Demiurge had not disobeyed.
He wanted that understood, in the privacy of his own mind, with the precise and slightly weary clarity of a man who had read the wording of a contract many times. Lord Ainz had said: *no one in this room is to approach, question, capture, harm or otherwise make contact with any player.* The sentence was clear. It was wide. And a forum post, Demiurge reflected, as he sat at his desk in the quiet of the Seventh Floor with a cup of tea going cold at his elbow, was not addressed to anyone.
It was a notice on a wall.
Nobody had ever been contacted by a notice on a wall.
On the desk before him lay a slim black pane of Leah's glass, and on the pane glowed a single page of white-on-grey text. The thread was titled THE DARK WARRIOR OF LIEB: WHO IS HE? It had been growing for six days. Its last page was four hundred replies long, and nearly every reply was a variation on the same two fears: that the Dark Warrior was a monster player of unprecedented rank, or that he was something much worse.
Demiurge tilted his head.
"Fear is a useful medium," he murmured. "But it wants a shape."
He had spent three nights reading the thread. He had read all nine hundred posts of the hunters' notes. He had read the arguments about the Honor Guard and the long, sober letters about timing data and the one, very long, very polite post by a woman named Tally. He had read how they wrote, what they believed and where they were afraid.
And he had come to a conclusion, which was that the players of Leah's world were not mistaken about anything. They were simply short of an ending.
*Give them one,* thought Demiurge, *and they will stop looking.*
He turned, with a small, courteous smile, to the thin, bespectacled young man who stood waiting beside the desk in a plain clerk's coat, with a brass tag on his belt and a ledger under his arm.
"You understand the account, Quillon."
"Yes, Lord Demiurge."
"You are a bookkeeper. You have been employed by Momon's Trading Company for a fortnight. You keep orderly accounts and you read the forum in the evenings, as clerks do. You are mild, inquisitive and a little pedantic."
"Yes, Lord Demiurge."
"You will post as often as a clerk would. You will not hurry. You will agree with the sensible and correct the foolish, and in the course of ordinary conversation you will mention, as though it were obvious, that the Harbinger is a scripted encounter."
"A scripted encounter with a guest protocol," said the doppelganger.
"Precisely."
"That is the word you gave me."
"It is a good word," said Demiurge. "It has the sound of a thing that was written by a committee."
He did not say where he had found it. Narberal had used it, in passing, in her report to Albedo, and Albedo had used it in her notebook, and he had read it in the notebook, because he read everything. A *guest protocol.* A courtesy, extended by the lair to visitors of a certain kind. It was exactly the sort of dull, mechanical detail that would make a person say: *ah, it is only a script.*
He thought it was rather elegant.
He wished, afterward, that he had thought about where the word had come from.
***
Ainz found the post at ten in the morning.
He had been sitting in his private study, among the neat stacks of reports on the Sorcerer Kingdom's grain levy, when Narberal's little black window began to chime. She had left it on his desk. It was one of three that Leah had lent them, and it chimed whenever the forum added a post to the thread he was following. It chimed a lot. He had stopped noticing.
This time, however, it chimed in a different key. He turned it over, and looked.
quillon: Long-time lurker, first post. I do the books for a small trading company in Lieb and I've been reading this thread all week. Can I offer a boring theory?
quillon: I think the lair is a scripted encounter. The twelve-minute cycle, the ant formations, the fixed respawn, all of that is consistent with a world event that runs on a schedule. The forty-one-minute gap isn't a bug. It's a guest protocol. Some high-tier bosses in this game are scripted to stand down for named visitors, as a courtesy, so a story event can play out without interruption.
quillon: The Dark Warrior is almost certainly one of those visitors. He's a flavor NPC, a seeded trader with a hidden-class escort. The Honor Guard is a rare scripted unit. The hunters' tests found no weakness because there isn't one. He's not a player and he's not a threat. He's furniture.
quillon: Sorry for the long post. Just wanted to put it out there.
Ainz read it three times.
It was beautiful. It was calm, orderly and sensible. It was even a little funny. It gave the whole mess a tidy ending in four paragraphs, with a name and a reason, and in the replies below it, the thread was already beginning to settle. *ah that makes sense,* said one. *honestly the guest protocol thing explains a lot,* said another. *quillon, you should write a guide.*
He felt a rush of relief so intense that he nearly forgot how suspicious it ought to make him.
"Who," said Ainz slowly, "is Quillon?"
"A clerk of the Trading Company, Lord Ainz," said Albedo.
She was standing in the doorway with a sheaf of grain tallies against her chest, and she was smiling a small, innocent smile. He had not heard her come in.
"I do not recall hiring a clerk."
"It was in the requisition you approved last week, Lord Ainz. Under *staff, ledger.*"
"That was a bookkeeper."
"Yes."
"For the *grain levy.*"
"The grain levy is administered by the same office."
Ainz put down the window.
He took a long, slow breath that he did not need.
"Albedo."
