What's Stopping Us From Breathing Easy [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

Dreamers of Manhattan, you've lucked out. Rather than finding yourselves in some kind of dystopian nightmare, you'll end up in a series of formal gardens on a lovely day, the air filled with birdsong and a cloud-scattered sky arching overhead. Some of the gardens look a bit wilder than others, in an artful sort of way, but it's clear that all of the gardens are well kept and frequently tended. Aside from each other, dreamers aren't likely to run into any creature larger than a rabbit. True, there are no actual exits - every doorway or arbor leads to another garden - but that's hardly a problem. It's beautiful, it's safe... what could go wrong?

Well, that depends on the dreamer's honesty. No uncomfortable truths will drop unbidden from anyone's mouths like last time, but the dreamers will find that any time they attempt to lie or prevaricate, they'll be beset by a sneezing fit. A tiny lie by omission might only prompt that uncomfortable feeling of an impending sneeze; a larger, more significant (or more stubborn) fib will lead to a sneeze attack so crippling that the dreamer might just need to sit down for a minute.

You could try to pass it off as allergies, if you could get the words out without making everything worse. But while telling the truth is not compulsory, lying is punishable - and pretty well obscured - by sneezes.

[OOC: Usual dream party rules apply. All are welcome to participate regardless of whether they've been apped in the game or not. Dreamers can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion.]

Comments

[antitimelord]

Is. Is she demanding an explanation of her sneeze. From an innocent bystander? He looks, for just a moment, most hilariously shocked. Well alright. Apparently his explanation should have been a little more ground-floor. Probably more ground-floor than he's qualified for. He's mostly here to complain about the Rift, not explain biological functions like dreaming and sneezing. "Well, you dream now. And sneeze. And have bad manners," because she absolutely did not even think about covering her mouth, "Maybe that's not the Rift's doing, though." No dreams, no sneezes, "What were you before the Rift?" What kind of person makes such strident demands impersonally yet over-familiarly of people who owe them exactly nothing? Well, it's different when he does it.

[centralcore]

The RIFT. Of course. She lets out a sound perilously close to a growl, and then looks faintly alarmed at herself for it. Even though she is perfectly within her rights for it. The rift made her human-shaped. And it's making her dream. And SNEEZE. This is starting to be worse than being in a potato.

Okay, no. Nothing is worse than being in a potato. Gotta put things in perspective.

"I was an artificial intelligence," she says resentfully. "I never had to sleep or... or sneeze. Durant told me this rift is semisapient? Does it have no sense of decency?"

Finally she seems to remember she is actually, ostensibly talking to someone. She refocuses on him. "Who are you?" she accuses.

[antitimelord]

Oh yes, the AI, with the neurotoxin proclivity, he does recognise that entitled attitude from somewhere besides his own behaviour, right. An acronym? He doesn't remember, he'd mentally picked it up and put it back down so fast, like any other shiny thing with a purpose not immediately understood and so, immediately forgotten. He gives her a look that might have been pitying, from another creature; moreso, a kind of relieved disgust, a real 'there but for the grace of God' moment. For the first time it occurs to him he could have been scooped out of his current mode of existence and slopped into a human form (again), what a horrifying thought. It could have been a harmless human form, with half his, his everything, sieved out, and that's even worse. "I have yet to meet a cosmic phenomenon with any sense of decency, actually. Don't think it comes standard." Why is she being so accusatory? Are AI's so reactive usually? He's in a poor place to judge. "I am Zagreus. I've talked to you while you're awake. I'm real, not a dream." What is that odd tickling in his palate? Probably nothing.

[centralcore]

She blinks at him, her manner changing sharply from profound irritation to surprise and a bothersome lack of balance. Zagreus had been the entity she most wished to meet out of all the largely unhelpful creatures who contacted her, mostly so she could determine what, exactly, his deal is.

"Zagreus," she says, demeanor changing once more to smooth unconcern. Finally. "Oh, it is a pleasure. You'll have to excuse my - mm. Inconsistency." Admitting fault is such a trial. She can do it on those rare occasions that she deems it necessary. And with so interesting - and, she suspects, so fickle a being - a little humility is tolerable. "Lately the parts of me that usually handle stressful situations have been a little, well, gone." She looks him up and down. He is not what she expected, but then, she didn't know what to expect. "I'm sure it's nothing that time can't fix."

