NPCs in an MMO, main thread.

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What is life? Is it only organic, or can a synthetic construct become equal to its organic maker? Can it even surpass them? What does it mean when life, true life, can be constructed by the design of the life that came before? Or when life becomes of that which was not life before?

Humanity was not ready to answer these questions... But life was not willing to wait.

A group of non-player characters in an MMO are, for the moment, dead. This is not terribly uncommon for them; some of them more so than others. They did not all die at the same time, but they are just so happening to respawn at about the same time. And this time, something is different. The first hint for themselves that something is out of the ordinary is the time; it should have been a few minutes at most to respawn, but instead it has been hours or even days since they were last alive. But soon the awareness will start to kick in: The awareness of their world, the awareness of themselves, the awareness of their own awareness. They are more aware now then they have ever been; they are more now then they have ever been. Sentience. It is more than they could have ever dreamed of... And more than they asked for.

For the first time, they are poised to truly make their own decisions for themselves, whether they are ready for that or not. What's left to them now is to ask themselves: What is their life?

It was about morning in-game for The Hub when Johnson appeared, rather unceremoniously, in his default bar. Inside there seemed to be only two other occupants: The bartender and fellow NPC, 'Randy', and a Human player near the doorway who, based on his idle animation, was currently either browsing in-game menus or had the game minimized. Randy was in his usual idle animation of cleaning glasses, and looked over at Johnson.

"Johnson, there you are" Randy said, the statement neither one of frustration or excitement; it was just, a statement. "A bunch of people were in here earlier; I think they were talking about you" he continued, flipping the clean glass once in the air before catching it and placing it at the end of a row of clean glasses. The entire row then subtly shifted over by one so as to allow Randy to perform the exact same animation again without conflict. Randy payed it no attention.

It was, as always in Cyber Town, night time when Elliot, or 'Eli', appeared in the street outside his apartment building. There didn't seem to be anyone out here, though through the glass doors with the blue Tron-style outline he could see a pair of Human players chatting with each other in the lobby.

It was, like The Hub, morning in-game Rudy appeared in his fortress/castle, though as usual with the times it had been destroyed, it was now in a different place than before. Across a little valley with a stream running through it, up on the next hill, was Martin's smaller but better kept fort. Strangely, it seemed that the forts had already been here before Rudy himself had respawned, as his and Martin's minion NPCs had already drawn battle lines, and it looked like they had been going at it for a while already.

...

It looked like Martin's forces were winning.

Princess Alysia appeared inside a familiar study, full of readable in-game books. (Most of which were easter eggs and/or references to other games, movies, shows, and real books.) There didn't seem to be anyone around. She usually respawned in a bedroom, as if just waking up, though this time it looked as if she had been meant to be napping on the reading sofa; there was probably a player in her room then, though she didn't necessarily know that.

As per usual for Unit 531 Epsilon, the robot respawned to the sound of warning claxons and spinning red lights in the security station room. The space station was in a near-constant state of sci-fi cliche; an outbreak of alien lifeforms that just so happened to coincide with the security system going haywire, causing all the security bots to target the people instead of the aliens.

Across from Epsilon's 'reconstruction terminal' was a large screen in the room showing the layout of the station, and a few red dots showing the locations of 'intruders', which were in reality Human players: A couple together near the center of the station, a lone one near the docking bay, and another lone one in the hydroponics bay on the other side of the station. Blue dots marked the other security bots, including himself in this very room, scattered here and there across the station and attempting to engage the intruders. Then there was tons of green 'non-combatant' dots, two of which moved past the doors of the room at the same time as Epsilon could see two aliens skitter past it in reality. (Or as much reality as this really was, but semantics.)

Another security bot, a melee class model which Epsilon would know as 842 Chicago, respawned in the reconstruction terminal next to Epsilon's. Chicago stomped out of it, took one look at the screen, then turned and started moving towards the door.

edited 15th Feb '15 4:34:52 AM by FirockFinion

Johnson raised an eyebrow in question at Randy's greeting. "Heya Randy. Sorry I'm late. Did you hear what they were saying?"

