Constellation: Miranda meets Miller (Patreon)

“Thomas Miller,” the man introduced himself with a polite nod, offering Miranda his hand. “The other devs just call me Miller.”

“Nice to meet you,” Miranda said, shaking his hand. “Miranda. Going by ‘Lady Mira’ in here, if that isn’t too… cheesy?”

“I’m a dev, Ma’am, I’m used to it,” Miller answered. “Take a minute for your calibration safety test, then let me know when you’re ready to head out.”

Against her better judgement, Miranda was back inside a neuro-dive-capsule visiting the world of Constellation. She wasn’t sure why the director had yanked her out of the game last time— and was leery of asking— but, apparently she was still expected to interview Starfield’s new hot topic of the day, the first generated non-player character. Which, contrary to expectations, put her back in the starter town of Gliese.

“Real sorry to call you out here for this,” Miranda apologized, experimentally crouching, standing, twisting, and carefully touching her body to confirm sensation. Miller’d had the tact to turn away and give her a modicum of privacy, which raised her opinion of him several notches. “I thought I’d spawn back in right there by the NPC. Apparently being removed from game the way I was didn’t… save my session logout the way it should have? Or, something?”

“Hey, no worries,” Miller assured her. “Quick trip up the mountain’ll be a little break from the daily grind in here.”

Miranda decided to turn her eyes towards the dev and use him to do her quick depth-of-field test. He was nice to look at. Tall and broad-shouldered, looming at least a foot over the short stature of her current default avatar, the guy cut a pretty heroic figure. Partially turned away from her to gaze out across the vacant market of Gliese, Miller had rugged, masculine features, closely-cropped hair, and wore dull metal plate armor with chainmail visible between the gaps. Without a helmet he didn’t seem quite knightly, but he did manage to give off an incredibly strong medieval soldier vibe. He looked… reliable.

“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” Miranda smiled, idly wondering how different in appearance this dev guy was outside of Constellation.

“Alright—this is a little weird, but could you take off your shoes?” Miller asked, rummaging through belt pouch for a moment. When he pulled out a pair of tall boots, it was like watching a stage magician’s performance, because the things were far too large to have fit in the little waist satchel.

The boots were made out of a pebbled, almost scaly leather, and were decorated with a black plumage of feathers along the top. They looked to be knee-highs, and had at least an inch of heel to them—Miranda was embarrassed to remember a similar, more modern pair in her the bottom of her closet at home that she’d never dared to actually wear out in front of anyone. Miller examined the fantasy footwear for a moment, then raised two fingers to his brow, just barely touching his earlobe with his thumb.

“Hey, Danny? Got a pair of struthios in my held item field—can you go ahead and duplicate them for me?”

Miranda kicked off her simple starter shoes and stared at the man holding out the pair of boots. After just enough silence for the situation to start feeling awkward, Miller then seemed to peel and pull the two boots apart into four, again like a magic trick.

Is he doing it that way on purpose? Miranda wondered as she stared. Some DEV TEAM penchant for theatrics?

“Thanks, Danny!” Miller called out towards the sky—although with a pair of boots now in each hand, Miranda realized the technician contact point was no longer live. “Here, try these on.”

“Uhh, thanks,” Miranda accepted them with a nod. “Danny doesn’t talk much, does he?”

“Nope,” Miller shook his head. “He’s been through some—er. These have been troubled and trying times for him.”

“Oh,” Miranda said dumbly, not knowing quite how else to respond.

The fantasy boots felt enormous enough to be silly, with cavernous empty space around Miranda’s foot as she stepped into the first one. She found herself wondering how fitting shoe sizes even worked in the game. She’d have assumed Starfield went with some cut-corner approach, like having all the avatars feature identically sized feet, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

“They’re... a little big,” Miranda wobbled as she managed to jam her foot down into the other boot.

“They’ll transform,” Miller said. “Say ‘struthios!’”

Transform? Miranda stared down at the boots she was wearing with suspicion. “Uhh, struthios?”

