or copied by the summoning procedure. The unique arrangement of energy, bonds and matter that is you was moved or duplicated. But here- the arrangement is not self sustaining, and lacks it's own inertia, for whatever reason. You have to be held together. And Ilya is what's doing it.

...unless of course, this weakness doesn't derive from the summoning, but the problem of making the dead corporeal again. In which case you might survive her death, if some of our guesses are correct. Not that you want to have to test that.

>what do?
There's something I'd be more interested in trying before experimenting with combat. And technically, it's showing off our capabilities, so Ilya gets what she wants.

Let's mess with some song magic. We need to drawn on your connection to Infel Phira- see what you can learn from it. You're not home- you're outside of range, but somehow not. That bears investigation. And if you were copied.... and if you never died... shouldn't that mean there's another you, back home, connected? Isn't that the sort of thing you might be able to tell if you draw on your connection?

After some magic experimentation and investigation (if nothing else- it would be nice to know that stuff works here, and if it works any differently) sure, we can try some sparring.

>two months early
Well, that does potentially open the door for cheating. What would happen if we eliminated the other masters in advance? Either by preemptive assassination (...although you're not sure you're up for that, really), or simply preventing them from completing their own summonings? Do we win by default?

Safe assumption: The too-inconsistent-and-patchy-to-be-a-lie story we've been given by Illya is as close as we're likely to get to the truth any time soon. Seriously, she is likely telling us the story as she understands it, which you note is not fully plausible in all details probably because of disinformation or just plain lack of information being filled in with nonsense.

I support pragmatically getting started on eliminating the competition early or setting up attacks in advance which will activate without our direct intervention if pre-contest engagement is impossible/non-productive. Familiarize yourself with available resources, weapons, fortifications, normal training and such: There are very many ways to kill folks that don't involve magic and I suggest you prepare for those in addition to anything else you may be capable of. Assume your foes will be ruthless and apt to attempt similar measures against yourself and Illya. You must familiarize yourself with the limits of magical or otherwise detection, and figure out how to travel untraceably in places that are hard for others to search to protect yourself against ambushes. Depending on the available technology level we get to maybe have fun with landmines, claymores, and more complicated explosives, which should be lots of fun.

>>505620
Pretty ruthless for a girl who's still not quite sold on the whole death-tournament thing (not that it looks like she has much choice).

Partially why I suggested just preventing summonings- it's a lot less ugly than murdering them in advance. Although, I'm kind of expecting Ilya to say the contest to require all seven servants to be put in play for the wish to work.

...there's also the question if other masters even have to die. Sure, they're the easy targets. But if we can get away just offing the dead heros, well, that's harder, but possibly a lot less ugly. (Unless of course they're more exceptions- more people of questionable deadness. And they could be drawn from anything).

Recognizing the others might try preemptive action and making plans to guard against it is nothing but smart, though.

A brief sidenote: morality goes wonky in the presence of copies. Traditional injunctions against killing are based around the loss of that person's perspective and contribution to society. When you kill somebody, you wipe out the accumulated memories and personality of a lifetime. When you kill a copy, you (arguably) merely destroy the _delta_ between the person and the point where they were copied. Backups make death cheap. So going after servants might be morally less problematic than masters (though it gets more problematic the more they interact with the world, and deviate from their template).

Food for thought.

PS: I don't know your setting, but you were looking for the simple rules underlying this reality, indicating you're something of a scientist. Rejoice! Reality is larger by far than you believed.

>>505668
I was wondering if anyone would pick up on that. It's still not very nice, though. I don't like this game; it ought to be illegal.

>>505622
As you say, it would be terribly out of character for Cocona. Even when she's blasting someone with superpowered fireballs, she's theoretically just knocking them unconscious.

Stopping the summonings is an interesting idea. I'll try to keep it in mind, but you might want to suggest it again when Ilya is in a less bloodthirsty mood.

[x] Song magic now, sparring later

Actually, you really aren’t ready to fight just yet. Not without thoroughly testing your Infel Phira connection, and maybe not even afterwards. It’s not really something you thought about before coming here, but essentially all your combat skills - your enhanced strength, agility, probably even reaction time, and obviously the fireball - are dependent on being a Reyvateil, one way or another.

You hurry to catch up with Ilya before she leaves the room.

“Hold on!” you exclaim, grabbing Ilya’s arm. “Just.. hold on a minute. Yes, I said I’m better, but -”

Ilya turns around, an almost disturbing gleam in her eyes. She was apparently looking forward to the fight. You don’t mind sparring yourself, but..

“You did say you’re better,” Ilya agrees. “Can you fight?” Smiling. “Or not?” Flatly.

You take a half step back. Ilya’s scary.. you think she’s just looking forward to the fight, but this seems too much. You guess she really, really enjoys fighting. It’s not a personality trait you’re used to.

Still. “It’s not that simple! Yes, I can fight, probably, but I haven’t tested my connection to Infel Phira yet. If something goes wrong with that, if it gives out at the wrong time, the result could be catastrophic. Worse yet, I might lose control over it during the stress of a fight. At least give me half an hour to test the basics!”

Ilya seems to study you for a moment before nodding, looking calm again. Phew.

“Infel Phira is the source of your magic. A noble phantasm of yours, then?”

You blink. “A what? No, Infel Phira is the source of magic for half the Reyvateils in my homeland, it’s not something that belongs to me personally.”

Ilya looks uncertain for a moment, but rallies, continuing. “Noble phantasms are devices, usually weapons, that are intimately connected with a hero’s legend. I see no reason they would have to be unique to that one hero, though; there are even stories of heroes showing up with their ship and crew as a noble phantasm.”

Something about that seems off, but you suppose..

“Regardless, you are Berserker. I suppose it wouldn’t do to take risks, if you’re not sure you can control it. Very well, then; I’ll tell Leysritt to meet us outside in an hour, and you can do whatever tests you feel necessary. Follow me.”

With that, she sets off into the bowels of the castle. You follow along; what else can you do?

=====

You follow Ilya through half a dozen hallways, down a set of stairs, through a winding, maze-like set of corridors, down another stairway - starting in a closet - and through an outright maze, finally ending in a large room made of raw stone.

Ilya never hesitated, but you’ve never been so glad to have perfect recall before. Otherwise you don’t think you’d ever be able to find your way out on your own, which is probably the point.

Ilya stops at the entrance, looking the room over for a moment before speaking. “This is a room that some members of the Einzbern family have used for generations to practice the more.. energetic forms of magecraft. It’s heavily warded against damage. Whatever you want to do should be fine in here.”

Interesting. It doesn’t look anything like active matter, of course, but.. “Wards?”

“A carefully crafted set of bounded fields. Part of my training involved reinforcing them, which has been true for centuries. They should hold up to anything short of a nuclear bomb, from both sides, certainly anything magecraft can do.” She grins. “I’ll be very impressed if you manage to damage it.”

A persistent spell, then. You wonder how they manage to make spells persist without active maintenance, without even a song server for support, and make a note to ask Ilya about that later.

You step into the room. The doorway gives off a slight staticky feel, resisting your movements for a second. Interesting, but..

“I’ll see you in half an hour, then.” In a sing-song voice, ”Please, blow something up.”

As Ilya steps out of the room, the air in the doorway grows hazy. You experimentally poke it with a finger, and find that it now resists your action quite effectively. Well, that’ll do.

(“Blow something up”, really? That girl needs help.)

=====

Wondering if Ilya might be watching, you sit down in the middle of the room in a faux-meditative position. You probably should start right away, but there are a few things she said that you just have to think about.

Her trustworthiness, for starters. You didn’t really believe she was telling the truth earlier, but with a bit of distance from the events, you can tell there’s really no good reason to think she’s deliberately lying. The picture she’s painted is..

She’s participating in a small-scale war, where any of the participants might easily end up dead. She summoned you as a force multiplier, thinking she was giving someone who’s dead a second chance at life, to fight her battles for her. Whatever else she is, she doesn’t seem to be a fighter; presumably, she wouldn’t stand much of a chance if you were to go against her.

Thus, lying to you would be against her best interests. Unless she’s lying about the very fundamentals of the situation - and in that case, you’ll find out really quickly - there’s every chance that you might discover a lie at the worst possible time for her. Risking that, if there’s an alternative, sounds like an incredibly bad idea.

She’s probably telling the truth as she understands it, then. The problem is, she also isn’t a very reliable source of information. Ilya claims her family made the Grail, but for all that, she understands its workings very badly. “It’s magic” is a thoroughly unsatisfactory explanation; you know from personal experience that all weird occurrences have scientific explanations, in the end. Your own strength and agility, for starters..

Okay, you’re probably the only one who didn’t realize what was going on there.

But really, if she was going to lie she could have thought of a better lie. Another reason to think she isn’t doing that, and just doesn’t understand it very well.

Unfortunately, you’re going to have to lie to her, at least by omission. You aren’t willing to kill people at all, not unless there’s an extremely good reason. Killing is wrong, damn it!

Some of the other things she said, you hope are true. Being a copy, for example; you’ll want to get home regardless, and you’re sure Mom and Dad wouldn’t mind getting another daughter, but you hope they don’t have to live without you in the meantime. You know them well enough to realize how badly losing you would crush them.

..killing copies is probably less wrong than usual, maybe you can convince Ilya to let you fight just the servants. That still doesn’t make you feel happy; you know you don’t want to die, copy or not, and you can’t imagine anyone else feeling differently.

You imagine what going home would be like. There might be another you there, whom you’re sure would be surprised, but she’d get used to it quickly - you know yourself pretty well. You always wanted a sister, and this would be the next best thing. You could play together, whisper secrets to each other, help each other out, just like..

Your dad would worry about what you’d gone through, and he’d worry about making ends meet, but he’d find a way; he always does. Besides, you could ask Cloche for help, she wouldn’t mind.

(Cloche? Since when do you know the Maiden? You’ve only seen her once, from a distance.. but you’re sure she’d be happy to help you, that she’d be surprised but happy to hear you made it back, as if you know her well. It must be something that happened in your missing memories. You wish you remember how..)

Your mom...

You spend a moment imagining running across the kitchen floor to Mom, remembering how it feels to hug her. She might be confused, but not for a moment do you think she’d reject you, and you wouldn’t let her go for at least.. half an hour or so.

It’s a good scenario, much better than the idea that you’ve actually died and left them alone, but in the end you’re still sitting on a cold, stone floor, suddenly feeling unbearably alone.

“Well.. best get to it, then,” you mutter.

=====

A few minutes later you’ve verified that your usual strength enhancements work fine, and that you’re still as fast as ever. Basic fire manipulation is still easy; you haven’t managed to damage the walls, but a little bit of experimentation did produce a blowtorch-like jet of flame that you think would make short work of any wall that’s not shielded. There’s no apparent interference with your connection from the shields, which is something you were a little worried about. There’s also no apparent difference from Infel Phira’s usual behaviour; it’s giving you the power you ask for, no problem.

You’ve been in here for about ten minutes, and already verified what you came here to check. You were expecting to need more time if anything failed, but that didn’t happen.

There’s just one thing left to try, really, but it’s something you’ve never tried before. On the other hand, if you don’t, you still won’t know if the connection is fine. On the third.. well, first hand again.. Hymmnos is simple in theory, but it’s a language where whatever you say becomes reality, never mind the cost to yourself, and you don’t have the benefit of a dive machine to let you craft magic safely. What to do...

[ ] Try making up song magic to blast through the far wall. Ilya does seem fairly destruction-happy, she won’t mind.
[ ] Experiment with the connection. Try asking Infel Phira about other connected IPDs, or something? Maybe you can even talk to yourself..
[ ] Sit back down and relax for a bit. Maybe try to remember how you know Cloche.
[ ] Write-in

>What do?
I'd say [b] first- experimenting with the connection and trying to query the connection for information first would be a good way to find out what's going on.

If there are no others connected, that could mean this isn't a parallel world, or a different planet- but that you're in your own distant past or future. (ie, everyone is dead, or not born yet). And if you can find a copy you, well, that's worth knowing, too. Maybe if her memories are intact, you can discover what happened to you. (Be sure to check under Cocona Bartel and Seiryu. Maybe the name confusion was due to the copying?).

Plus... if you can communicate with yourself (or the brother you don't remember having who taught you) maybe they can reteach you techniques or song magic or other you've forgotten (well, not that we have much time to learn before the match. We have two months to prep). That's information you may need to survive. (And relearning things may help jog or repair the damaged sections of your memory).

Then, I say go with option [A]. If you're going to survive a war against the greatest superpowered beings of all history and fiction, you need to be able to bring down the hurt. And if Ilya can't do this on her own- that means you need to be stronger than her. And her barriers. Bring. Them. Down.

[C]- meditation and trying to sort through and put together what seem like lose ends in your memory is probably something we should try to do- but you'll have time later. Right now we're focusing on testing capabilities, and we have a match waiting for us.

Query Infel Phira. If it's capable of passing information and communication we want to know what it knows about us, a survey of users/hardware/status, and also our access limits. Bonus score if we can look up useful song magic programs/templates by doing so, which we should test.

Querying Infel Phira carries a risk. If this is a genuine _parallel world_, then the summoning spell might have invoked time travel. In that case, since clearly there exists a universe encompassing both yours and hers that allows for inter-universe travel, you _could_ use your wish to bring the victims of the Grail War back to life, then figure out some other way to reverse the summoning. The problem is: if it involves time travel, you might not be able to get back to anywhere in your own "time range" if you commit the causal association between your universes to a specific time or specific date. In that sense, you might want to try to keep your interaction with it such that there is no _definite_ information that your family is long dead. (It depends on whether the time travel allows causality violations)

Does Infel Phira keep usage logs? If so, it may already be too late.

On the other hand - it is probably established that you are a copy. In that sense, time travel solutions that split off a new universe with you in it seem acceptable, since you don't have to worry about all the other people who don't get to meet you again (since they already have a "you").

(Long-term note: try to form a sort-of alliance of servants whose wish is to undo the deaths of this Grail War. Ask Ilya if there's a way to magically bind yourself to a promise.)

That said: test the connection, query for usage stats, other users, etc. Then do a stress test for maximum energy throughput, but be careful to interrupt it at the first sign of interference. _Then_ figure out if Ilya has a helicopter. You need to distance test this link. Might be it works here because this place is "in the same spot", in some transdimensional sense, as your home. Wouldn't do to have it fail suddenly while you're fighting ..

>>505849
Actually, I don't think the biggest risk is tripping over or tying ourselves to a timey-whimey ball. (Even if we do, we're competing for a wish. In theory, even causality won't be a problem. Ignoring for a moment the problem the wishes are corrupted).

The big risk of communication is Cocona rediscovering some of the nastier aspects of her past and breaking down. (For instance, she doesn't know she killed her parents. That's gonna really hurt someone who was less worried about getting home for the sake of getting home so much as she was actually hoping she's a clone so her absence won't hurt her family).

...assuming we she doesn't grief-bomb, remember we only have 20 minutes. That gives us 10-15 minutes to play around with the connection, and the last 10 to 5 minutes to test exploding stuff.

Access, Attempted Infel 2013/04/15(Mon)17:28 No. 505966 ID: 94e610
File 136607208858.jpg - (148.56KB , 1133x1055 , At1_p104_infel_phira.jpg )

Song magic is bound to be important later on, if you’re stuck fighting this war, but it’s not part of your fighting style yet. Even if you could safely create anything in the twenty minutes you have left, trying to use it in this fight would be a bad idea. No, better stick to what you know.

That leaves a couple of other options, of which the most interesting one is exploring your connection with Infel Phira. It’s essentially a big computer, after all.. okay, so that’s true to about the same degree it’s true for yourself, but it’s not not true. Like all computers, it ought to have a verbal interface or two that’ll be willing to chat.

In particular, Infel Phira should have a large number of autonomous processes - not connected to any particular Reyvateil - supporting the lift engine, power feeds and such. You don’t know to what degree they’ll talk to you, but it’s worth a shot. You should at least be able to confirm that Ilya hasn’t somehow managed to clone Infel Phira as well.

You chuckle lightly at that notion. Copying you is one thing, but Infel Phira is a device that took several years to build even using the technology of the Second Age, when they more or less understood what they were doing. Arbitrarily copying it would take.. you don’t know, probably real magic. It’s not happening.

Since you aren’t requesting any power, this should be relatively safe. The trick will be getting any useful data with the limited time you have at your disposal, so it’s probably best to have a plan. Of some sort. This would be a lot easier in binary space, but going there would definitely not be safe. It’s still not too bad, though - you don’t have to ask at random, you can start by asking what you’re allowed to do.

Recalling what you’ve at some point been taught, you fix the entire sentence in your head, making sure all the sub-verbal nuances work as intended before letting it cross the border between you and Infel Phira.

