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I wait for his arrival. Invisible, overhead, the wind's gentle gusts blowing about and around me as I watch. I gather my player's data; VintageMine, note his digging. This is not typi cal, I think, trying to recall my previous assignments. But thi s is okay. Even if he is a bit eccentric, we will be goo d frien ds either way.
He goes through the stone layers of its square slowly. He reaches pink, flesh like rock, granite the block ID, before turning, crawling out to wander elsewhere. Hm?
Pushed and clamored by the breeze, I follow suit, till he's reached the twin pines and molds a structure from soil. M ost do not act in this mann er, I know. But never mind that.
The snow is cold from my perch; the flight and the invisibility aren't able to be long term, and I sit on top of the ground of that mountain, watching my player finish his home. The grass has seeped into the top of it already, from the ground where he walks towards a wild wolf, bone in hand. To tame it. I like dogs from what little experience I've had with them; some of my past assignments having had them in their company.
My player raises an empty hand, the bone in the dog's mouth, going to pet it, I think, before—
From the distance, I can barely see the hit. A hit! Most d eplor able. I do not think I will enjoy this assignment anymore, even as I watch the dog follow the player into its house. I do no t like h im. Maybe this will make my report difficult. Biased.
Now, it has been 1 life hour and he hasn't left home. He still hasn't healed his dog and it is still low on hea lth after its in jury. Oh how I want for there to be a way for me to swoop into the dirt hut and take it away, but they say that my data is very import ant. So that is why when he leaves his house with some sort of metal hat, looks out into his front yard, to where I'm perched, I reactivate my invisibility and hide from him.
He's leavi ng. Now is my chance. The dog is sat next to a white mattress, curled up, looking when it hears me. P oor thing. I will hel p when he will not; item_null is summoned into my hand, and it wags its tail and licks my hand as I feed it. Yucky.
I should not linger. What if this impacts my report? I've already achieved what I wanted, and I leave right after, not hearing the crackle before it's too late. My presence has left a scar, a crater and no, no, no— th ey will h ate me, they will berate me and shame me, but no, because—
Stumbling into the hole, I gather the materials left behind into my hands. It is oka y, I wi ll make it al l better, I soothe, and the dog barks in reply from where it's sat, thankfully unharmed.
I do not know where he is as I rebuild the front. It's only once I've placed the front door do I hear the crackle again, and I toggle on my invisibility, search for the source; please do not let it have happened again, and no, for it was farther away, on the trail of that player instead. He is coming home.
He stops in front of the door. Examining it; he opens and closes the door one, two, multiple times before going inside and petting its dog. Tries to feed it something. Walking through me, it exits again, stopping in its yard.
I know something is here. I scan the plains, the sky, the hole, call to it. Hiding is cowardly. I've always hated cowards.
It doesn't show that dusk. It doesn't place down a sign after I've littered my yard with them. It is a cancer, an infection, and I cannot let this be going on any further. I've asked my friends, my acquaintances, strangers, but they will not listen, will hear no word. But I know. I know it's out there.
The wheat grows. The chunk loads even when I'm not home. Toying with me, I think, and it angers me to think that I'm so powerless in the face of whatever's watching. Come out. You bastard.
It's only on the afternoon I've mined enough emeralds for emerald armor, when I catch it. In the corner of my eye, and my sword leaps to my hand and I point to it, that green light upon my mountain, the one that disappears shortly after. Scared? Weak. I retreat back to my house, to the dog that has something in its mouth it won't give up. Something that the entity gave.
The mountain is empty the next day; I've missed it. It's skittered off. But it can't hide forever. If it could then I would not have spotted it.
I already know it has no respect for privacy, having already invited itself into my home, somehow knowing when I am gone and when I will be back, and perhaps I can take advantage of that. It was a pain to wire that trap, to get the redstone and the circuits and the wires, but it will be worth it if it proves me right.
I close the door once I'm inside. The house is different by the chests stacked against the wall. The first is armor, weapons, tools; but th is worl d is not danger ous, I move onto the second. Rock and wood and more tools, fo r me? I wonder, before there is the last, and there is a—
The bells are ringing. My trap, my trick, it's worked, and so soon. What an eager entity then. Down the mountain, down the snow, the door is closed but the pistons are activated and mining fatigue dispensed. I know that it's in there.
