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

Auri's quiet humming blended with the steady drone of the truck's engine—just background noise now that Fen had finally convinced her to turn down the synth-heavy playlist. Two hours of what she swore was "80s" music, though Fen had no clue which century's version she meant. With how long the SynthNet had been running, there were multiple "80s" eras to choose from.

Whatever this one was, he couldn't fathom how anyone had ever enjoyed it. But Auri loved it, and even now she hummed the remnants of a tune, her pixelated form flickering softly in the fading golden light slanting through the window.

Outside, the road shimmered beneath the late afternoon heat, stretching endlessly ahead. The sun hung low, painting the world in warm orange and dusty red. Everything felt still—peaceful in a way that made Fen's shoulders loosen. Not an anomaly in sight. Not a chirp from the overseers. No chaos. Just open road.

He glanced over at Seraph. Her boots were propped on the dashboard, her short black hair tousled by the wind spilling through the window. She sat tall—not towering, but lean and sure, like every inch of her had been built for movement. Years of fighting shaped her, but it hadn't hardened her. There was still something soft in the corner of her smile, the kind of quiet confidence that said she'd already clocked every threat between here and the horizon.

The truck rattled over uneven terrain, its hover plates grinding through their fourth hour of hard work. No nav system outside the mini-map, no auto-drive—not in this part of the Net. This zone was ancient by SynthNet standards, built on purpose to not have self-driving systems. If you wanted to get somewhere out here, you drove yourself.

Seraph didn't seem to mind. The tension that sometimes clung to her had loosened somewhere along the way. She looked almost relaxed now, basking in the illusion of stillness. Fen let himself feel it too. Yesterday had been chaos—that strange stuttering glitch, the feeling of unraveling—but today? Today felt like what passed for normal.

He sighed, leaning back against the sun-warmed seat. There was a rhythm to it—the engine, the breeze, the soft hum of Auri's fading melody. For once, the world wasn't screaming for attention. No emergencies. No missions. No broken players trying to hit on Seraph while on fire.

Maybe, just maybe, the day would stay that way.

And through it all, Auri kept humming.

They'd been driving for just over an hour more, the desert stretching wider with every mile, the low-res world around them fading from stylized decay into something older—more tired. The simulation didn't break down out here—it just sagged, like a memory left too long in the sun. Like it had forgotten how to be anything else.

Seraph had been lounging with her boots up on the dash, letting the wind play with the ends of her braid, but now she pulled her feet back into the cab and sat up straighter. Her eyes narrowed, the playful smile slipping from her face as she scanned their surroundings.

"We're almost there," she said, voice calm but sharpened by memory. "Pelagos is just past the ridge."

Fen nodded, shifting his grip on the wheel. He scanned the horizon, watching as the dusty hills gave way to something more structured. Still faded, but intentional, like the bones of a story no one remembered telling.

"Hard to believe this place was ever booming," he muttered.

Seraph hummed a quiet agreement, her gaze distant. "It was, once. Back when this sector was a full sim. It was a desert-punk, open-world and saw some pretty high traffic. Players used to roll through in dune-buggies, skiffs, even rideable beasts. The kind with stat sheets and lore pages." She smiled faintly. "Graphics were almost indistinguishable from real life back then. Lighting engines were top-tier."

Fen let out a low breath. "And now we've got sun-washed cardboard and terrain you can clip through if you walk too fast."

"Cheaper that way," she said, leaning an elbow on the door. "Back when players shelled out premium creds to run the sim, the devs kept places like this in high-res. But once the money dried up and they pulled support, it defaulted to minimum render. Nobody's bought the upscale packet for this region in... cycles."

He didn't answer right away. A rusted road sign loomed ahead, half-buried in sand. Most of the letters had peeled away, but the faded image below still clung to the surface — a serpent coiled through the town's crude layout, its pixelated tail vanishing into a mine shaft.

Pelagos.

It hit Fen harder than he expected. He'd been here before—seven cycles back, not long after he first spawned into the sector. Back when he was still trying to make sense of where he fit in all this. He'd fished the lake, cleared a few mobs, then moved on. It had been quiet then. Eerie. And as he looked it over now... nothing much had changed.

