JANE

Jane gasped in despair as Quill and the monster sank into the earth. “No!” she cried out.

Where had that sinkhole come from?

When the towering, ancient tree had toppled in the past, it had torn some of its roots out of the ground with it and left a large hole behind, and a lattice of broken roots. Over time, soil and leaves and other forest detritus had built up atop the remaining broken-off roots, forming a layer over the hole. Sapphire’s rain had weakened that layer. Then the great weight of the moss bear stomping down had broken a section and down the huge animal had gone, with Quill underneath it.

However, the hole created was tight. Just as Sapphire and Quill had become trapped, so too did the moss bear. The sides pressed up against the sides of the monster so that only the curve of its back and its head remained free.

For now. 

The moss bear roared in frustration and snapped its huge jaws at the teddy bear knight. 

The teddy bear continued to valiantly thrust and swat at the enemy with his wooden sword, dancing about, jabbing at the moss bear’s furious brown eyes. This infuriated it even more.

Jane looked at Sapphire, who appeared to be just as shocked as she was. She pointed. “Aim for its head! Use those glowing blue arrows!”

Sapphire looked uncertain. “But Quill!”

“Do it! I’ll attack its back. Hurry!”

Sapphire quickly nodded and drew another arrow. It charged up as she aimed, then a shining blue ray shot through the air, and the arrow nailed the moss bear in the face.

It roared but remained helpless. Not for long, though. With its great strength, it would eventually tear itself free. 

Jane knew they had to act fast. She circled around the monster’s head towards its back. She had to step carefully, testing the ground as she went, lest she, too, become stuck and helpless. It still rained. The soil was wet and soggy and sank under even her weight. 

When she reached the edge of the hole, she knew the rotted roots below wouldn’t hold her if she tried to get any closer. She wouldn’t be able to stand, let alone swing her knife. There was only one place she could go if she wanted to be able to attack freely. 

Taking three quick breaths and summoning all her courage, she took a step and jumped onto the beast’s back. 

The moss bear bellowed and tried to shake her free. 

Rain had made the fur slippery. Avoiding the white moss, she grasped a handful of long, brown fur in one hand. With the other, she stabbed the bear as hard as she could, over and over. 

Sapphire fired a steady stream of arrows at the beast, a look of determination almost masking her fear. 

The teddy bear knight, despite the white stuffing leaking from his belly, seemed to be having the time of his life, darting in and out as he attacked with relative impunity. The black stitching of his mouth smiled almost mockingly at his prey. 

Jane fought to hold onto the moving animal’s shaggy back as she did her best to hurt it. She knew her attacks were weak. And with her pathetically low Stamina, she had to stop and take frequent breaks, chest heaving as she heaved air into her lungs. But with Sapphire’s help, the HP bar whittled down ever so slowly. 

Would they be able to do enough damage in time? Or would the moss bear free itself and eat them both? She fretted and tried to think of what she could do.

From her earlier experiences with the wolves, she understood that attacking weak spots made the HP go down faster. For the wolves, it had been real-life vital spots, like the neck or inside the mouth. Maybe it was the same here. 

Scared of falling but more scared of failing, Jane threw herself up the moss bear’s back, grabbing a tuft of fur with one hand and pulling herself up, and then repeating the movement. She managed to get between its shoulders. But this location was even more volatile, and it was all she could do to hold on. She jammed her knife tip into the grizzleclaw’s neck. Then again. And again. 

Sapphire’s look of concentration seemed to deepen, perhaps as she took extra care not to miss and hit the much-closer Jane with a magical arrow. 

The HP bar drained down. Slowly, slowly, it went — but faster than before. 

The moss bear struggled mightily. The hole in the ground widened. The beast gained more room to move. It bucked hard and flung Jane off.

She sailed through the air and landed on the spongy bed of brown needles, some of them painfully jabbing her. Anxiously rising, breathing so hard she was dizzy and her vision spotty, she threw herself at the monster’s side. It was almost dead…almost… Jane wordlessly yelled at it and stabbed with all her might, over and over again. They were so close!

The moss bear growled one last time and then wilted. If chuffed. Then the huge head dropped to the ground and stayed there. 

The teddy bear knight thrust his wooden sword to the sky in triumph. They were victorious!

Jane panted from the effort. She collapsed, unable to do more than breathe. She felt like she’d sprinted as hard as she could and had nothing left. 