It’s more difficult than you thought it’d be, requiring you to hold a rather large number of thoughts simultaneously. It’s also a very odd, heady feeling - you’re only really conscious of one thought at a time while constructing the sentence, but you remain conscious that the other components are still there, keeping a holding pattern below the surface of your consciousness. You’ve heard that spells tend to take on a mind of their own during dives, which makes you wonder if right now you’re creating subordinate minds.

Using a language you haven’t actually learned or spoken is slow going, parts seeming to protest before offering up suitable function names. All told, it takes you about a minute for the first, short sentence - entirely too slow for combat, but still far faster than exploring a mostly-unknown computer system would normally be.

Was ki ra aulla zuieg tie mea /.
Concentrating firmly: What access rights do I have?

There’s an unexpectedly long pause, when the only way you know something is happening is through a sense of.. expectancy. Finally, you feel a sound-only channel opening back towards you.

neia nei pauwel /. re morto lya lyuma /. re wase x.y.n. tou hyzik /. ini method_deleir /. j.w. manaf tou yor -> chsee ansul yor /. enter enne manac ?

...you’re not sure whether you understood that right. It certainly isn’t the command list you were asking for.

Did it just say..?

Well, it definitely asked for your name, but something about the way you got that response is making it very hard to understand; it’s missing the undertones of meaning that Hymmnos is supposed to carry along, so you’re having to translate the words to your birth language one by one before trying to put them together. It’s very slow going, and might take up most of the rest of the time you have here.

You’re not quite sure, but something about those lines are giving you a sense of.. urgency. Infel Phira ought to be the one thing you can trust implicitly, so maybe you should just go ahead and tell it your name.

What do?
[ ] Don’t rush in. Take as much time as you need to figure out what it’s saying.
[ ] Go ahead, trust Infel Phira. It’s what you’ve always done.
[ ] ..I’m not sure what you can write in, but go ahead anyway.

>>505973
Er, my bad. That i was supposed to be an l - "nel", not "nei".

Attempting translation:

>neia nei pauwel
approach 9 power
>re morto lya lyuma
(passive verb prefix) die/death Maiden of Mio
>re wase x.y.n. tou hyzik
(passive verb prefix) strong hurt at/in/to body
>ini deleir method
initialize/purify calamity/disaster (and method is an execution command, or .exe equivalent? I think?)
>j.w. manaf tou yor -> chsee ansul yor
entrust life/existence at/to/in you -> transform into ???? you
>enter enne manac
enter prayer/request (with good intentions) true name/name of soul

Augh. This copy paste translation isn't cutting it. I can't tell what's the subject or intent of the sentences, even if I know what's being discussed.

First line seems to be a power or security level (of us? Or the system? Not really significant). A maiden of Mio is apparently some kind of admin (so it's noting its admin is dead? Or it's recognizing us as an admin that should be dead?). Then it notes serous damage (reporting it's own damage, or noting ours?).

Whether it's talking about itself or us really changes the context of the next two lines. It's either intrusting us with repairs and transferring authorizations to us, or it's trying to repair us and asking for our trust? (Or worse- it's saying we need to be purged, and asking us to go along quietly).

...at least the request for identification notes good intentions.

tUnLYO, can you sort through this? My inability to tell who or what is the subject of any of these statements is a problem.

>what do?
Be cautious. From what I understand I can read this three ways:
(1) Calamity has befallen Infel Phira, it's administrator is dead, and it's reaching out to you (consistent with being in the far future, after the death of your civilization).
(2) Infel Phira has taken note of your damage, wants to help fix you, and is asking for you to trust it.
(3) Infel Phira has decided you're irreparably damaged / dangerous, and wants to purge or change you? But seems to want you to cooperate.

(Or is that enough of a translation Cocana can easily sort out what's left herself? I gave her the vocab, all she needs to untangle is the sentence structure, which presumably she understands better than I do).

...you should probably give it your true name, unless you think it's case three. (We had soul-space hex addresses and things given to us in the dream sequence). Indicate your uncertain status as a possible duplicate of a another instance / user / node / whatever you're called if you can.

> Can Cocona easily sort out what's left herself?
Not really. The vocabulary is the easy part; she's got a dictionary in her head. Well, depending on what you consider "easy"; she'd be able to work it out in less than half an hour, sure, which is pretty fast! :P

>>505975
Hmm. That might make the first line significant than. Possibly noting one power draws near (and implying the absence of others). Could support the Cocana's the only one left theory.

>>505978
Welp. Then I'm off to try brush up on my grammar! ...and hope tUnLYO shows up first.

>>505977
I guess I can make an attempt.

>neia nel pauwel /.
Probably a statement of low power, I think. The word "pauwel" is used as 'strength, capability' if EXEC_CHRONICLE_KEY's use of it is any indicator, though here it could mean 'energy.' ...Not too surprising, maybe, since Infel Phira gains its energy from its connected IPDs and Cocona is the only existent IPD currently.

>re morto lya lyuma /.
This is really weird, and probably an indicator of horrible, horrible, horrible damage to Infel Phira. "lya" should be all caps and used as an prefix to "lyuma" to make the word for "Maiden of Mio," you are correct, but...corruption. (The Maiden of Mio is the proper [non-jargon] name for the person who is supposed to sing/lead Metafalica/the creation of Metafalica along with the Maiden of Homura. The Maiden of Mio, specifically, is the person that all the IPDs enter into (her Soulspace/Cosmosphere), thus allowing the creation of a gestalt entity that would be able to sustain the complex environment that those of Metafalss desire as 'Metafalica.")

Also, "re" is a word whose meaning I don't know its meaning. Apparently its a replacement for "na" or 'negation' so maybe "re" means 'negation'? But then the sentence reads 'not-death of Maiden of Mio' which doesn't make any sense to me. Google Translate says the translation (from the conlang wiki) is "is to," so maybe the translation of the Hymmnos would be "The Maiden of Mio is dead."

>re wase x.y.n. tou hyzik /.
Seems like what d6ef5d thinks to me... Translation: "[My] body strongly hurts."

>ini method_deleir /.
...'deleir' is an Alpha Note of Eolia, the First Tower. Since character!Nenesha was inside Cocona's Soulspace, this isn't too surprising, except that it is connected to a METHOD spell, so it should be using a New Testament word. The weird lack of caps for 'method' could also be excused with the same reason as 'lya' lacked caps...

Also, this just means 'begin the program deleir'.

>j.w. manaf tou yor -> chsee ansul yor /.
...wtfwtfwtf--what is 'ansul doing in Infel Phira?! That's part of the Three Towers! "LYAlyuma" or "Redjena=Olga" would be 'administrator' for Infel Phira.

...So this means "[Infel Phira] entrusts its existence to you. Therefore, [Infel Phira] changes you into the administrator [of Infel Phira]."

>enter enne manac ?
...? Whaaa...? Infel Phira and Cocona are intimately connected! ... except the part that represent's Cocona's connection to the other IPDs is utterly ruined. That does mean that Infel Phira probably doesn't know what's going on with Cocona, and why its asking her name (technically, I think, it wants Cocona's address within Infel Phira). Though it doesn't have "yor" after "manac"...

Also, there doesn't need to be "enne" if its just asking for a name. "enter manac ?" would do just fine. Thus, "What is your heart's desire?" might work.


All of which sum up to Infel Phira be fucked up, and, halfway through its damage warning, initiates a program that would do something, possibly fix things (except, Implanta & Metafalica...? Maybe that there are two Hymns in which Infel Phira enacts a repair means that there are multiple repair Hymns...), and makes Cocona its administrator (though, since Cocona's lower two levels are totaled, not Queen). It's also probably connected/controlled to/by one of the Towers, probably the Second (which is functionally indistinguishable from the First, since they're so connected).

...Nenesha, did Sumblimation successfully occur for this incarnation of Cocona? ...Except, dammit, that was Infel Phira controlling Sol Marta... Unless, something similar to Hibernation's version, where Sol Marta controlled Infel Phira?

...Also why did Cocona sing in Central? She's an IPD, the language that most naturally comes to her is New Testament. ...Though, the weird usage of Central within Infel Phira's (if that's Infel Phira) lines may indicate that Cocona's usage of Central isn't quite so odd, given the context...

Okay, that helps, I think.

>"re" is a word whose meaning I don't know its meaning
According to the dictionaries, it changes the sentence to use the passive voice (so the object acts on the subject).

So I think in this context it would be more "The Maiden of Mio is dead to me"?

Similarly, I think "re wase x.y.n. tou hyzik /." changes from "[My] body strongly hurts." to "The body is very painful to me". (Although I'm still not sure if it's referring to it's own body, or Cocona's).

>what is 'ansul doing in Infel Phira?! That's part of the Three Towers!
Well, that would explain why it's not in any of the dictionaries.

Okay, I think overall, this supports interpretation (1). Meaning I think it's safe to continue.

>>505993
Without the 're', it would be 'I killed the maiden of Mio'. Hymmnos sentences are active by default, and the subject is always the speaker unless otherwise specified.

This becomes problematic when the speaker has no sense of self.

>>505991
Re: Sublimation. That would be a secret.

Re: Central. Infel Phira has emulation capabilities, she can use whichever language she pleases. I'll admit that this is convenient, since the vocabulary is limited. I'm not picking dialects completely arbitrarily, but you shouldn't put too much weight on the choice.

The same does not hold for Alpha Note, mind you.

So you're taking option 2, then? Continuing on immediately?

I'll post the results in 28 hours. If this is not what you would prefer to do, you have ~24 hours to make that clear.

Well, we've got a pretty good translation, I think.

I approach one (low?) power.
The Maiden of Mio is dead to me.
The body is painful to me.
Run method_deleir (disaster.exe)
I entrust my existence to you. Therefore, I change you into the administrator.

You'd think if the source of our power was damaged and in need, the intelligent thing to do would be to respond and get on it the problem before things get worse.

...the only reason not to would be if the automated responses runs the risk of making the problem worse (mechanical and organic damage responses that make the problem worse aren't unheard of), or endangering Cocana in the attempt. After all, we don't know what the disaster program involves, nor do we really understand what this presumed admin upgrade might entail. (We're not consenting to become the ghost in the machine, right?).

>choice two?
Unless someone has something more concrete to add to my fears (or Cocona has knowledge that would make them ring true), yeah. Although trust and faith that everything will work out right isn't how I would describe our emotional state.

Apart from "nel" (which is zero, by the way), there was one other error in the hymmnos. I don't think it matters -> proceeding.

Reasoning, Rushed Infel 2013/04/17(Wed)18:30 No. 506369 ID: 94e610
File 136624860174.png - (63.27KB , 1121x686 , Cocona.png )

Go ahead, trust Infel Phira with your name. You don’t have much choice.

A burst of inspiration lets you translate the hymmnos in record time, taking less than ten minutes to get the gist of what it’s saying. It doesn’t sound good. As a best guess, it’s something like this..

I am approaching zero power.
The divine star is dead.
There is severe physical damage.
-> Therefore, initializing disaster program.
I entrust my existence to you.
-> Therefore, I will change you into my administrator.
Please enter name.

You’re pretty sure the Hymmnos version either used different rules of grammar, or was just plain corrupted. Neither option fills you with joy, even before looking at the contents of the message.

Infel Phira has been severely damaged for centuries, of course, it’s the fundamental cause of IPD disease. You can ignore that line. The rest of it...

Infel Phira should have a power feed from Sol Marta, it’s never had an internal power source. Most of its power is eventually sourced from the IPDs connected to it, but even if every IPD were to die, there should still be enough power left for Infel Phira to stay afloat and active. The only way that could fail is...

“The divine star is dead”.

The naming scheme is all wrong, that isn’t the right name for Sol Marta, but it’s a fair enough description. There’s no way it could have actually died. With a sinking feeling, you realize that Ilya might be right - she might have actually cloned Infel Phira along with you, but without its power source. That is.. bad. If Infel Phira runs out of power, you won’t just lose your magic, you’ll fall into a coma. Actually, the way things were looking in your mindscape, you might just outright die. Not that there’s much of a difference, with no way to recover.

The thought of becoming Infel Phira’s administrator is scary when you don’t know what that entails, of course, but you don’t see that you have much choice. The only thing you’re sure about right now is that your time is limited - maybe very limited.

Mind settled, if anxious, you turn your thoughts to the last line. “Please enter name.”

Really, Infel Phira should already know yours.

...

Ilya won’t be back for another ten minutes. You take a deep breath, hold it, then speak out loud.

Cocona /.

The moment you utter the last syllable, all sound stops. Ilya’s workroom fades like an underexposed photograph, replaced by pure black. You can’t feel the floor. You feel no gravity, either, nor any sense of falling.

In short, you can’t feel anything except your own body, and that’s missing most of its usual sensations. Your muscles were sore from the sudden workout, but no longer.

ini vYAsYNk yor anw spiritum mea /.

A command, more felt than heard. There’s a burst of light, and the darkness is replaced with a many-colored, unmoving fog. With a jolt, your feet land on a slick surface. You try to get your bearings -

x. rre yorr lLYInYIcUaU mean #0 --a code=’KOKONA=B6D_FEHU_FRELIA_ANSUL_INFELPHIRA’ es code => sol.infel-phira.[0x9C42B93853FF0C90] exec ini /. i̧͏n͏͠i̸ ͏EX͝E̡C͟͢_̧P̵̵H̵̀I͡RA̕͡ ̵͏/̵.͝

Power, Underwhelming Infel 2013/04/17(Wed)18:36 No. 506372 ID: 94e610
File 136624901170.jpg - (362.56KB , 1280x800 , pb1.jpg )

You wake up after an indeterminate amount of time, having somehow remained standing despite your apparent lack of consciousness. You have absolutely no idea what just happened, beyond the obvious, but..

You’re standing, as far as you can tell, on nothing whatsoever. It’s a little unnerving.

Immediately in front of you, there’s a tiny ball of flame stuck in the middle of what is apparently meant to be a glass cylinder, extending from maybe a meter above you and ending below the “ground”. Of course, you can see both ends quite well. A tongue of flame spirals downwards, passing into the bottom end of the cylinder and disappearing, and if you squint you can just about imagine you see the ball shrinking. There is no matching flame entering from above. No points for guessing what that represents; you need more power, badly.

There’s a certain lens flare whenever you look at the cylinder, which is how you know it’s made of “glass”. Very kitch.

To your right, there’s a screen (well, more like a 2D plane) with what looks like a structural diagram of Infel Phira, but it looks very different from real life. Many sections are blinking red or greyed out, though no more than you think would fit its usual damage. There’s also an opaque white diamond next to the screen, apparently missing even surface textures.

To your left, another screen shows a set of status displays, for once in Pastalian instead of Hymmnos. There are a couple of sections - “Infrastructure”, “Omega cluster management”, “Construction”, “Reyvateil”, etc., but you quickly zero in on “Power”. It helps that it’s blinking red.

Capacity: 7.81 PJ. Alert: 7.81PJ < 200PJ * 0.8 Charge: 906.4 TJ. Alert (CRITICAL): 906.4 TJ < 200 PJ * 0.1 Discharge_rate: 3.78 GW Alert (CRITICAL): Charge / Charge_rate < 30d [more]

There’s also an “Overview” section, which has.. nothing much, really. Just “Mode: Messela”.

So, um. If you’re reading this correctly, Infel Phira will run out of power in.. almost three days. ..could be worse? You were worried it’d happen in minutes.

You press ‘more’, hoping to get better news, or at least find some way to fix this. The status segment instantly expands to fill the entire screen.

Overview: Capacity: 7.81 PJ. Charge: 906.4 TJ. Discharge_rate: 3.78 GW Alerts: CRITICAL: Charge < Capacity_design * 0.1 CRITICAL: Charge / Discharge_rate < 30d WARNING: Capacity < Capacity_design * 0.8 WARNING: Discharge_rate > 0 for 1d [more] Charge diagnostics: SOL=MARTA: Charging at zero rate (layer 3 disconnected) IPD_BALANCER: Charging at zero rate (0 connections) APU: (Decommissioned) Overall charge rate: 0 W Discharge diagnostics (1h 1d 1w): Lift engine: 3.54 GW 3.54GW 3.54GW Structural integrity: 215 MW 215 MW 215 MW Omega cluster: 20 MW 34.7GW 12GW [more]

Sadly, you don’t know where to start. It’s frustrating, this isn’t the kind of problem that can be punched into oblivion, and the ancient interfaces in here are far beyond your experience. Moreover, you’re on a time limit - three days, yes, but you also need to get out of here before Ilya comes to get you. There’s no telling what she’ll do if she finds you unconscious on the floor, though you’re not sure if even killing your body would really affect you anymore. Unless, of course, that’d make Infel Phira itself fade away, if it’s a product of the summoning.

With a start, you realize that you actually have no idea how long you’ve been here, since you lost consciousness when Infel Phira did.. whatever, earlier. You look around for Ilya in a panic, until you remember where you are. She obviously won’t show up here.