"I forgot how still it is out here," he murmured. "No quests. No noise. Just dust and time, piling up like everything else out here."

The lake came into view again, glassy and dark beneath the sun. Reflections fractured and reformed on its surface—too clean, too still. Like it had been frozen in time, never touched by weather or wear. The hills around it were riddled with the yawning mouths of old mine shafts, gaping open like something half-buried trying to scream. Jagged, unnatural cuts into the terrain. Legacy code. Nobody patched this deep.

"Used to be a real hub," Seraph said softly. "Fishing, mining, bartering. Whole gameplay loop ran through here. I came through a few times on patrol sweeps, back when we still had to check for mob spawns out this far. But it's been cycles since I had a reason to come out this far."

Fen didn't answer right away. His gaze had locked on the refinery ahead—the one that curved along the northern lip of the lake. Its silhouette jutted against the sky, broken and rusting, but still familiar in a way that unsettled him.

"That place used to process ore from the mines, right?" he asked, voice low.

"Yeah," Seraph replied, slower now. "Back when this sector still meant something. It's been dead longer than it was ever alive."

A flicker lit up on the truck's minimap—faint orange and pulsing in an unfamiliar way. It hovered about a mile ahead, just off the refinery's edge.

Fen frowned. "We've got something flagged. Not a system standard marker."

Seraph leaned forward. "Could be a custom spawn point. Maybe that's how the players are slipping in."

Fen slowed the truck as they rolled into the outskirts of Pelagos. The buildings had caved inward over time, skeletal outlines sagging under the weight of years. The refinery loomed beyond the town, jagged and half-shadowed beneath the ridge.

He tightened his grip on the wheel.

"Something feels wrong," he muttered.

"Feels like a ghost zone," Seraph murmured, her voice low. "Maybe we spooked the spooks."

She turned in her seat, glancing toward the back. Auri's glow had dimmed—barely noticeable, but enough to make Seraph's brow furrow.

"Auri? What's up, you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Auri said quickly. "Just… rethinking the assignment. It's probably nothing. Just a sensor echo. Controller AI's got it handled by now. We could head back, you know? No reason to go poking around some abandoned refinery."

Seraph didn't answer right away. She watched Auri a beat longer, then turned forward again—slower than before.

Fen's hands tightened on the wheel. He flicked a glance at Auri's form in the mirror—not her usual playful shimmer, but something jagged, flickering like a cracked display.

"You're serious?" he asked, voice low.

She hesitated. Just a beat too long.

"Of course," she said. The words came too quickly. "I mean, it's an old ghost sector. You know how messy those logs can be. Whatever triggered the alert probably already burned itself out. Dust and scrap. That's all that's out here."

Fen didn't answer. The air felt too still.

He glanced at Seraph. She hadn't said a word, but her fingers tapped a slow rhythm on the dashboard, her eyes locked on the horizon like she was running the odds in her mind. That detail chilled him more than Auri's tone.

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"Auri," he said, steady but sharp. "Is there something you're not telling us?"

Her form stuttered, just slightly. A flicker of static at the edge of her outline.

"It's probably nothing," Auri said, quieter now. "Really. Just... not worth sticking around for."

Fen's gaze didn't waver.

Auri's voice dropped again, more deliberate. "Seriously. We should go."

"I don't know anything for sure," she added, her tone almost too careful. "It just… doesn't feel like a standard mission. That's all."

There it was—the first crack in her usual bravado.

Seraph turned her head slightly, watching Auri through narrowed eyes. She didn't speak, but the subtle way her hand shifted toward her sidearm told Fen everything he needed to know. She felt it too.

They pressed forward in silence, the road stretching ahead. The closer they got, the heavier everything felt—like gravity itself was stalking them.

Fen pulled the truck up just outside the refinery, the skeletal structure looming against the late afternoon sun. He cut the engine, and the low hum faded into a tense, unnatural quiet.

He stepped out. The air hit him like a pressure front—dense, still, charged. Almost electric.