There's a hand upon the dog, fur moving in sporadic and rhythmic and repetitive motions, and it is there, right there, where the grass shifts and bends under something, someone's weight. Now, it is a waiting game. If it could be invisible forever then I wouldn't have seen it. I would have gone forever without knowing anything more than an inkling of its presence.
"You have to show yourself eventually," I murmur into the silent house. Watching the dog lean into an unseen hand, watching the grass and dirt move against someone's body. The dog lets out a bark as the hand seems to retreat. Hesitance. Fear.
"I won't hurt you," I try to assure, the attempt ringing false even to my own ears. "I just need to see you." Please. I can't have done all of this for nothing. I can't be going mad. I'll try another way if this doesn't work, I won't give up, but I'd enjoy it if it was easy, for once. "Please."
The grass shifts again. Consideration hopefully. The dog whines low and tries to reach for the entity, and something seems to push back its snout. And then there is something, because finally, something flickers and right under my widening eyes there it is.
"I knew it." The grass bends and twists under my fingers, tearing from their roots as I laugh at my good fortune, "Everyone, and I mean everyone, called me crazy, but—"
"Ve ry prou d of you," it, the entity, the actual present entity, real entity, croons softly. It sounds weak; the prolonged invisibility taking its toll? Or perhaps the mining fatigue. That could also be a factor. God I was so smart for that.
"Look at them now," I murmur, taking a good look at my capture. A real entity in my presence, in my base, in my world. And they said I was going mad. As if. The green translucent hand running through the dog's fur couldn't be mine, no, not when I'm right outside, outside of my trap that worked. The dog doesn't pant when I pet it anyways.
At my remark, its head turns, back and forth, from the dirt wall to the rigged chest prepared for its arrival, as if it was searching for something else for the words to apply to.
"T his word doe s not descri be me," it denies, then testing out the word, entity, like it's something unfitting.
I shake my head. "What you are." It can't be anything else. It has to be that. I've spent too long proving this, probing around his world, recording every single little thing for it to be anything else. God, once I sends this proof I'll be respected, redeemed, a hero, even.
But—
No Nobel, no prize, no notoriety— the dirt scrapes from the wall behind it, and N O because the mission, my report, my duty—
He must see, he must understand it, grow to like that wheat, he needs to know what a detriment this will be. He has to. The dog whines when my hand leaves as I rise from that crouch, grab for the perch of grass he admired and observed by, but the fatigue that's set into my very being slows me and I do not like how weak he's made me at all.
"Y OU CAN T" is what it shrieks, cracked and desperate, yelp quickly distracted from with its claim of a task.
Implication of a greater force, he notes from his ledge. Confirmation of what he already knows. A yelped please then another is tacked on, and he looks away, sparing the entity the embarrassment of watching it squirm and shake and tremble at the very notion of publicity. He hears the dirt being scratched at all the while; it trying to escape, he listens to the proof of the mining fatigue's effect.
"NOBO DY CAN KNO W" but he does, he does, and what will happen to him if he lets it go and lets his fate be up to God, leading his life into that entity's shaking hands, letting himself be at the mercy of its version of a higher power? Knowledge is power. A promise can be nothing.
"What is your task?" he asks, leaning in to catch more of how its chest rattles and moves; a heart, a pulse, maybe?
Stilling, the entity pauses in its panic. Sinks back into the earth, back against the wall like it's trying its hardest to blend into the green grass floor. As if it's realized defeat. He watches a green hand reach out and grab at his bedsheet. A self soothing behavior perhaps.
"D ata, al ways the dat a, alwa ys need mo re," it stutters out, but it's not shaking as much when it reaches the ledge, grabbing the grass as leverage for clumsy legs, ripping out the blades right in front of him. Its face is— it's intense, looking at it from this close. "Yo u can't tel l anybo dy," it creaks, and he looks to the door in an instant, as if it'll just walk through and gouge him right then and there. His bones rattle without his permission as he leans back, breaking the spell of intimidation.