There’s no sign of an exit, of course. That’d be too simple. The environment will probably respond to Hymmnos, though getting back might be tricky, and you’re not sure whether you should leave in the first place.

What do?
[ ] Try to get out. You have some time - not much, but some.
[ ] Press random buttons
[ ] Examine the structural schematics
[ ] Write-in

More translations!

>ini vYAsYNk yor anw spiritum mea /.
Pretty obvious here, it's plugging our sensory input into it's soul / soulspace / whatever. We've gone matrix, or ghost in the machine, whatever, if that wasn't apparent from Cocana's description.

>x. rre yorr lLYInYIcUaU mean
"You connect us" (Not sure if it means "you are connected to us?")

>#0 --a code=’KOKONA=B6D_FEHU_FRELIA_ANSUL_INFELPHIRA’ es code => sol.infel-phira.[0x9C42B93853FF0C90]
Okay... we got some code syntax. If we assume "B6D" is more hexadecimal, that's 2925. Can't translate the stuff in caps after that, not in the dictionaries (it uses ansul again. More three towers words?).

If I had to guess, it looks like it's storing/setting Cocona as the administrator at some hex adress.

>exec ini /. i̧͏n͏͠i̸ ͏EX͝E̡C͟͢_̧P̵̵H̵̀I͡RA̕͡ ̵͏/̵.͝
I think this cleans up to
>exec ini /. EXEC_PHIRA
Which is "run the program 'seed'"?

>>506369
And if anyone is wondering, the image just says "Cocona /."

>With a sinking feeling, you realize that Ilya might be right - she might have actually cloned Infel Phira along with you, but without its power source.
Actually, cloning seems unlikely. Then there would have to be a physical Infel Phira somewhere nearby. Which we haven't seen any evidence of. Infel Phira is fundamentally a computer right? So I think what we're looking at is more emulation. We've got a faulty Infel Phira emulator not hooked up to a proper power source. But- if it's being emulated, it has to be running on or inside something else, right?

If we can figure out how or where or on what Infel Phira is being emulated in the outside world, maybe we can see about getting some power to it. You're gonna need Ilya's help for that, though. There's gotta be a way to track or detect the power you draw, or your link, right?

Actually, the duel might then be useful for another reason. Ilya could study your energy use and link during the battle- try and see where it comes from.

>what do?
Pushing random buttons is never a good idea unless their are no consequences (either the buttons control insignificant things, or the bomb is about to go off anyways and button mashing will either disarm it or save you anyways). Since these controls are fairly significant, and you have three days, we should hold off.

I'd say you should try and spend a few minutes to get what information you can, first. You either still have time to get out (you weren't out for long), or Ilya's already found you, anyways. Then try and find a way to jack out.

>>506377
>KOKONA=B6D_FEHU_FRELIA_ANSUL_INFELPHIRA
This, presuming B6D is just β-6D, means 'Cocona in β-6D, Template: Frelia, Administrator of Infel Phira'. It's a Hymn Code.

β-6D is the name of the Reyvateil whose Soulspace all Beta and Third Generation Reyvateils are using to house their own Soulspace.

As for what do:
I agree that Cocona should just try to discover what information she can access, for now. Possibly focus on how she could send more energy to Infel Phira, since she might be able to gain energy from Ilya. (Probably through the IPD link, since I highly doubt either Ilya or Cocona would be able to craft a link between Infel Phira and Ilya such that Ilya would be able to send prana to Infel Phira.) Information on the problems and damages that Infel Phira suffers from might also help, as well as damage to its connected Reyvateils, to learn more about the damages to Cocona.

As for waking up... possibly "yUzItA rifaien hyzik.mea/." ? That should read as: I request to revive the me that resides in my body. (I think I accurately reflected Cocona's feelings...)

>>506382
Okay, before you go too far out on a limb: Ilya cannot produce power in the gigawatt range. That would take, I don't know, an Ether Liner or something.

That's not to say it's a bad-sounding idea, but consider the magnitudes.

Information is key. Again: I'm not too familiar with either setting, but if this is what Ilya called a Noble Phantasm, representing _some_ thing relevant to the summons, it's pointless if it can't power itself. Other phantasms have internal power or no power requirement? But something, emulation, parallel world, whatever, that is _sustained_ for a generation spanning war has to offer _some_ option to charge itself. (Note: ask Ilya if magic can violate conservation of energy. Note: affirmative unlikely. Evidence: universe is not a high-energy plasma). So, I think the problem is that this system is designed to get power from an external source that is not part of the emulation. (Bug in the summoning spell?) But the emulation _has_ to be accounting for the fact that the systems it hosts require power to operate. (Again: presuming conservation of energy). So it seems likely that there's some way to request the emulation layer to provide power in some form. Ilya should DEFINITELY be consulted here - she's the specialist on that topic. Phrase it in a form that she understands though.

For now, I second that we need information about our surroundings. Try to concentrate on what Infel Phira can determine about the physical properties of this domain.

Sorry for the double post, but it's really important! Focus _first and foremost_ on what the Lift Engine is and if it's necessary in this domain. It's our main power draw, and if it's not actually needed, or can be put into some form of standby, we can extend our battery period enormously.

>Ilya cannot produce power in the gigawatt range
She can't? Too bad. I was kinda hoping on that "unlimited mana" thing the fan-wiki mentioned.

...we'll have to get our hands on some lightning. Or steal some plutonium from the Libyans. :V

>>506481
Yes, shutting down nonessential functions would be a good way to conserve power, if we can determine what's nonessential. For instance, yes, if Infel Phira has been virtually emulated rather than physically duplicated, we may not need lift engines (or several other things). ...although, if we don't have physical lift engines, where is that 3.54 GW going? It must be doing something.

IF Infel Phira has any external sensors, they might be worth checking. See where it thinks it is.

>>506484
Yeah, I'm going to claim no limits fallacy. Ilya's extremely powerful by the standards of F/SN mages, but 3.5 GW is.. well, see http://what-if.xkcd.com/35 for comparisons. If she could average that kind of power, she could win the war on her own.

There's also the issue that (AIUI) F/SN mages do not actually generate their own power; they channel power from Gaea, which is already on the verge of death.

If Lift Engines normally hold this place up, and (as I suspect) this is basically an empty world, then this power drain doesn't make sense. EXCEPT! Even if its gravity sensors failed, it would be bad design for Infel Phira to fall to the ground. So I think its engines default to "last active state" in the event of sensor failure. In that case, we are currently using enormous power to accelerate upwards at approximately -9.81m/s², completely unnecessarily. Do the sensors count "no data" as evidence of error? If there's no actual sensor hardware problems on internal diagnostics, but we still can't see anything on the outside, that would be good evidence we can safely turn the Lift Engine off.

>>506494
I'd just like to verify that we don't need the engines running before we turn them off. We're in information gathering mode- not fixit mode, yet. We have three days before blackout at current power consumption. But if the guess about the lift engines is wrong, we could be dead in as little time as it takes to crash.

Well, you wanted information. I hope you find this useful.

[x] Find out what information you can access
[x] Check status of IP’s environment

You’ll have to risk Ilya’s temper, this is too important. There are things you’ll have to ask Ilya, too, but your first order of business is to acquire as much information as possible, as quickly as possible - there’s no real point in guaranteeing she’ll show up before you get back, you suppose.

The lift engines are the most obvious item to examine. Fingering that line predictably opens a new status window, this time showing just details of the lift engines. It’s mostly graphics, a miniature schematic of Infel Phira - there appears to be a circle of them on the lower side, of which about a third are blinking red or greyed out, mostly on one side. The remaining engines are marked with power usage and force vector, with the ones on the other side..

You blink, wondering if you’re reading this correctly. The force vectors for the central lift engines are pointed upwards, as you’d expect, but a lot of the ones on the fully-functional side appear to be pulling down, assisting gravity. Picturing the situation in your head, you realize that the megastructure is actually sufficiently lopsided that it’d topple if they didn’t, since all the engines on one side are dead. The upshot, however, is that you think it’s spending about a gigawatt just keeping itself upright. At least you don’t need to worry about damage from structural stress, since it’s been doing this for the last four hundred years.

Selecting one of the functional engines gives you a popup, with a slider letting you choose between automatic and manual modes, a large set of controls for the power and force vectors, and finally.. well, a sticky note saying simply “TODO: Add GUI controls for batched thruster updates”. You guess that means you can only control one at a time. Amusingly, the note is poking out of the screen; it comes loose easily when you tug at it, leaving you holding a copy. You assume there must be a way to delete them, but this isn’t it.

The engine is set to ‘auto’ at the moment, and you have no inclination to change that.

Looking at one of the greyed-out engines just gives you a messagebox saying “Layer 1: Connection failed”, but outside the box there’s also a red line snaking its way from the core of Infel Phira towards the engine, terminating in an exclamation mark right next to the engine. Scale is a little hard to read, but you think it might be about fifty meters short.

Giving this approach up as pointless, you return to the main power screen. The other power drains are a footnote in comparison, but you should at least have another look at the supposed sources of power. There’s just the two - IPDs and Sol Marta, both of which are reading zero, though there should be at least one IPD connected - that is, yourself.

Both of them, when selected, bring up schematics of what you presume is the supporting machinery. There’s not much to look at, though. For the “IPD_Balancer” it’s just a number of squat cylinders set at seemingly-random spots around Infel Phira - each maybe five meters across and one high, all covered with a dense hexagonal pattern.

Selecting Sol Marta highlights a larger version of the same structure, set on top of Infel Phira. It actually also makes the screen double in height, allowing it to show Sol Marta as well, problem being it’s marked entirely in red. Missing, you guess. Attempting to select it gives you the same “Layer 3 disconnected” error you started with.

You grit your teeth in frustration. This is getting you nowhere, and even in the best case you only have about five minutes left before Ilya shows up. If you want to solve anything, you’ll need more than just a list of damage. A list of solutions would be nice, but it doesn’t seem like the system is smart enough to give you that.

Where is Infel Phira, anyway?

Heading back to the main menu, you look for anything that looks useful - observation, cameras, anything like that. It only takes a few seconds to find “Surveillance”, which sounds.. slightly more candid than you’d have expected, but it’ll do. You select it, and the view immediately shifts to a bird’s eye view of.. Metafalls, centered on Infel Phira.

You don’t understand, you were sure by now that Infel Phira had been somehow brought with you, but this view seems to indicate it’s right where it was.

Oh, but when you look closer, none of the gears that turn the Rim seem to be moving. This must simply be an overview of where it expects to be! And indeed, when you look closely there are little camera icons everywhere, everything outside of Infel Phira itself covered with millions of red spots. This makes sense, you just have to select the one you want to look through.

There’s also a “restore previous session” button down in the corner, which you press in hopes of saving time.

The effect is rather more dramatic than earlier, as innumerable screens show up all around you - you even have to dodge one, when it tries to open right between your eyes. Whoever used this system before, she was really messy about her workspaces; you’d like to file a complaint.

As you turn in a circle, any attempts at humor are soon stilled when you realize what you are looking at. Many of the screens are grey, or show error messages. The ones that are left all show one thing, a scene you wouldn’t have expected even in your nightmares.

It’s Metafalls, but a Metafalls gone dead and silent.

Where you can see machinery, the machinery has stopped.

Where you see cities, the streets are full of people - slumped against walls, or lying on the ground, but never moving. Some are visibly breathing. Many aren’t.

With growing panic, you survey the scenery, searching for signs of life.

In one window you see a tank full of fish, some feebly swimming, most dead. In another, fields of grain with no-one to tend them. In a third, a bird, winging its way across the sky. Looking around frantically, you search for signs of human movement.

At last, from a camera that appears to overlook the Bell Strike Hall, you witness a strange scene. There’s a girl.. a girl with green hair and wings, sitting slumped on the floor like the others, but with an enormous blue wolf pacing around her. At one point the girl lifts her head to look at the wolf, which immediately stops to look back. Her head soon drops back down, and the wolf resumes pacing, but you don’t care. Just seeing someone move is enough to lift your spirits immensely.

You press your hands against the window, trying to get a closer look -

Infel 2013/04/18(Thu)16:54 No. 506546 ID: 94e610
File 136632928107.jpg - (12.30KB , 300x429 , 300px-Frelia.jpg )

And stumble through, a sudden lurch marking your transition from administrative space to the scene you were looking at. The wolf is right in front of you, now; if you reach out, you could touch it.

No.

Looking around, you realize that you haven’t really moved at all. You appear to be standing in the Hall, yes, but to your left and right are patchworks of grey space, and immediately behind you you can see the window attached to the side of the building, where you suppose there in reality is a camera. Moreover, the wolf isn’t reacting to your presence at all, despite frequently turning around to look past you. It’s a clever illusion, but an illusion all the same.

Directly above you, you can see the floating form of Infel Phira casting a kilometer-wide shadow across the city you’re standing on top of. Perhaps more precisely, the city you’re currently floating above. Your hometown, now dead.

Slumping to the stone floor, you hug your knees to your chest, all thoughts of Ilya forgotten. It doesn’t take long before you start crying: Huge, ragged sobs. Slowly, you collapse on your side, shaking.

It takes maybe a quarter hour to start forming coherent thoughts again, though you don’t bother getting up just yet.

What do?
[ ] Go back, see if you can find your parents. There’s at least one person still conscious, there could be more, right?
[ ] Look more closely at the girl. And the wolf.
[ ] Look at other people. Figure out what’s happened. Somehow.
[ ] Write-in

...damn. Ever time I think we've figured out what's going on, the parameters change.

Assuming time passes at the same rate in here as it does outside (no reason to assume that, actually. With computer cycles, time could be going a lot faster here) we've missed our window. Ilya's shown up and found us already (not sure why you were afraid she would kill your unconscious body. Are we expecting her to react in blind anger at the apparent failure of her summoning- and the servant she needs to survive the coming war?).

...if we wake up to her again, I suggest explaining that we weren't really unconscious this time- more of an astral projection, or communion with Infel Phira. Nothing wrong with you. Just... everything else.

Here's hoping this place is a copy, and your real hometown is safe. If not, well, you just found something worth a wish to try and fix, I think.

>what do
First, getup and mash the rewind button on the cameras. Don't waste more than a few minutes on this- all we want to know is how long ago things went bad and how quickly it happened. Do the recordings start with everything stopped (like, maybe the summoning copied empty bodies, without minds or souls?), does everything suddenly break, or does it happen more slowly?

Next step is to examine the girl. That's... Frelia? Isn't she a tower administrator? How can she be alive, didn't Infel Phira just overwrite her access with yours?

>#0 --a code=’KOKONA=B6D_FEHU_FRELIA_ANSUL_INFELPHIRA’

and isn't she a Reyvateil? Isn't the system not reading any?

Depending on what we learn from the cameras rewind, and what state Frelia is in, you're either going to need to do more investigation (cross referencing camera feeds and timestamps with event logs, figuring out what happened, when, and how, so maybe we can reverse or fix it) or you're going to have go to her aid (she may be in pressing need, and she may have information we desperately need).

>parents
...you can't. They're either okay, or they're not, but in the next few minutes, if they're okay, the best way to help them is to figure this out. It's a systemic problem- it needs a systemic solution, a way to fix this, while people can still be saved. If they can still be saved. And if they're not okay... you can't afford to know that yet. You can't afford to shut down now.

Plus we know they're dead, and can't afford to let you face that now.

>>506549
Infel Phira is not the same as Sol Marta, the Tower Frelia administrates. (The Hymn Code contain Frelia solely because the Beta type Reyvateil(s) that are Cocona's ancestors were made using Frelia as a template.)

>>506546
No going after parents or people close to you, Cocona. If they are hurt or dead, that would likely provoke an IPD outburst, which would be bad.

Thus, I suggest rewinding the frames on Frelia and Shun, to hopefully see why (where) they are so down.

Hibernation, I think. Guilt, perhaps, on Frelia's part...? My, I wonder how corrupted and degraded will Metafalss be as Frelia's overwhelming negative emotions infect Frelia's Song that creates and maintains Metafalss~!

Oh, and it's also worth pointing out, that even if we find people on the cameras Cocona may want to rush to and help, we may not be able to.

Remember this is a mental projection of some kind- you're outside of your own body. It's uncertain how real the rest of this Metafalss is to you- worst case, you're a ghost in the machine. This control room could be completely virtual. You could have no physical way to interact with the people or things out there except through Infel Phira, and it's systems. I hope there are at least mikes and speakers near Frelia.

This looks like something is missing. Some people are still breathing.. that indicates: no virus, no weaponry. The destruction is the same degree everywhere, but it only affects humans, and only human cognition - birds are fine, fish are fine (if starving) .. actually, the fish indicate this happened at most a few days ago. Coinciding with your summoning? Coincidence too sharp to ignore.

What do humans in your world need to live that animals don't?

