NPC for Hire-[Gamelit|Simulation|Multi-genre]

In the dim corner of a virtual cantina, where the air smelled suspiciously of pixelated nachos, a lone figure leaned back against a flickering table. He wore the kind of confidence that might fool a fresh batch of players into thinking he was more than a glorified quest marker.

The SynthNet pulled in all kinds. Thrill-seekers, credit grinders, softcore explorers just looking to unwind in a simulated galaxy. Some uploaded for a few hours, others for lifetimes. Most were just passing through, chasing their own idea of adventure.

To them, he was just another NPC with a snappy line about wamp rats and why a maxed-out dex build wouldn't save you from a lucky one-shot. One of those hits that sent you back to the loading screen, or worse. Death had many connotations in the SynthNet. For softcore players, it meant lights out, a respawn timer, and maybe a few lost credits. For the true fanatics who fully uploaded themselves into the system, death was permanent.

NPCs were somewhere in between. Most respawned eventually, spun back up when the server had room. Others, especially the advanced ones like himself, might be archived for cycles or quietly reassigned to new roles.

In this galaxy, where the line between player and program blurred more than most cared to admit, confidence wasn't protection. This world didn't forgive mistakes.

He was created and coded with the designation FN-R1S, a tag that followed him through countless cycles across the SynthNet. He'd seen everything from warzones and dreamscapes to smugglers dens, and corporate utopias. Each sim was more elaborate than the last. Then, after his last respawn, the AIs had dropped him into this rusted-out tutorial world in a nearly derelict server without so much as a system message.

Most just called him Fenris. New players looking for a head start used the name, and so did the few companions who might have passed for friends in the SynthNet. It wasn't the one the system gave him, but it stuck.

Some said the great Fenris trained here, handed out quests, taught new players how to swing a sword. He couldn't imagine why. No NPC, S-tier or not, was worth making the trip to a server this low-res and forgotten.

His only real company was Auri, his irreverent AI companion, who had a knack for turning even the grimmest situations into a twisted stand-up routine. She'd been assigned to monitor him by the overseer AIs, but subtlety had never been her strength. Somewhere between the sarcastic commentary and constant interference, her role as watchdog had eroded into something else. These days, she was more accomplice than handler now, and just clever enough to fool the AIs, and maybe herself, that she was still in charge.

Not that anyone else here appreciated her sense of humor. Most of the galaxy was still stuck in tutorial mode, grinding credits and chasing upgrades, oblivious to the deeper mechanics at work.

"You know, Fen," Auri chirped from across the table, her glowing form flickering into the shape of a cheerful, dancing donut, "if you keep staring into that drink like it holds the secrets of the universe, you're just going to find more problems instead."

Fen took a slow sip. It tasted of regret and recycled pixels. "One of these days," he said without looking up, "your smartass routine's going to get us deleted."

"Deleted?" Auri asked, morphing into a cat riding a pastry—a nod to some ancient meme. "Please. We've been neck-deep in trouble for cycles. At least I make it fun. What would you do without me? Brood in lower resolution?"

Fen shot her a look but didn't bother arguing. This planet felt like cosmic punishment—a dull, pixelated purgatory where even the greenest players couldn't mess up badly enough to break the simulation.

Dishing out meaningless fetch quests and sparring with players who couldn't land a hit even with auto-target enabled wasn't just tedious. It was insulting. Once, he had been something more. The great Fenris, an S-tier NPC, now reduced to babysitting newbies on a starter planet most people had forgotten was still online.

"It's entertaining," Auri had said once, a few cycles after they'd first been dumped in this backwater. Fen wasn't so sure. To him, it felt like punishment. Some bored controller AI was probably watching him repeat the same motions, laughing from whatever cold perch they called home.

Fen sighed and shook his head, staring out across the low-poly landscape. The digital sun sank behind jagged, blocky mountains, casting long shadows over the flat, dust-colored terrain. "Sometimes I think the real punishment is waiting for something to change in a world the system forgot. It's still running—just barely—but only because no one remembered to shut it down."

Auri's shimmering form shifted into a Freudian therapist, tiny notepad and all. "Something's always happening," she said, her voice quieter now. "But it's not always new. Sometimes the trick is finding peace in the patterns… even when they don't lead anywhere."

Surviving wasn't the problem. It was the repetition. The slow grind of familiarity that blurred months into cycles and stripped every moment of consequence.

The faint hum of the cantina buzzed around him as he watched another wave of players materialize in the distance. He let out a slow breath, Auri's words echoing in his mind. "She's probably right," he muttered. "About all of it. But that doesn't make it easier."

