The first sign something was wrong was the quest marker floating above my head.
I blinked, trying to clear my vision, but the soft blue glow persisted like a digital halo. My hands trembled as I reached up to touch it, but my fingers passed through empty air. The marker stayed fixed, hovering exactly where a standard NPC quest indicator would be in Erethon Online.
Which was impossible, because I wasn't an NPC. I was Kael Varin, senior bug tester for Erethon's latest expansion. Less than twenty-four hours ago, I'd been hunched over my desk, running through the final checks on the new corruption mechanics. Three energy drinks deep, bleary-eyed, but determined to finish before the weekend deadline.
"Just one more test," I'd told my team lead. "Something feels off about the spawn rates in high-corruption zones."
I remembered clicking the test server login, remembered the loading screen, and then... darkness. Now here I was, standing in what appeared to be the village square of Eldermark, one of the starting zones I'd helped design. Except I wasn't looking at it through a monitor anymore. I was in it.
The square bustled with NPCs going about their programmed routines. A blacksmith hammered away at his anvil, the rhythmic clanging punctuated by the occasional hiss of hot metal in water. Two women argued over the price of bread at the baker's stall, their conversation loops slightly out of sync. A group of children chased each other between market stalls, their laughter following predetermined patterns I'd reviewed dozens of times in the animation queue.
Everything looked exactly as it should, down to the last detail. The weathered cobblestones, the thatched roofs with their curling smoke, the massive oak tree in the center of the square with its gnarled branches reaching toward the sky. All perfect, all exactly to specification.
Except for me. I didn't belong here.
I tried opening my status screen again, the reflexive double-tap that every player knew. Nothing happened. I tried again, more forcefully this time.
`Error: Access Denied. NPC entities cannot view player menus.`
The message flashed in my vision, red and accusatory. My heart rate spiked, though I wasn't sure how I could even have a heart rate in what had to be a digital space. I tried every other command I could think of: inventory, skills, settings, even the developer console I'd used countless times during testing.
`Error: Access Denied.`
`Error: Access Denied.`
`Error: Access Denied.`
Each failure sent another jolt of panic through me. I knew this system inside and out. I'd spent three years testing every corner of it, documenting bugs, suggesting improvements. Hell, I'd written half the documentation for the new corruption mechanics. And now I was locked out, trapped in a role I'd only ever observed from the other side.
"Hey, quest-giver! What rewards do you have for me today?"
The voice hit me like a bucket of ice water. A player—clearly a newer one based on his basic leather armor—stood before me, hand on the hilt of his sword. His username floated above his head: XxDragonSlayerxX. Level 6. One of countless new players who'd started in Eldermark, looking to make their mark on the world.
He was looking at me expectantly, the way millions of players had looked at thousands of NPCs before. Waiting for the quest prompt. Waiting for his chance at loot and experience.
This isn't happening.
"Hello? Anyone home?" The player waved his hand in front of my face. "Great, a bugged NPC. Just my luck. Hey guys, this one's broken!" He called out to a group of players gathering near the tavern.
I opened my mouth to tell him I wasn't an NPC, that something had gone terribly wrong, but different words spilled out instead:
"Greetings, traveler. Eldermark needs your aid."
What the hell? I hadn't meant to say that. The words had simply... happened, like a script running on autopilot. A chill ran down my spine as I realized the system was trying to force me into my assigned role.
But it wasn't a perfect fit. I could feel the edges where the script ended, places where my own consciousness could slip through. The player was still waiting, his impatience obvious in his shifting stance and tapping foot. Behind him, I noticed more players starting to take interest. This was exactly what I didn't need—attention.
The village elder, Miriam, passed by with her usual slight limp. She gave me an odd look, one that seemed to carry more awareness than an NPC should possess. Was I imagining things, or did she hesitate slightly, breaking her usual patrol pattern?
I decided to test a theory.
"Our village faces a grave threat," I continued, intentionally pushing against the standard quest-giver format. "But before I tell you more, you should know that the reward might not be what you expect."
