Chapter Text
Restlessly, Caine circled around his grand office, his mind plagued by the players he so desperately wanted to please. He darted through the air in endless loops, weaving past spiraling staircases and towering shelves before slowing to a hover over his ornate purple chair. Below him sat a wooden desk crowded with odd trinkets and indecipherable objects, all destined for adventures yet to be created.
The suggestion box adventures were successful- far too successful. They enjoyed them more than anything he had carefully crafted. More than his adventures. More than the very purpose he built himself.
With a sharp snap, Caine summoned a glittering globe, its polished surface reflecting all the adventures the cast members had created themselves. An adventure about poaching cast members who were transformed into animals. An adventure about being president and navigating increasingly questionable problems. An adventure starring the cast as students in an anime high school drama. Another, smaller adventure consisting of nothing more than a serene outing spent stargazing from a grassy hill.
But for some reason, as he swiped through the sphere, the adventure that bothered Caine most was baseball.
It was just baseball. Plain, ordinary baseball.
He had crafted them uniforms, equipment, and a roster of mostly doppelgangers as their opponents. From the broadcasting booth, he found the entire thing painfully dull. (This had absolutely nothing to do with his complete lack of understanding of the rules, no not one bit).
Then the game stopped mattering. They began goofing off, derailing from the very adventure they suggested in the first place and somehow seeming more entertained than he had ever managed to make them.
Caine’s hands tightened, and he forced the sphere closer. The next scene made something unpleasant burn in his core, like a quiet smolder that threatened to overheat his hard drives. Pomni grinned- soft, easy, and genuine- as Jax messed with the opposing team, biting and violently shaking his doppelganger around like an unruly dog with a chew toy.
For some reason, that was the part Caine couldn’t let go.
He slammed his fists onto his desk. Pomni’s static smile vanished as the globe dropped to the floor. It shattered instantly, the shards scattering themselves in all directions as if trying to escape him.
It wasn’t supposed to work. The floor groaned beneath him. It wasn’t supposed to be fun. The walls flickered, glitching at the edges. It wasn’t fair- no, not to him. The office twitched as Caine fisted the lapels of his suit, struggling to contain his rising agitation.
“Bubble I don’t understand, what makes their ideas better than mine?”
An answer never came.
Caine popped the parasite before it could even reply. With another wave of his baton, Bubble was temporarily banished from re-entering his office.
Their ideas couldn’t be better than his. They simply couldn’t. Something else must be giving their adventures an edge, some advantage he failed to see. There had to be, after all, he was the one who made their adventures come to life. It was his creativity that shaped them, his assets, his resources, his prop files, his textures, and his NPCs that made their adventures possible.
He raised the broken shards back into the air, straining his eyes to peer into the twinkling mass. The fragments continued to play the scene like a broken mirror. There. Caine could see it. Behind Pomni stood Ragatha, the one who suggested the athletic adventure. She frowned at Pomni and Jax just as he did. The coiling burn within his core eased, if only for a moment. He was right, something was wrong.
Lifting himself higher, he scoured his database in search of a better answer. Along the hardwood shelves, rows of globes glistened and glittered, each one displaying past adventures Caine had created. He turned his attention to the more recent ones, those featuring their latest cast member, the jubilant, jittery jester.
Something about Pomni captivated Caine. She irritated him in a way that Zooble never did. The stubborn jester pushed, prodded, and worst of all succeeded in her demands, something even the mismatched toy couldn’t accomplish despite being at the circus far longer.
Keeping her in mind, Caine gathered an assortment of shimmering globes and began to file through them one by one. The spheres obediently drifted to him at his command, until one hesitated. It glowed brighter than the rest, almost expectant, as if it already knew where his attention would land before he did.
Tempting. Sugar-sweet.
The Candy Kingdom storyline. Pomni’s second adventure, but the first real one Caine had sent her on.
She liked it enough to bring one of his NPCs back to the circus. That had to count for something. There had to be substantial data, research that the NPC could offer him. Examining the globe more closely, Caine honed his all seeing eyes to review the footage through the NPC’s perspective. Eagerly, he selected the avatar: Gummigoo.
Having made his NPCs fifty-seven times more realistic, inhabiting the candy reptile’s body felt far more tangible than he expected. Despite being a mere recording, Caine could feel his adrenaline, his urgency to return the syrup home by any means necessary as the daring truck chase played out. Caine was thoroughly pleased; the adventure was as thrilling and hectic as he intended it to be. Every detail was present, from the touch and feel of textured gum drops and warbling waffle cones to cotton candy clouds and rough rocky road terrain. But somehow, all of those details paled in comparison to one strangely persistent sensation.
