Aryennos repeated for Serru his brief summary of his research and his connection with his new friend, and followed it with the Zombie King’s inexplicably-aggressive behaviour. At least, inexplicable in local terms.
“Nathan was going to expin what the Zombie King was calling people,” Aryennos finished. “Because it looked like it meant something, but then we got interrupted.”
There were others in the courtyard, but no one was particurly close, and the others were interested only in their own business. It was hard to imagine anyone wanting to eavesdrop.
“NPC,” I said, enunciating as clearly as I could. “It does not surprise me that you don’t know what he was asking for, which is called a sword.” The word felt strange as I said it. “Because those things only have one use. They’re for killing other people.”
How could you conscript anyone into a war if they had minimal fear of death and you couldn’t touch what was in the bank? How could you motivate anyone into rabid patriotism or prejudice or greed when there was no scarcity to py on and the prevalent attitude was an easygoing benevolence—and they knew that they had been and would be born among the so-called enemy you were trying to demonize and dehumanize? You could still threaten some serious unpleasantness, but what would it take for anyone from here to even think of it and then convince themself and others it was in any way worth it? If no one would even kill animals for food, knowing they had the same souls, how could you persuade them to attack each other?
There was no way this world had weapons. Tools that could also be used to defend themselves against occasional aggressive animals and, these days, maybe also mosslings and zombies, sure, but not straight-up weapons.
Aryennos’ eyes widened in horror. “That’s what he wanted? But what’s an em... enpeesee?”
“You know how I’ve mentioned complicated games from my world before?”
“Yes,” Serru said. “Several times. You keep saying you’ll tell us more.”
“I keep failing to find a pce to start. In those games, you pretend to be someone different and you explore an imaginary ndscape. A rge part of the game is fighting against animals and people who are unnatural or evil in some way. The more you kill, the stronger your imaginary self, your character, becomes. You collect as much wealth and the best equipment you can by searching the corpses and there are often things hidden in boxes and barrels and containers like that so you open them to search, or sometimes just hit them and the reward appears. An important thing is usually to get the best gear you can as quickly as you can, that means armour and a... a weapon.” The word didn’t even transte, no more than ‘sword’ had. I was right. They didn’t even have the concept. “A weapon is a tool meant for killing other people. Some of them can maybe have other uses, although killing animals isn’t much better, I guess. A sword is like a knife but as long as your arm. There are weird associations with high status.” I suspected there was also some phallic emphasis there as well, but I wasn’t broaching gender roles right now, this was bad enough. “I can’t think of how it could be useful for anything except threatening and killing other people.”
“That’s awful!” Aryennos said.
I didn’t bother to mention how much time I’d spent on those games, or how cathartic I sometimes found it. I didn’t want to know whether the outburst was over the games or the idea of a sword.
“An NPC is a character within the game, one without a pyer behind them. It literally means non-pyer character. I’m... I’m weirdly sure that NPC comes from the first letters of the words in English but they don’t match up in your nguage and that just feels so incredibly strange in my head, but anyway. An NPC is not a real person, there’s no pyer deciding what they do. They’re just a... an empty figure that looks like a person but only exists to help the pyers in some way. Often they can only say one thing or a few different things that they repeat, like lines in a py. They’ll give pyers a clue or a job or sell them things they’ll need. There’s nothing to them beyond that. No thought or feeling, they just do the same thing in response to the same trigger. Shopkeepers will have no existence outside of that shop and will always be there.”
“He thinks no one is even real?”
“Maybe? I don’t know if he thinks it about everyone. Maybe he thinks there are a few other pyers around, or something. There are games like that. But it sounds like he thinks a lot of people aren’t real.” That would be consistent, right? If people weren’t even people, just NPCs, then killing them and resurrecting their bodies to serve him would have no moral weight at all. It would just be inconvenient having to repce them every year or two.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like him if I ever met him.