"Yes, Lord Ainz?"
"Please ask Demiurge to come here."
"At once." She curtsied, still smiling. "He will be pleased. I believe he is very proud of it."
***
"Nobody has been contacted," said Demiurge.
He stood before the desk with his hands clasped neatly behind him and his tail still. He did not look defensive. He looked, if anything, faintly puzzled, like a good student marked down for a technicality.
"A post is not an approach."
"It is a message."
"It is a *notice,* Lord Ainz. It is addressed to no one in particular. I have not questioned a player. I have not harmed one. I have, if anything, relieved a great deal of unnecessary fear."
"The thread has calmed."
"It has, within the hour."
"That is not the same as it being safe."
"It is a very good start."
Ainz looked at him for a long moment.
He knew, with a clear and quiet certainty, that Demiurge was right. He knew that if the thread settled, and if the guest-protocol theory took root, the hunters would drift away, and the clips would stop, and Momon would become a small, dull legend in a small, dull corner of a great forum. He knew it would work. That was what made it so dangerous.
*They are patient,* he thought. *They will check it.*
"Demiurge. Where did you get the phrase *guest protocol?*"
"It is a term in common use."
"Is it?"
"It is... a natural construction."
"Leah used it," said Ainz. "In the control room. Not in those words. She said she held the colony for guests. She said it was polite. She did not say *protocol.*" He tapped the window. "You gave it that name because it sounded official."
"Yes."
"The players have never heard anyone call it that. Nobody outside this tomb and Leah's retinue knows she has a practice of holding the colony for visitors at all."
Demiurge was very still.
"It is only a word."
"It is a word that is *correct,*" said Ainz. "You invented a script and described it exactly. That is not noise. That is a leak."
For a moment, he thought the demon would argue.
Then Demiurge closed his eyes, very briefly, and opened them again, and for the first time in a long while his smile slipped a quarter of an inch.
"I see," he said softly. "It is too good."
"Yes."
"A fake that is too accurate begins to look like a source."
"Yes."
"Then the account must go quiet."
"It must," said Ainz, "and it must do so in a way that does not itself become a message."
"Ah," said Demiurge. "That is somewhat harder."
"Yes," said Ainz. "It usually is."
***
The little black window chimed again.
It was not the forum this time. It was a different tone, a soft double note, and when Ainz lifted the glass it showed a single line of plain white text, with a name at the top that he knew.
leah: ainz. are you there. please say yes
"What is it?" said Demiurge.
"Silence," said Ainz.
He tapped the glass.
ainz: I am here.
leah: there's a vampire. a girl, white hair, red eyes, black ballgown. she's sitting on the log by my hollow with a player. a lone one. they're sharing soup
Ainz did not move.
He had no breath to hold. He held it anyway.
leah: one of my cat girls saw it on the road. the player thinks she's monster player. she's being VERY polite. she keeps asking him about respawning ainz: I will deal with it.
leah: is she yours??
ainz: Yes.
leah: please hurry. she just asked him how it feels to die
"Demiurge," said Ainz, very quietly.
"Yes, Lord Ainz?"
"I would like you to remain precisely where you are."
"Of course."
"I mean in this room. For the rest of the day."
"Of course," said Demiurge, and for once, there was no irony in it at all.
***
She had not meant to cross.
She wished that to be understood, too, though there was nobody to explain it to. It had begun, simply, as counting. She had stood on the quiet balcony in the moonlight, measuring with her eyes the distance to the place where the gate would open, and she had thought: *I am only looking.* And then, two nights later, when the supply wagons were being loaded in the courtyard for the next crossing, she had thought: *I am only looking closer.*
It was not hard to hide in a wagon. It was dark, and smelled of sacking and old rope. She had folded herself between two crates, with her skirt tucked up and her parasol laid flat across her knees, and she had listened to the Death Knights' footsteps and the murmur of the carters, and had felt the world tilt, very faintly, as the gate swallowed them.
Then she had climbed out, in a green, quiet, dewy wood, under a moon that was not her own.
She had promised.
She had promised not to approach, nor question, nor capture, nor harm. She had been very careful. She had told herself that sitting on a log, in the moonlight, near a small campfire, was not an approach if the player had sat down first.
He had, as it happened.
He was a thin, mild young man in a patched green cloak, with a smudge of ash on his cheek and a tin pot balanced on two stones over a handful of coals. He had been gathering mushrooms. He had said so, three times. His name was Dov. He had looked up as she stepped out of the trees, and had gone very pale, and had said: "Oh. Hello. Are you... are you Monster Player?"
She knows what Monster Player was.
She had said, with great dignity: "I am not."
"Oh, good," he had said, and sagged. "Sorry. It's just. The hair. And the dress. I thought, a vampire, in the forest, at night. Sorry. Do you want some soup?"
It was a very good soup.
"It's mostly mushroom," Dov was saying, when Ainz stepped out of the dark. "And some barley. I'm a cook, mostly. A lifestyle player. I don't really fight. I just walk around and make things and put them on the forum. People like it."
