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[ascintilla]

Comment here with the IC date and time.

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[ascintilla]

[ Hnnnnn. ]

[ VANISHING. :I ]

[purrtylittlewires]

[SIGH]

[MORE PORTALS.]

[ascintilla]

[ he may find that she's redirected him to a set of significantly more difficult puzzles. ]

[ either she's giving him an opportunity to work off some frustration, or she's being an ass. OR MAYBE BOTH. ]

[purrtylittlewires]

[HE IS WILLING TO BET BOTH. At least he's adapted well to thinking with portals and he's far too okay with JUMPING OFF SHIT.]

[ascintilla]

[ you're gonna get back to kyr and you will still be thinking with portals ]

[ PORTALS FOREVER ]

[purrtylittlewires]

[I'm gonna forget how to just WALK to doors because of you, i hope you're happy.]

[ascintilla]

[ ecstatic ]

[ … and since he's been playing for days now, Iota actually does have to start designing new levels for him to run. NOT GONNA LET HIM BEAT THE GAME, NOPE. Hopefully he won't freak out too much the first time he gets caught in a load screen. ]

[purrtylittlewires]

[WHY THIS]

[WHY LOAD SCREENS]

[Please tell me there's no static]

[ascintilla]

[ NO STATIC ]

[ Just … dark, and the occasional flicker—lines of code and half-formed ideas, soon discarded. They generally only last for a handful of seconds at a time, though one or two have taken almost a minute. ]

[ and boy were those two puzzles hard as fuck, designed to push him to his very limits based on the data she's already gathered. ]

[purrtylittlewires]

[Ha]

[HAHAHA]

[Darkness and data isn't something he needs]

[NOPE NOPE NOPE]

[She'll notice him getting particularly efficient after those screens and his face is far more blank.]

[This is what happens when you start triggering, he's just gonna REPRESS THINGS TO ALL FUCK.]

[So still hard, but not near as hard as they SHOULD have been.]

[ascintilla]

[ … hmmm. ]

[ What if she just forces him to wait in an already cleared level while she constructs the next ridiculously difficult one? Is there any difference in performance? ]

[purrtylittlewires]

[Less efficiency. Not so triggered, time to calm down.]

[Still getting through it, but approaching more projected data.]

[ascintilla]

[ hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ]

[ She'd like to test that further, but. She recalls his words on purposeful cruelty, and ... hesitates. ]

[ The next level is significantly easier. ]

[purrtylittlewires]

[Purposeful cruelty is very important to keep in mind.]

[...wondering why this is easier, but does it.]

[ascintilla]

[ the next one glitches. ]

[ only briefly, and only at the beginning—like a daydream dreamed by a distracted dreamer. ]

… Ah. [ Her avatar flickers briefly to life by his feet. ] Apologies, Puma.

[purrtylittlewires]

[HE BACKPEDALS, looking around.]

[DON'T THINK HE DIDN'T NOTICE.]

Something I should be concerned about? [Wow, real flat there.]

[ascintilla]

No. There is a conflict in the coding. I am resolving it now, after which point you will be free to move on.

[purrtylittlewires]

Ah.

[I'm just gonna stay here.]

[By the entrance.]

[studying the surroundings.]

[ascintilla]

[ It's a reasonably difficult level, hard enough to push him a bit, complete with the fun risk of getting shot by (harmless, but watch your gauges—you wouldn't want a game over after getting this far, right?) pellets. ]

[ … ]

















You. Do not like the loading screens.

[purrtylittlewires]

I don't like a lot of things.

Are the problems fixed?

[ascintilla]

Three point zero two six—troubleshooting complete. All systems running smoothly. All issues have been rectified, yes.

…

Tell me something. Is it cruelty?

[purrtylittlewires]

Is what cruelty? [Going to start that puzzle and there's that spike in efficiency again.]

[ascintilla]

Your efficiency output increases by [ REELS OFF DATA, wow, such numbers ] after experiencing time within the loading screens, increasing by a factor of [ MORE DATA ] with every second.

[ she follows, perching herself on his head again so she's not in his way. ]

[purrtylittlewires]

....

I'm a soldier.

When you're a soldier, you learn that the time to push yourself is when things are happening you don't like. Because usually when you don't like things, they're probably going to kill you.

It's not a healthy mindset. A mindset that the children in Kyriakos don't deserve.

I accepted it because we needed people to fight or everyone was going to die. I just also happen to be really damn good at it.

But it's not a good mindset under circumstances when things aren't constantly trying to kill you.

[ascintilla]

And, as a human, it is not a subroutine that you can simply turn off when you do not need it.

Correct?