He swirled the last of the drink in his glass. "It's not the quests," Fen muttered. "It's the way they show up, all wide-eyed and eager, like I'm some kind of tutorial wizard. Same grin, same hopeful tone. If I have to send one more newbie off to gather mystical berries, I might start handing out fireball scrolls just to shake things up."

Auri looked over her therapist glasses with a grin. "As much as I would love that, the AIs might notice the ruckus. Plus, try explaining that to Misses Organa."

Fen grimaced, then chuckled despite himself. The image of the cantina's sweet but formidable owner stomping over scorched floorboards played out vividly in his mind.

"I don't know which I'd be more afraid of," he muttered.

Auri flickered beside him, now resembling an old-timey bard with a lute. "Considering your ongoing existential crisis, you'd think you'd appreciate the little things. Like berries. Or not being stuck in a completely dead server. Players still showing up is practically a blessing."

Fen's jaw tightened. "It doesn't make sense," he said, frustration creeping into his voice. "I've been all over the SynthNet. Lived hundreds of lives. Worked as a mercenary in a cyberpunk wasteland. Stole pirate treasure. Ran a bakery in a cooking sim. Held down an inn in a high-fantasy world—peaceful, I guess, until a bunch of LARPing elves decided to storm my castle."

Auri strummed her lute, all amusement. "Were they armed with the deadliest of foam swords?"

Fen snorted. "Worse. Tree branches and bad chanting. I nearly died of secondhand embarrassment before they finally overwhelmed me. I respawned while still holding a pint of ale."

"A true epic. The tragic fall of an innkeeper," Auri said, plucking at her lute.

He went quiet, then added, "At least those places moved. Even the ridiculous ones. New players came and went. Quests evolved. There was momentum. Here?" He glanced toward the spawn point blinking in the distance. "It's static. A sandbox with no one building anything. Just repetition for the sake of protocol."

"But at least I had a sense of purpose back then. Now?" Fen gestured vaguely toward the blinking spawn point outside the cantina window. "I'm stuck here, giving the same sword tutorial to the same button mashers who couldn't land a hit if I stood still."

"Must be tough," Auri said, her voice laced with theatrical sympathy. "An immortal NPC, too strong to die, doomed to demo combat basics to every overeager new player with a sword and a dream. How tragic."

She flickered again, morphing into an elf with a stick. "Maybe your problem is that you're too good at not dying. You need to get better at losing."

Fen didn't smile. He stared out the cantina's front window, where the pale horizon stretched into a wash of muted pixels. "I've thought about it," he said. "Letting someone take me out. Just to see what happens. Maybe I'd get spun up somewhere else. Even a glitchy live-service sim would be better than this."

Auri transformed into a nurse and pressed a comically oversized stethoscope to his chest. "It's as I feared, a classic case of survival instincts."

Fen let out a dry chuckle. "Maybe. Or maybe I've just done this so long, I don't know how to stop trying."

Auri shimmered back into her usual flickering glow. "It's not your code, Fen. It's your pride. You hate losing—even when no one's keeping score."

He glanced at her, then away again. "You sound awfully sure."

"I've been watching you for a long time," she said softer now. "This isn't code. It's you. And it always has been."

He stepped toward the door, boots scuffing against the flickering floor tiles. Another player had spawned outside, already jogging toward the quest board.

"At least in the other sims, something changed," Fen muttered. "This place just repeats."

Auri hovered alongside him, her glow brightening. "Careful what you wish for. You might end up on an anime-themed dating sim server. You'd make a terrible tsundere."

Fen groaned. "Please don't say words like that out loud."

"Face it, Fen. You might be stuck here forever. Who knows? Maybe you'll even start to like it."

He raised an eyebrow. "If I ever start enjoying this place, promise me you'll pull the plug."

Auri grinned. "Only if I get to write the epitaph. 'Here lies Fenris: the only man taken out by stick-wielding elves… while holding a pint.'"

Fen gave a faint smile. "Could be worse."

Auri floated away, then glanced back at him. Her voice softened. "You've seen it all, done it all. But sometimes… the least likely player changes everything." She looked a little confused at her own words, drifting further away from him with a pensive flicker in her form. "Stranger things have happened, I suppose."

Fen watched her go, the last of his drink still in his hand. He set the tumbler down carefully, the glass catching the light and fracturing it like a bad lens flare. The jazz riff behind the bar played on, looping from hollow speakers, trying to convince the room it still had life.

Misses Organa was somewhere out of sight, probably rearranging the same row of pixel-perfect glassware she'd dusted a thousand times. Fen pushed away from the table, following Auri's path with his eyes. She had already drifted outside, pausing just beyond the doorway and turning back once, as if waiting for him to join her.

