Maribel Quest Followthrough - A Z-Machine Adventure

[DracoOmega]

>"Oh, pretty good. You heard anything back from that youkai friend of yours?"

[Hello Purvis]

>"Oh, pretty good. You heard anything back from that youkai friend of yours?"

>"Not yet," says Renko. "I'm due to meet up with her soon, then. But if she's still working, nothing much is going to come of it. If she doesn't get done soon, we'll have to save it for tomorrow..." She shakes her head.

>_

[communist unity (comm-unity)]

(we should probably try to convince her to at least hold it off until tomorrow. it shouldn't be hard convincing her to fight vampires in the day instead of at night.)

[Serela]

>That would be good, we'd get to do our powerup first then. Although, Patchy said, if we do something like this we want the most out of it... so we need to talk to Byakuren again. Hmms.

And yeah, I agree with headcrabsninja.

[DracoOmega]

>"Do you even know what she's doing? Or what it's taking her this long?"

[Hello Purvis]

>That would be good, we'd get to do our powerup first then. Although, Patchy said, if we do something like this we want the most out of it... so we need to talk to Byakuren again. Hmms.

>This could be worked to your advantage.

>"Do you even know what she's doing? Or what it's taking her this long?"

>"In a very general sense," she says. "But not enough to know what the delay is about."

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"Is that private, too? I'm curious, you know."

[Hello Purvis]

>"Is that private, too? I'm curious, you know."

>She nods. "Sorry, but she's says its something she's kinda known for, so telling you would be a dead giveaway. Wish I could, though, what she does is really neat. Worse comes to worst, I'll introduce you afterward."

>

[DracoOmega]

>"Why'd she decide to help with this plan of yours, anyway? Do you know?"

[Doll.S CUBE]

You know, I just thought of something, what if it's Rumia?

[Hello Purvis]

>"Why'd she decide to help with this plan of yours, anyway? Do you know?"

>She ponders for a moment. "Nope...didn't say anything about that. She wants a share of the loot."

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"Actually, can you fill me in a little more about what happened since you woke up here? There were some faeries around, and... then what? When'd this other youkai find you and teach you how to fly? When'd you come up with this plan of yours, anyway?"

[Serela]

You know, I just thought of something, what if it's Rumia?

Yeah, that in particular doesn't sound quite like Koishi. Hmm. Although I dunno about it being RUMIA though... I don't think even she'd be trying something like this. Although, she has expressed a surprising amount of competence with The Felt and such...

[Hello Purvis]

>"Actually, can you fill me in a little more about what happened since you woke up here? There were some faeries around, and... then what? When'd this other youkai find you and teach you how to fly? When'd you come up with this plan of yours, anyway?"

>"Sure, okay," says Renko, and she starts walking toward the southern part of the field. "I don't remember exactly where it was," says Renko. She gestures broadly toward the north. "Over that way, somewhere. I woke up and there were a couple faeries hovering over me. I figured I must be dreaming, and said so. So one, Ficus Blossom, poured the jug of water she was carrying on me face. That got my attention, I'll tell you! Then I kinda freaked out, because, you know, faeries. Then we got to talking. And I'd ask good science questions and they'd just laugh at me and so. Then I saw someone flying overhead, you know? And...well, that pretty much told me we got it completely wrong. So, I just tried to relax a bit, you know? Go with it. Really, the faeries have everything figured out. We got to talking about how things are here, and how no one respects them, and I thought that was pretty wrong. Then we got hungry, and came up here looking for some wild onions to go with the tofu they had. I saw this mansion, got them to tell me a bit about it, and I decided I might as well.  I talked with them about it, and they thought it was a good idea. Then they took me to see, well, you know. She and I got to talking, and she thought it was an interesting idea, said I had talent with faeries, if you can believe it. So she took me under her wing, taught me some basics, and we got to planning. Things just sort of built up after that."

