[pcs] taichi

[ambiography]

shitpost maybe eventually?

Comments

[goalsides]

Please do. They won't admit that they need it, but they do. Malik especially.

[unfortunately, lucretia will also get a mental image of taichi bodyslamming malik into a wall. "We don't even know if Maya's alive, Claude and Lucretia are blind, aged and bleeding and Yamato--How could you just make that choice so easily!?"

...malik needs healing because taichi did not help, clearly.]

[ambiography]

[oh. there's a sharp intake of breath, there, her eyes wide for a moment.]

...Taichi, what happened in there?

[goalsides]

I'm still trying to figure that out. [he would normally be more freaked out, but like. he's been getting isekai'd since he was eleven? he doesn't realize he's cursed and should find this even stranger, but everything that happened was...]

We went to Wonderland? Do you know anything about liches that run a place like that?

[he's only heard of liches from lucretia before, so it's a stretch but he has to ask.]

[ambiography]

[god, no, that shouldn't have been possible. it doesn't exist. how-?

she takes in a slow breath.]

I've... I've been there before, Taichi. There was something in that place that I needed to obtain, but... I was forced to abandon my attempt.

[goalsides]

[he sort of just furrows his eyebrows together.]

...what is it? That means it's really a real thing? The talking head was there but I thought it was, like, a hallucination or something half the time.

[ambiography]

...it is. It's a real place, or-- it was. I wasn't able to retrieve the relic powering it on my own, but it was recovered for me recently.

[but also-]

-what do you mean, talking head?

[goalsides]

The head with the red hat. Cam? Rita was carrying him with us for a while before we got out of there. We followed the signs to Wonderland to go after stuff we wanted.

[ambiography]

With the-- how in the world was he still there?

[that's almost more to herself, disbelieving.]

[goalsides]

Well he's only a head. He couldn't exactly go anywhere unless someone's moving him.

[ambiography]

I... guess that tracks, yeah, I just-- it's been years.

[goalsides]

How long ago was it? What happened when you went?

[ambiography]

Seven years? Eight? It was before I ever founded the Bureau-- that attempt was what made me realize that I wasn't going to accomplish my plans alone.

[as for what happened there... she's quiet, for a few moments.]

I gave up twenty years of my life, in there.

[goalsides]

Twenty? How? Those games are, like, designed to kill you. [HELLO?]

[ambiography]

It was the only way to progress. They demanded I wager twenty years of my life on a game, and... I lost.

[goalsides]

...that wheel thing would've made Rita lose 10 years of her life if she didn't take a penalty and respin. Was it that?

[ambiography]

...similar. It was my wager for a chess game, rather than a spin.

[goalsides]

Yeah we absolutely would've lost a chess game. [bad.] ...what other challenges did you go up against when you were there?

[ambiography]

I...

[she looks uncomfortable, thinking back on it, glancing aside.]

It's different for everyone who enters, to some extent, they sort of-- personalize it to a degree. I don't know if any of it would be the same.

[she doesn't mean for it to be heard, but there's a thought of I don't want to think about it.]

[goalsides]

...that's okay. [he seems to understand and lets it go.] ...that makes sense. It's a place to absorb suffering, so it would be based on whatever would make it worse. Which...sort of explains a lot of what we saw anyway.