Static green fog rolled against the reinforced hull of The Tipsy Cockatrice, recycling the same three frames of animation it had used for twelve years. Inside the cockpit, the air was dead with a sterile, flavorless void simulated by a server that had stopped caring a decade ago.
Azoth drummed his fingers on the cold brass of the steering wheel. The countdown in the corner of his vision pulsed red, a dying heartbeat for a world made of polygons and wasted time.
23:59:45.
Twelve years. A third of a life spent coordinating medical drones for people who couldn't afford them, listening to the desperate bargains of the dying through a cheap headset. YGGDRASIL had been the only place where the noise stopped. Now, even the silence was being evicted.
The timer ticked down.
23:59:58.
A long exhalation left his lungs, hissing through teeth that felt too perfect.
00:00:00.
The darkness did not come.
Gravity did.
The universe lurched. A violent, tectonic heave threw the room sideways, sending the brass instruments rattling in their housings. Timber groaned but it was not a sound effect, it was the deep, tortured shriek of seasoned oak twisting under immense pressure.
Knuckles turned white gripping the wheel.
Then came the smell.
It hit like a physical blow, burying the memory of his damp apartment under a suffocating wave of sensory data. Ancient beeswax. Roasting meat. The harsh, copper tang of ozone mixing with the sweet, heavy rot of fermentation. It was the scent of a tavern that had been marinating in magic and ale for a century, pungent and undeniably, terrifyingly real.
Air rushed into lungs that suddenly demanded oxygen. It tasted of dust and dry herbs.
The chair beneath him ceased to be a collision box and became leather, cracked with wear, and cold to touch. Azoth froze. The headset was gone. The armrest mounted keyboard, net dive gear, and motion pad were all gone.
A hand lifted into the gloom, illuminated only by the faint bioluminescence of the mana lines running beneath the skin. The flesh was pale, cool-toned and smooth, lacking the warmth of blood but possessing a terrifying solidity. Thrum-thump. Thrum-thump. A heavy, hydraulic rhythm vibrated against his ribs. Liquid mana surged through veins like cold mercury, pumping with the precision of a masterwork engine.
This wasn't a glitch. Glitches didn't have a pulse.
His gaze snapped to the navigation table bolted to the floor. The parchment map, usually bright with auto-updating markers, lay dormant. The ink was wet, swirling sluggishly in the center to mark their position, but the rest was a grey, churning void. A fog of war that promised nothing but ignorance.
Heavy footsteps thudded on the floorboards above.
Muscles coiled tight. The sound was distinct and the slap of leather soles on wood, the clinking of glass. Irregular. Heavy. The door to the cockpit unlatched with a sharp clack. Azoth didn't turn. His grip on the wheel tightened until the metal groaned.
If this was a raid, if the devs had pulled some final sick joke, he wouldn't give them the satisfaction of a reaction.
"Hell of a bump, Boss." The voice was rough, scraping like sandpaper over stone. "Knocked the cask of Wyvern Ale right off the top shelf. Nearly drowned the cellar rats. Again."
Gaston ducked through the frame. The massive Dragonoid bartender looked disheveled, his silk vest straining against scales that shimmered with an iridescent, oily sheen. He held a rag in one clawed hand, wiping down a crystal tumbler with habitual, weary motions. Smoke curled from his nostrils, smelling of cinnamon and sulfur.
The NPC wasn't looping. He was breathing. He was leaning against the doorframe, scratching a jagged scar on his forearm that hadn't been there in the character creator. Azoth stared at the reflection in the blank monitor screen ahead. A pale, exhausted face stared back with sharp features, gray eyes wide with a shock he refused to let surface.
"Where are we?"
The question rasped out, deep and resonant, vibrating in the small room like a cello string.
Gaston shrugged, the scales on his shoulders grinding together. "Not Niflheim. Smells too clean. Makes my nose itch." He gestured vaguely at the ceiling. "Legs are restless, too. They want to walk. Ground feels softer than the bog."
Azoth turned back to the controls. His mind, usually a chaotic storm of analysis, went silent. There was no procedure for this. No manual. Just the cold brass under his hands and the heavy thrum of the engine in his chest. He reached out and flipped the toggle for the external sensors.
The screen flickered, static washing over the glass before snapping into clarity.
Night had swallowed the world. A vast, celestial tapestry hung overhead, scattered with stars that burned with a clarity impossible in the smog of the arcology. Beneath them lay a borderland. To the west, a wall of ancient timber rose like a black tide, severing the horizon was a forest of impossible magnitude. To the east, open plains stretched into the darkness, a flat, colorless ocean of grass rippling under the wind.
"Secure the entrance."
