Tabula sat at the table in the conference room of Nazarick, in his hands was something rarely seen in the real world. An actual bound book. In this case, it was a copy of the Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories, a compendium of Poe's works, his heart raced as he reached the climax when the man driven mad by guilt shrieks, "Villains!" I shrieked, " Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! -Tear up the planks! Here, here! -It is the beating of his hideous heart!" A shiver ran down Tabula Smaragdina's spine while he read, he looked up, and no one else was there.
'Well Momonga, you asked for us to be here, I got to see Herohero, which was nice, but… I'm honestly surprised you couldn't make it. I guess work is unkind to you too these days.' Tabula thought and let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
"I guess I'll keep reading then, and just wait until the shutdown." He muttered, the large empty conference room of the forty-one guild members now had himself as the only occupant.
The silence draped around him like a blanket, nobody there, nobody there, nobody there. Just himself and his compendium of works by the master of horror and suspense. The seconds of Tabula's life ticked by and yet, he found it hard to care. Nobody was waiting for him to logoff. Nobody was waiting for him to join them for dinner. Nobody cared when he went to sleep or woke up. 'All my best friends live in books and movies now… the ones here, the ones I left behind, I'll always regret that we didn't truly get proper goodbyes.'
He turned the page again.
He turned the page again.
He turned the page again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
The seconds ticked by, unnoticed.
Unmissed.
Unmourned.
Then he did it.
He slapped the book closed, and noticed that he could actually feel the book in his grip. More than that, he could 'feel' the wood of the chair.
He could feel the movement of air over his skin.
He touched himself. One sharp finger against his opposing arm. The skin gave under his touch, and he could feel its cool clamminess.
He turned an eye toward the timer.
There was no timer.
[GM Call].
Nothing.
[Logout].
He was still there.
[Emergency support].
Nobody answered.
"What's going on?" Tabula had to ask himself the question, but came to no ready answer, at least nothing that sounded reasonable.
He thought carefully, he concentrated, and when he did, he could feel his stats on hand within himself, skills, items, mp, everything. 'Is this an update, did they change the game somehow or did someone hack it? No. Definitely not.'
He knew the instant that he considered it, how absurd that was. 'Even with every editing script available, to say this has terabytes of information to modify is to say a mountain is a grain of sand. Not to mention the legality involved in creating total immersion indistinguishable from reality. Plus there's bypassing the security in hacking the company, and the penalty for doing so. Just to… what? Make Yggdrasil super immersive for a few minutes?' It was absurd in the extreme.
He put the book down on the table and headed for the large oak double doors, they opened at his touch with the audible groan he himself had designed. A touch of pride welled within, it added to the mystique of the place. 'God and the devil both live in the details.' His catch phrase returned to him, along with all the times he made his friends groan as he soaked up data they wanted to use themselves.
It wasn't an unhappy memory, and to his surprise, he could feel the mouth beneath his tentacles begin to form a smile. 'Expressions?' It was unexpected realism, a fine detail he liked in spite of himself. 'If this is a hack job, I'm going to find the ones who did this and praise them to the stars.'
He walked down the long hall and passed by various maids and other servants. They stopped and bowed until he passed them by, 'Did I program them to do that?' He tried to recall, it seemed like the sort of thing he might do, but he didn't remember doing it.
When he reached the throne room, there was only one NPC present. 'Albedo. The one I created.' He recognized her beautiful wings, her slender limbs, her sharp, piercing yellow eyes. She knelt when she saw him approach. 'I definitely didn't program her to do that?' He knew that for a fact.
He walked directly to her, held a hand out in front of her bowed head and said, [Open Settings].
Nothing happened. She didn't look up, but she spoke.
"My creator, I don't know what 'settings' are, or how to open them, but if you'll forgive my ignorance and teach me then I would be happy to use them however you please." She had a sweet, almost young motherly charm, that much was the same.
