Kisume Quest V - A Z-Machine Adventure

[Hello Purvis]

> "Do you think he would? From the sounds of things, it seems like he's too egomaniacal to even consider the possibility that he wouldn't be in power tomorrow."

>"Who knows?" says Chiyuri. "He seems to be generally longsighted, so I'm sure its crossed his mind."
>"It hasn't," says Yumemi. "The damn fool thinks he's invincible."
>"So, let's say you're going to hunt down Canus, got any ideas how you'd want to go about it?" says Chiyuri.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "Depends. Do you have a way to change the color of my hair, maybe?"

[Hello Purvis]

> "Depends. Do you have a way to change the color of my hair, maybe?"

>"Yeah," says Chiyuri, "That how we're disguising Ruukoto as VIVIT, visually. Oh, we can get you a translator, too, if you want."

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "That could be useful. Do you suppose he's sufficiently politically disposed that he'd take the time out to publicly pay attention to a poor little crippled girl?"

[Hello Purvis]

> "That could be useful. Do you suppose he's sufficiently politically disposed that he'd take the time out to publicly pay attention to a poor little crippled girl?"

>"Probably not," says Chiyuri, "But it'd help to know when the guards are talking about you."
>"Again," says Yumemi.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "Then the best thing I can think of is hoping that his living quarters are somewhere high with a window, that I can fly into but your average army grunt can't reach."

[Hello Purvis]

> "Then the best thing I can think of is hoping that his living quarters are somewhere high with a window, that I can fly into but your average army grunt can't reach."

>"That might work," says Chiyuri.
>"No it won't," says Yumemi. "Those things are heavily secured. And I said again."

>_

[GuyYouMetOnline]

>Again, then.

[Kilgamayan]

> "Then what do you propose? I don't know anything about anything here, so I czn only offer the most general of ideas."

[Hello Purvis]

>Again, then.

>You summon yet another bit of demon fire.

> "Then what do you propose? I don't know anything about anything here, so I czn only offer the most general of ideas."

>"Well, we're still on the tertiary stages here," says Chiyuri. "Something like assassinating the emperor hasn't ever really been within our sphere of possibility, we've just been gathering and funneling along what information we can while trying to keep under the radar. I mean, you could brute force your way in there, but then there's the trick of getting far enough to achieve something and getting out alive. Let me think for a bit." 

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "Shame it's just us. If nothing else, I bet Kasen would have some ideas from Gensokyo's perspective."

[Hello Purvis]

> "Shame it's just us. If nothing else, I bet Kasen would have some ideas from Gensokyo's perspective."

>"Yeah," says Chiyuri. "Okay, Let's start from the beginning. You want to rescue your friend. She's going in be in the medical labs, probably. The good news is that normally there isn't a lot of security there, though they'll probably have something there just in case. Getting your stuff might be a bit more difficult, I don't think they really heavily guard that sort of thing, but you'd need to get a key..."

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "Even if the people in the medical labs aren't well-armed, couldn't they just raise hell until army people showed up?"

[Hello Purvis]

> "Even if the people in the medical labs aren't well-armed, couldn't they just raise hell until army people showed up?"

>"Yeah, that is a problem," says Chiyuri. "And we don't know what condition your friend would be in."

>_

[GuyYouMetOnline]

>"When she was pretending to be VIVIT, Ruukoto said there was some collective memory thing the VIVITs ;upload' to and share. Is that true?"
>If they do indeed have some form of collective memory: "Could we, um, maybe do something with that? Like, put in an order to help us?"

[Hello Purvis]

>"When she was pretending to be VIVIT, Ruukoto said there was some collective memory thing the VIVITs ;upload' to and share. Is that true?"
>If they do indeed have some form of collective memory: "Could we, um, maybe do something with that? Like, put in an order to help us?"

>"Yeah, that's how she was designed," says Chiyuri. "The series creator based her on his daughter, and didn't intend for VIVIT to be mass produced."
>"Erich is a hack." Yumemi mutters.
>"So,"  when there was a need for more of them, he came up with a shared memory system that allows them to, well, share their memories and experiences, so they didn't drift apart into becoming different people. So yeah, VIVIT is a well-known vulnerability in the system. The problem is that it's heavily secured exactly because of that, I don't think it's possible to just break in and find anything. It would be easier to just kidnap one of them and trying to get her to talk. And that wouldn't work either, she's close-mouthed about things she considers secret."

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "And you don't think you two could get at this memory bank with one of her?"

[Hello Purvis]

> "And you don't think you two could get at this memory bank with one of her?"

>"If we could, we would have already," says Chiyuri. "It's en-uh, the code it's written is too complex for us to break without lots and lots of time, more than we can expect to live. We've contemplated kidnapping a VIVIT and trying to get the key from her, but it'd probably be protected too, so we've not risked it."

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "Anyone know how to pick locks?"

[Hello Purvis]

> "Anyone know how to pick locks?"

>"Kinda," says Chiyuri. "What've you got in mind?"
>"Again," says Yumemi.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> Again.
> "Seems like picking locks bypasses the need for a key entirely."

[Hello Purvis]

> Again.
> "Seems like picking locks bypasses the need for a key entirely."

>You do it again, and Yumemi seems to be mollified for now.
>"Well, the old physical locks, anyways," says Chiyuri. "Some of them don't have keys like you understand them.  But more like key words, in the case of VIVIT's memory system, or key cards in the case of a lot of doors."

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> Frown.
> "Jeez. Why do I get the feeling I'm going to be here for a long time before we can actually accomplish anything?"

[Hello Purvis]

> Frown.
> "Jeez. Why do I get the feeling I'm going to be here for a long time before we can actually accomplish anything?"

>"Ah, don't get so dowhearted," says Chiyuri. "We're working on it, aren't we?"

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "Well, yeah, but with as much as you know, if you're still this far away, how can adding someone like me that doesn't know anything help?"

[Hello Purvis]

> "Well, yeah, but with as much as you know, if you're still this far away, how can adding someone like me that doesn't know anything help?"

>"Ah, that is simple," says Yumemi. "You have nothing to lose."
>"And also you have some abilities they never planned for," says Chiyuri.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "I have my life to lose! I'm not really interested in dying far away from home over all this, especially when Gensokyo was doing just fine all by itself and all of the issues originated here!"

[Hello Purvis]

> "I have my life to lose! I'm not really interested in dying far away from home over all this, especially when Gensokyo was doing just fine all by itself and all of the issues originated here!"

>"So do we," says Chiyuri. "We were fugitives the moment we came back, and we live here. And no one's asking you to die, geez. Otherwise we'd just load you up with crude bombs and send you on your way."

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "Well, uh...how fast are the bullets those guys shoot?"

[Hello Purvis]

> "Well, uh...how fast are the bullets those guys shoot?"

>"They're faster than arrows," says Yumemi. "Don't think about dodging them like danmaku, it wouldn't work."

>_