>>506638
Ammonia poisoning, I'm afraid. It'd take weeks for fish to starve.

You’ve been keeping your emotions in check for some time, now. Once they break free, getting yourself back under control is an impossible task - so much has happened lately, none of it good, and whenever you manage to push one image to the side your mind just skips right to the next.

Seeing your home reduced to this was a shock. Of course it was, but if that was all, you think you’d have been able to push through. You miss your parents. You miss your brother, and not remembering his name or face just makes it worse. You hate having to walk on tightropes around Ilya, never being confident of what the girl will do next. You’re worried about what you’ve done to yourself, how damaged your mind is. You’re nervous about controlling Infel Phira; you certainly have no idea how to do that. Nobody does, but you’re eleven.

As a result you stay there on the floor for quite some time, curled up in a ball, instinctively making yourself as small as possible and sobbing quietly. More than anything, you want someone to find you and tell you it’ll be okay. Someone who can take over and tell you what to do, because this is all too bewildering and huge for a young girl like you.

You flinch away from the idea of searching for your parents, at some level knowing you’d at best find them unconscious somewhere.

At one point you actually reach out to the strange wolf, but your hand just passes right through it, and it doesn’t seem to notice

There’s no-one.

It takes you some time, but with that thought in mind, you eventually work up enough motivation to start properly thinking about the situation. There really is no-one else to ask: If anything’s going to be fixed, you’ll have to fix it yourself. Well, you suppose there’s this girl - if she’s awake enough to talk, maybe - but at the moment you might as well be a ghost, so that’s not an option anyway.

Sniffling a little, you push yourself to your feet.

As far as you can tell, you have three problems:

First, everyone on Metafalls is unconscious. Maybe dead, maybe dying. That’s your largest, most obvious problem, not to mention it’s why you’re having to do this on your own. It’s also the one you have least idea about how to fix, but the longer you wait, the more people will die. It’s hot here; even just laying around outside, without drinking, will kill you in two or three days at most.

Second, Infel Phira is running out of power. That’s your second deadline: In three days it will crash, you will die, all the other IPDs might also die, and of course it’ll crash right here. You look up to where the currently diamond-shaped Infel Phira is looming ominously above Pastalia, a little off to one side.

Third, there’s Ilya, the girl who claims herself your Master. In the grand scheme of things, Ilya and her war don’t matter. You could shut up and multiply: Even if you cared about her in any real sense, the number of lives involved are too different. The girl is still important, but only because she could potentially get in your way..

By now, she’s probably discovered your body. You don’t think she’d actually hurt you - she doesn’t seem fundamentally mean, and she does need you - but there’s no telling what kind of situation you’ll wake up to.

You wonder if you could get her to lay off for a week. That war was two months away, right?

Well, leaving Ilya aside for the moment. The first two problems might actually be the same one: Infel Phira is supposed to be powered by Sol Marta and the other IPDs, but they’re all currently unconscious. It’s harder to guess why Sol Marta isn’t supplying power; it’s still visible as a bright star in the sky, so it’s not that this entire place was moved to Ilya’s world without Sol Marta. For that matter, without Sol Marta Metafalls would have fallen. It is, after all, a flying continent.

Best course of action, then: Revive everyone. You don’t know how to do that, or if it’s even possible, but it’s a goal. You can work with that.

Figuring out what happened would be a good start.

While you were feeling sorry for yourself the winged girl has crawled into a corner to lean against the wall, and is now hugging her knees while rocking back and forth. The wolf seems to be trying to comfort her, as it’s lightly leaning against her while.. whining, you think? You’re not actually getting any sound, but that would make sense. Either way, she doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

Giving the two one last glance, you head back into Infel Phira proper to see if you can rewind the cameras.

=====

As it turns out, rewinding them is fairly easy. The camera windows are a clever bit of code, overall; they turn into doorways if you push into them, but offer enough resistance that you can grip them with them with your hands and move them. Well, or maybe they just know where your hands are. You do a bit of impromptu house cleaning, making sure you have a clear line of sight to all three consoles.

More importantly, trying to move one by gripping its upper edge with both hands accidentally made it pop up a bunch of controls. Literally so, in this case; the controls are three-dimensional objects, taking the form of slides, toggles, and buttons you actually have to push. Not yet having grown bored with that style of interface on 2D screens, you find this extremely nifty, though you wonder why they put so much effort into the camera system.

Regardless, there’s a clearly marked “Rate of time” slider. It’s labelled 1:0 in the center, 1:1 slightly to the right, but extends beyond those in both directions. The slider is currently set to 1:1; out of curiosity, you try to push it further to the right, but it refuses to budge.

Pulling it towards zero slows down time, until the view finally freezes. Right. Now you just have to find the cause, the sooner the better.

You pull the slider all the way to the left, leaving it at 1:10000. At that speed it’s impossible to tell what’s going on - the wolf is nothing but a blur on the screen, though the girl doesn’t move much, and you can occasionally even see her face. She’s very good at staying still.

..come to think of it, wasn’t there some story about a winged girl? It’s right at the tip of your tongue...

The colors shortly get bluer, making you think it’s nighttime, though it doesn’t affect the apparent brightness any, nor does it affect the behaviour of the two you’re watching.

After about fifteen seconds they abruptly disappear, and the screen fills with a blur of people. You quickly slam the slider to zero, leaving you looking at a large gathering of people. Sacred Army, you think, wondering what they’re doing in Pastalia. It’s hard to tell what they’re doing with the view paused like this -

You unpause it, switching to 1:2 or thereabouts. They seem to be preparing for something, though you don’t know what; they’re cleaning the place up, bringing out the red carpet, and so on. You do have some ideas, though you don’t think even the Sacred Army would have wanted this outcome.

Eventually they line up on either side of the carpet, and you switch back to 1:1. As you halfway expected, the winged girl enters the scene, preceded by some guy in a nonstandard Army uniform. You start paying very careful attention.

This bit actually has a soundtrack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8iP0lkRldE

Day 0, Hill of Metafalica Infel 2013/04/20(Sat)18:50 No. 506975 ID: 94e610
File 136650902225.jpg - (25.47KB , 640x450 , 19-AT2-00103.jpg )

The girl steps up to the statues of Infel and Nenesha, turns towards her now kneeling audience, and starts singing a spell.

A long spell.

A very long spell, in fact; two minutes in, there’s still no apparent effect. You wonder if there’s any effect on other parts of the city, but the windows don’t seem to automatically synchronize. Keeping one eye on the girl, you start experimenting with one that’s overlooking Pastalia’s central park to see if you can figure something out.

The answer turns out to be yes. It’s actually grown a prominent “Synchronize with record playback” button, which you promptly press, wondering if there’s any way to automate the process - you have a lot of windows open. Turns out there are also volume controls, something you immediately take advantage of.

Infel 2013/04/20(Sat)18:51 No. 506976 ID: 94e610
File 136650908744.jpg - (33.37KB , 640x450 , 28-AT2-00119.jpg )

What you see in the park makes your blood boil. You’ve found the cause - it’s that song, which you can now hear playing through both windows.

You can also hear children crying for their parents, who are mostly ignoring them in favor of listening. It’s a horrid, hurtful scene. Eventually the cries quieten, which is a mixed blessing - it might mean they’re not hurting, but it also means they’ve succumbed to the spell.

Looking around Metafalls shows more of the same. In some places there are people who resist, for a time, but by the five minute mark almost everyone has succumbed.

Infel 2013/04/20(Sat)18:57 No. 506978 ID: 94e610
File 136650944273.jpg - (43.18KB , 640x450 , 33-AT2-00145.jpg )

Then a new group of people enter the picture at the Hill. Two knights, someone you think is probably a Reyvateil, some other girl, and.. yourself?

It’s odd, looking at yourself like this. Odder still since you have no memory whatsoever of being there. You look pretty good, you think - confident, more so than you’ve felt lately.

The other people in your group seem.. familiar. Especially the younger knight; looking at him gives you a sense of warmth. He’s pretty cute, too. You wish you remembered these people properly; you’re sure they’re good memories, for the most part.

The younger knight looks like he’s about to speak up, when you see yourself wobble on your feet and collapse with a little cry. Uh oh. The knight immediately turns around to help.

“Cocona! What’s wrong? Get up!”

“Cro..”, you hear yourself say. “It’s like.. I don’t have any power...”

“Cocona!”

At that, the black-haired apparent Reyvateil speaks up, pointing at the Fairy. “Croix, look at Frelia. She’s most likely hacking into Infel Phira.”

You almost remember her name; it’s on the tip of your tongue. You’re pretty sure she’s the one who taught you.

“What?”, the newly named Croix exclaims.

“I.P.Ds have their Cosmospheres inside Infel Phira. If Infel Phira is invaded, Cocona’s mind will also be invaded.”

“Damn..” Croix looks towards the Army leader, who has drawn himself to his feet and looks ready to defend Frelia. “Stop it, Targana!”

Targana shakes his head. “No. Even if I wanted to, it’s useless; the song won’t stop. Even if you did stop it, Infel Phira won’t revert.”

“But.. Cocona...”

“It’s very sad, but to realize our paradise, this is a necessity. We must rewrite Infel Phira, or we can’t live in it. Forgive me.. Croix...”

“..what kind of paradise requires so many sacrifices?”

“Change always comes with sacrifices! There is no revolution without blood! The sacrifice of the I.P.Ds will save a million Metafalssians! ...It's not like I'm not pained by this either. If the I.P.Ds had been eradicated from the start, we wouldn’t have to suffer this. If you have to get mad at someone, get mad at Alfman; it’s his actions to increase the I.P.D. population that brought on this tragedy. Your precious Cocona is one of his victims.”

“..if we don’t do this, suffering will only increase. Metafalls won’t be able to support our current population forever, there isn’t enough land.”

Targana has worked himself up quite a bit, but as he’s saying this he’s looking down and avoiding Croix’ gaze. In the corner of your eye you notice the second girl, with the ridiculous hairstyle, turning away and walking back into the building.

“Croix..”, you hear yourself moan.

“So, Croix. What are you going to do? Will you fight?”

Targana looks pained at the idea, but gestures at the other soldiers to spread out in a semicircle surrounding Frelia.

“With a handicap like Cocona, there’s no way for you to win. Even if you did, what would you do? You cannot hurt Frelia without bringing down Metafalls, there’s no path of victory for you.”

At that, the black-haired Reyvateil speaks up. “..there might be another way. Croix, if we use Cocona.. you might have a chance..”

“What do you mean? Use Cocona?”

“I’ll explain elsewhere. There’s nothing we can do here, let’s go.”

Targana lets them go, looking uncertain.

=====

You try to follow the small group on camera. There are a lot of dead spots, but with almost everyone already down, it’s not hard to spot them when they move into an area with coverage, and a bit of fiddling with the volume controls makes sure you hear everything they say on camera. Unfortunately, that’s nothing.

Finally you see them walk into the Dive Shop in central Pastalia, never having heard what their plan was. There’s no camera inside it, or indeed inside any buildings newer than about four hundred years.

You start skipping. Eventually even Targana succumbs to the song, apparently falling asleep on his feet before falling flat on his face. You wince, seeing a slight trail of red peeking out.

About thirteen minutes into the song there’s a flash of light that leaves you seeing spots, and Frelia stutters in her song before collapsing. The wolf shows up shortly afterwards, and starts.. talking to her!?

Yep. Talking wolf. That’s odd. It’s not saying anything interesting, though, just begging Frelia to wake up.

You pinch the bridge of your nose, closing your eyes for a moment before continuing. Very little else happens; the black-haired Reyvateil exits the dive shop about twenty minutes later, grimacing and looking pale, but you quickly lose her when she enters the internals of Metafalls. Apart from that, it’s just Frelia occasionally waking up sufficiently to move a few centimeters before going catatonic again.

Finally you reach the current time, and the slider jumps back to 1:1.. which is where you’re holding your hand. It now has a VR slider sticking through it. You instinctually pull away, despite the lack of any pain whatsoever. Experimentally poking the slider shows it to be as solid as always.

Well, now what?

You learned a lot, most of which you didn’t really understand, but you’re no closer to a solution than before. By now you’ve also spent at least forty minutes in here, practically guaranteeing you’ll have been discovered by Ilya. As such, you suppose it doesn’t matter much if you stay a bit longer, but maybe you you should wake up and explain the situation to her.

Alternately, you could try to contact Frelia. There are a lot of things you’d like to say to her, many of which involve your fists. You’re not sure how, though; your earlier experience shows that you can’t interact with them, and you didn’t see anything like a speaker option on the camera windows.

Maybe Ilya would have some ideas? ..well, no, she’s even worse at this than you are.

What do?
[ ] Randomly punch buttons
[ ] Go wave your arms through Frelia
[ ] Wake up, explain the situation to Ilya
[ ] ..and ask for help
[ ] ..from the audience. Write-in

Oh. Also, my apologies: I referred to the "Bell Strike Hall" last update, when I really meant the Hill of Metafalica. Oops.

>>506979
I thought they were one and the same?

Anyways, timeline: Frelia sings Hibernation, Croix fails in getting through either Cocona's Boundary Gate or Lakra, essentially everyone in Metafalss except the IPDs (who die) get transferred into Infel Phira.

...Huh. That means Cloche died. So that what Infel Phira meant when she said the Maiden of Mio is dead... --And Implanta is inaccessible, so this state of affairs is essentially permanent.

This is unfortunate.

Well, except, Frelia. She hacked into Infel Phira with Hibernation, is it not possible that you could make a connection to Sol Marta (she's not dead, therefore she isn't an IPD, therefore she's connected to one of the Three Towers, of which Sol Marta is the best bet since it's the Tower native to Metafalss, and the next best bet, Ar Tonelico, basically has an incestous relationship with Sol Marta anyways...) and start expressing your feelings to her (remember, happy thoughts!). You have a name (Frelia) as well as a location (Hill of Metafalica), so Sol Marta probably would recognize the correct Reyvateil.

Your goal is to ensure Infel Phira doesn't fall and destroy itself (so, get energy, somehow--from Sol Marta?), then understanding Frelia (seriously, what kind of person would sing a song that kills hundreds of people--can you imagine the feelings contained in the Hymn?!), then understanding what the hell happened.

(Also, Cocona? Frelia the Goddess, remember? While I wouldn't expect you to recognize her on sight, I would imagine that Frelia's a popular character for children's stories... Though, I suppose, Metafalss' emphasis on practicality meant there weren't any children's stories...)

Huh, actual screencaps!

>You wonder if you could get her to lay off for a week. That war was two months away, right?
I would very much doubt that. Remember, she believes you're a copy anyways. A dead copy. She'll believe these people you're trying to save are already long dead, or copies too. Compared to saving her own life, and whatever she thought was worth risking her life to wish for? She won't place much value in them.

>Maybe Ilya would have some ideas?
I can tell you her idea right now. Win the war. Fix everything with a wish. ...with the caveat of doing whatever you have to to not run out of power in only three days.

Problem is, that's a gamble. You're betting everything on an uncertain thing. It was one thing when only your and Ilya's lives depended on winning. You can't afford to do nothing and bet everyone on the chance you'll win. Not when you could be taking other measures to try and help.

>also
...this might explain what went wrong with the summoning. Maybe you weren't dead- you were unconscious, turned off, dying, like everyone else. Maybe. Although... you don't know what they meant by use you. Could they have set this up? Purposefully? Made sure you went through what you've gone through so you'd be in a position to help?

>what do?
...I don't suppose there's an event log? Obviously, that song she sung- the hack she did, was some kind of program. There's no undo last action? Task manager force quit hibernation genocide dot exe? (Doubt this would work, but it might be worth wasting a minute or two on).

You're going to have to wake and See Ilya soon (she'll be getting worried, I'm sure), but first we need to try something. We should talk to Frelia- before she dies or leaves. She may have information we need.

Also... what happened to you? Is your body still where they left it, I wonder? (Were you copied or moved?) Or your allies? Did they leave the area, or did they eventually succumb as well?

And if you're not really here, do you need to actually walk places? Or can you just sort of blip to where you want to be?

>>507001
We're dead remember? Everything we perceive is what Infel Phira perceives or had perceived. Our body is inside a building that Infel Phira doesn't have cameras in, so we can't see inside it. And, since the update said the video stream (well, close enough to video in modern English vernacular...) reached current time, and the song ended, I would expect everybody except Jacqli to have died.

And, I would expect that trying to undo Hibernation solely from Infel Phira's perspective would end up with a Metafalss full of IPDs that summarily end up destroying Metafalss when they see the massive amount of dead bodies of the non-IPDs and suffer a truly massive IPD outbreak. The 'souls', if you will, of the non-IPDs are not synchronized with their bodies I would imagine, and deleting the Soulspaces would be killing them, without waking up the them-in-their-bodies.

