AIN SOPH Part 1

Episode 4

As with all great writing, Andy McCarthy should have revised the mountain of code making King Dagon’s brain one last time. A line buried deep allowed the monster to access SpectraCom’s “Sephiroth” search engine. The command had existed before Andy even worked for the company, which was the main reason he forgot to turn it off. In a program meant for the education of school-children, Sephiroth had no equal. For a marauding monster bent on the destruction of everything in its path, this was a recipe for disaster. Unencumbered by transfer rates, King Dagon accumulated millions of gigs of information on every subject it encountered. Fighters, priests, dragons, trolls, land, sea, air, King Dagon became an expert on the world it inhabited.

In the mean time, King Dagon raged. Appearing no bigger than any other red dot on the OverWorld Map, the monster would burst from the depths to stomp ports, villages, cities, and most PC’s within. A horde of ScornFish were left to clean up the mess. Attacks happened on average of one per day. Forums and chatrooms were dedicated to the organized hunt and defense against the creature. Players struggled to predict where King Dagon would strike next. Unbeknownst to these players, and even to Andy McCarthy, King Dagon frequently ran web searches for its own name, allowing the monster to follow these same conversations. Slowly, King Dagon built a data base of information about itself. The Internet was developing self worth.

Gollum the Goblin followed these conversations as well. The bards sang that Gollum the Goblin could recover any item, and his services were in great demand. For $30, Gollum fought his way through the Tarnikesh jungles to find LORD ALTEMONT'S SCEPTER and resurrect a Night Elf thief slain when her player left the room without pausing. A fighter paid Gollum $50 to recover an ODIN SIGNET worn around the neck of the Magma Troll Litch in the Fire Caves of Magnasium. Gollum picked his way through the Ork Krags for a GOBLIN KING'S HORN, that he sold for $150 in an online auction. Gollum had even made his share of visits to Grave Island, recovering the rare Templar weapons and armor dropped when the ghosts were defeated.

Gollum the Goblin was played by Will Whatley, a computer tech at Dunwich Community College in the backwoods outside Boston. The secret to Gollum’s success was a bootlegged CTHULHU DAGGER from TAO’s predecessor, Fantasy Quest III, which had never been translated to English. The weapon could kill any monster in a single strike, and was the only way to slay the final boss, Apophys. Will had little trouble adapting the code from FQ3 to TAO, making Gollum the Goblin nearly unstoppable. Some weeks passed that Will's salary at DCC was a supplement to his TAO earnings.

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