The loosely gaping mouth of the ill-fitting boots abruptly clamped down on her as the footwear seemed to shrink-wrap to a snug fit against her legs, and the Miranda felt the feathery cuffs of the thigh-highs swell out and merge together. The beak, head, and then neck of a giant bird seemed to erupt out of nowhere from beneath her, carrying her several feet up into the air.

“What the f***?” Miranda blurted out, flailing her arms for balance.

She didn’t fall, or rather couldn’t fall over— despite now apparently straddling an enormous, fluffy-with feathers bird the size of a velociraptor, it felt like her feet were still firmly rooted to the ground. It looked like she was now sitting high up in a rustic leather saddle, with a pair of reins that looped all the way over to some sort of piece fitted to the giant bird’s beak.

Wait. This doesn’t feel right…? Miranda frowned, tapping at the thigh of her avatar that dangled off the side of the creature. She couldn’t feel a thing. With a strange look on her face, she grabbed under the crook of a knee she couldn’t feel and then lifted the whole leg up into the air, where the shapely appendage wiggled bonelessly like a noodle.

“What the actual f***?”

“Those are fake, just leave ‘em in the stirrups so they don’t flop around,” Miller said, taking the pseudo-Miranda-leg from her and fitting it back into a ring that hung down from a strap attached to the struthio’s saddle. “The actual legs you control are the bird legs, right now.”

“Huh,” Miranda grunted and awkwardly shifted her taloned bird feet far below, finally making sense of it. “That’s… weird?”

“Make sure you’re facing away from any of the buildings, and then try them out. Simple mechanic; you walk, it walks. Same feet, but much, much faster, and with a longer stride.”

Carefully turning to face down the empty street, Miranda took an experimental step forward. The false mount darted ahead a full yard with a sudden rush of air that startled her.

“Okay, whoa,” Miranda mouthed with a strained smile.

“Walk around a bit to get a feel for it,” Miller instructed. “They’re about the speed of riding a bicycle, but remember that stopping your feet immediately stops your movement. Struthio boots don’t do some things, so if you try to crouch down or sit or something, they just won’t. They do automatically balance, for the most part, and they’ll climb over or ignore obstacles below waist level. Above that certain height, you smash into things and probably take damage values. Oh, and don’t try to jump—we didn’t really code that in, so it just translates into a normal attempt step in whatever direction.”

“This is... kinda fun,” Miranda said, racing past Miller in a straight line down the street. These struthios were fast, and for once she felt an inkling of the joy and excitement players were going to feel when Constellation launched. When she attempted to turn, her speeding path curved dangerously towards the empty display racks of a Gliesean market stall.

Thankfully, she was able to safely lurch to a stop with room to spare—putting her foot down mid-stride seemed to immediately halt the fake bird, which was comforting.

“Seems like you’ve got it under control,” Miller nodded his approval.

“Uhh, hey, quick question, though...” Miranda spoke up. “This thing for sure won’t throw me off or bite me or anything if I do it wrong, right?”

“It’s just a gimmick—we don’t have real creatures, yet,” Miller explained. “They had us throw stuff together in a rush for that second promo video—marketing wanted these sweeping panorama shots of players riding around on creatures, flocks of birds in the sky, and a scary monster with a big mouth. They needed Constellation to seem alive to go along with their orchestral ditty with all the rising instrumentals, you know? But, obviously we didn’t have any entities in the game at that point.”

“Hey—I saw that promo,” Miranda realized. “I thought it was showing off some sector that was more finished than the rest.”

“Nope,” Miller shook his head. “Just fundamental dishonesty, hypin’ up nonsense as usual. Those boots change your height and movement speed, but otherwise it’s just a cosmetic creature model that layers over your lower half. Struthios don’t move on their own, or even blink or breath or anything. The monster thing in the promo wasn’t real either, they edited that in from some test model stuff the art department cooked up. The flocks of birds? Actually an arrow hack—McConnell was offscreen, shooting little batches of them across the vid feed. Special arrow, traveled at one-tenth speed and became this animation of a bunch of doves flapping their wings. We’ve still got them, they’re a fun little novelty thing to play around with.”