'Which fits perfectly opposite her negative five hundred karma rating.' Tabula thought, and then it hit him.
"You can speak? How come you can speak?" Tabula cocked his head to one side to ask.
"My creator, forgive me for not asking permission first! How impertinent of me!" She exclaimed, "How can I atone for my sin?!"
Panic ran through Tabula, but he had enough focus to repeat his question. "Literally. Were you able to speak before? What is the last thing you remember before now?"
"My Lord… I… think I was always able to speak, from the day you created me, wasn't I? And…" Albedo answered and pursed her lips.
Tabula chose to refine his question, "How much of your life here in the tomb do you recall in detail?"
Albedo raised her head to look at her creator, "I think… master, there are things missing. I remember the day of the great raid, the day I was made, the day the Pleiades were made, and… yes, there are other things... conversations stand out among the Supreme Beings, your friends. But I know there must be more…" She cast her eyes back down, "Forgive me, My Lord, I just don't remember… has something happened?"
"Something." Tabula said and looked away from her. "Something. Something. Something. Yes, something, something…" He zoned out for a moment as he ran through the possibilities, a hand came up and stroked one of the tentacles dangling in front of his mouth.
The rest trembled as if jealous of the one getting the attention.
"Albedo! Have the area around Nazarick inspected, find out if anything has changed, use whatever personnel you feel are appropriate!" He gave the order and waited for her to fail. 'Something like that is far too general, no NPC can handle requests without key identifying information. Specific objectives and allocated resources… that 'creative thinking' they need to truly imitate life isn't there yet. So… she 'has' to fail.'
"At once, my lord!" She proclaimed and shot to her feet.
He watched her leave the room, still waiting and waiting for her to freeze as her programming inevitably reached the logic limits. He went to the stairs and sat on the cool stone that led up to the Throne of Kings where Momonga spent so much time. 'I'm grateful he kept this going. More so than I realized I would be.' Tabula thought, but watched as the NPC not only didn't fail, but continued to move with intent and purpose,closing the door behind her.
A sinking feeling came over Tabula Smaragdina that something else, the impossible, was very, very wrong.
His tentacles twitched, he rested his arms on his knees and tapped his fingers together in prime number patterns. Two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-nine, thirty-one, thirty-seven, forty-one.
Then he started over. Always going up to forty one taps in prime sets and then beginning again, until Albedo returned.
She rushed over to where he sat and went down to one knee, bowing her head and placing a hand over her breast just where her heart would lie. "My Lord, I had the area checked, we are no longer where we were. Demiurge checked the stars, they are not the ones of Yggdrasil. Aura and Mare checked life and landscapes, the usual monsters are gone, and the terrain does not match. Wherever the Tomb is… it is not where it was."
"I see. I see. I see, I see, I see, I see, I see." Tabula said over and over, his tentacles swayed a little while he nodded. "Then we were transported to another world, sometime last night, or this morning, or I don't know just when, as I was reading at the time and waiting for Momonga. Now we're gone and I don't know where we are… how curious."
"Are there any dangerous creatures around us?" Tabula asked.
"Nothing appeared threatening, master. But we chose not to engage anything either." Albedo answered.
'With her high aggro settings, that doesn't make sense unless… she was 'thinking'. A thinking being would prioritize mission first, yes, yes, yes. She is definitely acting beyond the realm of programming, is she alone? No, that would make even less sense. If it happened to one, then they've all come alive. Memory limits, probably restricted to the times we were present with them or times when they were acting expressively on player commands.' Tabula's mind raced as he began to put pieces of the puzzle together in a way that would make sense to him.
"Yes, I see. Alright. Okay. We need to test threats, and ourselves. Yes, we need to see how our strength stands up in this world, yes we do, we must. We can't do anything in ignorance or that will bring disaster." Tabula said more to himself than to Albedo.
