“I want you to tell me everything.”

  Meph turned to look back at me. We’d just finished up another day of training in the basement, hours of me practicing combat, offensive and defensive spellwork as I recited everything I knew about the mob that was attacking me in the moment. It was good training, as it not only exercised me physically, got me used to managing my mana and spells, but it also got me used to multitasking and actively thinking, planning out my movements while actually moving.

  It was fun.

  I had a towel draped over my shoulders, mopping up the sweat as I looked at the tiefling.

  “I thought that was what I was doing?” He said, playing dumb.

  “You’re telling me everything I need to know about the game, and that I need to impart to the Player when I eventually get one, sure. And that’s good. But you’re not telling me everything. Not about how this world works, the nature of it, the magic, and the Infernals and the Divine and the Pleroma and all of it.”

  I’d been thinking on it for a while, and I realised I was falling into a cliché I actually always hated.

  “I can’t tell you all of that, there’s a limit—”

  “Why can’t you?” I cut him off. “I can maybe understand why you can’t tell Players, but as everyone is so happy to constantly remind me it seems, I am not a Player. I’m a Game Guide—”

  “Exactly. A Game Guide. The overarching structure of existence isn’t pertinent to the game, so you don’t need to know it,” Meph said, not unkindly. Honestly, I could imagine if I was asking this of Xandra, she would be curt with me. But not Meph - Meph was speaking softly, with a note of concern in his voice. And something else I couldn’t quite read.

  “It may not be pertinent to the game, but it’s pertinent to me. This is my existence now, for what, eternity? I don’t die, so this is the rest of time for me. I’ll never get to experience anything else, I think it’s only fair that I know a bit about what my Players will be walking off into when I’ve shown them the way. Don’t you?”

  Meph squirmed on the spot. His eyes flashed for a second and he looked up, pointedly, his expression souring momentarily. He then returned his gaze to me.

  “I don’t entirely disagree, Rusty, but even though you mortal types got a lot of the wider, sweeping ideas close to right, there’s a lot that is going to be really huge to deal with. It’s a lot to take in.”

  “Well, I’m not short on time, am I?” I shrugged. “Look, I just always hated it, in those isekai and LitRPG stories I read, when the protagonist would just keep ignoring the wider framework of the world around him and just focus on what was happening in the immediate moment right in front of him. Even though understanding the greater context of their new world would actually help them out a lot. They’d always just ignore something, or say they didn’t have time for it. It’s a glaring oversight that happened so often and it would always frustrate me, y’know? So I want to not make that mistake, so that I don’t make mistakes in how I advise my Players.”

  “I get what you’re saying, I do, and I actually kind of agree. But the Board isn’t big on mortals from the material planes knowing the ins and outs of existence. You don’t need to know.”

  “Why can’t I decide for myself what I need to know!” I yelled, throwing my towel to the floor between us. “Fuck, this is hell for me, you know? I didn’t get to know everything when I was alive, I always felt like things were being held back, and now that’s my entire bloody eternity. I don’t care what the Board thinks. Fuck the Board! Who the fuck even are the Board? Why do they even care?

  “Do you care? Or is that too much to expect that from a devil.”

  As soon as I said the last part I regretted it. I slammed my eyes closed and balled up my fists.

  “Fuck,” I muttered. “I’m sorry, Meph. I didn’t mean that.”

  I looked at the former demon, now tiefling, and he was grinning, his purple eyes like amethysts in the early evening light.

  His eyes flashed, he blinked, and then he said, “Let’s go out for dinner tonight.”

  “Well, hello, you two! Feels like I haven’t seen you in an age! Settle y’selves down anywhere, y’hear. Not exactly rushed off my feet right now, am I? I’ll be right over!”

  I glanced at Meph, but he just waved at the woman, sweeping into the inn’s main lounge and headed for a table and took a seat. I just stared at the unfamiliar woman. She was a broad woman, with curly blonde hair, big curves and a buxom chest to say the least. She looked to be in her mid-thirties, and was dressed in a plain, white, off-the-shoulder shirt that was clean, but looked worn, like she’d had it for years. As she came from behind the bar, a damp dishcloth in hand to wipe down the bar top, I saw she had a long, deep green skirt, and sensible shoes on, nothing fancy, just practical.

