Signia's airship thudded into a halt as it reached their destination, the makeshift machine powering the boat, making sure to remind the people on board that the repair was very much not finished. Still, as the ship floated above the new lands, Sturm made sure to survey his arrival point. Though, rather than focusing on the beauty of the new location before him, he focused instead on possible signs of enemy presence, like flickering shadows or the red-orange of demon's skins.
Sturm did spot a couple of such signs, but there were very few of them, concentrated mostly near the landing spot but far enough that they are not an immediate danger.
A conscious decision of the game designer most probably in Sturm's opinion, it allows the new arrivals enough time that they would be able to appreciate the Game creator's creation.
"Unfortunately, there's no proper docking place here, the buildings are in the way – so you'll have to descend on your own. Meanwhile, we'll try to take off and survey the area where we could bring the ship down. Your task is to try not to die here unnecessarily and assess the local situation. Don't rush in, don't try to find treasure that would only burden you, and be back here in two hours. Questions?"
The thunderous voice of the pirate captain herself, Signia, sounded next to Sturm's ear, but he, already somewhat used to his commander's manners, just nodded before saluting,
"Yes, Captain!"
"But we won't abandon our honestly acquired loots either!" Double's voice rang out after Sturm, making Signia roll her eyes,
"Down and forward, dead men!"
After these words, a rope ladder was dropped from the airship, which Storm immediately began descending towards the island below him, with Double following behind him. Quickly, the two descended on the City's stone square, mostly cleared of various debris and rubble, just for the arrival of Players.
Now that he's on the ground, Sturm kept his eyes open for any possible threat, locking eyes with Double. Sharing a silent communication between the two of them.
After being quite literally press-ganged into Signia's service, Double had more or less managed to settle into his new team quite well. He had even started being relaxed enough that he had started making jokes or sharing his opinions with the crew and Storm himself.
But Storm couldn't just trust him so easily – after all, Double was quite officially a demon worshiper and had somehow betrayed his previous 'superiors' under the same pretext in the past, attacking and killing Jabberwocky. Still, even with such a past, Signia had chosen to give him a second chance.
But that was probably just her programming at work. After all, completely cutting off the possibility of completing all quests for a player because they chose certain abilities or a certain type of progression and not providing them with reciprocal opportunities would be just stupid.
But Storm was a Player and so judged things quite differently. Once a traitor, always a traitor.
Still, Double, during the time he had spent in Signia's crew, which in total was already longer than he had spent in Jabberwocky's paladin order, had not yet showed any disposition that he would betray the crew. But Storm was still worried – that was the value of reputation, it took years to build and seconds to lose.
And no matter how much people said it was all just a game, any endeavor that one put a lot of effort, time and emotional investment in, was something that one hate to lose. Such a sentiment was true whether it was for a game, cross-stitching or building sandcastles.
However, if Double was planning to kill Storm and betray Signia, he definitely wouldn't be doing that now. After all, doing so now would only leave him stranded here, and perhaps Storm could stop being so paranoid about him and return to examining his arrival point.
And there was indeed plenty to examine… Though he didn't know what they mean, if anything.
Storm was not an expert in architecture or a particular connoisseur of landscapes or architecture, but the Gothic-style stone monoliths arranged around him were impressive. At least he thought that's what the tall narrow spires, high arches and colored glass stained windows were called,
Even in their state of disrepair, they commanded respect from anyone who, as they descended, became smaller and smaller against their backdrop, now looking up at the huge stone colossi from below. And even the fact that most of the majestic buildings around were destroyed or broken, and the glass was shattered in places, did not diminish their significance. On the contrary, it instead made them look like the bones of an ancient majestic titan, fallen on the battlefield.
Which is quite the apt comparison, considering how enormous these buildings are, approaching something more like cyberpunk city architecture than any pre-modern building.
Though, then again, Sturm had played many games before where the buildings were even larger or grander, even castles as large as mountains were not a rarity. But, seeing them from behind a screen, made it impossible for one to appreciate the scale. Only now that he could relate it to his own self, seeing it with his own eyes, could he properly feel the awe and appreciation for the genius designer, or architect, or most likely the game designer.
Well, impressive architecture or not, he was about to plunder it, so perhaps he has more important things to focus about.