With her meagre Stamina and low levels, it had taken forever. But they’d done it. They’d actually done it. She laughed in relief between breaths. 

Sapphire cautiously approached, watching her footing. “We did it…?” She seemed in amazed disbelief.

“Yeah.” Pant pant. “We did!” Jane was bursting with excitement. She rolled onto her side and smiled up at their companion. “I don’t even know how high level that was. And we beat it. That’s insane!” She laughed again. What a rush!

“Yes…” Sapphire tried to smile, but her expression failed. “But Quill?”

Jane nodded. She looked around. “Yeah. Where is he? I thought he would have respawned and run back by now. Strange.”

Sapphire picked up the teddy bear knight and hugged it tight to her chest. It seemed well satisfied with itself. 

Something caught Jane’s attention. A voice? She concentrated. 

There it was again. 

She groaned and got to her feet, then stared at the area under the moss bear. “Quill?”

A faint shout came back. “…out!”

She threw back her head and laughed. “He’s alive!”

“He is?” Sapphire looked startled. 

“He’s still under the bear!”

“Oh wow,” she breathed. Then she beamed. “Thank goodness!”

Jane stared at the carcass pinning her partner down. “We’re gonna have to chop the bear up to get him out.” She paused, then sat. “Later. I’m exhausted.” She flopped onto her back, happy. Because they’d beaten it.

🗡 🗡 🗡

In the end, Jane and Sapphire had to leave the forest and acquire villagers to come and help with butchering the monster carcass. Only with the help of eight others chopping away with axes were they able to reduce the body to a heaping pile of bones and meat. 

Quill emerged some hours later, utterly drenched in moss bear blood thanks to the butchering process. 

Jane, sitting on the ground where she’d been resting while the villagers worked, snickered at him, then laughed. “Oh my gosh. You look straight out of some 70s horror movie.”

He gave her a flat look. “Yeah. Thanks for that.” He wiped the blood out of his eyes. Or he tried. Mostly he just smeared it around. “Why the heck didn’t the bear disappear after dying the way the wolves did?”

She thought about that. “Part of the quest? The villagers have been talking about what a huge boon it is having all this fur and meat. Maybe they were always supposed to harvest it after players killed the bear?”

He leaned over and spit, mouth moving like he’d tasted something awful. “Maybe.”

Jane bounced in her seat. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“I levelled!”

His eyes widened. “Again? Already!”

“Yes!” She was so happy and excited. “Level 3!”

He looked blown away. “Wow. A whole level from one kill? Congrats; that’s awesome.”

She hesitated. “You didn’t?”

He just shook his head.

She tried to hold back her joy. “Oh. Whatever. You probably will when we turn in the quest.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged, then smiled, and it seemed genuine. “I can’t believe you two killed it. That’s incredible. Really.”

“Ha! I think it was mostly Sapphire’s doing. I had to rest every two or three strikes. But she kept pumping these cool, magical, blue arrows into it. She was amazing!”

At the mention of Sapphire’s name, all the NPC villagers sagged.

Quill looked at the young woman and gave her a nod. “Good job, Sapphire. Thanks for saving us.”

Sapphire had an odd look on her face. It had been there since contacting the villagers and bringing them back here. She opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted.

An old woman stacking bear meat in a one-horse cart shook her head, a picture of sadness. “Oh, Sapphire. What a loss.”

Other villagers chimed in, agreeing with sad voices:

“Poor girl.”

“She was so lovely. Watered my garden anytime I asked. She’s the reason my tomatoes are so big this year.”

“And my corn. I’ll miss her rain arrows.”

Quill seemed taken aback. He glanced at Sapphire, then Jane. “What’s going on?”

Jane frowned. “It’s weird. They’ve been acting like that since we went to the village. And they only talk to me. Like they don’t even see her.”

Quill turned to the woman stacking the meat. “What are you talking about? Sapphire’s right here.” He pointed. 

But the old woman, and all the NPC villagers, didn’t even look up. They just continued to lament:

“We should hold a funeral. Even if there’s no body.”

“Agreed. Should do something for her. Such a nice girl she was.”

“I’ll miss her rain.”

“Her smile.”

“The way she always showed up in such high spirits, cheering everyone up, even on gray days.”

“That adorable teddy bear she carried around.”