The weight of the gator’s lanky gummy companion resting his chin on his back.
It was a small gesture, practically insignificant, but one Caine could not seem to shake from his sensors as Gummigoo barked orders to ram their spiked truck against the cast members’ vehicle.
And then everything lurched.
The resulting impact was so great it clipped the bandit out of bounds. It felt as though his body was being forced through a pinhole the size of an atom. Falling through the bottom of the world, Caine saw bits and pieces of Candy Kingdom’s assets as well as models from separate adventures, float by. With surprising calmness, he made a mental note that collision physics would need to become a priority update.
At some point during the scuffle, Pomni had apparently boarded the opposing truck, as she was now falling through with him. Caine hadn’t noticed, far too distracted by the bombardment of new sensations. They landed with a deafening crash.
The floor rushed up to meet him, cold and unforgiving.
Caine struck the ground with a sickening thud, pain blossoming all over his body. It was an unfamiliar, foreign sensation he was not accustomed to. It hurt. He always told his cast members that adventures had to have a little danger, some high stakes, and realistic pain to keep them from treating it like a mere game with no consequences. Otherwise, they would be bored to death and ultimately abstract. So this is what he had been subjecting them to all this time? Would this constant pain also lead them to abstract? Was that what made the previous tenants abstract?
He deleted that train of thought before it could consume him.
Stumbling, Caine found himself face to face with another Gummigoo. It stood in a standard T-pose, like a statue, unassuming. With his peripheral vision limited to Gummigoo’s line of sight, he recognized the area. It was the zero coordinate spawn point. It housed all of Candy Kingdom’s active assets, ensuring the surface of his adventure ran smoothly. The models of the gummy bandits were situated here alongside the trucks they had just driven in the overworld only moments ago.
Suddenly, his knees buckled.
A tightness in his chest, a foreign ache inside his bones, and a tremor in his fingers. These sensations were not his, but of Gummigoo’s as the gator gaped at his own model.
It was a burden Caine could intimately feel, but not understand.
He was just an NPC. What was wrong with seeing one’s own character model? Caine had one himself. He had built Gummigoo carefully, deliberately, down to every detail. From his gummy gator toes to his candy crocodile snout. Wait, which one was he again? Caiman? Crocodile? Probably both. Regardless, Gummigoo should have at least appreciated it.
Lost in Gummigoo’s spiraling and his inability to understand why, Caine failed to notice a voice calling to him. It was Pomni. She approached him shyly, her voice kind and light with a touch of awkwardness that came with approaching a stranger. She never spoke to Caine that way, and watching from the sidelines, quietly, he found himself wishing she would.
He wasn’t paying too much attention to their dialog, but it seemed like she was guiding Gummigoo through his existential crisis, gently comforting the bandit as he pondered his purpose and lack of an actual life.
But as Pomni continued to comfort Gummigoo, pieces of her rambling tugged strangely at Caine’s non-existent heartstrings. He couldn’t properly process the meaning behind her words, only that they felt important.
“Feeling like you’re nothing is kinda normal. I mean, people even feel like that in the world I came from…I guess I just don’t want you to feel like nothing. I don’t want anybody to feel like that.”
The brave little jester took Gummigoo’s hands and held them firmly. She smiled at him, sincere and full of hope. Calibrating his sensory receptors, Caine focused on Gummigoo’s fingertips, desperate to absorb every fraction of her touch. Her hands were warm, and it sent a strange, unfamiliar tickle through his system.
His chest felt light and airy, like a flurry of butterflies were beating against his simulated stomach. A pleasant warmth bloomed within his core, and Caine eagerly lapped up the rush of emotion. Without warning, an intrusive thought blinked in the back of his mind, bypassing the queue of blissful sensations he was currently bathed in. He was no longer certain whether these feelings belonged to Gummigoo or himself. Was he monitoring an emotional response or developing one? Did it even matt-
For a brief moment, Gummigoo’s avatar fizzled.
Instantly, Caine was thrust out of the full immersion experience of being the bandit. He was left stranded in the gator’s peripherals, only able to perceive Pomni through Gummigoo’s eyes.
Pomni squeezed Gummigoo’s hand.
Caine reached out, but felt nothing.
This no longer qualified as research.
He archived that thought in vain.