It continues without any addressing it, admitting, "I don't kn ow wha t they wou ld do if I faile d," and another tuned out please is added right after, more desperate than the last and he looks away, down to the golden wheat and closed door as he considers the hand he's been dealt.
The milk bucket is cold, freezing, in my hands. The chair is hard, the table is small, both dusty from where he dragged them out for us to sit in his cramped one-room home. My limbs are heavy things at my sides, my fingers limp, barely mine as I take sips from the bucket. He wastes no time when it's emptied before he starts a new round of questions, my dizziness barely flushed from my system and heart just calmed before he forces my attention back to him.
I've never thought hard about what I am. An entity? I hardly even know what that means, what it entails of something. Ridiculous as it may be, he may be the more knowledgeable about it, me, than I.
Am I real? A person, a demon, an AI, what flimsy terms he calls out in a list, and am I real enough to fit even a single criteria?
I d on't know.
"Yo u tell me," it demands instead, asking "Wh at do you think is r eal?", like that's an easy thing to answer. A taste of his own medicine, he supposes.
"Well, I've found our reality is what we make of it, We are what we believe," he replies curtly, taking in the stillness of it as he speaks. Paying attention now, he thinks.
"Very wi se," it murmurs, tone indecipherable, "And wh at do yo u beli eve?"
He shakes his head. "I don't know what to believe in anymore," he confesses, and it says nothing to that.
After a moment of silence, it croaks, "Al that I hav e ever kno wn is this. I coll ect data." Like an AI, a data scraper. Mindless things. But serving what higher power? he wonders.
"A nd they someti mes praise me, and the y sometimes scold me. I've ne ver bee n able to know wh ich outco me I'd recie ve." It looks to the gap in the wall, to the torch lighting this scene, the signs littering his front yard, before to the other side. Looking for something. Them?
"No ma tter how perf ectly or poor ly something goes, it feels li ke I am bou nd to somebody else's perc eption of succe ss; a percepti on I ca n never unders tand," it's saying, and he looks back from the darkness to look at it; nothing was there to see, to watch it tilt its head down, to the table then back up to him. "And one wh ere I ca n never kno w if it's simpl y nonsen se or if I am no t seein g something obv ious," it murmurs last, before he speaks.
"Who are 'they'?" he asks, dismissive of everything I've admitted, reminding of me of everything I hated about him. But it's my turn to ask a question.
"Wh y did you pun ch your dog?"
He blinks at that. "What?"
"You r dog," and I look to the side, see it sitting there, sat so obediently, quietly. It didn't move at all when I moved to him, its owner. I would not move to protect them either.
"You punc hed it, ha rd, f or no reason. Why?" Why do they do the things they do? Why?
He looks to the darkness outside like they are there, glancing with a turn of the head, then back to me. "It's not real," is all he has for me.
There's a bark at the answer, and I turn to it when its owner will not, transfixed on what he deems as real, staring right at me from the corner of my eye. I think of how sweet the dog was. How it leaned into my hands despite how unused they were to being gentle, its wagging tail as I pet it, the one that stilled at his approach, and "I do no t follow."
A confined AI then. It's a shame he'll be the one to break its reality to it.
"This is a game," he states, not bothering with some consoling tone. "Nothing here is real. The dog cannot feel pain because it isn't a dog. It's barely a simulation of a real dog. I could destroy everything in this world and nothing would matter, it would all come back like nothing happened at the press of a button."
He won't say he takes pride in the way it jumps at the realization. Its head goes from the mob, to the blocky wall, then back to him, slumping in its chair like its reality is barely hitting.
"O h," it mumbles dazedly, and maybe, if only a little, he feels remorseful for it and its situation.
"You there?" he asks, before—
The dog, the mob, the simulation, will not stop barking. An AI, a player, a demon, I recall what he asked before and now I understand, if only a wisp of what his question truly was. The dog barks. It's not real.
"Am I rea l?"
The sudden rain is too loud. The simulation barks again, and—
"No. No you aren't."
The door opens under an invisible hand. I turn in my seat, go to watch where the rain hits unseeable entity, as it goes into the rain, leaving here, the truth, behind. I do not follow.
