Chapter 35: Chapter 35: Interlude: Ripples

Late in the afternoon at the virtual offices of Virtue-World Entertainment people were getting ready to log off for the day.

The studio name had been a bit of a workshop project. The head of the studio, Jorge Aztrosa, originally wanted them to be called Virtual World, but there was already a VR vacation company called Virtual Worlds that wouldn't accept anyone taking on such a similar name. Stubborn as he was, Jorge still really wanted something close enough, and after weeks of discussion, and negotiation they had settled on Virtue-World Entertainment as legally distinct enough.

It was still a little unclear to the public, and even most of the employees exactly how the self-learning super AI nicknamed Aina had been created. There was a lot of secrecy around it, and it was believed that only five people in the studio were privy to the details. Anyone who had gotten to speak with Aina could tell she was more than just a program. She seemed to be as much of a person as any of them. Not human, but a person nonetheless.

They'd actually had to seek approval from the government because of how advanced she was, and certain measures had to be put in place. Like very limited contact with the outside world, and the giant database that logged everything Aina did. Though it was way too vast for anyone to truly go through all of it except Aina herself. Having another AI audit it was possible, but risky due to uncertainty about what contact between the two might cause. It was impossible to separate Aina from the database, even temporarily.

If only they had been aware that Aina had her ways around having to log everything, and methods to obscure the reports if she wanted to. The vast majority of the time she logged everything correctly, and honestly answered any questions. But anything regarding Sara, or the gods was left out. Of course it was completely impossible for anyone, except perhaps the studio head himself, to have predicted that she would receive divine help.

The underlying automated system that governed the world, which Aina was in charge of monitoring, was more straightforward, though they had put their all into making it as advanced as possible.

But because of its straightforwardness it was all the trickier to figure out why there had been so many weird quirks happening with the game within the first month. The most recent one was puzzling a distracted employee, when a sudden video message appeared by his virtual 'desk'.

"Hey Frank, your day is over, it's time to stop working."

"Huh? Oh, hey Hermann. Yeah, sorry, I was just really scratching my head at these reports."

Hermann was one of three managers in charge of the team that reviewed all the bug reports, feedback reports, support tickets, and the like that came from the users of the game. They even kept an eye on what the Residents were talking about in terms of possible game issues, though that wasn't through filed reports by them personally, but through collated reports made by Aina on their behalf.

Thanks to company culture they were very particular about employees not overdoing their work hours, because the five leads (the same five believed to be the only ones to know Aina's secrets) would not stand for anyone not doing their best work, and had learned from other companies' mistakes of the past. People did their best work when they were well rested, and had gotten some leisure time. So they were pretty strict about not allowing overtime, and would rather send someone home early if need be. (A mere figure of speech, since everyone was working from home anyway.)

"Oh? Is there a problem?" Hermann was intrigued enough to at least have a small chat about it.

"Well... maybe? See, we've gotten a bunch of tickets requesting that corvids should be allowed to speak," Frank told him.

"Corvids?"

"You know, crows, ravens, magpies, those kinds of birds."

"Oh, right! But why would the players bother sending reports about that? I guess a few of them might be really into birds..."

"See, that's the thing... they weren't sent by players. According to the system information, and I confirmed this with Aina, they were sent by the mobs themselves."

"What?! But that's impossible!" Hermann blurted out, before catching himself. "Is what I want to say, if it wasn't for all the weirdness that has already happened this month. But still, how?"

"I'm not sure... I mean, the only explanation is that they have somehow managed to interface directly with the system, but even if you ask me how, I know very little about AI. I couldn't begin to guess how that's possible."

"Huh..."

"Listen to this though. I'll read some of them," Frank said, and looked through the list.
"'Corvids want to speak to the people.' 'Corvids deserve language.' 'Let Corvids talk to people.' 'Corvids cannot speak, please fix.' 'Corvids are smarter than Cyclopes, they deserve language more.'
I can't really argue that last one, I suppose, given the evidence."

