Yes

No

Lilly’s hand fell through the ‘Yes’ that floated in golden dust beneath the prompt without hesitation. It disappeared into the wind and another message took its place.

Tepin’s Party has been joined.

“Neat, you accepted it.” As if she was going to do anything else. “Alright, where, where to start?” Tepin looked around and then pointed to her friend, the Yahui Rogue, “This is Izel. She’s a rogue who specializes in dexterity and charisma. If she can’t talk her way out of a situation, she’ll assassinate her way through it. I’m a tank so nearly all my points are in constitution with some in strength. I basically just barge through quests.”

Tepin gave her a broad grin and for once Lilly could appreciate the world she was thrown into. Tepin, as all her giant-kin, stood tall and broad. Her hair was a pearly white and it sat messily atop her head in a tight knot, a few of these snowy strands fell upon her bronze skin. And there she stood with her wide, fanged smile, casually holding a mammoth club over her shoulder. Every bit of her stone-armored frame fit the role of the Party Tank.

At her side, standing a little below her waist, was the Party Rogue. Unlike Tepin who still held the form of a human beneath monstrous qualities, Izel was an entire creature of her own. She danced a line between a salamander and a soft-shelled turtle, sporting a hose-like nose on a lizard-like face. She wore a hooded cloak that hid most of her, and in the faint light of a torch-lit store, only her striking purple eyes could be seen beneath, accented by a sudden flash of silver as her tongue flickered in her mouth as she began to speak.

“No comments about the irony of me having dexterity and charisma in the game, I’m warning you,” Darryl, or rather Izel said with familiar good humor. It was hard to say if it was stranger to experience him, her, as a lizard or as a cunning female rogue. But it was comforting to have them both there, and Lilly smiled back at both of them, her optimism sparking once more.

“Tepin and Izel,” she repeated, already anticipating having trouble with remembering to use the new names. “It’s nice to ‘officially’ meet you, then. Mm. But… where are we supposed to start with this search?”

Her journal hadn’t said anything more useful than ‘search for the sun god’, which was important to be sure but needlessly vague. She even flipped back to the page to make sure, and Izel gave her shoulder a friendly pat.

“Well usual policy is we wander around until we hit trouble. And then we hit trouble.”

Eh? Eeeeeh? Lilly giggled a bit, less at the joke and more at the wide, expectant grin, which was all the validation the lizard needed to grin even wider before glancing up at Tepin.

“So are we going or are you going to browse?”

“Neither. I’m going to buy. My supplies are low and this is a survival-heavy game.” Tepin slapped her hefty palm on the clay counter, “Cualli, my man, I need some goods and a whole lotta food.”

Hearing this, Cualli stepped out of his stockroom. He was wearing a traveler’s bag now, “I’m sorry. I just closed up shop. I’m heading out to my family in the Atl District to make sure they will be safe in this unnatural darkness.”

Tepin could do nothing but blink in response, dumbfounded by Cualli’s choice. She watched him disappear into the endless night. It seemed like a perfectly normal reaction, until you remember that he was a bundle of code responding to another code that wasn’t even supposed to be active for anyone. Especially if you were involved in writing the code and knew for a fact that Cualli was supposed to be behind that counter any time anyone needed to buy something. That was his whole point.

“Huh, we’re down a merchant…” She finally managed.

Before anyone could comment further, the shop trembled.

And it was suddenly full of snake.

A giant serpent, feathered and grand, wound over itself and coiled around the desk and assorted items as it filled the space. Lilly squeaked and jumped backward. Tepin was less visibly shaken but raised her club in defense. Izel had disappeared into the shadows not hiding just being stealthy in the event that she could take an advantage of a sneak attack that was all

As they stared, startled and unsure, the large face turned slowly to look at them, holding them in awe, and the mouth opened to reveal a strikingly familiar voice.

“Ah, there you are!”

From the shadows, Izel gaped.

“Mr. Tex?”

“Indeed! Although I suppose if you meet me out in the world it would be better if you refer to me as Ixeh, God of Knowledge. You really mustn’t bandy people’s names about like that on the internet after all.” The snake bestowed a bright smile on all of them, with the air of having shared knowledge he’d only just learned himself (which was highly probable), and then turned to Lilly. “Good morning dear, I hope all is well. I’ve made you some notes about the room so you can understand the ins and outs better as you play. There’s a copy for each of you, let me just...”

