AIN SOPH Part 1

Episode 1

Andy McCarthy programmed AIN SOPH to help people. He never intended any damage when he installed the program in the brain of a monster. Andy’s first video game, “Rip-Saw Jack,” was called the sickest assault on sight, sound, and taste to hit the market in years. The survival-horror could be stand-alone or used as an expansion to SpectraCom Video Art's popular Tactical Adventure Online system where players explored a growing world of fantasy role-playing. The games eponymous slaughter-machine stalked Player Characters across nine terrifying new environments on Grave Island.

If the games eponymous murder-maestro were not enough, a crashed Templar war-galley provided ghosts that attacked through earth, water, and walls, pulling players apart in a fashion more horrific than anywhere in TAO. Bloodfeast Die-Jest called Andy brilliant. Astro-Zombie E-Zine awarded Andy the coveted 5 skulls for the extreme dismemberment scenes. Braineater.com held a contest where players sent in their most gruesome screen-shot. The winner was a user named Queen Wasp, whose picture showed her elf priest being drawn, quartered, split, sliced, and shredded by a cloud of skeletal figures in flowing robes and rusty armor.

While not writing exciting new scenarios, game designers were required to work in the game, traveling the TAO world answering Terms of Service complaints and hunting mercenaries who recovered rare items to sell for real-world money. Though strictly forbidden in TAO TOS, many players would rather pay a MERC to raid a castle or cavern for desired equipment. Twenty dollars was a small price to pay for a battle axe that sent waves of fire, scorching enemies to cinder.

Moderators playing White Knights led parties of NPC Imperial Soldiers to help enforce decisions. White Knights were the strong-arm of the Emperor, and even high-level PC's were unlikely to last long in combat against their powerful Sun Swords. Andy and his White Knight, Duke, were hunting a notorious MERC named Gollum the Goblin when he stumbled on his follow-up to "Rip-Saw Jack."

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