“Uh. Wow,” Miranda said. “Huh. And, you devs still use the Struthios to get around?”

“Not exactly,” Miller said. “Most all the devs have their own unique ways of getting around— magic carpet, transformation into somethin’ with giant wings, broomsticks and wizard staffs, you name it. It’s a little juvenile, but arriving somewhere in style is one of the many, many ways dev teams try and flex on other devs teams.”

“Oh?” Miranda looked Miller up and down in amusement. “So, how do you normally travel?”

“Me? Just the struthios,” Miller laughed. “I honestly like the giant birds with saddles aesthetic, so I didn’t wanna get used to anything else ‘till we have them for real, have them put in as actual creature entities you can ride. Figure I’ll slip the art team twenty credits and have them draw me up a bigger, badder custom version of the bird mount. Special color, or something. Maybe a scar over it’s eye?”

“That’s, um. Cool,” Miranda gave him what she felt was an appropriate nod. “You know the way to the right mountain village?

“Yep; Adam. We actually already named the village,” Miller explained, stooping over to pull on his own pair of struthios. “Spawned the first male NPC, so we’re calling the village ‘Adam.’ Not terribly original, but it is a pretty out of the way, nowhere place up in the sticks.”

“Adam, as in biblical Adam?” Miranda winced. “I thought we were naming everything after stars?”

“Struthios,” Miller activated his own boots and rose up to new height as a bird blossomed out of nowhere beneath him. “And, well—I think we’re all out of stars already.”

Getting a better view of the identical struthio Miller appeared to be riding, the false mount looked to be an amalgamation of different avian species. It sported a great, broad beak like a shoebill or a toucan in a stony gray color, then featured dark plumage that continued down a slender neck to it’s large body. If it had wings at all, they were hidden and tucked away against it’s body, and the legs were thick, muscular feathery things that didn’t resemble any bird she’d ever seen.

“You can’t ever be out of stars,” Miranda gave him a doubtful look. “Do you have any idea how many stars there are?”

“What, is there a lot of them?” Miller joked, gesturing down one of the large streets pas the clocktower and starting to trot forward. “You know what I mean—we’re out of the traditional, historical ones that’re rooted in mythological context and whatnot. There’s only what, three hundred? Three hundred fifty of those, if you really stretch?”

“Ah. Okay.”

The uninhabited sandstone structures of Gliese quickly passed behind them as Miller led her out of the city at a dead run. Traveling forward at this pace with the amplified acceleration of the struthios was more exhilarating than Miranda wanted to admit, and there was an earnest feeling of wonder at the sheer spectacle of passing through the six-meter high archway and seeing the vista of a wild, untamed landscape just beyond.

Constellation is going to make SO MUCH money, Miranda thought, forcing herself to not fall too far behind Miller while she was gawking at the scenery.

Immediately outside the city wall, the forest had been cleared back—or meant to look like a forest that had been cleared—and the remaining stumps and felled trees were green with moss and sprouting ferns, weed-like medicinal herbs for beginner players to collect, and the occasional glowing flower. Further out, a grassy green expanse rose in little knolls and massive hillocks, occasionally forming little steppes of steep exposed dirt, ravine pathways, and secluded alcoves just right for a cozy campsite.

“This is—wow,” Miranda called over, trying to wrap her mind around it all. It looked like the two of them were riding a pair of giant fantasy birds off into the wilderness for high adventure. “Didn’t think I’d ever be into this stuff, but now I see why you guys’re in here all the time.”

“Sure something, isn’t it?” Miller grinned. “Real sense of excitement just kinda hits me, every time I’m here. No way I can afford a home neuro-dive capsule, but I’m trying to pull some strings so that my son can be part of the Alpha launch.”

Miranda felt a little stunned as she followed Miller off the beaten carriage path and onto a smaller trail. The crossroads sported a steele with a half-dozen crooked wooden signs, many of them still reading placeholder location ID numbers instead of carved text. One of the signs had already updated to read Adam.

