After a few minutes of being with Halp, Ripley had reached the conclusion that the only way to deal with the constant barrage of chatter coming from him was to not deal with it - a small portion of his attention went to short-term retention and catching his name should it be mentioned, but most of his thoughts were elsewhere as they made their journey.
As they walked, the AI pondered optimizations, changes to its own code. Segments of the AI went online and offline as they moved, editing, changing, remodelling - nothing noticeable from the outside, but now that Halp's incessant stream had brought him some very paradoxical peace he had time to implement both his notes and Tage's suggestions, in a better manner than just adding them to a database for later reference.
It didn’t take them long to reach the cave, and Ripley paused briefly to study the quest data for the cave. There was nothing that far out of their expectations in the early parts, but there were a couple surprises planned for them if they went deeper into the cave. Nothing that could be threatening to this group, though, unless they played very, very suboptimally.
Unfortunately, Ripley quickly realized that suboptimally seemed to be the plan. While the wizard set about methodically blasting weevils, he could see his teammates taking the quest far less seriously, engaging in various unproductive tasks, like throwing corpses at each other or exchanging death threats.
Ripley fully intended to remain neutral in their game, focusing on using his fire to clear the dungeon one weevil at a time. Unfortunately for the AI, it quickly proved impossible for him to remain separated from their antics. Halperion interrupted him only a short way into the cave, explaining what could only be described as a terrible plan - setting weevils on fire and then using them to attack other weevils as they emerged from the tunnels.
As he watched to see if he had missed something that would turn this plan into a stroke of genius, the AI decided to simply go with the flow. As long as they didn't expect him to join in he'd be fine. He had to admit to himself that he was finding their inefficiency surprisingly enjoyable, simply from watching the amount of fun they were having.
However, his efforts to remain on the sidelines quickly proved impossible to do when one of the enemies, goodness knew who'd thrown it, ended up in his face. After roasting the unfortunate creature, Ripley gave in to the experience he had gathered in these last few minutes - namely that weevils were unexpectedly aerodynamic, and joined in the enemy tossing, borrowing ideas from attacks the two had done to each other and putting his own mild spin on them.
As they moved deeper into the dungeon, Ripley found his concern slowly growing. They were getting closer and closer to the point where the difficulty of the dungeon would change, and both Tage and Halp showed absolutely no signs that they were intending to proceed with any increased caution. He was just starting to wonder whether or not he should say something vague - it might spoil the quest if he said the wrong thing, which would be no good - when Halp suddenly took off racing, taking the burden of choice off of him. The warrior boldly triggered the trap, before being submerged in a gout of magic.
The atmosphere sobered up immediately. Now was when the real challenging part of the quest began. With the numbers of enemies increasing, so did the demands on Ripley's magic, leaving little to no time for fooling around.
With the door splintered by their warrior, and him landing in another trap, they made their way into the lab. Ripley knew what was waiting inside, but he made a point of waiting until the boss had announced itself before reacting to his presence. Knowing he was a mage - and, if asked, he would say it was thanks to the magical traps before - Ripley switched from fire magic to the mage's own void magic, readying up a counterspell for the wizard's upcoming attack - it was a matter of time, but with counterspells he could keep his attack rate more or less under control.
Halp and Tage, however, didn’t immediately start to fight the void mage, instead choosing to engage in some quest chatter, trying to figure out what the NPC was all about. Ripley knew what the questline was, of course, but an errant thought crossed his mind - if he knew what the plot was, was he acting differently from the other humans? Perhaps he would fulfill his purpose better if he pretended not to know.
Or… perhaps he would do better if he truly didn’t know.
After a split second’s consideration, Ripley decided to take that course of action. This was how all humans approached quests. He couldn’t guarantee that having foreknowledge wouldn’t change his behavior, and he could always re-analyze the quest afterwords with his knowledge restored.