The player's eyes lit up at the word 'reward.' Of course they did. I'd seen that look a thousand times while testing quest chains. "What kind of reward are we talking about? Rare gear? Unique skills?" He turned to his friends by the tavern. "Guys! This might be one of those hidden quests we heard about!"
More players started drifting over. Just what I needed—an audience for my first attempt at whatever this was.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
A menu appeared in my peripheral vision—a quest creation interface I'd only ever seen in the developer tools. Options and parameters floated in a semi-transparent display, waiting for my input. I recognized the layout; I'd used a similar interface during testing, but this was different. More limited in some ways, more flexible in others.
Well, this is new.
I focused on the interface, willing it to accept my commands. The menu responded, text and options shifting as I concentrated. This was definitely not standard NPC behavior. Whatever had happened during the crash had given me access to systems I shouldn't have.
In the distance, beyond the village's eastern wall, I could see the corruption zone I'd been testing before everything went wrong. The air there shimmered with an unnatural purple haze, and the trees seemed to twist in ways that denied natural geometry. We'd designed it to be subtle at first, a creeping wrongness that players might not notice until it was too late.
"The corruption spreads from the forest," I said, watching my words appear in the quest description field. "Clear the eastern woods of corrupted wolves, and you'll receive..."
I hesitated. What could I actually offer? I had no inventory, no way to generate items. But the interface showed other options: experience multipliers, faction reputation, even minor environmental effects. I remembered coding these features, adding them to the test system for future content patches. They weren't supposed to be accessible yet.
"...you'll receive a unique buff that increases experience gain in corruption zones by 30% for 24 hours."
The player's eyes narrowed. "Never heard of a buff like that before. You sure this quest isn't bugged?"
"Absolutely certain." I wasn't. I had no idea if I could actually deliver on that promise, but I needed to test my capabilities. "Do you accept?"
`Quest Created: Cleansing the Eastern Woods
- Slay 10 corrupted wolves
- Return to Kael in Eldermark
Reward: 30% bonus experience in corruption zones (24 hours)
Accept? Y/N`
The player turned to his friends. "What do you think? Could be a new feature they're testing."
If you only knew.
"Take it!" one of them shouted. "That buff could be huge for leveling!"
The player shrugged and turned back to me. "Sure, why not? Worst case, it's bugged and I submit a ticket."
The moment he accepted, I felt a strange connection form—a thin thread of data linking me to both the player and the designated quest area. I could sense the eastern woods, could almost see the spawn points where corrupted wolves would appear. More than that, I could feel the corruption itself, a writhing wrongness in the code that we'd never intended.
During testing, we'd designed the corruption to be subtle—a creeping darkness that would slowly twist the game world. Purple mists that would curl around trees, shadows that moved against the light, ambient sounds that played just slightly out of sync. But what I sensed now was different. The corruption had evolved, becoming something almost alive. Through my newfound connection to the game systems, I could feel it pulsing, spreading, learning.
The test parameters I'd been reviewing before the crash had been measuring corruption spread rates, trying to find the right balance for player progression. I'd noticed anomalies in the data—spawn rates increasing exponentially, mob behaviors becoming more complex, corruption zones expanding faster than our algorithms predicted. I'd been trying to patch those issues when everything went dark.
Those numbers hadn't just been wrong. They'd been warnings.
A cold wind blew from the east, carrying the sickly-sweet scent of decaying vegetation. That was new—we hadn't programmed scent responses into the game. The corruption was adding its own features now, twisting the world in ways we'd never intended. In the distance, I could see trees bending at impossible angles, their branches reaching toward the ground like grasping fingers. The purple haze that marked corruption zones seemed thicker than in testing, almost solid in places.
The player turned to leave, but I felt a sudden surge of panic. "Wait!" The script tried to force more generic dialogue, but I pushed through it. My own voice sounded strange to me now, a mix of NPC dialogue constraints and genuine fear. "The wolves are stronger near the heart of the corruption. You should—"
"Yeah, yeah, stick to the edges, work my way in, standard stuff." He waved dismissively and jogged toward the woods. "Been playing MMOs for years, I think I can handle some low-level wolves." His confidence was painful to watch—I'd had that same attitude during early testing, before we understood what the corruption could do.
