@ren.amamiya

[variate]

[ after waking up, feeling like crap, having a cup of coffee while holding hands with Tony Stark for a good fifteen minutes, it's time to let go. ]

Hey, since we could all use a little good news, I've got some.
Stark came by to move my body in cafe I'm stuck at in New Amsterdam. When we touched, I got kicked out of the sim. Not for long, but long enough to know what happened. It doesn't work unless you're constantly touching someone outside the sim. I'm back in now.
That means it's possible to break out for a while, even if it's not permanent. I know it's been hard, and we don't have much of a choice but to keep going. It's not much, but this is something we can work with.

[ he'll always remember the time they shared feelings, Tony. ]

Comments

[variate]

If he didn't, then we have something else working in our favor.
I'm not about to let him win.

[jinshi]

Of course not. He has to be dealt with.
But I'm going to be very unhappy if you've managed to draw attention to yourself.

[variate]

[ 💦 ]

I'll be fine.

[ he'll never get used to this. ]

[jinshi]

[ you had a dream moment with him it's an official contract now!! there's no escaping!!! ]

Of course you will be. Because I will kill him.

[variate]

[ HOW DOES HE ATTRACT THESE PEOPLE ]

Nothing's happened yet, so save that thought.
Let's figure out a way out of here.

[jinshi]

That isn't a task I'm particularly suited to.
If it were magic, I might know the loopholes. But technology is different.

[variate]

What would you do, if this were magic?

[jinshi]

A distraction. Illusions cast over an area require concentration to maintain.
Disrupting that is likely to create a hole which another party could take advantage of.

[variate]

Is there a reason we can't create a distraction now?

[jinshi]

We could certainly try. But Judas is an... AI, yes?
To maintain an illusion of this scale, he must have far stronger concentration than any human or youkai. Even from a greater kami, this would surprise me.
Youkai are easy to distract. Threaten what they love, target their desires. Ordinarily, I could shapeshift into a woman and entice them, and that would be the end of it.
I don't know how to disrupt a creature like this that has such a capacity for control.

[variate]

[ kind of like Shadows, but Judas isn't a youkai, and Judas definitely isn't a Shadow. ]

Not complete control if we can wake up, even for a little while. The simulation is what would be considered the illusion, right?

[jinshi]

Yes. Though I suppose it's more like a dream, given the state of our bodies.
Unfortunately, the sorts of magic I know that deal with dreams cannot be broken from the inside. It would be left entirely to a rescue from outside.
If we treat it as an illusion instead, the question becomes where those holes in the lie would most likely appear.

[variate]

[ a dream ]

Like pulling on a string that's already loose.
We have to find it.

[jinshi]

It's a large area to cover.
More than that, it's only a theory.
Even if we were to distract Judas from both in here and in reality... I don't know what that does when it's technology.
Ugh. I hate the human world.

[ more importantly, he hates having to admit that he doesn't know something. ]

We can't just run around looking for a thin spot in the illusion. We will need a plan.