"Oh, someone's getting into character quickly," the elf says, snidely, one eyebrow twitching. "We have ones like that. The Age of Ooze is a thousand years old. They wanted the experience to be as realistic as possible, so they used actual artificial intelligences. The players get reset every so often to avoid going insane - Do you know how horrifying it is to explain the same thing every day to the same morons?"

Pause. The elf points over at a fountain.
"That's the Garden's weapons trader."


There's a man there, curled up on himself.
"But why do they keep asking for the level ten weapons? They know I only have the level one weapons. They know. They do it to taunt me. They want to drive me insane. I'm not insane. They're insane. I should slice them."

An armoured woman approaches.
"Lols do you have a level ten flamesword lols?"

The weapons trader shrieks incoherently and runs away from her.


Atton watches the proceedings with mild interest.
"Well, okay, then."

The elf sneers, slightly.
"Raise your index fingers and touch the air, as if you're pressing a button. Your character profiles will appear. They have been created after studying your brains."

Atton tries this, raising one finger and pressing an invisible button. A blue menu with white, old-looking text appears.

Name: Doran.
Species: Human.
Class: Black Mage/Thief.
Weapon: Knife.
Spells: Burnination, Lightningstrike, Blizzard, Tidal Wave.

"Huh," Atton says again.

Nearby, a passing gnome looks up at the profile.
"Lol haxx." It continues on again, cheerfully.