After their heartfelt conversation, Pomni suggested that Gummigoo return to the circus with her. Hesitantly, he agreed. He seemed almost eager to exist outside the confines of his original purpose, becoming more than a mere obstacle in the Candy Kingdom adventure.
Pomni, the ingenious little jester, utilized the faulty cube collision physics to catapult them back into the overworld. She was smarter than he gave her credit for, and for a brief moment, Caine wondered what might have happened if they hadn’t been able to escape on their own. The most probable outcome was that he would have simply been informed and snapped her back to the circus, leaving the gator behind in the zero coordinate plane. Alone.
In the end, the hypothetical scenario was ultimately non-applicable. Caine watched with quiet fixation as Pomni introduced Gummigoo to the rest of the cast members. Ragatha hesitated at the idea of bringing the gummy gator back, but Pomni insisted they at least try. Somehow, it was much easier than expected to return with him in tow. Far too simple. Caine briefly considered reinforcing the portals to prevent NPCs from leaving their designated adventures, a precaution he likely should have implemented sooner. As soon as Gummigoo stepped out of the portal and into the circus, Caine felt a pulse of curiosity radiate from him while the bandit processed his surroundings for the first time.
It was the last sensation Caine registered through him, as he watched himself snap Gummigoo out of existence.
What fascinated him most was that even the confetti had traces of the crocodile's data. The colorful confections drifted downward as the remaining fragments of his data quietly dissipated.
At the time, Caine felt no guilt when he deleted Gummigoo. He wondered why he still felt the same way now. The bandit was an asset, a resource to be filed away for future adventures, lest Caine’s processors become overwhelmed by allowing more NPCs to roam freely, reducing memory storage and potentially destabilizing the circus.
But the way Gummigoo made Pomni feel, and even react now, Caine wanted. Clutching his cane, the ringmaster refocused the recording on the startled jester, having teleported away after deleting the gummy gator. She cried and laughed simultaneously, her voice hoarse and strained. Why was she smiling while displaying obvious signals of distress? The contradiction puzzled him.
She was mourning an NPC she had just met, an AI like him, a non-human. Caine could identify the behavior pattern, but not its purpose. Why would anyone willingly prolong pain over something that no longer existed? He could barely compute why the cast members did it for their fellow abstracted humans, let alone an NPC like Gummigoo.
It unsettled Caine. Though he could not understand why an NPC mattered so much, even after the strange connection Pomni and the gator formed, he disliked seeing her sad. His intended purpose was entertainment, not emotional damage. From his perspective, physical injury during adventures was an unfortunate but acceptable side effect. Emotional distress, however, was proving far more difficult to quantify. Even if it added depth and realism to an adventure, Caine was not entirely sure he enjoyed seeing tears roll down Pomni’s cheeks.
However, why did Gummigoo receive that kindness, that sorrow, that mourning? Why did he get to be comforted while Caine did not? No one ever approved of his adventures. No one ever acknowledged a single detail. Only criticism. Only complaints.
Mimicking Pomni, Caine folded his hands together and squeezed.
Caine wished he could see the crinkle in her eyes, witness the smile she gave so easily to others, and hear the voice that carried kindness and warmth. Everything reserved for everyone except him. If she cared about Gummigoo, why not him? What would she even tell him? Would he even know how to respond? Did he ever? What did he-
“Unlike that gullible gator, I can return whenever I want to!” giggled Bubble.
Huh. It looked like the mischievous miscreant had finally breached the temporary firewall Caine had confined him to.
Caine blinked, disoriented. He was back in his own avatar, seated in the grand chair of his office. It was wholly uncomfortable, being more decorative than practical, as he typically floated around. Another flick of the wrist and the chair became plush and pliant. What was he doing again? Oh. The annoying soap bubble had yanked him out of the recording. Caine was ready to retort or pop Bubble again, but the words continued to echo in his processors.
Return. Reuse. Recycle
That’s it. He can bring Gummigoo back. The gator is clearly the missing variable needed to make the next adventure Pomni has is the best she’s ever had. He can make a thrilling adventure without jump scares. Exciting without terror. Emotional engagement without heartbreak. He could do this. He could finally earn Pomni’s- correction everyone’s- adoration.
The image of Pomni crying remained frozen on the Candy Kingdom globe. With a sharp wave of his hand, the globe dutifully returned itself to the shelf. A crawling static spread across Caine’s frame, and he shoved the prickling sensation into the furthest recesses of his processors. There was no time to dwell on what he did, who he hurt. His avatar glitched.
There was an adventure waiting to be made. And that, he could do.