carl@fire

But only for a moment. That's actually pretty cool. I'll admit it. Grudgingly. Making her flip out over being called an NPC is a nice touch. Still, I really thought we didn't have any like her. Or a tutorial like this, for that matter. I always play with dev mode on which disables a lot of this stuff, but I feel like Bobby would've at least complained in passing if we had something like this slowing down getting into… Oops, I should probably speed this up since I was just planning to only fish for a little while. "You're not an NPC?" he asked, trying to play along and get into game faster.

A trace of smoke billowed out of the girl's slightly upturned nose, and her glare intensified as the skin all over her body became a dark shade of red. "I am not NPC, mortal," she snarled as her hand tightened around his neck. "I am Ir'alith!" Her claw edged closer to his eye.

"Right, right," Carl said soothingly, unfazed by either the hand that would've been cutting off his air supply if he wasn't in a virtual reality game, or by the other hand which would've almost been poking his eyeball. "Of course you are." He patted the hand that was still holding him aloft, giving his most reassuring, fatherly smile—the same one he used when Bobby caught him zoning out while she was trying to explain to him about the latest boss she'd killed in-game with her guild. "I'm sorry, Iralith, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." Move it along, or I'm going to move it along. It's actually starting to feel sort of like the kind of thing Linda would write, now that I think of it. Still not regretting skipping—

Iralith frowned up at him. "Ir'alith," she said, her voice back to a more recognizably upset tone now that the post-processing on her audio track had ended. The hand by his eye slowly dropped at the same time that her skin color changed to a lighter shade of blue than it had previously been.

"Ir'alith," Carl corrected himself. Yup, definitely Linda. "I think we just had a little misunderstanding about what that, uh, acronym meant is all, Ir'alith." She does do good work, I just don't understand why they'd let her put something like this in.

"You are a strange one," Ir'alith remarked after another moment, her glare changing to an unreadable expression with her dainty brows lowered. Her eye color gradually reverted to a placid shade of light green, and her tail's heart-shaped tip perched over her left shoulder.

She set him down, then stared into his eyes briefly before spinning in place on feet which seemed to actually be stiletto heels. She crossed her arms, and her tail lashed back and forth on the floor behind her. "I… I accept your apology," she said briskly. After a moment's pause in which she tipped her head from side to side, she added, "You are able leave here on your own if you wish."

It was Carl's turn to frown. Not much of a tutorial. He wrestled with his options. I may as well try to see some of it since I've already found this Easter egg NPC. It has to be that, or there's no way it could've snuck in with all this custom artwork. And if it's Linda writing this then this NPC is probably set to sulk until I ask… "Alright, alright," he said, scratching his beard. "Ir'alith, would you like to tell me a little about the world before I go?"

Ir'alith snorted. "The world? Eden?" she said in a mocking voice that seemed to echo more than it should have. She shook her head, causing her long, purple hair to sway from side to side across her mostly-uncovered back. "What could I possibly tell you that the bitch who sent you has not already?" She struck out with her foot against the desk, shattering it into tiny pieces from the impact and then into dust when the pieces struck the wall. The desk immediately re-formed in place from the dust it had become, looking exactly as it had. "She has already taunted me enough about the three heroes and the other chosen ones she sent here. I suppose I should be grateful that one of you manages to hold back. Uncountable years of humiliation, and finally…"

Carl zoned out. Linda, this is a bit much for a teen-rated game, even if it's just an Easter egg. I know that's your "thing", but was New Era really supposed to be so edgy? How did I not know this? I'll have to have a talk with Bobby when I get home and make sure she's not in over her head. A thirteen year-old may be a teenager, but there's a reason why games with this type of content have a mature content warning. I'll raise this with management, too. How could they let something like this slip by? We could get sued into oblivion!

"…me, Ir'alith—the Demon Queen," Ir'alith continued in a haughty tone, tapping a heel repeatedly against the white floor, "and now I am compelled to behave like a—"

"Hold on," Carl interrupted, raising his eyebrows. Pretty sure that was going way too far. That's another one for the list. Linda, you can't be writing this kind of thing for a game that kids play! Unless… He paused, struggling to recall bits of the tirade. "Who did you say trapped you in here?"

