Turn 63

--- Maya ---

“Alright, so we need something new to work with…” She told her other selves as she began brainstorming a new energy type to work on.

(I don’t quite understand why we need to brainstorm a new energy when we already have ideas for several.) Her inner reason pointed out. (We already have ice, light, and kinetics on the list. What other ideas are there?)

“That’s the point of brain storming.” She reminded herself. “And… if we can have a negative heat, why can’t we have a negative ‘light’? See new ideas incoming.”

(We… don’t know how to manipulate light though.)

“Yet. We don’t know how to manipulate light yet.” She argued. “And figuring out darkness can’t be that much harder.”

(I feel like we’d be working backwards at that point.) Her inner reason admitted.

“Eh, I’m sure the whispers can figure something out.” She dismissed the concern while beginning to type.

(You do understand that if you don’t give them direction, the one in charge of corralling the whispers is the… other one.)

She paused to consider that.

(~We gonna blow it up with ice, we gonna blow it up with light, then we gonna throw it in a big black hole, as we bend physics over~)

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

(~Then we gonna blow up the whole big planet~)

“Perfectly fine.”

---

Having finally decided to deal with the ghost in the basement, as well as holding the knowledge that the Slaver she was looking for used magic, she decided to try seeing if she could discover anything of value to the two subjects before attempting to go spelunking in the hospital depths.

Given how it was a more long term problem, she decided to start with the Arcane problem just in case she forgot anything about the first topic while studying the second. Something she didn’t wish to risk just before possibly picking a fight with said Deadman.

Initially she thought that perhaps by better understanding how the Arcane manipulate Anima that maybe she could apply some of the science to her own programs. Unfortunately, after a couple of hours spent looking into the Arcane she discovered that, “these dumbasses want to scattershot science and pretend they understand this garbage!”

(I’m sure there’s some science to it given how people can learn to use it.) Her inner reason tried to assure her.

“Oh, I thought the same thing when they started with how physics relate to music and color theory, but then they also started throwing in this garbage about symbolism and how magic differs between psych profiles and neuro activity.” She raged.

(Uh, that all sounds science-y.)

“Yes it does.” She admitted in a kind tone before scowling. “Which is the problem! It ‘sounds’ sciency, but none of this stuff actually has a science to it!”

(Perhaps it’s a subjective matter? Where it holds true but at the same time it varies person to person?) Her inner logic suggested.

“Science isn’t subjective, it is fact.” She growled. “And these assholes are trying to pretend they actually study and understand something, just like hipsters do coffee and art!”

(Well… You must’ve learned something of value after so much reading.) Her inner reason tried.

“Yeah, I learned Arcane are dumbasses and M.A.D.s are superior in every way.” She scoffed. “Also since they’re ‘subjective’ about everything, they have like a stupid number of ways to do everything. Like why do you need twenty different ways to start a fire when combustion is a simple enough process!”

(Because fire is worth it.)

---

Coming to the conclusion that trying to research the Arcane was going to prove less than useful due to their obsession with twisting everything scientific with a bunch of spiritual bullshit, she instead moved onto the subject that would prove more immediately useful to her.

(So how exactly are we going to research Deadmen without watching a Romero flick?) Her inner madness asked with a valid point.

“Eh, we can probably just skim the wiki.” It was mildly embarrassing to admit that’d wussed out after a few newsclips rather than actually researching them, (but I can make up for that now.)

From what she could gather, Deadmen were people who died and were then resurrected due to exposure to Ectoplasm. Which was some sort of extra-dimensional non-newtonian fluid from the Deadlands, which was some kind of radioactive hell dimension connected to theirs at multiple points around the world. (Lovely…)

(I feel like you might be over-summarizing that description a bit.) Her inner reason warned mildly.

(People die, they become cannibals, and then they move to the Deadlands.) Her inner passion argued. (All of that sounds like a hell dimension to me.)

Regardless, she also discovered that Deadmen existed on a spectrum of physical to meta-physical based on how much of their body was comprised of ectoplasm vs their actual corpse. Where a Deadman placed on this spectrum was something of an indicator to which kind of abilities they could obtain with the more ectoplasmic ones possessing more ‘ghost-y’ powers while the corpses had more physical ones.

(So that means we’ve just got to figure out if the ghost-zombie in the basement is more ghost or zombie, right?)

(I suppose that would give us a decent indicator of how we should handle it.) Her inner logic agreed, making a note to keep an eye out for what few indicators the wiki listed for marking a Deadman’s place on the spectrum.

Noting that she was starting to run low on time if she wanted to investigate the mental ward before her curfew, she decided to read one last page, which turned out to be a confusing psych-paper on Deadmen and their Obsessions.

“So according to this, every Deadman has an Obsession, something that drives them and holds their ectoplasm together. If a Deadman loses their Obsession or feels like it’s being threatened then they will attack whatever is threatening it.” She tried to summarize.

(Meaning if we can discover why the girl in the basement is attacking us we might be able to reason with her.) Her inner reason realized.

(Uh, yeah, but she’d still be a cannibalistic ghost zombie.) Her inner madness pointed out.

“Yeah, I mean why exactly would we trust that?” She wondered, fully aware of how dangerous that could be to her health.

Her inner logic gave the simple answer of, (Ghost waifu.)

She blinked before frowning. “That’s not a valid reas-”

(Bitch, the fuck you say?! You need to get your priorities straight chica!)

---

“Okay, I’ve got everything together.” She told herself secure the last bit of her equipment, as she attempted to stall out going through the doors in front of her. “Hey, don’t call me out! You’d be stalling too if you were in my position!”

(She’s not wrong.) Her inner madness admitted, before asking, (So how exactly are we handling this?)

“Right, so… options…” She began slowly stalling out her words. “Fine! We’ve got like three ways to handle this. We can try sneaking through the asylum to see if we can figure out what the ghost’s obsession is before running into her, or we can just pick a fight with her and take her down.”

(Or perhaps we can attempt to open a dialogue with her before we do something to possibly agitate her.) Her inner reason suggested.

“Dios mio…” She groaned. “Don’t tell me this is about that stupid ghost waifu plan you two have.”

(Honestly, thinking about it, it wouldn’t work.)

“Thank you!”

(Maya ‘s too much of a bisexual disaster.)

“Wha- Fuck you!”

(Yeah… That’s not going to happen anytime soon.)

She bit her lip before forcing down a number of insults at the (stupid voice in my head that’s not even real.)

(Hey! We do not use the R word here!)

Shaking her head, she forced herself away from the distraction that was her own insanity and put her hand on the doors to the mental ward, before pushing them open and stepping into the haunted hospital halls.