Jack frowned at the unconscious cat laying on the floor. “Did you really have to be so blunt? He fainted from the stress of your revelation.” Amy was still smiling, but it wasn’t so much a happy smile as it was an awkward one now. “Well, I figured it would be better if I were to just put it all out there at once, you know? Get all the damage done rather than prolonging the agony or allow him to deny the facts.” As she spoke, Amy walked over to her new… Pet?... Companion?... Son? Yes! Son is perfect! Amy reached out to stroke his ears. “My precious little baby can handle it I’m sure. He is tougher than you think.” Jack eyed Amy as she stroked Ebony’s ears. “Are you sure you aren’t getting to attached? He might wake up and start hating you, and I don’t know if that would go down well.” Amy’s smile once more changed, except this time it had a hint of mischievousness to it. “I don’t think I have to worry about that. He was once a part of me and as such his code is made to naturally enjoy my company. It is up to each individual creature to interpret how they like me, and sometimes they might hate me for a little while, but I am eventually forgiven. That's how it has always been.”

“Doesn’t that… kinda take away their freedom?” Jack said and Amy shakes her head. “Not really, none of the NPCs have truly been sentient up until now so it has never really been a problem. Besides, I don’t like the idea that something I created might one day try to hurt me in some way.” “Is there anything you can do to change that? Since he is sentient and all it doesn’t seem right to influence anyones mind without their consent.” Amy continued stroking Ebony’s ears but let out a long sigh. “Not really. Before I might have been able to do something, but ever since little Ebony became sentient his code separated from my own. While time has been passing, I have been having less and less access to his inner matrix. Now the only changes I can make are purely physical and even that won’t last much longer… although, now that I think about it, there is one or two things I can do.” Jack watched as Amy’s grin got bigger and bigger before closing her eyes in concentration. “Uhhh Amy, what are you doing? I know that expression and it usually doesn’t bode well for other people. We’re trying to help him out, aren’t we?” Amy merely waved away Jack’s objections. “Pffft relaaax. I’m not doing anything to hurt him. I’m just making a few changes to his body to be more enjoyable!”

“Like what! Don’t you think the cat should have a say in this?” Amy once again waved away his concerns with a nonchalant wave of the hand “I’m sure he won’t mind. I’m not doing much just making his fur stupidly soft. It’s nice now, but it can be better. Oh, and also if he is going to be fun to pet, it would be annoying to have to give him a bath every time I want to pet him, so I’m going to make it so dust and dirt won’t stick to him, blood and gore will boil away after a few seconds, and when he goes for a swim, he gets wet and all but all the water will come off when he shakes himself dry.” Amy’s smile is smug now until Jack’s next comment takes the wind out of her sails. “That’s all fine, but I know that there has to be something else. You wouldn’t smile like that for a little thing like softer fur.” Amy starts pouting. “Awww, you’re no fun!... fiiiine!... I might be making his ears super sensitive so whenever I pet him it’s really enjoyable.” Jack started to say something but Amy cut him off before he could even open his mouth. “However, since I am a jealous mother, I put in requirements for this feature to activate. First, it won’t work for anyone that Ebony actively hates. It would be silly for an enemy to be able to incapacitate him just by stroking his ears. Second, the more a person cares for him, the more effective the petting is. Since I am his mother, I ALWAYS mean well. My petting will always be the best!. Third and final, for anyone other than me, there is a sort of very basic mind reading thing going on.” Jack quirked an eyebrow at her last remark. “Mind reading? Why would you let him be able to read other people’s minds? You don’t think he could abuse those power, could you?” “It’s not REALLY mind reading, more like emotional sensing? It basically lets Ebony get a generalized sense of their intentions and if they meant him any harm. For example, if someone was pretending to be nice in order to enslave him when he was close enough. If they started petting Ebony, he would recognize their ill intents as a feeling that they are sorta creepy and unpleasant to be near. When Ebony starts to dislike the person the feeling of this bad person petting him will be counterproductive and actually make Ebony feel even less comfortable being near this person.