"Have the guardians and all combat creations undergo escalating tests of strength against summoned creatures. Yourself included Albedo. We need to know that we still have our old strengths!" Tabula ordered, while mentally adding, 'And I need to check myself as well, I'll test myself against the guardians.'
"My Lord, at once." She acknowledged and when he stood up, she was already scurrying from the room, he could tell she was casting message spells to the other guardians, who would in turn be reaching out to their own subordinates, who would in turn reach out to their own.
Which is why when he reached the dais overlooking the arena sands, it was quite crowded down below. The guardians organized themselves in the way he'd programmed the Tomb to have them do, 'So that remains intact, they organize themselves by floor whenever gathered. Probably they retain programming and orders as part of their personalities.' He then recalled that he set Albedo's last line to, 'She is also a slut.'
'Oh my… that might require further thought.' Tabula considered, and taking his seat, he raised a hand and said, 'Begin!'
Those capable of summoning monsters, went to the front of each formation and began summoning weaker creatures, slimes at first. Then goblins, then orcs, then vampires… the creatures grew more and more dangerous as each NPC had its mettle tested.
Predictably, their power 'seemed' to be intact. Tabula tapped out the prime numbers on his fingers while he watched the shouts become more earnest and the fights began to drag out longer and longer. The pleiades lasted a fair bit, predictable given their levels, but they dropped out long before the guardians.
It took most of the day for the guardians to find challenging opponents, and by then the rest of the NPCs had moved out of the way to sit in the stands of the arena itself to watch the display of might.
Sebas proved able to easily fling dragons around, though he required his second form to do so, and it took greater dragons with stat boosted mechanics to prove a threat to him. Crashing, thudding, the scattering of sand so far from the point of impact that it pinged off Tabula's own body, the little grains falling like a rain of his precious, precious details, down at his feet, and in time with their fall, summoned dragons died.
'So level wise everyone is the same. But what does that mean, anyway? It's worthless without scale, I need scale.' Tabula finished the tapping sequence and brought his long finger up to the chin beneath his tentacles, "A test outside of Nazarick, we need to test the rest of the world." He concluded decisively.
The last opponents lay fallen, boosted dragons were able to drag out fights, but… that was all, they could only delay the inevitable. 'Those were level ninety-five with boosts, a shame about using scrolls, but… a necessary sacrifice.' Tabula thought and stood up, then slowly began to clap as he looked down at the guardians and the head butler.
"Well done, you are yourselves in strength, but all strength is relative. So, we need to know, we must know, we have to know, how do we stand up against what lies outside of this place? Some of you might already know, but for those who don't, we're in a new world. This is no longer Yggdrasil. We may be very strong compared to this world, or very weak. Demiurge, Albedo, Shalltear, come up here at once." Tabula ordered.
The three leaped from the sands and landed in kneeling positions in front of where their master stood. "We need to test the world, I want Thirty-Six summons, nine for each direction, a level ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, and ninety. Something that would be attacked, pick a point of origin that won't be traced to us. Yes, there may be spawn points, use the mirror and look for places where things spawn, then create the beings there, make them fit the sort of things that spawn there… like a graveyard for undead or something. Then observe and see what it takes to defeat each one."
"Do we have the beings attack others to start fights, master?" Demiurge asked, and Tabula's pale white tentacles wiggled a little.
"No, no, no don't do that. We need to know how this world responds to new things, if we provoke the response that'll damage the data, we don't want to damage the data so just have them walk toward populated areas. Keep them under control, keep them defending themselves, but nothing lethal, we need to find the safe roaming limits by level parameter sweeping. Yes, that is what we will do!" Tabula declared with renewed confidence as he framed it in a way that made sense to himself.
"Go, at once, and I will wait in the throne room for the results. Come to me each time something is defeated and show me the recording. Everyone else, high alert, observe the area around us, but do not engage or interact. Not until we know something." Tabula ordered and then left without another word. 'I'll test myself later, first the world, and… something feels off about fighting them. Strange. Very strange. Like fighting my friends, it doesn't feel right, not at all. I'll test myself later.' He thought as he left them behind.