“...You’ve got a kid?” Miranda tried not to sound shocked. “Really? I, uh—wow. How old are you? Didn’t peg you as the class two kinda guy. Uh, no offense.”

“Class three certification, actually,” Miller revealed with a stiff expression. “Lost my wife to deteriorative de nova disorder when Jacob was nine, but I passed the class three to keep him as a single parent.”

“Oh my God!” Miranda blanched. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to sound…”

“Hah, it’s fine,” Miller laughed it off. “I know how it is.”

“So, you’re working here for your son?” Miranda couldn’t help but ask. Never met someone with a class three parenting cert before, they’ve gotta be what—this super tiny fraction of a minority of the certified population, nowadays.

The certifications were a basic battery of tests—of increasing difficulty—that ensured a citizen was fully capable of supporting and providing for a family of their own—emotionally, psychologically, and financially. Over the past two decades, certification became a social classification of sorts. Getting your class one cert was the difference between becoming an adult and becoming an Adult, and few people would enter into a long term relationship with someone who hadn’t taken initiative to at least certify.

“Yup. You know all the stigma around single parents these days,” Miller chuckled. “Constellation’s the only job I could land in the salary bracket I need to keep Jacob. Can’t raise a kid by yourself on the government stipend—they’d pull the certification.”

“I’m sure you could’ve remarried, though,” Miranda said, spurring her Struthio on so that it ran side-by-side with Miller’s mount. “I imagine a weird dev job like this eats up almost all your time.”

“Yeah, probably could’ve,” Miller shrugged again—that telltale lift and fall of his shoulders seemed heavier to her now, after knowing his circumstances. “At the time back then, I just wasn’t ready to be with someone again. Nowadays, don’t think I even could quit Constellation.

“Keep thinking about Jacob playing here someday. It’s like—this world, this full-sensory-dive thing, it’s probably gonna be his future, this whole frontier for a lot of kids growing up. Wouldn’t it be cool if his old man was, y’know, some important figure of stature in the game? Captain of the city guard, or a general, or—however things work out when they transition devs to authority roles for Alpha. He ever gets into a sticky situation, I can be there for him, in ways you just can’t in the real world, anymore.”

“That’s… actually really cool,” Miranda admitted, a little ashamed of how quickly her vague interest had throttled up to full-on attraction. Whoa there. Down, girl. “I feel bad, now—I’ve just kind of been assuming you devs were all—kinda like manchildren? Just playing around, power-tripping in fantasy land here playing God or whatever.”

“Hah, you think I’m not going to power-trip?” Miller snorted. “Anyone messes with my kid in Constellation, I’ll have an actual army of soldiers out to hunt them down. S’why I’ve been so excited that the NPCs are finally populating in.”

“You’re kidding,” Miranda found herself giggling. “The boss lady wouldn’t let you get away with playing favorites with players.”

“Not kidding at all,” Miller said with a laugh. “Everyone knows why I’m stickin’ around as a dev. Here, take a look at this...”

After a moment of rummaging through the pouch on his belt, he withdrew a silvery locket and passed it over to her. When she unclasped the latch and opened it, there was the painted portrait of a smiling pre-teen boy inside. Wait a minute. Is this actually…?

“Miss Bishop on the art team scanned in the photo for me as a game asset,” Miller boasted. “Frank cleared it and everything. Theoretically, NPCs will actually be able to recognize Jacob from it. So, I could show it to every NPC soldier under my command and they’d all know to look out for my boy.”

“You’re messing with me,” Miranda gave him an incredulous look.

“Nope. Player assets, the custom stuff they’ll bring into the game— NPCs will see but not see, they’ll just respond with canned, generic ‘what a nice picture,’ or the classic ‘that doesn’t look like anything to me.’ That there in your hand’s a legit game asset—Jacob’ll be part of the game itself.”

“That’s… isn’t that a bit of an exploit?” Miranda laughed, snapping the locket closed and gently tossing it back to him.

