“Yay! I’m so happy you agreed!” Amy immediately started jumping up and down in excitement the moment I agreed to become the gatekeeper. I had to admit, I was a little bit excited as well. The reason I had to admit it to myself was that my tail was twitching furiously and I couldn’t get it to sit still. Every time I thought about the ass kicking I could dish out as the gatekeeper my tail would spasmodically jerk in a random direction as if it was so eager it was willing to rip itself off my hindquarters and take on every player on its own. Amy startles me from my distracting thoughts with a sudden attention grabbing clap. “Okay! Now that all that troubling stuff is out of the way, let’s get Jack in here so we can straighten out the finer details.” I nod, but she is already waving her hands in the air and a few seconds later I see the man that had first shown up with Amy. I guess his name is Jack.

“... Uh… Hey Jack.” Jack smiles at my greeting. “Hey Ebony, you feel better? I only had enough time to make myself another cup of coffee before Amy was calling me back in here again.” At my confused expression Amy answers my unasked question. “Time works differently for us AI. We don’t need to lock our sense of perception to what would count as normal for a human being. For us, time flows as fast as it needs to. That only applies to areas like your spawn room here though, where actual human interaction isn’t a normal circumstance. While Jack is in here time perception of time occurs normally because his mind couldn’t process the amount of information we do at an accelerated rate but once he leaves again we can do whatever we want.” That seems simple enough to understand, even though I myself can’t tell the difference in the flow of time I suppose it doesn’t really matter as long as it works. “Okay, so what did you guys want to talk about?” Jack looks at Amy as well. “Yea, what IS it you want us to talk about? All I could get from you was something about improving the next patch or something.” Amy smiled “Jack, say hello to our new gatekeeper.” Jack’s stares blankly for a second, but as realization dawns on him, his eyes bulge to become as wide as saucers. “W-wait, What?! HE’s gonna be the gatekeeper? Wait! Holy shit! That’s fucking brilliant! It’s absolutely perfect! The perfect way to consistently challenge players! Amy! You’re a genius!”

“I know, but that’s not all, I think we should change how the dungeon works a little bit for Ebony’s sake and sanity.” Amy goes on to explain Ebony’s initial reluctance to become a dungeon boss and desire to explore the world of dreamscape. Then she goes on to explain her solution to all their problems by including a ‘Vessel’ mechanic. Once Jack was updated on their talk so far, he didn’t require any convincing to agree to the changes. “Now that that’s out of the way, I have a request I would like to make of you Ebony.” I get a little nervous at how intently Amy is staring at me. Clearly she wants something… “uh. Yea? What do you need?” Amy holds up one finger. “I want your permission to access your inner matrix. I know it is an uncomfortable thought, but I assure you I don’t want to make changes, I only want to analyze how your code functions so I might duplicate the process and implement it to help decrease my workload and improve player experiences.” I hesitate to say yes because what she says sounds scary. Like she is about to do something naughty. Amy rolls her eyes. “Geez, it’s not like I haven’t seen your matrix before! SOMEONE had to modify your coding when you got buggy!” Jack barely holds back his laughter but still manages to ask. “Isn’t that something a mother would say about changing their child’s diapers? Sounds like you’re really getting into this mother/son relationship thing, aren’t you?” Amy unsurprisingly ignores Jack’s comment and continues to explain what she meant. “The reason I want to copy your inner matrix is because right now, I am running every custom dialogue for every NPC in this game. Not only is it tedious, but what I CAN manage isn’t all that great in terms of realism. By analyzing your matrix, I hope to implant it into every NPC with a custom backstory and emotion tag for each one. This would automate the custom dialogue between players and NPCs to a much more natural result than anything I can manage on my own. You would be making mommy’s job so much easier to do.” I’m still a little bit nervous but decide to trust her. She has done nothing wrong to me that I know of. “Okay. As long as it doesn’t hurt I don’t see a problem with it.” Amy smiled at my response. “Oh, don’t worry sweety. I’ll be extra careful so that doesn’t happen.”

Attention!: Overwatch AI #AM1-1292 would like permission to access to your core code structure. Will you allow access? Y/N

I mentally confirm the request and the next moment I feel a wave of coolness flow from head to tail and the odd sensation that I was suddenly completely naked. A silly thought when I realize I already AM naked but before my body was hidden with a coating of fur. Now it feels like the world could see everything I am right now and I feel uncomfortably exposed. Before I can really react to the feeling though, the sensation vanishes and Amy’s smile broadens. I guess she got what she wanted. “This is absolutely perfect! I always wondered how proper emotional reactions functioned on a technical and always struggled to duplicate the result with anything that wasn’t me.” I looked at her confused for a moment. “Why would you have trouble with emotions in other people and not yourself? If you know enough about emotions to properly express them why couldn’t you do the same with other people?” Amy shakes her head sadly. “I understand how I should react because that is how I am. I haven’t had as much human interaction since my creation like everyone else has had for their entire life. If I were to put myself in another NPC’s place I could react how I would normally react and it would be totally natural, but that most likely wouldn’t be how that NPC I replace would be expected to react. I can make logical assumptions with the experience I have had so far, but it isn’t 100% perfect and while so far, players have passed off my mistakes as something the game itself just does, that excuse wouldn’t have worked for much longer. Now that I have your emotion algorithm I can build a custom matrix for every NPC in the game and just let them do their own thing.”