The command fell from his lips before he processed the thought. It wasn't the voice of a dispatcher. It was the voice of the owner.
Gaston paused, the rag stilling on the glass. The bartender blinked, slit pupils dilating. It was the first time Azoth had ever given him an order that wasn't a menu selection. "Secure it, Boss?"
"Lock the main doors. Shutter the windows." Azoth pushed the throttle forward. A heavy clunk vibrated through the floorboards. "Gather the staff in the lobby. Once I find a place to settle down, we'll talk."
Gaston grinned, a flash of serrated white teeth in the low light.
"You got it, Boss. I'll put the kettle on."
The door clicked shut.
Azoth stood alone in the dark. Beneath him, the floor tilted. Deep in the earth, massive chicken legs uncurled, tearing up roots and soil with a wet, tearing sound that shuddered through the entire structure. The Tipsy Cockatrice groaned, a beast waking from hibernation, and rose to its full height.
On the screen, the horizon shifted. The black wall of the forest began to slide past the camera.
Azoth didn't smile. He didn't cheer. He watched the unknown world slide past the camera, his heart beating steady in his chest. Especially as Crimson pinpricks flared to life on the edges of the navigational chart, bleeding into the grey ink of the unknown. They swarmed the perimeter of the sensor radius, frantic little constellations of heat and intent that danced along the tree line.
Azoth watched them from the helm, his grip loose on the brass wheel.
The dots didn't approach. They scattered. Whatever apex predators stalked the Great Forest, be it bears, owlbears, evil tree monsters or things far worse, took one look at a three-story timber fortress walking on chicken legs and decided they were no longer at the top of the food chain. The tavern was a titan in a land of wolves, displacing the local hierarchy simply by existing.
It was a comfort, but a cold one. Isolation meant safety, yet it also confirmed that The Tipsy Cockatrice was an anomaly here, a lighthouse of magic in a mundane dark.
Time bled away in the rhythmic thudding of the tavern's gait. An hour passed, then another, the engine's heartbeat vibrating through the floorboards and up into the soles of Azoth's boots. The forest remained a monolithic black wall to his left, impenetrable and silent, while the plains to the right stretched out like a dead ocean under the starlight.
Then the geography shifted.
The sensor feed rippled. The monolithic tree line curved inward, bowing to accommodate a natural depression in the landscape. A fork in the earth appeared ahead that was carved crudely as a scar in the packed dirt splitting into two distinct veins. One artery bled outward toward the open plains, widening into an unkempt frontier highway that vanished into the darkness. The other cut deeper into the woodland, winding toward a cluster of hills that rose like knuckles from the earth.
Azoth slowed the throttle. The massive legs beneath them hesitated, shifting weight with a groan of timber that echoed too loudly in the quiet night.
The highway offered distance. It was the route of trade, of armies, of escape.
In comparison, the forest road offered cover, thus Azoth spun the wheel left. The tavern lurched, turning its back on the open world to follow the narrower path. Survival wasn't about running; it was about digging in. As the tavern crested the rise, the map flickered, adjusting its exposure to the low light.
Moments later? Civilization.
Following down a natural choke point, there it was. It sat nestled in a clearing carved out of the forest's gut, a humble collection of stone and thatch protected by the embrace of the hills. A small wooden watchtower stood vigil near the center, its torchlight a lonely orange star against the overwhelming blue-black of the wilderness.
Azoth leaned forward, eyes narrowing as he manipulated the zoom controls. The image sharpened.
Resources were abundant. The surrounding woodland was thick with timber, likely providing the bones of the settlement and the fuel for its fires. Fields of cultivated earth stretched out from the housing clusters, lying fallow in the dark but clearly extensive enough to support a population larger than the village footprint suggested.
A quiet, self-sufficient pocket of humanity.
Yet, as the camera panned over the rooftops, the Architect in him bristled.
The houses were sturdy, built from local gray stone, but they were primitive. Roofs were simple thatch, prone to rot and fire. More concerning was the ventilation. There were no chimneys, but only small vents and windows. When the hard winters of this region inevitably hit, those stone boxes would become ice tombs or smoke chambers. It was a structural oversight that spoke of a lack of advanced masonry knowledge or perhaps a reliance on magical heating they likely didn't possess.
Weak. Vulnerable.
Perfect.
He didn't take the road down. Parking a siege-class fortress in the middle of a peasant hamlet was a good way to start a panic, and panic led to pitchforks, which were annoying to clean out of the gears.
Azoth steered The Cockatrice off the beaten path, guiding it up the slope of the overlooking hill. The massive feet crushed saplings and churned the loam, but the noise was dampened by the density of the trees. He maneuvered the tavern until it sat perched on the ridge, shrouded by the canopy but commanding a clear line of sight into the valley below.