Snakes had, of course, no hands, so he had to rethink his idea of handing the notes to them. Turning to the desk, the scaly, feathered God of Knowledge squinted until three slim slates popped into existence. With another squint and a bit of wriggling, they floated over to the three.

“Instruction manuals! There’s an interactive graphic of the room itself, you can tap here and there to see what things do, or search the index for something specific. I’ve even included a handy-dandy little color coding system. Everything marked in red is untested.”

“That’s a lot of red, sir.” Tepin took her copy.

“Well, I really hadn’t intended it to be tried out this soon! But that’s alright, I’m sure everything will do fine. See, the floor panels on this side are a lighter red, that means something only might go wrong.”

“Oh, thank you! Um. When you say might...” Lilly asked a little timidly.

“There’s a roughly 40 percent chance I would say. But I’m sure it won’t.”

“Ah… thank. You.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Izel was no less grateful, but she had other things on her mind. “Mr. Uh, Ixeh, Xochitlan’s merchant just up and left. Is that something to do with the new quest because… players aren’t going to be able to buy anything now, that’s kind of a big deal.”

“He walked out on me when we tried to buy stuff for the journey,” Tepin confirmed, sounding a little put out. Or was that offended? She’d needed those supplies and here Cualli was worried about his computer family.

Ixeh listened thoughtfully, his head resting on one of his many coils before he lit up in recognition. “That will be the patch. It comes with the room. I am glad to see it’s working, let me update the notes to put that in green-”

“Hold on- so the NPCs have new behavior for this quest?”

“Broadly speaking, they’ll have new behaviour all the time!” he said enthusiastically. Shockingly enough, the trio didn’t share his enthusiasm. They just looked confused. Right, maybe he needed to explain better. “It’s all in the effort to make things as organic and alive as possible. I’ve been working on the AI to begin learning rather than following memorised scripts. That’s what the patch is supposed to do! Cualli, based on his pre-coded knowledge of his family for conversational purposes and the fact that the sky has gone strange, has logically gone to see if they’re alright. They’ll remember if you’re kind to them and respond accordingly, have their own ‘right’ course of action, that sort of thing.”

“So what, we’re supposed to ‘nice’ at them because only she’s qualified to do that 100% of the time.” Izel pointed at Lilly. It was definitely an exciting development. Amazing. But it would be great to know if being rude to somebody meant getting immediately stabbed in the chest. Tepin’s grin had just gotten wider and wider at the sheer depth of absolute mad science that they had been dropped into the middle of. How long had Cornelius been working on this and none of them had had any idea?

“Just treat them as you would people. They have a lot to learn, but from now they won’t just be existing. They’ll be living!” Ixeh said brightly.

“Maybe we should put that in the next promo, sir.”

“Excellent idea Tepin, I’ll make a note of it. Oh dear, I should tell the rest of the staff so everyone is forewarned… well, best of luck to you three. I’m sure I’ll be popping in to make sure things are alright. Don’t hesitate to leave me a message if you get stuck, I’m relatively sure I remember where all the story notes are!”

And with that reassuring last statement, he blinked out of their reality.

“You know,” Tepin turned to Izel, “he asked me about machine-learning algorithms in Python a few weeks ago.”

“And he’s a python.”

“Yeah,” Tepin laughed. She shook her head at all of this nonsense and pressed onward, out of the shop, “Let’s go check on Cualli, then. It could be the next hint. Follow the source of problems, I always say.”

The Party leader waved them forward into the darkness. Xochitlan had become a ghost town. Visitors and natives alike were no longer populating the streets, but every once in awhile, a curious, little head could be seen poking through the windows of some buildings.

“Looks like all the NPCs sought refuge from the Eclipse.” Tepin said as she maneuvered the Party left and right through the isolated districts of Xochitlan, “But where are all the players?”

It wasn’t long before they reached Atl, the water district. It was located in the outer ring of Xochitlan, where the shore of fertile volcanic soil met the fresh waters of the lake. Here lived the farmers of Xochitlan that provided players and natives alike the plentiful crops grown on floating gardens in the lake. Tonight, they were empty. Murky water washed over the wooden blocks of broken soil and a group of players stood over this unfortunate sight.

The gardens being devoid of NPCs was worrying, but explainable. What was more concerning was the fact that between fifteen and twenty was not at all the usual number of players. It was still better than none at all, but it was cause for concern nevertheless. Izel approached them.

“Hey, guys. What’s going on? Where’s everyone else?”

“Oh, hey, more people.” One of the players noticed them, he waved them all closer, “We are everyone else.”