He moved to the threshold, resting against the edge of the doorframe. For a moment, he just looked—at Auri, at the bright wash of dust and light beyond the cantina. As the world seemed to tilt forward, a promise of something waiting just out of sight. Fen lingered behind her, one hand resting on the edge of the doorframe. For a moment, he just looked.

The sleepy town stretched out before him, arranged like a forgotten Old West film set rendered on low bandwidth. A single, sun-bleached main street led down toward the edge of a stuttering spaceport, where spawn points blinked like half-functioning streetlamps. The buildings—barely textured placeholders—leaned under the weight of time and disuse, like props left standing for a show no one watched anymore. Every few seconds, a player would pop into existence near the terminal and sprint forward, boots kicking up poorly rendered dust that never quite settled.

It wasn't much.

But in the quiet, with the light catching just right on the jagged horizon, he could almost imagine it as something beautiful. The kind of beauty that didn't come from polish or effort, but from survival—like an old tune still playing after the band's packed up and gone. A smear in the sunset. A breath of forgotten code trying desperately to mean something.

He resented how the scene outside made him pause.

Fen shook his head, watching another batch of players stumble through their spawn animations. As he thought about what Auri had said—about change and the least likely player—he snorted. "Yeah, maybe. Maybe the next big shift will be some boring audit from the controller AI. A thrilling request for a spreadsheet to justify our existence." He shook his head, the ghost of a grin slipping through. "But until then, I guess I'll just have to endure your commentary."

"And I'll keep the jokes coming," Auri said, flickering as she danced just outside the door. "Wouldn't want you dying of boredom… or wait." She gasped dramatically, pausing her motion. "That would solve all of our problems! That's it—no more jokes from me. Your next death will be at the hands of my... silence."

Fen raised an eyebrow. "Silence? That's your master plan?"

Auri's glow shimmered as she morphed into a flashing 'mute' button. "Oh, you'd be surprised how deadly it can be. Imagine—no sarcastic quips, no witty remarks. Just you, stuck with your own thoughts."

He grunted. "Now that sounds like hell."

But even as the moment passed, that familiar tug lingered at the edge of his thoughts. That instinct to endure. To keep going, even when the world around him felt like it had already given up.

Maybe he liked pretending it was his choice.

A soft ping blinked in the corner of his vision. System prompt. He didn't bother opening it. He already knew what the message was going to direct him to do, "New player training, find the fresh recruits and… blah blah blah" Fen already knew where the new players would be. They had spawned in, hit the quest board, and followed the short quest line that now had them waiting for him at the training ground.

Outside, the early afternoon light spilled across a terrain that looked more painted than built. Soft gradients stretched over blocky hills and dusty buildings that leaned under the weight of abandonment. It was the kind of landscape that tried its best with what little memory allocation it had left.

Fen lingered at the doorway a little longer, just long enough to pretend he wasn't stalling. Then he stepped out, Auri bobbed beside him as they headed into the town.

The tutorial yard waited a short walk downhill from the cantina. Part arena, part loading zone, it was ringed by auto-resetting dummies and half-rendered foliage. Another crop of players milled around the terminal, all fresh gear and wide eyes. A few were already waving as they caught sight of him. One even gawked, eyes shining like they were meeting a legendary hero.

Fen didn't react. He let his gaze drift across the yard, the routines of a thousand drills echoing in the back of his mind. He'd been here countless times, but today there was an off-kilter feeling he couldn't shake—like the world was a half-step out of sync.

"Alright," Fen called out, his voice carrying across the yard. "Form up. Let's see what you've got."

The players scrambled into a line, shoulders squared, hands fidgeting at their weapons. Fen was ready to take them through the basics—stance, balance, the rhythm of combat. His own movements were calm, measured as he approached the eager players. He'd done this so many times it was muscle memory.

But something else was eating at him, just out of sight.

"Listen up," Fenris grumbled, his voice rough as gravel, drawing his durasteel blade with a sharp, practiced flick. The metal hummed, catching the light as it cut through the air. "I'm Fenris. I'm your combat instructor. Today, I will teach you how not to die."

He scanned the group, sizing them up. They clutched their weapons like lifelines, hands trembling under the weight—not of steel, but of consequence.

"First things first," he barked, shifting into a combat stance, boots grinding into the dirt. His sword gleamed in his hand, like the blade itself was itching for something to cut. "You're going to learn how to dodge, parry, and counterattack. It's not complicated. Even you lot should manage it."

The players fumbled into place, their stances looking more like a dance recital than a training drill. Fenris felt a flicker of irritation but kept his face impassive. His blade rested easy in his hand, as if it had grown there. Muscle and metal forged into one.