He killed the throttle.
"All stop," he murmured to the empty room. "Dig in."
He pulled the engagement lever.
The sensation was nauseatingly distinct. The tavern didn't just sit; it nested. The massive, scaled legs beneath the foundation folded, knees bending backward as the talons drove deep into the hillside. Soil and rock gave way with a wet, tearing sound. The entire building sank ten feet, then twenty, until the first floor sat flush with the earth.
The vibration in the floorboards ceased. The hum of the engine dropped to a subterranean purr, barely perceptible. To any observer wandering the woods, The Tipsy Cockatrice was no longer a walker. It was just a strange, oversized inn that had grown out of the hill like a mushroom.
Azoth released the wheel. The brass was warm from his touch.
He looked at the screen one last time. The village below slept on, ignorant of the Titan watching from the ridge. The torch in the watchtower flickered, a tiny spark of defiance against the dark.
Safe. Hidden. High ground. He turned away from the helm and walked toward the door. The adrenaline of the transition was fading, replaced by the heavy, dull ache of a reality that refused to be a dream. The door to the cockpit clicked shut, sealing away the quiet hum of the control room. Azoth stood at the top of the spiraling oak staircase, looking down into the heart of the beast.
The Taproom of The Tipsy Cockatrice was a cavernous space, a masterpiece of warm lighting and impossible geometry. It smelled of roasted barley, beeswax, and the faint, sweet smoke of pipeweed. To the left, the Great Hearth roared with a magical fire that provided heat without consuming fuel. To the right, the bar stretched for forty feet; a slab of polished mahogany that had seen more virtual brawls than actual drinks.
It was populated.
Dozens of figures moved through the space. The "Regulars." Level 20 to 60 NPCs created by former guild members to populate the tavern so it never felt empty. A ranger in the corner tuning a lute. A table of Dwarven smiths laughing at a new unscripted joke. They were the background noise, the texture of the simulation that suddenly became very real.
But standing near the bar, radiating a presence that made the air feel heavy and charged, were the others. The Architects. The Guardians.
Azoth walked down the stairs. His boots made no sound on the wood. He felt the mana in his veins thrumming, recognizing the signatures of the entities below.
Gaston was already behind the bar, polishing a glass. He had shed his dragonoid bulk for something more compact, though no less intimidating. In his human form, he was a wall of muscle squeezed into a vest, sporting jet-black hair and a handlebar mustache that was waxed to a lethal point. His violet eyes were the only tell of his Mirage Dragonoid heritage as they scanned the room with the casual intensity of a predator watching a herd.
Behind him, integrated into the dark wood of the shelves, sat the prize.
The Alkahest Cask.
It was a beautiful, unassuming thing. A small keg carved from the wood of a World Tree, banded in meteoric iron. There were no taps, only a single spigot and a small crystal "Sample Chamber" on top. It was a World Item, the spoil of the Poultrygeist Incident, capable of vomiting forth an infinite ocean of whatever liquid was introduced to its chamber. Right now, it was set to "Guild Draft," dispensing the finest ale in the nine realms.
Azoth reached the floor. The atmosphere in the room shifted instantly. The background NPCs continued their loops, but the Guardians went still.
"Attendance," Azoth said. His voice was low, carrying effortlessly over the crackle of the hearth.
A figure detached herself from a table near the fire.
Kalandria, the Accountant's Saint. She did not walk so much as glide, her movements possessing a fluid, terrifying grace. She wore the high-collared vestments of a wealthy merchant, gold thread shimmering against fabric the color of dried blood. Her skin was bronzed, her hair a reddish-brown cascade, but it was her eyes that held the truth of her nature. Black irises ringed in burning gold.
She was a Seraphim, a biblical horror of wings and eyes compressed into the shape of a woman. She stopped before him, clutching a ledger to her chest.
"The inventory is stable, Guild Master," Kalandria said. Her voice was like coins falling on velvet. "Though the structural integrity of the wine cellar has suffered a .04% degradation from the transit."
"Acceptable losses," Azoth replied. He looked past her. "Mordred."
The knight was leaning against a support pillar, looking bored. She was a chaotic mess of polished chrome plate and red silk, her helmet tucked under one arm. She had the face of a delinquent angel that was sharp, arrogant, and framed by blonde hair that looked like it had been cut with a knife.
Azoth felt a twinge of familiarity. He had spent weeks coding her AI, tuning the synergy between her Paladin aura and her Druidic spell list. She was built to be a walking contradiction of a tank that drew power from nature to smite the unnatural.