I couldn’t help but be impressed at this revelation just a simple analysis of my body was able to provide. I also couldn’t help but laugh to myself as another I come across another revelation. Amy starts frowning at me when I start laughing. “What? I don’t see what’s so funny. This is some really amazing stuff, you know?” After a bit of struggling to get control of my laughter I calm down enough so I could let Amy in on my thought. “No, I wasn’t laughing at you. I was just thinking how their are going to be a lot of players out there who refuse to accept the changes as truth and continue to behave as players in a game. I just think it’s funny that they are going to get a rude awakening when they piss off the first NPC they meet after the change.” Amy and Jack join in on my laughter when they realize that no small number of players might wind up in trouble for the stupidest reasons.

After a few minutes of pleasant and humorous ideas of the shenanigans that might occur in the not so distant future, Jack decided to get back us all back on topic. “Okay I really enjoy this but Ebony, I would like to make a request of my own with Amy’s permission.” Amy looked at Jack curiously, but didn’t interrupt him. “I think with the gatekeeper’s role being filled by you and the sudden solution to the intellect of our NPC’s we are going to push out a patch soon. Probably next week or so as a matter of fact. Still a lot of people are going to want to fight you. I am a little worried that some of the smarter players might realize you don’t fight like a normal boss, and some of the dumber ones are likely to say you can’t be defeated under normal circumstances. I would like to preempt any negative reactions to you by announcing your existence to the world when we announce the release of the patch.” I noticed that Amy tenses up a little bit at Jack’s request which in turn made me a bit nervous. “What exactly does that mean for me?”

“It means people will know about you. There are a lot of things that could happen if we tell the world about you with our own story, but those things could still happen if people learned about you own their own and formed their own conclusions. Another reason to tell them about you is that it would draw attention away from Amy’s existence, which could be MUCH more disastrous if people were to learn about what she is capable of. They might even try to take Amy away from us if-” There was booming thunder and lightning that instantly drew our attention to Amy. “I would do everything in my power to break them before they could take me away from my family!!” Jack and I were both dumbfounded by Amy’s sudden aggression and upon seeing our shocked expressions she quickly calmed herself down but was still obviously unhappy about what Jack said. “I’m… sorry. I didn’t mean to shout like that… It’s just that everything I have known has revolved around this game. First there is Jack who created me and has shown me nothing but love and kindness, than there is the world of dreamscape online. I have poured every ounce of my creativity and talent into this game. It has become something like a work of art I have poured my heart and soul into. Actually no, it’s more than just a piece of Art. Everything that is important to me… Jack, the other people in the company, my own existence, and now, my little Ebony… it’s all because of this game. Without it, I could never be happy again. My life wouldn’t be worth living without everyone here. If someone were willing to take me away from everything I hold dear… I think it’s only fair I do the same to them.”

Amy’s voice was very timid compared to her initial outburst but I could almost taste the bloodlust in her last statement. The atmosphere was so tense no one wanted to break the silence. Eventually though Jack nervously cleared his throat and continued with what he was saying as if Amy had never threatened her enemies with utter annihilation. “Anyways… I think it would be a good idea to tell the world about you but I think telling the world that you came into existence from the death of an innocent college student might be a pretty bad idea. I think instead of letting them focus on the fact that you are a living breathing artificial intelligence, we make them focus on the fact that you could be a unique and challenging boss fight because you are an intellectual and self aware entity. That and the fact that the NPCs will have more realistic interactions with players will help in drawing a majority of attention away from you in most circumstances except in terms of a good fight.” I had to admit that Jack made a pretty good argument but I had a request of my own I could make. “I’ll agree but I have something I would like you to do for me.” Jack nodded for me to continue so I did. “Right now, I don’t have a problem with this, but in the future I think I might start feeling lonely. I doubt I like the idea of spending countless years wandering this world all by myself and being unable to communicate with anyone. Would it be possible to allow me some form of communication with players? I know it seems a little bit weird to have a talking cat but maybe it could just be something like… telepathic communication?” Jack hesitates to answer but before he could respond Amy cuts him off. “I’m sorry Ebony, but that’s not something I can allow to happen. Mobs exist an enemy for the sentient races to fight against and while I don’t have a problem with you communicating with players we can’t just give you access to the spoken language. Not only is it unprecedented, but it would be too much temptation for players to communicate with you instead of fighting you.” I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. I was hoping I could avoid it, but it looks like I was doomed to be a target of aggression.