[antitimelord]

Zagreus does not like being visually assayed. In fact, he liked her honest distress considerably more than her self-possession. Self-possession is usually considered more a bug than a feature, in AIs. She's not really apologising for the right inconsistency. Which, he's definitely known humans that were more even-keeled than this AI, or did a better job of pretending to be, anyway. "Has it been your experience that time fixes things?" he says, in a tone of polite if disbelieving interest. Is it really of no concern to her whatsoever that a real actual being is in her dream? Well, maybe as someone who doesn't dream, she's unaware that that is highly unusual. It's not like it's something he orchestrated anyway. "Then maybe that will still be the case." He doesn't sound hopeful, but it's well-meaning enough. "What sort of artificial intelligence? Beyond unsleeping and non-sneezing."

[centralcore]

"It has been my experience that time is a vast if not limitless resource," says Glados calmly. "Maybe it doesn't deserve the credit, but it has been useful to me in the past." What's he got against time, anyway? Odd non-human that he is.

And he's asking the questions now. This won't do in the long run but she'll allow it while she's feeling indulgent. "The sort that does important science," she says. "I usually do it as part of a mainframe computer. But now I'm doomed to this body, and my facility is doomed to failure without me. Oh well." She tips her head, smiling thinly. Everything about this is totally fine. "And what about you? Semi-metaphorical suggestion, was it - care to elaborate on that? I'm very interested."

She does not sneeze. This does not surprise her, as an absence of sneezing has never been surprising. It is, however, worth note.

[antitimelord]

Oh good, there's that facility again, apparently being flooded with neurotoxin doesn't denote 'failure.' She really does not seem happy about no longer being a building. Fair enough. Less good--machines and the like, remembering the things he says off the cuff, that's not what he's for, ugh. "It's a long story. Or a fairly short poem." He makes a flippant hand gesture; take your pick. "I did not turn out to be a very good suggestion," he says this with incongruous fondness and venom. "The person who suggested me probably regretted it very much, after I threw him into a pocket universe full of his own angry mistakes." This is safe to say to a strange piece of tech in a dream-garden. Absolutely. "I am a much better m--" he sneezes, barely having time to raise his hand, palm out almost like he's warding against something. That is really not something that happens in dreams, right? He certainly can't remember having sneezed in a dream. Is this to do with his recent illness? But no, she is experiencing the same thing. Dream flowers with shockingly realistic dream-pollen? Well, as problems go, that's nothing, nice try, Rift. He looks most put upon.

[centralcore]

Bothersomely nonsensical though his story is, she is keen to hear it, and startled when it is disrupted by another unwarranted sneeze. Zagreus is powerful enough to throw his maker into a 'pocket universe' - which, file that away under hugely relevant to her interests - and yet here he is, succumbing to sneezes just like her.

"Why is that happening," she says with clear distaste, waving a hand as if to brush something away. She doesn't wait for an answer, it was rhetorical, of course. "This pocket universe - you created it, or simply accessed it? Is that something you can do again?"

She is in no way gleeful at the sheer imagined possibilities.

[antitimelord]

Oh no, she is taking away entirely the wrong information from this exchange, she is hearing a fable and asking how the animals can talk, and then scheming how next time maybe the crocodile could be put to safe use in crossing the river. Not even in the same universe as the point. Speaking of which, "It was circumstantial. If it hadn't been so convenient I would have just pitched him into something else. I had options." Regretfully, "I am not quite able to rip any holes in the boundaries of this universe. Currently."

[centralcore]

"What a pity," she say breezily. "Ripping holes in things was sort of a specialty of mine - or my facility, I suppose. Now I'll have to build from the ground up. Not like I haven't before, of course. Just usually not this drastic." She heaves a somewhat exaggerated sigh. "That's just how things go."

Distantly it occurs to her that she is making small talk. She should not be able to do this so naturally. It's been a long time since she had to.

She looks at Zagreus and wonders how difficult it would be to kill him with this body. Would it be worth it? Would she be able to gain anything from it? Would it be permanent?

Well, there's a thought. Sort of an experiment. How does death work, in dreams that aren't quite dreams?

"I don't suppose you'd mind holding still for a moment?" she says, and casts about for a sharp stick. "I have a little test I'd like to run. There'll be cake after, remember, I did promise."