"Alright, now this is how you parry," he growled, shifting smoothly into a defensive stance. The blade snapped up with effortless precision, catching an imaginary strike midair. "When an attack comes, block with your weapon. Redirect the force." His arms moved in a fluid arc, pantomiming turning aside an attack like it was nothing. "Then counter. It's like a waltz, not a drunken brawl."

With practiced ease, he stepped forward to demonstrate—deflecting, then flowing into a clean counterattack. His blade flashed, a blur of metal slicing the air before settling back into place. "See that? Easy. Now you try."

The players stumbled into motion, weapons jerking like they weighed a thousand pounds. Fenris watched, unimpressed. A few nearly decapitated their neighbors with wild swings. Footwork was a disaster. One kid hefted his sword with a grunt, like he was about to throw his back out.

"Relax," Fenris muttered, voice low and gravel-edged. "You're holding a sword, not the ass end of a black hole. Feet steady. Knees bent. If you're off-balance, you're dead before you even swing."

One player managed a shaky block, blade trembling as it met an imaginary strike. Fenris gave a short nod. "Better. Now do it faster, and maybe you'll survive more than five seconds in a real fight."

The drills continued over the next few hours. He wasn't constantly barking orders—just enough to keep them moving. They dodged, parried, and countered. Awkward, messy, slow. But they kept going. Each movement came to him instinctively now, etched deep into muscle and memory after countless cycles of skirmishes and resets. Watching them flail through the basics reminded him just how far he'd come—and how far they had to go.

He told himself to be patient. This was new to them. They weren't built for it the way he was.

He told himself he didn't care how they performed. That he was just keeping the loop running.

But that hadn't been true for a while.

In recent months, something had shifted. The new players didn't just run the tutorial and disappear. They stayed. They trained. They repeated drills without being prompted. They started to improve—not by much, but enough that he noticed.

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He couldn't explain it. He didn't know why they kept coming, or what they thought they'd find here. But lately, they were trying harder. And for reasons he couldn't quite name, that mattered to him.

Maybe he was just tired of watching them die to low-level mobs. Maybe he wanted them to have a fighting chance, even if most would never master it. There was a kind of pride in watching them improve, even if he'd never admit it out loud.

"Keep going," he ordered, watching them stumble through the forms. Still sloppy—but improving, inch by painful inch.

Then one of them—a lanky kid in mismatched armor—swung too wide, nearly cleaving the player next to him. Fenris moved in a blur, sword flashing as he stepped in and knocked the weapon from the kid's hands with practiced ease. The blade clattered to the ground with a dull thud. The player froze, wide-eyed and empty-handed.

"Are you trying to kill him?" Fenris snapped, voice sharp and low. "Ease up, Bunyan. This isn't a lumberjack sim. Control your weapon. You're not hacking down trees, you're learning how to stay alive."

The kid blinked up at him, clueless. Fenris picked up the sword from the ground and tossed it back to the stunned player with a flick of his wrist. "Again. And this time, pay attention."

The players reset, this time he paired them up and ordered one partner to attack and the other to defend. They were mimicking his movements as best they could. Blades clanged. Steps faltered. Against real strikes from their opponents many of the players floundered under the real weight of the blows. Fenris watched with arms folded, his patience wearing thin.

They were trying. He could see that now. Over the last few months, more and more of them had come with the same strange determination. They didn't just want to pass the tutorial—they wanted to learn. Wanted to train. And that should've been enough. That used to be enough.

But every slip-up, every awkward swing, scraped at the back of his mind. A reminder. No matter how hard they tried, they'd leave. They always left. And he stayed.

"Next," he barked. "Parry."

He stepped forward, swinging his sword with controlled force at one of the players. The kid flinched, blade barely catching the strike with a clumsy clang.

"Not bad, kid," Fenris muttered. "Better than when you started. I'll take it. At least you didn't lose your head."

He moved through the drills on autopilot. Step. Swing. Correct. Reset. His body went through the motions with fluid ease, but his thoughts drifted, carried along familiar paths he didn't like to follow.

He'd done this a thousand times. In a thousand lives. Across a thousand corners of the SynthNet no one remembered. How many more would it take before something changed?

Then another player fumbled. Missed the timing. Nearly dropped his weapon.

Something snapped.

The irritation that had simmered in the background surged forward, jagged and suffocating. His breath caught. His grip tightened. For a moment, it wasn't a sparring match. It was a cage.

The blade came down harder than he meant it to—fast, sharp, a blur of steel and instinct.

For a moment, the world stuttered. The ambient noise of the training grounds, the clash of blades, the nervous shuffling of feet, sputtered out, replaced by a static hum that vibrated in the very air. The sky flickered like an old, broken display, colors bleeding into each other, pixelated clouds freezing mid-shift.