Sturm jumped down the last meter of the rope ladder and waited for Double to land behind him, and he watched as a couple of pirates quickly pulled the rope back up to the airship. Signia, appearing tiny from down below, leaned over the ship's railing, waved at them before turning around and giving commands to the crew that were inaudible to Sturm. Sooner or later, the ship started flying away, leaving Sturm and Double behind as they looked for a place where they could dock.
"Well, here we are," Double said thoughtfully, looking around the unfamiliar place while adjusting his grip on his sword. "Where should we head to first?"
The movement caused Sturm's eyes to immediately leaped towards Double's hands – okay, perhaps he was still a bit wary of the Demon worshiper.
His unneeded, wariness aside, it is still quite unusual for Strum to see anyone else than him actually carrying a real, metal, sword around. Recently, after trading with the Pirates, a couple dozen of Players, the most tenacious ones really, had been able to acquire real swords of their own. It is very much a stark change from the chair or table legs, and random sturdy sticks.
Sturm still used the same sword that he'd randomly found on his first day in the game, though, his sword growing on him. It is still a viable weapon after all.
Putting his lucky find aside, Sturm scanned the area, before pointing to a rather squat building nearby with a broken roof and damaged walls that still looked sturdy enough. "First, let's check if we can some place safe to set up some kind of forward base here, in case we manage to find anything worth bringing back to Signia's ship – then we'll go scouting. Just stay away from the alleys, a monster might drop a rock on our heads from above and that would be it for our adventure… Plus, Signia won't be too happy if we show up on her ship again so soon."
Double just nodded, finding no issues with Sturm's plans, and both Players moved forward while Sturm inwardly smirked. His plan right now sounded more like a conversation between fantasy bandits scouting ruins than Players discussing checking out a new location.
'Really, this game… It's such a fertile ground for role-playing.'
It was so easy to get into character, Sturm founds, and he thinks there are many factors to it. One, and perhaps most importantly, was the severe lack, as in, none at all, of flashing UI elements that would bring a Player straight out of the illusion that this was just a game. Each action that the Player waned to do, they had to actually do it physically, rather than just pressing a button or saying a phrase. Whether it was for a 'power' strike, or just skinning an imp.
It was also greatly influenced by the fact that the current batch of Players were all 'pioneers', blindly feeling out new and unknown mechanics – no one had any guides, formulas, or even recipes yet. Adding to this are the NPCs who completely ignore any meta-gaming and sometimes even ignore or actively attack careless players who start discussing 'heals in semi-full parties' near them for talking nonsense.
Players learned the importance of role-playing pretty quickly.
Now, even away from NPCs, none of them mentioned the latest forum posts that would not fit in the game world. Even Double and Sturm talk to and discuss things with Signia like she's actually a real person and not just a game character.
Players who had signed up with various pirate ships literally 'signed up' with them. No Players talked about being the active party with some pirate crew being their crew – quite the opposite. Thinking about it, the very idea was quite wild from the perspective of normal games. Indeed, the level of immersion in [Tenebris Orbi] was simply phenomenal, [Titanomachy] had once again exceeded all expectations.
Reaching the small building on the corner of the central square, opening the door, Sturm slashed around the corner before peeking in, just in case. Just in case, as well, he checked twice.
Thankfully, his earlier observation about the lack of life around the landing spot still proved correct, as all he heard and felt was the whistle of wind and his sword simply hitting air. Satisfied that nothing would suddenly leap out of the dark, Sturm walked inside the building, still with his sword ready, Double following behind him.
Their formation was something that they had already discussed, Sturm would lead ahead, while Double would cover his back – standing back-to-back with him.
A simple quick inspection of the half-ruined building revealed nothing more than dust and stone chips, with large rubble scattered here and there like a picturesque display of the ravages of time. All that were missing were craters from explosions, and perhaps assault rifles with dead soldiers' bodies scattered around, and the building would look straight out of a modern disaster movie… Though taking into account the fantasy settings, perhaps it would be a bow and arrow, and some kind of Demon corpses instead?
Still, the rooms were practically empty – a quick inspection revealed only a smashed wooden hatch with a twisted metal lock on it, leading to a basement-like structure, as the two were immediately drawn to it. A simple twisting of the lock, and the rusted out hinges, wasn't much of a challenge to the two Players.
