Voice Testing

[strawberry_science]

Listen to me, because I'm only going to say it once. [ She points. ] THAT is not a hexagram! Can you even count? It's obvious that I'm going to be the one doing all the work around here, and I'm sorry to say that I have better things I could be doing right now.

So, if you'll excuse me. Chiruyi and I are—

[ She turns. ] Chiyuri?

CHIYURI!

Come out here this instant. We are leaving!

Comments

[phantom_thief_freyr]

Is there a problem? Freyr shall help! Freyr is an expert on all magical symbols!

[strawberry_science]

Is that so? Wonderful!

[ Gesturing off to the side. ] Educate that man, will you? I'm busy looking for my AWOL assistant.

[phantom_thief_freyr]

Educate...? Freyr is better at doing than explaining.

[strawberry_science]

"Doing"? Then what good are you to me if you can't—

[ Wait.

Wait wait wait! ] Are you a... magician?

[phantom_thief_freyr]

Magician? Freyr is more than a simple magician! Freyr is a god, a Phantom God!

[Wait no, that's wrong.]

Er... Phantom Thief! Who is a god.

1/3

[strawberry_science]

Oh. [ A gasp. ]

2/3

[strawberry_science]

Oh! [ She claps her hands together. ]

3/3

[strawberry_science]

[ Then her tone deflates. ] Pass.

[phantom_thief_freyr]

Eh!? What do you mean pass? Freyr is an amazing god! There are many things Freyr is exceptional at! Freyr is a hero you know! Also an artists, an inventor and a mighty warrior! No one is better at runes than Freyr and only one other can hope to surpass his skills at love and romance!

[princesstenko]

You can't exactly leave someone's head.

[strawberry_science]

That's good! It means you'll have other skills to fall back on when "pretending to be a god" doesn't work out for you.

[strawberry_science]

What? Of course I can! Where there is an entrance, there is an exit.

[phantom_thief_freyr]

Freyr is not pretending to be a god. Freyr is a god! An important god!

[princesstenko]

You're more likely to simply die.

[strawberry_science]

Never heard of you.

Which is just as well, because everyone sane knows that gods don't exist.

[strawberry_science]

You're saying that like a vacuum exists outside of this space. Even if so, don't underestimate me, for my name is Yumemi Okazaki and I can breathe in space!

[phantom_thief_freyr]

What? How... how could you have never heard of Freyr? Freyr is a prominent and important Norse god!

You believe in magic but not gods? What is wrong with you?

[princesstenko]

That's not what I'm saying at all.

In fact, you're completely off track.

[strawberry_science]

Oh yeah? Well haven't you heard of Clarke's Three Laws?!

[strawberry_science]

Oh? Then explain it more quickly. I'm a busy woman, you know.

[phantom_thief_freyr]

Clarke? Freyr is unfamiliar.

[princesstenko]

The quick and dirty, hmm? Very well...

You are a creation of someone else's imagination.

[strawberry_science]

False! I was born to a mother through a natural biological process just like every other human...

Okay, most humans.

[ Clearing her throat. ] Try again.

[princesstenko]

And why is it that you believe that?

[strawberry_science]

That is very simple: it's a fact and thus, it is true.

[princesstenko]

Isn't it possible that those memories, those that you claim are fact, are not also part of the illusion of your existence?

[strawberry_science]

Do I look like Heidegger to you? [ Sigh. ]

Look, if I was a figment of someone else's imagination, why would they give me the ability to question my own existence? "I think, therefore, I am"? Please.

[ She thumps her chest. ] I am!

And, right now? My assistant is not—[ Turning away. ] Chiyuri!!!

[princesstenko]

You don't think. Even now, your every word, action, and thought is predetermined by a person outside your scope of understanding. Not like a god, but more like a puppeteer. And you are here to entertain. How else do you explain the very place we find ourselves in?

[strawberry_science]

I don't th—

I don't think so is more like it! [ Pointing. ] Who are you to tell me who I am?

[princesstenko]

I'm but a fox.

[strawberry_science]

You're not "but" a fox. Or "just" one, either. Anyone taking a good look at you can tell that much.

[princesstenko]

If you cannot except the possibility of your existence being the creation of something else, then why question at all if I am or am not simply a fox?

[strawberry_science]

I'm not questioning it, but you're understating it. No simple fox has nine tails and tries to debate existentialism.

[strawberry_science]

[ A groan. ] Okay, here goes the third and important one:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

[phantom_thief_freyr]

Very true words! Freyr's inventions are in fact so advanced they are like magic! [More like magic is what made them even function in the first place....] But humans do not have that kind of technology.

[princesstenko]

And no person speaks as a muse to a writer.

[strawberry_science]

[ Yumemi crosses her arms. ] Oh yeah? Says who?

[strawberry_science]

[ Crossing her arms. ] Okay Miss Smarty-pants. If I'm a figment of someone's imagination — and I'm not saying I am, this is just speaking hypothetically — what does that make you?

[phantom_thief_freyr]

Eh? Freyr is very sure he never saw such technology in Midgard, and that is where Freyr has been recently.

[princesstenko]

Another figment.

[strawberry_science]

[ She grins wide. ] Then your people of Midgard must be pretty behind on the times.

[strawberry_science]

Whose figment? Certainly not mine.

[princesstenko]

Of a mun.

[strawberry_science]

A what? Stop leaving off the context. This is your theory, not mine.

[phantom_thief_freyr]

Compared to where? There is Asgard, Muspelheim, Alfheim, Vanaheim, Midgard, Jotunheim, Svartalfheim, Niflhel, and Niflheim. If we are talking of human advancement and technology then we can only talk of Midgard. Everywhere else has magic.

[princesstenko]

An author.

[strawberry_science]

They do, hmm? [ Yumemi rubs her chin with a finger. ] You don't happen to have interspacial coordinates for these other locations, do you?

[strawberry_science]

Look, the only story I'm a character in is the autobiography of my life that they will write once I'm recognized for my greatness!

[phantom_thief_freyr]

Eh? Um... Freyr just goes to and from when Freyr needs to. Humans can't do that though. Freyr of course can always take a human with him if he felt like it.