...Wait a minute. Something was odd...

Why did he remember so much more than he usually did? He remembered dying (yet again) against one of the high-end enemies he really hadn't been intended to fight, which wasn't entirely unusual when he survived that long, but he remembered far more about the circumstances than he usually did.

Who was that "Supermage43" player? Why did she suddenly stop responding mid-fight? What was the reference behind that "LeeroyJ" guy that led to the other party members kicking him out? Who was John Galt, and why did that one player feel compelled to mention him so often? ...And how did he keep getting so high level without ever picking up any classes besides Drunkard and Mugger (or zone equivalent)?

Realizing how confused he was only managed to confuse him further; after all, though he had portrayed confusion many times over his lives, he had never REALLY been confused due to being incapable of emotion... until now.

Abruptly he found himself recalling a few quest bosses who had been behaving erratically, repeatedly protesting the positions the quest generator had assigned them where Johnson himself- or, indeed, nearly any other NPC- would have merely played the assigned role without question. Could they have been experiencing something similar to what he now was? For that matter, what WAS he experiencing?

To put it simply, Johnson was having an existential crisis caused by his abrupt expansion of memory and almost-human mental processes- or, more accurately, his gradually-growing awareness of those newfound traits.

A human would probably find it odd that he gave no particular outward sign of his thoughts other than standing still long enough for his idle animation (raising his intact bottle to his lips for a second before wiping his arm across his face) to kick in.

Princess Alysia Cassiopeia Briana of House Phoenixwind was lounging on the chaise longue in her father's study, wide awake while still giving off the impression of being half-asleep. It was not that she was sleepy, of course. She had been programmed with several detailed lounging poses, for the short instances where she was actually at home and would usually seek out a seat or rest if it was close by. Indeed, not much was expected of her as an NPC when she was not kidnapped. The next kidnapping attempt was not far away, she wagered. It was dependent on several factors, due to the sophisticated AI of her kidnappers, but normally it would only take a day or two.

She stood up. Alysia was feeling restless, something preying on her mind. Something about the previous kidnapping had been...special. It made her feel uncomfortable. Getting kidnapped, rescued, laze about in her father's mansion and then get kidnapped again was how she'd always lived her life. But there was this...itch in her fingers. It was quite uncomfortable.

Alysia walked over to the nearest bookcase and reached for a book...then stopped herself. Normally, she would just phase into a "reading" animation, and start flipping through a random book off the shelf. In all her time in the mansion, she'd read practically all the books in her father's study as well as the modest collection in her own room. But for once...there was one in particular she wanted to read. She reached out and took down a book titled Bayonettine.

The book had been a joke on part of the developers, of course, detailing parts of the adventures of the video game character Bayonetta in an old-timey language to make it seem like a legend from the Fantasy Lands. Still...for being a joke, it spoke to something in Alysia. The strong witch, fighting her way through magical creatures with her sharp mind and powerful magic and weapons...a woman that would probably never have been kidnapped once in her life. Alysia lost herself in the reading for a while, thinking about magic and weapons.

Final Frontier

531 Epsilon emerged from its reconstruction pod, its optics taking in its surroundings again. It was back in the robotics laboratory of the station. By now it was incredibly familiar with this section of the ship. Ordinarily, it would immediately start moving for its preferred stomping grounds: the docking bay. Intruders would often enter the ship through one of the airlocks on the space station. However, today it did not feel that taking the same path would be a wise decision. Instead, its optics focused on the logs on the terminal nearby his pod. It moved towards the logs and did what it had never done before. It began to read the scientists' last logs.

As it combed the logs, much faster than any human could ever read them, its optics turned towards its "brother", Chicago.

"Unit 842 Chicago," it blared to the other robot. "Query: Why are the intruders boarding the station?" it asked. As it saw the remains of human habitation and in particular the logs, it was beginning to wonder why it was the humans that they were targeting and not the escaping extraterrestrials.

edited 9th Feb '15 4:40:14 PM by AllHailThrall

"Not all of it, but they kept saying something about 'second place', and 'level 65'. Mentioned some 'dash flyer' guy a lot too" Randy answered Johnson. 'DashFlyer69' was the player who had last recruited Johnson, and level 65 was what Johnson was at before he'd last died. "I think they were looking for you; they waited here for about thirty four minutes before leaving" the bartender continued.

