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Chapter Eight: NPC

The presence entered the room. All eyes gazed in its direction.

Silence, except for his steps.

The lights in the hall illuminated a tall, muscular man in an incredibly tight shirt that looked as though it was on the verge of tearing apart. On top of it, an ill-fitting overcoat was lazily worn. The man had short, messy hair and large spectacles. He held a weighty textbook in his hand which he kept pressed against his person. His face wore a skeptical and almost offended expression as he paused in the middle of the dining hall to survey the night's guests. Though his physical presence was imposing, the sound of his steps was akin to that of a giant's - they sounded too loud to come from him.

The man's name was Murphy Cook.

Rosalind wore a grin from ear to ear. She held up a finger to her mouth just as she saw Jasper scrambling to whisper something to her. Just let this play out, she almost wanted to beam to him telepathically. He seemed to get the transmission, and quieted down.

One of the dining hall guests stood up from his table to address the stranger. "Dr. Cook, is everything alright?" he asked.

Murphy cleared his throat and began to speak, his words coming through as gruff, raspy, and low-pitched. "It begins, comrades. A prophecy foretold centuries ago. A warning that we all ignored. A stranger wielding a scythe, knocking on our front door. One knock. Followed by another. Then another. A double knock, a triple knock - it didn't matter. We couldn't hear it. The sound was drowned out by our parties, our balls, our frivolous pursuits."

Murphy, clutching the book in an almost paranoid fashion, sauntered around the hall, the loud echo of his seemingly soft footsteps pounding the room like an earthquake, reverberating even louder in Jasper and Rosalind's heads.

"Knock. But we were too busy chasing the belle of the ball, the apple of our eye...," Murphy said as he walked past the loving couple whose hands were nervously intertwined.

"Knock knock. But we were too busy chasing pride. That damned cardinal sin that mankind can't seem to shake. Each and every one of us wants to be the big man, the sigma male," Murphy continued, straddling past the two knights who were previously arguing, now standing up straight as if being addressed by a drill sergeant.

"What's a sigma male?" Jasper asked in a whisper but Rosalind 'shushed' him again.

"Knock. Knock. Knock. But we were lost in liquid jubilation. How can one hear when one can barely stand up, let alone remember where he is?" Murphy ruminated as he walked past the inebriated patrons at the bar, now all solemnly staring at their drinks. Murphy's judgment was near-biblical, and the response of the onlooking NPCs to his stroll suggested the air of respect he carried in the town of Alexandria.

"All of these distractions, but the one with the scythe remained. One knock, two knocks, three, four, FIVE KNOCKS!" Murphy violently slammed his textbook on an empty table in the center of the room. His words had already commanded attention, but now they were magnified. The party in the corner of the room, who had previously returned Rosalind's glance with lurid stares, were transfixed by the presentation.

"Can you hear it now you fools?! Is this loud enough for you?!" Murphy shouted.

Jasper's mouth hung agape. He shifted his gaze from Murphy for a brief moment, glancing across the table to Rosalind who was beaming. Unbeknownst to him, she'd been mouthing Dr. Cook's monologue alongside his speech the entire time. It was one that she was very, very familiar with.

Dr. Cook opened up the large textbook and rifled through the pages. "This book that I've brought with me here today was a parting gift given to me by a now deceased friend."