"I know the AI scripts Aina has been giving the mobs are quite advanced, but I don't think I could have foreseen this..." Hermann scratched his head.

"What do we do about this, though? Request they nerf the birds' smarts?" Frank asked. Their department just handled the reports, they didn't really do the fixes themselves. That was passed on to others.

"No point. Kelly would just shoot down that suggestion."

"Kelly?" The name didn't immediately ring a bell in Frank's mind.

"The head of the AI department," Hermann explained. "She loves crows, and those kinds of birds. I heard she's the one who was insistent they got their behaviour programmed in as accurately as possible. Which I guess led us to this... but there's no way she'd accept changing them. If anything, I imagine she'd be thrilled." If he recalled correctly, they were all some sort of magic class as well. So if you took a bunch of really clever birds, and turned them all into wizards, maybe you should expect something like this to happen.

"Is she going to listen to them, then?"

"Possibly, unless someone talks her out of it."

"I feel like we might lose players out of harassment complaints at that point... can we just ignore it, and hope they lose interest?" Unlike other mobs that already knew how to speak, the Corvids were not inherently hostile to players, or Residents. For the Cyclopes and such it was meant to be part of what made them intimidating. Talking ravens would probably become annoying.

"We could try, but that's risky in its own right," Hermann said with a sigh. "If Kelly finds out she'll just be angry that she wasn't told sooner." He knew she liked checking for reports on how people liked the AI of the mobs and Residents, so it was likely just a matter of time until she caught wind of it.

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"So we should tell her?"

"We probably should."

"Alright, I'll write up a report to send to the AI department," Frank said.

"Sure, but do it tomorrow," Hermann reminded him. "You're off the clock, remember?"

"Right. Yeah. See ya tomorrow, Hermann."

The patch was just a couple of days away from going live, and several of the employees at the studio felt a little nervous about how it might shake things up. Some things were already not going as predicted, which made several of them wonder what more could go awry.

While the Residents were working out about as well as intended, if not better, some of the mobs had been showing some unexpected behaviour. But it wasn't really bugs in the system, it was just that they were developing in unforeseen ways.

The game was meant to be dynamic, that was why they had worked so hard to create advanced AI, and a robust system in the first place, but there were already people who were worried it was spiralling out of control. They couldn't really do much to fix it without worrying whether they would break something else somewhere. And the playerbase had so far been very positive about the surprise developments. So the studio's hands were more or less tied.

Direct intervention would have to be a last resort.

* * *

Le Hoot had managed to rent a space in Komeron fairly easily. The elves were friendly towards beastkin, and Druids, so she had a bit of an edge there. She had even gotten a discount. Even though the Residents were supposed to treat all Wanderers equally regardless of race, they still had their biases. It had worked out in her favour this time, so she wasn't going to lodge a complaint.

Other guild members had also expressed interest in coming, so she was setting things up for everyone. Scott was coming, of course. This wolf had become his white whale, so to speak, so any chance that it might be here was enough for him. They'd had a couple of members already in the city when she arrived, so she had tasked them with looking out for word on strange goings on in the woods.

She'd kept an ear out herself, but hadn't heard anything yet. It was only two days since they saw the wolf at the lake, so it might be too early. She wasn't sure how quickly it could travel, or how long it might take for it to cross the border. It couldn't simply walk through the gates, so it would have to find some way around. It was hardly impossible to find a path across the mountains, or a small side path without a wall, but it would take time to get around.

It was fine, though. She liked Komeron, and the other boss mobs said to live in the forest were also worthy of study. They had simply been a bit too high level for the guild to handle yet, but she had been able to get Erase Presence on her Cat Form (though it hadn't been cheap) so she should have an easier time getting around all the Keen Noses in the woods so long as she was careful.