Mordred pushed off the pillar, the heavy plate clanking. She didn't bow. She smirked. "Finally awake, old man? I was about to start taking bets on whether you'd flatlined in the chair."
A frown found its way across Azoth's lips, "Old?"
"Watch your tongue, tin can," a voice purred from the shadows of the bar as Talia materialized. She didn't step out of the dark; she simply ceased to be a shadow and started being a woman. She was dressed in the sleek, plated shinobi gear of a Greater Doppelganger, twin shortswords resting horizontally at the small of her back.
She had the face of a JK host, otherwise inviting, soft, dangerous. "Don't mind her, Guild Master," Talia said, flipping a kunai between her fingers. "She's just restless. We all are."
Azoth looked at them. Four level 100 entities. Enough firepower to level a kingdom of lesser beings, standing in a pub.
He felt the fatigue of the human Azoth warring with his own cold logic. And so he pushed the fatigue down, as he knew, he had to work through this because no one else could do it for him.
"Listen closely," Azoth said. The playfulness left the room. "We are no longer in Yggdrasil. The map is blank. The connection to the servers is severed. We are grounded in unknown territory."
He saw the information hit them. Kalandria's grip on her ledger tightened. Mordred's hand drifted to the hilt of her sword. Gaston stopped polishing the glass.
"We have secured a defensive position," Azoth continued, walking toward the heavy oak front doors. "Burrowed into a hillside overlooking a settlement. But our arrival was... loud."
He stopped at the door and turned back to them.
"Mordred."
The knight straightened. "Yeah?"
"You're a Sylvian Knight. You speak for the trees. I need you to go outside and fix the lawn." Azoth gestured vaguely to the walls. "We left a trail of footprints deep enough to bury a horse. Use your druidic magic. Overgrow the tracks. Make the forest forget we walked through it."
Shaking her head, Mordred scoffed, but she pulled her helmet on anyway. "Gardening duty. Unbelievable. Fine. I'll make it look like a virgin glade."
"Talia."
The assassin tilted her head.
"Cover her, would you? If there are eyes in the woods, blind them, or kindly ask them to turn back. Do not engage or threaten unless compromised, and if you kill, leave no carcass."
Talia bowed, a theatrical, elegant dip. "Understood. I'll keep the puppy on a leash."
"Hey!" Mordred's muffled voice rang from inside the helm.
"Gaston," Azoth pointed to the bar. "You are the last line. Nothing comes through these doors unless I invite it. Keep the Cask secure."
"Consider it done, Boss," Gaston rumbled, his mustache twitching. "I'll turn anyone who tries into a coaster."
"Kalandria."
The Seraphim looked up, her golden rings glowing.
"Manage the herd," Azoth gestured to the lower-level NPCs. "Keep them calm. Keep them inside. And do a full audit of our consumable supplies. I need to know how long we can survive without trade."
"I shall have the spreadsheet ready within the hour," she promised.
Azoth nodded. He turned the heavy iron latch of the front door.
"Move out."
He pushed the door open and stepped into the night.
The air outside was crisp, smelling of pine resin and wet earth. Azoth walked out onto the small porch of the tavern, the wood creaking softly under his boots.
He looked back at the structure.
It was exactly as he remembered. A rustic, three-story Tudor inn, slightly crooked, with white plaster walls and dark timber framing that looked like a ribcage. The "legs" were currently buried, leaving only the charming, unassuming cottage visible above the turned earth. It looked cozy. Inviting.
Then he looked past the porch.
The devastation was absolute.
A trench of churned soil, twenty feet wide and three feet deep, tore through the forest floor, snapping ancient trees like matchsticks. It stretched back into the darkness, a glaring neon sign pointing directly to their hiding spot.
Azoth sighed, the sound like wind rushing through a crypt.
"Twelve years of medical dispatch," he muttered to himself, watching Mordred and Talia step past him into the unseen. "And I'm still just cleaning up messes."
The silence left by the departing guardians was heavy, filled only by the rustle of Mordred's armor fading into the undergrowth and the rhythmic settling of the tavern's timber bones. Azoth stood alone on the porch, the smell of turned earth sharp and loamy in his nostrils.
Tools were required. The old reflex itched at the back of his mind. It was a muscle memory of keystrokes and floating menus that no longer existed. In the absence of an interface, intent became the key. He reached out into the empty air beside his hip. Reality did not tear; it simply ceased to be, opening a pocket of dimensional static that felt like dipping a hand into cold, viscous water.
Fingers brushed against leather bindings, cold steel, and the smooth curves of glass vials. The contents of his inventory flooded his mind not as a text list, but as an immediate extension of his own proprioception. He knew the weight of every potion, the grain of every staff, the exact position of every scroll as if they were physically strapped to his body. With a thought, his hand closed around a heavy, iron-bound volume. He pulled. The book slid out of the invisible vortex, the hole sealing with a soft pop that smelled faintly of ozone.
