Who Remains -CH3- (Patreon)

“Why is the city so empty?” Camile asked, following Paul down the street.

“What?” Paul asked, glancing back at the Hermit who was still following him.

“The city. It’s empty. There’s so few people,” Camile said. She was staying close to Paul’s heel.

“I mean… uh… well I guess you got a point,” Paul said, looking around.

With so many missing players, quests weren’t being completed. Chances were that most of the NPCs would be at their starting positions to hand out quests or locations.

They only ever deviated from that when quests were completed.

And this starting city had a lot of ‘please help me fix, rebuild, do something so I can go home’ things just outside of town.

Huh. 

Whatever.

“It’s empty because it’s empty. Happy?” Paul asked.

Stomping through the street he really didn’t want to deal with the idiotic Hermit anymore.

It was like dealing with someone who had no common sense. Asking questions constantly without end.

“But, why is it empty? And why would I be happy at that?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. You can just go on your own way now,” Paul said for perhaps the tenth time. Camile hadn’t listened to him so far but he was willing to keep trying.

“I don’t know where to go. My house is over-run with wolves. You said you’d help me with them,” Camile said.

“Uh huh. Go get eaten by them. That’d solve both our problems,” Paul said as he went up the three steps that got him onto his porch.

“What? I don’t want to be eaten! That wouldn’t solve my problem at all,” Camile complained.

“Would solve mine. And what do you care? You’ve been eaten more times than I bet you could ever comprehend,” Paul grumbled.

Grabbing hold of the doorknob he jerked it open and went inside his home.

“Now good nig-”

Camile breezed past him and went straight into his home.

Without his permission.

Against all the rules an NPC should be forced to adhere to.

“Goodness, your house is much bigger than mine,” Camile said moving deeper inside.

“Uh… what now?” Paul asked closing the front door.

He hadn’t expected Camile to act as if she wasn’t bound to anything or anyone’s rules.

Staring at the woman he didn’t really know how to proceed now. His expectations for this day had gone far beyond what they’d originally started at.

“How’d you come inside?” Paul asked.

“I beg your pardon?” Camile asked, inspecting the furniture in his home.

“How’d… how’d you go inside?” Paul repeated.

“I walked? I mean, that’s a rather silly question, isn’t it?” Camile replied. “Ah, I could sleep on this if you don’t have any other beds.”

Patting the couch she sat down in it and then shifted her weight around in it.

“It’s rather comfortable,” Camile said, then pushed her hand into one of the cushions.

“Given what I paid for it I would hope so,” Paul grumped, coming to stand near her. “Now, you just get out of my house and-”

“No,” Camile said picking up one of the throw pillows and laying it against the arm of the couch. “It’s already rather dark out and I really don’t want to be wandering around in the city at night. It’s no place for a lady to be, wouldn’t you say?”

Paul couldn’t argue that. He knew exactly what kind of NPCs were on the streets at night.

“Now, do you have an extra bed or a blanket? Otherwise I think this will do just fine for me. It’s certainly far more comfort than I’m used to at home,” Camile said, turning her head and giving him a small smile.

Uh.

Huh.

Frowning, Paul headed into his linen closet and pulled down two blankets and a real pillow. Moving back to the sofa he dumped it onto the woman’s lap.

“Whatever. You can leave tomorrow and go deal with your wolf problem,” Paul said.

“Oh? You’ll be coming with me then?” Camile asked taking hold of the bedding materails and sorting through it.

“What? No! Your wolf problem is your own,” Paul said. Then he waved a hand at her and went back towards his bedroom. He didn’t have the time or patience to deal with her.

Just need to get her out of my house, then not open the door around her ever again.

Stupid broken NPCs.

Why can’t she just follow her rules.

Paul turned and went into his bedroom.

Laying there minutes later in his bed he did his best to shut out all his thoughts.

Too much had happened in the day and wouldn’t let his mind rest however. Thoughts continued to drift and float across his consciousness even as he struggled to fall asleep.

***

Exiting his bedroom Paul moved into his living room.

Camile was sleeping on the sofa. Snoring hard and sprawled out in an odd way.

Paul had never seen an NPC sleep before.

Nor had he ever seen one sprawled out like he saw right now. It was almost as if she were alive.

Scratching at his jaw Paul considered the situation.

As far as he saw it, his doll was being haunted. Possessed. The soul of the Hermit he’d extracted from the NPC was now living inside the Doll.

That his actions up to that point had been mostly within the bounds and scope of what was intended for the game.

Except… the way in which I pulled her soul out was done through glitching out the game rules. And now her soul is here, she’s considered ‘living’ which prevents her NPC from respawning.

She is, in effect, an NPC without rules or limits.

Hence… hence committing home invasion.

Slowly, Paul’s head turned toward the half-giant in the corner. The amount of work he’d put into her was immeasurable.

