[Debby pov]
Debborah was bored, her ratmen swarm were frolicking on the deck, playing volleyball with an inflated puffer fish she found in one of the cabins was challenging only in the first ten minutes and then the system took over and put in the idle routine that never missed a pass and allways hit their spot.
One of her Ratmen was fishing when he saw the pod of killer whales playing in the water at the lagoon's entryway, she couldn't let them off her mind and soon a whole swarm of Ratmen were standing by the rails and looking at the orcas, thats when the idea hit her to try and play as one of them.
She used her ratmen to lower one of the boat and row it in the direction of the jumping sea kings, when she got halfway to the pod a new ship appeared on the horizon, it was obviously a warship and her speen and direction left no questions about her intended prey.
Debby decided to push for it, making her Ratmen row harder towards the unsuspecting creatures to try and reach them before their intended killers hit them. As the boat came among the ships' would be victims and Debborah jumped into the water, never noticing the ship has changed its course.
She was sinking and her fur got soaked, bubbles came out of her nose when she fealt something bump into her, reaching for it she felt the slick skin of the giant fish and immediately pushed her conciouseness into it.
The sensation was weird, she never fealt like this before, it wasnt really cold or wet, but the water were gliding over her skin as she pushed the big rodent out of the water and took a deep breath, the rat tried to claw her but she pushed it away and its idle routine made it swim back to the boat.
She could feel the danger from the two ships as they were closing the distance between them but the creature she was in didn't seem to care, it was more intent on swimming around with its pod and the idle routines combined with the whole new enviroment and sensations overwhelmed her.
She took a deep breath but the reaction she got was that her body shot out of the water in a spectacular leap and when she breathed out she found herself diving in a mind numbing speed.
All her reflexes and reactions were messed up, trying to look around made her spin in the water, stopping got her to flip in place, turning right had her swimming in a circle and moving left just changed the direction of her spinning.
Feeling sick and dizzy Debborah decided to take a different approach, she laid back mentally and let the idle routines play themselves out, the monster got back to its family and they were all just playing in the water.
They all turned as one when food entered their range of smell, a pack of sharks was drawn to the battle where the system knew blood will soon be spilled, the big whales were gliding through the water and forming a wedge, Debby was fascinated by the animation and sophistication of the idle routines, diving below the school of sharks the Orcas then changed direction and attacked the predator fish from below, and then one of the sharks was isolated and pushed away from its group, it didnt take five minutes from when she identified before the Orca she was in took a bite from a dead shark.
The Orcas killed a dozen sharks when she heard a blast in the distance, taking control over the body she let the routines do most of the work while gently guiding it to the surface, looking towards the two ships she saw the Ratmen boat hitched to the attacking ship and the humanoid creatures climbing onto the ship.
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She saw the Odacious sinking and the captain taken off and hung from the mast of Devastacious, her concentration broke when she realised she was getting to close to the players and took a dive before they could see her, seeing the Odacious sinking hit her harder than she thought an animated constract ever could, she remembered playing on it deck, and walking around the holds, swarming and evolving, it was the best day of her life since she became a NPC and now it was drifting to the bottom of the sea.
Following the sinking ship a slight movement caught her eye and she saw the statue of Odacious' prow straining and guiding the ship forward, Debborah got closer and when she saw the ship was trying to move she pushed it a little, but the it was ten times her size and the ship barely budged.
Aiming her orca to push she hopped to another orca and overriden its idle routine to help pushing, jumping from whale to whale she got about half a dozen of them to do as she wanted before the first tried to swim away and she discovered her limit for this particular swarm, but half a dozen of the big creatures were enough to make a difference and they pushed the ship in the water, with the ship's NPC guiding them they were getting closer to the cliffs surrounding the lagoon.
Her senses of pressure and currents told her there was something pulling them along, an underground cave loomed before her and the ship was pulling away from her pod, getting distracted had given the other orcas time to resume their idle routines but they kept following their new big friend into the cave.
[MC pov]
Blisters covered his face, a player payed money to have a scorching heat effect active on an NPC, his tongue was dry and swollen, his skin red and peeling, he was swaying in the wind, the ship anchored where the battle was fought.
The native village that sprawled from the jungle to the beach where most the other NPCs turned to natives when given the chance to try and hide from the players, it still didnt spare them from the abuse.
The ratmen that plagued the Devastacious were all idle, playing around and obeying orders with no guiding hand, at one time he saw a group of them playing catch with the head of a native but all the motions were perfect and flawless, so he knew it wasn't some sick joke Debborah played on the other NPCs, she was gone and he didnt want to know where to.
Slom took it all in, trying not to think about the ship he lost, some of the Players here knew about active NPCs and were abusing that knowlege while others just came for the adventure and new island with unknown quests. He was confused, he figured the ratgirl lead them here somehow, and he guessed some of the Players were actually fishermen characters of NPCs that joined the ride to mess with their inmates though he couldn't understand why, except for the two NPCs that came back from the emergency evacuation he pulled on the torturers, none of it made sense and his blockers were tasked to their max to mitigate the burning sensation on his skin and turning it to a very annoying itch.
Villagers were brought in by boats, they were asked to sing and dance and perform all sorts of menial tasks around the ship, it was just another abuse of the system by the few who knew about the inner works of 'ai' in VRG.
After a few hours dangling from the mast 210m thought his shift would end soon and he could simply log ib to another instance for his next shift, the captain will die or be contracted out and he wouldn't have to suffer for credits he didn't even want.
As the sun moved lower in the sky he noticed that most players got bored or didn't care about pirate scenarios and either went to the village and island to explore, logged off or changed instance to something they preferred.
He realized that the pityful fight and no resistance given made the whole thing boring to most players and that left only the hardcore sailors and the crazy torturers on the ship.
Slom was abruptly dropped to the deck below and he could feel bones in his feet and calves creak as he hit the hard wood.
"Thought we forgot about you?" A brown haired big muscled man picked him up with the hook they used to haul him, just saved you for dessert, captain"
"You won't get anything from me" the idle response came bfore he could resist.
"There is literaly nothing for you to give except screams" the big man dragged him to the dark corridors below.
A ship moved along hidden currents with no hands on deck, her captain was captured and they were both carried into dark places below the waves of a quiet lagoon.