The two suns were high in the sky. It hadn't rained in days, the air was hot, and dust was rising from under the horses' hoofs. I raised my eyes and looked at the blue sky. Strange how they made the weather for a two suns planet. I wonder if a real two suns planet would look like this? How does the weather function? Is this some random thing, or do they make some plausibility calculations?

When we rented the horses, the NPCs there had said that a drought was coming. Do they get some insight into the planned weather, or is it just some NPC guessing game?

I cleaned the sweat from my brows and looked forward. I need some kind of a sombrero hat.

Alice was riding in front with Noviel, my new friend's new bodyguard. I had to chuckle again, seeing how much she looked like Ayra: a blonde girl with melancholic blue eyes, about one meter sixty-five tall. She was a couple of years older than Ayra.

I shrugged. She must be his type of girl. Yes, I know he is a kid, but a bit of romance is also allowed for fourteen-year-olds. She will not go further than looking into his eyes, eventually a hug or hand-holding. She must know this instinctively.

But it was not her looks that were intriguing. What surprised me was to see the level of understanding the NPCs have. Their conversation and situation awareness were downright scary. I could not differentiate between what a real person or these NPCs would do or say doesn't matter if you talked about the weather or other mundane or non-mundane things.

The size of this reality-like project was amazing. I could not see the limits of it.

Spartacius came closer to me:

“Well, do you think she will make it?”

“Make it? Noviel is good; you just saw what she can do!”

We've had a demo in the camp, and she had hit her targets in nine out of ten cases at fifty meters distance in various challenging situations: riding on a horse, riding on a horse shooting backwards and so on. That was quite good. She could also cast incendiary arrows about one per minute. Decent for a level nineteen rogue-archer.

“No, I mean Ayra. Will she make it to get sponsored? I mean the training; if nobody will sponsor her, she will get into debt and might be forced too early into a mercenary contract! Who knows what player will take her to use her only as a meat shield for some quest...”

Ah Ayra. I almost forgot about her.

“Do you remember when she gave me her purse to pay us for freeing those NPCs? You know I gave it later back, but I've put four gold pieces inside before doing so. If she goes to the camp to train, she will need that money.”

“Four gold? How much did she have?”

“Eleven silver”

“Lol. Cala-the-miser gives four gold pieces to an NPC. I would not believe it if I would not hear it from you!”

I shrugged.

“Look, I did it as an experiment. She is a sales clerk NPC, right? You've managed to spin her mind so much that she decided to go to an archer's training! That's a performance! I could bet that we'll find her in a sales clerk job in the camp next time we get there. Anyhow, the slaver wanted nine for her, so I saved some. I'm just curious if an NPC can change her programming so much as to switch from sales job to archer?”

“Lol, why should she not be capable of switching jobs?”

“Well, let's see. Can she physically train?”

He shrugged, raised his head, and looked forward. He made himself truly a handsome guy. Who knows what lies beneath in reality. A skinny kid?

I looked around: the graphics continued to be perfect, undistorted even during movement. Everything seemed to work perfectly well, with smooth visuals, both near and far sight. Excellent scenery movement creates the impression of a deep natural landscape. Nice. Clearly improved game engine.

Spartacius grinned when the city appeared on the horizon.

“Oh. There is the town. I must test my new mercenary!”

I took on my 'experienced player' role:

“Another border town. Welcome to the Denikan Kingdom! People here are called denika, or the denik, and are related to the Denka Republic, which we just left behind. They speak the same language; you do not need translators. You can make the next five levels around here if you do not get bored. Saves a lot of travelling time. Good to get friendly with the population. Don't do anything stupid! You can test her outside once we get to fight.”

“No, no. I don't plan to spend half a year or more here. I just plan to ask Noviel to do a test. If she is ready to do it, she will pass the test. She only needs to show readiness. I read about the test.”

“There are all kinds of stupid tests in blogs. Most of those come from chapter 3 with that pirate city Tortuga. It's true; you get there the best chapter three mercenaries. You don't want anything bad from the girl, I hope?”

“Oh, come on, you know me? How can you think so about me?”

I sighed. I don't really know him. After spending a couple of weeks of daily rally drive with him, can I say I know him? Well, true, we were for hours just the two of us in that tiny car's cabin, under the blazing sun, he reading the map, I driving like a crazy possessed pilot. Then in the stations, we had to fix the car, talk to sponsors, run to buy spare parts, get the right fuel and many more. The one day when we got bogged down in the sand and lost our lead… OK, maybe I can say I know him.

“Oh well, I'll go into the market. You can find me there!”

“They never have interesting things in this market! You know that magic is not allowed in this kingdom, maybe just some smuggled things, but of low value or fakes... If you could buy me something from the Golden Empire? There is a bigger town on their side of the border?”

I sighed. How can he think so utility-driven? There can be beautiful things in this market! Besides, that's a chapter three town!