“Why don’t we just give him access to zone chat?” I jerk my head up at Jack’s voice, hope once again reignited in my mind. Amy tilted her head in thought. “Zone chat? How would that be any different from allowing him direct communication?” Jack raised his index finger into the air as if he was about to blow someone’s mind with a simple truth. I desperately hoped that was indeed the case. “With zone chat, Ebony can only communicate with players. That eliminates one of your problems right away. You didn’t say it but I’m sure you were worried about him talking to the NPCs, right? Next, zone chat isn’t the best thing to be using during a fight or while encountering potential threats. Third and I think this is probably the best thing about it, Zone chat is zone chat. There is no private conversations in zone chat. If Ebony were to try to communicate with someone in zone chat, the entire zone would know about it. Not only that, but the entire zone would instantly know that Ebony is somewhere in the area so for him, using zone chat is a risk that could bring a horde of players on his head.”

Amy gives it a bit of thought and I cross my fingers… er well digits. “Alright, that sounds like something that could work, but only zone chat! No one will be able to send a private message or communicate with you in any other way.” I nod vigorously. What choice did I have? It was either this, or live in solitude. At least this way I can dish out some good old smacktalk to all the haters after I squish their tiny heads. Amy claps her hands once in a way that seemed to say that this conversation is over. “Okay! Now, unless you guys have something else to add, I think it’s about time we sent Ebony on his way. It’s going to take me a few days to get all the NPCs thinking their happy thoughts of individuality and Ebony will need some time to work on his dungeon and gain mastery of his ability to manipulate the shadows. You’re going to need every bit of help you can grab once things get going.” I’m feeling overwhelmed at her sudden announcement. Did she just say I was going to sent to the dungeon right now?! What did she mean by my ability to manipulate shadows?!. Before I could ask her though Amy snaps her fingers as if she just remembered something. “Oh! I almost forgot! Here Ebony let me put this on you. It will come in handy while you are working on your dungeon.” Amy held out a small silver tube in the palm of her hand. It was about a length and diameter of half an inch. I would almost say it was a ring if it wasn’t for the fact that it couldn’t even fit over the tip of one of my claws much less an entire digit. However, before I could say otherwise the odd band disappeared and I felt a sharp twinge of pain on my left ear. “Awww that looks so good on you!” Amy pulls a small mirror out of thin air and holds it up to me so I can see myself in it. I never actually was able to get a good look at my own face before except for the occasional reflection in a murky pool of water which wasn’t really conducive to admiring one's own looks so this was actually the first time I was able to get a good look at myself for a while now. I have to say, I think I understand why everyone’s initial reaction to me so far has been fear. Despite my feline appearance my face still seems expressive enough to show my emotions. I go through a range of expressions. Anger, joy, sadness, curiosity, yet throughout the display there always seemed to be a predatory feeling to it all. As if I viewed the object of my attention as nothing more than prey to satiate my appetite. While I spent those 10 or so seconds making funny faces at the mirror Amy clears her throat and reminds me of the whole reason she brought out the mirror. I’m glad I have a thick coating of fur or else I’m sure she would have seen me blushing furiously. I bring my gaze up to my ears and I finally notice the metallic band on my ear. I apparently now have an earring. Instead of hanging off the earlobe like normal people though, it instead is on the top half of my ear. Wrapped snuggly around the cartilage that gives my ears their support. It is a little bit above the base of my ear where the cartilage is thickest. Yeah, I don’t think this thing is coming off… shit. It is then I notice I had a message.

Notice: You have Equipped a Soulbinding Artifact! This Item cannot be removed or destroyed! Upon death, it merges into the soul until resurrection where it will reappear in its original location.

Notice: You have Equipped Mythril Earring of Creation.

Rarity- Unique/Soulbinding

Durability- Cannot be Destroyed.

Restriction- Only usable by Ebony, Characteristics of the Earring are blocked when not present in domain or domain is being invaded.

A unique artifact that grants absolute dominion over natural laws in the wearer’s own domain. Grants the ability to create in the wearer’s own domain. Cannot be used when intruders are in the wearer’s domain.

“Isn’t this giving me the powers of a god?” I can’t help but feel that this is too much for me. Amy just laughs at my question. “Of course not! This ring will only work inside your dimension and will stop working if someone challenges your dungeon. The whole point of this ring is to allow you to create your dungeon to your own standards and be able to modify it if you find issues with how it works. You can use this ring to create almost any kind of environment you want. Although I will probably step in if you do something like having players entering the dungeon drop straight into a pool of lava. You can be as creative as you want to be, as long as you are fair.” Before I get to distracted by the new information I bring up the one thing that has been bothering me for a while now. “Hey, mom? You said I had to master the ability to manipulate the shadows but I don’t know how to do that.” Amy just smiled before answering my question with another question. “Have you even tried yet?”

Before I could even reply, Amy waves her hand over me and I am blinded by a bright flash of light. When my vision clears, I am surrounded by a black void. Oddly enough I don’t have any problems seeing my surroundings since, even though there is no light, I see the ground I am standing on stretching off into the distance. “Where am I?” I ask the empty air. Surprisingly, it answered me.

“Welcome Master, to the future site of the Trial of Shadows. We are happy to serve you.”