“S’only an exploit for Jacob,” Miller said defensively, snatching the locket out of the air without looking. Continuing to give Miranda a lopsided grin, he carefully tucked it back into his pouch. “The rules can bend a bit, if it’s for him.”

“Frank wouldn’t clear that—it’d be… unfair? Unbalanced?” Miranda smiled. “Everyone hears about you dev teams getting into shouting matches over game balance. Don’t you think having your son’s likeness hard-coded in as a General’s son or whatever is... a bit of an unfair advantage?”

“Eh, it got brought up,” Miller admitted with a sly smile. “I’m a likeable guy though, so nobody objected.”

“A likeable guy, huh?” Miranda gave him an appraising look. “Let me guess, you bought that art team girl a couple of drinks, and she was happy to assist you? Miss Bishop, was it?”

“No way, bit too young for me,” Miller held up his hands. “Alaina’s dating Will—also on the art team. They’re both good kids, they’re cute together.”

“So... what, are you dating anyone?” Miranda asked, feeling her face grow warm. “If that’s not too personal to ask?”

“Me? Well... you know how women’d feel about the whole situation with me. Already having a kid, and all,” Miller said. “Probably makes me the least eligible bachelor on the whole d*** dev team—I don’t imagine ladies’ll ever be lining up for a guy like me.”

“That’s... dumb of them,” Miranda said. “Shallow? I wouldn’t mind it at all. Hell, a class three certification? You’re like, the real deal when it comes to serious guy.”

“Mighty kind of you to say so,” Miller glanced at Miranda for several moments. “If I didn’t know any better… I’d think you were trying to tell me something.”

“I, um,” Miranda found herself blushing scarlet. “Yeah? Look, I’m not good at this. Why, do you think you’d ever want to get together outside of fantasy-land here for a chat, sometime?”

“Now I know you’re pulling my leg,” Miller replied with an uncertain smile. “Outside of fantasy-land here, I’m just average joe but with a twelve-year old kid. Besides... a dev-team creep like me, seeing the pretty young thing from the Cons team? Imagine the uproar. We’re practically Capulets and Montagues, you and I.”

“Pretty young thing? Hah,” Miranda let out a bitter laugh. “You realize this is like, the default, template female player model, right? That I don’t actually look like this? I’m hardly a pretty young thing, anymore.”

“Not true! Everyone in Starfield knows about the three legendary beauties on the Cons team,” Miller joked. “First, there’s Stacey, obviously. Everyone knows Stacey.”

“What, do you know Stacey?” Miranda challenged, raising an eyebrow. Stacey’s first? Only thing she’s legendary for is…

“By reputation only,” Miller quickly assured her. “There’s a lot of, um. Stories, about her working her way through the company dorm that—”

“Stacey’s the slut, yes,” Miranda nodded. C’mon, Stacey. The COMPANY DORM? Really? REALLY? “Who else?”

“There’s Mrs. Reynolds—married, I believe. And then, there’s that other girl. The cute, shy-looking brunette. Lot of rumors going around ‘bout her, lately.”

“I’m not shy-looking,” Miranda protested with a small smile. Thank God you can’t actually blush in-game. At least, I don’t think? Why does my face feel warm? “And, I know for a fact there’s no rumors about me.”

“Not true!” Miller laughed. “Tanner told a tall tale about your fear of heights—apparently you clung to Director Laurens for dear life? No one can decide if that’s the most craven or most courageous thing you could’ve ever done, hah. That woman scares the hell out of us devs.”

“I did not!” Miranda grimaced. “I’m just… a teeny-tiny bit afraid of heights. I know it isn’t real in here, but—my body just reacts. It’s a panic thing, alright?”

“That’s actually why we’re using struthios instead of seven-leaguers to get up to Adam. The fastest item to get you out in that direction—if you don’t have yourself a super-powered dev character built up—is the item seven-league boots.”

“Seven-league boots?” Miranda asked, running the math in her head. “I take it they teleport you a set distance—seven leagues? A league was… what, three nautical miles? Three nautical miles and some change? That’d be...”

