“Even in Adonis, nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

I commented as I watched the rippling of the portal. Its effects were gradually creeping into the digital space, corrupting more and more pixels by the seconds that passed.

According to the diagnostic runs, there was nothing wrong with the portal, at least not on the surface. It was erratic, but the code was still there and functioning normally, so it could be a graphical issue. Yet even then, I can’t shrug off this uncomfortable feeling about it.

“In my 200 years of living, I have never seen something so bizarre.” I told myself. “It only happened after I activated NIS. Conjectures?” I turned to look at Nis, who was busy pouring over the console.

She looked at me and wiped off the non-existent sweat on her brow and smiled with mock panting.

“Maybe because we played god?” She said with an innocent sing-song tone.

“YOU played god. You injected the code.”

She laughed nervously and averted her gaze before suggesting one more. “Maybe alien-tech? With the resources of OnLive, something exotic would not be impossible.”

I placed a finger on my chin and contemplated. Sure enough, just with my personal fortune, I could get a truck-load of random alien-tech from planet excavations, but even then, we had no idea of their purpose.

It was nothing more than overglorified collectors items. Maybe a paperweight or just decoration gathering dust. It was useless, unless?

“Unless it was used by that idiot son of mine without thinking, again.”

“Esteemed heir does have the quality of a risk-taker.”

“To the detriment of his family and friends, yes. In this case, he’s using ME, his beautiful father, as a lab experiment by conjoining me with a dysfunctional robot, and now, an unknown alien factor.”

“Business acumen?”

“A whole disregard for ethics, filial piety and whatever else, yes.” I sighed and covered my face with my hands. “Come to think of it, you’ve been saying nothing but good things about Lil’ Mike.”

“I’ve been upgraded to never take his name in vain.”

“Oh that egotistic bastard. I should have pulled out.”

I groaned and shifted my weight to my other foot. I looked back at the ever-increasing size of data corruption from the portal. Sure enough, in a manner of hours, this whole digital space would be destroyed.

I took in a sharp breath and spoke to Nis.

“Look, I’ll be going in there. I can rot in here, or go die there. Either way, I won’t be losing much.”

Nis gasped and hurriedly closed the console by waving her hand, then ran up in front of me and stretched out her arms across her arm-length.

“Please wait for me. I will also come with you, for a variety of reasons.”

“What’s the first?” I asked, exasperated.

“It’s boring in here.”

“Second?” I raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve been tasked to look after you by the esteemed heir.”

Isn’t her priority reversed? I wanted to speak out, but I chose not to. It would just invite more questions than answered ones.

“Fine, but do you have an avatar?”

She huffed her holographic chest up and brought her nose up to the air. “Of course, this is ME we’re talking about. I’ve already created one, and I’m sure it will fit your taste.”

The moment after, her holographic projection started whizzingg away and deconstructing to fading pixels.

What appeared in her location was something more human-like. The same height as me, with golden-brown short hair. Her eyes were a sky blue and she had small lips. She seemed no older than 17. Her clothing was that of a new player with her equipment strapped to her back and hips, a sword on her back and an antiquated pistol on her hips.

“Please praise my appearance, Master Chris!”

“Mexxiah?”

“Don’t we look like a pair of young lovebirds?” She ignored me and asked that with her sing-song tone as she did slight, ‘cutesy’ movements. It was lost on me though.

My avatar was also set to 17. Atleast, this was an avatar I created long ago. It was very different from my real form, but I tried to recreate what I looked like as a teenager when I created my avatar.

“Why... do you have Mexxiah’s appearance?”

“Esteemed he-”

“Okay, that’s enough of an explanation, it’s fine.” I shook my head. “I’m already max level, just give yourself a freebie and start there too.”

“Way ahead of you! I’ve already min-maxed my character to be the perfect Witch Hunter.”

Even down to the class, the same as Mexxiah. I have conflicted feelings about this. Is this Lil’ Mike’s plan? To see me out with a mockup of my wife? How distasteful, but I’m even more mad at myself for being happy about this.

I took out the Crown of Mexxiah from my inventory and passed it over to Nis. “Equip it, I made it for Mexxiah. It increases your summon limit to 4.” Normally, the summon limit for demonspawns for Witch Hunters was capped at 2, but they could get an item called the “Sever’s Badge” that increased it to 3.

Upon passing it to Nis, she immediately wore it over her head. The crown transformed into a tiara that fit snugly with her forehead. It made her look the part of a tyrannical queen that enslaved spirits.

She smiled beautifully and crossed her fingers. Murmuring an incantation, a slew of colors burst from her hands and several shadows formed themselves around her. Two in the front, and two in the back.

They were demons with shackles on their wrists, ankles, and a choker on their neck. They were muscular, red-skinned giants with a large, deformed greatsword on their backs only tied behind by a tattered cloth.

“You built them into damage and speed. Good choice, for an AI.”

“Please don’t lump me in with AI. I’m not like other AI. I’m better, and spunky!”

“Yes, yes. Is this how it feels to have a daughter?” I asked myself aloud and walked up to the portal.

Nis hurriedly dismmissed her newly-acquired demons and ran up beside me.

Before we stepped foot on the portal, she grabbed the hem of my clothes and offered her hand in a shy manner, even lipped ‘please?’.

I mumbled and gave up. I held her hand with mine and stepped inside the white, rippling portal.