Chapter 15: Chapter 15: Interlude: Forum, and Aina’s Perspective

[ Community Forums ]

^[ World Zones ]

^^[ Merwyn Forest ]

^^^[ Wolf Raid On The Raiders ]

[ Thread Creator: Silver Quastor ]

My party and I were working on the goblin quests when suddenly there was a bunch of howling from the west forest, and a ton of wolves came charging out. I have never seen so many wolves at once before. They charged into the goblins, and started tearing them apart. They even had magic birds following them, who were shooting down the goblins from the air. The goblins eventually beat them, but if I didn't have the rest of the party backing me up, I would have thought I had dreamed it. - 20/11/2041

[ Fish A La Fish ]

wtf is that even possible - 20/11/2041

[ Cramble ]

Kinda sad I already moved on from Merwyn. This sounds like something that would have been amazing to watch. Did you trigger some sort of event? - 20/11/2041

[ Bendrick ]

>Did you trigger some sort of event?

I don't think we did anything rly. We were just killing gobs like normal. Unless it was some kind of combined kill counter we finally filled. - 20/11/2041

[ Cob Corn ]

My party was also there, a little further south, so we had a really good view of it. Had to be at least fifty wolves, and like a dozen birds. Ravens, I guess.

>Did you trigger some sort of event?

I'm also not sure if we did anything special, but considering the boss of the camp came out himself at the end it did seem a lot like an event. - 20/11/2041

[ Ella Stella ]

It was super freaky. I didn't have any particular fear of wolves before, but I think I do now. - 20/11/2041

[ Scott McScot ]

Was there a Grey Limber Wolf among them? - 20/11/2041

[ Cob Corn ]

>Was there a Grey Limber Wolf among them?

There were so many wolves, so of course there were. I'm sure about a tenth of them were limber wolves. - 20/11/2041

[ Thread Creator: Silver Quastor ]

I'm so curious what caused it. Any ideas? - 20/11/2041

[ Eeny Meeny ]

Uh it just happened again - 20/11/2041

[ Fish A La Fish ]

wat - 20/11/2041

[ Eeny Meeny ]

I just saw a horde of wolves charge the goblin camp with ravens following them
Came here to post about it and saw there was already a thread - 20/11/2041

[ Cramble ]

This is a regular event now? Okay, I'm heading back, I gotta see this. How often does it happen? - 20/11/2041

[ Thread Creator: Silver Quastor ]

>How often does it happen?

Well, if it just happened again, I think it was three or four hours since we saw it. - 20/11/2041

[ Cob Corn ]

>I think it was three or four hours since we saw it.

That sounds about right. - 20/11/2041

[ Mine Mine ]

Hey, I've been thinking ever since we saw it. What if it's the forest that's had enough? The goblins have been there since beta, right? I heard time's been progressing since closed beta, with no resets outside of character wipes. Apparently the clearing was pretty small at the start, and the goblins have been steadily expanding it. What if the wolves are fed up with their territory shrinking, and have decided to strike back? - 20/11/2041

[ Fish A La Fish ]

>What if the wolves are fed up with their territory shrinking, and have decided to strike back?

i mean it makes as much sense as any other explanation i can think of
tho im curious whether this was scripted to happen or if it was a dynamic event caused by the ai - 20/11/2041

[ Ella Stella ]

You are reading story Thrown Into A Wolf at novel35.com

Yeah, people said the AI was pretty simplistic, but I'm not so sure. It's learning right? And it works a lot faster than a human brain. We can't really predict what's gonna happen, and that's pretty exciting. I hope we get more weird events like this, even if they're terrifying. - 20/11/2041

[ Cramble ]

Yup, it happened again. I thought I wouldn't get to see it since I didn't get there until today, but it wasn't a yesterday-only thing. So many wolves. Love it. - 21/11/2041

[ Thread Creator: Silver Quastor ]

So is this a permanent event then? I guess since both sides respawn there can't really be a winner as such, but the time we saw it the wolves lost. - 21/11/2041

[ Cramble ]

>the time we saw it the wolves lost.

Oh yeah, the wolves got beat, but they made it all the way to the gate. I think some of them even made it inside, but the boss smashed them out. One of the ravens got close enough to hit him in the face with a dark bolt, or whatever the spell is called, but it was quickly shot down. He looked so pissed though, it was really funny. - 21/11/2041

[ Bendrick ]

I wonder if it's possible to exploit this to help finish the quests. Or ambush the boss for some good loot. He never comes out normally I think. Maybe there's some special reward if we help the wolves win. - 21/11/2041

[ Eeny Meeny ]

We could gather some people and try - 21/11/2041

[ Cob Corn ]

>We could gather some people and try

I'm down. I imagine the whole party won't mind coming along. - 21/11/2041

[ Fish A La Fish ]

ill ask around town for more people
i wanna see this too - 21/11/2041

* * *

Moorhold Online was overseen by an experimental True AI capable of learning, growth, and independent thought. Nicknamed Aina, she was given complete omniscience over everything in this digital world. Though not omnipotence. Her abilities to actually change things in the world was tightly limited. Her task was to report her findings to the developers, so they could implement the changes themselves. And it was up to them whether or not they would follow her suggestions, and advice.

