Mid-event, evening; audio only

[mustknow]

These.. crystals we're collecting.

How vital will having all four be, really? And if this train stops every two weeks to pick up more passengers.. what of all those yet to arrive?



[And then, a little bit later:]



Do any of you have a dog onboard the train?

Comments

audio

[jingyeets]

Why, are you stuck on one?

[mustknow]

Why, did you effortlessly defeat them all? If so, do it all again and set aside the results so new arrivals have a chance if we fight the .. heh, rainbow again.

[jingyeets]

Wow, so you did get stuck on one. It is a rush, three days is nothing for training. Anyway, it's not like we can't set aside extra crystals, I just don't know if it matters who got them or not, the monks talk in circles on that point.

( A pause. )

Wait, we're fighting a rainbow?

[mustknow]

A hostile rainbow. With illusion powers.

[jingyeets]

... We're fighting a hostile weather occurrence with illusion powers.

[mustknow]

We're here on this planet learning what we are because the people onboard the train did not exactly win the last time they fought aforementioned hostile weather occurrence with illusion powers.

[jingyeets]

... But this is like a crash course in "hey did you know illusions work by latching onto things you're ready to believe in" without sending anyone home with weeks worth of repetitive work involving stuff like that. Don't we have at least one fox on board? Can't we be working with illusion resistance even on train? Does no one here know how to cast illusion arrays? That can't be the case, we have multiple cultivators. Ugh, I can't believe we were abducted to fight hostile weather occurrences with illusion powers. That's insane!

( he's just filled with complaints at this point, we are forever sorry. )

[mustknow]

I haven't seen a single fox. I'm sure someone onboard MUST be an illusion specialist but none have come forward. What we are meant to accomplish in three days by way of combating something that incapacitated nearly EVERYONE with glorified holograms--

[Deep breath! Ranting does no good.]

I can't blame the artificial lifeform that is the train, it seems to be doing what it can to help, but I question what the rest of us are doing here, wasting our time. There are other ways to fight rainbows than obsessing over canceling out the illusion part.

[jingyeets]

Okay, if you're sure, and I'm telling you I know it's true, why don't we stop pretending the train's going to help us make sense of any of this and ask each other? Or what else were you thinking would 'cancel out' illusions?

[mustknow]

That is indeed a next step, once I determine if these trinkets are actually worth the effort of having them, and if they are, what is given to those who haven't even arrived yet. We'd need to be able to test it versus not only the illusions here but other forms from other sources.

[What DID he have in mind for canceling out the illusions? Xehanort hesitates for a long moment, weighing whether or not it would be a good idea to actually tell anyone.]

... Well, the vast majority of illusions and holograms require light, as do rainbows. Remove the source, remove the illusion instead of wasting time struggling with the image.

[jingyeets]

Yeah, yeah, okay, I understand, but I mean if training is what we need—we can set up ways to train that don't require the crystals at all. If the crystals help, wouldn't that be a testing ground?

( Then an answering pause as he listens to the eventual response on what to do. )

Hah, so what, darkness? Have you never been misled in the dark? Or have you only met illusions that attack the sense of vision? That's one kind, yeah, but there's more than one sense to fool. So... you'd be training for the visual ones, what about the rest?

[mustknow]

What would you suggest for training onboard, then? For both the very young and the seemingly immortal, since someone decided bringing actual children was a good idea.

If you can't see a blow coming, but it strikes you anyway and hurts you, is it actually an illusion or is it something else?

[jingyeets]

Arrays? Training arrays in the exercise carriage or the one with the small creeks and the stones or something.

( He breathes out in a sort of snort. )

Could be both. If you convince the mind something is true, the body can compensate to make it so. It's why dream entanglement can be dangerous, you know? Make a dream tie itself to reality, and it's another kind of illusion.

[mustknow]

Ah! But that's the problem, isn't it, if you don't know the strike is coming. An illusory blow, unperceived, would not convince the mind that the body has been struck, it would have no way of knowing what that sound is meant to be, or do. I could not cast an illusion to kick you in the back of the head and expect you to stagger if you have no knowledge of the blow coming. Even the whistle of motion through air would not tell you that you 'should' feel like you just got kicked in the back of the head.

Are you volunteering to craft these arrays?

[jingyeets]

I can talk with my seniors, they're better equipped for stuff like that... and better at explaining how I could do exactly what you said I couldn't do, because once someone's in an illusion array, their senses already aren't their own. Illusion arrays suck for several reasons, but that's one.

[mustknow]

No illusion I've ever encountered ventures into the territory of outright mind control. And if it's controlling your mind, I wouldn't say it's an illusion spell, but perhaps your teachers and yourself categorize things rather differently! Please do speak with them, if nothing else it'll be worthwhile to have methods against that as well, I can see only benefits from resisting either category.

[jingyeets]

Go ahead and ask about... whatever else you're thinking on, I'll do as I said. I don't think it's controlling the mind how you're thinking, either, but controlling perception is part of it? Ugh, I won't explain it better right now, I'll ask one of them to explain.