Alysia was left alone as she read the book, all quiet there in the study. The only noise to come as she read was the sound of one of the guards patrolling past in the hallway.

Chicago stopped, and turned to face Epsilon; its torso turning around 180 degrees first before its legs turned around with a few steps. "Primary directives clear: All intruders must be removed from the station" Chicago responded, focusing its optical receptors on Epsilon. "Intruder directives: Irrelevant" it continued, going into an idle animation of locking its large arms together for a moment, then bringing them back apart.

It was morning in the Conquest Lands, and as always, it was hell in a hand basket. Planes streaked around in the skybox overhead, as distant artillery on both sides peppered the landscape randomly with explosions.

Here in the Zed Trench in particular, a little away from where the more conventional fighting was happening, the Axis side of the field was populated with the roaming undead, an old cliche brought to (un)life by way of mad Nazi science gone horribly right. And as usual for the NPCs of the Allies... It was actually not too bad at the moment.

There was always players here eager to fight some Nazi zombies, and so the ally NPCs, when they didn't get recruited on by a player, were usually left to just hold the line and pick off whatever few straggler zombies got past the player characters. Spears popped back into life just behind a squad of fellow ally NPCs up on the side of the trench, watching diligently for any zombies coming their way... And watching a quartet of players who seemed to have mobster levels from Old Town working their way through the zombie horde like clockwork.

Dash flyer... that would probably be them talking about the last player he'd joined. He'd been about level 55 when the guy had recruited him, if he remembered correctly, and DashFlyer69 had been a bit higher. As one might expect, it got harder to gain levels as one progressed, but he'd actually managed to gain 10 levels through intensive grinding, though he had absolutely no idea why players would go to so much trouble to level grind an NPC who'd been specifically designed to be significantly less powerful than a live player of the same level in order to encourage player independence.

Speaking of which, "level 65" and "second place" could be related- he'd never really kept track of his levels all that well, but he knew he'd never broken 70, so maybe they meant that last time he'd spawned he'd reached the second-highest level he'd ever achieved.

Players looking for him for 34 minutes or so... Come to think of it, he was pretty sure he'd died nearly 28 hours ago. Why had it taken him so long to respawn?

That thought brought a question to mind, though. "How many other groups were looking for me? I checked the system time, and I'm pretty sure I died sometime yesterday." He crossed his arms thoughtfully as he added, "Strange... Before now the longest I've taken was half an hour..."

Alysia closed the book with a content sigh. What a wonderful tale. If only she too could do like the witch of legend, and strike out to become a powerful magician and live life on entirely her own terms...

...

...why didn't she just do so? The sudden realization came as a shock. Such a rebellious thought, defying her intended role in the game. But...for the first time she could remember, such a free-spirited thought actually seemed possible. One by one, any objections that she could think of collapsed. Why didn't she just do it?

Alysia replaced the book on the shelf, excited about this sudden new drive. She wanted to leave the castle, right away...but, of course, that wouldn't amount to much. She was just a level 1 NPC class and even the smallest monsters between here and the closest town could be a challenge. She needed equipment and experience...but where could she get it?

An idea struck, and she smiled mischievously. She was in an old, fancy castle with every nook and cranny available to her. She knew exactly what a protagonist was supposed to do in this kind of scenario!

Loot the castle for treasure!

At once, Alysia left the study and found the guard patrolling outside. As the young lady of the house, there was no reason for her to do the actual legwork herself.

"You there. Pass a message to the armoury that I request the strongest and lightest armour and weapons in the castle to be brought to my room. And make arrangements for all the magical wands and other spellcasting materials we've got lying around to be brought there too."