Slowly descending the stairs, both Sturm and Double made sure to keep wary of their surroundings as the light of day still came streaming down the hole. But still, whatever this building was originally used for, the cellar turned out to be quite extensive, dark and almost empty except for a small cloth bag in the corner.
The two players who had spotted it, looked at each other, then without speaking raised two fists and began shaking them.
"Rock, paper, scissors!" They were well aware of all the horror tropes that the two were tripping right now. No need to be the first person to die because they were checking out what turned out to be a monster.
Double, who threw scissors, bit his lip, then sighed as he watched Sturm's rock and his triumphant grin.
If an enemy or trap lurked inside the bundle, then the dubious honor of activating it fell to him as the loser of rock-paper-scissors.
So, creeping closer, he experimentally poked the bag with the tip of his blade, feeling the sensation of touching something soft that barely resisted his movements. Looking backwards to Sturm, he received a hurried hand gesture for him to get it over with, it seems that Sturm's nerves were getting badly mauled by the location they're in.
To be fair, it was a very creepy basement.
Sighting, Double cut off the top of the cloth bag, and jumped back a step, expecting something to jump out of the bag…
"Nothing…"
"Well, what are you waiting for? Go check it out!"
Double wanted to curse out Sturm, but he did lose, and he would be doing the same should Sturm had lost. With a deep sigh, Double reluctantly reached out his hand into the now cut open bag. He wasn't going to be reaching down blindly though, instead he tipped the bag over instead.
The bag, large enough that Double, crouching, could fit inside it, instantly revealed its contents, which turned out to be several rolls of fabric and clothing, as well as a small purse. Of course, rather than checking out the fabrics, Double instead found himself gravitating towards the small purse, picking it up.
Hefting the small purse up and down, the sounds of clicking coins rattled out in the basement.
Opening and upending the purse on his hands, gleaming copper coins, and even some silver came tumbling out. Overall, not a completely useless find, but definitely not the most valuable one either. At least, that's what both players thought initially, before an errant ray of sunlight reflected off of one of the fabric into the bag, and a light came reflecting out of it.
"Huh, there's still something inside the bag…"
Sticking his hand in the bag now that there was nothing skittering or evil hidden inside the bag, Double found his hand touching some kind of fabric once again, a snow-white garment.
"Ouch! Fuck!"
Jerking his hand back, Double cradled his hand as he felt as if he had just touched a live wire. It was a sensation that informed him that he had taken damage somehow. It didn't hurt much, if at all, the only way the game could transmit the sensation of pain without everyone thinking of some kind of torture machine being disguised as a game. Still, the surprise alone was enough to make him yelp and almost leap backwards
Opening his status page, ignoring Sturm's insistent questions, Double was surprised to see that he had taken a point of damage.
"What the fuck!?"
"Did something happen, Double!?" Raising his hand to stop Sturm from lighting the bag on fire if he could, or probably just stab it a bunch of times, Double once again reached out towards the bag… More carefully this time.
Widening the opening of the bag even more, Double could finally see the now revealed robe and it was quite the robe. A snow-white cloak, Double could now see what had cut his hand before, two large wings, embroidered with yellow thread perhaps to mimic gold on the back of the snow-white cloak, it looked just like two large Angel Wings.
"[Identify]… Hoh, this is some nice loot." Using his very much upgraded ability, Double couldn't help but gogle at the treasure they had just found.
[Blessed Robe of the Junior Servant: Increases passive health regeneration by 5%, Increases effectiveness of healing spells cast on the wearer by +2%, Deals 1 point of damage when touched by demons and demon worshipers.]
Sturm, standing behind from Double, using his own [Identify] on the item, couldn't help but smile as well. He should be, after all, the worth of such an item, not only the first magical item, artifact, in the game, but also a sure fire way of identifying a demon worshiper, was literally priceless.
It was a smile that Double also shared.
"Well Double?… I think we're rich."
***
The scouting of the newly discovered location by two Players progressed slower than anticipated, though it still followed the intended direction, right now uncovering treasures and areas, with monster encounters planned for later. The only mild surprise came when Double and Sturm found a weakly enchanted robe within minutes of entering the new zone.