Leathery pages crackled as he thumbed through the grimoire. It was a backup text, a repository of siege magic and void manipulation he rarely kept in his active rotation. He stopped at a page dominated by the complex, angular geometry of [Void Barrage]. A Tier 3 spell. Useful for suppression, but currently lying dormant in the ink.
If the inventory was an instinct, magic had to be a language.
The Archlich traced the diagram. YGGDRASIL had no preparation slots, only the hard cap of three hundred known spells. To learn a new one required unlearning an old one, a rigid system of data management. But here, with the night wind biting at his face, it felt less like deleting a file and more like surgery.
"Quick Study."
The words left his lips not merely as breath, but as a vibration of power that shuddered through his forearm.
On the page, the ink began to writhe. The geometric lines of [Void Barrage] unspooled, lifting from the paper like tendrils of black smoke. Simultaneously, a sensation of violent loss struck Azoth's mind. The neural pathway for [Mind Bolt], a simple psychic lance he had utilized for years, was ripped away. It wasn't painful, but it was hollow, a sudden amnesia of a specific skill.
Then came the rush.
The black smoke sank into his skin. Cold understanding slammed into his psyche, a sudden, absolute knowledge of how to weave the darkness between stars into a weapon. It swelled in his thoughts, demanding release, pressing against the inside of his skull with the weight of a loaded gun.
Azoth looked down. The grimoire had changed. Where the void spell had been, the jagged, lightning-bolt script of [Mind Bolt] now sat wet and glistening on the page. The transfer was complete. Equivalent exchange, sanctioned by a system that was ghosting through the physics of this new world.
Success. The code held.
Emboldened, the Archlich raised a hand. Testing the new combat spell was too risky; a barrage of void missiles would be a beacon to the village below. Subtlety was the order of the hour. He needed to verify the vocal components of the lower tiers, to ensure the verbal triggers still commanded the mana without the need for a console command.
"Light."
A sphere of cold luminescence, no larger than a coin, bloomed above his palm. It cast stark shadows across the porch, illuminating the grain of the wood.
"Silence."
The ambient noise of the forest; the crickets, the wind in the leaves had all vanished from a ten-foot radius around him. The world became a vacuum of sound, absolute and suffocating.
"Clean."
Mud that had smudged his boots upon stepping outside dissolved into dust and drifted away.
Azoth clenched his fist, extinguishing the light and dropping the silence. It was intuitive. Breathing. The magic responded not to a game engine, but to his will, channeled through the spoken word. He stepped to the railing, looking out into the darkness where his guardians were currently rewriting the landscape. Then without further thought, Azoth stepped off the porch, boots sinking slightly into the moss as he moved toward the tree line.
The tavern remained hidden in the depression of the hill, its bulk obscured by the canopy, but a vantage point was needed. A thick oak, ancient and gnarled, offered the perfect cover. Azoth pressed a shoulder against the rough bark, blending into the shadows as he peered down into the valley.
Civilization lay exposed below.
This strange Village was a cluster of grey shapes in the moonlight. The watchtower stood like a lonely skeleton in the center, a single torch burning at its peak. Guards were moving. Two figures, likely hunters armed with simple bows, paced the perimeter of the village square. Their body language was tense; heads snapped toward the forest, tracking the echo of a sound that had already faded. They had felt the earth tremble when the tavern knelt, but the trees had swallowed the cause, leaving them terrified of ghosts.
"Detect Life."
The world shifted as the mundane colors of the night desaturated into greys and blacks, while living signatures flared into existence. Through the stone walls of the houses, ghastly blue wisps flickered.
They were small, fragile flames compared to the raging infernos of the Floor Guardians. Azoth counted them, the data processing instantly in a mind like his. One hundred and twenty souls. Twenty-five distinct clusters, likely families huddling together for warmth or comfort.
If one opinion escaped his mind, it was how the layout was disappointingly average. A few barns housed livestock. They were larger, dimmer clouds of blue mist but the primary livelihood was clearly agrarian. Tools left out in the fields were primitive: iron plows, wooden rakes. No magical residue. No golems. Just sweat and soil. It was a settlement hanging onto the edge of survival, utterly irrelevant to the grand scheme of the world, save for its location.
Azoth leaned closer to the bark, calculating the resource yield of the surrounding forest versus the defensive capabilities of the—
Snap.
The sound was microscopic, the breaking of a dry twig, but in the heightened silence of the night, it cracked like a whip. Azoth spun, the spell fading from his eyes. Mana coiled in his palm, ready to discharge a lethal kinetic blast.