His friends followed, already discussing how they'd split the experience and any loot that dropped. They had no idea what they were walking into. Through our connection, I could sense the player approaching the first spawn point. The wolves there were supposed to be level 5, but the corruption had twisted them. Their actual level...
I accessed the spawn data through my quest-giver interface, and for a moment, the numbers seemed to scramble before my eyes. The wolves' stats were fluctuating wildly—level 5 one moment, level 20 the next, then jumping to numbers that didn't make sense in the game's progression system. The corruption wasn't just strengthening them; it was breaking the very rules that governed their existence.
Oh no.
"Wait!" I shouted again, my voice cracking as I fought against the NPC dialogue restrictions. "They're not—"
A scream echoed from the woods, cut short by a wet growl. The quest connection severed with a sharp mental snap that made me stagger, sending waves of feedback through my digital nervous system. More screams followed as the player's friends encountered what remained of the spawn. In the village square, other players and NPCs turned toward the sound.
The death notification appeared in my vision, but it was wrong. Instead of the standard text, the message was corrupted, glitching between different fonts and colors:
`Qu͠est Faile̕d: P̨layer death̕
W̕arning: Qu͢est param͡eters ou͞tside acceptable difficulty range
System notification: Irregularity detected in Quest-Giver Entity "Kael"
System notification: Correction protocol initiated`
Red lights flashed in my vision as klaxons began to sound throughout the village. The sound pierced through every corner of Eldermark, a wailing digital shriek that wasn't supposed to exist in the game's audio files. In the distance, a dark shape appeared in the sky, mechanical and precise in its movements. A system enforcer, coming to investigate the irregularity.
Coming to investigate me.
The village erupted into chaos. Players scrambled in every direction, some drawing weapons while others fled toward the tavern or the city gates. The NPCs' reactions were even more disturbing—their usual behavior patterns shattered, leaving them spinning in place or walking into walls. Some froze completely, their models twitching as the system tried to determine appropriate responses to an unprecedented situation.
The blacksmith's hammer clattered to the ground mid-swing. The arguing women at the baker's stall stopped mid-sentence, their dialogue trees crashing. The children's laughter cut off with an electronic stutter that made my virtual skin crawl. Everything I'd helped program, everything I'd tested and refined, was coming apart at the seams.
Through it all, the village elder, Miriam, moved with purpose. This time, I was certain her look carried meaning. She gestured subtly toward the old well behind the blacksmith's shop, her movement too precise to be part of her normal routine. For a moment, her model flickered, revealing lines of code underneath—code that was far more complex than any standard NPC should have.
I had about thirty seconds to figure out what an NPC with partial developer access could do to survive an encounter with the system's automated defenses. The enforcer was getting closer, its form becoming clearer against the darkening sky. We'd designed them to be intimidating—nine feet of floating chrome and pulsing energy, armed with correction protocols that could rewrite or delete any anomalous code they encountered.
I'd helped create them. Now one was coming to erase me.
Around me, the village square had become a snapshot of digital panic. Players shouted warnings in chat, their messages appearing as glitched fragments in my vision. NPCs continued to malfunction, their behaviors degrading further as the system struggled to process the escalating chaos. The corruption in the east seemed to pulse stronger, as if sensing the disruption.
Above me, the quest marker flickered and changed color. The transformation wasn't instant—I watched as the blue light sputtered and sparked, cycling through various error states before settling on its final hue.
It was no longer blue.
It was blood red.
And in that moment, as the enforcer's shadow fell over Eldermark, I realized something that made my digital blood run cold: I wasn't just a bug in the system.
I was a feature that was never supposed to exist.
To be continued...
--
*Thanks for reading Chapter 1 of The Broken NPC!*
What do you think of Kael’s first steps as a quest-giver? How do you think he’ll deal with the enforcer? Let me know in the comments—I’d love to hear your theories!
Next Chapter:
Kael faces the enforcer head-on while learning more about his mysterious new powers. Can he outsmart the system’s ultimate correction protocol, or is deletion inevitable?
If you’re enjoying the story, don’t forget to:
- *Follow* to stay updated.
- Add to your *Favorites* to help more readers find this adventure!
--