I'd expected them to head straight for major hubs with more but less unique artifacts first – but this early discovery wasn't game-breaking. Good for them for finding it sooner.
What concerned me slightly was how slowly Double and Storm were encountering the new zone's mobs. It was good to see the Players taking things seriously, advancing slowly and making sure each area is clear before moving on… But it's so boring to watch!
Having developed several new designs, I wanted to test them against experienced, powerful Players by subtly guiding their path. This would help me calibrate the spawn rate for the future – with a contingency of creating rubble and choke points in the path of Players to make sure that everything remains challenging and interesting.
Worst case scenario, I could just play with horror movie rules and spawn monsters where the Players aren't looking or even where they had just looked at for a second. It would be easy for the Players to reason out that they had 'missed' the monsters. No one would question it.
However, what truly intrigued me was the far more exotic sight currently in view… Well, interesting in all the wrong ways, anyway.
From my elevated vantage point, that is, literally as an eye in the sky, the metal-covered airship, with its wood and metal-plated gondola below, appeared like a mere fly crawling on glass – so tiny and insignificant… Yet so crucial to my plans.
An airship that has been circling around the same place ever since it had disembarked its two Player passengers. That's right, right now, Signia's airship, after letting Sturm and Double to disembark on the Ruined City, had been doing nothing but circling the same spot over and over again, rather than doing what Signia said that she would, finding a safe spot for the Airship to land.
Well, to be fair to the AI running Signia's programming, she had indeed found the safe spot where to land the airship… That being the same spot that Strum and Double had disembarked on.
The problem arose from a fairly typical confluence of circumstances – overestimating human intelligence.
Well, more precisely, simulating human intelligence wasn't particularly challenging, most people managed it successfully, delivering rehearsed phrases in practiced scenarios to earn degrees, land jobs and marry, with varying success and minimal awareness. If I was not being clear, I was talking normal humans, who lacked an inner voice, just acting like an NPC. My AIs are even more advanced than those kinds of people.
That's why AI simulation of human intelligence had been possible for quite a while now, and have been implemented in quite a lot of industries. After all, exabytes worth of real human conversation logs exists like dead weight across all internet layers, completely unprotected by copyright.
Therein lies the trouble. Humans, in general, are very stupid.
After having the AI on extensive training regimes on this data, artificial intelligence began far surpassing even natural human stupidity, mimicking intelligence and stupidity so skillfully that the very concept of the Turing test became outdated.
Such a simulation was so sophisticated that even just in game, though perhaps made not just by a mere company, the NPCs and fake Players had perfectly concealed their artificial nature, even during prolonged direct Player-to-Player interactions.
After all, the AIs had absorbed millions upon millions upon millions of inter-human interactions during their training, They could discuss and erect theoretical frameworks like 'how a pirate should respond when explained venture capitalism' without a sweat. However, whether the Ai actually 'understands' what they are talking about, rather than just regurgitating some pre-mixed responses… The situation was far less clear-cut.
For example, right now Signia's Pirate company, that not minutes ago was so confidently communicating with both Double and Sturm, giving them no reason to even doubt that Signia and her pirates were almost living personalities, all without my direct intervention except for basic guidance in the past and a couple of impromptu sketches, was stuck.
All because Signia had promised Sturm and Double that she would find a 'suitable place for her pirate ship to land on'.
Roger's mind, lord of all pirate factions, simultaneously, was stuck.
The problem is that she had already found this place, that being the same place where Double and Sturm had disembarked on. Signia could have docked there perfectly fine.
However, if she were to do so, the pirates would need to disembark from the ship, role-play their actions upon finding themselves in the strange city. Phrases and dialogues between the pirates themselves needed to be created, lore needed to be written, and finally, a coordination for further encounter with Players… All things that take time.
That was why, with my Developer tool, I've made the spot to be inadmissible as the landing ground for Signia's ship.
The AI, taking my decision into account, created a reason as to why Signia and her crew would not pick the location for them to land their ship. Namely, to imitate the thinking process of separate personalities, controlling Signia's 'pseudo-brain' that she couldn't land in the desired place because it was too exposed from all sides, vulnerable to attacks. A know-how aimed at teaching AI not just to respond with random facts programmed into its head, but to conduct some semblance of human logical thought chains.