A figure stood near the corner of the tavern, half-hidden by a fern. It was not an enemy.
Amnestria Pecan froze, her hands raised slightly in a gesture of apology. The young Dark Elf looked exactly as she had in the NPC registry: a creature of the woods, designed with an aesthetic that blended innocence with the predatory grace of nature. Her skin was the color of polished walnut, contrasting sharply with hair that fell in a cascade of pale, white-gold waves.
One eye burned with the vibrant green of new leaves; the other was a piercing, glacial blue. She wore a tunic of woven plant fibers and soft leather, the attire of a druid or a ranger, intricate vines embroidered along the sleeves. She stared at the Archlich, her heterochromatic eyes wide.
The twig lay broken in the moss, a jagged splinter of white wood against the dark earth.
Azoth lowered his hand. The magic circle that had pooled above his palm, ready to boil the blood of an intruder, dissipated into a harmless vapor. He stared at the girl standing by the fern.
She was trembling. Not with the primal terror of a prey animal facing a predator, but with the vibrating, kinetic energy of a tightly wound spring. Amnestria Pecan. Level 60. Mid-tier Area Guardian of the Third Floor Farms.
But the particulars scrolling through Azoth's mind didn't stop at her stats.
It pulled the metadata of her creation.
Creator: Greenberry Thumbson.
Location: Gifu Arcology, District 4.
Status: Deceased.
The silence of the forest stretched thin. Azoth could hear the blood rushing in his own ears, the heavy, hydraulic thrum-thump of his mana heart kicking against his ribs. It wasn't fear of the girl. It was the sudden, suffocating pressure of a ghost standing five feet away. He remembered the news feeds three years ago. The structural failure of the Gifu seawalls. The black water rushing into the lower habitation zones. The way Greenberry's icon had remained grey on the friends list for a thousand days, never to turn green again.
And yet, here stood his legacy. A dark elf with mismatched eyes, fidgeting with the hem of her tunic.
Pecan bit her lip, her long, pointed ears drooping slightly as the silence dragged on. She took a hesitant step forward, her boot catching on a root. She stumbled, arms windmilling with frantic, graceless speed before she righted herself.
"I wasn't sneaking!" she blurted out. Her voice was high, cracking slightly on the last syllable. She straightened her tunic, trying to recover a dignity she clearly didn't possess. "I was... tactical following. To ensure the Guild Master didn't get eaten by a bear. Or a very large squirrel."
She peered at him with those heterochromatic eyes. One freezing blue, the other vibrant green like moss, waiting for judgment.
Azoth looked at her. He didn't see a collection of polygons. He saw a child left behind by a wave.
"There are no bears," Azoth said. His voice was teasing, filling with comforting inflection, and raw fact. "And if there were, you would have alerted them by stepping on that branch."
Pecan winced. She shrank into her shoulders, looking small against the backdrop of the massive tavern legs. "Right. Yes. Sorry. I'll... I'll just go back to the tomatoes. They don't mind when I'm loud."
She turned to leave, her posture radiating dejection.
Azoth moved before he thought about it. The professional part of his brain, that part of him that kept people on the line until help arrived, took control.
He stepped forward and placed his hand on top of her head.
His skin was cool, lacking the feverish warmth of a living human, but his grip was solid. He felt the silk of her pale hair, the solid warmth of her skull. It was grounding. Physical.
Pecan froze. She didn't pull away. She leaned into the touch, her eyes squeezing shut for a brief second, soaking in the contact like a plant turning toward the sun.
"You were programmed to follow Greenberry," Azoth said quietly. "Since he is not here, you followed the next highest authority."
Pecan opened her eyes. She looked up at him through her lashes. "Papa isn't online. He hasn't been online since the Big Rain."
The innocent term for the tsunami hit Azoth like a physical blow. He kept his face still, a mask of pale porcelain, but his internal rhythm skipped a beat.
"Is he coming?" she asked.
A lie would have been easy. A comforting fiction to keep the NPC happy. He's busy. He's on vacation.
Azoth didn't do comfortable fictions. He looked down at the girl who was waiting for a man who had drowned in a steel box three years ago.
"No," Azoth said. "He is not coming back."
Pecan stared at him. The hope in her mismatched eyes didn't shatter; it just dimmed, receding into a quiet acceptance that seemed too old for her face. She sniffled once, rubbing her nose with the back of her wrist.
"Okay," she whispered. "Then... then I guess I have to make sure you don't get eaten by squirrels. Papa would want that."
Azoth removed his hand. He felt a sudden, sharp need to categorize this interaction, to file it away before the emotion of it clogged his logic centers. He needed a list. He needed order.
