“So, the God of Death can just kill anyone and anything on a whim?” asked Dakkon.
“I reckon so,” said Barnaby with an unconcerned shrug.
“That is my understanding,” agreed Sift.
“But gods are above squabbles and grabs for power—I think—so you shouldn’t have anything to worry about,” said Barnaby.
“Well it’s not like I’m in any position to try and meddle with the affairs of gods I didn’t even know walked the world until now,” said Dakkon. “It just sounds ridiculously overpowered.”
“Well, they are gods,” said Barnaby.
“Fair point,” said Dakkon who noticed his friend’s heavy gaze on the dancing flames and smoldering embers. “Cline, you seem lost in thought. What’s the matter?”
“Ah,” said Cline. After a moment’s hesitation, he looked at Dakkon squarely. “Honestly, I’ve got a sort of important personal matter to talk to you about.”
Dakkon looked around. There was no space to keep information private here by the fires. They’d have to step away to speak. Past experiences told Dakkon that the matter must be important for Cline to put himself closer to danger by wandering to a private location given the circumstances. Dakkon’s curiosity was piqued.
“Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse us,” said Dakkon with mock haughtiness dripping from his tone. “You have been a fountain of knowledge for me to slake my thirst.” Dakkon bowed in jesting reverence. Barnaby shook his head and waved them away.
After the two were comfortably out of earshot from others, Dakkon turned to Cline expectantly. “What’s up?”
“I’m really not sure how to broach the subject, so I’m just going to give you the straight and narrow of it,” began Cline.
Dakkon nodded, forcing himself to hold back any ill-timed, low effort humor in consideration of Cline’s troubled expression.
“I’m not exactly…” Cline trailed off.
After a few moments, Dakkon prodded the subject. “You’re not exactly what?”
“Now, I want you to keep in mind that we’re friends here, and this is a huge deal to me, so I want you to take this seriously,” said Cline.
“Enough with the setup. I understand that it’s a big deal,” said Dakkon. “What’s eating at you?”
“I’m not a player,” said Cline. “I’m not a flesh and blood person, to be precise.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Dakkon, perplexed by the nonsensical admission.
“I guess you could say I’m a product of the game. An NPC—” said Cline.
“Bullshit,” said Dakkon levelly. “NPCs don’t talk about the outside world or use modern colloquialisms. You have a blue player’s nametag in town—which I have seen. I have you on my friends list, and we both started at level one at around the same time.”
“Dakkon, I don’t have any reason to lie to you about this. Otherwise, you’re right on all accounts. I have knowledge of the outside world, but no life there. I can use all the player features—I even have access to the internet—but I am not a player. As far as I can tell, in this world, I’m exactly like any other person except I’m certain that I don’t come back to life.”
“What?” asked Dakkon. He was unsure what to think, but he was leaning heavily toward disbelief. Cline did have one point, however. He had no reason to lie. Moreover, he always seemed to be the most cautious person in the party—but no. Surely not. Cline, an NPC?
Dakkon paused. “So, you’re telling me that you went through that temple dungeon where we were out-leveled by everything there, knowing that you wouldn’t come back to life?”
Cline nodded.
“Does that make you a badass or some sort of idiot?” asked Dakkon.
“Both, hopefully, but I’m definitely an idiot,” said Cline.
Dakkon didn’t know what he was expecting from his friend, but this was far, far from it. This was important.
“Well, how does it feel?” said Dakkon.
“How does what feel?” asked Cline.
“You know—being an NPC?” said Dakkon a bit uncertainly.
“What? I don’t know. How does it feel to be a human?” said Cline, irked.
“I guess it feels… normal?” said Dakkon.
“Ditto,” said Cline. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I hope you can see my plight here.”
Dakkon didn’t know exactly where to begin if he was going to be honest, so he decided to start with levity.
“I’m no scientist, but I don’t think we have the technology to make you a real boy,” said Dakkon.
“Dude, c’mon. Spare me the easy Pinocchio jokes,” said Cline, seriously. “I’m deep inside enemy territory on what’s beginning to feel like a suicide mission and it’s all drawing parallels to our last harebrained mission together where you somehow managed to pull us through it all.” Cline flicked his hands to add emphasis to his words. “I would really like you to help me through it all this time too.”
“Ok, putting aside the idea that you’re claiming to not be one, single, real-world week old yet and are able to pick up a reference to a fairy tale about a puppet—you’ve got to realize that it wasn’t I, alone, who got us out of that. We all did our parts,” said Dakkon.
“Whatever makes you feel better, Dakkon, but I’m not playing a game here. I die and it’s over for me.” Cline breathed in deeply and let out a deep sigh through his nostrils before he continued. “I want to grow strong safely over time so I can watch out for myself. This area was supposed to be lower level. This quest was supposed to be easy, but we’ve already lost a fourth of our people and I have a feeling we just really pissed off the Tribe.” Cline was more worked up than Dakkon had seen before.
It didn’t take a whole lot of consideration for him to make up his mind. If his friend was crazy, a liar, or a computer the answer would still be the same. “Fine. Relax,” said Dakkon. “I get the picture. If things get really bad, I’ll try and carve out an escape route for you. No big deal,” Dakkon stammered a bit. “I mean, it’s a big deal that you stay alive. I don’t mind dying to keep you around.”
Cline nodded, apparently satisfied with Dakkon’s response.
“There’s just one little caveat,” said Dakkon.
Cline’s smile melted into a suspicious scowl. “What’s that?”
“I’m going to rip on you a lot for being a robot,” Dakkon sped up his pace to stifle any interruption. “Wait. Hold your protests. This is a rare opportunity. Do you have any idea how cool it is to have the Terminator as a friend? It’s a childhood dream made real.”
“Dakkon, you’re an asshole,” said Cline with his smile restored.
“Cline, we’re going to talk more about this later, I assure you. I know that robots lack common sense and have no fear of death, but we could be grabbed by animal men any moment here,” said Dakkon in a chiding voice. “We should get back to the safety of numbers.”
“I feel like I may have made a grave mistake,” said Cline
“Oh, I’m only just getting started,” said Dakkon.
\\\\\\
That night was akin to the first on the trail. An unknown number of tribesmen lurked near the edge of the camps, making aggressive noises as a sort of destabilizing, psychological warfare. Shamans’ spiritual scouts returned time and time again, relaying nothing that the force couldn’t already learn by listening or watching. They were surrounded yet again—the fiendish forms darted into and out of sight from heavy brush.
The NPCs—except for, apparently, Cline—needed sleep after a full day’s march, two battles, and little rest the previous night. The force-leading military bunch mostly consisted of NPCs born and raised in Tian. Players such as Damak were the exception, not the rule. Damak and two others kept watch over their sleeping allies, however the military camp had the least activity and would appear to be an easy mark to any beastmen looking for a target.