"Good grief! The NPCs have learned to talk!"
Meow Brother's startled shout rang through the team channel. Clearly, Mrs. Triss's earlier attempt at Mandarin—awkward and halting, like a beginner's—had shocked him.
Meow Brother, however, didn't think much of it.
He raised the crimson psionic staff in his hand and said:
"That's an NPC played by an intelligent AI. Isn't it perfectly normal for her to learn to talk? Actually, I think if the game weren't trying to make things feel more immersive and realistic, all the NPCs here would speak Mandarin from the start.
"This isn't the time to marvel at that.
"The mobs are spawning! Hurry!
"Open fire!"
A precise orb of Nature's Wrath shot from the tip of his staff and knocked down one of the "monsters" crawling out of the constantly spinning warp rift above the Blood Pool, behind Salokdar.
The thing was pitch-black all over.
It looked like a distorted humanoid covered in a layer of "oil." Its features were impossible to make out, but they could see it open its mouth wide and roar at them.
As if that were the signal to begin the battle.
In the next instant, more pitch-black monsters crawled out of the rift!
They had no fixed form. Humanoids, beasts, and even winged abominations howled as they charged the line formed by the players.
Like Salokdar, these things were vessels for the will of Chaos, sources of corruption that had entered the material world. As they drew near, the mental pressure on the players surged.
Little Ashina had just fired a shot that blew apart a monster's head when she clutched her own and cried out in pain. Clearly, she had failed one of her recent "SC checks," sending her "insight" skyrocketing.
Even with the protection of the Nature scroll