“Well, enough moping from me.” Little Droplet hit their cheeks. “I’m on my way to a cool place! I should be excited!”

“The Lythian Forest is without a doubt the most beautiful place in all of Haven. Have any of you been there before?” The beastman of the group asked the question for everyone to answer.

“I have”, Spiderlily spoke up.

“I haven’t.”

“Neither have I.”

Healer and lifestyle player shook their heads.

“Oh, it’s gorgeous! I think you’ll love it. The main group there are dark-skinned elves, but there’s a river running through the forest that leads to the eastern sea. There are mermaids living inside. You can also find some beastmen around.”

“Mermaids are peculiar”, Spiderlily muttered dryly.

One of the races players wanted to meet the most were mermaids. If you looked at the forum, though, you’d soon get disillusioned.

The mermaids in Haven were, to be exact, deepsea merfolk.

They were beautiful enough to be enchanting, with long fins and flowing hair, covered in jewelry. Their voices weren’t hypnotizing like a siren’s, but still so beautiful you’d want to do nothing but approach. They were a race with their homes in the depth of the sea, who would reach the surface only to sing or to travel.

The river leading to the Lythian Forest was deep. Some mermaids would swim upstream to visit the magical spring inside the forest, making it one of two places where you could see mermaids - the other one being at the sea.

There was a pretty good reason why people didn’t traverse the eastern sea. That reason was exactly the mermaids.

Mermaids were territorial… and frighteningly gluttonous. One would easily devour a whole shark.

And, well, their diet included anything disturbing their waters. Be it humans, elves, dwarves or beastmen.

If it came close enough, it’d be eaten.

That their charming smiles hid rows of retractable teeth and a jaw that could be unhinged like that of a snake was something the first players had found out in an ugly manner.

Players came to the conclusion that the best way to meet mermaids was the Lythian Forest, where they wouldn’t go nuts over you invading their territory. After all, they were guests to the forest, so they behaved themselves.

Just like many things, this was something that people had asked the developers about. Were mermaids monsters?!

No, was the gleeful response. If you break and enter into my house, you can’t be offended if I hit you, right? So if you accidentally die, there’s no reason to waste the meat.

Ah.

By the way, that was the same developer who had made the Red Forest.

No one could say he didn’t have interesting ideas…

Part of that whimsical design was what made Haven realistic, at least. Having a race that acted like this wasn’t too surprising.

The inhabitants of Haven didn’t think of it as weird. The deepsea merfolk protected the sea. If you were ignorant, you’d pay the price - everyone had themselves to blame for entering their territory. They never went out of their way to hunt anything other than fish, at least.

Also, they were gorgeous.

Elves liked beauty, dwarves practicality, beastmen lethality. All three liked natural things the most.

So, for the beastmen and elves living in the forest, the merfolk was truly a great race! So pretty! So deadly!

Ice went through his last meeting with them. “They’re peculiar, but it’s not as hard to get along with them as one would think.”

“Just how do you do it? I mean, I know the stories about you. But how can you treat NPCs like humans?” Blackstone curiously leaned forward. She, like many others, had tried Ice’s strategy before but failed on long-term. The reason was that it was too annoying to bother treating Haven’s inhabitants as people.

They used games to take a break from reality. Who wanted to memorize names, stories, likes and dislikes? Wasn’t that bothersome?!

Ice’s expression turned blank. Somehow, the sight sent a chill down Blackstone’s spine.

“Where… does a human start?”

“...Huh?”

“They have a memory. They can react freely. They have emotions. They have considerations for the future, react to the logical issues players cause… Putting aside that there is no body of flesh and blood behind it, what makes them different?” Ice’s voice was even. “Abzu, the original of these AIs… If you gave him a body, would people know he wasn’t human? Turned around, right now we are just code. Are we any more or less human than these NPCs?”

“Oh now that’s a topic you can discuss for the whole ride.” Bloody smiled wryly. “Gotta start on what defines a human. Although I don’t share Ice’s thoughts, I can’t deny I see where he is coming from.”

Blackstone and Spiderlily didn’t react. They stared at the floor, expressions subtly changing every few seconds.

Seeing them seriously think about it, Bloody shut his mouth and found a better position to sit.

Little Droplet dragged their knees up to their chest, watching Blackstone’s face as if it was the most interesting thing to observe. Maybe it was, in this simple carriage.

Ice knew that his thoughts were a bit radical. He simply thought that an AI on the level that Haven displayed - one that did not need to have coded responses - wasn’t too far from being alive at all. Let alone Abzu, who was said to be on an even higher level.

...Hm. Did this count into having issues separating game from reality?

But was reality that much different from a game, when it was all about learning, about managing relationships, and about working towards your goal? The little tasks - quests - that you did every day, where you gained experience bit by bit, weren’t they the same? If Haven, a game, could emulate reality to this point… was Haven a reality, or was reality a game?

While the Ice Emperor was having an existential crisis in the middle of a little carriage driving along an endless road, Bloody was beginning to consider what to eat for dinner.

Owl

At the point where I wrote that part I was like "whoops", because I hadn't intended to add philosophical questions but uhhhh. Here they are. Sorry?