“Her tight bum.”

“Alrek! Don’t be a dirty old man.”

“What? It’s a feature too. No? Oh, fine! What pretty eyes she had! Happy?”

“It’s a shame we don’t have a body. She had those pretty earrings. Probably worth a few silver, eh?”

An indignant man put his hands on his hips and glared. “Navine! That’s…” His expression mellowed, “Ok, that’s practical. Those gems would be worth quite a bit.”

“I do have to buy a new cow.”

“I could use a new coat of paint on the barn.”

“That dressmaker in the city has some beautiful new fabrics in.”

Jane listened to the villagers, confused and appalled. “How can they talk about Sapphire so disrespectfully? And why do they think she’s dead?”

They looked over at the woman in question.

Sapphire’s face twitched in deep confusion. Her head jerked to one side, then the other.

“Sapphire? You ok?” Quill asked, sudden concern in his voice. 

Sapphire looked at the villagers. “I…” She approached one of the farmers and touched his shoulder. “Mr Jenkins.” 

He didn’t respond. 

“Mr Jenkins?” she repeated more loudly and a little more desperately. When he refused to acknowledge her, she tried the others, but they all refused to so much as flinch at her touch. Sapphire whined with incomprehension.

“It’s like she’s a ghost,” Jane muttered. She was confused but also getting angry. She liked Sapphire and she didn’t like the way they talked about her, nor the way they seemed to be ignoring her.

Bloody Quill looked thoughtful. And like a horror victim. “Maybe it’s a bug.” He gestured to the ground. “Remember when she fell into the sinkhole? Maybe she wasn’t supposed to survive that. Maybe in the quest, she was supposed to die. The moss bear eats her while the adventurers escape. It was only an investigation, right? We probably weren’t supposed to kill it until later, after bringing help. Maybe it was a group quest. Sure seemed like a boss, didnt’ it?”

Sapphire mumbled to herself, staring at her hands. Her voice trembled. “I’m…dead? Not dead. Dead?” She frowned.

“Oh, oh,” Jane said, growing really worried at Sapphire’s strange behaviour. “She’s not handling this well.”

Quill looked worried too. “Maybe the devs didn’t plan for this eventuality? Or didn’t finish designing the quest? We didn’t get a proper quest marker before discovering the mission, remember?”

She frowned. “That’s not cool. What’s going to happen to her?”

“I’m guessing most quest givers are on loops. That’s how they’re able to give the same quest to lots of adventurers. If a character in the quest is meant to die, they’d eventually respawn so others can get the quest later. But this could be a unique quest. Or…maybe we broke it completely when she didn’t die?”

Jane grunted, frustrated. She wanted Sapphire to go back to normal. “I wonder if she’s going to reset on her own?”

Sapphire shook her head as if to clear it and frowned. She clenched her fists open and shut, still staring at her hands. “Dead? Not dead? Dead!”

Crap. “She’s getting worse.” Jane stood. 

Quill spoke tentatively. “We could…kill her?”

She gave him a sharp look. “What?”

He apologetically shrugged, obviously not thrilled with the idea. “So that she resets?”

“I’m not killing her!” she snapped. “Neither are you. That would be…wrong.”

“I certainly don’t want to. We did save her, remember? But look at her.” He gestured. 

Sapphire was breaking down. Something was wrong in her AI mind. She began trembling, and her voice rose in volume and pitch. “I’m dead. I’m dead. But why am I… I don’t understand! Don’t— Why—?” She turned to the villagers and grabbed them by the shoulders, violently shaking them, voice growing wild. “Not dead? Dead!” But the villagers didn’t answer.

Jane felt her heart break. She rushed over to Sapphire’s side. Grabbing the girl’s shoulders, she turned Sapphire to face her and saw the crazed look in the archer’s eyes. Jane took hold of her face with both hands, freezing it in place. “Sapphire! Listen to me!”

“Use a calm voice,” Quill told her, using one himself.

Right. People instinctively react to the emotion in our voice. She calmed herself, at least in tone, though she was worried for the other woman. “Sapphire, calm down. It’s ok. You’re ok.”

“I…am…”

“Yes?”

Her eyes widened. “Dead!”

Jane looked directly in her eyes. “Alive. You are alive.”

Sapphire hesitated. “Alive?”