"Lucia," Ir'alith snarled. "As I said, she tricked—"

"Keyboard," Carl called, his hand out to move it up into place when it materialized too low like it always did. "That's like, Lucia with a C?" He checked his screen's session to ensure that it hadn't timed out before typing a quick query into his still-open, read-only database prompt. "She have a last name?"

"A goddess has no last name," Ir'alith said with a sardonic laugh. She turned her head over her shoulder then turned completely around to face him and stared with an expression of shock on her face as she looked between the keyboard and the console he was reading from. "What manner of—"

"And you're Ir'alith, also no last name, I take it, which probably narrows it down," Carl said to himself, running a joined query across multiple tables.

Name: Ir'alith

Pronouns: She/Her

Title: Demon Queen

Location: White Room

Last Login: 0

Recall: Disabled

Recall Location: Throne of Darkness

Abilities: Disabled

Items: Disabled

Messaging: Disabled

Reporting: Disabled

Obedience: Enabled

His eyes widened. "Oh," he said, bringing a hand to his mouth. He peeked around the semi-translucent black rectangle at the surprised-looking girl player to avoid the disorientation of looking through a screen filled with text. "I'm so sorry, I thought…" She's—yup, preferred pronouns right here—not an NPC? And she really has been stuck here since the last time she logged in, I guess, if she can't use recall or spells to warp out or even contact an in-game GM to fix it. That's awful!

"What?" Ir'alith asked, her tone cautious.

Carl's brows lowered. "It's not right," he muttered. "You getting bullied like this, stuck here without even having any of your gear, the whole thing with the collar and leash…" That Lucia person must have exploited some bug to trap her here after stealing her gear and getting that collar on her—definitely doesn't match the rest of her dark-ish aesthetic. And these flag changes look like some kind of DB corruption since they should never be changed, probably an injection attack? Possibly an int overflow or something on the code side? Need to file some tickets about this in our tracker after I log out, for sure. Why do some of these even exist, now that I think about it? Better write a note…

The Director of Information Technology at Fire Entertainment pursed his lips and tilted his head upwards before letting out a slow sigh. Kids are so cruel sometimes. This poor girl just wants to role-play as her demon character—even if she's way too edgy for me with that crazy, depressing-sounding backstory—but she's been stuck here and doesn't even have anyone to talk to in-game. Probably didn't wanna make a new character after all the time she spent customizing this one… He looked her model over again with a more appraising eye. She really put a lot of work into the details, too. Those horns have custom texturing for all the little ridges, her eyes have that extra dot in the center of the pupil—also custom, her tail is definitely custom and must be a heck of an advanced use of the brain link integration to make it move around so naturally like that… He sighed again, rubbing at his eyes.

"Human," Ir'alith said, sounding nervous. "Why do you gaze at me with those eyes?"

"I just…" I feel bad for you. But it seems like you're trying to make the best of it and role-play your little heart out, so I should at least try to let you have that much. "I think it's an injustice," Carl said instead, struggling to be some kind of character. "You seem…cool," he said, stretching the meaning of the word in his head while trying to be nice, "and I'm going to get you out of here. A rescue, I guess." Queens can get rescued, right? Not just princesses? That feels a little sexist. I'd do the same thing if she were a demon king or whatever, too. What kind of character rescues someone like that, though? Hard to come up with any kind of backstory for myself to try and salvage this. It's been a long time since I've read or played anything fantasy-ish. Best I can probably do right now is not make a dad joke. Or threaten to call some parents…

"You, human? Get me out of here?" Ir'alith seemed baffled at the concept, but her voice was tinged with a hopefulness that broke through her role-playing facade.

"Of course," Carl said as he typed another query. And report this other kid for you, too. "It's your lucky day, Ir'alith: I'm from Fire." I know I'm not supposed to tell people when I'm playing, but this has to be an exception case. Oops, that's out of character to say, though, if I'm supposed to be trying to role-play. Too rusty, I guess.

The girl's eyes widened, and her purple eyebrows disappeared into her matching bangs. "You?" she whispered. "You are… You are one of them?"