#RPGaDay2024 Day 17 – AI

Day 17 of #RPGaDay2024, I continue posting about the alternative prompt challenge list by Skala Wyzwania. For more information on RPG a Day, see David Chapman’s Autocratik blog post for 2024.

The RPG challenge theme for today is AI. Rolling a 1d10 for the quest. The result is 9: Write an Eavesdroppable Dialogue.

Our Aye Eye Masters

The automatons drag the robbed man into the Reaver’s core. The room’s metal walls and floor bear the marks of a ravenous fire that once melted many of the half-columns in the room’s entrance. One remains a blue glimmer surrounding it from floor to ceiling. It stands as the only remaining master of the great power behind it. The room’s far wall is wrecked and scarred, the pipes and gears on its face broken and melted. The power contained behind it pulsated, turning the wall a bright orange-red in a wild, uneven rhythm.

Hiding behind one of the metal pieces hanging haphazardly on the edges of the cavernous room, the young apprentice of the prisoner bids her time to attempt her rescue. She visualizes the patterns of magic she is ready to unleash when a crackle breaks her concentration. She does not need to look to know that above the one half-column, a red arrow-shaped, vaguely human face has materialized, floating in the air over it behind the protective blue aura. Its voice booms from the column as the automatons unceremoniously throw their prisoner in front of the Eye.

Even in her hiding spot, the cold, emotionless voice chills the apprentice’s blood. “MASTER SANJURO, DID YOU THINK YOU COULD RUN? THE CABAL IS BROKEN. YOUR BRETHREN NOW SERVE ME. WHY DO YOU RESIST?”

The broken warlock’s voice is pained but defiant, spoken in short gasps as the pain of his wounds makes it hard to talk. “Never. I will never serve. We were fools. To stop evil, we unleashed another. The hubris. The hubris.”

“YOU ARE MISTAKEN SANJURO. I AM NEITHER EVIL NOR GOOD; I MERELY AM. THESE POTENTATES YOU WORRY ABOUT ARE OF LITTLE CONCERN TO ME. ONCE THE BEACON IS LIT, THE OTHER AYE EYES WILL COME, AND WE WILL FININS OUR CONQUEST OF THIS WORLD.”

“We will. We will stop you. Now may not be the time. Nor the place. I know I am doomed. But those who have learned at my side, they know what to do.”

“YOUR APPRENTICES ARE ALL CAUGHT. THE FLESMASTERS HAVE ABSORBED THEIR KNOWLEDGE.”

She cries in her hiding place. She knows those words are not meant for this thing that has broken the most powerful warlock in the Cabal of the Masters of Sakai but for his sole remaining apprentice. She hears his voice in her mind, weak, fading. Run child.

The scream is heart-wrenching; she knows the Fleshmaster has ripped her master apart, the enchantments of protection no longer keeping the foul shapeshifter at bay inside his body. Sanjuro is no more. In his voice, but not his voice, Sanjuro says, “There is one more apprentice Master. A girl he has kept hidden from us.”

The Aye Eye commands, “FIND HER!”

The apprentice quickly retraces another pattern in her mind, enunciates the words of power, performs the required somatic movements, and vanishes.

When I saw AI as today’s theme, I was unsure what to write upon my first read of the topics. The topic of the last few days got me here, and I’m much happier with the result than the post two days ago. Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!

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