Jane poured all the certainty she could into her tone. “Yes. You are. You exist. You are here.”

“But…the villagers. They said—“

“They’re wrong,” Jane told her, believing it and willing Sapphire to believe it too. “You’re here. I see you. Quill sees you.”

Sapphire trembled. “But—“

“I’m touching you right now, aren’t I? We’re talking.”

Sapphire blinked. Something came back to her eyes, a sense of intelligence. “Y-yes.”

“You’re ok, Sapphire. You’re not dead. You’re alive. Trust me.”

Sapphire shakily nodded. “I’m…alive.”

Jane smiled to reassure her. She released the other woman’s face and took her hands with her own instead, giving a reassuring squeeze. “Yes. We fought together. We beat the monster. And everyone’s alive. Well, except for the monster.”

Sapphire looked directly into Jane’s eyes, searching for something. Tears welled. But she nodded. 

“Good.” Jane released her. As Sapphire wandered off, still in thought, Jane turned to Quill. “That was super weird.”

Quill watched the NPC walk off and rubbed his chin in thought. “To say the least. I don’t really know anything about programming. I’m not sure why she’d be like that. I mean, the other NPCs all seem like they’re on fixed, pre-programmed loops.”

Jane knew something about this. “They probably are. But you know how we thought she was different from other NPCs before?”

He nodded.

“I think she’s got AI on another level from them. So she can have more realistic conversations with players. And she was able to freely adapt as she fought. I don’t think a pre-programmed NPC could do that, do you?”

“No,” he agreed. “And we corrupted her AI brain? That doesn’t sound good.”

Jane glanced at Sapphire. She had an uneasy feeling. “Maybe she just needs time to adjust? For the AI to learn and adapt?”

“Maybe. Or maybe she’ll reset on her own.” He spoke hopefully, though it was a bit forced. “I guess it depends if she’s just here for this one quest or if she had other roles.”

Jane saw the other NPCs continue to ignore Sapphire. She frowned. “The villagers are jerks and I don’t want to leave her alone with them, especially with her in this state. I think we should take her with us,” she decided.

Quill’s head tilted. “Again, she is an NPC.”

“I think we’ve both established that that doesn’t matter to either of us, haven’t we? We don’t want to steal their clothes. We just risked our lives, or, our XP, to rescue one. That was you, remember? Sacrificing yourself for her and telling me to run?”

He smiled. “True. Just rationally talking it out. Ok then. Fine with me. Let’s ask her to come with us.” Then he snapped his fingers, which just sprayed bear blood everywhere, as he remembered something. “We should finish the quest, though. Turn it in and get points for the investigation. Hopefully, we didn’t break that, too.”

“Right.” Maybe she’d even level up again! She didn’t say that out loud, though.

After the moss bear had been completely butchered and loaded into a trio of carts, the villagers were happy to offer a surprisingly hefty sum for the bones and meat. 

Jane gasped as an old woman handed her a small pouch with many silver.

“And you should check with the adventurer’s guild!” a man helpfully pointed out. “Could be a bounty for this here critter.”

“Ah,” Quill noted, “the second part of this quest line. This was probably a higher-level bounty quest.”

“Adventurer’s guild?” She looked at him. “We never saw that, did we?” She tried to recall, but surely they would have spotted it during all those lame fetch and delivery quests, right?

“I guess we haven’t really looked, though, right? I didn’t even know there was one. We should do that now.”

The villagers presented them with the head. They would have to haul it back to town in order to collect the bounty. It was, however, just about as big as Jane was. They didn’t have another horse and cart they could use. And they were both weak. They couldn’t carry a head as big as they were.

She looked at Quill. “We could try rolling it?”

He snorted, amused. “Past all those hungry monsters out there?”

“Rolling it quickly?”

He chuckled. “We can try.” Then he sighed. “I can’t wait until we get bags of holding.”

“Wait.” Jane approached the young woman standing off to the side, still looking confused and a bit scared. “Sapphire? You ok?” She placed a reassuring hand on her arm.

Sapphire blinked a few times and had trouble looking at Jane. “I…don’t know.”

Jane smiled in a friendly way. “We’re going back to the city. You should come with us.” Protectively, she looped her arm in Sapphire’s so the woman couldn’t escape.

Sapphire looked at Jane for a long while. Then she blinked and nodded. And a tiny, weak smile formed. “Ok.”