[DracoOmega]

>"So, you really haven't had much contact with anyone outside the faeries here, then? You know, Gensokyo isn't all non-sciencey, by any means. The Kappa are busy trying to build a university at this very moment. Nitori's working on an air conditioner. There's some pretty dedicated research types with libraries, and all. The fairy perspective is... something of a unique one, even here."

[Hello Purvis]

>"So, you really haven't had much contact with anyone outside the faeries here, then? You know, Gensokyo isn't all non-sciencey, by any means. The Kappa are busy trying to build a university at this very moment. Nitori's working on an air conditioner. There's some pretty dedicated research types with libraries, and all. The fairy perspective is... something of a unique one, even here."

>"No, but I picked up a lot from my benefactor," says Renko. "She's been all over. Had a lot of stories to tell. And...it's not that there isn't engineering, Mary. It's that pretty much everything I've studied just...doesn't really apply or mean anything. We had it so wrong it hurts. About the only thing I've not seen broken is friction, and it's just a matter of time..."

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"What do you mean by that, really? Even magic has rules it abides by. It's not like physics stopped being relevant entirely. I mean, think of this way, there might be just that much more to document and experiment with and understand. I'd have figured that would be the first thing you'd try to do."

[Hello Purvis]

>"What do you mean by that, really? Even magic has rules it abides by. It's not like physics stopped being relevant entirely. I mean, think of this way, there might be just that much more to document and experiment with and understand. I'd have figured that would be the first thing you'd try to do."

>"Where do you even start, when pretty much everything has a huge set of exceptions, Mary?" Renko asks, as the two of you reach the hill. "It's not like we thought it was, when you could at least record some basics and have a decent framework to move from, then go back and double check. You can't even make step one anymore. And, that's how it's supposed to be. Much as I hate to say it, there's no point in fighting it."

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"I... don't think this means that everything you knew was wrong, Renko. I really don't. Even after seeing this place. Sure, things exist that we didn't know existed. But... I don't think it makes everything that we've done up to now a waste."

[Kilgamayan]

> You know, maybe THIS is why she snapped. Her entire reality came crashing down on her all at once.

[Hello Purvis]

>"I... don't think this means that everything you knew was wrong, Renko. I really don't. Even after seeing this place. Sure, things exist that we didn't know existed. But... I don't think it makes everything that we've done up to now a waste."

>"Everything we've done? No. But as any kind of physics goes, or biology? Might as well forget about. I don't even want to figure out what it means for chemistry. So, I'm just not going to worry about it."

> You know, maybe THIS is why she snapped. Her entire reality came crashing down on her all at once.

>You start to wonder if Satori was right, and you really were just better adjusted.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> Or maybe we were just prepared better for it? She was always rooted in science, while we always had that odd ability...
> Wait, border detection! Try to sense any "spheres of influence" in or around Renko.

[DracoOmega]

>"It... bothers you, doesn't it? I know you want to make the best of it, just the same, but.... "
>Put a hand on her shoulder
>"I really hadn't thought of it from quite the same perspective."

[Hello Purvis]

> Or maybe we were just prepared better for it? She was always rooted in science, while we always had that odd ability...
> Wait, border detection! Try to sense any "spheres of influence" in or around Renko.

>That's also possible.
>You try to get a sense of borders around here. You don't feel anything odd around Renko, but you can tell you're in the middle of land ceded to the faeries.

>"It... bothers you, doesn't it? I know you want to make the best of it, just the same, but.... "
>Put a hand on her shoulder
>"I really hadn't thought of it from quite the same perspective."

>You put a hand on her shoulder express sympathy. She heaves a tired sigh, then smiles at you.  "It used to. But not anymore, I've just decided to put it out of my mind. Science is broke. It's a shame, but no use crying over it."

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"Our own world didn't go anywhere, you know. Science still works just as well as it always did. The things here are no more real than those."

