The True Endgame

Book 11: Chapter 7:

Naturally, as soon as Eva discovered that the apes were capable of intelligent speech and thought, she spent the entire time on the way back to their tribe questioning them about everything she could. Unfortunately, though, as she found out rather quickly, they had little interest in anything outside of Rock. She might have meant to interrogate them, but they were the ones who interrogated her and Fenrir about Rock.

What was Rock?

How was Rock?

Who was Rock?

Why was Rock?

Rock was Rock?

How was Rock made?

What did Rock eat?

Why did Rock eat?

Did Rock sleep?

Did Rock play?

Did Rock love?

No matter how simple or similar a question was, the apes wanted to know everything they could learn about Rock.

Rock, of course, absolutely loved the attention. All she ever really did anymore was lie around resting and eating whatever random snacks people brought to her. Now, she was properly being given the attention and worship that she deserved!

Rock even got to rest in a giant, soft, warm hand. Not only in a warm hand, but with her owner! While most of her body rested against the ape’s palm, she got to rest her head against Fenrir’s lap as the two were carried through the forest.

The only thing that would have made life any better for the rocky canine was if Shogun was there to cuddle with her, too. After all, Fenrir’s lap was large enough for both of them to use as a pillow.

Oh well.

All that really mattered was that Rock was happy. Sure, she was missing a few of her limbs and her remaining limbs were severely damaged, but that didn’t stop her from being happy!

And as Fenrir looked down at her, watching just how content she was with the situation, he wished that it was possible for him to relax as easily as she could. Whatever her secret to relaxation was, he wanted in on it.

As for the apes, once everything about Rock was thoroughly explained to them, several of them decided to pick up rocks and various objects of their own to carry back to their tribe. After all, they each wanted their very own Rock. If Fenrir got Rock by getting too attached to a literal rock, then surely they would all be able to get their own pets by getting too attached to whatever random items they picked up!

There was no reason to believe that wasn’t possible, so neither Fenrir nor Eva tried to crush their hopes. Cassiel, however, couldn’t help but to feel they were all going to end up disappointed when they couldn’t just suddenly turn random items into cute pets just by getting attached to them. If it was that easy, there would have been far more random pets in the world.

Fenrir was also worried about their likely disappointment in the future, but he was even more worried about what would happen to him if he made a joke about how they were going to need stabbed in the back by a future girlfriend in order for their various objects to come to life. After all, Cassiel thrusting her spear into Fenrir from behind was what prompted Rock to come to life.

He chose not to say anything about that, though. One, because he didn’t want Cassiel to be upset with him. Two, because he was worried that the apes would actually try to mimic that in pursuit of their own pets.

That aside, the group eventually made it deep enough into the island that they reached the apes’ home, and it was there that Eva really got excited.

The more they saw, the larger the implications regarding the apes’ intelligence grew.

Buildings made of gathered sticks and leaves, fire pits used for cooking meat, woven baskets of plant matter that looked to be used for storing fruits and berries—they had everything that they needed for a small village. Though, everything was far bigger than normal given just how large their bodies were. Their fire pit was the size of a small house which raised serious concerns regarding just where they were sustainably getting enough wood from to use it, and to build the rest of their buildings, without completely clearing the island of all trees.

But there was something even more important than all of that.

There were signs of art.

As fascinating as their buildings and styles might have been, nothing demanded Eva’s attention as much as a large, stone slab that looked like it had crudely drawn pictures etched into it with a knife or some other tool.

The art itself looked like a younger, smaller ape smiling and chasing a few others similar to it. They looked like they were all having fun, perhaps playing a game of sorts similar to tag.

Neither Fenrir nor Cassiel were able to see the utterly confused expression on Eva’s face from where they were standing.

Once the group settled in and looked around for a bit more, Fenrir watched as Rock was given a thrown of piled-up leaves to lie on while the apes attended to her every need. He was worried for her at first, but they genuinely looked like they loved her and wanted nothing more than to make her happy and relaxed, so he felt comfortable leaving her alone for long enough for Eva to drag him away to show what she found.

“Look at this,” Eva said, bringing Fenrir and Cassiel over to the drawing she discovered earlier.

Cassiel didn’t look too impressed, but Fenrir checked it out for more than a few seconds before coming to his intellectual, in-depth conclusion of it. “Looks cute,” he said.

“Right? But that’s not what’s important. It’s… art. Or at the very least, an attempt at art.”

“Is that special? It’s not like non-player art in the game doesn’t exist.”

“Sure, there is such a thing as generated art… but it’s the kind you find in ruins. The kind of art that is supposed to look ancient and ruined to make a place have a feeling of lore and worldbuilding. But, ultimately, it serves no purpose. It’s just there to exist. To add a bit of flavor. It makes the environment feel more immersive for the sake of the players. Nobody actually existed hundreds of years ago to create it.”

“How’s this any different?” Cassiel asked.

“Because I don’t think this was made just to add to the worldbuilding. This is a functional, living tribe here. This isn’t some extinct civilization. Not to mention that this doesn’t look that old. If anything, it looks like it was recently done.”

“Alright, so they’re programmed to make art.”

“But why?”

“What do you mean why? Wouldn’t it be just to be immersive still?”

“That could be why, but… that has never been observed before. As far as we know, there has not been a single recorded instance of any NPC creating art. Even the ones you see in cities who have art in their houses have bought that art from players.”

“Wait, seriously?”

Fenrir struggled to believe that as well. “Are you sure?”