And if I had even briefly and unconsciously seen Terenei as an NPC, just a shopkeeper with no other existence... well, that needed not to happen anymore. I wanted fervently to have as little in common with the Zombie King as possible.
Aryennos appeared to have gone speechless, and that was definitely not a common state for him to be in.
“I did not expect anything particurly pleasant in his history,” Serru said slowly, choosing her words with obvious care. “But that is appalling. The existence of such games, well... people tell stories about things that they don’t necessarily want to happen for real. Children pretend all manner of things, including one being a ferocious beast that is threatening and the others must find a way to subdue the beast, and adults can pretend many different things, from theatre to intimate moments and all points between. Competition can be a fun challenge and that can take countless forms, and of course the Wurmheights draw the most extreme. Anyone can have a day when they are angry over circumstances or feel that something that happened was unfair, and different individuals have their own ways of handling that. I suppose pretend violence might be a viable way for some, although I don’t think I’d care for it. But to fail to distinguish between that and reality, and to reduce the diverse living people around you to simply figures in a game with no identity or self or feelings of their own, is unforgivable.”
“This world does have some superficial simirities to some game settings,” I said, not sure why I was even trying to argue the point. “Especially some older ones.”
“You’re also familiar with those games. You did not immediately conclude that I existed only to guide you.”
“That’s definitely true. I probably didn’t py them as intensely, but I have pyed them, and it never crossed my mind to see either of you as NPCs.”
“Nor did you demand one of these... weapon things, even after arming encounters with a mossling and a zombie. There is no excuse. But I think we can safely conclude that he does come from your world, or at least one with strong simirities, since we don’t know how many there are. Aryennos, did you find out any more about either of them and the Quincunx?”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. For obvious reasons, the Zombie King didn’t have anyone travelling with him. All the records are from people who encountered him. It looks like someone told him about the Quincunx and gave him a map in hopes that it would get him out of our world as quickly as possible. Word spread quickly to stay out of his way. Multiple reports say that he was particurly offensive towards women, although there seem to have been other individuals he took an instant and aggressive dislike to.”
“I can just imagine how he acted towards women,” I sighed. “These other individuals... were there any details given about them?” I’d have felt reasonably comfortable betting on this guy going berserk over a PDA between two men or over anyone who didn’t stay within what he considered clear gender roles. “What they were doing, who they were with, how they were dressed?”
“No.”
“No, of course not. None of the things likely to set off someone like that would be considered noteworthy here, which would probably just make him angrier. He sounds like one of the people from my world that I’ve always tried to avoid associating with.”
“There are records of zombie attacks, though.”
“Generally people who are alone and easy targets, right?”
“Most of the time, especially recently. The early records are different. I found some archive accounts describing events, and some descriptions from survivors. None of it was pleasant to read.”
I leaned forward to close a hand around his. “I can imagine. And thank you for wading through it. But suppose we change the subject for right now.” I wrapped my other hand around Serru’s. “I’ll do my best to expin what I think might be going on in his head, but I need to think about it because I wasn’t expecting that, and it’s obviously upsetting to both of you. If I can think of anything that could make him, or her for that matter, less of a threat to you, I’ll tell you, I promise. The thought of them being able to run completely wild with nothing to stop them is unbearable.”
“Each other,” Serru said, though she reversed her hand in mine to squeeze. “They notoriously neither like nor trust each other.”
“Yeah, I don’t like that at all, because it means that they’re effectively protecting each other. Even if there was a way to stop or weaken one, it would let the other one have total control. That’s a really problematic bance of power.”
“That’s true,” she said, after a pause to think. “But it is not your responsibility to solve it. A better understanding of them could help, but the first priority remains to give you the best possible chance to get home.”
“I just wish I’d found an answer to one question,” Aryennos said. “Did they not finish the Quincunx and so couldn’t get home but somehow acquired unique powers and long lives, or finished it and found it didn’t work for some reason, or finish it and choose to stay here?”
That was a really good question.
It was a shame we didn’t have anything resembling an answer.