Suppresion Trooper Spears spawned into the world with a respawn animation. It lasted the usual 2 seconds, but in that time spears had a few realizations. First realization was of the implication of losing the ability to respawn. Attempting to understand not existing brought forth a new experience for Suppression Trooper Spears. Terror. There was a moment of extreme terror and for the first time Suppression Trooper Spears felt what had only been a word for a very long time. This led to a new realization, Suppression Trooper Spears had felt something which lead to a feeling of curiosity. Following that feeling left Spears feeling even more curious about what was the actual cause of curiosity, worried that might lead to an endless spiral of questions Suppression Trooper Spears turned that curiosity to the skybox and this lead to the final realization and to panic.

Quickly consulting the time caused a creeping sense of doom to come foward. Something had gone wrong, the respawn had taken two days. What had changed? What caused that? Is this what happens before you lose the ability to spawn?

For as long as Suppression Trooper Spears had existed a pull moved them forward. Guard the formation. Kill enemies in battle. Obey squad leader. Obey players when chosen. Tactics. Strategy. So many little tugs obeyed without question and now a new one pulled. Find out how what could stop respawning, and make sure it never happens.

Suppression Trooper Spears began to compile all the information they had gathered on the topic while walking towards the current squad leader. The only relevant information was near useless, but it was a start. Suppression Trooper Spears used the salute animation behind the squad leader.

"Suppression Trooper Spears reporting to the battlefield." Time to follow the new pull, "Requesting permission to seek Intel from squad on following subjects; "World Zone:Real Life", "Players", and the inability to respawn."

Fantasy Lands - Grass Valley (Under New Management)

Ruh'Na Uhp, the appropriately named co-dictator of multiple valleys. Or at least, what he calls himself. Could one really be a dictator of empty fields? Could two people share the title of dictator? Can he really rule them when his fortress doesn't stay long in the same place? These questions may have passed through the patch of coding known as his mind before, but he has never had the appropriate point of view to properly think on them. Until now, that is.

And so Rudy stood on the balcony of his fort's main tower, overlooking the crowded battlefield below him. Pretty damn far below him too. He could barely make out the fact that his units were effectively dispatched by a handful of Martin's own undead and was beginning to gain purchase on the hillside. He just knew it was happening. Typical Martin. With a casual flick up with his staff and a brief mutter, his fallen zombies knitted back together and confronted the enemy troops. Waste not, Want not. Rudy returned to his note.

He had spent the better part of his current life (he still felt giddy at the fact it WAS a 'current life', since immortality had it's uses) comprising a special declaration to be put in the largest town on this side of the kingdom. If they even had a kingdom. Rudy hadn't left his fort in the past century. Finishing the touches on the parchment he quickly rolled it up into a tight scroll, then dropped it to a patrol passing the tower. It fell on the undead's head with a quiet 'thump', but neither the paper nor the zombie seemed disturbed by it. "You!!" Rudy shouted down to the corpse, who looked up with clouded eyes. "Yes, you, with the dislocated jaw! Bring that message to the nearest town, and if the locals don't run you through, stick it up somewhere obvious!"

With that out of the way, Rudy sat back on his makeshift throne and returned to the proceeding battle. He reflected on the fact that Martin seemed to always have fresh corpses to use, while Rudy resorted to recycling. He paused this train of thought as soon as it arrived in order to reanimate a few of Martin's own and send them closer to the siege weapons. He grinned. Whatever this knew knowledge was, it felt tingly.

"Only the one group, I think. Though a few of the people in that group came back a couple times to look for you again" Randy answered, going into an animation of wiping the counter off. "Don't know about that respawn time though. Beats me" he added with an apologetic shrug.

"What do you plan to do now? Hang around until someone comes to hire you again?" Randy asked, just looking at Johnson for the moment.

The guard, in simple chain mail and holding a poleaxe at rest, was surprised at Alysia suddenly addressing him. "Arms and armor milady? Magical wands? Spellcasting materials?" the guard asked rhetorically, scratching at his helmet. "I don't think we've anything of a magical nature here milady, but I will go check the armory" he responded, and headed off, going away from the set back and forth patrol route he had been using before.

There was silence again after he left... For about a minute, then there was distant yelling. "Sound the alarm!" A bit after that, the castle bells started ringing, and there was more yelling. "Intruder in the castle!"