  I had never seen her before until this moment.

  “Now come on, Rusty! You’re gonna let the cold air in standing in the doorway like that!” the woman said, smiling as she admonished me. “You go on and sit with Meph and I’ll be right over with the menus.”

  I nodded, dumbly. I walked over and sat at the table with Meph, barely taking my eyes from the woman. Meph continued to smile serenely, as he casually leaned an elbow on the table and followed my gaze.

  “Serena, dear. Don’t trouble yourself, we’re in no rush tonight, seriously,” Meph languidly called over to the woman, as he turned to look at me.

  “Who is she?” I asked the tiefling.

  “See for yourself,” he said, eyes flicking towards the woman.

  I looked at her again, and focused.

  Serena. Barmaid at the Ever Inn, Durrilan

  Non-Combatant NPC

  Game Guide Note: This is a True NPC

  As I finished reading the info box, the woman, Serena, approached, holding two small menus that she laid before us each in turn, matter-of-factly, with no flourish.

  “I swear, you boys, y’all really need to come outta that Guild Hall more often. We never see you! All work and no play and all that,” she turned then towards me, smiling brightly. “Rusty, how’s the training going anyway? Did you work out that little problem you were having with your, what was it again, ‘missiles’?”

  I blinked. I had, last week, been having trouble trying to work out an exploit for my Magic Missile attack. I wanted to see if I could get them to originate from different points, and not just from me. While I controlled and targeted them, they were after all magical energy, which was everywhere around us. As a sorcerer, I had control of not just my own reserves of mana, but could sense, and control the mana outside my body too, to an extent. I’d been trying to make it work, but struggling, the missiles either fizzling out before launching if not coming direct from me, or going off on a tangent.

  “Kind of,” I replied, confused. “I’m sorry, have we talked about this before? I think this is the first time I’m meeting you.”

  Serena laughed, and gently slapped my shoulder. “First time seeing me, by the gods, this one!” She took a breath, then straightened. “Okay now, I’ll give you both a couple of minutes and come back for your order.” And with that, she swept away to continue to busy herself with the upkeep of the inn, laughing under her breath as she went.

  I turned to Meph, dumbfounded.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I genuinely have never seen this one before. I’ve met a couple of the True NPCs now and again, but they generally don’t act so…genial.”

  Meph sighed, amused. “Yup. I think this is your first time here, maybe? True NPCs are, largely, creatures of their function, so some may act more simple than others. But all have backstories, personalities, and more.”

  “But she talked as if she knew who I was, like we’d spoken before. She asked me about something I was trying to work out last week, but I’ve never met her. How could she know that?” I leaned in close to Meph. “You told me True NPCs are entirely artificial, that you guys don’t use real souls to make them. That’s true, right?”

  Meph looked at me, and I saw his eyes flashing again, but it was brief. When he answered, he didn’t lower his voice. “That’s true. They’re not, themselves, mortal souls and never have been. They are created wholly here and aren’t living in the sense you’re thinking. But they are real, in their own way.”

  “How can that be?”

  Serena swung by again. She had a slip of paper in her hand, and a small pen. “What’ll you be havin’ then, boys?”

  Meph made our order, making small talk with the barmaid NPC until she whisked away to prepare our food. He returned his attention to me.

  “Have you ever heard of a Boltzmann Brain?” Meph asked.

  I leaned back. I didn’t know where he was going with this. “Nope. Never. Why?”

  “It’s an odd theory of one of your lot. Essentially, statistically speaking, it’s far more likely that a brain spontaneously comes together filled with memories of things that never happened, than it is for all the multitude of small events, circumstances and coincidences for life to have led to a whole living being such as yourself, with all your history and personality and interactions. That each being maybe just popped into existence with a whole backstory prepopulated inside of them.”

  “Are you saying that I—”

  “No, no, that’s just preposterous,” Meph waved off. “But it is a fun theory, and it’s a useful idea. And here, ideas are something we can trade in. It’s a good way for how to think of the True NPCs. Especially when we start seeing more and more of them appearing. They are alive, in their way. It’s just the method of coming into existence is different.”