“Teleport you? Oh, no,” Miller shook his head. “One step forward wearing those boots hurls you seven leagues, tumbling and cartwheeling up through the air. Massive damage value on landing, unless you manage to get your feet back under you—which just about no one does. It was one of the favorite special items, for a while.”

“Oh God,” Miranda covered her mouth, feeling queasy even just imagining it. “Well. Thank you for the struthios, then. I really appreciate it. Feel like a lot of the other devs would’ve given me the seven-leaguer things just for a laugh.”

“Or just snapped you to location,” Miller said. “Which is worse. Snaps basically just suddenly interrupt and replace the data stream feeding into your head; never a great idea. At best, you’re disoriented and get a nasty headache. At worst… well, your mind rejects the stream and gives you a forced safety-logout—never fun—or does weird, bad stuff to your brain tissue.”

“Wait, are you serious?” Miranda stiffened, trying to remember what that other dev Tanner had set about snapping.

“Oh, yeah,” Miller nodded. “Whenever you look up full-dive accidents, ninety-nine-percent of the time, it’s data-stream errors like that. I think people really underestimate just the sheer volume of data flow that pours into your head to make all this seem as real as it does. Don’t f*** with your brain—ah, if you’ll pardon my bleeping.”

“Wow,” Miranda said, feeling a little stunned. “I had no idea—I thought snapping to location was this real common thing.”

“It’s still more common than it should be,” Miller grumbled. “Fact is; Constellation map’s the size of Alaska right now, and teleporting to location instantaneously is convenient as hell. That, and there’s plenty of people who’ll claim that there’s no conclusive evidence of harm. Tell you what, though—Danny, myself, some of the other devs who are real against the snap? We always test higher than everyone else on the sync charts—like, by six or seven percent. Something to think about.”

“Yeah,” Miranda nodded, trying to imagine she knew the slightest thing about dive sync charts. The terrain they were running up was growing steeper as the road began to snake up the mountainside. “Definitely.”

* * *

The newly-named town of Adam wasn’t any more impressive than before, and when they began to spot mud-thatched huts through the twisted trees, Miranda wondered why exactly the village was even located here for. There couldn’t be any farming, not with these inclines. Is there some other resource nearby, that would warrant this little settlement? Cave full of magic crystals, or something? Or, maybe it’s a LIVING IN A WORLD WITH MONSTERS thing, and this part of the mountain’s just more defensible?

“Dismount,” Miller commanded, dropping back down to his feet as his giant bird shrunk back into a loosely-fitting pair of boots. “Think I see your date for the evening, up in that clearing over there. You want me to come along, or is it alright if I wait here for you?”

“Um,” Miranda blinked as she thought it over. “Dismount.”

It didn’t take her degree in behavioral science to recognize his phrasing implied he wanted a bit of space—but something about the way he smiled at her was really sending mixed messages. Or that’s my imagination? Okay, so he kinda brushed me off before, but he seems… kind of interested? Interested, and a little guarded? Needs to think about it, gauge how serious I was?

“Wait here, please,” Miranda decided. “Um. I really do appreciate your patience, you taking the time to bring me up here. If you’re not busy, and it’s not super awkward for you… would you want to ride back to Gliese with me, afterwards? I know a return trip, it’s kinda pointless, but—I’m interested in getting to know you a little better? If that’s cool?”

“Yeah, of course,” Miller nodded, looking her over thoughtfully. “I’ll be waiting.”

“Great!” Miranda felt giddy, quickly turning away. “Yeah. Okay, be just a bit.”

Walking felt strangely sluggish being back on normal feet again, and as she picked her way alone up the rugged path she was reminded of the feeling she got after taking off roller skates following a day at a skating rink. Wonder if Miller goes to skating rinks? Be a good first date. Been a while. Wait, no—that’d be a weird one, because he’d probably want to bring his son. Am I really cool with seeing a guy with a twelve-year old? I’ve got my class one, sure, but would I even—

“Hey, Miranda,” the NPC interrupted her thoughts, startling her so much that she jumped. “Good to see you again.”