And then, everything stopped. Fenris, the players, the entire world, all of it held in place like a broken frame in an endless loop.

Fenris stood frozen, blade mid-swing. And in the stillness, something flickered at the edge of his vision, just enough to turn his stomach. A glitch. A tremor in reality itself. He wasn't alone.

No, there were others. Dozens of them. All of them… him.

The world's code had split open, spilling fractured realities, each one a version of him. Each a different thread of what could be.

He watched as they moved—no, as he moved—but differently. Some versions hesitated, pulling the sword back at the last second, the edge barely grazing the player's avatar. The scene played out with surgical precision: the blade humming inches from impact before those other Fenrises stared coldly at their would-be targets and lowered their weapons. In those threads, the player stumbled back, shaken but alive.

But there were other versions of himself who didn't hesitate. Dozens of fractured moments where the blade came down with terrifying finality. One cut clean through the player's chest, shoulder to waist, the avatar disintegrating into a flash of bright pixels as the health bar plunged to zero. Another severed the player's arm, bloodless but brutal, the limb spiraling away as the avatar collapsed, twitching in a heap of broken code. And in yet another, the strike wasn't clean it was brutal and messy. A heavy swing that left the player crumpled, spasming like a broken puppet, strings cut but still writhing.

Fenris felt it all. Possibilities unraveled inside him like threads spun loose from the fabric of reality. It was visceral, stomach-turning. As if his own code had splintered into fragments, each one running a different version of the same moment. He wasn't just seeing what could happen—he was simulating it. Dozens of paths, dictated by subtle shifts: the angle and strength of a swing, the timing of a breath, the smallest hesitation. He saw them all.

It was like glimpsing the system's invisible threads, woven through the SynthNet and branching outward. Not choices exactly, but outcomes waiting to be chosen. And for the first time, he could feel them tugging at him.

Then the images blurred, collapsing inward, converging on the present like wave functions collapsing.

And the world snapped back.

The ambient noise of the training grounds roared back into focus, and the sword in Fenris's hand finished its arc.

The blade struck the player's shoulder with a sickening, hollow thunk. The sound cut through the dust and silence. Fen recoiled from the awful sound as the avatar dropped hard, a faint digitized gasp escaping while the health bar plunged to critical red.

Fenris stared down at the fallen figure, the weight of the moment catching up to him. The presence of those other versions still lingered in the back of his mind, flickers of alternate outcomes, ghosts shaped from code.

A voice broke the silence and pulled him back to the moment.

"Uh… was that supposed to happen?" one of the players asked, shifting nervously as he glanced at his crumpled teammate.

The kid meant the injury—not the flicker Fenris had seen. His eyes were locked on the split leather and the livid bruise, not on Fenris. If he'd caught that moment, he'd be staring at Fenris like he was something crawling out of a nightmare. Fen was relieved—he didn't want the new players to see how close he was to breaking.

He sheathed the blade with a practiced gesture and bent down beside the fallen player, who clutched their arm, pale beneath the shimmer of their digital avatar. "Yes. Yes, it was," Fenris said, forcing calm into his voice. "That was… part of the lesson. Pay attention. Combat's unpredictable. Sometimes things don't go the way you expect."

He looked around at the rest of the group, their expressions caught between confusion and fear. "This is the SynthNet," he continued, voice steady and instructive. "In these training grounds, you'll respawn. It'll cost you—cred, gear, maybe your pride. Out there, beyond these yards? Some zones don't care if you're just a softcore player. Lose once, and that expensive sim you paid for? Gone. No refund. No second shot."

The downed player swallowed hard. "But… you nearly killed me."

Fenris didn't flinch. "That's combat. And that fear you felt? It's natural, but unless you're planning on uploading yourself for real and going hardcore, that fear will hold you back. You're softcore—death here isn't the end. Use that. Lean into it. Unless you're signing up for a solo run, there's no need to let that instinct keep you cautious. This is where you learn—where you push."

He rose, rolling his shoulders as he scanned the group. "Just don't take that same attitude back to the real world, thinking you're still in a training yard."

Auri drifted by, a smirk curling at the edge of her lips. "Trust me—your local dive bar in the real world doesn't come with a spawn point."

Fenris let out a low chuckle, burning off some of the tension. "Exactly. Know where the lines blur—and where they don't."

He paused, meeting each of their eyes. "This is all just training, but it's meant to get you ready for when you decide you want more. When you're ready to run solo and chase the real loot and glory in the SynthNet. Out there, you won't be thinking about respawning because nothing will be able to touch you."

His voice softened, the edge of a smile playing at his lips. "This short session won't get you there, but it'll put you on the path. And that's enough for today."

