[Video]

[iattractmushi]

[The white-haired man peering out of the screen at you has a faintly dubious expression on what you can see of his face, like he wasn't actually sure this would work.]

Uh... hey. [A slight pause, like he's not sure what to say.] I'm not used to talking for this kind of thing... I guess... I'm new here? The name's Ginko. Looks like I'm stuck here with the rest of you for a while, so I'd really like to get to know as many people as possible.

I've been assigned to be one of your medics. Hopefully I won't meet too many people because of that, though.

[But if this is the kind of place he thinks it is, he doesn't have his hopes up about that.

Another, smaller hesitation.]

Ah... if anyone here recognizes the name Edensphere... I'd definitely like to meet you. You might know me as Cloud, in that case.

[He kind of nods to the screen, and cuts the feed.]

Comments

[iattractmushi]

Not that I know of. I heard some... disturbing rumors, but nothing I could confirm.

[Not without dying himself, anyway.]

[ryuuzaki]

Rumors?

[He feels that they may be reaching a point in the conversation at which his curiosity is beginning to stand out, and while that isn't a problem in and of itself, he's learning that it's better to set people at ease when it's just casual conversation.]

I realize that I'm asking a lot of questions, but I was also in another place like this before I was brought here... only Edensphere doesn't sound very similar, and it doesn't sound similar to the other places that I've heard of that also pulled people in from other times and places... a town called Mayfield, for example.

[iattractmushi]

[There's a brief pause before Ginko says anything. It's a little disturbing, to put it mildly, to know that there are so many more of these kinds of places.]

I never heard of that, but... I guess it doesn't surprise me. [Not since he arrived here, anyway. And if there are dozens of worlds... why not dozens of prisons like this? It's not a nice thought, though.]

But yeah, rumors. I heard a few whispers that if you made it to the top of the tree you might see something interesting.

I also heard that anyone who tried it never made it back down. Not without being reborn, anyway. And if anyone remembered what they saw up there, they weren't talking about it.

[ryuuzaki]

That wouldn't have been very helpful to anyone who was there.

Did you ever see any indication that someone was in control of the place? Or any signs that anyone had escaped prior to the loss of the enclosure?

[iattractmushi]

[Another hesitation. He's really entering rumor territory now.]

Well... I'm not sure, but. Someone must have brought us there, and figured out how to wipe our memories, unless it really was the Tree itself. [And he has a reason for believing it just might have been.] And I doubt the same person was keen to give those memories back, but someone did that too. We all got random memories throughout our time there. So there might have been a couple of people behind it, but they didn't really show themselves... other than the couple of times the five or six random people wrote in the journals, but that was hard to get any meaning out of. They spoke in riddles and usually contradicted themselves.

I don't know about anyone getting out. I know that people just... vanished sometimes, but they would just be gone. Usually right from their room, with people seeing them the day or even hours before they left.

Besides, if people had figured a way out, I think we all would have taken it.

[ryuuzaki]

It stands to reason that you might have... unless it went somewhere you wouldn't have wanted to go.

[That's said a little more gently than he's sounded for most of the rest of their exchange so far.]

Did anyone who vanished ever come back?

[iattractmushi]

A few did. One person I know for a fact came back. He didn't remember being there before, and he'd picked a new name. I didn't really get to know him very well, either time, but a friend of mine knew him from his world.