Chapter 379

“Aw you’re no fun.” Steve sulked as James once again reiterated that there was no way in hell he would allow Steve to set up the AI for the Warmonger AI. Sure, Steve was a good guy. But he was also, a troll. And his shenanigans had gotten James into more trouble already than he ever wanted in a lifetime. Things were finally settling, and he didn’t need them to somehow get thrown off by Steve.

“You’ve got your toilet mimics,” James said simply, “gods know what you would choose for a Warmonger AI.”

Steve’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “Which is why you should let me set it.”

“Not gonna happen.” Speaking of the Warmonger AI, James was already skimming the information he could on the AI. It seemed it was a battle manager system, that had been introduced to oversee the battle, loot disbursement, and such. As far as James could tell, the AI would have an official stand not only on the Fields of Battle, but additional at the Guild Hall. Meaning he definitely didn’t want to let Steve set up some sort of liaison with the players that would be a troll.

“Spoilsport.” Steve said, but he seemed to drop the comment and sit back, enjoying his drink in the hot springs. James tried his best to just ignore the developer. He knew Steve had been hard at work, and the developer still seemed exhausted. While inconvenient, he wasn’t going to shoo the man away. At least, not just yet.

“Best I can tell,” James said once he’d finished skimming through the rest of the facts of the Warmonger, “I can summon the AI now, and the moment the feature goes live, the AI will be teleported into the Adventurers Guild. There, players will be able to register for the Skirmish, and once the appropriate circumstances are met, the skirmish will begin.”

“So,” Rue was still nestled against him in the hot springs, “what you’re saying is, we get to fight soon?”

She practically purred with excitement.

“I’m saying we need to select our Warmonger AI quickly.” James sighed. “I really was hoping for a break.”

“No rest for the wicked.” Steve said coyly. “Nor for those cursed with bad luck.”

“You know, you don’t have to stay here.” James retorted.

“Honestly, if I wasn’t here, I’d just be monitoring you from my personal space. It’s part of my job as your handler, after all.” The developer grinned as another Painguin came towards him, drink in hand. “And this is rather comfortable…and free.”

James laughed at that. Steve had an extravagant personal space in The Zone. But there, everything cost V Coins. Within DCO, where James, and the developers, had godlike powers, everything they created and generated for themselves was free. And given the high level of realism James continued to note within DCO when it came to taste, texture, and the senses, Steve was living his best life in James’s dungeon.

“Keep it up and I’ll start taxing you.” James said with a chuckle, but he dropped the topic. This banter was just wasting time.

“It looks like we can either request a specific AI, utilize an AI from our dungeon, or select from various AI options.” He said instead, pulling up the new feature within his appropriate toolbars. This new one, labeled Skirmishes, showed him the Warmonger Manager tab. Which was what he was now skimming.

“I’d advise against making one of your current AI’s the manager.” Steve said. “That feature may or may not be slightly buggy. It’s a bit of strain on AI if they’re both acting as Warmonger AI manager and trying to actively battle during a skirmish. Split personalities, while rare…do happen.”

James thought back to his Terminus, and how the Perfect Cognivore seemed to have an AI that overtook the Terminus’s normally jovial personality. Steve had guessed correctly; James had been thinking about using one of his bosses as the Warmonger AI. After all, they had all begun to interact quite a bit with adventurers, not only in combat.

“Noted.” James said, instead focusing on the next option. He didn’t have a code for AI summoning, so a specific one wasn’t going to work. Instead, he had to use the…AI Creation Tool.

“Your naming convention continues to astonish.” James said with a dry chuckle. Steve just laughed and waved a hand at him in response.

“Oh, this will be fun.” Rue moved her head to almost block his view completely. He’d pulled up the tab large enough in front of the two of them, that he could work without having to push her away. Currently, the system was asking them to begin using the tool.

Assign Gender? Y/N

James selected the yes option, which then gave him a variety of options. Part of him was tempted to generate a Female Warmonger AI. But he figured that might lead to some problems later on. On top of, he was sure, adventurers hitting on the Warmonger AI and such, he wasn’t sure how the situation would go with Rue. Would she get jealous? Or would the promiscuous pixie flirt with, and other things, with the AI? Regardless, James didn’t feel like using this as an opportunity to begin a harem for himself.

Instead, he selected Male. It was boring, but it didn’t matter. He needed an AI that was going to carry out the role of Warmonger AI. That was all.

The next option on AI generation, was to choose a race. This…was a bit more difficult. Apparently, the AI race options when creating the AI from scratch were limited to what was in the dungeon. Meaning, for a dungeon with a singular type of mobs, their races would be extremely limited. For James, it became difficult. Especially since it seemed each floor of his had more pre-generated Race options than he’d imagined.

“Do I even want to know what a LLamador is?” He asked with a glance at Steve. The developer grinned.

“It’s a bipedal sentient demonic Llama that wears a hat, has a murderous taste for hands, and specializes in taking down Mad Cows and such. They’re third floor demonic farm animal variants.”

“Uh huh.” James sighed and went back to looking over the options. It seemed most of the mobs, at some point in the dungeon, could have gained the ability to converse with adventurers and become more humanoid, in a way. Because obviously, game evolution always made the creatures become more human like as they evolved. Good ol game logic.

“I’m actually kind of sad you don’t get those.” Steve continued. “I’d been really looking forward to that mob. Did you know you’re the only demonic farm animal dungeon?”

“Shocking.” James commented, not the least bit surprised.

He turned his focus back to the Warmonger AI, noting he had about 10 minutes left before the Skirmishes would go live. He was running out of time.