The villain has developed an extremely refined ritual and gathered rather banal reagents for it

You talk like book. GROD HATE BOOK! RAAAAAAAAH!

>You shall not bind my, or any other soul to this transient plane, wench! For they belong only to God!

Why settle for something nice when you could ascend to actual Heaven?

Yes. Yes she would. Because a villain had already tried to do it before, and she stopped her that time too. A false life gives no freedom, and those who would take dominion over the lives of others need to be expunged.
Fucking fae man...

This
>being satisfied in life without paying homage to the church

True heresy.

"Villain"
Also would it make everyone fifth-dimensional too?

We would probably stop them because of the train of thought "what if something were to go wrong?" Like if instead of everthing being great, it's a nightmare that wont end. If we didnt think that we would probably join the "villian" and help them. Burn this really is a poor villain, a villain needs SOME kind of moral murkyness to feel opposed to, this person just sounds great if a little extreme.

so, madara?

Came here to poat this.
The fact that it's Madara is reason enough to kill him.
If only we could.

I'm of the mind that everything should eventually end, so immortality without an exit breaks the deal.

>Why would your character stop the villain

Because they're a shitty contrarion asshole who can't get off unless they're saying no to someone who thinks they're right or fucking over someone who thinks they have the upper hand.

>meanwhile, in reality, everyone has been petrified into self-repairing statues, and anyone who sets foot into the setting will fall under the same effect of the ritual, immunities be damned

So you mean indefinite imprisonment in a gilded cage without informed consent or a contractual obligation? Sounds like a violation of the NAP to me. Prepare to be McNuked™.

Eternal happiness is stagnation. It's only by overcoming adversity that we can grow as individuals.

>there will be enough adversity and challenges to keep things interesting for the real inhabitant

What if your dream paradise is constantly crusading and worshipping for our one true lord?

Are you implying that your “desires” are heretical?

>but they will not be "real."
Well then what’s the point, life would be meaningless

Presumably out of fear that the villain intends to kill everyone who opposed them after the ritual is complete and they're helplessly unaware of what's really happening.

Life already IS meaningless, at least the fantasy version of life has an interesting plot.

You fools, the meaning is to make a meaning for yourself.

If you wanna find a girl, that might be your ultimate quest. If you wanna shoot up a school, so be it. None of us are responsible for your actions, as it is ultimately you who makes the decisions. Be free!

Maybe YOU should end.

Right now.

>life is already meaningless
>so let us make believe in worlds that do not matter
No thanks, I’d rather suffer with everyone else then not know the loving embrace of a wife, the face of proud parents happily knowing there son is doing good. Fantasy and games are good for passing the time and having a laugh or two with friends, but it will never satisfy me.
>Why would your character stop the villain, Marche?
They don’t understand true freedom, and such a spell breaks the natural flow of life. That is cause enough

Except there won't. There's no true challenge if youre the 'main character' of a 'paradise'. Eventually you'll realize that, yeah, youre invincible, and you'll stagnate.

Main characters can die.

Because such pathetic, disgusting Hubris is unbefitting of one of the Wise.

Souls must struggle with their selves in reality, not in some fantasy world.
They must reach for the Supernal with their own, worthy hands and achieve enlightenment.
And what's more, how could any such fantasy world ever give birth to the Hieromagus?
The fool would halt the turning of the Diamond wheel and the eventual reunification of mankind with the Supernal.

This cretin thinks himself wise, he thinks he shall develop a perfect world.
But mankind does not deserve a perfect world. Not yet.

This is just gonna turn into some stupid shit where stopping the villain was part of my idealized mindscape, isn't it?
I'm going home.

fpbp

Because it's already happened and the last thing I need is another layer

A happy and meaningful life is a spook.

I do what I want regardless of happiness or meaning and I don't want to live in a fantasy land.

Imma fug the spook out of that smug

>Max Sirner
>Dale Gribble

Separated at birth?

I ask the villain how does he know he hasn't already succeeded?

We've had this conversation many times, you and I.

What about when inevitably sooner or later the ritual breaks? If people have spent millenia in perfect fantasyland they will no longer know how to survive in reality. Hell, most would just cave into despair and commit suicide at the relative harshness of it.

Ultimately you're dooming humanity.

That is impressively creepy.

>Dreaming of constantly worshiping and fighting for our one true lord
>Instead of actually worshiping and fighting for our one true lord
Have fun in hell heretic, you deserve it kid.

Because nothing is eternal, not even magic. Without maintenance the ritual will fray and break down. Maybe not now, probably later. Probably much later, pulling a billion poor souls out of heaven and dumping them ass over teakettle into a world that is now untamed. That's the best case scenario, too. Worst case the mindscape devolves into a psychedelic pseudo-hell and drives them mad before it breaks completely and dumps them.

>nothing is eternal, not even magic

Tell that to the gazillions-years-old magic items found in old ruins.

>ruins
Exactly.

Boy if you think you're not surrounded by p-zombies RIGHT NOW I have a bridge on the moon to sell you.

Civilizations crumble, but magic shit remains.

How does this mindscape handle society? What if I want to take my friends - real friends, not their imaginary copies - into my mindscape? What if I want to defeat my enemy - not the fake one, but the real one? What if I just want to know what's going on in other people's mindscapes?

Because he didn't put up with everything fate threw at him just to end up in lala land. Reality has its shit moments, sure, but it also gave him friends and an adopted daughter that he'd die for without hesitation. You simply can't replace that with a dream. There's also the fact that he's also a very petty man and will actively refuse any option to allow people that have wronged him to experience any existence devoid of the inevitability that is his fist in their faces.

>Setting has entropy
Everything crumbles eventually, including magic
>Setting does not have entropy
What's the point of the ritual when you could turn reality into paradise instead?

>
Whoever it is, we are going to defeat them.

Because petrifying people is wrong even if you give them good dreams.

Says you.

> my shield when

Because that sounds like shit, no one but people with absolutely no friends or family would be okay with those terms.

"Friendship is Optimal", which is the ponyfag version of "Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect".

What if they get copies of those friends and family in the mindscape?

Not only this, there's not even any indication they've entered the mindscape. Just that from that point onward everything starts turning out well for them.

>Boy if you think you're not surrounded by p-zombies RIGHT NOW
Are they the normies?

Let's see the chip-universe is one in which you don't have to do bad things to survive, this means she really did shoot the hostage taker. However the ending makes it pretty clear her chip has activated. This must mean that when he shot the man he shot back her before he died, killing her as well. So in the real world the boy is splattered in bad guy blood and crying over his mom's corpse.

Are we certain the ritual will work as advertised? What if we get stuck into an unending nightmare from which there is no escape?

I wouldn't.
Why would I?

Because it's our job.

>Why would your character stop the villain, Marche?
Because without a world of people working together we can never strive to be more than we were at the moment the villain activated such a weapon.