"At once, master!" They shouted to his back.
Tablua spent two days in the throne room, testing his body to see how long he could go without sleep. 'This is definitely not a human body, though I get bored…' On the step beside where he sat was a stack of books. 'That part is human, a mind flayer shouldn't be bored, but I don't seem to feel much physical exhaustion. Maybe combat would change that.' He filed the thought away for later when Albedo approached and knelt.
In her hands she held a memory mirror, a simple ornate gold object, it looked like an ordinary hand mirror like any woman might have for doing her hair. In reality, it recorded the observations of the carrier.
"Master," she said kneeling and holding it out to him so that it lay flat in her open palms, the handle toward her master's hands, "the first summoned beings were defeated."
"What were they?" Tabula asked, recalling his orders.
"Level ten zombies, we started them on what appears to be a frequent battlefield where undead were observed to rise out of the ground. All four zombies died in their first encounters." Albedo reported. "They died individually to groups of four or more, teams armed with swords and spells, these teams ranged from level estimate averages of six to thirteen."
"Good, good, what's next?" Tabula asked, 'Level ten, simple enough even for a weaker team to defeat by working together.'
"Next we will send out low level 20 vampires, master." Albedo said, and her master nodded.
"Good, good that will do. Keep me informed, and have Mare pick some books for me… mix in some different subjects this time." Tabula ordered. Albedo rose, bowed, and departed the throne room again.
The stack of books was twice as large when Albedo returned to him several days later. "Master, the vampires were defeated, the weaker teams were no match for the level twenties, but word spread and near a place our scouts have identified as 'E-Rantel', a team of adventurers defeated the first of them. The others fell around the same time."
"Good, good, what's next?" Tabula asked.
"Weaker death knights, level thirty exactly, master. Using the corpses on site to avoid any suspicion." She promised, and Tabula set the book in his hand down as he clapped it shut.
"Good. Have Mare come pick up these books, and then bring me some more, on more varied subjects… include some on diplomacy and international relations. And… a copy of… yes what was it, what was it… a book on forming friendships and influencing people." Tabula added.
"At once, master!" Albedo replied, leaving him to watch the replay while she arranged the rest.
'Weak. The first was the expected result, but I hadn't thought a measly level twenty would pose a serious problem to anything. I wonder how the death knights will do.' Tabula scratched his chin as he thought it over, 'Could this whole world be fairly weak?' Tabula began to wonder, and he was still wondering when Mare dropped off a large stack of books at Tabula's right hand, and took the stack of books set on the left.
Tabula nodded at the young trap designed by Bukubukuchagama and reached for the first book, arranged in alphabetical order by subject, just as he liked it. He began to read and wait.
He barely noticed time pass when Albedo returned. "Master, the death knights have all been defeated." She said from down on her knee.
Tabula took the mirror and watched each replay in turn, one that went west was defeated by an interesting looking group of women that fought it before the city walls, along with a powerful looking man with a bright blue blade that Tabula recognized. Nor was it the only equipment he knew. 'Yggdrasil equipment, others have been here before, weak equipment as far as it goes, but these appear to be formidable forces for their standards.'
The next replay showed a single magic caster simply bombarding the death knight until it collapsed, it was then captured and carted away. 'That's… kind of cheating… but also not. I did want to know how powerful we were, and the fact that they needed this one to fly and didn't chance a ground fight tells me plenty.' Tabula understood, the fight in the south involved black clad humans, including one fairly good looking young man who demolished the Death Knight with relative ease. In the east, it made it as far as before an organized group of trolls, which took it apart with equal speed.
"Are the organized populations responding to this at all?" Tabula asked suddenly, 'People might not respond if they're poked once, but do it enough…' The thought faded when she shook her head.