He reached into the invisible vortex of his inventory. This time, he bypassed the weapons and the scrolls. His fingers closed around a heavy, rectangular object.
He pulled out the Tome of Unending Script.
It was a beautiful thing, bound in black dragon leather, filled with infinite pages of blank, cream-colored parchment. It was intended for mapping dungeons, a tool for cartographers. Now, it was a shield.
"We are doing a census," Azoth said, the book heavy in his hand. He flipped the cover open. The smell of fresh paper and binding glue cut through the pine scent of the forest. "I do not know everyone. I do not know their faces. I do not know their names."
He looked at Pecan.
"You know the staff on the Third Floor?"
Pecan nodded vigorously, her ears bouncing. "Yes! There's Grumble the Goblin! He's grumpy and the Dryad sisters, and—!"
"Save it for the book," Azoth interrupted. He held the tome out, tapping the blank page with a pale finger. "We are going back inside. You will point. I will write. We are going to catalogue every soul in this building."
Pecan beamed. It was an adorkable, lopsided smile that showed too much gum. "A quest! A list quest!"
"A census," Azoth corrected, though the corner of his mouth twitched, threatening to betray his apathy. "Lead the way, Pecan."
She spun around, nearly tripping over her own boots again, and marched toward the porch with exaggerated importance.
Azoth followed her. He held the book against his chest, feeling the heavy, frantic thud of his mana heart vibrating against the leather binding. He was an Archlich, a Sovereign of Magic, a creature that could level cities.
But as he walked back toward the warm light of the tavern, he was just a man with a clipboard, terrified of forgetting the names of the dead.
In my opinion, the "Census" scene needs to be a collision of Azoth's two worlds: the chaotic, vibrant reality of these now-sentient NPCs and his own deeply ingrained need for order and categorization. The humor will come from Azoth trying to impose a spreadsheet mentality on a room full of fantasy tropes who are suddenly very... alive.
Azoth stepped back into the warmth of the tavern, the heavy oak door thudding shut behind him to seal out the night. The silence of the forest was instantly replaced by the low, bubbling murmur of life.
It was louder than before.
In the game, the background noise had been a looped audio track filled with generic laughter, clinking glasses, the strum of a lute. Now, the sound was distinct. It was the scrape of a chair leg, the wet slap of a rag on the bar, the distinct, rhythmic clink-clink-clink of a coin dancing across knuckles.
He walked to the center of the room, the Tome of Unending Script heavy in his hands. He placed it on the bar top with a deliberate thud. The sound cut through the ambient noise like a gavel.
The room went quiet. Not the stillness of a paused game, but the attentive, curious silence of a crowd waiting for the next act.
Azoth looked out at them. The faces were familiar, etched into his memory from a thousand late-night guild meetings, yet entirely alien in their new fidelity. They were looking at him. Not past him, not through him, but at him.
"Census," Azoth said, his voice flat and resonant. He opened the book to the first blank page, the cream paper glowing softly in the hearth light. "I require a full manifest. Name. Level. Creator. Designated post. Form a line."
He picked up a quill from the inkwell built into the bar.
"Pecan."
The young Dark Elf scrambled up onto a stool, beaming. "First! I win the List Quest!"
She grabbed the quill with a grip that threatened to snap the feather, scribbling her name in large, looping letters that took up three lines.
Amnestria Pecan. Level 60. Greenberry Thumbson. Third Floor Farms.
She hopped down, puffing out her chest. "Okay! Who's next? Line up or get turned into compost!"
The threat, delivered with the ferocity of a kitten, surprisingly worked. The room shuffled into motion.
First came the Iron-Vein brothers.
Thrum Iron-Vein stomped forward, the floorboards groaning under his bulk. He smelled of sulfur and hot iron. The eldest brother didn't look at the book; he glared at the quill as if it were a dull chisel. He grunted, snatched the feather, and carved his name into the paper with enough force to nearly tear the page.
Thrum. 40. NuruNuru Forge.
He slammed the quill back into the inkwell and marched off, muttering about the lack of tensile strength in paper.
Broc was next. The middle brother was a walking fortress of plate mail, his face hidden behind a geometric visor. He picked up the quill delicately with gauntleted fingers, inspecting the nib for defects before signing. His signature was blocky, precise, and perfectly aligned with the margins.
Broc. 40. PariPariPickle. Forge.
Flint, the youngest, skittered up to the bar. He adjusted the multiple magnifying lenses over his eyes, his fingers twitching with a spider-like energy. "Exquisite binding, Guild Master," he murmured, running a hand over the leather cover. "Dragon hide? Juvenile, judging by the grain. Worth a few thousand gold in the right market."
