TRUTH OR DARE

[cactusy]

1) Post your characters, one per comment.
2) Comment around ICly asking other characters "truth or dare?"
3) Truth is self-explanatory; dares should involve tagging out to another character's top level somehow ("Insult someone you find terrifying", "Tell someone you think is hot one thing you find sexy about them", "Strike up a conversation using the most awkward non-sequitur you can come up with", etc.)

Comments

[cactusy]

I'm already letting you guys help me in all the ways that are necessary. What more do you want?

[meadqueen]

You’ve died twice now, and nearly a third time. We’re not your enemies. If you conceal both your movements and your knowledge from us, what happens to us if whatever happened to Zam happens to you?

[cactusy]

You're not the people I'm concealing my movements from, I'm concealing them from whoever gave us these walkies. And as for knowledge - I've told you guys everything I know.

[meadqueen]

What are you afraid they'll do, kill you?

[Come on, now]

Perhaps that's an easier question, why would you go back to the place where you’d died already with no support and fewer materials if you trusted us to help you?

[cactusy]

Oh please, I'm not afraid of dying. I don't want to broadcast what I'm doing to the enemy and compromise my mission, that's all.

I was closer to the place I died than I was to any backup. Figured it was easier just to go back myself. And anyway - a lot of you guys are civilians. I'll fight with you if we end up in danger together, but I'm not going to ask you to follow me into the line of fire. That's not distrust, it's-- I dunno, ethics.

[meadqueen]

You should be afraid. You don't know what it could be doing to you.

[cactusy]

I don't really--

[-- do fear. But that's not quite true, is it? Maybe it used to be, once upon a time, but not anymore.]

-- That's. Not the kind of thing I'm scared of.

[meadqueen]

Of course. But what if you can't go home because the new arrangement can only sustain life here under their guardianship? We don't know anything.

I am sorry that I scared you. Before.

[cactusy]

When?

[meadqueen]

When you announced your death. The first one.

[cactusy]

When you said that everyone here might be real people brought into the simulation to control me?

I'm glad you did.

[meadqueen]

I don't think it's true anymore - I’d wished it was - but if I wanted to hurt you and had access to that technology I would do it that way.

[cactusy]

I know. It makes sense.

Why don't you think it's true anymore?

[meadqueen]

It's gone on too long with no results for the ones controlling the dream to not have either restarted with more favourable parameters or made demands of you, and I think if they had made demands of you even in your current state you would not have allowed Steph to bring you to the village.

[cactusy]

... Yeah. Even if they're playing the long game, I figure they'd have done something by now, and they haven't done crap.

That kinda goes for if this is real too, though. We still don't know why we're here.

[meadqueen]

If it's real then we could be here for no reason. An accident of fate.

[cactusy]

Somebody gave us the walkies.

[meadqueen]

Or they're assigned by automation like whatever controlled the drones.

[cactusy]

Magic automation that can work across parallel universes?

[meadqueen]

Is that less probable than a consciously controlled magic that does so? This place has been abandoned for decades.

[cactusy]

It'd have to be about a hundred times more powerful than any machine I've ever encountered, and that's something something.

[meadqueen]

Have you ever seen something like the storm transporting an item from Senku’s past? It all seems like magic to me.

Do you still believe I have another person hidden in my mind?

[cactusy]

I believe it's a possibility. But I'm not convinced anymore. I'm not convinced of much of anything anymore.

[meadqueen]

Is it better or worse if you're not the target?

[cactusy]

That depends on a lot of variables. If it is Decima - they're bad news, and they wouldn't hesitate to kill any of you without a second thought. But I'm not gonna pretend they're the worst option in the entire universe.