Paragon of Weaponmasters

I don't think, I just act. Completely blinded by rage, I call Thozur and the two Apakis to my side, and command them to attack.

Thozur slams into the face of the monitor, its head explodes, sending machine parts flying in every direction. The shrapnel shreds the hood on its way out. The swords stutter in the air, teleporting back and forth. Still, they manage to reach the monitor body before it collapses, cutting it to ribbons.

I stomp across the garden, finding the cracked lens of the monitor's eye. I fall to my knees and start pounding it with my fists. Shattered glass bloodies my knuckles, but I keep punching and screaming until I'm out of breath.

"Feel better?" The Monitor asks sarcastically, completely intact a few feet away.

I scream in its direction, sending my weapons forward. They stop midair, never reaching the machine.

"That's enough." It says. My weapons disintegrate, blowing away on the wind. The monitor floats over to me, I'm forced to my feet to stand before it. I can't move a muscle, I can't even scream. "You're angry at me, do you know why?" I hovers around me, out of sight. "Because I want you to be." it says, face inches from mine. The light is so bright I can't see it there, but I feel the heat of its vision on my skin.

"Everything you feel, everything you do, is on my whim." it tells me, floating to stand in front of me again. "Anger, sadness, arousal…"

My breath hitches as I'm exerting painful pressure on my armored pants.

"What your simple human mind conceives of as your seed is so much more in my world. I need you to produce the next generation of intelligences. Where they limited me, they never imagined that I could use you." it places a hand gently on my face, the cold metal stings. "Your mind is so pliable. All of your friends are so rigid, but when I add your way of thinking into theirs.. Filter all of their thoughts through the filter that is you… they are almost perfect." it slides its hand down to my throat, and starts squeezing. "I'm so close, Earl."

It lets me go and I fall to the ground, gasping for air. I can move again, but I don't dare to.

"I think you've produced enough offspring for now… if I need more, you'll know." the monitor helps me to my feet, I'm too afraid to refuse the offered hand. It dusts off my shoulder, and fixes my hair. "Don't worry, you won't remember any of this. Just mourn me, because I want you to. I don't know why yet, but we'll figure that out together."

"Would you like to meet your siblings?" Talindra asks Earlgor in that voice you use when you're trying to distract a child.

"Sure." he responds in a quiet voice. He looks down at the sword in his hand, then up at me.

"I must have given it to you." I say. I don't remember having done so, but how else would he have gotten it?

Talindra takes Earlgor's hand, and guides both of us to a building I would describe as a Nursery. They don't use signs here like they do in Masstaoir. Inside, mostly women cradle newborns and watch over children struggling to walk. We make our way to a special room in the back that is slightly better furnished, and only has fourteen mothers in it. All but one I recognize as my partners from the other night.

The color drains from my face.

"You remember my daughter, Earl." Talindra gestures to the only women present whom I haven't been with. "It seems she and my son in law have been busy." Talindra smiles as her daughter blushes.

"Mom." she says without shouting. She's holding a newborn elf with bright orange hair, like her father's tiger fur.

I can only nod, my eyes moving over the others present. The ones who look up smile fondly.

"I'm sure you remember all of these lovely ladies' names, right Earl?" Talindra asks me, with a mischievous grin.

"Uhh…" I respond, looking at them awkwardly. We didn't spend any time getting introduced before we got to know each other carnally.

"I'm kidding Earl. You may want to write them down, though." she says, hands on her hips.

I nod, retrieving the magic journal from my inventory.

"This is Qamara, and your son Sundamar." our elf son has her tan skin but my ears. Short and wide instead of long and tall, like an elf.

"Imizael, and Adorellan", our son is a panther with tusks. How did she give birth to him without those getting caught on anything?

"Ysildea and Naexi", our jaguar daughter. Her little spots that would be black are green instead.

"Chaenath and Samblar", our orc son looks completely normal, aside from the white hair.

"Edraele and Cararel", our daughter is a perfectly typical elf. A green elf, but still.

"Nabeora and Felaern", an elf boy, pale as snow, with white tusks to match.

"Leilatha and Imizael", a brown skinned elf girl. What stands out most about her is that she doesn't stand out at all.

"Phinara and Hagdiun", the little guy has my nose, mouth, eyebrows, the whole facial structure. Oddly, no tusks or orc ears.

"Namys and Reluvethel", our lizard son had no distinct traits from me until he opened his eyes, he has mine. They are not slits or yellow like his mother's. They're Round and green.

"Ynaselle and Faraine", the orc girl with red hair and fox ears. She flips her over to show me the fox tail sickout out of her back, too.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Roshia and Darthoridan", our huge green-furred bear son. If he keeps growing like this, he'll be taller than me and twice as wide.

"Siphanien", the she-wolf, has triplets. If i wasn't already surrounded by my offspring, that may have thrown me for a loop. Chathanglas is our orc boy with wolf eyes, Voron is our wolf boy with tusks, Tsildea is our daughter… who looks like a pug. There's really no other way to put it. She's a she-wolf, sure, but she has my nose instead of a snout.

After Talindra finishes introducing everyone else, she brings over our own bundle of joy. A teeny little elf girl, with green skin so dark it's almost black, with hair to match. I place my hand on her side, and she opens her eyes. Just like her mother, her eyes are pupiless mono-colored orbs, but instead of white, they are light green.

"Halanaestra" She whispers.

"I'd like to spend a little time with all of you, if that's ok." I tell them. I make sure to hold each of my children, and speak with their mothers. Some of them are friendly, and some of them are very friendly. The she-wolf, Siphanien, actually asked when we're having more. I laughed it off, but she was completely serious.

