Episode 6.4 - Just say it

I partially expected everyone to chase me down, force me to come back and talk things through more calmly, but in the end, I got a whole forty minutes to myself in my room before those two came knocking.

 Lila lets us use the menu for decoration these days, so our bedrooms on the third highest floor have gotten a bit more colourful, though in my case not as much as the other two - I haven't felt as inclined to fill it to the brim with clutter as I used to. The somewhat narrow space has my bed against one wall, then some shelves with a couple of bits of anime merch, some little cat ornaments and a few plants which handily never die in Escape’s game-world, but not much more than that fills my space.

"Ko," Sek mutters glumly, standing like a draft excluder in the doorway. Eshu has no such inhibitions, strutting right in and coming right up to where I’m staring out the back wall's window.

"It's just not right," I say quietly to her.

"'Course not," she grins.

"But I mean," Sek looks hesitant, the no doubt icy glare I give him over my shoulder can't be helping that either, "look, it's just, Escape had very rudimentary NPCs, right? Like they'd walk into walls and repeat awkward phrases and go missing when needed for quests and all sorts of other meme-worthy things. They weren't like Lila."

"You mean before the world's barriers fell?"

"Huh?"

"In truth, before that even. We met Lila and started feeling pain before the barriers collapsed. Remember that paper cut I got the night before we got taken to that cave and met her for the first time?"

"That was just phantom pains..." Sek adds, but even he seems to have doubts.

 "How many things did we convince ourselves of before meeting Lila? When was the last time we'd even spoken to an NPC?"

"That guy," Eshu looks oddly considerate, "He said players had been going missing."

"Mike, you mean? There could be any number of reasons for that." Sek murmurs.

"Or Sek, the developers always knew what was coming, made it happen - and removed any player with annoying families, say." Ya, that sounds possible. The game is one-way? If you're rich enough, any rule can be broken, can't it? Perhaps Escape is only one way for people like us, people whose families are too small to cause a fuss, or wouldn’t even care if they did notice something amiss.

"So based on a huanch, just a huanch, that the NPCs might all be as 'real' as Lila now, you're going to do what?"

"I'm going to help them, that's what," I reply firmer than I feel.

"Alone? This isn't like on the rooftop, those robots will have range and a base and stuff."

"So I'll sneak in close and ambush them one by one if I have to. I can't do nothing, Sek! I'm not asking you to come or anything."

"I'm in!" Eshu chimes. It shouldn't really be a surprise coming from here, but I still find myself looking in shock, "It’s not– You don't have to just because of me..."

"Sure, I do. Anyway, I agree it's the right thing to do."
    I find myself unconsciously biting my lower lip; an old habit I thought I'd long shaken, "Why... why didn't she say it, Eshu? If she had, maybe, I don't know, maybe I could have lived with it, accepted it, if she'd just say it!"

Sek flinches, "I don't follow, say what?"

"Her reason! An excuse, a justification. We all know she's being stupidly cautious to protect us and the Estolpfo, right? You heard her plan, all cold tactics? Bullshit. Why does her plan then involve her going to destroy them personally once she confirms their numbers? There's leading from the front and then there's that! A platoon under Major Tom could surely wipe those robots out, but there'd be a chance, wouldn't there? That one or two would get unlucky and die, that a couple might get beaten up like that guy those scout robots ‘gave back’ to us earlier to send a message.
She's not being evil, or if she is, then it's the sort of evil I can understand, appreciate even! All she's doing is being overprotective of her people; I could accept that. So why doesn't she come right out and just say she isn't willing to risk her forces to protect the humans?! Why that whole evil demon song and dance!”

 I pant for breath. It did feel good to say it aloud, but it doesn't change anything. Why didn't she just say it instead of that crappy act?

Eshu hops onto the edge of my bed, reaches over and ruffles my snowy-white hair all of a sudden; it's a bizarre act, given I'm a little taller and the older of us, "People can't always just say what they feel, it isn't that easy."

"Why not?" I mumble as my hair is tousled about, feeling rather childish for asking.

 Eshu smiles, a rather warm, kind expression instead of her usual more mischievous looks, "Could you? Use your precious subordinates to excuse yourself, justify letting other people die in the name of your people? Scapegoat her subordinates rather than take the full responsibility - does that sound like something Lila could manage?
    Maybe she feels guilty or remorseful, maybe she really hates that she is doing this. Perhaps what you describe is only subconscious, and after years of having to be that hard demon officer, she really believes that speech about evil and the reasons you describe are too deep inside for her ever to speak. Could be you’re totally wrong and actually she really does just hate humans and enjoys seeing them get invaded.
    Lila is the type more than most to never admit her true feelings, you know that. People in general are just like that, it's what makes 'em fun!"

"Eshu..." She steps down from my bed, seizing her assault on my hair, "So, what's your plan?"

"R-right," I nod, "We leave here at night, Lila never calls on us that late. We sneak as close to the settlement as possible and get a lay of the land. Once we have some idea of what the enemy has done so far, we move in and take them out."

"Oh ho, so simple. Suits me."

"Except," Sek grumbles, "That we appear to be very high up a sodding great tower. We might be able to evade the Estolpfo outside on patrol, but inside the fort? Stepping out the friggin front gate?"

"No, that's not a problem, we have the menu." I get a concerned raised eyebrow for that, "We have it for posters and anime merch, sure, but it's restricted past that. No teleporting, no weapons shop, no large-scale base builder items."

"That's not entirely true..." I mutter, running my hand through the air to bring the translucent box up and show them, "That night on the rooftop - just before the three worlds went to war - Lila gave me near unrestricted access to the shop menu, to buy ourselves clean clothes and snacks and stuff after the battle. I thought it was an accident from being in a hurry, but when I tried to bring it up with her the other day, she shook me off - her way of showing she trusts me, I suppose…
Point being, I can add a fire escape here, right outside the window, all the way to the ground… looks like she was wrong to trust me, wasn't she... Err, hey?"

Two small hands have grabbed me by either cheek and pulled my mouth into a funny shape. Eshu stares up at me, pouting, "Now who's refusing to say what she really means. By doing this, we don't just save the villagers, we prevent Lady Lila from having to feel remorse over her decision to abandon the villagers in order to protect her own, right? So not a betrayal at all."

"I ah..." This girl is too much sometimes.

"Fire escape out the window, is it? Real Rapunz–– Man, Escape censors fairy tale names too?" Sek sighs.

"You don't need to come."

"Look, I appreciate I've... said some things in the past. I've gone too far before, even I realise that. But I mean, ok, look, the fantasy game the studio made, the Demon Realm that Escape is now neighbours with - you played that game before coming here, right Ko? There was no Grand Imp NPC. I don't think there were any Imp characters at all, only enemy types."

I nod, that's my memory of it too.
    "But that doesn't mean anything, Lila could have been added just for this world, a special highly advanced AI or whatever... It's the Estolfpo that gets me. They are, they’re not right."

Sek takes a deep breath. He can be pretty stubborn and very prideful, saying all this is going rather against his old position, but he says it all the same: "In the game, they were just mobs, minor enemies. You'd enter a dungeon and fight a half dozen skeletons before the boss chamber, loot them for some gold coins.
    They weren't; they didn't have intelligence or feelings. They didn't build things, and get excited when their mistress is nearby, or graze friggin grass. One comforted me the other day, patted me on the shoulder after I slipped! They were the lowest of the low for a character in a game, just spawn, run, slice wildly at the player, die. But our guys are nothing like... So, so if you think the same has happened to every one of Escape's NPCs, that those villagers have become 'real', that they have lives and intelligence and feelings now - then I want to help you and them too, alright?"