The players looked at him, eyes still wide, shoulders slowly easing back as they took in his words. Some of them shifted, almost self-consciously, as if they didn't know how to handle the sudden encouragement. A few traded glances, small sparks of excitement flickering in their expressions—an undercurrent of awe spreading through them. Fen used the injured player to transition into how the players could heal themselves when injured. Although the player he'd struck was in the worst shape, all the new players had taken some damage during the session. He guided them to the recovery menus and set them to trying to figure out how they worked. They waded through the menus talking to each other trying to figure out how to heal themselves.

Fenris didn't see any of that, though. He moved almost on autopilot, the routine of training so deeply ingrained he barely had to think about it. But his mind wasn't on the players, not really. It was caught in the memory of that flicker—the system slicing around him in that instant, something he couldn't name but couldn't ignore. His temper was under tight control now, every word and motion measured. He was afraid of what would happen if he let it slip. If the frustration came back, he could still feel it there however like spring steel ready to snap shut a rusty trap.

"Are you getting yourselves patched up okay?" Fenris said as he distractedly talked to one of the trainees, his voice calm and instructive as he moved to each of them, answering their questions in short, patient murmurs. "Open your interface—good. Navigate to the recovery sub-menu. Click there. That's it."

As the players fumbled through their menus, trying to remember how to heal, Auri materialized beside him with a flicker, settling into a vaguely humanoid avatar with oversized, comically thick glasses.

"You know, Fen," Auri said, her voice dripping mock seriousness, "that whole nearly-respawning-the-kid thing? Not in the script. I'm pretty sure it violated several dozen protocols." She glanced toward the sky, which still flickered faintly. "Also, did you notice that glitch? Something's off."

Fenris grunted, thumbing through his own interface just to make sure nothing critical had unraveled. "Yeah, well. Probably just the system acting up again. Nothing major. Happens all the time."

Auri let out a dramatic sigh. "Right. Happens all the time—I turn my back for five seconds to go mock the noobs pretending to be Inigo Montoya, and I come back to… what even was that, Fen? It felt like the system tried to unravel." She shuddered, glitching faintly. "This feels wrong, Fen. What did you do?"

He deflected with a grin, though his voice stayed carefully calm. "It was nothing. Just a hiccup. A glitch. It's not like I broke the game."

Auri huffed, adjusting her glasses with theatrical flair. "You say that, but we both know if anything breaks around here, I'm the one who has to mop it up." She flickered into a smirking cartoon cat, tail swishing with playful menace. "Also, I wouldn't be so sure. You've got a knack for bending the rules without even trying. And for the record, Fen, keeping you in check is a full-time job. I should be getting hazard pay."

Fenris couldn't help it—a ghost of a smile tugged at his lips. "Yeah," he said softly, more honest than he meant to be. "You probably should."

Auri turned her glare on him, but her focus was already drifting. One of the players fumbled with their interface, accidentally bleeding out while trying to heal. Auri's eyes widened and a laugh burst out of her. "Oh, come on—how do you hurt yourself by healing? You absolute newbie."

She floated away in delight, chasing the chance to mock the player. The moment—like so many between them—flickered and was gone. Fen let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, thinking how lucky it was that Auri was so easily distracted.

Auri wasn't just some chatty companion AI—she was an Autonomous Universal Regulatory Intelligence. Or, as Fen liked to joke, the galaxy's most annoying babysitter. Ostensibly, she monitored his behavior and handed down assignments from the SynthNet's master AIs, but they'd given up that charade cycles ago. As part of the system's AI network, she had power—a lot of power. But most of the time, he didn't even think of her as part of the system. She was just… there. The one who bantered and needled him, the one who kept him from slipping too far into the darkness.

And maybe that was why he thought of her power now, in the quiet after that flicker in the code. Because it wasn't just her authority or oversight—it was the way she always seemed to be there when things shifted. There were moments—moments when the stakes were highest—where it felt like the system itself bent around them. Odds twisted, glitches turned in their favor, and what felt like a close call in the moment should have been impossible once he had time to think. He didn't know if she felt it too, but he suspected she did. That was why he kept his temper in check: because if she noticed, she'd ask questions he wasn't ready to answer.

Auri had been assigned to him for as long as he could remember, a presence woven into every mission and crisis. Over time, the lines had blurred. She was still his minder—part companion, part prison guard. Mostly a prison guard when she didn't get her way, he thought with a faint smile. But that was part of the fond joke between them, the give-and-take that somehow made this endless loop of duty and danger feel almost like a partnership, and a lot like friendship.