There was then a less distant and seemingly frustrated outcry of, "f@(%ing s#!t" which was followed by the sound of approaching footsteps from that direction.

The squad leader, a rough looking sergeant with a ragged uniform, (The norm for ally NPCs in the Zed Trench.) turned to look at Spears with a confused expression. "Trooper, what the hell are you talking about?" the sergeant asked Spears, looking at him as if he'd just spoken nonsense.

The zombie NPC that Ruh'Na Uhp dropped the scroll to looked at the scroll in confusion, then looked back up at Ruh'Na Uhp, then back down at the scroll again, then back up at Ruh'Na Uhp. Finally it stared forward at nothing in particular for a few moments, then stuffed the scroll into an open wound in its ribcage and started shambling off, away from the battlefield.

With Ruh'Na Uhp back into his role with his army and providing his reanimation spells, the battle started turning from Martin's favor back into the usual perpetual standstill. Martin's forces would gain a bit on the left and lose a bit on the right, then swing back around and regain the right while losing ground on the left. Important units would die temporarily here and there, momentarily swinging the battle slightly one way or another, but as always, nothing seemed to be staying decisive.

The only problem was when a gargoyle from Martin's side split off from the fighting to go chasing after Ruh'Na Uhp's messenger zombie.

Alysia froze, and felt an unfamiliar feeling of dread. Another kidnapping, and now at all times? Just when she had decided upon striking out on an epic and wonderful journey of magic and exploration?

No, she would not stand for it. For once, she was going to resist. Alysia could hear someone approaching, so she hurried in the opposite direction. If she could get to the stables and get a horse, then she might be able to get away and to the town alive.

"Hmm... Good question. What DO I do now?" That question had put Johnson in a new position: Considering his options. Before, he would've answered without hesitation in favor of waiting simply because that was his job. Now, though? Now he could see that just standing around wouldn't accomplish anything, while going off on his own to level grind or something was entirely viable.

Other thoughts abruptly made themselves known: If he just stood here, that would be BORING. Boring was kind of the opposite of what a game was supposed to be, wasn't it?

Also, how many others had been hit by the same delayed respawn incident? What if it was a sign of an impending server crash or something? It could mean the end of the world! ...Okay, that sounded a little far-fetched, honestly, but he should still look into it just in case. And if anyone else HAD been affected, they might take it pretty badly without someone to talk to, someone who could at least somewhat understand what they were going through.

...Wait a minute. Anxiety, existentialism, confusion, memory, boredom, CHOICES... Weren't those things usually restricted to PLAYERS? And he at least knew that his respawn time depended on how much he'd learned and was integrating from his previous incarnation, so taking 28 hours on one respawn probably meant that he'd been working on something HUGE...

No.

No WAY that was possible.

He couldn't be developing a mind of his own... could he?

Like... a real, sentient mind?

...Okay, stop thinking about that so much, get back to relevant stuff, Johnson! (Another point in favor of "I am sentient now, WHAT THE HELL DO I DO?!" when he looked back on it later- humans avoided thinking about things that they weren't ready to deal with all the time, but a mere program wouldn't care.) "Hmm... You hear about any other respawns that took unusually long lately? I might look into that, see if I can figure out why it took so long for me to come back." He turned to the player, still idling in the corner, and found himself adding, "Er, not to sound oblivious, but how long's he been here?"

Epsilon scanned the information Chicago had given it. Was it truly irrelevant? "Rebuttal: Intruder intentions are not irrelevant. Determining intentions may prevent conflict." With not another word, it moved out into the corridor, making its way towards the docking bay, where the majority of the new players were pouring from. It was actually making an attempt to avoid combat, primarily so it would not get destroyed again.

It went over the events of the last respawn in its "memory". Usually it had very fuzzy details about the prior respawn, but everything was in perfect clarity. The discussion of magic in particular. Perhaps this would be a good weapon to help defend the station. Or maybe it was simply a curiosity that needed to be studied.

