“If the game isn’t going to make new content, I’m going to,” Lucas explained.

“By kidnapping people?” the princess asked.

“Yeah, well, I figured out what other players had taken for granted. Everyone assumes that there are hidden quests that you need to activate by either saying the right phrase, showing up with the right item at the right place at the right time, or by meeting some other unknown criteria, but since most people have been copying each other for so long by simply looking up guides and just doing the most efficient quests in an area based on what their forums, guilds, or friends tell them they need to do, they eventually stopped experimenting and testing new things. It’s not that there are hidden conditions to get quests: it’s that the quests themselves are generated based on a player’s interactions with the NPCs and their surroundings.

“If you didn’t race to defeat Xun Guan to get off noob island as fast as possible, like most everyone else, and instead chose to befriend her ahead of time and then found a noble to sponsor you from within the Imperium, you might—if you were Human, of course—have been able to generate a quest to join the Imperium. And then, say that you made the right moves to take over a territory like Kegan’s. You might have then been able to generate the requirements to be a dungeon boss.”

“You’d need to find a way to make players organically generate a quest to kill you, or else you’d be just stuck as a dungeon boss of a territory that no one goes to anymore,” the princess added, filling in the rest of the thought as she put away the dagger she had been holding. “I see. And that’s why you need to keep me prisoner.”

“But, as you can imagine, keeping a person prisoner is ridiculous,” Lucas continued. “You’re free to go. I won’t pressure you into—”

“Sorry, but I am not a returnable product,” she said. “If you need me to generate a quest to protect the game, then I’ll put up with it. But honestly, you’re terrible at this. How can you even claim to be a villain? What was with that speech? Why did you single just that one guy out? A good villain shouldn’t have grudges. You need to up your showmanship.”

“Wait, you’re on board with this?” Nick asked in surprise. “I mean, I like Lucas well enough because . . .” Nick looked over at Lucas and then, instead of saying why, simply shrugged. “But we did just jack you from a ceremony, and you don’t know us at all. How can you just take everything at face value from a stranger?”