"Ultima is currently dying" one of the game directors said, moving around in his chair while Steve took a long drink from a water bottle. He watched as the man practically sucked the entire thing down before tossing it into the corner of his office into the recycling bin.

"Yeah? Are you sure?" Steve asks, sighing "Controlling the algorithm isn't easy and I know that, I helped to write it out" he says, locking eyes with the nervous director.

"He's programmed to die now in about a month, it was difficult, he has an outstandingly high story value according to the system. We will need to do a patch to make sure everything goes smoothly" the director says, staring Steve back and gulping.

"Fine, then until he dies in one month, keep incentivizing the players to attack Larian, once Ultima dies, we will roll out the patch. Use that as an excuse to bury him and delete all of his code. I don't want any trace of him anywhere" Steve said firmly, tapping his fingers "How long will the patch take? It's going to be pretty alarming for the AI if all the players just up and disappear right?"

"We don't plan for it to take long, but maybe about a couple days to actually apply. While that's going on, well, it'll be interesting to see how they react for sure. It won't be a surprise patch, so the players will know ahead of time" the director clarified, watching Steve's fingers tapping.

"Alright then, you're dismissed" Steve waves the guy off, putting his face on his desk and closing his eyes. He hadn't slept good in days, at least he got sleep though. Unlike the guys down doing all this magic.

"Story value, the level of control and importance the infinite possibility system places on something. How high could Ultima possibly be in that regard? Hidden NPCs are on the same level of Main NPCs, so maybe around then? Still, that shouldn't cause such an issue, and it doesn't explain his...quirks" Steve muttered, rubbing his eyes. He put a finger on his intercom "Jonsie, stop all my calls, I'm taking a nap. Arrange a, ugh, arrange a Q and A with reporters. Invite only people who haven't bashed us yet" he says, he doesn't even wait for a reply before closing his eyes and taking his finger off. 

He took out a pillow and set it down, slowly falling asleep for a bit in his office.

"Did you tell him how high Ultima was?" one of the director's asked, the nervous one coming into the server room where a lot of coders and people were working with frenzied effiency.

The nervous guy shook his head "No, I didn't, just like we said" he crossed his arms and sighed.

Robert patted his shoulder "Good, he doesn't need to know just how much this is going to screw the game up" he said, pulling the nervous guy over to a screen. "We just need to hide Ultima's code, and the system will be happy with him still there" he clarifies, it really seemed foolproof. If the system insisted on having Ultima stick around, he could, just not as an actual NPC anymore.