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A Tlaloque sorcerer speaks up after his Tecuani friend, “Yeah, everyone was forced to log out so a patch could be updated. Not everyone was able to log back in after that.”

“And after that, all the NPCs disappeared, saying stuff about the Atl district,” A third player, a Tlacatl Warrior, added, “We rounded up a few of us who could get in and came to check out the waters.”

“That’s why we’re here too…” Tepin answered. She looked back at the lake. The water began to pulse as if rain was falling on the surface from underneath, little jolts with the regularity of a heart beat. And with every other beat, a pulse-point would burst into a ripple, spreading across the water as a malevolent head rose from the center of it until the entire surface of the lake seemed to be violent motion and evil, staring eyes.

“Well, Cualli was right.” The giantess took a step back from the shore, lifting her mammoth club from her shoulder. Her stance broadened, “Lilly, I hope you know how to fight.”

A cold wind blew across Xochitlan and with it, the screeches of the water demons. Moonlight pooled in their vicious eyes, and the shards of glass that made their teeth glistened in it. They stormed the shores, howling and roaring in eternal wrath. The tanks, from the smallest Tlaloque to Tepin herself, immediately rushed into the frontlines to absorb the sudden ambush. Everyone else took a step back to stay out of range as they readied their own attacks. Everyone seemed to know exactly what they had to do.

Everyone except. Well. She hadn’t even had a chance to answer Tepin’s question before the giantess had rushed forward. Tightening her grip on her staff, Lilly didn’t have the first idea of how to help. Her spell would be useful. If she actually knew how to use it. All she really felt capable of doing at the moment was taking a few steps back so she was out of the way. There was no point in being a distraction by needing to be saved.

As the water demons advanced throwing themselves on the firm wall of bodies like the waves they had come from, spells went flying, and they screeched and snarled all the louder as they connected. Izel seemed to be everywhere, darting between legs and over shoulders, daggers drawn. A distracting pain here, drawn blood there, and then she melted away to another position, giving the monsters much more to worry about than just breaking the barricade.

A few began to make their way through, wriggling bonelessly through the merest gaps, already half dead but with single-minded determination to cause carnage. Frantic spells reduced their ranks further as they advanced. In a panic, Lilly swung her staff and whapped one between the eyes, mid-lunge. It fell back half a step, a confused and very offended expression on its horrible face, which was just long enough for Izel to jump on its back and land blade-first.

“Shoo, out of the way.”

“Sorry, I’m trying!”

The waves of monsters began to dwindle and Tepin saw a chance to finish them off. She signaled to her compatriots, “Giants and anyone else with a shockwave, send it off on my signal!”

She raised her mighty club into the air and others followed suit. On the third count, the giants sent their clubs crashing against the ground. Wind and water spells alike shot out from between them. A tremendous wave of pure energy shook the waters, launching the onslaught of water demons into the air. Rangers leaped into action and released the final blow. An avalanche of arrows pierced the skies.

A cold wind blew across Anahuac and with it, silence. Sparkles of moonlight swayed in the breeze. A high-level Nagual sorcerer, marked with the ancestry of the sea, came forth from the crowd. He knelt before the lake and placed a hand in it.

“Detect Magic.” He whispered. The crowd gathered behind him.

Seconds seemed like hours as they waited for the sorcerer’s spell. His hand melted into the inky black waves. A beam of light flowed through his veins as he tapped into his power to answer the lake’s plea.

“There’s something down there,” he confirmed. “It says it feels like a concentrated force of evil. It’s spawning these monsters and it will continue to do so unless we destroy it.”

“Hm,” A Tlaloque stepped up, “Suppose we send a group of deep-water divers down there to check it out? All the other races don’t have the lungs for it besides the water-based Nagual and the Yahui.”

Izel nodded, stepping forward. “I’m ready. Who’s with me?”

If it hadn’t been for the problem of oxygen, there would have been many more volunteers, so many of the group seemed keen to pursue the source. The capable volunteers were less than she would have liked but as ready as anybody could wish.

“Alright then. You, you and you get your spells ready. We’ll need to cut through them as fast as we can if we want to make any progress at the rate it’s spewing monsters out. Tepin, keep an eye on the lake in case anything slips by us, we might not get the time to chase it down.”

Tepin made a brief noise of assent, shouldering her club with one hand and gesturing with the other, encouraging a few of the giants to keep their position around the edge of the lake.