...Though, if the souls of the dead non-IPDs are within Infel Phira, perhaps we can ask for a list of active Soulspaces, by the authority of the Queen of Infel Phira? Then, enter a Soulspace we do not recognize (which is important--familiarity would probably mean strong emotions) and interact with them? ...Probably not the best of ideas, and thus I am not advocating it, but we could check to see if we have the Soulspaces, so if we find a way to transcribe the Soulspaces into their proper bodies, we would know that we have the Soulspaces.

We're supposedly dead. We've yet to verify this. The state of our body (or lack thereof) could settle whether we were actually copied or summoned over in our damaged, near death state.

And even if we are hologramming it up here, I was under the impression we could travel. After all, we can't wave our arms through Frelia from this control room. If we can move our avatar to interact with her, we should be able to investigate and perceive other places as well, including where the monitoring devices don't reach.

>>507014
But we're inside a hologram constructed from the feed from the monitoring devices? We're in the control room, just with the 'space' that would represent the control room overlaid with the hologram; we, that is Cocona, are not a hologram.

...I dunno. As described, I'm not actually sure if the control room exists or not. We could be the ghost in the machine, matrixing it up in a virtual control room (meaning we can only interact with anything via these controls and camera) or we could be a holographic avatar working in a real control room. (Granted, a real control room with floating holographic displays screens). Meaning we might ave the ability to wander, and a limited capacity to interact with other things.

Simplest way to check might be just to look if the room even has a door.

>>507018
You don't see any door. If it's there, it's hidden somewhere.

> Bell strike hall vs. Hill of Metafalica
They're right next to each other. The Bell Strike Hall is essentially the inside part.

> Cocona's lack of recognition
You probably don't remember, but they've been burning their history books. Cocona knows about the Goddess, to be sure - she's a bogeyman - but she wouldn't know her name.

Now. That said, it's a bit hard to interpret the suggestions this time; you're short on concrete plans. I realize they're hard to figure out, here, but I promise I'll consider the spirit as well as wording of any concrete plans. At the moment, I've got this:

[x] Check for a sudden, unexpected teleportation ability.
[x] Read event log?
[x] Task manager.. you saw nothing called, or related to that.
[x] Try talking to Frelia
[x] Try talking to Sol Marta
[x] Check for soulspaces? (Any ideas how?)

Trying all of those would take a while. Feel free to prioritize, and/or put a time limit on her.

Prioritize? Alright.

>Check for a sudden, unexpected teleportation ability.
Well, I figure that would take less than a minute to determine that we can't do that, so why not try that first. (Unless we were to start trying to compose free form song magic, which would be slower and difficult to do. And possibly dangerous, considering we're already displaced / projected by one song).

>Read event log?
Uh... if there's one readily available, it might be useful to see what Infel Phira actually did. Then again, at best we might get the song name or a bunch of functions called that don't mean anything to Cocona. So it's of limited utility, and not worth more than a few minutes, tops.

>try to talk to Frelia
This seems to me to be important thing to try, since if we wait too long, it might not be possible (Frelia could pass out for good, die, leave, etc). And if we get some understanding from her as to what has been done, that perhaps best shapes Cocona's ability to try and find some response or fix. She seems consumed by despair or grief- something like confession seems like it would be easy to get. (maybe half an hour-ish to cutoff?).

>task manager
Feel free to discard that. I was making an analogy at best, and that's not how you would reverse something that happened, it's how you interrupt a process.

>talk to Soul Marta
I think that can wait till after we've talked to Frelia, maybe found out why Soul Marta isn't powering anything. From what we overheard, this isn't what they planned. You don't build a paradise by killing the whole goddamn floating island.

Also, even assuming we can figure out how to make a connection, talking to Soul Marta sounds as if it would be a time consuming and confusing process. Which I think we have to wait on.

>Check for soulspaces?
I think that can wait. We don't know how to do that, soulspace fiddling is liable to be time consuming and if there are people uploaded in soulspaces, they aren't going anywhere.

>check in with Ilya
I think we're going to have to wake up after checking on Frelia. (Within the hour, I'd say?). Once we know what the problem is (and assuming it's beyond what we could fix immediately), we can consult with our allies. And we can't afford to leave her worrying forever.

>burning their history books
...never a smart move.

>>507076
>Check for a sudden, unexpected teleportation ability
Lowest priority.

>Read event log?
Useful if only to see exactly what was going on before/during/after Hibernation. Third priority.

>Task manager.. you saw nothing called, or related to that.
List of active songs? Probably second priority.

>Try talking to Frelia/Try talking to Sol Marta
Talking to Frelia, physically, would require having Infel Phira projecting energy near her such that recognizable sound is produced which is too difficult, I would say (unless it isn't?). Thus, talking to her via Sol Marta: contact Sol Marta, ask to communicate with the Reyvateil called Frelia in the Hill of Metafalica. Main topics are why Sol Marta isn't sending power to Infel Phira and what was going on with the song (Hibernation, the Song's effects, etc.).

First priority. Need information.

>Check for soulspaces? (Any ideas how?)
What, can't the Queen call up a list of active Soulspaces (that is, in use)? Given Infel Phira's purpose, knowing how many Reyvateils are alive and who they are seems directly useful enough that installing a list function with ease of access is useful. Also, second lowest priority--not directly useful in the current situation.

>burning history books
...Right! Alfman, your underlings are stupid because you shut down all the schools.

On the subject of Frelia Infel 2013/04/22(Mon)17:11 No. 507257 ID: 94e610
File 136667589457.png - (14.10KB , 308x182 , rr1.png )

Trying to contact Frelia is probably your best bet, if you can figure out how, but first you want to make sure her song really did stop. There was a ‘Reyvateil’ entry on the main menu of the system console. Normally there’d be about an even chance that some random Reyvateil is connected to Sol Marta, in which case there’ll be nothing to see, but according to Blackie Frelia was hacking into Infel Phira as part of her spell. There’s a good chance there’ll be signs, if it’s still going.

On the way, the system asks you if you’d like to close all the surveillance windows. You decline; there honestly isn’t much else to use all this empty space for.

Bringing up the “Reyvateil” console gives you another fairly complex screen, with a lot of Reyvateil-specific controls and.. oh dear. In lieu of what looks like it should be a list of Reyvateils, there’s a screen saying “Exception: Prologue.head: empty list”. Seems there’s a programming error.. you can only hope it’s just that screen that hasn’t been well tested, and there aren’t any future problems waiting.

You steadfastly deny the obvious interpretation. Really, how likely is it that there are no Reyvateils connected? ...that is, there’s you, so there’s at least one.

It’s probably just a bug.

Most of the controls are greyed out, seeming to be for individual Reyvateils, but there’s one that looks very applicable - ”‘Active songs”. Pressing it reveals that there aren’t any. You guess Frelia’s either wouldn’t show up here, or is already completed. Completed, from the looks of it.

There might be other places to check, but you haven’t found them. Next step, then: Actually talking to Frelia.

You step back through the surveillance-portal to the Hill of Metafalica, where Frelia is still sitting in a corner between two pillars, sleeping with her head on her knees. You doubt this is going to work, but it’s worth a try...

You really were just going to try talking, but when you see her sitting there like that - after destroying everything - your anger spins out of control. Truth be told, you don’t even try. Sprinting across the floor, you aim a perfect punch at Frelia’s nose - and punch right through her, as you were expecting. You were already pulling your punch even before hitting, so you don’t overbalance or hit the pillar behind her. That felt good, though.

Frelia doesn’t react at all. Neither does her wolf, who is currently curled up around Frelia’s legs - through yours - and seems to be sleeping. The absurdity of the situation provokes a hysterical giggle - you’ve got the Reyvateil responsible right here, and you can’t do anything to her, can’t even talk to her.

You quickly calm down, taking a closer look at Frelia. Her lack of recognition allows you to get as close as you like, far inside her personal space, though in fact parts of her face are glitching out - the camera(s) don’t seem to have a good angle on her.

She’s not sleeping at all. Actually, she’s sitting with her eyes wide open, quietly crying and making no attempt at wiping those tears. For a moment you feel happy about that - she should be crying - then you feel bad for wanting her to, and just end up confused. Still, that’s right. This isn’t what she wanted, either.. oh, she was willing to kill you, and you will chew her out for that when you have the chance, but she kind of had reason for that. Not a good reason, but a reason all the same. Frelia.. sent everyone in Metafalls into Infel Phira, somehow, so surely she doesn’t want it to fall.

The thought strikes you like a sledgehammer to the gut. If Infel Phira falls, it’s not just you who might die, and it’s not just those it falls on - assuming what Frelia did basically worked, it’ll kill everyone. You already knew, you suppose, but you hadn’t made the connection before.

If that’s the case, then acquiring a power supply trumps every other possible consideration.

Abandoning your futile attempt at communicating through a one-way surveillance system, you practically run back into the control room. You need power. If you can’t talk with Frelia this way.. there was one other option, which you’ve mostly ignored so far; there are no IPD Reyvateils around to tap, but there’s still Sol Marta. It should be possible to contact Frelia that way, and you might also be able to restore the power tap.

Back at the console, you quickly back out to the main screen before starting to tap the less dangerous-looking buttons, only halfway at random. “Infrastructure” - wall of text, but it seems to be only about Infel Phira. “Construction” - actually tells you there’s insufficient power to make anything, you’re not sure what you were hoping for. After a few minutes of that kind of thing you stumble across the “Network” section, which shows a rather large list of miscellaneous devices. It mostly lists Infel Phira components - but right at the top, there’s an entry for “sol.sol-marta.edge19”. Jackpot!

Well, or so you thought. Tapping it gives you another large list of options, yes, but right at the top there’s your old friend “Error: Layer 3 disconnected”. There actually is a reading for power transfer, along with commands for altering it, but tapping those only makes the layer error buzz for a second. Figures; anything that simple to fix (to someone who knows what they’re doing) would have fixed itself already.

Other options include “ping”, “traceroute”, “binary field”, “portscan” and “diagnostics”.

Okay...

You poke “diagnostics”. Up pops a dialog box saying.. “Error: Layer 3 disconnected”. Well, why not. Who needs helpful diagnostics anyway.

“Really, Infel Phira?”, you say out loud. “That’s the best you can do?”

...

There’s no response. You feel rather silly, not to mention increasingly frantic. Three days is a lot of time, but maybe not for something like this. No.. calm down, Cocona. Take a deep breath.

It doesn’t work, as your breaths feel like nothing at all. For the first time since you got here, you notice that you haven’t actually been breathing - your lungs do seem to work, kinda, but you can’t really tell. Well, that’s great. Really. Visceral confirmation of Cocona’s ghostliness is just what you needed right now.

You eventually calm down anyway, though. Considering the situation...

Most of those options, you’ve never heard of before. One, you have. The binary field - it’s a virtual space, designed to let Reyvateils interface directly with computers, but it doesn’t have much in the way of safeties and it’s incredibly dangerous to any third-generation Reyvateil. Which includes yourself.

Certainly, using it might be helpful in figuring this out, but without any help whatsoever.. it’ll be a massive gamble. It’s pretty much your only idea, though. Ilya’s grail, if it’s powerful enough to help here, won’t be available for another two months at the earliest, by which time you’ll be dead. There are no other IPDs. You can’t find any other way of talking to Frelia. So it’s this, or push random buttons, any one of which might instantly kill you.

You wonder if you should tell Ilya first. Well, you should at least tell her something; a comforting lie that stops her from interfering, if nothing else. You don’t think you’re good at lying, but it’s not like she could spontaneously guess the truth. That’s the plan, then: Return to Ilya, tell her you’ll need more time to deal with the situation - probably a day or so, but no more than three - then come back here, and dive into binary space.

How to get back, though..? Song magic? Experimenting is always scary, but this seems simple enough, so you start composing. It’s pretty easy this time, the words flowing smoothly. Putting all your desires into the spell, you sing:

yAzUtLYI rifaien hyzik mea /.
Holding in anguish over the world’s destruction, I wish to revive my body.

You can feel something beginning to happen before the spell leaves your conscious mind, but after half a minute of waiting you’re still here. That’s odd. Spells can break spectacularly, but “does nothing” is weird and unusual.

You look around the control room again, hoping there’s something you’ve missed. It’s a simple place - featureless transparent plane to stand on, featureless mist in all directions, physical schematics, control console, floating-ball-of-fancy-power-diagram in a cylinder, floating featureless white diamond, lots of floating surveillance windows...

The diamond, then. It’s the only thing you haven’t looked closely at yet; even if it’s not the exit, it has to be worth checking out. Looking closely at it doesn’t tell you much, though. It really is featureless, not even casting proper shadows or reacting to lighting conditions. The only way you can tell it’s a diamond at all is by seeing its edges against the mist.

Poking strange objects is a time-worn strategy, so you do just that, letting you feel a fundamentally.. anonymous surface. Up pops an empty dialog box - there isn’t even an “ok” button. It goes away when you remove your finger from the diamond, though, so you guess it didn’t really need one.

Poking it a few more times produces the same result, so you decide to grab it with your hand instead. Something has to provoke a response from this thing, and sure enough.. this time glowing veins starts covering the side you’re holding before it cracks open, black mist swirling out to envelop you. You panic for a second, pushing off the ground in a powerful jump, before -

=====

- you slam your head right into the ceiling of Ilya’s practice room, falling to the ground in a heap. Ow. Owowow. Also, ow. The ceiling is raw stone, it’s very -

What are you still doing here? Shouldn’t Ilya have discovered you long ago? You feel befuddled, wondering if this place might be hard for her to open from the outside. If so, though, how were you supposed to get out? What the hell kind of door was that diamond, and what kind of person would make it?

You can just about see through the entranceway. There’s no Ilya outside. This is strange, could it be that no time has passed? If so, how?

Brightening up, you realize that this actually really simplifies your situation. Ilya doesn’t realize there’s a problem at all, you can.. well, you probably can’t stick to your bed all day, unless.. maybe if you deliberately lose against Leysritt? If no time has passed, Ilya will be along in another few minutes. You need to be ready for her.

What do?
[ ] Deliberately lose.
[ ] Tell Ilya the situation as-is, skip the whole fight scene. It seems so pointless right now.
[ ] Come to think of it, her Grail might not be the only local source of power.
[ ] Ask the voices in your head. You’re still seeing stars from that ceiling-strike.

>Really, how likely is it that there are no Reyvateils connected? ...that is, there’s you, so there’s at least one.
...unless with your damage and new status the system doesn't even count you as a Reyvateils anymore? A clerical error, or keeps you filed in the wrong / a different column?

Actually, the power intake read zero, right? If you're an active Reyvateils, shouldn't Infel Phira be receiving at least a trickle from you?

>a comforting lie that stops her from interfering, if nothing else.
Not really in our best interest, I would think. If you cover it, she's going to want to keep you working on her problems (ie, preparing for the grail war). If you get her to understand you have real problems, and that they affect her (no power = you die = she dies) you're more liable to get some cooperation, even if she cannot directly help you (although you never know. You're completely unfamiliar with most of her set of powers and resources- there might be some way she can contribute, or yes, some local source of power she knows of).

>This is strange, could it be that no time has passed? If so, how?
It could be because you projected your mind inside a very large and powerful machine (with enough processing cycles, 'time' can seem to pass relatively slower for machines). It could also be because you temporarily moved your consciousness from this world to your home. If they're in separate times / worlds / universes / planes / dimensions / whatever there's no reason that a linear flow of time should be synchronous in both. (Like moving from one book to another. Or a movie. Just because you progress in one, doesn't mean the other comes unpaused).

Although we really lack enough information on the metaphysics here to make a definite answer.

You don't have an internal chronometer to check? The time passed according to your mental records may not match the time passed according to the body you left behind.

>what do?
Kick Leysritt's butt. You don't appreciate being thrown around like that, and it'll be good to take out some of the frustration you're feeling. And to prove to yourself you can do something. A problem you can tackle directly (a fight) is almost a relief compared to the complicated mysteries you've been facing.

Besides, getting Ilya's help will be easier if you prove to her you're worth something. A capable servant worth helping is worth more than a failed one, who can't deal with a simple problem like an overprotective mortal.

...although it might still be a good idea to explain to Ilya there's a problem on the way to the fight though. If she can, I'd like her to try and study you as you fight. Can she tell where you're pulling energy from? Where you connection to Infel Phira goes with respect to this place?

>>507257
How to explain the situation to Ilya... how about this? She said that there's very little power draw from her to us; that's because we and all our songs- that is, magic- are supported by an external power source, Infel Phira. This power source is currently broken- possibly just like we were when summoned; we're not sure. In any case, while it has a massive store of power inside it- enough to destroy a small city, probably- the storage is damaged, and because of this it isn't stable and is rapidly draining away keeping itself intact; it will be completely gone in a matter of days. Worse, the support infrastructure that's supposed to keep it charged is gone, since it was supported by our entire civilization and drawn on by many people; if we want to store any additional energy in it we'll have to come up with our own way to do it. If she wants us to have any power at all left to use by the time her Grail War happens, we need to figure out what's going on with it, get it stable, and maybe figure out a way to draw more energy into it.