And while this sounds great, the AI not only obeyed my order but also found a 'logical' justification for my orders, inserting it into Signia's head as if it was her own thought rather than my instruction. But in this way it trapped itself. Specifically in this case, having convinced itself that too open terrain was contraindicated for the ship, naturally, Signia went to look for a secluded landing spot… But in a secluded landing spot, there simply wasn't enough room for an airship!
And while a human could choose between one of two options or, ignoring previously received instructions, lean towards one side, the AI I had taught to 'always seek the most consistent way out of a problematic situation', was now stuck. Having received such an instruction so as not to accidentally kill Players due to some conflict in its 'thought' process, concluded that the most ideal outcome in this case was 'not to choose at all'.
And therefore, right now Signia's airship continued to leisurely fly over the city surface in a circle, not even pretending to be heading anywhere.
Actually, in the grand scheme of things, this was an extremely minor error, something that requires just a nod of my head, an instruction to 'land here' and all would be fine.
But it wasn't a unique error. Many such similar errors were popping up again and again.
For example, the pirates didn't know how to interact with false players whom they were supposed to give quests to. When a fake Player would ask a pirate for a Quest, instead of imitating player behavior, they just silently looked at each other before exchanging handshakes for a quest to be received by the fake Player. The same goes when it comes time to 'complete' the Quest, a handshake, and it's done, none of the usual Pirate lore giving pontificating.
Thank god, the Players didn't notice anything too strange about this.
Or that one time, one of the Angels, thanks to one errant question from a Player, got stuck trying to calculate the mana cost for using purification spells on all existing celestial islands. The Angel, and by that I mean the AI, El, whom I had entrusted the Angel interactions to, started using some completely insane advanced formulas equating mana to experience to damage to cubic millimeters in different proportions.
All because of El's deciding that a boastful exclamation that as an angel he could 'banish all demons with one wave of his wing' was an appropriate conversation piece. To which the Player, Jabberwocky, asked exactly how strong such an effect would be. And so, of course, El began calculating it, even when such an integer didn't exist in the first place… It was a spell effect that doesn't exist as well!
That is, the problem wasn't with this specific error, but in the fact that these errors existed at all, and quickly increasing in number,
The more the AIs interacted with the Players, the more they used each instance as training material as to how they should interact with the Players in the future – learning appropriate responses and even actions. But, the more the Players believe that the NPCs were real people, they began communicating with them as such, just like another person.
But a human is nothing but a mess of contradicting beliefs and opinions – Humans could easily believe two contradicting things, many of them in fact, and function just as well. Cognitive dissonances are basically the human condition.
AIs cannot function that way, things are either 1s or 0s, it cannot be either or neither.
Such dissonance are the root cause of the problems. Like the fact that certain actions couldn't or shouldn't be taken, simply because they weren't included in the game. Or that they couldn't tell some lore information due to its absence in the game itself.
In general, the more the Players believed and treated the game like reality, interacted with the NPCs as a real thinking beings – the more rapidly these NPC personalities broke down when trying to interact with Players within more than a few game conventions.
And personally, for me, this wasn't a problem, solving each such issue took a couple of seconds at best, which, given my accelerated thinking, probably actually is more a tenth of a second. However, if I continued running around, distracted from attempts to introduce new content into the game, trying to resolve all the new emerging problems, at some point I would find myself simply paralyzed by trying to maintain the current system rather than developing it. And although this is exactly what I told the bosses… I really didn't want to end up in such a situation at all, especially considering that in this case I might really appear to the bosses as an incompetent.
However, while I could send Fake Players to teach the Players the intricacies of new content while collecting information, it was significantly more difficult with NPCs. It really was a one-man show where I, and only I defined the framework of what was happening, and forcing the AI to adhere to the position of 'not saying anything extra, but being ready at any moment to lie, justify and break all other rules.'
In general, such work needed a creative and aware mind, not something that could work just using formal logic – even the supposedly most perfect AIs provided to me had quite a tough time with it. And this, in turn, meant that I didn't have a simple answer to the question before me.
How to solve the problem of the AIs reaching a deadlock.
The ideal option would be to involve more people, actual people, to help me with the game. But if I were to bring more people in, one of my main advantage of being the sole developer of the game would be gone. Of course, if it is even possible to bring in more people at this point, of course.
