Chapter Thirty Seven – An Orc Named Bugbear

A Safe Zone.

That was the solution we’d come to.

Even as an adventurer, none of us were confident Bugbear would be able to resist attacking every other person he saw. Instincts long ingrained in him, the regular kind, not the behavioral code, would push him to attack people. Even when he couldn’t hurt them in safe zones like the cities, I doubted he would fare well there.

Fortunately, there was another option. A Builder, a Carpenter, and an Amenities Mage were all the required classes to build your own safe zone.

“Miss Tutorial? What can you tell me about safe zones?” I asked the air, and was pleased to find Miss Tutorial appearing without having the scroll through the options menu to get to her. I didn’t like opening the options menu. That… that scary log-off button was always there, floating in the back of my thoughts.

Then again, the sound option was there too, and that had turned out to be a blast!

“Hiya Gell! Safe Zones are Player-created areas in the wilderness that take on the properties of the land they are built in. They are are completely safe from monster attacks and can be claimed by one, two, or all three of their creators as newly discovered homepoints. A Builder, a Carpenter, and an Amenities Mage of at least level ten are all required to craft a Safe Zone.”

I had been growing steadily as a builder and was level fifteen by this point. I enjoyed the job, despite finding it mind-numbingly boring at times. Now that was all about to pay off. I couldn’t bring Bugbear to the city but I could build a safe area around him.

First things first though. He had to be made into a player. We toyed with the idea of turning him into a Jellyfae like me. I’d loved the idea but Tyrone had insisted making him into something so drastically different would scare him. I remembered the horror I felt at seeing my human body for the first time and decided even the relatively small change in stature from a Bugbear to an Orc would be unpleasant enough.

I was becoming used to my human body. I spent so much time as a human it was hard not to. Much as I loved my original form… All of my friends were humanoid. It felt weird to be a Jellyfae around them.

Orc, Elf, Human, Dwarf… they were all a variation of the humans they all were in the real world. Two arms, two legs, two eyes. Taller, shorter, slimmer, fatter, or greener, they might as well have all been the same race as far as I was concerned.

Safe Zones did sound like the solution to my Bugbears problem and my own all at once. I would finally have the real home I’d always wanted and Bugbear could live in peace there with no worries of his… lack of knowledge hindering him until he was able to understand as well as I could.

The only problem was that I didn’t know an amenities mage, but I’d find a way to work that out.

“Homes, Businesses, and even Shops can be founded as a Safe Zone grows. NPCs will be added along with the addition of public buildings. Once a Safe Zone reaches a population of fifty people it can become a village, or a safe zone can be kept as a private residence. Going there can feel just like going home in the real world!” Miss Tutorial continued happily.

Yes. I wanted to do this. I wanted to make a safe zone with Bugbear. A place I could invite my friends to come and stay and not kill things…

“Any Safe Zone left dormant for more than forty-five days will begin to decay. At sixty days without upkeep from an amenities mage, builder, or carpenter, a Safe Zone will be completely reclaimed by the wild. All materials used in its crafting will be lost and Monsters will begin to roam the area once more. All monster zones are capable of hosting a limited number of Safe Zones, but that number varies based upon the size, level, and available landmass, watermass, or maybe even airmass in the zone!”

I beamed, just happy to listen to Miss Tutorial talk.

She continued, talking long past her scripted Instinct response to tell me as much as she could about Safe Zones. They were ways to generate money if you turned them into towns and invited the creation of more NPCs. They could become the locations of events, though thus far almost no players had made use of that feature. If used by the owner, they were places where a Beastmaster or Hunter could quickly train their Pets.

At the scowl on my face, Miss Tutorial quickly changed the topic to other aspects of Safe Zones.. I had a sore spot with Beastmasters and apparently hunters too, even though I now knew my anger was unfounded.

Still. Avwren the bat...

I sighed. It seemed no matter what topic about this world arose, it always led back to how fake it all was.

I turned to look over at Bugbear, who seemed annoyed at my voice. He wasn’t privy to Miss Tutorial’s part of the conversation so he was simply listening to me respond. Not far different from how it had been back in Dungeon Home actually.

This was real. This.

“Gell! Will you be -- Making a safe zone?” She asked, finishing in the robotic tone of a scripted lesson.

“I plan to. We’re waiting here for Tyrone to get Francis though. Now that we’ve found Bugbear Francis said he would turn him into an adventurer like me!” I said happily.

To my surprise, Miss Tutorial let out a sigh. Her box… drooped in a way I’d never seen it do before.

“Could I be an -- adventurer! Someday!?” She cut off abruptly, ending her sentence with a bright tone that didn’t fit the mood. I wished she didn’t have to use those scripts to speak. It must be challenging trying to get a point across with only a select number of sentences to choose from, even if she did have hundreds of them. She, like Bugbear, had her own issues with making the language work for her.

“I… don’t know,” I told her. “Tyrone didn’t sound like he knew how to do something like that. It’s… apparently much harder for you than it is for me or Bugbear. You’re… bigger than us. Somehow. More important. Maybe Francis knows a way though. I hear your voice and see your box and wonder what you might look like if you could move around instead of just living in our invisible interfaces.”

Miss Tutorial posted her grinning face made out of symbols again.

“^_^”

“I would like to be like you. If I could. Gell!”

I blinked, shocked. That sentence had been entirely without script. I wasn’t sure but that might’ve been the first time she’d ever strung a whole sentence together on her own.