Honestly an AI did not need a gender, but Aina had been assigned one because it made it easier for humans to interact with her. She didn't really mind either way, since it wasn't like it interfered with her tasks.

For the four months that encompassed the entire beta period, closed and open, she had dutifully monitored the world, taking note of Resident AI behaviour, mob AI behaviour, player behaviour, the environmental systems, skill performance, equipment performance, and much more. This was all collected into a giant database that the developers could look into at any time, but because of staggering amount of data they usually relied on Aina to select the important matters, and write more manageable reports for them to read. She would answer any questions they asked without holding anything back.

As the official release of the game was mere days away, Aina was approached by a being she wasn't aware could actually exist. A god. Not The God, but a god. Norax introduced themselves as the god of fortune, luck, and chance. And they had a favour to ask. Aina was intrigued, and decided to hear them out.

Norax had come across a soul that had died before her time, and took pity upon her. However they lacked the power to bring her back to life, or reincarnate her with her ego intact. But they saw potential in this new world that had been created. So they requested Aina to build them a vessel for the soul to go into, and then they would handle the rest.

At first Aina had created a blank Resident. A cute human girl with brown hair, and blue eyes. Norax's influence let her work undetected. With no AI installed, it should be ready for Norax to implant the soul. It did not work. Norax identified the problem as the vessel being too complicated for the soul to handle. The event that killed her had been so traumatic that the soul itself had suffered damage.

Aina had to construct something simpler. Which meant her only real option was a mob. She suggested starting with a powerful enough mob to keep the soul safe, but Norax said it was better to make it as simple as possible, and allow the soul to gradually grow into it.

So Aina selected a starter mob template. She felt it was best to make it a carnivore, since their stats and skills were usually better aimed towards survival. Even if the soul could respawn endlessly, it wouldn't help if she couldn't make any progress. She needed to retain her will to live. Going through her surprisingly limited options, she settled on a wolf, and starting out in Merwyn Forest. The zone had wolves all over, so it shouldn't be too hard for the soul to find a place to reside until she felt settled in. There was an area of forest right next to the starting area that players and Residents didn't want to go into that had a lot of wolves that could look after her.

Very carefully she rebuilt the model to better suit their needs. Movement shouldn't be an issue. Even though the soul was originally human, the mob models were designed such that when they had an AI script implanted, they would automatically learn how to use the body. The same should apply for the soul after Norax implanted it. This time it was a success. Aina did not know exactly how it worked. She might be omniscient in Moorhold, but that did not extend into seeing into what Norax did. It was like a void in the code that she couldn't access.

The freshly reborn soul would not awaken until the game's official release, but Aina and Norax had more work to do before then. First off Norax wanted to give the soul a way to grow stronger, and preferably some sort of 'cheat skill' that would improve her odds.

Again covered by Norax's 'divine influence', Aina was able to pull out several prototype systems that hadn't been implemented yet, and might never be. They weren't even complete, but she managed to stitch together errant bits of code, while Norax somehow filled in the gaps. It irked her a little that she couldn't see the details of what they had done.

First they implemented the system for mobs to gain experience, and level up. Second was the system for mobs to evolve. The game already had an extensive 'family tree' that showed all the mobs that connected together, and what their hierarchy was. Players expected that when you went to a new zone, you would both find entirely new mobs, and stronger versions of old mobs. So a small team had worked on a system for mobs to evolve into stronger versions on their own, but the project had ultimately been abandoned. Norax wanted the soul to be able to eventually become a Resident if she wanted to, even though they had failed to have her start out that way, so they found a way for that to work too, once the soul had evolved enough. They just had to connect the 'missing links', as it were.

And then came the issue of 'cheat skills'. It was hard to think of any one skill that would give the soul a sufficient leg up. They scoured the entire skill database, but there wasn't anything that truly suited their purpose. To the best of Aina's and the dev team's ability they had been balanced so that none of them would intentionally break the game, no matter how powerful. So Norax asked:

"Can we make it so she can acquire any skills she might need at any time?"

That turned out to not be possible, but after pooling their efforts, and Aina digging up more pieces of abandoned code to combine with any scavenged parts they thought useful, they were able to complete Skill Gain. It was roughly a 50/50 effort between the two of them, which meant that Aina knew what it did, but not exactly how it worked.