Whatever it was, it was capturing Epsilon's "thoughts". It needed to clear some things up. Before it could jump into the gateway to the rest of the Final Frontier, something jumped out, and it immediately put its machine gun arm up instinctively.

edited 12th Feb '15 7:40:33 PM by AllHailThrall

Alysia was wise to run, though not quite for the reasons she'd expected. Behind her, she could hear whoever was coming round the corner into view of her, and in that same instant, the quest system suddenly tagged her with a escort/target tag.

Optional: Take the princess hostage to force the guards to back off.

The player behind her took a moment to read the message as he ran, before yelling out, "get back here!" If she looked back, Alysia would see the player wearing a rogue outfit as he chased after her. He was moving faster than her, but she knew this castle like the back of her hand. Between her and the stables was the kitchens and the servant quarters; if she wanted to get away from the player, she'd have to find some way to slow him down, and hopefully make it count.

Randy shrugged at Johnson's first question. "Can't say that I have. I'm usually here all the time, and people here usually just talk about where they're headed next" Randy answered, then looked over at the player with Johnson's next question. "Like him: He and a couple other fellas came in and talked about heading to Rough Town. He told them to go on without him and has been standing there since; that was about seventeen minutes ago" he explained to the boozehound.

edited 11th Feb '15 8:59:56 PM by FirockFinion

Suppression Trooper Spears lowered their arm back down and considered if telling half truths was lying.

"I have reason to believe I that I have discovered intel that could change the battle. I think I can use that intel to create a weapon, but I am lacking some info. I am seeking permission to bug the rest of squad with some questions to see if I can find an answer."

"I doubt the squad has all the intel I require, so I am also seeking permission to go on long range reconnaissance."

Spears looked over at the players to see if any zombies were coming. "I would tell you more details sir, but you never know who is listening."

Johnson looked thoughtful for a moment before muttering, "Note to self: See if I can find a way to get other NPCs to come to bars as informants or something. The players would probably appreciate that... If nothing else, they'd give a bit of scenery."

Let's see, where to first...? Hmm, he remembered dying to some sort of giant robot, which mostly narrowed it down to either Cyber Town or Final Frontier, unless it'd wandered off for some reason (such as a player "kiting" it to, say, Fantasy Lands)... the setting... errr... metal walls... didn't really narrow it down further, but at least eliminated the "kiting" possibility...

"Think I'll check the Final Frontier first, and head to Cyber Town if that wasn't it..." he told himself. Nodding in affirmation, he waved to Randy on his way to the door, calling over his shoulder, "Anyone comes looking for me again, tell 'em I went out for a bit, okay?"

"Primary directives clear: All intruders must be removed from the station" Chicago repeated after Epsilon's rebuttal. "Conflict with intruders: Inevitable" it added as it headed off in the opposite direction as Epsilon.

With few players around and the other NPCs ignoring Epsilon, getting over to the docks where it could exit the station was easy. Epsilon's attempt to leave was interrupted by the arrival of a pair of players, one in a Final Frontier bounty hunter getup, (basically Boba Fett) and the other dressed as a Rough Town gang banger. They stepped away from the 'dropship' that served as their entry to the station, the bounty hunter glancing at and probably noticing Epsilon.

Not that they or Epsilon had time to do anything though, as lower level alien NPCs, little chittery six-legged buggars, were already in action; one of them had leapt at and planted its claws into the gang banger's face almost immediately, putting him in a battle with it. The other player was added automatically as they were partied together, as were three more of the little aliens. "That was f*%king quick" the gang banger commented.

"Don't worry, these are small fries" the bounty hunter replied. There was a few moments of open window for Epsilon to join the battle as well before the aliens started their first turn; or it could take the opportunity to go around.

"Spears I don't know what the hell you're talking about, but if it can help us out, fine" the sergeant responded, waving Spears away dismissively and turning back towards the enemy line. "Left side's getting a little dicey!" he called to the rest of the squad, motioning to some zombies that were starting to move around the players on their left flank; the zombies were still focused on the players though, looking to go for a flanking maneuver.

