Evolution Island: Kill to Survive

A hunch

Zach had accepted the new quest without thinking ahead. He didn't know how they were going to destroy an entire Dark Orc camp, but Gilbert's offer was simply too good to refuse. All that mattered to him was that degree next to his name. Though he had no reason to trust Gilbert's words, he felt it was worth taking a shot.

While the two friends thought about what to do next, the foragers of the Cayuga tribe carried the bodies of their fallen warriors into their camp. It was customary to bury the dead, but since these warriors had died in battle, they were due for a greater honor. The bodies of the fallen were to be burnt in the sacred bonfire in the middle of their settlement, under the watchful gaze of their last living elder.

Almost every family had lost a dear one. Nashoba's own uncle had died in the battle. The losses weighed heavily on their shoulders. The women grieved, while the men smeared their faces with the ashes of the fallen to pay homage to their bravery. In this moment of darkness, Aaron came forward to extend his support to the tribesmen. He helped them cremate their dead and rebuild the broken fence. Zach, though initially unwilling, gave in at last and joined the rebuilding effort.

The other tribesmen had witnessed their shocking power and felt scared to meet the strangers eye to eye. They felt awed to stand in the presence of such powerful beings. It was clear to them that these two weren't ordinary humans, but entities beyond their comprehension.

When the elder finished performing the last rites for their dead brothers, the Cayuga recited a short prayer to their ancestors, asking them to guide the souls of their fallen into the afterlife. Aaron hadn't expected them to display such emotions or carry out such elaborate ceremonies for the dead. He questioned everything he knew about games. How could NPCs show genuine human emotions? It was as if they had become self-aware and developed a conscience of their own. Their actions didn't seem scripted or pre-programmed. Everything they did, felt terrifyingly close to reality. There were no generic weeping women and wailing young children. Some cried out in anguish, some banged their fists on their chest, while others chose to sob in silence. What seemed most strange was that they clearly enunciated every single name during the funeral ritual. All the fallen warriors received a token of love from their families, before being cremated.

As Aaron quietly watched from the side lines, he noticed that Nashoba was busy discussing something with the elder. After the ritual was complete, the Cayuga elder walked up to Aaron and Zach and placed his headgear at their feet.

"Forgive me, O great ones. I was about to turn you out of my house. I am, but an ignorant human." He knelt before them and exclaimed with tears, "You have saved my people. Please accept your humble servant's sacrifice and forgive all his sins."

The old man was about to slice off his right hand with an axe, when Aaron interjected.

"Stop! You don't need to sacrifice anything. We only did what was right."

Hearing Aaron's voice, he dropped the axe and knelt again, touching the ground with his forehead. "You truly are a benevolent God. We are indebted to you. I, Odolo, promise that all my brothers and sisters shall worship you from this very day!"

"I am no God. I'm just a human."

"I saw your power with my own eyes!" Odolo exclaimed, trembling in excitement. "Only a deity can command the flames to bend to his will." He then looked askance at Zach and added, "You too shall be worshipped, O great magic caster. If there's anything you wish your humble servant to do for you, all you need to do is ask."

"Well, for now, we'd just like to stay at your settlement if that's possible," Aaron replied.

"May the stars bless this sacred hour!" Odolo cried out in joy, raising his arms skyward. "To have the twin deities live among us! There cannot be a greater boon for us lowly humans."

"Wow, Gilbert must've really turned on the raving fanatic settings on this one," Zach whispered to Aaron. He still believed that all these tribesmen had been pre-programmed to behave in certain ways, according to the outcome of the events.

Aaron shrugged off his snide remark and focused his attention on Odolo. Even if he was just an NPC, he was an important member of the Cayuga tribe and this meant that he could prove to be a valuable ally. “You said you wanted to help us, right?” Aaron asked.

“I will be happy to be of service to you, O great one!”

“Just Aaron is fine,” Aaron replied, a bit annoyed. “We need information about this island.”

“I know this land like the back of my palm. Our forefathers used to live here. All our ancestors watch over every grain of sand. I’ll tell you everything and serve you with every fiber of my being.”

The way Odolo spoke about his ancestors, again confirmed that his memory had been influenced by the coding used by Gilbert. Just a day back, the Cayuga didn’t even exist in this game and now these tribesmen were firmly under the impression that they had lived on Solaris from the very beginning. Their backgrounds, their roles and perhaps even their personalities had perhaps been programmed into them. This supported Zach’s idea that these NPCs were just bots without actual human emotions or feelings. For the moment, Aaron didn’t dwell too much on this and got to the point. “What can you tell us about Zittorac forest?”

Odolo used his long wooden cane to draw a large rectangle on the ground. “The Zofran forest is home to myriads of birds and beasts. It is a feeding ground for the Great Hunter of the Sky. Even the fierce Long Toothed Beast and the Scarred Black Claw fear the scream above the trees.” He scribbled a strange-looking multi branched tree inside the box and continued. “The forest is the great preserver of life and its heart beats inside the Crying Oak. You can hear its sobs when the great orb of fire comes up above the trees. A great hungry deity resides within the Crying Oak tree and she devours all who try to get past her. We Cayuga only cross the Crying Oak at dawn, when the hungry deity slumbers within its hollow trunk.”