Eva nodded and cleared her throat, a sure sign of a lecture coming up. “To the best of our knowledge, and there’s nobody more knowledgeable about this world than the Scholars. Well, except for the overseer and virtual assistants, but it’s not like they’d ever tell us anything about this. Anyways, we do have a theory for why. You see, NPCs—the humanoid kind who actually perform jobs, only exist for the players. They basically exist to make the world feel more alive and to help out with a lot of the more boring things, like mass farming, gathering, crafting, and so on. You can easily find NPCs who will go fishing, chop down trees, grow crops, tailor clothes, forge swords, and so on. Those are all boring, tedious tasks that no player wants to actually do as much as is needed for the world to host huge cities and sizable armies. But art? That isn’t needed. Creating art isn’t a meaningful task that will make the lives of players easier. If anything, the moment an NPC makes art, it devalues the art of players. It takes away that unique element from them. For the same reason that NPCs can’t craft super awesome legendary items or anything really unique, they can’t—or at least, aren’t supposed to, be able to produce art. Not only that, but no NPC has ever expressed interest in even producing art. It’s supposed to be something so out of their minds that they would never even stop to consider it. But this… this is art.”

“I still don’t really get why it’s a big deal,” Cassiel said.

“Because if I’m right about this being art, that makes it the first NPC-made creation that does not serve players nor was made for them. Ultimately, anything made without the intent of being for the players is useless. There’s no point to it. In some cases, it is actively detrimental to the player experience. The creation of art is something that is expressly human in nature and requires advanced intellect. No matter how free the NPCs may seem, they have always existed strictly for us—for our entertainment. Even something like them making houses and weapons is done for us without taking away from us. It provides us with a challenge while making the world feel lived in without taking away something unique like being the only people able to produce art. Making art is in no way necessary for the player experience. Only the tiny, tiny minority of players would ever notice the existence or lack of existence of ‘modern’ art created by living NPCs. What this means is that, essentially, these apes—or perhaps NPCs in general now, are capable of… for a lack of better words, free will. They are capable of doing things without a purpose that is specifically tailored to improving the player experience. Do you have… any idea how much more processing power that would require? Even with how they reacted to me trying to use that plant on them—why would they do that? Obviously, the answer is to protect themselves, but them doing that takes away from the player experience to feel intelligent for coming up with a plan like that. Generally, NPCs have always acted a bit dumb for the sake of the players. You know how if you go into a traditional MMO and you’re in a dungeon, the group of enemies up ahead won’t aggro even if they’re facing you and watching you kill their friends and family because you’re outside of their range? Them aggroing would ruin the experience and be ‘unfair.’ It makes the gameplay better for them to be stupid. Now, imagine that they’re not stupid anymore. Imagine that they’re actually realistic, capable of learning, and able to act with free will.”

“We’d be fucked,” Fenrir said. “Like when we fought the serpent. All it had to do to wipe us out was body slam us and swipe its body across the ground. It would have crushed all of us. Sending its entire army at once instead of in waves would have overwhelmed us, too. It… basically went easy on us despite how tough that battle was.”

“Exactly. No matter how realistic a game is, and no matter how much it may pride itself on being extremely difficult, it always takes it easy on the player. No matter how much people might say they love difficulty in games and talk about wanting realistic enemies, they don’t. They really don’t. Well, maybe the tiny minority do, but most people would rage quit and never play a game where the enemies actually use everything they can, their intelligence included. But they don’t because it would ruin the player experience.”

Cassiel still didn’t look convinced. “And you’re getting all of this just from one picture on a rock?”

“It wouldn’t be a big deal if this had ever been observed before, but it hasn’t been. Not to mention that, if you’ve forgotten, the overseer did something with NPCs a few months ago. Remember? She no longer controls them. To the best of our knowledge, they’re basically pseudo-AIs now. Not quite true AIs, but… if they’re capable of intelligence like this, can we really say that they’re not intelligent? A program would never create art just for the sake of creating art. It would only do that it if it was programmed to for the sake of whoever created it. Do you really believe that whatever intelligence is built into these apes is telling them to create art? Do you believe that the overseer is personally commanding random apes to make art in the middle of nowhere? And do you really believe that they would be so easy to defeat or befriend that all you have to do is introduce a pet dog to them? The more I think about it, the less they make sense. The less any of this makes sense. Nothing about them makes sense from a game design perspective unless you work under the assumption that they have free will, in which case… are they really just NPCs? How are they any different from player characters at that point? Honestly, it should have been obvious when they worked together to get rid of the plant, but I wasn’t in the right mood at the moment to realize it. Now that I’m thinking about it, it’s obvious. Something has changed, and I feel like this applies to more than just these apes. If this applies to every NPC, or even just ten percent of them, then this is seriously massive and might potentially change the entire world of FTO.”

While Cassiel still looked like she was struggling to believe that a simple display of art could cause such a realization and have such deep and complex meaning behind it, Fenrir was pulled onto Eva’s side of thinking. “It’s not just a world for us players then anymore,” he said. “If you’re right, then we’re officially sharing this world with another intelligent species. Except we’re players who are effectively immortal and not affected by the world while they’re mortals who only know this world and are dependent on it.”

“And if that’s the case, then things are… going to get really, really complicated. Not just here, but even outside the game. Imagine the debates about ethics. People with free will who get killed left and right for our entertainment. Would they even count as people? This is an entire can of worms being opened here. Honestly, I hope I’m wrong about this. I really, really hope that I’m looking way too far into this, but my gut tells me I’m not. But… even those questions. Remember them asking all those questions about Rock? They were expressing genuine, continued curiosity. It wasn’t just curiosity for the sake of making small talk to make the world feel alive. That was curiosity on the level of children genuinely wanting to learn.”

While Fenrir and Eva might have been sharing a look of worry as Cassiel tried to catch up with their conclusions… Rock enjoyed being fed rocks by hand while some of the other apes carefully petted her with just a single finger each, none of them wanting to hurt her more than she already was.