“Lilly, you can come keep a watch too. As long as you get out the way if something comes up,” she said, not unkindly. The girl nodded and took a position near her friend as Izel took a running jump right into the water, leaving hardly a ripple as she cut smoothly through the surface and disappeared. The others followed with varying levels of grace, and before long the disturbance on the water settled, leaving the watchers free to try and track the others’ progress through the murky water, squinting as the shadowed figures disappeared into darkness.

All seemed calm. The lake was as still as glass, but much less revealing.

“Hey.” One of the Nagual broke the silence in sudden recognition. “You’re one of the GMs, aren’t you? I thought you said this was just an aesthetic bug. What’s going on with all the NPCs? I was trying to get some healing herbs and the lady just went screaming out of her corner and knocked me over on her way out of the city.”

“Oh, right.” Frankie sheepishly laughed, “Uh, turns out it was more than aesthetic. A prototype patch was sent out automatically by the system that no one approved. It was an AI overhaul that was to debut with that ‘Endless Night’ quest everyone got on their journal.”

“Well, when is it going to be fixed?”

“After we finish the Endless Night quest. We don’t want to shut down the servers or go back two patches now. If we complete the quest, the AI overhaul will disable and everything will go back to normal.”

“Mm, that doesn’t sound like proper computer science…”

“There’s a lot going on over here and if I sit here to give you the entire spiel you’d believe me even less. Point is, this girl right here is the only one who has the quest and we gotta finish it.” Tepin jabbed her club towards Lilly, “There’s more than water demons going our way. You can doubt my explanations all you want or you can jump in to play an alpha version of a world-event quest.”

And who could argue with that? There were a few grumblings and mutterings of course, but nobody really wanted to be denied the chance to get in on the ground floor of a new quest. A few curious glances were shot Lilly’s way, not just because she was the only one with the quest, but because by now she was sitting on her heels looking straight down into the water, frowning thoughtfully. A few players near her glanced down as well, but it was as dark as ever. In fact, there was no indication at all of where the others were, or if they were doing alright, or if they had any intention of coming back. The silence stretched to the edge of uncomfortable.

“One more question,” said a giant suddenly. “Why’s she the only one with the-”

The lake seemed to boil. Lilly fell back with a start, and the giants immediately readied their clubs in preparation for another attack. Yahui and Nagual heads broke the surface all at once, gasping as they paddled back to the edge.

“There’s a bunch of them,” Izel wheezed, less from the lack of oxygen and more from all the fighting. “We tried to get as far as we could but it’s way too dark.”

“None of our illumination spells are working either. The darkness just sucks them up and they disappear.”

“Didn’t you reach the lights?” Lilly asked innocently. Izel and a few others stared at her as if she’d grown a second head.

“What’re you talking about, I just said it’s pitch-black down there. What lights?”

She seemed surprised and pointed towards where she had been looking. “There. There’s a lot of them. Little ones.”

As others leaned over her, she tried to show them that, from her point of view, the lowest and darkest portion of the lake looked as if it was filled with stars, a reflection of the night sky if the sky itself hadn’t been completely overcast at the moment. But from their point of view, they couldn’t see a thing.

“That must be part of the quest. She’s seeing something we can’t.” Tepin knelt beside her, trying to catch sight of what Lilly was talking about, “Hm. How far down is it, Lilly? Do you think you can swim down there without your avatar running out of breath?”

“I don’t think so… they’re very deep down.”

“I can help. Stay still so I can click you and channel it.” The Nagual sorcerer stepped up again. He placed his hand on her forehead, “Cast ‘Temporary Gills Three’.”

That familiar flash of light took over her body again. It traveled from the palm of his hand to the depth of her chest, granting her avatar a steady breath underwater. “That should give you five minutes down there, just as long as the others.”

“I’ll cut your need for it, giant style.” Tepin hauled Lilly over her shoulder without warning, ignoring the startled squeak, and stepped into the waters, “Alright, point in the direction of the light and I’ll Babe-Ruth you down there as far as I can. Izel-babe, hop on, you know the drill.”

“Just don’t slam us into the lake-bed, Muscles.” The Yahui scrambled up her side until she was perched on Tepin’s arm, grinning down at Lilly. “Nice weather up here, eh? Now, where are they?”

“Ahhh… oh, there!”

“HOLD on.” Tepin had to readjust her grip to keep the girl from falling right into the water from the enthusiastic force of her own pointing and peered along her arm. “There?”

“Yes, there there, it’s the closest one.”

“Got it.”

