March 31, 2026

Making an NPC

[TADC] 📜🎪 M A K I N G ◦ A N ◦ N P C ! - Act 20

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M A K I N G ◦ A N ◦ N P C !

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CHAPTERS 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

⊹˚₊·‧Chapter 20: Spawning

Once Ragatha had cried herself empty and the grown-up kids finished playing, they returned to the party area.

Pomni thought that Ragatha was walking even slower now, and, additionally, that she looked as if she wasn’t feeling too well. But maybe that was just due to her exhaustion. She had been up for a good while now.

When they arrived, Gangle excitedly asked for the gender reveal.

“I… I haven’t prepared a cake or a balloon to pop or something, should I just… say it?” Ragatha asked.

“Sure. Go for it.” Zooble answered.

“Let Pomni do a little dance while she sings it!” Jax suggested.

“Jax!” Ragatha scolded him, “Stop demanding my partner do these ridiculous things!”

“She was my friend before she was your partner.” He gave back. “So I have rights.”

This made Pomni smile a little. Jax appeared to be in a positive mood.

“You want me to do it on a trapeze, or…” Pomni riled him up.

Jax stared at her with big eyes. Then looked at the top of the circus tent, which was uncomfortably high up. Then back at Pomni. “Holy sh█t! You could do that?!”

“It’s a girl!” Ragatha yelled quickly, “There you go! No risking your lives for that!”

Gangle made the cutest little squeal, while Zooble commented with a “Wow…!”.
Kinger seemed to ponder about what ‘a girl’ even was.

Jax got a displeased look on his face, though. “We don’t know that yet. If it’s a girl for sure, I mean.”

Pomni gave him a little, maybe even proud, smile.

“Don’t get all sassy on me, Jax. Your sentiment is sweet and appreciated, but I’m not judging based on her body. I’m judging based on her code. I can see it, remember?”

This answer made him think. He must’ve eventually come to a conclusion, because he simply shrugged.

“That is so cute!! That you’re having a baby girl!!” Gangle cheered.

“It’s weird,” Zooble noted, “I didn’t actually think that a gender reveal could… change anything. But… damn. This is kinda… touching.”

“It makes it more real, right?” Pomni added. “Like… it’s not just an idea anymore. Not just an ‘it’.”

Zooble slowly nodded. “Yeah… that might be it. I wonder what would happen if somebody would read my code. If there is any.”

“There surely is, or else Pomni and I wouldn’t have been able to provide ours for the baby.” Ragatha said. “Though I’m not sure if our codes are as… elaborate as NPC ones. They probably mainly contain our visuals? And just a history of what we did in here?”

“Look at you, sounding all computer-sciency” Pomni proudly commented. “Seems like you found a new inter— Ragatha?!"

Ragatha swayed dizzily, looking as if she were about to fall over. Immediately Kinger and Pomni grabbed her arms. “Hey!” Pomni shouted, “Are you okay? You… sh█t, you’re sweating a lot… and… are you glitching??”

“A… am I…? Oh…” Ragatha mumbled. She appeared close to fainting, with tiny parts of her avatar showing signs of corruption.

Zooble, Jax and Gangle immediately shoved one of the couches closer to Ragatha so that she could sit down. The moment Kinger and Pomni put her on the sofa, she lurched backwards like a literal ragdoll.

“Ragatha!” Pomni exclaimed, grabbing her shoulders, trying to make her sit more upright. “What’s going on?”

“I’m… I’m just a bit tired… is all… let me take a short nap…”

“Ragatha, c’mon… that’s not normal—" Zooble noted, worried.

“What’s going on!?” Pomni said, now directed at Kinger, hoping dearly that there was enough of him left to analyze the situation.

Kinger stared at Pomni, then at Ragatha. Then, he said, unhelpfully, “Well, that’s Ragatha!”

Pomni moaned, but Jax had already taken one of the present boxes and hauled it over his head.

“Hey! Who turned out the lights!”

“Kinger, please! What’s happening to Ragatha!” Gangle pushed him.

“Oh! Right. She’s pregnant, I think.”

“Kinger!!” Zooble joined in. “Please! She looks really bad!”

“Uhm…” Kinger made in response, then pulled her hand, that he was still holding, closer to the opening from the box to look at it. “I’m… I’m not sure. But if I had to make a guess, it’s that… … But… no, that’s not possible.”

He sounded a bit more coherent and sane, as if he got back to his true self quicker now.

“Spit it out, whacko!” Jax pressured him.

“It looks like resource exhaustion.” He explained.

“What… w-what does that mean!?” Pomni asked nervously, holding Ragatha’s head so that it wouldn’t fall backwards again.

“Simply explained… It looks like the code of the entity has grown too big for Ragatha’s character. For her memory. Like, not her real memory, but… code storage. Which seems impossible. Our character instances are constructed to store a massive amount of data. The NPC must have a code as big as a whole elaborate map for it to overload Ragatha like this…”

“W… w-what do we do? What’s happening to her?”

“Its code started to spill out and overwrite hers, basically. Not sure which parts… it could be everything.”

“Oh… ohgod. Oh god!” Pomni whispered, then shouted what she felt she should have done at the very beginning: “CAINE!”

The ringmaster appeared without any delay.

“My, my, you really went out on a limb, didn't you?” He commented while looking at Ragatha, “I don’t envy her! She won’t have a good day tomorrow.”

“Our baby is overwriting her code!” Pomni quickly explained.

Caine stared at her, processing her words. Then he made a gesture as if Pomni were nothing but hyperbolic. “That’s not possible.”

“It’s heap exhaustion with possible process contention!” Kinger explained further, in words that Caine probably understood better.

Caine stared at him. “But… that’s not possible,” he repeated, but this time, he sounded honestly shocked.

“Please! Please, what do we do?” Pomni cried out, “We can think about how this was possible later! She’s starting to glitch out very badly!”

Caine shook his head in a cartoony manner, getting back on track. “Uh, right. Let me help you with that.”

He snapped, and in the blink of an eye later, Ragatha’s belly disappeared, with a bundle of something lying on her torso instead.

Even though she was barely conscious, she immediately wrapped both arms around it.

Her glitching slowly stopped, but her head was still leaned backwards, and she was panting exhaustedly.

Everyone stared at her in disbelief. Then Pomni looked at Caine.

“You… could’ve done that… the whole time…?!”

“Well, yeah, of course.” Caine gave back.

“But—but why didn’t you—— why was she—” Pomni stuttered, feeling anger boiling up.

Zooble put their hand on her shoulder. “Later.”

Pomni took a deep breath. Then nodded, turning her attention back to Ragatha and the light blue blanket she was holding.

“Ragatha… are you… ok?” She asked carefully.

Ragatha moaned. It sounded drained, but at least it was an improvement over before.

“Yes… I think so. I… I can’t see anything, though… and barely move…”

Kinger patted her arm. “Give your identity cluster a moment to reboot and load. It’ll be okay.”

Ragatha nodded weakly.

“I… I need to see her… Can you… guys see her…?”

“Not yet,” Pomni answered, gently stroking Ragatha’s other arm, though her fingers were shaking. “She’s… completely wrapped and facing you, I think.”

The bundle, which had been perfectly immobile since it had appeared, started to move. Then it made a little noise that wasn’t comparable to anything organic that Pomni had heard before. It sounded more like a little ‘bleep’, a single, pure, digital sound.

This apparently was enough to rejuvenate Ragatha completely, and she managed to raise her head and sit more upright again. She then held the bundle so that she could see its face.

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