She wasn’t just a doll, but was a mastercrafted golem.

Where Camile would be considered almost unique in the entirety of the game, the half-giant was more like an actual rainbow made real.

So if I took someone’s soul… and put it in the half-giant… she’d become real.

And if I did it without putting rules and restrictions, they’d be… people?

Is Camile people?

Or a doll.

Camile shifted around where she slept and then practically lifted herself off the couch. Moving onto her side.

Her dress hiked up as she did it, the blanket falling away, and giving him a splendid view of her extremely fine posterior.

I don’t remember carving an ass like that.

Blinking once, Paul moved away from the couch toward his kitchen.

The more he thought about Camile the less angry he was and the more curious he became. She seemed far more alive than he’d expected her to be.

Then again he’d never really spent much time around his golems. The souls he’d taken for their use were pretty one dimensional as well.

I mean, bandits really only ever said like two things.

The most unique ones did say ‘crush you, crush you to goo’ so I guess that’s a third thing.

Moving around the kitchen Paul began to pull things out of the various inventory chests that were set about. The fridge held cold items and preserved them through “ice magic”. The freezer did the same but for longer term things.

His pantry kept dry goods dry.

All in all it was more like a modern kitchen with skewed lore to make things more understandable.

And Camilie… Camile is an NPC with a background, set routes, quests, and even variable options that can be enacted through game control.

Like when all the wolves in the forest had the plague and she had to whip out alchemy skills, which up to that point had been non-existent.

Nodding his head, Paul felt reasonably confident that the biggest change here was that he’d murdered a quest-giver NPC, rather than a “kill and loot me” NPC.

If I went and murdered one of the prostitutes in the serial killer quest, they’d likely take on the persona that they had for that quest then.

Wouldn’t it?

Or if I went and knifed the priest at the temple with the quest to purify the sick in the village nearby.

Dumped his soul in a doll, would he then be a priest?

Hm. It’s a lot to consider.

Pausing in mid action, Paul leaned forward over his island and contemplated everything for a second.

Could… could I put her soul back in if I I found i-

Shaking his head at that thought Paul violently disconnected the thought from where it was going.

He needed to accept that she was dead.

Dead and gone.

“Uunnnnnnn,” groaned the hermit from the couch.

“You don’t say,” Paul muttered. “Next you’re going to tell me you need to use the restroom. Considering even I don’t use the bathroom, that’d be quite a feat.”

Paul could hear rustling from the couch that continued on for another ten seconds.

Slowly, a head of dark black hair appeared over the top of the couch.

“I don’t have to go to the bathroom,” she said slowly. “And I never have. You don’t either?”

Opening his mouth Paul was about to reply, then thought better of it.

“Nope. No bathrooms. Don’t need to,” Paul said and dismissed the idea entirely. “You do need to eat though. Hungry?”

“I’m indeed hungry,” Camile said. Shifting on the couch she moved something around and then stood up. Her hair was sticking out in a wild disarray. Her clothes hung on her poorly.

She looked as if she’d tossed and turned all night long.

“Didn’t sleep well?” Paul asked quickly throwing a few items onto a pan atop his “fire stove”. He activated the item function and left it alone.

It’d do it’s job and he didn’t need to be there.

“No. I didn’t. I slept… I slept really bad actually,” Camile muttered. “My back hurts. My lower back. And I couldn’t get comfortable.”

Paul could only nod at that.

Sleeping on a couch, which had a low comfort rating for sleep, was likely to do that to someone.

He wasn’t going to correct her though. She’d figure out things on her own well enough without him forcing things on her.

“Will you help me take care of my house today?” Camile asked.

“No. You can do it on your own,” Paul said.

“Why? What are you doing today? What’s so important that you can’t help me? Its my home!” Camile said.

“I mean, do you really think wolves are going to sit outside your home and lay siege to it forever? Without you in it?” Paul asked with a chuckle. “And if we got rid of them, they’d just come back anyways.”

“I… yes. Yes they would. Wouldn’t they,” Camile said, looking down to the ground.

“Go use the bathroom and freshen up,” Paul said pointing to the room. “There’s no toilet, remember that discussion about not going to the bathroom? But everything else is there. I’ll be done in a few minutes.”

“Yes. Okay. My… yes. The wolves will just come back and they’ll sit there. Forever. You’re right,” Camile said, nodding her head slowly. “I saw my own nude corpse. You killed me. The wolves are always there. I’m not dead. I’m alive.”

Hm. Did I break her?

Maybe this is too much for an NPC to handle. Maybe they-

“Then it’s settled. I’ll live in the city,” Camile said. “Here, with you in fact. I looked around last night after you went to sleep. You have two extra bedrooms. I’ll take one for now till I can get my own home.

“There’s no point in me going back. Just like you said, they’ll come back. At some point I’d like to go collect my things though.”