If we describe it this way, hopefully Ilya will be more than happy to give us time to sort out what's going on, and maybe she'll work on getting Infel Phira more power, which would be useful and keep her focused on something useful to us instead of something dangerous.

>>507283
She's from a modern-ish setting, with nukes and laptops. She'll understand the concept of a battery being bled dry. And I think she can appreciate the the energy drain needed to keep a continent floating.

> Keeping a continent afloat
That's Sol Marta, or more specifically Frelia. Infel Phira just keeps *itself* afloat. It does weigh about 30 gigatons, though.

The first you see of Ilya is a shimmer in the containment field, which takes about ten seconds to shut down entirely, giving off a buzzing noise that reminds you of high-powered armor fields. You’re sitting on the floor, attempting to meditate and recover some memories, though you’re starting to think that makes about as much sense as asking a washing machine to philosophize.

Truthfully, you were just daydreaming. Meditation isn’t something you remember being good at, but ever since you woke up in this world you’ve found it utterly impossible. You don’t seem capable of reaching the relaxed state required by the techniques you learned in the knight corps anymore - ah, but the thought at least made you remember you were part of the knight corps at some point, so it’s achieved its purpose. Sort of.

You smoothly rise to your feet as Ilya enters the room, but you’re overrun before you manage to say anything. “Everything in order, then? Do you feel up to a fight? Leysritt keeps insisting we’re doomed, it’s really annoying...” She gives you a once-over, then turns around. “Let’s go, then.”

Oh, for.. Now wait just a minute!

You have to jog to catch up, a situation that’s becoming annoyingly familiar. “Yes, as far as I can tell I’m in perfect shape for a fight, and I think I also figured out why you’re not feeling any drain, but about that. There seems to be a problem.”

“Tell me while we’re walking,” is her response.

“Well, sure. Remember Infel Phira?”

“Sure.”

“It’s still feeding me energy, which should be why I’m not using yours, but it’s going to run out fairly soon.” You explain the situation, emphasizing that you’ll be useless and probably dead without it, and that the scales involved mean there’s no way Ilya could do anything to help directly.

Ilya slows down, looking deep in thought for a while. You’re just happy you seem to be getting through to her.

“And there’s no way you can function without it?”

“None. Even if I could survive - which is looking increasingly unlikely - most of my abilities depend on Infel Phira for one reason or another.” You tactfully ignore her casual disregard for the lives of everyone on Metafalls.

“Well, it is your Noble Phantasm, I guess that makes sense. RIght. I’ll see if there’s anything I can do to help - how long did you say we have?”

You consult your internal clock, which.. seems to be running at about half of normal speed, but did apparently count the time spent in Infel Phira. Um. Well, the charge status was.. “A bit less than three days. At most.”

“While there’s still two months to go before the war. We can certainly spend that much time making sure you have the best possible chance.” Her eyes gain a maniacal gleam. “So long as you beat Leysritt first. Show her who’s in charge.”

Really? That’s what this is about, some kind of dominance contest?

..well, whatever. Someone to beat up sounds good right now, and if Leysritt is volunteering, who are you to deny her?

You walk silently the rest of the way.

Infel 2013/04/24(Wed)18:03 No. 507600 ID: 94e610
File 136685180137.png - (32.68KB , 530x526 , Battle 1-1.png )

“Right, you two! The rules for this battle are.. nothing in particular, Leysritt, do as you like. Cocona, try not to hurt Leysritt! Too badly!”

You’re back in the freezing cold, standing in the a roughly square section of the central courtyard that one or the other of Ilya’s servants must have shoveled off. It makes for an unusual arena - the snow is still about a centimeter deep, meaning your footing is about as unsure as if fighting on sand. That’s still pretty good, but you’ll have to be careful.

Ilya is watching from the side with what you can only describe as a manic grin, but she seems genuinely excited - any more, and she’d be jumping up and down. There must be some kind of story here. Well, you’re sure you can take Leysritt, but without hurting her? That’ll be a challenge. If this was a traditional spar you might have tried to force a ring-out, but Ilya’s mentioned no such rule.

It’s really cold, you’re already burning magic to keep warm. Minuscule amounts, to be fair - the only thing that’s going to affect is your eventual endurance, and then only if the fight lasts an hour.

The only one who seems fully comfortable with this weather is Leysritt, who’s wearing what appears to be a maid outfit into battle, but is also carrying a polearm that appears to be heavier than she is. You doubt it can get through your armor even if she hits your bare skin, but if she hits you with that it’s still going to hurt just from the massive blunt force. She’s standing calmly four meters in front of you.

You unclasp your batons from your hair, letting it fall down around your waist, taking one baton in each hand.

“Ready...”

You focus on Leysritt, ready to react the instant she moves.

“Fight!”

Infel 2013/04/24(Wed)18:03 No. 507601 ID: 94e610
File 136685182489.png - (32.48KB , 504x516 , Battle 1-2.png )

The next second or so is a blur. Leysritt twirls her polearm faster than you’d have believed possible, and is already jumping at you before you even manage to shift your footing, catching you flat-footed.

She swings.

Left!

You use a burst of magic to grab the ground and, ignoring leverage, force your entire body two meters to the left. The polearm hits the ground with a tremendous crash; you can feel the vibrations from here. Chancing a glance, you see it’s left a large crater in the snow, but Leysritt is already pulling it back around.

-------

Leysritt:
HP: 60
SP: 45 (145/150)

Cocona:
HP: 40
SP: 490 (∞/∞)

A quick explanation of battles:

- You get two actions per turn. One turn is four seconds.

- If your HP hits zero you’re reduced to one action per round, which may not be an attack or move action. Enemies can use a single attack action to cripple or kill you. They cannot do so if you have even 1 HP left, barring exceptional circumstances.

- SP is your pool of Prana and/or Song magic. It’s represented as “A (B/C)”, where A is your current endurance, B is your stored energy and C is your storage capacity. Endurance increases by 10 per turn, stored energy normally never increases during battle. I will probably not bother to include stored/maximum energy for Cocona again.

- Cocona is currently wearing active armor, which reduces the damage from any impact by 15 HP (to a minimum of 1) and converts all non-elemental strikes that do not deal at least 30 damage to blunt damage. It self-repairs very quickly, and is effectively impossible to wear down except through continuous-damage weapons such as chainsaws.

Currently available base actions are:

- Move two squares in the direction you are currently going.
- Change direction, move one square.
- Hit someone with a baton.
- Ignore inertia (10 SP)
- Control heat (5-50 SP)

Combinatory actions (use with something else):

- Enhance strength (1-10 SP)
- Enhance agility (1-10 SP)

Dodging is automatic, though not guaranteed to succeed.

Besides that, she can do anything that makes sense for her to do. Treat the above lists as suggestions, not hard rules.

I'm going to take some comfort in the fact I'm starting to understand Ilya- completely called her reactions.

Try not to think badly of her, and consider her position, Cocona. She considers you dead, and by extension, your world isn't really real to her (at best she sees it as some kind of phantasmal copy). She's going to find it hard to care about what's happening there while wrapped in up in her own concerns. And it makes sense she wants to see you prove yourself- he's concerned that the summon went wrong, and about her own survival. She wants to see you're worth all this trouble- that she has a chance.

For you own purposes though? A fight is some good release, and it'll do you good to take on something you can finish.

>internal clock, half speed
Does that mean time is passing at different rates here and in Metafalls? That might explain how you fit all that stuff in before Ilya arrived. However... does that change your estimate as to when you run out of power? Ie, do 3 days there translate to 1.5 or 6 days here?

>fight!
Did we ever get some kind of shoes, or are we fighting barefoot in lose snow? ...actually, considering our passive magical heating, I'm not sure what advantages and disadvantages bare feet would give us footing-wise here.

I suppose if we're clever with thermal manipulation we could bust melt and dry where we're standing for a sudden traction increase, or dump and then pull out heat in an area leaving ice in our wake to trip up our opponent. Or if we can't pull heat back to freeze water, we can at least leave her slipping in the wrong time in a sudden puddle (if you do it when she's already committed to a motion (dodge, thrust, whatever) you can off balance her and leave her open to attack).

Aside from trying to use heat to abuse the terrain to our advantage:

It seems to me what we want to do is close with our opponent. Get inside her guard. Our weapons are made to parry blows, and they're shorter and faster than hers. And we're faster too, and we can spend energy to boost that more when necessary. Combine that with the active ignore inertia power and you should be able to charge in, take a blow on one baton, completely ignore the momentum / impulse of the impact, and keep coming to start landing blows. And then dance around, boosting speed as necessary to avoid her, continuing to land hits, and boosting str on blows when you can.

Since we're not trying to kill her, fireballs and the like should only be used to force her to dodge or move (controlling your enemy's actions, keeping her busy) rather than as a direct attempt to hit her.

...If I've completely misunderstood how ignore inertia works (ie, it's only supposed to apply to our own motion, allowing Arilou Lalee'lay style movement, not to negate momentum transfer to ourself) then don't try the tactic I mentioned earlier.

Huh. If we have infinity / infinity, why even bother listing the costs of powers? Is there some other consequence of expending energy we should be aware of?

>maid
...looks more like a really old fashioned nurse, to me.

The most likely action that Leysritt would do next, I think, is to lock down Cocona--she's stronger and more durable than Cocona physically and Cocona's active armor would mean she needs Cocona to stay in a confined space to make enough attacks to damage Cocona significantly (unless her attacks hit hard enough that Cocona's armor is the only reason Cocona would survive the attack...). Once Cocona can't move, Leysritt's polearm means she wouldn't be exposed to Cocona's baton attacks, forcing Cocona to rely on her (currently functionally infinite, though long-term highly limited) Song Magic which she can't effectively use while actively moving to defend. Thus,

Thus, I suggest that Cocona either lock down Leysritt's mobility or push Leysritt back. For the lock down option, either turning the snow beneath and around Leysritt's feet into water, therefore reducing her traction (unless she has the sheer strength to just trivially obtain traction with brute force) and her ability to move so fast or turn the snow into ice (though, again, provided she doesn't have the brute strength to ignore it). For the knock back option, perhaps an enhanced baton-hit or a ball of kinetic energy (for both, she might dodge backwards or sideways, either is fine for the current situation).

Then, either a move or an attack: the move is to gain a better movement range or position to attack Leysritt next turn, the attack is to damage Leysritt. For the move, Cocona's still facing left, right? Therefore, the only good option would be turning and moving a square. If that's the best option, turning North would be my preferred option. For the attack, probably a baton attack (unenhanced, I think, to gauge the durability of Leysritt in relation to Cocona's strength) as Song Magic is better performed with set-up which I don't think is currently viable.

So, onto voting--lockdown and attack: freezing the snow around both Leysritt's polearm and feet would force her to expend both of her actions on freeing herself (though, perhaps she would just free her polearm and attack, sacrificing mobility?) then attack with both batons (no enhancement--to conserve power and judge effectiveness of base attack). This hopefully would prevent Leysritt from attack Cocona next turn, whereupon Cocona can attack again (knockback, though this time with enhancement) and move onto better ground. This pattern of preventing Leysritt from moving/attack so Cocona can safely attack/move should continue for the fight.

> SP costs
Leysritt has to worry about both endurance and mana pool. You only have to worry about endurance, which regenerates fairly quickly. You could 'ignore inertia' (which really means grabbing onto the surrounding environment) all day long, or throw fifty 10-point fireballs (2/turn) before running out. Details in discussion thread.

> Internal clock
It's running slow, e.g. six hours in Metafalls would appear to be 12 hours here. You didn't check it while in Metafalls, though.

> Shoes
Oops. Let's say she grabbed a pair of Ilya's; she's already wearing Ilya's socks. Snow is the enemy.

> Nurse
Cocona is unfamiliar with the concept.

rolled 1 = 1

---

Leysritt is pulling out her polearm around for another go, seemingly happy with her ability to fight you from where she’s standing. Best disabuse her of that notion.

Refraining from enhancements while you’re gauging your opponent, you dig your feet into the ground and spring northwards, hoping to get inside her range.

Leysritt is already bringing her halberd down on your previous position.

She strains, trying to adjust the path in mid-fall -

rolled 4, 6 + 10 = 20

---

- and mostly succeeds, the blade falling squarely on your side. She shouldn’t be able to move this quickly!

Desperately, you interpose an arm, grasping at thin air for an inertial barrier.

Infel 2013/04/25(Thu)13:25 No. 507723 ID: 94e610
File 136692150895.png - (31.67KB , 490x494 , Battle 1-3.png )

The blow strikes home, compressing your armor field to leave a nasty bruise, but not touching your skin.

You totter for a second, only barely keeping your balance.

Leysritt’s speed is stunning, for a human. Still - success! You're already just slightly too close for her to easily hit you.

-------

Leysritt:
HP: 60
SP: 45 (140/150)

Cocona:
HP: 36
SP: 490

There are sufficient plans. The battle will auto-continue in three hours.

Next time try and take the blow on a baton, rather than your armor, and use the inertia barrier to stop the blow, rather than taking the blow and stopping your being knocked around by it.

It's clear her normal speed is faster than yours. You've gauged that. Time to start cranking the speed boost up- get to where you match or exceed her speed. You need that if you expect your dodges to work, and your hits to connect.

You're inside her guard now, right? And she probably didn't expect you to absorb that blow as well as your power allowed. That means you now have an opening. Attack with your baton(s) (no str boost yet, you don't know how durable she is). At the same time, use heat manipulation to remove the traction beneath Leysritt- make some water or ice, so we can knock her over when you hit.

If you successfully get her on the ground we can try pressing the advantage, trying to go for a disarm or knockout (gauge whether you need increased str, and to what degree, from your previous hit).

rolled 1 = 1

---

Leysritt was obviously not expecting you to stay on your feet after that blow. You’re charging at her while she’s still trying to recover, and even Leysritt’s impressive strength doesn’t let her pull back without sufficient leverage.

Showing silent agreement, she discards her polearm in favor of an expeditious retreat.

You launch a small fireball at where you think she’s going, hoping to spoil her landing. With your agility boosted you’re faster than she is, but you’ll still be trying to hit a moving target.

rolled 12 = 12

---

With a wince, you realize you misjudged her movements completely. The fireball is going nowhere near Leysritt, who zagged at the last moment, instead vaporizing an innocent pile of snow to your right. That cloud of steam looks like it might have hurt.

Melee it is.

Leysritt is standing securely, preparing for your pass. You prepare your batons; she gets into some kind of martial arts stance. Funny, time has always seemed to pass slower in battle, but right now it seems to have actually slowed down.

rolled 1, 3 = 4

---

You feel like you’re moving at normal speed, instead of the barely-controllable spurts agility boosting always gave you. Instead, Leysritt’s slowed down. Only to slightly below your own speed, granted.

You have the reach advantage, making it child’s play to reach in past her guard and hit her in the shoulder.

Infel 2013/04/25(Thu)16:52 No. 507755 ID: 94e610
File 136693394318.png - (31.89KB , 492x502 , Battle 1-4.png )

It’s not the best hit, and Leysritt’s expression doesn’t even flicker.

You could go a lot faster and stronger, though. Maybe you should do that, end the fight with a bang.

-------

Leysritt:
HP: 57
SP: 50 (140/150)

Cocona:
HP: 36
SP: 493 (Fireball: 5, AGI: 2)

You know the drill. The drill knows you. There is no schedule.

>>507757
I'm... not sure if that means we should expect it to auto-resolve again, or if we should suggest. Meaning I don't know the drill so well after all, I suppose. So I guess I'll suggest and you can ignore me if it's unnecessary.

Basic tactics hasn't changed much, except now we have the reach advantage. You've got a grasp of her enhanced strength and speed now- start ratcheting up your own boosts (if she can take it, go faster and stronger. Repeat. Best way you have to get to the point where you can stop her without jumping right to your strongest and risking serious injury) Finishing strong is a good idea.

Make sure to keep yourself between her and her weapon. ...or actually, better idea. Covertly use heat manipulation to freeze her weapon to the ground and then make as if you're keeping her from it. If she pushes for it, let her get past you, and then strike quickly and from behind when she can't get it off the ground (the natural move on her part would be to try and grab the weapon fast and come about to face your pursuit- any delay on her part there gives you a significant opening).

If she doesn't go for her weapon (the fight stays hand to baton) press hard and fast with your enhanced abilities, and don't be afraid to use thermal manipulation to screw up her footing at the wrong moment, or to use ignore inertia to attack from a direction you otherwise wouldn't be able to.

>>507768
It means the battle will auto-continue. I *always* pay attention to suggestions; if I wasn't going to, I'd finish it in one big block.