"None, master, none." Albedo answered.
"Identify the people from the last battles. What will you send out next?" Tabula pressed. "Oh, and find out what you can about the victors from the last fights. We need to start learning more about these surrounding countries."
So it went, day after day. 'It appears I simply will not get tired, this is good.' But more noticeable than that was the increasing struggles of the surrounding nations in dealing with the summoned creatures Nazarick dispatched.
By the time of the last experiment, only a combined response from the dragons of Argland, the Empire, and the Re-Estize Kingdom's heroes, proved able to stop the stat boosted undead elemental.
While in the south, a warrior woman with black and white hair and a large scythe proved able to handle hers on her own, but only after she herself received boosts plus backup from a team of magic casters, and with equipment that Tabula recognized as belonging to upper middle ranked players.
He smirked a little when she won and he read her lips, "Why couldn't it be male?!" The woman shouted in frustration.
'So, this world has perverts too.' He thought with a laugh.
"How are they responding to these threats now?" He asked Albedo when he finished watching the recorded fights.
Albedo drew out a scroll from her place at his feet and began to read through it, "Master, The Beastman Kingdom has retreated from the Draconic Kingdom out of fear of the undead that started roaming there. Your summon seems to have settled into a pattern, perhaps because of the number of dead, of meandering around the old border area. But the human nations seem to have entered into a period of relative peace. Our observation teams have seen many priests descending on the spawning area and working tirelessly to purify it. Should we stop them, master?"
"No, no it's fine." Tabula waved it away and began to tap out prime numbers between his thumbs again. "We've finished that experimental stage. Go on."
"Master, our observers have gathered a great deal of information on the surrounding kingdoms and governments, and we've observed the heads of state from as far north as what we now know of as Argland, coming together at the capital of Re-Estize, it seems they're coming to some sort of generalized neutrality agreement. Our spies have copied many documents, letters, and their common fear of the powerful beings that were 'spawning' on the Katze Plains has made them interested in peace."
"Peace, yes, peace is good, I like peace. I can read in peace, and people create more in times of peace, more for me to read, more for me to learn, more for me to create and nobody will topple what I build if there is no violence to make people want to knock it over…" Tabula muttered, recalling unpleasant people from his youth knocking over the things he built.
"Master… I don't understand?" Albedo said and lowered her head.
Tabula waved it off, "It doesn't matter. Is there any fighting still going on?" He asked.
"Yes, between the Elf Kingdom and the place called the Slane Theocracy, master. We've gathered a great deal of information, and it seems the Elf King is from Yggdrasil. He used to rule one of the forest regions…" Albedo explained, and Tabula's finger tapping went faster.
Tabula nodded, nodded, and nodded some more. "I see, yes, yes, that makes sense, why should we be the only ones? Why should we all show up at the same time, if he has appeared in the past, with other players coming and leaving their equipment behind, others may come in the future… that could be a problem, I don't like those kinds of problems… so… what to do…" Tabula thought it over for a moment, "Yes, first, first, first, stop the fighting between the Elf Kingdom and the Slane Theocracy. I know those elf bosses, they were warmongers, everything follows its designed nature, he won't stop. Send something that will kill him, and then make it walk the line between the two countries. Like the one that started to do that between the Beastman Kingdom and the Draconic Kingdom."
"Master… what next?" Albedo asked.
"Look for other high conflict zones, and start putting powerful beings in the way, make them stop fighting, put others to the test, and start identifying powerful people. We must know more, oh, and…" Tabula reached for one of the documents that had been laid beside him.
Tabula pointed to the name of the magic caster that defeated a death knight by himself. "Send an invitation to this one, I like the sound of this 'Fluder' fellow, we might get along, ask if he'd like to know more powerful spells, it'd be nice to have someone around to talk to about stuff, and from what I hear, he has the same kinds of books in his library as I like to read."