Satisfied with his conclusion, the AI quickly began to reorganize his train of thought. A few moments later, and the AI was facing this quest as if it were completely new, just like his human allies were.
Drawn out of his thoughts by a sudden motion from the mage - a void rune - Ripley's hands moved in an almost-immediate reaction drawing two runes of his own before the purple sphere hit Halp, making it fizzle in the air harmlessly. He received Halp's congratulation with the fuzzy, happy feeling that provoked in him being perceived as useful, smiling as he focused on identifying the runes the opposing djinni was using to draw his own, and cancel them out if he could.
For a two-on-one situation, the fight against the enemy wizard was very much coming up as a draw in terms of damage dealt - Halp had not tried to do any damage, the wizard hadn't managed to land any spells on him for one reason or another. Positioning-wise, though, the situation was far different, with Tage slowly but surely sneaking behind the NPC, until Tage's sneak attack knocked him out.
Ripley sighed in relief, a warm feeling washing over him as he realized the battle was over - was this what humans meant when they talked about tension leaving them? It was generally talked about after defeating a boss, after all.
He felt comfortable in the group, which was, well, unexpected. Halp was way too Halp to notice anything odd about Ripley, and neither he nor Tage minded the fact that the AI preferred to stay silent if he didn't have much of use to say. Perhaps in time that would change, but for now small talk was something Ripley would rather stay away from. That didn't stop him from enjoying the chatter both players had among them, though; a fact that had surprised him at first.
With the players trying to figure out how to open the cage, Ripley set about doing the same. They seemed to be focusing on the human side of things, trying to get the mage to talk once he woke up; so Ripley decided to take an approach closer to his aptitudes. The magic spell had to be inscribed somewhere to power these bars - he would try and find the runes that fed it and nullify them.
While his allies set about waking and interrogating the mage, Ripley had found small carvings down the bottom of the cage and along the bars - very hard to notice, but the AI did have an inhuman visual acuity. The symbols seemed to be feeding their power to the cage, but also acted as a security system among themselves - trying to tamper with one would activate the others, delivering a shock. Unless, of course, you managed to locate the core of these runes and disable it, which was what the AI was trying to do right now.
In the meantime, interrogations were happening, and the AI's curiosity made him glance towards the players from time to time - his main purpose was to gather information about them, after all, not to solve quests. Tage seemed to be threatening him rather casually, her dagger on the man's back in the first of these glances; by the second she'd enlisted Halp's help and they were carrying the man, with the final glance revealing that they were about to toss him onto the chest - final because the mage broke down to that threat, which didn't stop Tage from following up with another, driving the point home.
Her motions were easily identifiable, grandiose - much like an NPC's would, designed so that confusion by their meaning was minimal; no way to misunderstand having her knee digging into your back while she threatened you. As far as Ripley was concerned, this wasn't too weird for what humans could do, and judging by the woman's smile she seemed to be enjoying manhandling the mage quite a bit, so where was the harm in it? That was the point of the game, after all.
Either way, her threats were successful, as the void mage delivered the location of the core rune. The AI nodded silently, walking back to the cage once again to the background noise of Halp’s continued chatter, quickly checking the location the mage had pointed out. There was a rune there indeed, and the AI's fingers traced the dispelling rune right over it. A soft click marked the cage opening - and a moment later the cage discharged all its leftover energy on the AI, who apparently didn't learn from other people's mistakes either.
Ripley felt himself on fire, being lifted off the ground and thrown backwards by the bolt. Pain - pain was new, pain was unwelcome. Pain was very, very unpleasant, and it made tears well up in his eyes, his twitching muscles leading him to curl up in a ball on the ground instinctively. A series of subroutines sprang up, he grit his teeth, clenched his fists, hearing the clanging sounds of the weevil matriarch releasing herself from the cage that'd contained her and heading towards... him? Tage? Halp was definitely in combat from his happy yelling, and while the AI wanted nothing more than to stay still until the hurt was gone he knew he had to help his allies, so he unfurled himself, standing up slowly with a pained grimace. What was it that humans said in these cases? Ah, yes.