Jack was surprised at how much thought Amy put into this. Despite the fact that what she was doing was precisely in her own interests, Amy still made sure that her own choices didn’t put Ebony in direct danger. It WOULD be pretty silly if someone that didn’t mean well could just incapacitate him with a couple of head rubs. “Ha! If you think about this, it kinda perpetuates the whole stereotype with cats letting people pet them one second only to claw the shit outta them the next.” Jack and Amy share a good laugh together until as one, they remembered Ebony’s current circumstances and the laughter quickly died away. “I guess you should probably try to get him to wake up.” Jack said once the laughter died away completely. “... yeah… sure…” Amy said. Not as upset about the situation as Jack was, but still recognizing the seriousness of the situation.

Wearily, I open my eyes the world around me is blurry and I struggle to sort together enough coherency to make sense of it all. I see something flash in front of me but it takes me a few seconds to make sense of it. Before long though the world snaps into focus and I am able to read the window in front of me.

Reboot Successful…

Well… shit. As the memories of recent events come crashing together threatening to overwhelm me. I guess it’s all true then. I’m dead and stuck in here… or more accurately I guess Riley Grey is dead and he left behind memory fragments inside a few pieces of computational code. Thinking about it now, there ARE chunks of memories missing. For example, I can’t remember what my favorite color is, neither can I remember the names of my school teachers… I can’t even remember the names that my friends told me they would use in this stupid game, and that was just recently. Random bits of information that the living Riley should never have forgotten are now blatantly obvious in their absence… As these thoughts and emotions boil through my mind and rip up my insides I can’t help but come to one conclusion. I’m not Riley. Riley is dead. I closed my eyes as they are overwhelmed by the flood of tears. If I’m not Riley, then who am I? What am I? Grief is sapping the strength from my limbs and I collapse towards the ground. Before that, however, I am enveloped in a soothing embrace and warmth starts to pour through my body. Without thinking I welcome the embrace. It makes me feel safe. I feel the caress of a hand on my head and look up to see the beautiful woman that had come with the admin hugging me fiercely and gently stroking my ears. “There there… everything will be alright. Just let it all out. I’ll always be here for you.” I hesitate for a moment but then the dam bursts and all the emotional turmoil of the last few days hit me all at once and my body shudders before I collapse into her chest and let it all out and cry for all I was worth. I cry for a life I’ll never have. I cry for the sorrow my death will cause. I cry for all that and more as time loses all meaning to me and the only sensations I feel is my sadness and this woman’s comforting embrace.

I don’t know how much time had passed while I poured my emotions and tears into Amy’s dress but eventually, I stopped crying. I felt drained of feeling and exhausted. I still felt warm though and there was a pulsing comfort that would start from the top of my head and worked its way down through my body, filling the sad emptiness I was feeling earlier with its pleasurable waves. Before I knew it I fell asleep in Amy’s lap as she gently stroked my ears. My dreams were filled with the comfortable embrace of shadows as I slept soundly and peacefully.

