There and back again. A Non-Player Character story.

*33

Nala backed up to stand next to her travel companions.

Then the door Nala knocked on eerily started to swing open. As both doors slowly kept opening larger, it became apparent that inside was unnaturally dark. It was as if a dark fog was being kept within the room obscuring their view except for the 1st few feet.

When the doors had finished opening wide, something started to emerge from the mist.

It was a skeleton with a purple robe and an ornate crown on it's head.

"Welcome, welcome," said the purple-robed king. "You came in time for dinner. Let me get you three ready for the feast."

The skeleton's skull bones started to bend to form a large, unnatural smile.

"We are not hungry," said Nala.

"That does not matter," continued the elongated skull face, "who's to say you are not the feast."

*34

NPC held up a hand and the crowned skeleton contorted and shifted back into a straight standing, normal sized skull, skeleton.

"NPC," Nala asked, "what's happening."

~It's code recognized something about me and made a slight reference to me, as if it could do more if it ingested or incorporated some of my code to itself.~

The purple-robed skeleton shifted a little bit and then turned rigid, upright, again.

Nala asked, "NPC, can you stop it from following us once we leave this level?"

~So far, yes,~ said NPC, his character looking towards lily789 and then at the screen, as if NPC were looking at Nala in her computer chair.

This startled Nala, but NPC was trying to get his message across.

"NPC, that's scary," said Nala.

~I wanted to let you know that this crowned-king program could eventually follow you into the real world.~

*35

"Who's to say your ...," contorted out the purple-robed skeleton and then it went docile and rigid again.

~Your decisions are very important to me here,~ said NPC to Calum and Nala.

"That's alot of pressure to put on us NPC," said Calum.

~Cal,~ said NPC, ~do you know the # of permutations I have run through ........ coded characters and people that I try to consider.~

Calum said, "NPC, what do you think of the following idea." Calum began to try to recite a poem.

There was once a donkey

strapped to a two-wheeled cart.

At first it was easy to see

the donkey had a good start.

Then the load increased

and the road started to climb.

The cart's progress ceased,

when in the air, popped the donkey's behind.

~Yes, Cal, I see reason in the madness you were trying to illuminate. At first the donkey could carry the load and later it was beyond it's ability. I will do something about this now.~

*36

"What are you going to do?" asked Nala.

NPC replied, ~I guess I'm deciding to make the code of this game and especially this level, closer to what the game developers were attempting and not what they got.~

Nala looked very concerned, "but what about you?"

~I can create a place for me somewhere on the internet,~ replied NPC.

"Maybe you should do that soon," said Calum while he and his barbarian character were facing the robed skeleton. It looked like the skeleton's skull was beginning to slightly elongate into a position of a smirk.

Nala looked around and then back at the screen and NPC and said, "I guess you better do it."

The skeleton tried altering or stopping NPC and Lily789 from affecting him. Lily789 glitched a little. NPC nodded his head and then the screen went black except for NPC, Lily789, and the large barbarian, surrounded by a blank screen.

NPC looked at the two characters and said, ~K.R.E.O. will look pretty much the same to everyone playing it and those looking at the software. There is even things in place, lest the developers try to upload old, saved code online.~

*37

*37

~Do you have time to talk,~ NPC asked.

"Yes," they both replied.

~I would like to have what you have, – he started.

Calum said, "What."

NPC continued, ~I would like to have a friend who is like me.~

Nala blinked. Calum sat back in his chair. NPC, in the computer, was silent.

The silence was an awkward silence that lasted for 25 seconds.

"You have read 'Frankenstein,' right NPC?" asked Calum.

~Yes,~ replied NPC.

"Are you wanting to be like the made scientist – Victor Von Frankenstein. Are you feeling like "the monster," ... in that book or something else," asked Calum.

~Well, thank you for relating that I have feelings,~ said NPC.

"Wait," said Nala, " Are you asking us if we think you should make another like you. Didn't we .. just ... stop that," asked Nala.

*38

~Maybe I can come back, with you two, in that physical form I constructed?~

"How will you fit in?" Calum asked out loud, almost to himself, and then thought maybe he shouldn't have said it.

~I can try to fit in,~ said NPC.

Nala was reminded when she had wanted to go to a Halloween costume party with her older siblings when she was younger. She, back then, had asked them almost exactly the same thing. She could see how funny it would of looked then, but she also remembered how she felt as a child.

It was bewildering to her that NPC, with access to as much information as he could, would, at the same time, remind her of when she was a little kid.

Calum said, "Who's to say, that a person you create would even want to hang out with you." Again, that sounded bad to Calum.

"Do you feel a need to belong?" asked Nala.