The refinery loomed above them, all rusted girders and sun-bleached metal. Its framework was half-collapsed, like a creature that had outlived its usefulness but refused to fall. The stench of oxidized metal and decay clung to the place, thick and acrid. But beneath it all, Fen caught something else—a hum. Low. Steady.

At first, he took it for the usual ambient buzz of old SynthNet structures—background data, maybe. But as he moved, his brow furrowed.

The sound wasn't dying off or fading. It pulsed. Like machinery beneath the ground was still running, heartbeat-slow, and far too steady for something abandoned.

Behind him, Seraph stepped out with deliberate care, her boots crunching softly against the gravel. She didn't say anything, but her eyes were already sweeping the ridge above and then down across the base of the structure, tracking movement, measuring angles, like she was mentally mapping every place a threat could hide.

"I'll take the long gun," Fen muttered, stepping to the truck's side rack and pulling down his pulse rifle. The metal was cool and familiar in his hands—heft and reliability, both. He slung it over his shoulder with practiced ease.

Seraph gave a short shake of her head. "I'll leave Tiny Tina behind," she said, patting the oversized anti-material rifle still mounted in the rear. "For now."

They moved together, boots crunching across the gravel, circling wide along the refinery's outer edge. The structure creaked in the windless stillness, beams groaning faintly like it resented being seen. Pipes hissed. Vents coughed out steam in slow exhales.

"That's... odd," Seraph said under her breath. She stopped beside a corroded support strut and pointed to a flickering signal light above one of the platforms. "This place… it's running."

"It shouldn't be," Fen replied, voice tight. "Last time I was here, it was a husk. No power. No systems online."

A long pause. Then, quietly, Seraph added, "Auri? You picking up anything?"

From behind them, her form materialized more fully, shimmering into view like a reflection resolving. Her posture was stiff.

"Still parsing the environmentals," she said. "There's… something. I can't get a clean read. Power levels are inconsistent. Could be old grid leakage. Could be something else."

Fen and Seraph exchanged a glance.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up, a primal whisper that hadn't failed him yet. Without thinking, he swung the rifle down from his shoulder, hands finding the grip with practiced ease. The cold metal felt steady in his palms, an anchor against the unease threading through the air.

The refinery creaked as they moved past it, the fading sunlight casting long shadows across the broken landscape. Despite the faint hiss of steam and hum of dormant machinery, the air felt too still—like the whole place was holding its breath.

They'd come looking for signs of a breach. A player intrusion, maybe—a rerouted spawn point or unauthorized uplink from the dead world. But so far, nothing had matched the footprint Auri flagged.

Just as Fen started to think the hum was their only anomaly, he froze.

"Hold up," he said, barely above a whisper.

Something hovered ahead—jagged, rectangular, and wrong. A tear in the world, floating just above the ground near the edge of the structure. It wasn't just visual corruption. It felt like the code itself had been peeled open.

Fen's pulse quickened.

Seraph followed his gaze, stopping a half-step behind him. Her posture shifted subtly—shoulders tight, hand now on her blaster ready to draw.

"What the hell is that?" she asked, tone flat but alert.

They approached slowly, steps cautious, eyes locked on the anomaly. As they drew near, the world around it started to shift.

The rusted siding of the building sharpened unnaturally, the corroded metal shifting from low-res textures to razor-detailed realism. Every scratch, every flake of oxidation looked photographed, not rendered. Even the shadows beneath the overhangs deepened, bending with the subtle distortion of real-world light physics.

Beneath their boots, the gravel changed. What had been blocky, simplified terrain was now a chaotic scatter of unique, irregular stones—each one textured with microscopic grooves and chipped edges. No two looked the same. Even the dust between them looked disturbingly accurate as it drifted between light and shadow.

Fen felt the shift like a weight pressing against his chest. The simulation wasn't just boosting fidelity—it was overcompensating, redrawing the world in impossible detail. It looked less like a rendered environment and more like a high-res scan of the real. The sheer clarity of it strained his senses, like his eyes weren't built to process that much of reality.

He blinked hard, trying to steady himself—but the world refused to blur. Every detail was still perfect. Too perfect.