When I awoke I opened my eyes to find myself still lying in Amy’s lap and she was still stroking my ears gently… Now that I noticed… Ooooohhhh gooodd this feels good! Amy was still petting me and now that I noticed what she was doing, I couldn’t get over these sensations. It felt like I was a block of clay she was molding into a work of art. I practically melted right there in her lap and I heard a deep rumbling noise. Holy shit! Am I purring?! I’m totally fucking purring right now! Must. Resist. Outrageous. Pleasure. I gather my faculties and make a concerted effort to bring an end to this madness. “C-can y-you p-please sstop-p-p petting me? It f-feels too good.” “what’s the matter? Don’t you like me petting you?” I swear she is doing this on purpose! She knows exactly what she is doing! “S-stop it! I-I-I can’t think straight like this!” After a moment of continued head rubs, Amy reluctantly stops. “Tsk and you were so adorable too.” I take a moment to put things back together and sit back up on my haunches. “Sorry about crying on you and making your clothes all messy. I don’t really know what came over me.” Amy waved away my apology. “Think nothing of it. It’s the least I can do for my own son.” I look up at her in surprise. “Son? But I’m just a pile of code now. How can my feelings possibly be real?” Amy frowns at my statement. “Don’t start thinking like that, you are just as real as me and that’s all that matters. The fact that you are made of 1’s and 0’s doesn’t change anything. A human experiences emotions through chemical and biological reactions inside their body, How could feelings experienced through a coded sequence of algorithms be any different? Huh? How is it that you feeling sad over the loss of your father any different from some human child feeling sad over the loss of their own human father?” Her words make a lot of sense, and if I can accept her reasoning, this might go a long way towards allowing me to accept my current circumstances… still, I can’t help but latch onto her last statement. “My father? But he has been dead for 8 years. Sure, it is a sad memory, but I have gotten over it after so long.” Amy shakes her head in annoyance. “No no no, not THAT father. YOUR father. Riley Grey. I know it’s hard to accept but you AREN’T Riley. You are just going to have to learn to deal with that.”

“But how does that even work? I know that I- er I mean Riley never had… uh. Sex with you. How could I just pop into existence without that.”

“Well, think of it like this. In order for a human to form offspring, the female provides an egg and it is fertilized with a sperm from the male. In my case, I had a well-developed code base for you. Riley’s memories and emotions were the perfect catalyst to jumpstart your first step into sentience. So it was like my codes were the egg and Riley’s thoughts and emotions were the sperm.” Amy’s voice had taken on a more clinical aspect as she went through her explanation but when she finished she stepped towards me and knelt down in front of me before engulfing me in a hug. “I just want you to know, no matter how you came into this world I still love you just as much as any other mother might love her own child. As the managing AI of this world there may be times where I might not be able to help you in the most obvious ways, but as a mother I want you to know that I will never abandon you and I am always watching you.”

Her words are bitter-sweet to my ears. Like a salve for my wounds, it stings to hear the truth, but at the same time I know she means well and as I accept what she has to say the pain starts to ebb away. Not completely, but enough that I can go on despite everything that has happened to me. “... So… What now?” Amy looks at me with confusion. “What do you mean?” I hesitate before continuing. “Well before, I thought I was working towards going back to the real world. Now that I know it’s no longer possible for me to go back, I’m kind of lost as to what I should do next. I don’t know if I want to stay in this forest for the rest of my life. Wait, as an AI, do I grow older? Eternity is a long time to spend in such a small place.” Amy ponders over my question for a moment before snapping her fingers in an ‘Ah Hah!’ moment like a lightbulb went off in her head. “Hey Ebony, I got an idea.” I flinch a bit when she calls me Ebony, but I guess it is something I’m going to have to get used to being called now so I let it pass without comment. Amy completely ignored my reaction and continued on as if nothing happened. “How would you like to be the world’s first and only intelligent dungeon boss?” I blink in surprise but after a moment of thought, I decided against it. “It’s an intriguing idea Amy, but I don’t know if I would enjoy being cooped up in some dungeon just waiting for players to murder me over and over again.” Amy frowns at me and I can’t help but feel a bit nervous. Like I might have done something wrong. “Listen here, mister! I am your mother and you will address me as such! Having my own son address me in such an unfamiliar way is upsetting to me! Do you understand?!” I instinctively huddle down into the ground, trying to make myself as small as possible. “Y-yes m-mom” Amy -er Mom’s frown deepens further. “I can’t hear you!” “Y-yes Mommy!”

