"The best game is the one you never finish. Victory binds you to an end, but to play is to be free of all ends."
— The Tao of Idleness, Book 6, Verse 11.
The door creaked unnecessarily loudly as I followed behind Lia. However, before I could offer the proprietor some thoughtful WD40 tips, I was immediately hit by the strongest wave of weirdness I’d ever experienced. And when you remember what’s been going on for the last twenty-four hours, this is the highest of high bars. There’s no other way to describe it. One minute, everything was just the typical background doom and gloom I’d become accustomed to in this village, although the musty smell of this particularly decrepit building was bothering my nose, and the next . . . boy, did it all change.
With a snap, gone were the cracked windows, the sagging walls, and the sense that the whole place was about to fall apart. Instead, the world around me span, whirled and then resolved itself with a strange, overly bright glow, as though someone had upped the saturation levels to 11. Colours were suddenly far too vibrant, the lines of the room too crisp, and everything had taken on a plasticky, cartoony feel. Then the walls straightened out, the light took on a static quality like it had been copy-pasted in, and even the grime on the floors became a sort of… neat mess?
I did my best to figure out what was going on – honestly, I did - but my thoughts simply wouldn’t come together properly. It was like trying to grasp a bar of soap in a hot shower—slippery and impossible to hold onto. I cannot possibly imagine why, but that visual made me immediately look towards my companion.
“Lia?” I asked, though my voice wouldn’t carry properly. It sounded entirely flat and emotionless. Somehow, though, and I recognise I probably should have led with this, it being the more viscerally noticeable thing, maybe, was that that a big, blocky speech bubble appeared above my head.
> James: Lia?
But Lia didn’t respond. In fact, I’m going to be honest, she didn’t even seem to be Lia anymore. Her avatar—because that’s manifestly what she had transformed into – was a clear-cut, brightly coloured series of joined-together cubes of potentially Scandinavian origin (because even safe in another world, I don’t need no copyright hassle from that quarter). Blocky Lia totally ignored the incongruity of her transformation and marched straight across the room toward a similarly blocky shadowy figure in the corner.
That figure wasn’t moving, and for a moment, I had this crazy, outlandish thought that maybe it was some sort of NPC Quest Giver just waiting to interact with the main characters. Which, as it turned out – who knew - was exactly right.
What
The
Fuck?
Idle XP Gains: +15 XP for entering the room.
Dismissing the notification was no help, as my eyes were immediately bombarded by floating icons and numbers. Up in the corner of my vision, a progress bar labelled “Alchemist Quest: Obtain the Location” popped up, with a neat, shiny little marker indicating 0% progress. Next to it was a floating timer, counting down from ten minutes.
“Lia?” I tried again, “Buttercup. Boss? Can you hear me at all?” but once more, the words just floated above my head in a speech bubble before dissipating. I doubt Lia even realised they were there.
To watch another live is to sip tea that isn’t yours. It quenches nothing and leaves you thirsting for your own cup.
Really, Great Slacker? This is an appropriate moment for our first training opportunity, is it? Is it you turning everything into a fucking Idle Game!
All of life is training, but not all lessons are worth learning. The wise take only what they need and leave the rest to idle.
Yeah, not in the mood for your bollocks right now, mate. This is fucking freaky! What’s going on?!
No answer. The thing is, I don’t know if I’m arguing with the all-powerful entity I was currently choosing to think of as The Great Slacker, or if I was just shouting at random quotations from a book I had in my inventory. And what’s really frying my noodle is that I’m not wholly sure they’re not the same thing.
Meanwhile, oblivious to my existential crisis, Lia walked right up to the shadowy figure in the corner, and as soon as she reached him, a set of floating options appeared in the air, each one neatly arranged like a menu.
> Dialogue Options:
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1. Inquire About the Alchemist
2. Ask About Payment
3. Threaten for Information
Without a moment’s pause, the Lia-avatar selected the first option, and it suddenly glowed bright green. The NPC Quest Giver responded with stilted, automated movements. Its dialogue rolled out above its head for me to read.
> Lia’s Contact: [Party Title Pre-Requisite Met] “The Alchemist’s whereabouts are known only to a select few. However. I can offer you a clue… for a price.”
“Dude, what exactly is supposed to be my takeaway from all this right now? That all of life is just a fucking crappy video game for you, and we’re your characters? Is that my ultimate go-to here? Because there are other ways of communication available that don’t need you to fuck up my perception of reality.”