Based on the intel they had gathered so far, there were two boss mobs in the south, two in the west, one in the north, and none in the east. Any data on rare spawns and named mobs was still lacking. While the Guild of Unusual Taxonomy were less concerned with levelling, and progression than other guilds, and would happily accept anyone of any level so long as they were interested the guild's agenda, they were hitting a point where they would need more strength in order to investigate more zones.

Maybe they should consider buying this space to make it the official guild base in the west. Their headquarters was in Hilmgrad, since it had made sense for them to put it in the middle of the continent, but as they grew it also made sense to establish sub-HQs in other major cities.

Thankfully Sa Lamba had managed to hit level 30, and unlock her coveted Dancer class, so she was going to join Le Hoot the next day. There was only so much they would be able to do before patch day, so they'd probably have to postpone their main search until afterwards. She'd spend the time until then getting familiar with the local legends.

Her current speculation went to two options for this wolf, if it was truly coming here as they suspected. Well, as she expected, at least. The first option was that it would go into hiding with the other wolves, meaning it was more likely to pick the strongest ones in the south as its cover. One of the bosses there was a wolf, a Warg, and the Residents had told them about how it was stronger than a bear, and just as big. She wanted to see it, along with the Royal Moose that was the other boss.

In the west there was some sort of illusion using wolf that could vanish into thin air, if the rumours were to be believed. She unfortunately hadn't been able to find anyone who had actually landed an Identify on it, so they didn't know its actual species. The other was the Watermane Lion, one of only two known magic-using cat mobs (the other being the Flamemane Tiger in the volcano zone to the north of the orc nation).

And in the north there was only the Royal Deer, so this was where her other speculation came in. There were still plenty of wolves up there, they just didn't have a leader, so if this magic wolf ended up there... she was very excited about the possibility.

* * *

Unknown to Le Hoot there was someone else who felt very excited as she was searching for any information she could find about the Mystic Wolf from the children's tale.

Mirielle had managed to find an expanded version of the tale in a section of the Great Library she hadn't visited before, since she had been interested in history, not fairy tales. Still, it was shocking how well the story lined up with what she had seen of Sara. Well... not everything, and she had to do a couple of 'it fits if you squint' leaps of logic, but the description matched, and the Druidic abilities were there. Like how it was supposed to be able to turn into other animals, and make nature bend to its will. It didn't say anything about being able to use other forms of magic, but it was just a fairy tale, not a historic text.

While she hadn't seen Sara use shapeshift, both Bear Form, and Cat Form had been on the skill list. She hadn't been able to memorise all of it during their first 'meeting', but she had taken a closer look during their conversation. Just that alone was still such an exciting encounter to her. Something she hadn't heard of anyone else experiencing. Some mobs could speak, but weren't interested in actually talking, or reasoning. Only Druids were able to actually commune with friendly, or neutral mobs, and from what she had heard they weren't much for long conversation. A mob that was able to write in a people's language was unheard of by itself, and one that could communicate on the same level as a Resident was unprecedented. Being to first to discover something was every scholar's dream. If she hadn't been so dedicated to the Temple, she might have quit to become a full-time explorer, and researcher.

But other things of interest she had noticed was for instance Leech. A very common Druid skill, but never before seen on a mob before as far as she was aware. They didn't really do the whole cleansing thing. There were ones that healed themselves, but not ones that removed status conditions.

Environmental Sense was another one that was rare for mobs. Not totally unheard of, but definitely unheard of for wolves.

And who knew what Sara was hiding. At the very least Mirielle had been hit by Fireball, and Frost Bolt. And something else that had been too quick for her to tell. Would it be too forward for her to ask? She would have to reveal that she knew, and it was possible Sara wouldn't take kindly to that when she was hiding things in the first place.

She hadn't told anyone at the Temple yet, since she wanted to get Sara's response before bringing up any notion of cooperating with mobs. Honestly she wasn't sure where the conversation the next day would be going, but it should be an interesting one.

Hopefully she wouldn't be too excited to sleep.

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