His eyes stayed fixed on the scene, barely able to speak through the sheer beauty of what he was seeing. "It's... incredible," he muttered, barely above a whisper.

Seraph moved to the side, circling cautiously. "But look," she said, motioning toward it. "From this angle—it flattens out. It's like it only exists if you're looking dead-on.

Fen mirrored Seraph, shifting around the perimeter. From some angles, the rift collapsed into a razor-thin sliver—barely visible. But when he lined up directly, it flared back to full intensity. The tear wasn't chaotic. It was precise and Surgical. Too intentional.

Auri's voice broke in from behind them—no longer coy, just tight with tension.

"Okay. I've seen enough. Let's go. We'll log it with the controller AIs once we're clear. Probably smart to put a mile or ten... or twenty between us and this thing before we start the paperwork."

Fen turned. "Auri. What is this?"

Her form flickered—less like a glitch, more like something fraying under pressure.

"I can't tell you that," she said, too quickly. "Just—please. Trust me. It's not worth it. This isn't a bug. It's not a player hack. It's worse."
A pause. Her voice dropped.
"They don't expect us to leave if they let us see this much."

Fen felt it—like static on a wire, the air stretched thin and sharp, vibrating along his skin. He and Seraph didn't need to speak; something was watching them.

Beside him, Seraph shifted, drawing her blaster but keeping it low. Her posture changed—subtle, but unmistakable.

It felt like being hunted. Like prey in tall grass.

Still... he stepped closer.

The rift pulsed—like it had been waiting for that.

Inside, a shape stirred. Black. Formless. Then slowly—it peeled forward.

Auri's voice cut through the tension like a blade.

"Fen—move!"

He didn't question it. He shifted sideways, boots grinding on gravel, weapon snapping up—instinct before thought.

A crack split the air. A bullet tore past his head, punched the wall beside him.

Concrete burst behind him. Shrapnel kissed his shoulder.

That shot wasn't suppressed. Too sharp, too loud. Which meant distance—mid-range, maybe farther. Close enough for a clean line, far enough to stay hidden. Whoever it was had elevation, patience, and a clear shot.

Then his eyes flicked back to the rift. The edges shimmered like a wound, and this thing was its infection. It poured out slowly—no legs, no symmetry, no sense. A cascade of limbs and angles that didn't belong together, folding into themselves and unraveling again. Black, but not empty. Crowded. Packed with twitching detail, like something alive had been compressed into code and was tearing its way out pixel by pixel.

The ground beneath it buckled, fracturing as it dragged itself forward. Where it touched, textures warped—too crisp, too clean—like the system couldn't decide whether to render or reject it.

No tag. No health bar. No name. Just a jittering mess of broken symbols where the UI overlay should've been—like the system tried to label it and crashed halfway through.

Another shot cracked past him—closer this time. It snapped him back to the present, to the reality of gunfire and open ground.

Fen tore his eyes from the thing spilling out of the rift, shoving down the surge of nausea as instinct took over. His body moved before his thoughts could catch up—diving behind a rusted support beam, breath steadying, rifle raised.

He peeked around the edge, still scanning for the sniper—elevation, angle, line of fire. Nothing.

But his eyes caught the rift again. The creature hadn't flinched at the gunfire. No hesitation. No reaction. It just kept coming, stretching toward him like it knew. Like it had been waiting for the distraction.

His heart slammed against his ribs—steady, but not calm. Not fear. Not yet. Just the raw, ancient whisper of it. That quiet instinct buried in every creature that ever huddled near firelight and knew, without knowing, that something in the dark was watching.

The rift pulsed again—slow, deliberate. The thing crawling through didn't accelerate, but the world around it seemed to recoil, textures peeling away like they wanted no part of it. Like the sim itself was trying to unrender the moment.

Nothing about it made sense. No logic to cling to. No rules to apply.

But it saw him.

And Fen, breath held, body still, felt something vast and wrong pressing in around him. Not a monster.

A message.
And whoever—or whatever—was sending it had chosen this thing as its herald. And it was coming for him.

There was no doubt in Fen's mind.

Something wanted him deleted.