Leysritt's blow, during Round Two, inflicted 4 points of damage. That's not much! It wasn't enhanced, though. Cocona inflicted 3 points of damage... As the update says, the blow wasn't very good, not the best Cocona could do--Leysritt probably is good enough to not allow Cocona opportunities to do better.

Say, Nenesha, could Cocona expend SP to enhance her durability/armor? Probably enhancing it the moment Cocona recognizes she going to be hit is too much for Cocona as she is right now, but if she expects to be hit sometime during the beginning of the round, perhaps Cocona could then be free to act regardless of potential hits?

Well, I think that Cocona should try to make the best of her two weapons: she could make a feint with one (or both) of her batons, then use a speed boost to suddenly hit Leysritt with one of the batons. Leysritt might be able to block one strike, so Cocona should also be using a speed boost to hit Leysritt with the other baton as Leysritt is moving to block the first baton.

>>507841
Leysritt's blow actually inflicted 20 points of damage. I expect she was rather surprised Cocona soaked so much of it; DR 15 is a lot. Cocona inflicted 4, which was mostly bad luck.

Cocona doesn't have any abilities that would let her mitigate blows. Her inertial manipulation comes closest, but the best it can handle is 1-2 points depending on situation. Its real value is in letting her keep her footing.

>>507842
>20 points of damage
...Really? Cocona can't afford to be hit without armor, then. The blow also wasn't enhanced, too--if Leysritt was surprised by the relative ineffectiveness, then her next attacks would be enhanced.

Well, the only option is to prevent that from happening then. Break Leysritt's ability to hold/use her weapon, either through removing the polearm from play (via freezing, probably) or breaking Leysritt's body. And dodge, I guess (the preferred option for Cocona).

> Wasn't enhanced
Watch Leysritt's SP gauge carefully. :P

>>507843
I don't know why you're surprised that getting smacked full on with a halberd is supposed to have hurt. :p We rolled a one to dodge and took it full on in the side. In normal circumstances that would have hurt, knocked someone of their feet, possibly knocked the air out of them, and done some nasty slashing injury if it weren't for our armor's blunting effect.

You're also forgetting parries as an option. They should come naturally to our weapon type (and may be faster / easier / move convenient than a full dodge in many circumstances. Not to mention our near-inability to be disarmed may catch enemies off guard), and we can absorb the impact with inertial dampening. Only taking hits on our batons rather than our armor has an obvious advantage.

>>507853
5SP for each attack- the one that missed and hit the ground, and the one that hit us.

Battle of Leysritt Field, Round 4 Infel 2013/04/26(Fri)13:47 No. 507856 ID: 94e610
File 136700926427.png - (31.85KB , 490x494 , Battle 1-5.png )

You’re practically standing on Leysritt’s halberd now, and Leysritt is not. Hmm, this has potential. You scuff the snow with your left shoe, seemingly getting ready to jump at Leysritt..

From Ilya’s point of view, the two of you are just staring at each other for a few seconds. In reality you’re covertly channeling heat through your shoe, then pulling it back, alternating a few times to properly freeze her polearm to the ground.

There’s a scent of burnt leather.

A flash of light tears your attention away from the halberd and back to Leysritt.

Fast!

She’s much faster than she was before!

You panic a little and max out your agility enhancement, throwing yourself to the right. Leysritt immediately slows to a crawl, gliding towards your position at.. what is probably a very high speed indeed, it’ll take a while to get used to how the enhancement is working now.

It’s almost like watching a static picture. The snowflakes you’ve thrown up during your fight are hanging in mid-air, apparently weightless. As you skid off the snow, you feel weightless yourself - it’s taking forever for gravity to realize you should be sticking to the ground. There’s no way.. you never trained under conditions like this, couldn’t possibly train like this, but you’re not having any trouble at all judging your movements.

A slight burning sensation in your legs reminds you that you’re boosted well beyond your limits, and you dial back to your sustainable maximum. The world starts moving again. You see sparks of light holding Leysritt’s feet to the ground. She appears to be running at a slow walking pace, now.

She’s completely out of position for attacking you, but as she somersaults over her halberd, you realize that wasn’t her goal at all. No, she’s after the halberd. You giggle as her hands close around the haft - a bizarre, basso sound.

Just as planned.

The halberd is completely stuck, so instead of pulling it back up with her, Leysritt’s arms are nearly pulled out of joint as her upwards and forwards movement abruptly stops, converted into a sharp downward curve that slams her to the ground on her back, leaving her gasping for air. For the first time in this fight, you see an expression of outright pain on her face.

The halberd is partially freed by the jerk, but it’s not going anywhere while she’s lying there like that.

All you have to do, now, is walk over and claim your victory.

-------

Leysritt:
HP: 52
SP: 30 (120/150)

Cocona:
HP: 35
SP: 477 (Heat: 3, AGI: 20)

I'm writing down Leysritt's actions a round in advance, so that result was all you. She'll be more careful next time.

..let's just go with "minimum 3 hours between rounds", writing that out every time is wasteful.

Right. So Leysritt's observed abilities so far:

5SP- Power strike
20SP- Rush

She could have more.

>endurance vs SP
Oh, I think I just got how those work. Endurance is your pool of regenerating activation energy, while SP is the pool of stored, expendable reaction energy (and non-renewable in the short term). So endurance ends up functioning like a cool down timer (well, for non-Cocona people, at least).

>All you have to do, now, is walk over and claim your victory.
Nope. No underestimating your opponent. Even if she's hurt and winded, don't expect her to just up and let you win. As she sees it, her pride and Ilya's life are on the line. She's going to push herself, here.

Close in, fast, and be ready to strike. Expect her to try to dodge, or try to fight back, or pull out another special ability. If possible, keep her from reclaiming the halberd. You're going for disabling hits (preferably not enough to break anything though), and to press her. Use heat manipulation to trip her footing, if it comes up (and if she gets back up).

The high speed slam into to the ground hurt her, but without breaking her. That gives you a ballpark to estimate how much force our blows need to / can deliver, and how far you need to crank up your strength augmentation.

This ends either when Ilya calls it off, when Leysritt yields, when Leysritt is unconscious or disabled, or when you stop at the last moment- using inertia dampening and stopping your baton right before delivering a blow that otherwise would have been indisputably fatal (breaking her skull, crushing the trachea, etc).

Ilya didn't state any win condition, so the fight probably will last until one of the combatants gives up or effective loses the capability to fight.

Still, while Leysritt can still fight, she must either abandon her halbard or try to rush and fight with her natural weapons. She's also lying prone on the ground, correct? Thus, she has to expend time and energy getting back up on her feet--given the exposure of this position, I would expect Leysritt to use an enhancement, either durability or speed. If she thinks Cocona would attack during this moment of weakness, I believe that Leysritt would rather temporarily abandon her halberd and forcibly roll to a side away from Cocona, to gain space and time to get back up (unless she thinks she can gain an advantage by aggressively attacking Cocona, expending some prana for enhancements). Since Cocona's pretty fast, and should be pressing the attack, Leysritt would probably allow herself to lose the halberd for the time being; Cocona should be aware that Leysritt probably wouldn't go for the halberd.

While Leysritt is prone on the ground, though, this is the best time, I think, for Cocona to test out the damage she can inflict with her fireballs. As an IPD, Cocona's casting speed is pretty great, so she can probably fire off a fireball such that Leysritt can't dodge it.

>>507863
Being an IPD barely enters into it - the fireballs are not song magic, what Cocona's doing is closely related to Border Disease.

What strength fireball would you like, though?

>test out the damage she can inflict with her fireballs
Nope. Bad idea. We have no information that Leysritt has damage soaking or shielding capabilities. We should not be trying to land direct hits with fireballs- that could lead to serious injury. We want to try and land blunt impacts. Fireballs use should be limited to forcing her to dodge when we want her to, or move to where we want her to.

>>507867
Aww...

>>507866
>Border Disease
...Improper awakening of Third Generation Reyvateils that fail because there isn't a Soulspace Address available for the humans?

>>507867
Fireballs are variable strength! We could just start with the weakest fireballs to determine effectiveness; we don't need to go to the giant laser beams of love yet!

>>507870
Well, specifically the people who manage to not go crazy. Like the main character of AT3. I'll admit Cocona has a bit of an advantage there, but it's the same basic idea.

Re: Fireballs, Cocona gets the casting vote if you end up tied.

>>507872
I mean, what the hell does Border Disease have to do with a barely-controlled burst of ...whatever a fireball is? (No, seriously, what's the mechanics of fireballs, if they aren't a basic projection of energy from a Song Server?)

>>507874
That's exactly what fireballs are. It's also exactly what border disease is. The difference between those and song magic is the complexity of the control logic, and the location of that logic.

We're digressing, and more details begins to risk spoilers. So. Fireball, or no fireball?

>>507875
I see.

Anyways, I'm for fireballs, obviously. Not sure if d6ef5d is.

>I'm for fireballs, obviously. Not sure if d6ef5d is.
I suppose it depends mechanically on what the fireballs are, here. Your border disease and energy projection babbling didn't mean much to me.

If we're using "hard" science magic and the fireball is a concentrated, intensely hot, searing ball of fire? That's something pretty gruesome to try and deliberately nail a prone human with (and from all indications, these characters only seem to have human level physical endurance. Sure, they've got speed and strength boosts, and Cocona has magic shielding, but under that, they seem as squishy as normal). Especially if we're trying to not seriously injure her. (Pulling our punches, but then lighting her on fire the moment she's down is kind of inconsistent).

But if we're using "soft" magic and the fireball is this just sort of puff of energy we can hit her with at variable intensity and without leaving her burnt and with serious long term injuries? Sure, why not fire one off. Tactically, leading with a ranged attack as we close to engage makes sense.

Tl;Dr- yea or nay depends on what kind of effect Cocona would realistically expects to get if the hit is successful.

Leysritt is on the ground, gasping for breath. You could just walk over, but.. something tells you she might be faking. You should be careful, and make sure she stays down.

Leading with a fireball would be good tactics, if you were okay with killing her. It’s a bad move against someone who appears to be an ordinary human; you can’t be sure how well she’d take it. Worst case, her clothes might even be flammable. Still...

Ilya’s to your right, northwest of Leysritt, and the open segment of the U-shaped castle is directly to your left. Good.

You start casually walking towards Leysritt, trusting that you’ll have time to react if she starts moving. She’s only a few steps away, and you’re still at maximum acceleration.

Unhurriedly you form your most powerful fireball on the tip of your left baton, dragging it in a circle around your head. A bit of showmanship never hurt, especially under these circumstances. An eerie blue glow illuminates the area, the baseball-sized fireball glowing far brighter than the weak sunlight that filters through the clouds. It feels pleasantly warm, though you know that if it wasn’t for your armor - a beep from which indicates the shift to cooling mode - you’d be feeling the burn already.

The surrounding area definitely does. Leysritt, who’s lying on a rapidly melting pile of snow, looks at you with something akin to horror. She abandons her grasp on the halberd in favor of rolling out of the way, far too slowly to escape. Ilya, also, is looking terrified - she starts to shout something, though too slowly for you to make out.

You’re swinging the baton right at your opponent, after all. She probably thinks you’re going to throw the fireball, in which case she’d be Leysritt flambé. You giggle internally - this is fun, you should do it more often.

When the baton hits the top of its arc you mentally prick a hole in the magnetic shells surrounding it, letting a jet of plasma shoot off northwards. You hope you didn’t overdo it, it’d be troublesome if you manage to set the castle on fire...

Even to your enhanced senses the fireball shoots off at blinding speeds, hitting the forest a hundred meters south in a fraction of a second. It crashes through one tree, and another, leaving smoldering scorch marks you can see from here.. for just a moment, before containment fails entirely and it goes spectacularly boom. You love this part. A mushroom cloud forms from water vapor and the fragments of shattered trees, reaching fifteen meters in less than a second. You can feel the heat from here, though at this distance it isn’t so bad.

The shockwave, when it comes, is enough to bowl Ilya over; she hits the snow face-first. Leysritt is already on the ground, and stays there, though she’s turned around; you brace against the shock with practiced ease.

You guess you could walk over and hit Leysritt with a baton now, but... meh. You think she’s got the point.

A few seconds pass, as does the thundering roar of the detonation. Absolute silence covers the area, broken only by Ilya’s spluttering as she tries to get out of the snowbank she’s embedded in.

Leysritt has rolled over on her back and is staring at the sky, her arms splayed out in the slush she’s lying in. She looks like a drowned rat. You get down on one knee to address her, your own armor trivially keeping you dry.

“So.. I don’t think I have to say it, but I could just as easily have aimed that at you. It was a good fight, though. Do you yield?”

Slowly, the shocked expression fades from her face. She nods, her face showing some complex emotion you can’t quite unscramble.

You hear a muffled sound from your right, where Ilya.. oh dear.

“Mmph! Ack! Phew..” she reasonably states, having just extracted her head from the snowbank which all four of her limbs are still embedded in. “..someone, help? I’m stuck!”

-------

Final report:

Leysritt:
HP: 52
SP: 35 (115/150)

Cocona:
HP: 35
SP: 427


What do?
[ ] Help Leysritt up
[ ] Help Ilya first
[ ] Put out the forest

Damn. A 50 point fireball is impressive.

And good job trying to be gracious in victory, Cocona.

>What do?
Offer Leysritt a hand first, since she's right there in front of you. Then we can go extricate Ilya.

Honestly, the part of the forest you hit is already fried. It's not like the delay of helping people up first will change much. Although you should probably put out the forest fire before it spreads or does too much damage. (Is this thing past what we can fix with thermal manipulation already? Do we have to resort to crafting song magic? ...or are we limited to fighting fire with fire, using controlled burns to deprive the spreading flames of fuel? That last one could be time consuming).

>50 point fireball
...City-buster? My, that's powerful.

Anyways, help up Leysritt first. She can help dig out the snow while Cocona pulls Ilya free.

Then Ilya can decide whether to let the forest burn or use Wishcraft to put out the fire.

>City-buster
More like city block(s) buster, I think. Maybe get up somewhere high in the castle later to see how big the immediate blast zone was, and how far out the shockwave was doing damage (good to know if the future, if we need to make choices about collateral damage). I'm almost tempted to try and estimate the yield from the size of the mushroom cloud, but I don't have a lot of readily accessible data for the low end on the size spectrum, and it's not like any of those examples are for magnetic containment failure of concentrated balls of plasma, anyways.

>>508030
Quite probably not going to destroy even a moderately-sized city of the modern era, true. Still, wrecking a large portion of such a city... Well, we probably wouldn't want to do such a thing in the first place.

And, yeah, checking the size of the damage radii is a good idea.

You extend a hand to Leysritt, helping her to her feet. A once-over confirms that she’s completely soaked, but otherwise no worse for the wear. The area is cooling rapidly, though. You should probably get inside, and say as much; she simply nods.

The two of you start digging out Ilya, who is making sad, plaintive noises and shivering. You’re not sure whether she’s unable to get out with magic or just in too much shock to try, but the way she got embedded in the snowbank has to be immensely uncomfortable, not to mention cold. If there’s one good thing about being a Reyvateil, it has to be the way you can manipulate heat to keep yourself toasty warm.

Digging out Ilya is harder than expected. The snow she is embedded in has partially melted, and is already refreezing, but a little extra heat plus Leysritt’s prodigious strength makes quick enough work of the problem. Ilya curls up into a ball when you pull her out; you can hear her clothes crackle as she moves. The poor girl must be completely frozen.

Leysritt picks her up, then starts walking briskly back towards the house, not sparing you another glance. It’s probably understandable, she wants to make sure Ilya is fine first. Besides..

You stop on the front stairs, looking back at the forest. Your fireballs never seem to produce much in the way of fire, as anything capable of combustion is consumed in the initial blast, but there’s always a chance. The area of forest you destroyed - only slightly off from the road - is still smoking, but doesn’t seem likely to burst into flames anytime soon. That’s one load off your mind, but you should probably keep an eye on it for the next hour or so.

Wincing slightly at your bruises, you step inside. Leysritt hits hard, you’d probably be dead if it weren’t for your armor. Well, maybe not dead, but definitely close. Maybe. You don’t actually know what happens if a Reyvateil gets stabbed, but it’s probably the same as for normal people.

Infel 2013/04/30(Tue)15:13 No. 508221 ID: 94e610
File 136736003754.jpg - (130.70KB , 800x600 , shattered glass.jpg )

The entrance hall is.. well. Um.

The first thing you see when you enter is Sella, standing in front of you with her hands on her hips. The second thing is a floor filled with glass shards, as well as small - but growing - heaps of snow, surrounded by pools of water.

You chance a glance upwards.

..yeah, she looks annoyed; her forehead is twitching. She silently points to your left, where.. yes, all the windows seem to be shattered. This is your fault, isn’t it?