He has replaced his old signs with a single one. I observe him, gather the data for my task, and I ignore it, that want to 'continue our conversation'. What is there to continue?
He is a peculiar player. I won't have good enough data. But what do I care anymore? My mission is barely real, anyways. I believe I deserve a rest as of now.
And reality is what we believe, isn't it?
The sky's darkened by the time I've caught the house. On top of the snowy mountain, there it sits, two trees on top, an entity inside. The door opens when I sputter at the house's appearance, and it looks groggy, barely woken up when it comes to me.
"Welcome," it murmurs, "Would you like to c ome in?" Like this is normal— mundane, even.
But "This house looks familiar," is all I can manage in my startled state, and it seems to cheer at that, crooning a thanks for the 'compliment', looking away when I try and correct it. I shift gears; "Why did you do this?" I ask, but it doesn't seem to have fully woken from what I suppose was its slumber, just tilting its head at the question.
"Do wh at? Thi s is my h ome?" it asks, then not so much as even giving a pause to my next question, moving on, saying "We h ave much to discus s," as if it's not the one that left in the first place.
I won't bend to the whims of something that's not even real. I shake my head, retreat. "I have something to do," I murmur, but it sees through me, tells me it'll follow with to my frustration.
"We wi ll adven ture togethe r," it adds, in an air of cheeriness if I bother to parse the tone of a data scraper. I will not fight with an entity. I will not bother pitching an argument with a non-sapient creature. The word fine drags itself from my mouth before I can take it back.
I've learned various things from my past assignments. One of them is the importance of experience, replication. A player has no sense of perseveration, so I must be the one to do it for them, to store their mindset and keep it safe when it will be changed and morphed into something new.
My new player pauses at that explanation. Efficiency is not something I would say motivates me often. I do things because I like them, because it will give me purpose when my task is not enough. But then again, I am not real. He is. I will not expect him to understand the ways of non-sentience.
But he shakes his head at that judgment. Similarly, he says, not exactly but close to it. I don't bother to reply. We keep walking.
We've reached a pond when he stops. Apologizes for giving me the truth. "You r analysis of me is like ly accura te," I murmur back, mumbling without thinking that "I don't th ink even they kno w what I am. I at lea st hope they don't."
He stops at the last remark, asking "Why?" before he keeps on going, leaving me to catch up.
"Becau se if they kn ew wha t I felt then th ey would be mon sters."
He gives me no reaction. He keeps walking, leaving me no choice but to follow.
Where we are going I don't know. We're almost there, he says, to the village. He's baffled at my lack of knowledge; I've missed something obvious, and I stop. If I have missed this, then what else could I have not noticed? My dat a must be incompl ete, and my fear was right, for I had missed someth ing, and now th ey will be fu rious. So angry.
"Well you can complete your data when we get there," he offers, and I look up from the grass and dirt to his waiting face. "Would that work?"
"I h ope," is all I can say about them, their potential reaction. "Than k you."
The village is a beautiful place. I'm overcome by it, how pretty it is, that I almost forget I've come with my player, and that he's here on a mission.
If I followed him, would I have been able to stay? If I hadn't been so focused on my data, on that particular village and rising pinkish sun and rosy sky, could he have stayed my player?
I don't know.
He asked me one last time who they were. I could not tell him. I don't think I could ever tell anyone. Not what I knew then.
He got his evidence that we existed, they told me when I was reassigned, after I had failed. I'm also collecting data, he had told me. But I couldn't help him. Was that why he left? Was I too afraid to be useful anymore? I couldn't answer his questions anymore.
I've already been warned of my reassignment. Weeks ahead, a few days after I'd submitted my report and truth, and I don't know what exactly I'm to do now with the world and its entity, now that I've been notified of its temporary nature.
"What's your name?" I ask before leaving. I shake my head when it gives me its user. "Your name," I repeat, but it repeats itself too, and I see the extent of what they have done.
I'll be given a new world tomorrow. One without an entity. One without AIs, demons, players, or entities. I'll be given normalcy.
But I'm not calling her that.
"I'll see you around Hazel," I lie.
Reason for task failure: The player <VintageMine> had used the illegal item before entity <▞> had intervened.