“You cannot wear those things from the Golden Empire; you are too weak for them. That area is for higher levels. Speaking of the empire, hopefully, they still let me in after what we did!”

“Hopefully, nobody finds out it was us! I cannot wear those yet, but maybe I will level soon? The fight with the slavers brought me some good experience. What would you do if they find out and become hostile?”

Sure it brought him some experience. Those mainly were chapter three NPCs.

“Depends on how hostile. If I can fix it, I'll do it. You know, do jobs for them, pay them, bribe them. If it's too much pain in the ass, a good raiding party can fix it too.”

“How can a raiding party fix it?”

I laughed: that's a calamity joke. That's why they call me Calamity Lara. Ahm, not because of the jokes.

“You raid all that's on the shopping list and add some bonus items. If it's Calamity time, let it be Calamity time. The raid will definitively fix your reputation for the best.”

There are some nations that I could visit only with a raid group. You do not earn the Warlord title for peanuts.

He chuckled.

The guards let us enter without asking questions; it seems they still recognized me or were told to allow all non-suspicious persons. This was the case around here. The atmosphere was not as relaxed as usual, and there were more guards, not only the standard two. Well, maybe the slavers' raids in the nearby republic made them more alert. That makes sense.

There was a minor entry tax of 20 copper per person, and I left Alice to pay it, as she handles small change for me. I let her chat a little with some guards whilst I reviewed the wanted posters.

Oh, that may be why they let us enter so easily; it looks like they know Alice and Noviel. Interesting. Alice is from here; I recruited her from the same camp. Is the game so fucking consistent that the NPCs keep track of each other?

There was a nice list of quests, and the lynx was prominently on top, probably the best-paying quest in the area. There was nothing else really interesting for me.

We left our horses at the gate, and I watched Spartacius disappear with Noviel in tow.

Well then, about Spartacius: he behaves sometimes like a fourteen-year-old because he is a fourteen-year-old boy.

I sighed. How come I did not realize it until now? We had fun together; he had good ideas and was a good co-pilot for weeks. He worked hard to help maintain that team, all that administrative work with the mechanics, the good choices for the engine, and he had his good moments tunning the chips in a couple of situations. Only when the system told me did I realize he was a kid.

I shrugged. So, who cares?

Back to business... I should take the time to visit the assassin's headquarters; maybe there are some saucy jobs for me there. Kill some prominent target to invigorate this sleepy border town?

Alice came near me. We exchanged a glance, and I knew we agreed on Spartacius. Alice smiled:

“He is a child's mind in a man's body.”

I had to chuckle.

“You don't know how right you are!”

Another thing I like in Mephisto is that every character had such an advanced dialogue you think they are real, not 'spawns' as they are called. They call themselves proudly 'spawns of this world'!

I even felt there was a different intonation in the way she said it; she was talking a bit depreciative about him. So not only advanced dialogue but also a good show of feelings? How on Earth did they program that? All these fine nuances! And when I think about that NPC, what was her name? Ayra. Well, she even asked me what's an NPC. Pfuh, it cannot be more real than that; you cannot talk here and not be in the role. Could I tell her she's a non-person character? Non-person?… That girl has more personality than some players…

What about Alice? She is the same Alice I know, behaves the same way she did before, and looks the same way as she always looked, and yet her character seems to have actual depths, depths I was not used to.

Ahm... That is not entirely true. She does not look exactly the same. I can see tiny imperfections when I look at her skin: a small mark here, a spot there. It is not that perfectly smooth skin I've seen before. Actually, now that I look at it, it is sexier, more humane.

She does not behave exactly the same way. Did I not see that glitter in her eyes when Spartacius spoke depreciative about her? She did not like that! That sparkle was new!

So here lies the difference. Did I not just think about all these delicate nuances!? Yes, as the saying goes: the devil hides in the detail.

How did they achieve this was beyond me.

The game is running smoothly, and I did not see any glitches or bugs until now. Mephisto's-World is famous for being reality-like. You live and move as in the real world. It fulfilled so far anything I could imagine to test it.

The only thing that nerved me was that my cheat interface was not working. I had some helper add-ons tailored to give me more information, but they did not seem to work in this version. OK, whatever.

I'm not particularly eager to play a game fresh after upgrades. I prefer to play three months later when all major bugs have been fixed; however, now it was relatively fresh after an upgrade. Oh, well, it seems to run flawlessly.

It was advertised the story would go smooth in this new version for all characters, as it would be in the real world. They did not reset older characters to a lower level as other game providers do, nor did the story; this is one of Mephisto's world peculiarities. It just keeps improving; the story goes further and evolves.

Well, that's a challenging task; we'll see how this works. Maybe I'll have time later to check some high-level areas too. Perhaps I can port Spartacius there too; he would surely like to see some of it. Hopefully, some secure zone.

What about raiding that Empire town at the border? Hm, if my reputation with the Empire sinks, I might think about it.