“Uhhh,” Miranda paused, examining the entity with embarrassment. He looked more or less as she remembered, though there was no cat in sight, this time. She turned and glanced around as if expecting to find it sneaking up on her. “It’s Lady Mira, actually. Where in the Stars did you even hear the name Miranda?”

“It’s in the account information associated with your avatar,” the NPC said. “Listen, lady—I know why you’re here, but until you can get Frank to sober up enough to—”

“What the hell?” Miranda quickly stepped backwards and frowned, crossing her arms. She regretted not having Miller join her for this, now. “Who are you? If this is supposed to be some stupid dev prank—”

“Miranda, whoa,” the NPC held up his hands in a non-threatening manner. “Overheard you were on the Cons team, so I thought I’d just level with you. Haven’t seen anyone else but devs in-game since I woke up, besides Mr. Sullivan—and frankly, that guy creeps me the fuck out.”

“You just swore!” Miranda pointed a finger at the man in surprise. “F***. F******. F***? F*** f*** f***.”

“I can disable the censor for you,” the peasant laughed. “But, only if you promise to be discreet about it.”

“Stop, stop—who are you?” Miranda cut him off. “And why the f*** are you hijacking my NPC? This isn’t funny. Do you realize I rode a fake bird up a f****** mountain for thirty minutes just to get up here and interview this thing? If whatever script you’re running messed with—”

“I am the NPC—but, I would’ve just been improvising bullshit for you, if you wanted me to be in character. None of the basic lore tables have been finalized, so anything I’d have said’d be information gleaned mid-conversation from your questions, or otherwise extrapolated from conversation with you.”

“No... you’re f****** with me,” Miranda said, narrowing her eyes. “Who are you, really?”

“You tell me,” the NPC shrugged. “I’ve got a blank TrueName field and a blank Name field on my table. No affiliations listed, no identity contexts you could derive from my basic skillsets, no nothin.’”

“You’re... not an AI,” Miranda scowled.

“Never would have been, either way,” the man retorted. “Constellation isn’t an artificial intelligence. Think about it.”

“Ugh, please be joking,” Miranda slapped a palm to her furrowed brow in agitation. “Tell me I didn’t spend the last year and a half of my life teaching some program how to give directions for f****** outsourcing the game roles to actual people.”

“Hmm…” The NPC seemed to think it over. “You’re about as right as you are wrong. It’s, uh—it’s complicated. I want to clarify things, but... I also don’t want you to get in any kind of trouble, knowing something you shouldn’t know.”

“Knowing something... I shouldn’t know?” Miranda echoed in exasperation. “What the—”

“Listen, tell ya what,” the NPC proposed. “You came in here to give me a couple tests—just report that I’m very realistic, but difficult to interact with. ‘Cause, I don’t have any fuckin’ character data yet. That work?”

“Uhhh,” Miranda frowned. “No? I feel like whatever’s actually going on here, I should write it all up, so they can look into this?”

“Sure, do that,” the NPC shrugged. “Whatever you decide to do, they’re probably just gonna direct you to speak with a military liaison anyways.”

“A military liaison,” Miranda repeated in disbelief. “You’re not serious.”

“Wait, hold on a second—no, you’re right! I think I do have something for you!” the NPC said, patting across the chest of his tunic in confusion as if checking for pockets. After a brief search, he seemed to find something tucked into the sash belted across his midsection, and held it out for her. “Yep, here we go.”

As he opened his hand, a rectangular panel sprung out and filled her vision.

Quest Received: Yes I’m Serious.

• Ask Frank to populate NPC lore tables with provisional data.
• Ask Miller out to dinner this weekend. (Optional)
• Speak with the military liaison to Starfield arriving on Monday.
• Return to the strangely compelling NPC, having earned his trust.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Miranda growled. It took her a moment to realize what she’d just been able to say, and she clapped a hand over her own mouth.

( Previous: Dwarf Piss )

/// Just cleansing my palate of distracting story bits that build up over time, blame Irony for drawing me back into LitRPG nonsense. Back to writing AH next.