“Errr… no. No, that won’t work,” Paul said immediately with a chopping motion.

“What, getting my things?” Camile asked.

“What? No, that won’t work either. It’s all bound to the home. You can’t pick anything up at all,” Paul said.

“Oh, alright then. Well, I’ll just have to get new things. I’ll be right back after I ‘freshen up’ as you called it. My mouth tastes funny,” Camile complained and walked off to the bathroom.

“I… what?” Paul asked no one. He was alone in the kitchen.

“What?” he repeated.

***

Having collected everything he needed from the markets Paul sighed and rubbed his hands together and then wiped them off on his pants.

After having fondled, groped, and squeezed at dirty fruits and vegetables his hands felt like they were rather dirty.

“This is all so very strange,” Camile said, standing nearby him. “They act like the wolves. Everything is so very… scripted.”

“I mean, you were, too,” Paul griped. Since he’d stuffed her soul into the doll, she’d followed him around endlessly since she’d woken up in his house yesterday.

At some point she’d raided his daughters clothes and stolen almost all of it.

Every complaint he made fell on deaf ears. Especially so since he couldn’t accurately articulate his problem well enough to get her to comprehend the problem.

After she’d already taken over the bedroom she’d once slept in though Paul was emotionally exhausted from having yelled at her.

To which Camile once again didn’t really seem to understand.

“I suppose I did act like them, didn’t I,” Camile said. Then she picked up an apple and held it up to the stall attendant. “How much?”

“Two copper,” the man said immediately.

Defying all game logic Camile put the apple to her mouth and took a massive bite out of it. Then promptly set it back in the pile of apples and picked up another.

“And this one?” she asked around a mouth-full of apple.

“Two copper,” said the attendant once again.

Camile took a bite out of that one and set it down as well. Then she looked to Paul and shrugged her shoulders.

“Okay,” she said, her mouth full to the point that she looked like she was a chipmunk.

Not wanting to consider what was happening, Paul just shook his head and tromped off.

If he’d tried to do what she had, the guards would have murdered him outright right then and there.

Maybe because she’s an NPC? Because she isn’t an NPC?

Damn. I really fucked her up.

Though… what… what does that mean for all the other golems I made?

Are they just… idly standing around?

Well, at least for the people who died with a golem out. I mean, they don’t desummon, do they?

I should probably check.

I think I kept a record of every sale.

“What are we doing now?” Camile asked, chewing loudly.

“Nothing. I’m going home and you’re-”

“Not coming, yes, yes, you say that every time,” Camile said. “And I’m tired of breaking in a minute after you lock the door. Can we skip that part now?”

“No. You can just-”

“Apparently we can’t skip that part,” Camile said and then sighed. “Alright. I think I’m going to break the window this time though. If you’re going to keep locking the door it’ll be easier to get in and out.”

“What?! Don’t do that!” Paul said, rather angry at the idea she’d just break his things.

“Then stop locking me out,” Camile said. “Or I will.”

Muttering under his breath about what she could do with herself Paul went back to his home.

“Fine! Fine, okay. Fine. Fine. If I help you with your damn house, and make it so the wolves don’t come back, will you kindly fuck off?” Paul asked, turning to glare at the woman.

“You will? Well… yes. If you can make it so I can go home, the wolves won’t bother me again, I’ll leave,” Camile said. 

“Great, fine. Whatever. We’ll take care of it tomorrow morning. Damn crazy woman,” Paul grumbled.

I’ll just… make three cheap dolls, murder the wolves, take their souls, dump them into the dolls.

Boom. No more wolf spawns, no more crazy Camile, no more problems.

Then I can just get back to-

Back… to… back to what?

Paul really didn’t know what he’d be getting back to.

Truth of the matter was that he’d actually been rather distracted by Camile since he’d found her. His days had been moving by rather quickly.

Almost as if each day wasn’t a long drawn out blade moving down his arm.

Need to… figure out something to do with myself. What can I do with myself?

I mean, there isn’t a lot I can do without combat abilities. I never really-

The Half-Giant. We could finish her and give her a soul. Then she could be my body-guard. I could leave this area and go explore a bit. Quite a few people told me there was more out there. That there was interesting places to see.

And… and I’m clearly not able to kill myself. Or let myself be killed.

We’ll just have to wait for the Engineers to finally pull the plug when they realize I’m not going to make it easy on them.

Cause eventually they’ll have to. They can’t just leave it running indefinitely just for me.

“Wonderful! Thank you so much, Paul,” Camile said reaching out to lay a hand on his back. “I’m very appreciative that you’re willing to do this for me. I truly wasn’t sure what I was going to do with myself in this city.

“It’s not terrible mind you, but I really do prefer my own home and the areas that surround it.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Paul said, shaking his shoulders to force Camile to stop touching him.

He didn’t really care to be touched.

His victory was short lived.

Camile’s hand came right back.