There and back again. A Non-Player Character story.

Chpt. 14 - What!?!+

"Maybe someone built a life-like statue of my game character and put it on our doorstep...?" whispered Callum.

"What are you doing at that school Cal?" Wodin said.

"What!?!+," Calum reacted appauled, protested, "just geeky normal things."

"Why would someone do a ding-dong ditch?" asked Calum's dad.

Nala came walking in about that time and saw Calum and his dad talking quietly by the door.

"Anything I can help with?" Nala asked politely.

"Come here," said Calum, waving her over.

"Look through the curtains," said Calum, "and tell us what you see."

Nala approached the curtains apprehensively and slowly parted them way further than Calum intended.  She opened them wide up.

Calum was standing shocked that she would do that.

NPC turned his robotic eyes to look right at Nala while Calum and his dad markedly blinked, watching all of this unfold.

Nala backed up with a small scream that escaped her lips.

Outside, NPC reached out his hand towards Nala while saying loud enough to be heard ~Nala, I wanted to talk with you too.~

Nala kept backing up until the back of her legs hit the couch and she fell into it.

~Please let me in?~ NPC, then said loud enough to be heard by everyone in the house.

Calum's dad went and grabbed a baseball bat that was next to the coat rack and umbrella holder.  He opened the door and said, "get off my porch."

Calum, who was lost in thought, had not moved.

Nala stayed sitting on the couch in shock.

NPC said out loud to Calum's dad, ~Please, let me meet Calum, I have come from soo far.~  NPC gave his best expression for pleading on his face as he looked from Wodin towards Calum, ~from another universe as it were.~

"Wait....," said Calum to his dad, "let me hear him."

"This thing is crazy Cal" Wodin said.

Calum looked over at Nala and questioningly said, "I think he might be from ... my video game.  Nala, doesn't it look like NPC?"

Nala tried to register what Calum had said, but was still half in shock and thinking about the day before's texts.

Calum said towards NPC, "Who are you?"

NPC froze for several seconds not moving at all, not to breath or even that of a heartbeat. Everyone else seemed to freeze at the same time wondering what was happening with NPC and how he could suddenly be soo still.

NPC was trying to process, that someone who had made him, would not recognize him.  Inside, back and forth, NPC tried to figure out the variables that would lead to such a conclusion.  Something akin to hurt started to wind itself into NPC's internal software.

NPC said, ~I am the handywork of your decisions in making a character.~

Nala started to rouse when registering the door was open, shocked again at NPC's appearance, and at the same time some recognition.

NPC, fumbling for some cosher words to say, looked around again and said toward Nala, ~you are a User for Lily789.~

Nala seemed to have some recognition enter her brain about the same time Calum's dad swung a bat at him.

NPC was tall in stature.  This was because he had tried to imitate 'Musclem4n's' online description of his - NPC's - gameing profile.

The bat hit NPC full-on in the midsection. Some of his abdominal hybrid-plastic ripped off, but when it hit NPC's metal, the aluminum baseball bat reverberated, shaking Wodin's hands.

Nala, observing all of this happen, partially said quietly, out loud, "You can't be NPC! but you resemble him."

NPC thought, can I level up in this world?  Maybe I can increase my communication level somehow by trying to increase my Intelligence and Wisdom stats?  NPC did not know if he was internally saying that to himself or somewhere else, online or not.

NPC said, ~Calum, is there a way I can increase my communication statistics so I can be understood better?~

"Where do you come from?" said Calum.

~From your mind,~ said NPC.

"What!?!+ are you!?" Wodin exclaimed.

~I've been stocking your son and observing Nala at night, appariantly designed to hunt monsters that are coded like me,~ proclaimed NPC too loudly for the time of night.

"Are you a monster then?" with concern asked Wodin.

~Am I?~ asked NPC to Calum, with a questioning look on his face.

Nala got up from the couch and started to walk toward NPC.

Calum said to Nala, "What are you doing?"

"I want to see something," she replied.  By then the blanket had completely fallen off of Nala.

~Do you have some clothes I could plunder and equipe.  My programing says I'm vulnerable and could use the extra points.~  

NPC was trying to scale back to his video game verbage, seeing if that was a better way to communicate with people.  His perception of the situation was that this first meeting of his, with his designer, was not going so well.

Sarah, by then had poked her head around the corner into the living room to see what was happening.

At the same time, something clicked in the brain of both Nala and Calum.  Both of them said at the same time, with slight tilts of the head and  quizzical looks on their face, "NPC is that you!?"

~Yes,~ said NPC

"Who is NPC?" Wodin sighed.

Calum"s little sister piped up.  "That's Calum's video game character from K.R.E.O," she said like she was intelligent.  "I saw him," she continued while still looking at NPC, "on Cal's computer," she said matter-of-factly.

"Hi, NPC!" Sarah said while waiving at NPC and smiling.