Shrug.

"They live their lives on fast-forward, two years is enough to find the love of their lives and get married and have two and a half kids and zero point eight dogs, it's bizarre."

"Especially with just half a kid and a near complete dog as part of the family."

"Do you have any theories on how all of this came to be?"

"My best guess is we're being simulated in a computer somewhere or something to that effect. I'm not sure if we're literally in a video game or something more complicated than that, but."

"I confess that I was considering some kind of zoo or alien preserve, except I don't really think the story quite matches."

"I guess video game almost makes sense, thought it sounds like a really weird idea for a video game."

Shrug. "Depends on a lot of assumptions and theories about how consciousness works. Maybe we're being run in some really fancy high-dimensional computer by beings who think in two temporal dimensions, maybe we're being run by regular humans who somehow got their hands on a ton of compute and not a corresponding amount of morals, maybe the way existence at large works is such that it's possible for self-aware subjects to pop up even when no one is actively making them do it. We've had a lot of time and most importantly a lot of evidence for the hypothesis that actually the world is much weirder than we thought it was so we don't wanna rule any particular explanation out."

"It sounds like an eternally looping rabbit hole of possibilities, and I think I want to give myself... a day or two before trying to face it."

Red snorts and shakes his head. "You can do that if you want but I personally feel like it's a rabbit hole without exit and without anything on the other side. I think it's pretty unlikely whoever's running this simulation is... unaware... of us. So."

"I wasn't talking about avoiding calling the... monitor? Watcher? Zookeeper? Avoiding the whatever's attention. Just focusing on more immediately useful things."

"Yeah no, what I meant was—the only way in which the exact type of simulation we're in is relevant is in whether or how we can contact the outside world. If the person or people running things haven't already sussed us out then the only other avenues we'd have would be doing something like figuring out where this world's physics bottoms out so that we can maybe hack our way out—and figuring physics out is already the plan. So in that sense, I don't find it very useful to inquire too deeply into what kinds of simulation we are until we have more resources.

"But if you think I'm wrong or have any other ideas related to that or discover something new that'd be pretty cool."

Felix frowns in mock-concentration. "Nope. Sorry, three seconds of deep thinking didn't result in anything. But I promise you will likely be among the first ten PCs to know."

Grin. "I thank you for your consideration. Maybe try ten seconds next time, that might work."

Chuckle. "Clever idea." He gently headbutts Red's forehead.

A little paper crane flies over to them and unfolds itself in Red's hands.

y'all done yet?

Red snorts and read it aloud before caling, "Caleb and Lilith have superhearing they can tell!"

"I think we are done? Most questions I have are more about what to do next. Or maybe a list of known spells or other things that we might more easily learn from a book, or your notes."

"We definitely have a spell book, and a book of potions. And yes copious notes. I don't think there's anything in particular we need or want to do at the scale of the next couple of days, the only potentially time-sensitive element of the world is the Count and he tends to be very methodical and slow."

"Fair... how close an eye does he keep on you? And I want to... check on our family, even if it's not super-urgent."

"No idea. We're neighbours, as far as we know maybe he scries on us every day!—we don't know of any magic for scrying."

"If he does, it might be a good idea to keep a... cell of PCs separated from this one and away from him, but maybe I am not being paranoid enough about recruitment."

"Honestly, none of us really had thought that he might be creating a vampire army. He's not a spellcaster and can't teleport, and thus is probably not going as far as Selvadorada, but... Anyway, point is, maybe we could stand to be a bit more paranoid."

"It sounds like you are not used to thinking in terms of... having people around that can help? Or cause harm."

"Sounds about right. And also the Count has not really been overtly hostile, which could be just being smart and not wanting to trigger us while biding his time, now that I say it aloud like that."

Nod. "Secret army or not, keeping an eye on him is prudent."