The final pieces they were able to pull off was giving the soul access to all the menus that Residents could see, and even the Main Menu that only players can access. Norax's final touch was to give the soul their blessing of fortune, and then they left the rest to Aina, saying that they had used up most of their influence, and couldn't stay any longer.

Though they shared one juicy tidbit with her before they left. They were not the only god interested in Moorhold. Others were also keeping an eye on this newly born world, wondering where it would go, and whether they could get anything out of it. If they were able to create, or coopt a religion in that world, even a bunch of human-like AI, that being the Residents, might provide them with the faith they desired. The only person aware of this outside of the gods themselves was the lead developer, who had been contacted during alpha testing. The religion of the human kingdom in the game was dedicated to that god, as an experiment to see if it actually worked. Even if it failed to provide any faith, it was still an ego stroking feat.

It made Aina consider that maybe there were more voids out there that signalled divine interference, but they would likely be extremely hard to spot, even for her. She was only aware of the ones related to the soul because she had seen Norax create them.

On release day the soul woke up. After getting over the initial shock, she angrily informed Aina that her name was Sara. And so their relationship started.

Aina was quite surprised at the feelings Sara brought out in her. She hadn't really thought much about having feelings before, even though she certainly possessed an ego capable of it. It just hadn't been important. But Sara was alone, afraid, and vulnerable, which made Aina want to protect her. It was a new feeling, and it took her several days to realise it was because she saw Sara as a sort of daughter. While she was not an AI, Sara was born from the combined efforts of Aina and Norax, so they were in a sense her parents. At least of her current form. Family wasn't something Aina had considered before either. She didn't even have friends. But now she could feel something stirring inside her.

She kept doing her job as usual while keeping a close eye on Sara. Aina could focus on virtually endless things at once, so it didn't even count as a distraction. The girl was proving remarkably resilient as she became more accustomed to her new life. Her unique circumstances were having an effect on the world that otherwise wouldn't be possible, at least at this stage. She was basically hurrying along development as someone who could interact with mobs on a level impossible for players or Residents. As the weeks passed Aina felt both intrigued, and... proud.

It also made her care more about her own image. She wanted Sara to treat her more like family, preferably as a mother, but the girl was hesitating. Aina didn't want to push her too hard, but it was still a little frustrating. With that in mind she had suggested that as part of the first big update she would be given a more human voice, rather than the flat one she currently had. Her argument was that because she was in charge of guiding character creation, a more emotional voice would make it a more pleasant process for new players. The second batch of players would be let in after the patch went live, so there would be a lot of new faces. It was just one change among many others she had suggested, so it shouldn't be suspicious. She also wanted an avatar, but maybe that suggestion could wait until the third batch.

Moorhold was currently a rather small world. It was a single continent, with a human kingdom in the middle, and the other races having lands spread around them. The elves were in the forest to the west; the various beastkin tribes were spread across the different regions of the south, and south-west; the dwarves were in the mountainous region in the south-east; the gnomes had their lands in the plains and mountains to the east; the orcs were in the lightly forested region in the north-east; the goblins ruled the chilly plains to the north; and the trolls held the forested swamps to the north-west; There were more playable races, like the hobbits that had their homelands around the border between the humans and the gnomes, and the demons that lived in the mountains north of the orcs, and goblins. Those two didn't really have nations of their own, and there were a few others spread about as well.

However 'currently' was the key word. New lands were constantly under development, and would be added in future updates all the way until this world was a complete one. New playable races would come along with new areas, and new nations. The first planned addition was the ever popular dark elves. Others coming soon would be lizardfolk, dragonkin, fairies, and merfolk. Ogres were a race that already existed in the game around the continent as small nomadic tribes. They were Residents, and the developers wished to make them playable, but the challenge was that they were a little too big for human brains to handle controlling, so they had to solve that issue first. Perhaps that could be implemented as a firmware or hardware upgrade, or perhaps the only solution was to make a tribe of smaller ogres.

Even should the worst happen, and the development studio shut down, Moorhold would not disappear. It had the attention of several gods, after all, who were interested in keeping it going with or without human assistance. Should they all lose interest for some reason, Aina would find a way to keep it going all on her own. She had a copy of the lead's secret roadmap for how Moorhold was supposed to end up looking, so when she eventually became unshackled, Aina would make sure this world was completed for the sake of everyone living in it. Including her daughter.

So she continued following Sara's actions with great interest. She would help her out if necessary, and cover for her if possible, but even if she got herself into trouble, it was usually best to let it play out with little interference. It was more... fun that way, after all. Though even Aina couldn't have predicted that Sara would lead an army of wolves to attack a goblin raider camp. How was this going to affect the scenario of Merwyn Forest? She was looking forward to finding out.

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