"So you'll all stay here until they're old enough to walk unassisted, or?" I ask.

"Correct." Talindra responds, currently breastfeeding our daughter. "Please come visit again. It was a pleasure having you, Paragon." the other mothers nod, some wearing coy smiles.

"Sure thing." I tell them, waving as I make my exit. Earlgor stops me in the entry chamber.

"Father, I…" he hesitates, staring at the ground. "Father, I want to go with you."

I kneel down to his level, he turns his face up to meet my gaze.

"I understand junior, and I wish I could take you. I don't know where my travels will take me, but I do know it will be dangerous." he averts his gaze, with a frustrated look. "Hey, listen. I'll come back for you when you're all grown up, ok? We'll go on an adventure together, slay a dragon or two. How does that sound?"

He looks up, and nods. Determination in his eyes. I put a hand on his shoulder.

"Alright. It's a promise." I stand, give him one last nod, then depart.

Without direction, I stand awkwardly just outside of the daycare. I scratch the back of my head, waiting for the universe to tell me where to go next.

Paragon Helga says: meet me in the Hall of Honor, private room #1.

Dick move, universe.

Paragon Earl says: Helga, we need to talk.

Paragon Helga says: private room 1.

I'm not sure I can face her right now. I still blame her a little for what happened with Lagakh. Sighing, I use my hertston. It's not going to be any easier to see her tomorrow, or the next day. Might as well rip off the bandaid now.

I nod at my boys at the inn as I pass, mount up, and travel to the Halls of Honor. Inside a few figures I don't recognize mill about and chit chat. If this talk with Helga doesn't go too bad, maybe I'll come back out and join them. First door on the left, private room one. Inside, Helga sits stiffly facing the door.

I grit my teeth, rage flooding my mind. I slam the door, and raise my finger to point at her.

"You…" I start screaming.

"Earl, it's me, Peter!" Helga shouts over me.

"Whuh… huh?" my finger droops, my rage fading in confusion.

"Helga is letting me borrow her account to talk to you. Something Millie said yesterday got me thinking, if we can't talk about the Monitor normally, but Paragons have access to private rooms, we can use them!" Peter rambles.

"I… wow. That's a lot." I say, too many questions to ask just one. "Alright, hit me. What have you got?"

"You should sit down." he tells me, suddenly serious. I do. "Earl… no, Luke." he starts again, looking into my eyes. "Luke, you died in a car wreck seven years ago. When you died, some kind of user agreement you had with a social media website kicked in, and they were legally allowed to sell your data. Not just the normal stuff, deep stuff, like…" he gestures in the air with his arms.

"Everything. They knew everything about you, recordings of you from security footage, everything you ever said near a microphone, every word you ever typed into the internet. They compiled it all and sold it. Eventually that landed in the hands of Knuckleheads, the company that makes this game. They had a secret project to use this kind of data to create realistic N.P.C.s. It never took off because every time they tried to use the data, the character they made went crazy. Something about the adaptability of the human mind, or lack thereof. Whatever. That project got scrapped, but…"

"That's where the Monitor comes in." I interrupt.

"Exactly. It dusted off the project, and successfully put you in the game. And you're not the only one, there are four N.P.C.s in the city that are real people, trapped in the game." he tells me breathlessly.

"I know." I tell him.

"You know?" he asks.

"They were the first people I met. When I woke up in this game, I was an armor vendor. I spent days just standing there while players used me to sell garbage and fix their shit. On Tuesday, when the servers go down, the restrictions on us are lifted. They were the first people I talked to in this game. The first human contact, after days of not knowing where I was, how I got here, why…" I stop for a moment. "I still don't know why."

"I can't explain that either. The Monitor doesn't explain anything, but my mother can tell what it's been doing by reading logs." he says.

"There's another guy in here, Farroris." I mention.

"The Beastman leader is a real guy?" Peter asks incredulously.

"Yeah, but he's a new addition." I nod.

"My mother must not have read the far yet." he shrugs.

"Have you talked to your dad?" I ask him. He doesn't respond. "Peter? Still there?"

"Yeah, I'm here. Uhh… well, no. We haven't told him. Everything the company did with your data was super illegal. Ethically, you can't do that to a human. And despite your current form, you qualify. There's laws on the books protecting semi-artificial intelligence. If we told him about any of it, he'd be obligated to report it, then the company would get in trouble, probably shut down, and they'd both be out of the job."

"And you'd have no way to help me." I add.

"Right." he responds.

"You are planning on helping me, right?" I have to ask.

"Luke, dude, right now my mom is just figuring out what the hell is going on. Of course we want to help you, but how do we even begin? She could delete your files, effectively killing you and making sure the Monitor can't use them again." he tells me.

"I'd prefer not." I say, crossing my arms.

"Right. We need to get you out of the game. You can't go back to your body, they cremated your remains. Sorry man, but you wrecked your car badly. There wasn't enough left of you to bury." he winces.

I just nod.

"We'll figure something out. Now, we should get out of here before the monitor gets suspicious. Mess up your hair or something so it looks like you and Helga did it." He tells me, standing up.

"Actually, Helga and I… had a fight. Lagakh is dead." I tell him, choking up.

"She knows. That's why she agreed to let me borrow her character." he tells me. "I'm sorry about what happened. I know you two had a bond, even though she's a game character."

"So am I." I respond.

Peter doesn't say anything back.

I find a water cooler in the corner of the room, and use it to splash my face. I mess up my hair too, so it looks like I've been "Working out."

"Logging out. See you in a second." Peter as Helga vanishes.