This time when it spoke, the voice felt less ‘Fortune Cookie’ wisdom and more ‘pissed off supplier teacher’. Reality is a funny old thing, grasshopper. The ‘point’ of this, as you put it, is that it would be helpful to me for you to recognise that what you think of as ‘real’, rarely is. Why, just yesterday, I saw a young man make a string of unlikely, yet hugely fortunate, choices—and he came so close to dodging a speeding delivery van. And yet . . . splat. It turns out near misses aren’t the same as victories. Who knew? However, don’t mistake this as a lesson I’m trying to force on you. I’m not in the business of making life easy, nor am I the source of all the crap you stumble into. Believe it or not, I’m actually seeking to help you prepare for what is coming—but you need to stop expecting me to solve everything for you.
Well, that’s me told.
And there was a pretty final note to that last line, after which I felt The Great Slacker - if that was who it was - fade away. I wanted to think about what he had said a little more, but Lia and the NPC were now fully into their conversation, and I couldn’t concentrate on two things at once. I watched the conversation play out, completely unable to do anything about it. It was like I was just a spectator in my own life—watching someone else play the game. Which, now I say it, seemed to be what The Great Slacker had been getting at.
> Idle XP Gains: +10 XP for observing.
I tried to move, to step forward, to wave my hands in front of Lia’s face, but my body didn’t respond. I couldn’t do anything except stand there, motionless, while the “interaction” continued without me. It was as though my feet were glued to the floor, my limbs held by invisible strings.
> Dialogue Options:
1. Offer Gold for Information
2. Intimidate the Shadowy Figure
3. Agree to Terms Without Question
Blocky Lia demonstrated that she was ‘my’ Lia by not even pausing before choosing the second option. She leaned forward, her character model slightly glitching as it entered into a scripted “intimidation” pose. Her face hardened, but there was no real menace behind it. It was all… a little too yellow and polished
> Lia: “You’d better give me the information or I’ll see just how far your shadows stretch.”
It wasn’t one of her better lines, but it appeared to be just the ticket in this weird, artificial environment. The NPC shuddered slightly, and a new bit of dialogue popped up.
> Lia’s Contact: “Very well. You’ll find the Alchemist in the woods beyond this village. But beware… he is not what he seems.”
With that, our Progress shot up to 50% on the Quest Bar. Great. Halfway there, and I hadn’t done a damn thing.
> Idle XP Gains: +20 XP for intimidation success.
The timer was ticking down faster now, though. Only six minutes left on the clock. And I still couldn’t move, still couldn’t speak, and still couldn’t impact the interaction playing out in front of me. It was maddening. It felt like I’d been reduced to a glorified background character in my own story, completely passive, while the actual action took place without me.
“This is some next-level bullshit,” I said, watching Lia’s next set of dialogue options pop up.
> Dialogue Options:
1. Demand More Information
2. Accept the Clue
3. Offer Assistance to the Shadowy Figure
She picked the first one again because, of course, she did.
>Lia: “Enough games. Tell us where exactly in the woods this Alchemist is hiding
or you won’t like the consequences.”
The NPC hesitated for a moment—its outline flickering slightly, like a bad rendering—and then, with a defeated shrug, it handed over the final bit of information.
> Lia’s Contact: “Fine. You’ll find him in the clearing by the old well. But be careful… the Alchemist has allies in high places.”
The Quest Bar shot up to 100%, and a satisfying ding echoed through the room. The timer stopped, and the whole interaction came to an abrupt end, the NPC Quest Giver fading back into the background as though it had never been there at all.
Quest Complete: Location of the Alchemist obtained!
Rewards: 300 XP, 50 Gold, Cloak of Minor Shadows (+2 Agility)
The rewards appeared in my inventory without any ado.
Idle XP Gains: +30 XP for completing a quest while doing nothing.
As Lia turned to leave, I felt the invisible strings around me loosen, and suddenly, I could move again. The world snapped back into place, the bright, cartoonish colours fading, and the oppressive atmosphere of the village settling back in. Ah, welcome back.
“Let’s go,” Lia said, as if nothing weird had just happened. “We have the information. Time to finish the job.”
And then I heard that voice again.
We are all just characters in someone else’s game. Winning may be an illusion, but to not lose? Ah, that is the true art. Be seeing you soon.
Awesome.