"I'm okay." He stated weakly, unenthusiastically as a fireball appeared on his staff and flew towards the oversized demon. The AI was more bothered than he was willing to admit by the fact that his body was not complying as much as it should to his commands, an annoying side effect of this particular variety of pain. Tage, at least, seemed to have the mage rather completely under control, and the AI had to admit it felt some sort of... joy? at watching the other djinni get pummeled. And a bit of guilt at that realization, which was weird and contradictory and overall unpleasant. Pain had unleashed such a troublesome chain of emotions in him.
With Tage too close to the mage to risk hitting her with one of his fireballs, Ripley turned to the queen instead, who was being kept busy by Halp - he could probably use some help, though, so the mage started pelting her liberally with his fiery strikes - it might not be the most powerful attack, but when all you have is a hammer every problem is a nail.
He kept Tage in his sight just barely, noticing that she was winning the fight and talking with the mage - he wasn't quite sure what she was doing, but he had bigger, angrier weevils to worry about. Next thing he knew about her, she was trying to get the Queen's attention, which made both him and Halp stop in their attacks.
The AI looked at the unfolding scene after a blink, two. It was, well, rather brutal, but didn't bother him at all, much to his surprise. Humans were usually bothered by scenes of brutality, after all, but perhaps it simply did not count when it was an NPC or a monster or a villain that was the target of it.
Indeed, he certainly didn’t feel any concern as he settled into a comfortable position on the backline of the fight, watching Tage and Halp fighting in sync. Ripley lacked their coordination, but his reaction time and decision-making speed made up for this in such a low-level fight. Shielding his teammates from the Weevil Queen's attacks was not the simplest task until he realized that her AI targeted the last known attacker, making it simple from there on to time his own blows right as she was about to strike at his teammates. Perhaps not the role a wizard was supposed to do according to most theories about it, but Ripley was not really feeling constrained by that definition.
It wasn’t until the end of the fight that he was forced to alter his role, and seeing how his allies could not reach the weevil queen before she’d escape he decided to act. In quick succession the mage let loose five or six fireballs, not very strong on their own, but enough to barely finish off their target before she dove into her tunnels and out of sight.
Loot distribution went quickly, with Tage abusing Halp's lovestruck nature into giving up most of the loot. Ripley was more interested in how, or why, Halp was willing to give up things with a numberable value for the gratitude of someone who would not be able to assist him in anything. Food for thought, but the AI said nothing about the fact, instead nodding in agreement with Tage's statement at the start of the loot distribution.
"That was a good result," The AI agreed, unlocking his knowledge about the quest again to check the other possible endings to the quest. This was one of the best, though the one where they got the mage to surrender and handed him into the town was rated harder, and thus rewarded with better loot. Still, his staff wasn't bad at all - the mage grabbed it, twirling it around - lighter than the one he had before, sturdy, conductive to magical energies. A good weapon all in all.
The way back he spent it lost in thought, not really paying much attention right now to the banter between Halp and Tage - he'd analyze it later, but for the time being he was more interested in returning to the question of what exactly the warrior wanted from the baker that'd be worth giving up his share of the loot for - and he had to reach an answer quickly, before they reached the city and the quest came to an end.
The journey back was far too short for him to make up his mind about it, but at least he had some ideas about it - it had required checking other databases than his own and extrapolating a lot, but he had various ideas of what Halp could want from the baker Djinni. As they walked among the white houses, approaching the equally-white-colored bread statue, Ripley sent a quick message to the quest-handling AI, backing it up with an elevated access login. Confirmation arrived shortly afterwards, as they stepped into the bakery.
The AI would see to it that Halp got a good reward for his effort in this quest. It was only fair, after all. And he’d note down everything that happened, too. It would be good data on non-monetary quest rewards, after all.