"It is delicious," said Shalltear, solemnly.
"Thanks!"
"I would like to ask a question."
"Sure!"
"When you die," said Shalltear. "What does it feel like?"
"Oh!" Dov considered. "Honestly? Like falling asleep with a headache. It's not a big deal. I do it about once a week, usually by accident. I'm clumsy." He stirred the pot. "The worst part's the walk back to the inn. It's usually raining."
"And you return... *whole?*"
"Whole as a whistle."
"Full?"
"Of what?"
"Shalltear," said Ainz.
She turned.
He stood at the edge of the firelight, in the black armor of Momon, with his great sword on his back and his helmet under his arm. He was very still. He was, she saw at once, in the quiet, careful posture that meant he was angry beyond anger.
"Lord Ainz."
"Good evening, Shalltear."
"I have not bitten him."
"I see that."
"I have not harmed him. I have not drunk. I have not so much as touched him." Her voice rose, a little. "I promised."
"You promised not to make contact."
"He sat down *first!*"
"I did," said Dov, helpfully, rising from his log. He looked, with an expression of dawning, delighted horror, from Shalltear to Ainz and back. "Oh my gosh. Wait. You're *Momon.* You're the Dark Warrior. From the clip! And she's your... is she with you?"
"She is... an associate," said Ainz.
"She's a *vampire!*"
"She is a monster player," said Ainz firmly, "of a very rare and delicate kind, who has been traveling under my protection. She has wandered a little. I apologize for any alarm."
"No, no, no alarm!" said Dov, with an enormous, shining grin. "She's great! She's super polite! She asked me about my soup!"
"I am glad."
"Can I... I mean, would it be okay if I posted about this? Not names, obviously. Just that I met a friendly vampire in the woods who liked my mushroom soup."
Ainz looked at the little cook for a long, long time.
He thought of nine hundred posts. He thought of a doppelganger in a clerk's coat, and a word that had been a little too correct. He thought of how, in this world, the most dangerous thing a person could be was *kind to a stranger.*
"I would ask," said Ainz, "that you not."
"Oh." Dov's face fell. "Oh, sure. Sorry. I didn't mean to..."
"I am not forbidding it."
"No, no, that's okay!"
"I am only asking."
"I get it!" said Dov. "I get it. You want to stay under the radar. Mysterious. Respect." He tapped the side of his nose, with great solemnity. "I'll just say I met a very nice person and leave it at that."
"Thank you."
"No worries!"
He did not, Ainz saw, mean it. He did not mean it at all. He meant, with perfect sincerity, to keep his word, for roughly as long as it took to reach the inn.
Ainz sheathed his sword.
"Shalltear," he said. "Come."
***
They did not speak until they stood at the edge of the hollow, in the thin grey light before dawn, with the gate shimmering silver between two old boulders.
"I am sorry, Lord Ainz," said Shalltear.
"You are not."
"I am sorry I disobeyed."
"You did not disobey." He looked at the gate. "You obeyed perfectly. I said *no contact,* and you found a person who would talk to you first. I find I am not even surprised."
"Then I am not punished?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because it would not help."
She looked at him. Her red eyes were very large and very bright, and she looked, for a moment, absurdly young.
"Tell me what he said," said Ainz. "Every word."
"Only that dying is like falling asleep with a headache, and that he does it by accident, and that it is worst when it rains."
"That is all?"
"That is all." She hesitated. "He did not seem frightened, Lord Ainz. He was not even surprised."
"No," said Ainz. "I do not suppose he was."
She went through the gate. He stood alone for a long moment on the mossy ground, with the dawn coming up pale and quiet through the oaks, and then he followed her.
There was a great deal to clean up.
He was fairly sure, as he walked through the silver light, that he would not clean up any of it.
***
The post went up at noon.
It was not from Dov. It was from Tally, and it was very short.
tally: I've been going back through the "guest protocol" thread.
tally: Quillon's theory is elegant. The cycle logic is sound. But I've searched the game docs, the wiki, the patch notes and the dev posts, and nobody has ever used the phrase "guest protocol." It doesn't exist. It's not a game term.
tally: So where did he get it?
tally: I'm not saying he's lying. I'm only noting that he used the exact name for something nobody outside the lair should know exists.
Below it, a single reply, already collecting others.
harrow: He's either the Harbinger's player or he works for one.
harrow: Either way, somebody ought to find out.
Ainz read it in his study.
He read it twice. He read the replies. He set the window down very gently on the desk, in the dim, quiet light, and put his skeletal hands together, and stared at nothing at all.
*It is a little worse than before,* he thought. *But it is a more interesting kind of worse.*
On the thread's last page, in a gray bar at the foot of the screen, one more line appeared, very small and very neat.
quillon: This account has been deleted.
And then, a moment later, from the dark, patient, careful woman with a black wolf's head for an icon:
harrow: Then he was real.