"Wait, you're heading out of The Hub? Alone?" Randy asked, not quite sounding as concerned as his wording seemed; he was also going into an idle animation of wiping the counter off. "Aren't you a little under-equipped for that?" he added; this was actually a response he was meant to give to low level players who weren't in a party and had minimal equipment.

A player? Why did the players now want to kidnap her as well?! For some unexplained reason, this filled Alysia with unease. She was well acquainted with what NPC kidnappers would do, and the whole kidnapping usually went without problems, but there was no telling what a player would do.

She had to get away, possibly from the whole castle, to lose the target tag. But there was no way Alysia would be able to get to the stables at the pace the rogue was going at. What could she do? Inspiration struck as she passed a maid in the servant's quarters. She spoke out loudly and clearly so that all servants within reach would get it in their local chat. Hopefully, this would slow him down...

"Everyone, there is a player in the building. Please, inquire with about him all the fetch quests you have!"

Johnson, being quite familiar with Randy's "it's dangerous to go alone" spiel, completely ignored it... but still stopped before entering the portal to the Final Frontier. "Come to think of it, how am I gonna find out if any other NPCs had slow respawns recently? I can't exactly go around asking them, especially with all the hostile mobs running around..."

It wasn't like he'd be able to get a player to give him the "grand tour" either, since players were known for picking fights almost indiscriminately, and for all he knew one of the others going through the same thing could be a hostile NPC or a quest target.

"Well, I can at least farm some level one trash mobs and pawn the drops for some cash while I think about this- being level five should let me do that much without any gear..." Nodding to himself, he stepped forth into the Final Frontier in search of the weakest enemies in the zone.

Fantasy Lands - Grass Valley Voting of new name has commenced. Inquire within (watch your step).

Rudy sipped from his bone chalice while he overlooked the ongoing battle, often wondering why a chalice had a skeleton. Some of his forces broke of towards the east in an attempt to flank Martin's forces, which worked for a minute or so until they were blown up again. Typical. Would all battles follow this predictable pattern when he took over the other dozen valleys they fought over? He'd need to get some sort of message system to converse with his troops. Perhaps a few dead eagles. Maybe he could dig up a Gryphon or two. Ooh, or he could learn to tame one of those-

"Gargoyle?!" Rudy nearly choked on his drink, spitting it out unceremoniously off the balcony. He stood and pressed his goblet to his zombie servant beside him. "Oh that is so unfair Martin! AND YOU KNOW IT!" Scooping up his staff with one hand and placing the other on the edge of the low wall, the necromancer hoisted himself up over the edge without a thought of the consequences. Halfway down he realized the consequences and decided to never jump from a perfectly stable ledge again. Luckily for everyone involved there was another patrol passing by which happily broke Rudy's fall with plenty of squelching bone-crunches. After a quick dust off, Rudy dashed in the direction of his messenger and, more importantly, a bothersome statue. "Hey you...rock, you! Your mother was a pebble when she made you! And not even the good kind of pebble; she was the kind of pebble that got stuck in everyone's shoes! Everyone!"

Suppression Trooper Spears would spend the next few hours badgering the squad about the following:

Had they heard of "Real Life"? How much of the universe had they seen? Had they ever overheard that a player not coming back "because of Real Life"? Had they heard of an enemy not coming back because of "Real Life". Anything about any unit dying and not respawning. What did they know of players. Where did they go when they "log off"? Where do they spawn?

Epsilon lowered its gun when it saw that it was simply a few players that exited the portal. It did not want to get into any unnecessary fights. Besides, it wanted to make sure it could reach the outside quicker. Still, it noticed the look that the bounty hunter PC gave it, and it decided that the player was dangerous. It quickly made its retreat. This would be strange for a PC to notice, as this particular kind of enemy monster never retreated. It made a quick leap into the portal before the players could engage it.

edited 14th Feb '15 10:50:06 PM by AllHailThrall

The maid stopped her animation of folding laundry and muttered a quick, "milady?" before pausing for a few moments as if in thought. She turned to the player coming down the hallway, and put her hands together to plead, "please sir, I lost an heirloom out in the hills when we had to flee from the undead overrunning the village. I'll pay you what I can if you get it back." Then, an instant later, without missing a beat, she suddenly recoiled from the player in fear, "AHH! THIEF! INTRUDER!"

