It was as simple as falling asleep, and as easy as waking up. Sarthor breathed out, and "Lacrimosa" breathed in. How... utterly fascinating. The sensations were strong, too. The smell of ozone and canvas, the shift of thin wood and packed earth under his feet. The way the lights glinted and flickered. It was all at fist glance, indistinguishable from reality.

How fascinating.

A woman spoke to him, Professor Ash by the text floating above her, and he listened only idly. It was a rather cute bit of drivel. "Pokemon are complex creatures"- how laughable. Meaningless words to help sell the illusion to those who wasted their hours here. How far did it go? Were they programmed to have thoughts, beyond acting on command? Could they get hungry? Could they bleed? Could they feel pain?

Could they suffer?

Lacrimosa smiled at the Professor. "Um, okay! I like games." He looked around a bit, eyes wide.

Sarthor thought, as he waited for the professor to speak proper. Either these were simple questions, with chosen answers, that had their values correlated to a specific type of vermin, or it was more flexible, but utterly random. Useless data or useless data.

At the first question, Lacrimosa smiled. "Oh, there's one I remember my mother reading to me all the time. It's called the Juniper Tree, I think. There's this little bird born out of a juniper tree, and he sings this pretty song- kywitt, kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I. Isn't that pretty?" He laughed a bit, before considering the rest of the question. "One I hate... um, I don't know if I hate any, but... there's one about a boy who isn't afraid, but learns to shudder after his sister... throws fish on him? I never really understood it..." He frowned. The Juniper-Tree was a tale of power and revenge, while The Story of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn Fear offered... very little.

At the next question, he paused, as if concerned. "I- ... Probably I'd just cry?" He said, with a bit of a pathetic laugh. "You aren't... going to do that here, are you?"

The last question was the only one even vaguely interesting. Lacrimosa fiddled with a few locks of hair. "Lying... I think... It's wrong most of the time, but sometimes it's the only option for some things. And not lying would be worse. Does that make sense?" He looked up at Professor Ash again, almost pleadingly, looking for validation and confirmation.

What dull questions.

Whoever designed this worked hard to ensure it seemed realistic. The professor gave the appearance of thought, checked the time, even looked up at the list of creatures like she had to deliberate. Of course, she was careful to not name the creature specifically, or say anything relevant to him outside the name he'd picked. No followup about the stories, no question about his lies, not even an assurance that no harm would come to him.

Reality, this quite blatantly was not.

Still, Lacrimosa smiled, taking the orb with both hands. Sprigatito. A cat-like thing- probably the green siamese on the wall. Well. There was a lot he could do with that, he was sure. "Thank you, professor," He said, pitching his voice to sound eager, earnest. He held the ball a bit tighter for a moment, as if to pull strength from it, and quietly left the tent.