Suddenly, you’re not so sure if that fireball was such a good idea. It shouldn’t have damaged the house, though! What are those windows made of, glass?

There’s a cold wind blowing through the entrance hall. You feel about ten centimeters tall.


What do?
[ ] Complain that they need better windows.
[ ] Stub your feet against each other.

>It shouldn’t have damaged the house, though! What are those windows made of, glass?
...yes, yes they are. Would you look at that. Guess there's a reason they built an interior, shielded chamber to practice energetic magics, instead of just heading outside.

Apologize, awkwardly.

Is this the kind of thing song magic could fix? I mean, you just need the glass restored to the position and state it occupied a few minutes ago. That can't be that hard- there's even a lattice structure in the glass to use as a guide.

The snow's a lot easier to fix- just melt and evaporate (carefully- don't burn the carpet, or damage the stone, whatever).

Remember, this is a primitive world. They probably don't have high-tech materials like you use in your windows. And, uh, Song Magic experimentation like that might help. Maybe. Might not. But if it works, it's probably the best way to fix it.

Actually, come to think of it, if this room was damaged, it's probably not the only thing affected by the shock wave.

If we can song magic this, wording it as repairing the damage we just did to the castle (rather than just the glass) would be better.

> Song magic
No. Not for a long time. It's theoretically possible, but (In Cocona's opinion) it'd take months just to develop the spell, even if she were good at that.

Making a new castle from scratch would be considerably easier.

Aw.

Well then, apologize, and do what's feasible to help. The most immediate problem isn't the snow, or even the broken glass everywhere, it's that you've blow out the windows in the middle of winter. This castle is gonna get cold.

>Making a new castle from scratch would be considerably easier.
...really? It takes less effort to create new things than to specify changes to existing things? Nevermind the energy requirements. Or the fact we'd have to duplicate things we don't understand (like the warded room).

> It takes less effort to create new things than to specify changes to existing things?
Well, yes. As you said, never mind the energy requirements. Fixing an existing castle requires a far more complex spell.

Not to say that it'd be easy, exactly.

I see no problem with apologizing and helping with the clean-up/repair. However, before Cocona goes to the scutwork of cleaning, perhaps ensuring the good health of Ilya would be prudent? The last update did have the indication that her clothes were nigh-completely frozen.

My server, which is also where I kept the notes and such for this quest, has gone the way of the dodo. I received replacement components today - and discovered that, in fact, the PSU is too old to power a Xeon motherboard.

Cocona Quest will be back in a few days, postage pending.

It's been a while, hasn't it? I hope you haven't all lost interest.. back to the regular schedule now.

So you guess the shockwave from your fireball destroyed the windows. Not your intention, and you never would have expected that result, but it happened regardless. The evidence is all over the floor.

You shift slightly, stubbing your feet together and trying not to look at Sella, an awful gnawing sensation filling your stomach. Things were going so well, too.. you really overdid it, after all, going for a maximum-power fireball right away. You decide to give things a little more thought in the future.

But, um...

Well, Leysritt’s taking care of Ilya. They were both pretty badly chilled, but that in itself shouldn’t hurt them - provided, you suppose, that the bathroom wasn’t damaged as well. You hiccup a little. No, that should be fine, the bathroom didn’t have any windows.

Which leaves Sella. There are a few ways you could try to help here, you think. Repairing the castle with a single spell is beyond you, but you could block off the windows, or heat the place up.. without burning it.. or just help her pick up the pieces, maybe?

To do that you’ll have to look at her, though. Look her in the face, even, and you’ve just noticed she’s quite a bit taller than you. You really don’t want to do that, but there’s no choice. You need to apologize, too.

Cheeks burning, you glance up at Sella again. “Um.. that is...”

You quickly look away. She looks tired and disappointed, more than angry, but you don’t want anyone to be disappointed with you either!

You’re biting your lip, trying to muster the courage to try again, when you feel a hand on top of your head. Eyes wide, you stare at Sella, who’s now apparently.. petting you, stroking your hair? Wait.. huh? Wha..?

You blush dramatically, now completely uncertain of what’s going on. You’d like to get away from her, and normally you’d just jump away, but you really don’t want to offend her. Besides, it feels.. nostalgic.

“I’m sorry! It wasn’t supposed to do that! I’m really sorry, let me help cleaning it up!”, you burst out.

Sella pauses for a moment, then continues her petting. “It’s all right, child. I think we were all so focused on getting a legendary hero, we forgot you might still be a normal person in other ways. I’m not really angry, at least not at you - Leysritt is the one who insisted we test your combat ability, and I think you passed that test with flying colors. If there was a bit of collateral damage, well, I think you showed excellent restraint for.. how old are you, twelve?”

“..ten.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She ruffles your hair, probably messing up your hairstyle beyond repair. “Don’t worry about the damage, dealing with this kind of thing is also part of my job, and Ilya can fix the windows in a second once she’s defrosted. Actually, why don’t you go join her? I’m sure you’re cold too.”

You’re not, actually. Your armor’s keeping you at just the right temperature, although you should probably shut it down soon. Still, it’s tempting, and you’d get to check on Ilya.

[ ]Insist on helping (by means of ...)
[ ] Go ahead, take her offer

>>514344
Yay! Glad this isn't dead. Was contemplating bumping the dis thread, actually.

>what do?
Well. Trying to think how we could actually help the most at the moment. I mean, we could melt / evaporate away any snow or water in the hall (maybe set up some kind of temporary thermal barrier, or hot air draft to prevent more from getting in?), but our abilities don't exactly have an easy way to patch the windows or clean up the glass. ...although if Leysritt and Ilya need defrosting, you could probably help with that too. And we probably owe them a bit of the apology for the scare and drenching (although they did want you to show off, and Ilya seemed to want you to blow something up before...).

I think that assisting with the defrosting process first and then helping Sella with cleaning up while waiting for Ilya to feel warm again is the best course of action. Cocona doesn't have the control to directly heat up Ilya safely, and possibly Leysritt doesn't have the magecraft to do so either; therefore, the likely method to defrost Ilya would be to get the frozen clothes off her, and then pile bottles of hot water and blankets on her.

As for cleaning... Safely flash-boiling the snow and water is possibly too far beyond Cocona, but she can assist with sweeping up the glass. Her armor probably protects against any cuts she would otherwise get.

>>514349
The barrier idea is good, though, if the hall is as big as I think it is, generating hot air without blocking the outside air from getting in would just make the lower portions (where the people usually are, i.e. Cocona and Sella) colder as the hot air rises and thus pulls cold air to replace it.

>>502951
I just recognized that OP image is from "I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream" videogame; it is the 'travel' screen between scenarios.

>>514423
I didn't know that, but.. fitting.

I'd say something about writing one snippet per week, but I'd end up breaking that promise - because I wrote most of the next one(s) before realizing there needed to be a few choices in here.

So, tuesday.

While you may not need warming up, checking on Ilya seems like a good idea. You did after all throw the poor girl into a snowbank, without the benefit of thermal wear. Finding out what she thought of the fight, and your actions to end it, can’t be a bad idea either. You can always come back to help Sella afterwards. It’ll give you a bit of time to think of how to do that, too - you’ve had decent luck with improvised hymmnos in the past, but there’s always the risk of getting it badly wrong if you’re careless.

It’s not like you’re running away, she asked you to go.

All you have to do is tell Sella you agree, then look for Ilya. It’s a simple procedure, you just have to tell Sella you agree. She still has her hand on your head, and you don’t understand your reaction to that, or how it modifies the conversational options. She’s not moving it, seemingly content to leave it there for the moment. You want to tell her you’re going, but you don’t understand the situation.

rrha quel ga pic gyaje enw rippllys elle ciel ixa zz yassa noes

For a moment you don’t understand what Sella is, let alone what she’s doing. You remember, though.

You’re.. Cocona.

You try to pull away, but you feel like you’re stuck in amber.

Something is wrong -

Warning, excessive timing errors. Continued simulation is not recommended.

.̷͘͠͠.̸̧͜͝.̡̀͜.̛.̵̛̀́.̵̷͘.̸̨̡͘͜.̧͢.̶̨͜͟͠.̨̡̢͘ l.n.c.a. tim xel rippllys yassa noes

- you stagger, suddenly feeling completely exhausted. A flurry of warning messages bubble into your consciousness, though you pay them no attention at the moment.

Sella’s treating you like you’re her little sister or something. You don’t hate the idea, though you’d prefer to be taken seriously, but right now the very idea of talking to her is exhausting. The idea of talking to anyone is exhausting, you’d rather just sit in a corner for a bit. You have to get out of here.


[ ] Mutter a quick excuse and run out of here
[ ] Force yourself to explain the situation
+++++
[ ] Find Ilya
[ ] Find a corner

>Deadline exceeded
Shite! I thought we had three days. ...although time flows differently here and there, and you weren't exact about whose days those were. But the difference was a factor of two, and even if we have half the time we thought we had, we haven't burned through that yet.

Which probably means it's the patch job we did in our head last night that fell apart.

>translations!
Oh jeeze. Let's see if I've forgotten everything about making sense of these.

>rrha quel ga pic gyaje enw rippllys elle ciel ixa
I (trance-like) (desperately) (want this to stop) (notice/observe/realize) (error/mistake) (while doing) (rely/answer/response) (from) (world/sky) (6).
Yup. It's reporting a communications error with one of our cosmoshpere layers, and it desperately wants it to stop. Significantly, I don't think layer six was one of those with a problem, before. (Gah, been too long. I have to reread the old bits and make a list of which layers were damaged and which ones we determined did what).

>zz yassa noes
[negative] (complete/clear/achieve) (self).
Cannot complete / achieve self.

...that ain't good.

>[Gibberish] l.n.c.a. tim xel rippllys yassa noes
(tie/link/connect) (time) (since) (repy/answer/response) (complete) (self)
I assume this is reporting the time since we could achieve self, although the measurement is scrambled. There might be a code hidden in the zalgo, but I'm not feeling up to trying to dig it out right now.

>what do
Force the words out. Tell her something's wrong- something broke inside your mind again. She's tell Ilya, and after your fairly thorough explanation this morning, she'll know what that means. Maybe they'll be able to do something from the outside to help you this time, somehow. All you can do is head back inside to soulspace and see what went wrong this time.

Agreed on telling her something's gone wrong in your mind and then going into your soulspace.

Why bother running away? Sella is right here, nice and warm, and already hugging you! Why not just allow yourself to snuggle up against the warmth, curled up in readiness for sleep? Falling asleep shouldn't be too much of a problem--Sella does think you are still a child (which, the shame and guilt routine before rather helpfully emphasized), so she wouldn't think much of you suddenly falling asleep. Let her deal with the task of finding a resting place. (Though, the likeliest place would be near Ilya. That way, Sella and Leysritt--and Ilya, when she unfreezes--can keep an eye on you as well as Ilya, so that only one of the maids needs to stay and keep watch, while the other cleans.)

And, anyways, fixing the soulspace problems would take enough time that they'll find you anyways--the only reason to run off to a corner would be to satisfy your own paranoia.

Moving would take energy, of which you right now have none.

You feel more exhausted than you can remember ever feeling before. At least it’s the kind of exhaustion that drives you towards sleep, not the kind that just leaves you awake for hours. You have too much experience with the latter.

First priority, then: Find somewhere to sleep.

Sella’s looking comfy.

You can’t predict her actions perfectly, but you think, if you consider her as a human - it takes perceptible effort to do so, and you’re almost overwhelmed by another wave of exhaustion - well, she’s thinking of you at least partially as someone to protect and guide, so you’ll be safe right here. Yes, that’ll do.

You slump slightly, leaning against Sella. That finally gets her hand out of your hair - she gives a slight “oh” of surprise, but grabs hold of you to keep you from falling.

“Sorry, Sella.. not quite as fixed up as I thought... I’m going to take a nap now.”

You slur the words, already having trouble keeping your eyes open, and lean further against Sella. She says something, but you can’t make out what. Vaguely, you feel yourself being lifted off the ground and carried, but you fall asleep before you have any idea where.

Strangely, just as you are falling asleep, your exhaustion disappears entirely. It’s already entirely too late to try waking up again, though - the world is a fading dream, stuck in amber.

Medical override - connection suspended.

Next thing you know, you’re back in your soulscape. You’re not quite sure if you ever actually lost consciousness or not, the transition was so smooth.. well, you’re here now.

To be entirely honest, you’re not quite sure if what happened was a problem to be fixed, or just extreme exhaustion. If it’s the latter, getting some real sleep will probably help more, but some part of you must have decided it’d be a good idea to check things out in here first. At least, it sounds like a good idea now, though you can’t remember actually making the decision.

Thinking back.. your spell of exhaustion seemed to be caused by interacting with Sella. Right now you don’t feel exhausted at all, but then again, you’re not actually interacting with anyone right at the moment. There might be something to that.

…

Right. Mindscape. Somehow, you feel you’ve been a lot more scatterbrained lately; you used to have better focus. You’re acting more like Elle, like that time she.. no! Focus!

Looking upwards - or perhaps outwards, or.. this is silly, Cocona. Looking at levels one through three, everything seems in near-perfect order. Well, there’s still the big ball of sliced-out memories floating around, and you have to go through that eventually, but the actual functional layers appear to be.. functional. Considerably better off than they were before, though not yet perfect.

Outwards from the first, barrier layer, the acidic ocean that was earlier threatening to kill you is now completely still. It also looks faded, like fossil light at the event horizon of a black hole. You can see occasional sparks, looking a bit like fireflies, but it’s not going anywhere soon. It’s clearly not the problem.

The other direction looks positively odd.

Last time you were in here, the seventh and eighth layers were essentially destroyed, and not repairing themselves. The fifth and sixth were intact, if opaque, and there was an impossibly bright beam of light piercing the center of your mind - or perhaps surrounding it, that never was very clear.

The situation has changed. Most obviously, the beam has weakened significantly, and gained structure. You’re unsure if that reflects a change in yourself, or Infel Phira - considering that you’re now its administrator, your ability to see structure now may simply be reflecting that fact. The beam in fact appears to be made up of thousands or millions of lines of written Hymmnos, more than you could translate in a year. Overall, the impression you get is that of an enormous tower, with two floating continents. It doesn’t resemble any place you’ve ever heard of; it may simply be a stylistic choice.

Concerningly, not all of the hymmnos is sticking to the tower. Some is forming a sort of scaffolding between the tower and your sixth soulspace level, which is expanding as you watch. There is some sort of reaction there - some of the machinery at the sixth level seems to be growing across the scaffolding, kind of like demented machine vines, but you still can’t interrogate the lower levels consciously. It’s a little weird; you’re not supposed to have a subconscious, not if you don’t want to. The details of that might be part of the knowledge you’ve forgotten or sealed off, though.

Focusing closely on the scaffolding doesn’t yield anything useful, as it’s actually using some symbols you don’t seem to remember the meaning of. The most common one looks like three hexagons connected in a triangle. Those triangles, joined up, appear to form most of the actual structure, though they can’t be carrying much information. Well, their location might in itself be the information.

You wonder if this is a good thing or not. On the one hand, it’s a kind of repair, but on the other, you have no idea how or why. The tower itself seems to be assisting - to what end? It wasn’t happening earlier, so this is no doubt connected to the ‘admin’ position. You can only hope whatever limited AIs are involved know what they’re doing - you’re in no position to guide them.

And you still have no idea what was up with the sudden exhaustion.

What do?
[ ] Sleep on it
[ ] -- ?

All right. Two things.

You were getting an error message about layer six before. Your systems reported an error while trying to contact it. As in, whatever it's busy doing with that scaffolding prevented it from preforming it's normal function.

The other critical thing to notice was the use of the word simulation. What, precisely, is being simulated? The whole world you have found yourself in, or merely your conscious self and operations? (One's more worrying than the other. Either we're plugged into a simulated reality, or just facing the uncomfortable truth of being an artificial life form).

>your spell of exhaustion seemed to be caused by interacting with Sella
Maybe that's what layer six does? It handles interpersonal interaction? You tried to access it, and then locked up because it was busy doing... that? Kind of makes sense your communications layer would be the one to expand into an admin role. Greater access privileges is going to require some kind of integrated communication, right?

>three circles connected in a triangle
...well, that description doesn't seem to match any character in hymmnos. And broader than that, I'm not sure if you're describing a triangular arrangement of non-overlapping circles, a three circle venn-diagram, or a triquetra.

>what do?
Well, if any of this speculation seems like it might be right, I guess you could just get some real sleep until the scaffolding is done. Any estimate at how long that will take from the rate it's moving? (You can estimate the start time- it couldn't have started before you became an admin, and it either hadn't started or gotten far enough just a little bit ago when you were talking to Sella normally).

Although I'm kind of reluctant to just go to sleep when there's so much we don't understand going on. Double check that there's absolutely nothing about that needs your attention, or that might be interacted with.