"Sign, Flint," Azoth said, tapping the page.
Flint sighed, signing with a flourish that included intricate filigree on the capital 'F'. "Always to the point. No appreciation for the aesthetic."
Flint. 40. Vesper Noir Le'Fay. Forge.
As the dwarves retreated to their table, a massive shadow fell over the book.
Garruk "Iron-Gut." The Half-Orc looked like a boulder that had grown a beard. He smelled of stale ale and old violence. He didn't speak. He just stared at Azoth with eyes buried in scar tissue, then leaned down and scrawled an 'X' next to a smudge that might have been his name. He grunted, a sound that somehow conveyed 'I'm going back to my corner, don't bother me' and lumbered away, his tankard already fused back to his hand.
Garruk. 30. SpankMeHarder. The Doorman.
Then came the hustle.
"Slick" Rickard slid up to the bar, a gold coin rolling across his knuckles. He leaned in, a conspiratorial whisper leaking through his greasy mustache. "Hey, Boss. Just so we're clear... this list isn't going to the authorities, is it? Because I got a cousin in the capital who says lists are just tracking devices for the tax man."
"There are no tax men here, Rickard," Azoth said, tiredly.
Rickard winked, tapping his nose. "That's what they want you to think. Put me down as... 'Anonymous'."
"Sign your name, Rickard."
"Fine, fine. Touchy."
Slick Rickard. 32. GachaGod_404. Ambush Point two.
Suddenly, a blinding flash of blue feathers blocked Azoth's view.
"HAZAAH!"
Sir Roderick the Loud struck a pose, his cape billowing despite the lack of wind. "A quest for the ages! The Great Registry! I, Sir Roderick, shall lend my name to this legendary document! Let it be known that I stood here today!"
He signed with a signature so large it covered Rickard's entry entirely. "Is there a dragon to slay next? A damsel? I am ready! My sword thirsts!"
"Go sit down, Roderick," Azoth said.
"AT ONCE, MY LIEGE! I SHALL AWAIT THE CALL TO ARMS AT TABLE FOUR!"
Roderick. 20. Unpaid_Overtime. Table Four Denizen.
Azoth rubbed his temples. The sheer volume of personality in the room was exhausting. But then, the air grew cold. The scent of chemicals and copper, or blood, drifted across the bar.
The Third Floor team had arrived.
Vexis Umbra stepped up. The Dark Elf moved with terrifying, predatory silence. Her golden eyes scanned the list, finding flaws in the handwriting of those before her. She signed with a sharp, angular script.
Vexis Umbra. Level 55. MoguMoguMantis. Third Floor Management.
"The herd is restless," she said, her voice a monotone drone. "The vibration of the movement disturbed their sleep cycles. Productivity will drop by 4% tomorrow."
"Adjust the feed mix," Scalpel-Jack murmured from behind her. The surgeon's mask muffled his voice, but the glint of the bone saws on his chest was clear enough. He stepped up, smelling of antiseptic and raw meat. He signed quickly, treating the book like a patient chart. "Stress elevates cortisol. Cortisol ruins the texture of the hide."
"Oh, hush, you two," Lyssa cooed. The cook waddled forward, trailing the scent of overripe fruit. She patted Jack on the arm, leaving a smudge of green slime on his rubber apron. "They just need a little comfort food. Maybe some of the special mash. It puts them right to sleep."
She signed her name with a little heart over the 'i'.
Finally, Grumble the Goblin hopped onto the stool. Dressed in the oversized robes of a High Shaman, he looked like a angry green toddler in a bathrobe. He glared at Azoth.
"Do I get XP for this?" Grumble snapped.
"No," Azoth said.
"Typical. Management exploits the labor class." He scribbled his name and hopped down. "I'm going back to the mushrooms. They listen better than you do."
Azoth watched them all disperse. The book was filling up. Names. Levels. Creators.
He looked down at the list.
Miyagi Arcology. Gifu. Kyoto. Neo-Tokyo.
It wasn't just a census. It was a memorial. Each signature was a ghost of a friend who had sat in a Discord call, laughing about the ridiculous personality quirks they were programming into these NPCs. Now, those quirks were walking around, breathing, arguing. He felt the heavy, thud of his heart. He closed the book.
"Gaston," Azoth called out.
The bartender looked up from his glass. "Yeah, Boss?"
"A round on the house," Azoth said. He placed a hand on the Tome. "For everyone. Even Roderick."
Gaston grinned, reaching for the Alkahest Cask. "You got it. Music to my ears."
Azoth stood behind the bar, listening to the noise of his guild coming back to life. He was terrified. He was exhausted. But for the first time in years, he wasn't alone.