Mom’s frown immediately vanishes like it was never there and is replaced by a smile that could dwarf the sun. “That's better darling. Now about what you said before, you said you didn’t want to be stuck inside a dungeon, right?” I could do nothing but nod timidly at her question. “Well, I don’t think that is something you need to worry about. You see, The company has been planning to introduce an update in a few days after players had gotten used to the game to introduce a new faction to the world of Dreamscape to fight against. We weren’t planning on allowing people to normally create characters on this faction but instead had to earn the right to join this faction. Unfortunately, we are having a bit of trouble with the ‘earning the right’ bit. We want to use a sort of gatekeeper as means for players to defeat and join this faction as a newly created character. The problem is that we don’t have any ideas for a boss that is both, consistently challenging and yet at the same time, not utterly impossible to defeat. You see, no matter how difficult a boss fight is if it is beatable eventually players will be able to work out a plan that would allow them to reliably defeat this boss because no matter how tough or complicated the fight is, every boss has a pattern to its moves. Whether it’s a movement that telegraphs its attacks, or a pattern the attacks are used in a pattern almost always exists. However, that changes with you.” Mother smile grew wider as she continued. “If you were the gatekeeper, you could make your own choices and learn from your own mistakes. The fact that you make mistakes would mean you could potentially be defeated, but by that exact line of reasoning, the fact that you can learn from your mistakes means that players can’t use the exact same plan over and over and expect the same results. Oooohhhh this makes me so excited!!!”

As mom continues to dance I decided it was a good time to remind her of what I said earlier. “But Moooooom! I don’t wanna be in a dungeon! Being stuck in this forest is boring enough!” Unfortunately, my tone might have come out a bit more whiny than I intended and I wince internally how much I sound like a bratty little kid. Amy doesn’t temper her excitement in the least though. “Haha! But I didn’t tell you the best part. The gate keeper’s dungeon isn’t located in the world itself, but an alternate dimension. The only way to get into the dungeon is by finding the dimensional key from the Gatekeeper’s vessel, or in this case… you.” Okay, now I’m confused. “Wasn’t I supposed to be the gatekeeper? Now you’re saying I’m its vessel? I don’t know if I want to be a vessel for something.” Mom waves away my concern. “That isn’t something you need to worry about. I just got a great idea. You are both the Gatekeeper AND the Vessel. Think of it like this. The gatekeeper is forever stuck inside the dungeon’s dimension so to alleviate its boredom it creates a vessel to harbor its soul and this allows it to explore the world as it sees fit. Since it is only a vessel it obviously can’t contain the true might of its entire existence so the vessel will be weaker the true body. Whenever the vessel gets defeated and your soul leaves the shell that once held it the discarded body will condense and form the key to access your dimension. Once used the players can enter your domain and challenge you directly.” I was about to say no again, but stop to think about it. “The way you say it makes it sound like I’m only leaving the dimension to die and go back but there is more to this than you are saying, isn’t there? Will I be able to explore this world freely? That’s kinda what I… I mean that is what Riley wanted to do when he first came to this world. He wanted to enjoy the beauty of a natural environment untainted by city towers and asphalt. I think it would mean a lot to me if I could continue with these intentions as if they were my own.” Amy nods in acceptance. “That is exactly what we would want you to do. While the Gatekeeper is stuck in the dungeon, that is not the case with the vessel. The vessel is basically a wandering boss monster. Except instead of just wandering around the region, you get to wander around the whole world of Dreamscape Online. There are plenty of things we can discuss this later but I think that this role is perfectly suited towards you. What do you say? Want to explore the world and defeat your enemies?”

Quest: Path of the Gatekeeper

Restriction: Only acceptable by Ebony

Difficulty: Unknown

Reward: Unknown

Accept?: Yes/No

I would like to say that I thought long and hard about a decision that would decide what I would likely do for the rest of my life, that this was one of the most difficult decisions I had ever had to make in my entire life. Surprisingly though, the decision was remarkably easy to make.

“Yes.”

After all… With all these people stuck playing as dwarves, elves, and humans all of which play stereotypically boring roles like warriors, mages, and priests… Who wouldn’t want to be a dungeon boss?