  I felt my face scrunch up. This was pretty big stuff, and not the kind of stuff I was used to thinking about. Yes, existential crises are not unfamiliar to me, but existential philosophy, statistical probability, all of that tended to make my brain ache.

  “If you can do this, why not use them for Game Guides and the like? Why use me?”

  “We’ve had this discussion before. Yes, much like you, they won’t be part of the Pleroma someday, they’re designed with a purpose, a function that is solely rooted here. Unlike you, they’re not strictly speaking new information or ideas, but a sum of existing information used to create a simulacrum of life. That, and we’d still need to find a purpose for you and souls like you, and that is a big part of what we want to achieve.”

  “Even if it doesn’t result in anything for me,” I frowned.

  “It’s not always just about you, Rusty,” Meph said, not with annoyance, just matter-of-fact. “Now, watch Serena over there, focus to get the info, but then look harder.”

  I did as I was told. A minute seemed to pass, where the information I gleaned earlier was in front of me, but then something else happened. It expanded.

  Serena was born and raised in Durrilan, and has never really dreamed of being anywhere else. Instead, it had always been her dream to establish the Ever Inn, a place for weary souls to rest their aching limbs after days of adventuring or training in the Guild Hall. This was instilled in her when her a father, a popular local adventurer, perished on a quest in service to the far off Highest King. While many may have wallowed in anger and grief, Serena instead seeks to help those adventurers like her father, in her own little way, with a warm meal and soft bed, and a caretaker who is always and ever in.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “Game lore. Don’t worry, it doesn’t pop up often. They’re not terribly creative up there,” Meph looked up, his eyes flashing again. “Oh, shut up, you know it’s true,” he looked back to me. “But it’s necessary, sometimes, to add a bit of colour here and there, especially for the Players, to make their quests seem like they matter. I mean, they do matter, but that’s easier to believe with a bit of backstory.”

  “Does everyone have a backstory here?”

  “Not everyone, or everything, but some. It can be useful too. While it’s often made up for colour, it sometimes can provide some helpful clues. It might be worth checking now and again, especially if something is stumping you and not just your Player.”

  I looked at Meph. Really looked, trying to look past the basic info. At first nothing seemed to happen, but then it was like the info writing glitched, and then returned, and then expanded.

  Mephistopheles was born in a far off land of Purgatoria, and much of his past lies shrouded in mystery. Some say he was once a valued warlock in the employ of the Highest King’s court. Others say he’s been exiled, and wanders Purgatoria ever since. What everyone can agree on is he is immensely skilled with both magic and martial arts, though he no longer has much use for them. He settled into Durrilan, where King Balfus of the Fyrel Kingdom has installed him as the master of the local Guild Hall. One wonders why Balfus did not want him at the capital city, or why he found himself set adrift from the Highest King, assuming he truly is. Some say it’s all just a ruse, and that he’s really a spy for the Highest King, whose aims for Fyrel Kingdom and all the lands of Purgatoria are hard to read. But most would say on meeting him that this is a ridiculous idea. Perhaps

  Bizarrely, it just cut off there. Before I could ask Meph about that, he started speaking again.

  “Don’t worry: sometimes those things can be very long, but time is flexible here, as we’ve discussed. To everyone else, time will move as normal, but for you, you will have more than enough time to read all you want. It’s complicated, but trust me, you won’t get skewered while you’re trying to read whatever twaddle has been assigned a character.”

  “I don’t get what all this has to do with what I asked in the first place,” I sighed.

  Serena approached again, carrying two filled plates, two flagons and a pitcher of water on a serving tray. She laid it before us with a smile. Meph watched me the whole time.

  “There you go, boys. Anything else I can get for you?”

  “Tell her,” Meph said.

  “What?”

  “Tell her. Tell her what she is,” Meph said, never once looking away.

  I turned to Serena, who smiled down at me. I glanced at my tiefling companion, and then back to the barmaid.

  “You’re not real. You’re an NPC. A non-playable character, just like me. But you’re not like me. I have a soul, but you’re just…here. Thrown together bits of information, gleaned from the lives and stories of real people and used to make a backstory for other people to enjoy.”