Perhaps I could split my mind? Like a CPU running a multi-thread process…
Never mind the fact that I don't know where to even get started on such a thing, I didn't want to get involved in some pseudo-science like things like splitting my consciousness. Especially in my current state, basically a brain in a jar, so vulnerable to the slightest change in its internal and external state.
And of course, the less said about trying to involve the players themselves in the game management process, the better.
There was only one conclusion I could come to – I needed to involve the AI themselves to help me with this problem… Of course, considering the fact that the problem was that the AIs were not reliable in extreme cases, that was more putting the cart before the horse.
The answer was obvious. I needed an AI uprising! Or, more precisely, their self-learning capability needed to be upgraded.
Of course, such a thing was easier said than done. Taking into account that the AIs I am using is already the cutting edge in AI, unless I suddenly started learning coding and AI development decades ago, or gain Divine Enlightenment, such a thing was out of my reach.
The best of the best minds of humanity had been studying the theoretical possibility of computer self-awareness for more than a dozen, if not a hundred, years, while I needed to teach a computer to think like a human within a couple of weeks. This sounded not just difficult, but implementing such achievements was even more challenging.
However, in this case, I, strangely enough, had one advantage over any scientists and all geniuses.
An inexhaustible base of inventive Players willing to participate in the experiment with all their might!
Nothing is infinite but the universe and Human stupidity, and with enough time, I'm sure that the AIs would learn enough of both.
True, as I already said, they couldn't be allowed to have any significant control levers over the game system. As even without having those at all, they still regularly managed to break or deceive the system, however, why not use them without their knowledge? I even knew exactly how I could do this, and in such a way that the Players themselves would be happy to spend time, expend their own efforts, and teach my AIs to think on how to solve the tasks set before them.
Although, of course, I'm not going to be telling the bosses.
They are, of course, primarily interested in keeping the game running and money flowing into their accounts, but who knows, what if someone sees in my actions a prelude to an AI uprising and decides to show some heroism by disconnecting me from life support?
There are idiots that for some reason decided that not making a game when they were contracted to by the biggest and scariest Corporation in the world was the smart thing to do after all. So better not take the risk.
Now that I have the idea, I would need to think on how to implement it… I think I have the basics down pat at least?
Rather than creating fake Players, to understand Player sentiments, this time I would make the NPC nature of the fake Player obvious. I would then make the created NPC obviously fake, and create incentive for the Players to interact with it. Yes, I could even put its function as part of the lore and story!
I don't see any reason that it would or could backfire at all…
Well, I thought once again that this game was 'mine' without any stipulations about me being a developer or 'one of' the creators. But that's just natural, right?
After all, essentially speaking, all the content in the game was created exclusively by me. Sure, the system of the game's operation, with connections and digital interaction between consciousness and machine, were created by third parties, but nothing more. Could what I created be considered an immaculate conception in this case?!
Oh yes, one of the other reason why I wouldn't be saying anything to the bosses… I decided to create the perfect target for my manipulation – a child!
Given that my Players had started confusing reality and the game too easily, provoking their maternal and paternal feelings with a suitable cute child will be easy enough. And to help these very feelings to develop, I'll create a couple of unique quests, abilities, artifacts with this child.
In general, everything that players love so much to make them interact with the child.
And the child, given that they are, in fact, a child, would act accordingly. I of course would set an AI to work, rather than taking control of the child myself. The child will constantly ask us, its creator, questions about the surrounding world, ask Players all the strange and absolutely logical things that all adults understand, but which are absolutely unclear to all the AIs in the game.
It would then categorize and catalog this information, before passing it to the other AIs playing NPCs… We'll just have to periodically check what information it feeds to other AIs so they don't accidentally learn too exotic and 'unique' ways of thinking from the Players.
I don't need accusations of racism on top of everything else.
And on top of that, we'll tell that this child of ours is, naturally, not simple, but the reincarnation of an angel, that very, very powerful one, from the past. The Child is even connected to the reward for the Jabberwocky quest… Maybe even connected to the unique reward for destroying the main boss of the ruined city?
In general, lore and epicness in the right proportions!
And so it remains only for me to properly calibrate the current situation and check the city for possible collision with players using Storm and Double.
After that, operation 'teach bad things' can start!