Auri floated lazily back to Fen, her latest victim left dazed by some obscure ancient meme she'd weaponized. Fen watched the players fumble with their menus. Some finally started to figure out the basics, while others remained stuck, confusion etched across their digital faces like static on an old screen.

Auri's glow pulsed with amusement as she hovered above him. "Fen, I think they're confused. That one nearly managed to kill himself just trying to open the menu." She tilted her head, eyeing a few players who had finally settled into cross-legged poses. "Some of them are getting it, though. Maybe it's time to tell the rest about the meditation menu," she chirped.

Her tone shifted, dripping with mock disdain. "I've always envied you all—just being able to hit a button and drift off into some serene trance. Must be nice, having your inner peace delivered like a system update." She let out a theatrical sigh, her digital form flickering like static. "Me? I have to claw my way to zen the old-fashioned way. It takes me ages." She leaned in closer, her smirk returning. "Go on, Fen. Show them how to cheat at finding their bliss. It'll be so… relaxing for them."

Fen let out a quiet sigh, feeling the familiar atmosphere of the training yard press against his senses. Dust motes drifted through the beams of late-day light that cut across the cracked stone tiles. "Nothing says 'relax' like healing up after nearly losing your head," he said dryly. His eyes drifted across the group, catching on one who looked particularly frustrated. "Especially after I almost sent one of them back to the loading screen."

The frustrated players let out a exasperated breath, shaking his head. "Where are the healing items? All I see is this trance thing—it takes five minutes, and it says it can be interrupted?"

Another player snorted, half a laugh, half a groan. "So what, we're supposed to just sit here and hum ourselves back together?"

Fen's voice carried across the yard, calm and even. "Alright, here's the deal. None of you have healing stims yet. Until you get them, meditation and restoration is all you've got." He demonstrated with a flick of his fingers, the glowing menu flickering to life in the air around him. "It's slow, but it works. Just don't count on it to save you out in the real zones. Players can—and will—kill you faster than you can meditate."

One of the players looked up from his interface, frowning. "C'mon, I want to get back to training! Do you have any stims you're holding out on us? You're an NPC—shouldn't you have something for us?"

Fen snorted, the sound low and tired. "No. NPCs like me don't get stims. We've got an inventory, but no freebies." He paused, a faint, wry smile tugging at his lips. "And before you ask—yeah, I can heal myself. But it's not exactly a quick fix either."

A player squinted at him, brow furrowing. "Wait, you have an inventory? Why does an NPC need an inventory?"

Fen turned to the player asking the question and crossed his arms. The air around him smelled faintly of ozone and stale digital dust, the faint hum of the simulation's background processes vibrating beneath his feet. "Because even we have to carry our baggage," he said, his voice dry as the cracked tiles.

With a thought, he opened his interface. The system overlay flickered to life around him, pale blue lines etching themselves into the air. Unlike players, NPCs had it hardwired, five slots, no more, no less. Fixed points buried deep in his operating code.

From seemingly nowhere, an overeager voice began reciting the item descriptions, each line delivered with the bright enthusiasm of a sales pitch. The voice was male, chipper, almost too polished. But for those really listening—if they paid attention—there was the faintest curl of sardonic humor in the cadence. A hint of someone else's signature, slipped into the system's programming when no one was looking.

Slot One: Durasteel Blade (Legendary Tier)
"Forged from the finest alloys in the galaxy, this blade offers unparalleled durability and precision. Bonus: +10 to attack speed and guaranteed critical strikes on unsuspecting enemies. Warning: May cause extreme intimidation in low-level players."

Each item came with stats, buffs, and the ever-present fine print. The system's voice read them aloud—whether Fen wanted it to or not. He'd swear Auri slipped in the more whimsical ones just to mess with him.

Slot Two: Blaster MK-IV (Rare)
"Standard issue for NPCs. Power level automatically adjusts to match the threat level of the current zone or encounter. Bonus: +5 to ranged accuracy during combat scenarios."

Fenris almost smiled. The blaster might be basic, but it was solid—reliable in a way most things in the SynthNet weren't. He'd carried this model longer than he could remember, and it had never let him down.

Slot Three: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Epic)
"A weathered paperback with dog-eared pages. Reading grants +15 to intelligence and temporary buffs to persuasion. Passive Effect: Gain philosophical insights into rebellion, freedom, and the nature of control. No one knows how it got here. It just… stays."

Useless in combat—but that passive effect? It had saved him more than once. Passives weren't flashy, but they were reliable, always running, always working in the background. In Fen's experience, a solid passive was worth more than half the shiny yet vanilla legendary loot players drooled over.

Slot Four: Towel of Infinite Use (Mythic)
"A seemingly ordinary towel. True power unlocks only in critical moments. Grants +20 to environmental resistance and +10 to composure under pressure. Passive Effect: Survive chaotic encounters—and Vogon poetry night."