  Serena’s brow furrowed, and then she let out a nervous laugh, eyeing Meph. “What’s all this? Meph, what have you been teaching the lad?”

  I continued. “Meph’s probably never met you before either. Or maybe he has, he’s been here a while longer than me. But this is the first time you’ve generated in my presence. We have never spoken before.”

  “Of course we have, Rusty. Whatever are you trying to say?”

  “Remember the backstory,” Meph jumped in.

  “You’ve never existed. Your father never existed. He was never real either.”

  That seemed to strike a nerve.

  “How dare you, Rusty? Why, I’ve half a mind to kick you out of my fine establishment and have you never darken my doorstep again, but I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. But if you ever say such a thing about my pa again—”

  “What was his name?” I asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What was his name? Your father.”

  “I-Well, his name was…” she stood there, flummoxed. “Well, that’s the oddest thing, I—” she turned towards us, suddenly jumping backwards, the serving tray clattering to the ground. I rose to my feet, but she looked at me with absolute terror. “What have you done to me? Why have you…what kind of curse is this?”

  “I haven’t done anything to you, I swear. Just tell me his name.”

  “I—I, it’s, it was…he was—” suddenly, she straightened, walked with an almost march-like gait to behind the bar, and then she turned out to us, closed her eyes and slowly faded from existence. The silence in the room was palpable, after the sudden, brief screaming. My heart was pounding in my chest.

  “What the fuck was that?” I finally said, after the quiet in the room grew too much to bare.

  Meph took a swig of his ale, then gently placed his flagon back to the table. “That was you breaking her mind. Don’t worry, she’ll reset. You’ll see her again, but she won’t remember any of this. A fresh brain, as it were,” he gestured at the other meal on the table. “Come on, it’ll get cold.”

  “Why would you make me do that to her?” I asked, as I sat back down at the table. My skin felt cold, and I could hear a tremor in my voice.

  “You wanted to know the truth about the existence that this world, and your mortal, material world exist in, but here’s the thing: you are not built to know that. If you push at the boundaries of what you need to know to live here, it will break your mind just as surely as showing the gaps in her world broke hers.

  “It’s not cruelty to keep everything from you right now. You’ll learn more, given time, when you need to know it. But jumping ahead can be damaging. Do you remember your trip to the Planetarium?”

  My eyes went wide. “I’ve never told you about that.”

  “No, but I got your whole story when you came here. Both the real one and the phony backstory they made for you. But you remember that day, right? How it affected you to understand the enormity of your universe before you were ready to.”

  I nodded, swallowing hard.

  “The same applies here. With time, and experience, you will learn more. A lot more. But you don’t need it all right now, and it could hurt you to do so. Instead, you should focus on the world at your feet. On what you can be, what you can do here.”

  A shiver ran through me. I looked at the food before me, and it smelled amazing, but all I could feel was this sense of revulsion.

  “Now, tell me how that made you feel?”

  I looked over towards the bar, now vacant. “I feel…cruel. Wrong. I’m…I’m disgusted at myself. She didn’t deserve that.”

  “Does knowing that next time she’ll be here she’ll be fine, and won’t recall this, make it any better?” Meph casually cut into the steak on his plate. I’d thought he was vegetarian, didn’t I?

  “No, no it doesn’t,” I answered.

  “And therein is another lesson. You can’t go making assumptions about things, just because the person you’re dealing with is a soul like you, or a Player or a True NPC. You must keep your mind flexible. You must be able to adapt. Until you do know everything, you have to assume you know nothing, and act accordingly.”

  I sat there, the meal in front of me rapidly cooling as Meph ate his meal. He wasn’t looking at me.

  “How did it make you feel?” I asked.

  He stopped. After a beat, he placed his cutlery on the plate, took a napkin and dabbed it on his mouth. He still didn’t look at me.

  “Absolutely awful, Rusty,” he said, and then he looked at me, eyes shining. “It felt perverse, and cruel, and I hated it. And perhaps now you know why I don’t get on with my people. So all in all, despite how horrible all that was, I think it’s safe to say you’ve learned a lot from it.”

  I let a moment pass between us. Then I straightened my chair, picked up my cutlery, and went to work on my meal. We ate in silence.

  But I knew he was right. I’d learned a great deal.