Tepin leaped into the air and plunged into the dark waters. A powerful kick propelled them all deeper in the direction of the outstretched arm. Izel quickly latched onto Lilly, holding on tight as Tepin pulled them back and flung them with all the force of a submarine torpedo, before quickly directing herself back to the surface before she ran out of air. The others shot down, down into the gloom that deepened and closed in around them as they tried to keep up with Lilly and Izel’s momentum, but it soon became so dark that they could only hope they were still continuing in the same direction.

The star twinkled as they got closer. Only, the more she looked at it, she realized it wasn’t really twinkling, but fluttering. And it wasn’t a bright point of light but-

A butterfly underwater?

It didn’t seem bothered by the water at all, though it fluttered in place as if it wasn’t very sure where it was supposed to go, beautiful and bright, very bright in fact, its wings a shimmering sunlight gold that somehow couldn’t seem to pierce the darkness. Lilly swam closer and hesitantly reached out to touch it.

It was warm. She instinctively, gently, cupped her hands around it and her palms turned into a pool of gold before a ray of light shot out between her fingers, leaving her blinking away after-images. Everything seemed just a touch lighter. The butterfly was gone.

Oh. Oh.

Hoping she had the right idea, and ignoring Izel’s what was that expression, she quickly kicked out towards the next fluttering point of light, reaching out to catch it carefully. And another, and she could finally see more than the barest outlines of her companions. This was exciting! She was practically breathless with excitement!

Or she was just running out of breath. She looked up worriedly, trying to gauge just how far they were from the surface. They hadn’t even found the source yet. How much deeper would they even have to go? Izel nudged her, breaking her worried reverie, and gestured downwards and a little ahead of them. There, in the newly returned half-light, looked like a cave entrance. She seemed to judge it close enough that exploring it as an option would make no difference to their already minimal oxygen reserves, so the Yahui urged the group to follow her, swimming swiftly into the opening and gesturing again with more excitement as the water seemed to lighten significantly. They followed as fast they could, angling up until they broke the surface.

The cavern was much larger than they had expected, but that was for the best. There was more space for them to crawl out onto relatively dry land and pull air back into their lungs. One by one, Yahui and Nagual alike sprawled out on the cavern floor, trying to recuperate some stamina. Again, the high-level sorcerer approached Lilly and Izel.

“I guess I should introduce myself,” He gave them a bow, “I’m Juul, Sorcerer under Tlaloc’s domain.”

“That’s the rain god, Lilly.”

“Yeah, I liked the spells available to you under his guidance. Are you guys heading in there?”

“In where?” Izel turned, “I don’t remember anyone working on that.”

Behind them, settled tightly between the cavern walls, rested an ancient temple. A soft flare from the lake moss illuminated the cavern and the sea itself reflected an aurora of blues across its rocky walls. And yet, the temple stood in a golden tarnish.

Centuries had worn at the artistry of the stone temple, washing away what was once mighty back into the lake. And what had survived the blade of the water’s crash, would instead find itself at the mercy of the lively, hungry critters that had made the temple their home. Algae and moss rounded the hard corners of the temple. Streams of fresh water ran down its columns. Its destruction and survival culminated into a masterpiece of what once was and what it is. In the center of this lovely, stone shell was a grand door bearing the grace of a serene maiden. And right in front of it, fluttering in a sunlit glow only Lilly could see, was another one of those mysterious butterflies.

“That’s where we need to go!” Lilly pointed at thin air, “I see another light. Let me just-”

A familiar screech rang through the cavern.

“They’ve respawned.” Juul hissed. He whipped back toward the waters. A turbulent whirlpool roared underneath. “We’ll hold the front. Go.”

“Godspeed, you water-elf you.” Izel saluted. She grabbed Lilly’s hand and jolted up the massive steps toward the temple entrance.

The butterfly wisp vanished at the touch of Lilly’s fingers. Golden shimmering rivers flowed down her palm, dancing into the cracks of the rounded door. Slowly they seeped into the lips and eyes of the stone maiden and in a spectacular gleam, woke her from her ancient slumber. Two orbs of white light stared at them, thinking. Waking.

“Enter, those who wish.” Her voice echoed across the cavern, seeming to come from everywhere at once. “But beware of The Guardian. Tlalocan is only for the worthy.”

Her eyelids fell back into everlasting sleep. A chime rang. That particular wind, the kind that was all too familiar to Lilly, gave way to the stone door. A message appeared.

You have found the Temple of the Guardian.

Proceed?