Aaron found it a bit weird that Odolo used a different name for the forest, but attributed it to a language barrier between them. However, what was more confusing was that he had ventured into Zittorac forest several times to hunt during their previous playthrough, but had never encountered any hungry deity. He realized that could be yet another addition to the game. He looked at Zach, who seemed equally clueless.

“I understand what he means by the Long Toothed beast and Black Claw, but I’ve never spotted any Crying Oak.” Zach opened the map on his Z-band to see if the Orc camp had been marked, but all he found was a foggy gray area deep inside, with a beeping red exclamation sign. Sighing, he turned to Aaron. “Did you explore the depths of the forest?”

“With the pterosaur out there, it would have been suicide.”

“We gotta find a way to deal with that creature if we are to reach the Dark Orc camp alive.”

Aaron put aside the Oak tree to enquire more about the pterosaur. “Did you or your warriors ever cross the forest?” he asked Odolo.

Odolo nodded eagerly and answered, “We used to live on the other edge of the forest, where the Fire God’s breath warmed the waters of the Bountiful Pond. But, we had to leave that home because of those foul creatures of the woods. The Dark Orcs used to steal our women and carry off our young ones who went too far into the woods. So, we had no choice but to leave our ancestors’ bones behind and rebuild our homes on this side of the forest. We crossed the forest on foot, a decade ago, taking just our amulets and clothes with us.”

“How did you manage to cross the forest? Why didn’t the pterosaur…I mean the Great Hunter of the Sky, attack your people?”

“The Cayuga shaman offered a sacrifice to the Fire God and prayed for two months to the Travelling Deity. Their protection kept the beaked hunter away from us.”

Aaron went over the details in his head, but he didn’t seem very convinced about the blessings of the Gods keeping the pterosaur away. Then suddenly something came to his mind. “When exactly did you make this migration? I mean what time of the year was it?”

“We made our journey during the first month of snow. It took us 3 days to cross the great forest,” Odolo answered.

Now things became a lot clearer to Aaron. “That must be the reason then.”

“What reason?” Zach asked.

“They crossed during the winter season, that’s why the pterosaur didn’t attack them,” Aaron replied, turning to Zach.

“What does the season have to do with anything?”

“I don’t think the pterosaur is active all year round. It hunts every day, but it doesn’t feed on all its prey immediately.” Aaron’s eyes lit up as he revealed his theory. “I think the pterosaur hibernates during the winter. Maybe it is vulnerable to cold. That’s why it wasn’t there to attack the Cayuga during the winter days.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“It took the Cayuga 3 days to cross the forest and possibly a week more to set up this village. I’m pretty sure the pterosaur would have attacked them if it wasn’t hibernating.”

“Maybe all these stories are just programmed into his memory. I don’t think this journey ever happened. You know this whole village didn’t exist a day back.”

“That’s the thing! I don’t think Gilbert would go through all the trouble to give each NPC unique memories. I think he replaced certain areas in this game with regions found in other adventure games. The Cayuga don’t belong in Evolution Island and that forest isn’t the real Zittorac forest.”

“What the hell are you saying?”

“I’m saying that Gilbert merged different game world together in this new update! The Cayuga are from another game. None of them are lying!”

“That’s a really wild guess.”

“Just think about it, Zach! You told me the devs were planning an update a week ago. Do you think they could have pulled all this off in just a week? Even if Gilbert has a team of the best devs and programmers working under him, introducing 3 different islands and making so many changes to the existing one is not possible in such a short time.” Aaron turned away to look at the Cayuga settlement and continued. “Adding an entire tribe with its own unique customs, habits and clothing is not an easy task. He even added a dynamic weather system and a whole bunch of pre-historic predators. I think they’ve all been taken from different games and just added to this world.”

Zach stood silently, pausing to think about Aaron’s theory. It had never occurred to him that these new regions could have been copied from other games. Adding new features and characters to an existing island was difficult enough and to design 3 new islands on top of that was truly an enormous undertaking. There was really no way someone of Gilbert’s calibre could have done all that in just a week’s time. The more Zach thought about all the new changes, the more convinced he became that Aaron was right. Dewdale village had been replaced by a tribal settlement almost overnight and every NPC here was unique. After a lot of thinking, Zach finally spoke again. “We had Dark Orcs in Evolution Island, but I got the feeling that these were different.” He looked at Aaron and added, “The Dark Orcs who attacked this tribe didn’t have any tattoos. Perhaps both the Cayuga and these Dark Orcs are from another game.”

“That’s what I was thinking as well. Only the Hobgoblins seem to be from our game. These Dark Orcs were way more aggressive and intelligent than the ones we are accustomed to fighting. Maybe they and the Cayuga are mortal enemies in some other game,” Aaron replied.

“But the names of the places on the map are just the same.”

“Gilbert hasn’t changed any names, but he sure has changed the regions.”

Zach thought about it for a while and then replied, “That’s why we never encountered any Crying Oak in Zittorac forest.”

“Exactly! There are no Crying Oaks in Zittorac forest. This isn’t Zittorac. I’m pretty sure this forest is also from the same game the Cayuga were a part of.”

“All this is still just a hypothesis. We can’t just draw conclusions based on your hunch, no matter how strong it is.”

“Then I’m gonna prove it to you right now. Let’s talk to the tribespeople,” saying that, Aaron walked off in the direction of the bonfire around which the tribe had gathered.