"Yes, master, of course. Do you want to meet with any of the others we've observed?" Albedo asked with a warm, broad smile on her radiant pale face.
Tabula shook his head with a vigorous no. "No, not for now. I don't want to meet too many new people. He's the only one who might understand me somewhat. For now, just watch the peace and see how it unfolds, oh and start sending out spies to buy books and scrolls, I want to know what else has been made out there. Creativity thrives when people have the peace and wealth to invest in creating things… so just quietly make it undesirable to fight, keep our spies going, if anyone is caught acting militant… make them disappear. If an army starts to move, put an undead in its way at the worst possible time."
"Yes, master, anything else I can do for you?" Albedo asked.
Tabula looked over his shoulder, he'd barely moved from his spot sitting at the base of the steps leading up to the Throne of Kings. He stood up very slowly and looked around the throne room that was empty of all but the two of them.
"I'm really the last one, aren't I? The others aren't coming back?" He asked the question with a crack in his voice, his thumbs started tapping faster than Albedo's eyes could follow.
"Master…" Albedo said with a weak, almost childlike voice, "you stayed with us at least. We can't ask more than that… you're the one who stayed… I'm sure… if they could have…" Albedo's eyes welled up, "Please… just don't you leave us too, if ever we do something to make you want to… then tell me, tell us so we can make it right… without the Supreme Beings… what are we but failed creations…"
"No, you're not failed creations, that much is obvious." Tabula answered and put a hand on the top of Albedo's head, running fingers through the dark, silky strands. "And I don't plan on going anywhere… except there." He pointed to the Throne of Kings. "Summon the other guardians, have them pledge themselves to me."
"At once, master." Albedo answered with a joyful face and trembling lips.
Tabula ascended the stairs as she departed, and sat on the throne. "This world is as weak as it is violent, they'll destroy themselves and never make anything worthwhile… I can't have that, no I can't, that's chaos and trouble and no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no." He shook his head, "I will have order, but I don't want trouble either, dealing with all those people… except for a few, maybe a few. Yes... we can find a few worthwhile individuals who might help me. Pervert girl, maybe that black haired man, if I gather some worthwhile people and build them up, maybe power leveling works, I need to find that out… but we can create a shadow peace… just nobody is able to fight anymore, and I'll take the ones worthwhile, and they will work for me. Then I can prepare for when others appear in the future."
He shuddered, 'There were some real nasty NPCs in the game, if they show up later, I need to make sure we can deal with it, and I can't have this weak pathetic world stay that way forever, or those chaotic creatures will start destroying things… didn't Albedo say something about that happening in the past? No, I won't let that happen again…' Tabula said in the quietness of his mind.
He reached that conclusion as the guardians began to appear in the room, at the base of the stairs there was now an almost embarrassing mountain of unreturned books from the library. 'The poor librarian… they'll go back today.' Tabula mentally promised.
Tabula stood up from the Throne of Kings. "I am Tabula Smaragdina, last member of Ainz Ooal Gown, I claim the Throne of Kings for myself as my right. Do I have your pledges?"
"Our loyalty, our lives, are yours." Albedo promised as she knelt at the center of the line of guardians, behind them, Sebas and the battlemaids knelt in turn.
"Until we die and do not come back." The guardians and pleiades members added.
Tabula sat down on the throne. "I accept your loyalty. Now I have tasks for you all to carry out, give me your all, because you will all be very, very busy, for a long time to come. But before all that, Mare." Tabula pointed at the little dark elf boy in the dress.
"M-Master?" He said with a blush, clutching his staff against his body.
"Return these books to the library, and bring me some more." Tabula said, tapping out the prime numbers again up to forty-one.
"At. Once. King. In. The. Shadows." Cocytus said, and a hushed wind seemed to come over them all at the unexpected naming.
"All Hail, Lord of Nazarick, Tabula Smaragdina, King of the World, King in the Shadows." The guardians said, bowing to him as one, before they got to work.