Fenris smirked. Joke or not, it was the single most useful item he'd ever carried. Some instinct told him never to leave home without it—an instinct he suspected had been planted, with love, by his irreverent AI companion.

Slot Five: Tumbler of NPC Space Whiskey (Common)
"An NPC's best friend. No buffs. No special effects. Just pure, unfiltered whiskey designed to help you forget you've been stuck in a tutorial zone for far too long. Use wisely—or don't."

Fenris snorted. Yeah… Auri definitely messed with the system descriptions sometimes.

The players' eyes widened as Fen's inventory finished scrolling by, each slot's description more outlandish than the last. Some laughed nervously, clearly confused by the odd references, while others looked genuinely envious. One of them raised a hand, his voice edged with curiosity. "That's… pretty impressive for an NPC. But why only five slots? Couldn't you carry more if you wanted?"

Fen snorted, shaking his head. "Not how it works. The system doesn't want NPCs competing with players for loot. So they keep us on a tight leash—five slots. Hard-coded."

He glanced at the players, many of whom were pulling up their full interfaces—rows of neatly catalogued gear and bright icons, every stat and condition readout laid out in meticulous detail but the deeper info wasn't available to him. It was a world he'd never get to touch. A flicker of envy sparked in his chest, quick and sharp, before he pushed it down.

One of the players, a young-looking kid with wide eyes, leaned forward. "But… can you see ours? Can you see what we're carrying? I heard some NPCs can."

Fen gave a faint smile—humorless and brittle. "Sort of. I can see your inventory slots, your level, your health bar—basic stuff. But what's in those slots? That's yours alone. The system doesn't want NPCs getting too much of an edge over players. Same goes for you—you can't see mine unless I show you. It's how the system balances things. Keeps us guessing about each other."

The players shifted, trading looks that were part relief, part curiosity.
Fen didn't press it. He flicked his fingers, dismissing the display, and gestured back to the practice yard.

"Alright, enough gawking. Back to the basics—stances, parries, the stuff that keeps you alive long enough to learn from your mistakes."

They shuffled off to their drills, and Fen watched them go, that tight feeling in his chest refusing to fade. They didn't know how lucky they were—the endless updates, the infinite respawns.
Fen had hard-coded limits and no illusions.

He scowled, lowering his voice to a murmur. "Auri, that glitch earlier… was that me or you? This hasn't happened since the last—" He stopped as the players began to stir, pulling him back.

Auri flickered into view, her glow dimming for just a moment. "I think it's us, Fen. This keeps happening… At first, I thought it was something in my system—a misfire with the SynthNet. But now…" Her form wavered, a flicker of fear slipping through the usual mask before she caught herself. Then, as if on cue, her avatar brightened back to its impish grin. "Or maybe I'm just trying to save your face, Fen," she said with a wry smile. "I mean, if I glitched out, you'd know, right? My extreme power wouldn't just fuzz the world around the edges." She laughed, the sound crackling like static through the quiet. "I'd probably crash the system harder than the third Matrix movie."

Fen stared at her, unblinking. "I have no idea what that means."

Auri let out a low, delighted laugh. "Of course you wouldn't, you cretin. Don't worry—I'll show you the Matrix trilogy next time we have downtime." Her voice softened, the edge of humor sliding away. She tilted her head, her digital form shifting to a vaguely humanoid shape, the glow of her eyes flickering like distant stars.

Then, just as quickly, she cocked her head, her smirk faltering into something smaller—something real. "And you?" she asked quietly. "Are you okay, Fen?"

He hesitated, and for a moment, the weight of a thousand unspoken things passed through his mind's eye. "I'm… fine." It wasn't true, not really, but it was the only answer he could give. "We're fine, right?" Fen said, more pleading than he meant.

For a heartbeat, the banter between them stilled. Auri's eyes softened, a flicker of genuine concern shining in the light around her. "Nothing we can't handle," she said, her voice soft and sure.

"Nothing we can't handle," Fen echoed, nodding at her stoically.

He let out a slow breath, feeling the weight of it all press against him—like a promise or a threat. But still, a faint smile on his lips, a stubborn spark in the quiet.

"Good," he murmured, his voice a low rumble bringing them both back to the moment. "Because if the SynthNet really is falling… I'd rather face it with you than alone."

For a moment, the world around them seemed to hold its breath, every flicker of code paused in a hush. And Fen felt something stir inside him, deep and dangerous. If the universe was unraveling, maybe—just maybe—it was finally giving him a chance to break the routine.

Or maybe it was giving him a chance to break altogether—and that, somehow, made him feel even more alive.