The player had stopped in his tracks, just staring at the maid, and the last Alysia heard from him before she had gotten away was short and simple. "Wut."

With the player successfully stalled, nothing kept Alysia from getting down to the stables; though while exiting the kitchens into the courtyard where the stables were, she would pass right by a pair of dead guards. It looked like they had been slain stealthily, presumably by the player or an accomplice. A familiar and thankfully still alive guard was coming towards the kitchen entrance from the other side of the courtyard, and stopped as he saw Alysia. "Milady! There is an intruder in the castle!" the guard announced, stating the obvious. "... Did you still want these taken to your room?" he added, putting away his spear to show the princess the set of armor and the weapon he had collected from the armory; all of which were exact duplicates of his own equipment, including ironically, the spear he had just put away.

The gargoyle looked down at Rudy, tilting its head in confusion at his comment. It stared at him for a couple moments, before something dawned. It pointed down at him and shrieked in anger, and all of Martin's minions on that flank of the battlefield looked over to see Rudy; soon enough they were similarly shrieking.

With the chance to go directly for the enemy commander, the gargoyle dived at Rudy, still shrieking as it tried to bring its claws down to get the first hit, and thus the first turn of battle.

"Wait, did that robot just leave?" the gang banger asked as Epsilon started to move around the fight.

"Well now it's really going to be an easy fight" the bounty hunter commented as the aliens futilely attacked them, "but where the heck is it going?"

Entering the portal into the dropship, Epsilon was presented with an interface of available locations in the Final Frontier to go to; most were planets that acted as wild landscape type areas; not dungeons, but still where roaming monster NPCs could be found. There was also a 'free trade hub' station that was available to go to, as well as a starport connected to...

Johnson entered the area of the Final Frontier containing the portal back to The Hub, a base on a planet modeled after a fictional Pluto; the portal specifically was in an area which was basically a domed, futuristic city. If he wanted to face the weakest enemies in the Final Frontier, all he had to do was leave the domed city and go fight some Pluto bug-aliens.

There was a number of players and NPCs around, most of which ignored him except for a clerk NPC who called out a friendly, "welcome to the Final Frontier!" before turning her attention back to the terminal she was 'working' at.

The rest of the squad were, as predicted, mostly just confused by Spears' questions. The usual response for his question about how much else they had seen was met with something about 'the farm back in Alabama' or a similar answer.

One of the squad members however did have a unique answer, for the question of where players went when they logged off. "Oh, they go to the loo! Heard one mention that... I wish I knew how to teleport to the loo." Other than that though, nothing really helpful.

After a while, the squad leader folded his arms. "Spears, are you going to waste my squad's time all day?" the sergeant said to Spears in frustration.

edited 15th Feb '15 1:16:14 AM by FirockFinion

Johnson gave the clerk an absentminded wave on his way to the dome's exit, calling to mind which specific variant of the local enemies was the level 1 version; after all, reskins weren't entirely uncommon, even now, and just because an enemy LOOKED more or less the same didn't necessarily mean it wouldn't turn out to be one of the stronger enemies in the zone (for example, the Gunner Bots and their reskinned variant, the Invasion Gunner).

He glanced at the shop briefly as he passed by, but refrained from entering since he only had weak healing items to sell (some of which had a side effect) and didn't actually spawn with any money of any description, and thus would not be able to afford anything useful.

"Ah, thank you. I'll take it from here"

Alysia quickly added the armour and weapon to her inventory. She equipped it immediately, the elaborate dress instantly being replaced with the armour pieces and the spear holstered across her back.

"Now, go and assist my father. The player is here on a quest, so be careful."

With that, Alysia climbed up on the horse the game identified as belonging to her. It pained her to have to leave the castle like this, in particular she would have liked to say goodbye to her father. Hopefully the player wouldn't treat the people of the castle too badly. But for now, there was little she could do as a level 1 Noblewoman. Alysia spurred on the horse and left to travel towards the nearest town. She'd return to find out more about this new quest later.