[Serela]

>"Well, even with science broken, there's still stuff that remains unknown... for example, magic, it's got to come from somewhere, or exist in some manner, or something like that, you know? Someone, I think Reimu, said what we've learned to do here probably wouldn't even work in the outside world. So there must be some difference, some reason. It'd be like... a different kind of science, I guess? Although, I don't blame you if you don't want to try and figure it out, it really does seem like a difficult task... from what I heard, no one here knows, although I'm not sure if they've tried to find out, either."
>"I wonder, even, if magic and science could work together. Not like that strange stuff the kappa try to make, like ghost-powered air conditioners, but a sophisticated kind!"
>Sigh.
>"Gensokyo doesn't have the outside world science to even begin to try anything like that, though. And the outside world doesn't have Gensokyo's magic. I wonder if there's anywhere with both, or if there ever was?"

[Hello Purvis]

>"Our own world didn't go anywhere, you know. Science still works just as well as it always did. The things here are no more real than those."

>"It works, except for when it doesn't." says Renko.
>She hovers into the air. It's...a jarring sight, really, to watch someone you know fly like that.
>"Gravity works, except when it doesn't. It's proof that pretty much all our underlying assumptions are wrong, Mary. That it's worked at all is just a coincidence. I mean, looking back now, do you have any idea how lucky we are those coincidences lasted as long as they did?"

>"Well, even with science broken, there's still stuff that remains unknown... for example, magic, it's got to come from somewhere, or exist in some manner, or something like that, you know? Someone, I think Reimu, said what we've learned to do here probably wouldn't even work in the outside world. So there must be some difference, some reason. It'd be like... a different kind of science, I guess? Although, I don't blame you if you don't want to try and figure it out, it really does seem like a difficult task... from what I heard, no one here knows, although I'm not sure if they've tried to find out, either."
>"I wonder, even, if magic and science could work together. Not like that strange stuff the kappa try to make, like ghost-powered air conditioners, but a sophisticated kind!"
>Sigh.
>"Gensokyo doesn't have the outside world science to even begin to try anything like that, though. And the outside world doesn't have Gensokyo's magic. I wonder if there's anywhere with both, or if there ever was?"

>She nods. "And that's the problem. Magic breaks...everything really. And there's really no way to measure it, or predict it or anything. It's like if someone took quantum level stuff, said "Okay, you're making too much sense," then make it a macroscopic effect. And from what I've heard? That barrier wasn't always there. This used to be part of our world. So what changed? Even if you take magic out of the equation, it's still proof that we've had it wrong the whole time. So...there's just no point worrying about it, so I won't."

>_

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"But that's how science evolves. You think you have a set of rules that works, and then you find something that doesn't fit. Then you go back to the drawing board and figure out new rules that account for the thing that broke the old rules. That's how it's been since the beginning. Magic can't do just whatever it pleases. I'm sure a lot of mages wish they could, but their power is also bounded by rules, and limited in terms of how much it can bend the law of physics that we're used to working with. Our old physics may not be entirely right, but it's also not entirely wrong. I'm certain of it."

[Hello Purvis]

>"But that's how science evolves. You think you have a set of rules that works, and then you find something that doesn't fit. Then you go back to the drawing board and figure out new rules that account for the thing that broke the old rules. That's how it's been since the beginning. Magic can't do just whatever it pleases. I'm sure a lot of mages wish they could, but their power is also bounded by rules, and limited in terms of how much it can bend the law of physics that we're used to working with. Our old physics may not be entirely right, but it's also not entirely wrong. I'm certain of it."

>"And when you break all of 'em? And there's no real way to account for the breaking?" Renko asks. "Really, the only think you can do is say "It works, except when it doesn't, and we have no idea when that'll be," and paste it over pretty much the whole textbook. We pretty much can't trust it anymore. It's just not worth worrying about."

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"I'm sorry Renko. Really, I am. And is that where this plan of yours started forming? After you figured that it was best to just stop trying to think too hard about things, and go with the flow?"