Unrecognizable

~Chapter Twelve~

Xisuma cut him off with a laugh. "Of course I can. If you'd like I could go now; leave you to your bot. Unless you needed me for anything else?"

After a moment, Mumbo shook his head. He really didn't need anything, now, did he? Really, all he had called the admin for was to help him activate the machine. He didn't exactly need him for anything else. "I'm good for now! You can go if you want." 

And go he did. In just a few more minutes, Mumbo was alone with his AI.

"So," the brit began. "Any questions?"

-----

After about an hour of 'answering questions', most devolving into large conversations, Mumbo finally decided it was time to do what he had been meaning to since the creation of the creation. Give said creation a name. "Hey, buddy." The npc looked up from where he was sitting on the couch. "I think it's about time you got a name. How does N-"

Surprising enough to Mumbo, the other intervened, cutting Mumbo off. "Actually, I think I'd like to name myself."

Mumbo didn't exactly have a good reaction to this. "Wh- You know normally you don't name yourself right?" was all he could make out, and even that was a sputtering mess. Why hadn't he considered the fact that this npc-- who had displayed completely different character traits from Mumbo, oddly enough-- would want to name himself? 

The creation merely blinked at Mumbo's refute. "You named yourself."

"No I didn't." Mumbo raised his eyebrows, frowning slightly. What on Earth...?

"Yes you did. You weren't always Mumbo Jumbolio, remember?" The npc gave a smile. "Before X recruited you. That was an alias you made just for Hermitcraft."

Mumbo shook his head. He didn't remember a single bit of this. He had always been Mumbo Jumbo. And recruiting? What in the name of the Nether was this AI talking about? Surely there was a glitch in the programming... And Mumbo had tried so hard for there to be none. Wonderful. Nonetheless, Mumbo supposed he wouldn't get anywhere by refusing the npc the ability to name himself. He sighed. "I suppose if you wan-"

Before he could even finish, the soon-to-be-named npc's face lit up and he began to nearly glow in happiness. "Thank you! Ohhhh... I know the perfect name!" 

The npc ended up naming himself Sage, for, in his words, "It's like you, but at the same time, the complete opposite." Mumbo couldn't decide whether or not to be offended. But something he definitely knew he was feeling was pride. This... thing... this AI, this npc, Mumbo had made it. Sure, X had pressed a few buttons, but Mumbo designed it. He was so incredibly proud of himself. 

And he just couldn't wait to show Sage off to the rest of the Hermits.

-----

1 month and 3 weeks earlier

It had been a little over a week since the npc had been brought to artificial life. And just a few hours, maybe minutes, before Mumbo planned to leave his little room of his own creation. Who knew that over a month of zero interaction with most of his friends would be so taxing? And forget about real, natural sunlight; the redstoner was practically a vampire at this point. Glancing at the staircase in anticipation, the brit was frantically going over in his head repeatedly what he had done with Sage over that last week, trying to remember if there was anything he missed.

Granted, he didn't exactly do much with him. After all, with Mumbo's memories, surely he knew how to do things. The AI didn't need to learn about redstone; surely remembering doing it was enough. The AI didn't need to learn how to fly-- not that Mumbo could do anything for him there... and not just because they were stuck in a small underground room.