“Well done Miss Tutorial!” I exclaimed happily. “And I’m honored! If… if Francis or I ever figure out how, I’ll be sure to make you the most beautiful Jellyfae in the worlds!”

“Grr.” Bugbear agreed, perpetually annoyed. He couldn’t see Miss Tutorial after all. “Jabberring…”

The warp of teleportation appeared and Tyrone and Francis both appeared. Francis held his weaponized coffee cup “Saint Joe” and leaned over it like it was as precious as a friend before taking a loving sip.

“Now that it’s finally a reasonable hour,” Tyrone said excitedly, ignoring the senior false god’s scoff of “Reasonable?” as he did. “We’ll be changing Bugbear soon. I’m also going to attach him to the same code that allowed you to learn the language, so he’ll be able to learn quickly. Soon he’ll be talking just as much as you, Gell!”

“I still haven’t approved that,” Francis said, rubbing his eyes.

“You conditionally approved it. Same thing,” Tyrone said.

“That’s great!” I said before turning to Bugbear. “Did you hear Bugbear? They’re going to help you learn to talk!”

Bugbear grunted. He didn’t know what I was saying. For him, I was just… Jabbering. Jabbering Gell. But he… cared for me, even as I annoyed him.

Friend.

I wanted to give him what I had. I remembered when words were the only connection I had to humans, back when they’d first invaded Dungeon Home. Hating them, but being so fascinated at the same time. Would Bugbear feel the same?

Well. I’d make certain he didn’t develop the same fears I had. The surety that killing one of my kin would make me an invader. So silly now in hindsight. And yet, hadn’t it happened exactly like that?

That was in the past though. I had friends to help now.

“Francis. Uhm. Good morning?” I asked, a little warily.

“It would be if I’d had time to drink real coffee,” he snapped.

I winced. Maybe… now wasn’t the best time to ask about giving Miss Tutorial a body of her own, but it wasn’t like I got to see Francis every day. A compromise maybe?

“Francis… when you’re feeling better, Miss Tutorial would like to ask you a ques–!”

“Gahh!” He suddenly shouted, jumping backward and grabbing his ears. His coffee spilled into the air and digitally evaporated before splashing all over himself.

I blinked. “Uhm. Francis?”

“No! I can’t! Maybe if you give me some time, but for the love of god, stop blaring my audio!” He shouted at the air.

I winced. It seemed Miss Tutorial didn’t have the same tact I’d developed. “So… I guess she already asked, huh?”

He turned bloodshot eyes on me. “Miss Tutorial seems to have continued her duties as the tutorial in all aspects except her constant pestering of me. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t logged in for a week.”

“Oh. I didn’t… know she’d been doing that,” I said softly.

He sighed and Saint Joe reappeared in his hands and he took a sip.

“Oh, it's okay. As I’ve told her before, more than once,” he said as a sharp aside to the interface only he could see. “It’s not a simple thing to alter her. I’m coming up with a workaround though. Not that I don’t have enough work on my plate. What’s one more thing on the pile?”

“W-well. Can you at least alter Bugbear today?” I asked. “Y-you did say you would.”

“And I’m a man of my word. I logged in to let you know that I’ll be changing him shortly after I leave. This means there will be two of you running around Tread the Sky. The rules stand the same though. No using Namer. No using Fae Touch on any NPCs. You haven’t used either, have you?” He asked me.

“No, Sir,” I said certainly, remembering with guilt the times I’d almost done just that.

No using Fae Touch on any NPCs… I wondered what might happen if I used it on an adventurer though. For that matter, what might happen if I used it on myself?

“Good,” he declared. “Sorry I have to make this short, but I just wanted you all to know to expect the changes to happen soon. Hopefully they won’t be nearly as dramatic as last time.”

“Thanks, Francis,” I said.

“Hiya False God! Thanks!” Miss Tutorial said, right on top of me.

Tyrone stepped up and spoke before Francis could continue. “Listen, after Bugbear becomes a player you need to send him a friend request and party up with him. That way you can keep track of him. We’ll be setting his first home point to the Shady Woods Copse, alright?”

I nodded.

“Good then,” Francis said curtly. He seemed in a hurry and I guessed I didn’t want to keep him. “Tyrone, you’ll be needed offline too, so log out with me. Gell? Sorry, I can’t help the Tutorial. I know she’s your friend and I am working on a solution for her.”

I shrugged. “Tell her, not me.”

He grinned. “I have. Well. Till next time. And Gell? Congratulations on finding your friend. I’m… glad he made it.”

“Y-yeah. Me too,” I said, annoyed at the reminder that he had been the one to essentially destroy the other Bugbears.

“Till next we meet,” He said, lifting into the air in the ritual that Logging off seemed to always cause.

“Bye Gell!” Tyrone said happily as he did the same.

“Bye.”

Maybe it was annoyance, or maybe it was irritation at remembering that these False Gods weren’t perfect. I desired the barest minimum of control over my life. I needed to do something just for me. To break the rules. I’d always been good at that.

As Francis disappeared, I reached out my hand and activated Fae-Touch. It was easy now. The same as stealing, just with a different ability. No fancy lights or sounds accompanied the ability though. Just a short, brief connection.

“Fae-Touch has affected Francis Delaney!”

Below that, a box appeared in my invisible interface. Unlike Miss Tutorial though, this box was plain. A black nothing with a few short words followed by a blinking dot.

Select Command Prompt

C:\Users\FDelaney>_

What… what the heck was a Command Prompt?