One 2 One - Goblin Lover 1 - Introduction

Laura racked her mind trying to figure out what exactly happened within the game. Goblins did not typically spare players they came across. They are malicious little things and that is primarily why her subculture liked them so much. She was ready and willing to get taken into sweet, permanent servitude by them as a mount, or possibly cattle. As it was, her setup was on standby until further notice. She figured she could go to the source and just get captured that was, but she was curious; so she began running a net through all of her usual sites and chat servers to figure out if the same thing happened to anyone else. She exhausted all of her goodwill on Kredit spamming different subs, she got called a fanfiction writer on enthusiast servers and even her usual circle of in game friends called her out for spinning a story to avoid being called a poser. In their mind, she was still talking to them so she either did not meet goblins in game or did not give herself to them as their purpose stated.

Just when Laura felt like she would have to forget all about it and do what she and them wanted, giver herself to them, she got an anonymous message on Kredit from 'GoblinLover'. She smirked, because his profile picture was a parody of a meme song cover where the photoshopped man smiling with an Afro and earrings on a vaporwave background was replaced with a  goblin of the same features. The message had a fairly weak lead in, but it was not outright dismissal.

[Got some theories.]

She jumped into a voice call. It was not a huge deal to jump into a voice call with someone as everyone had a powerful VPN at their disposal 24/7, and voice changers were practically built in to most servers. She did cringe however when the tinny, unpolished voice that came through sounded a bit too similar to a Vocaloid. It was a bit too retro, when perfection could easily be achieved. They were trying to sound fake, is what it meant.

“Okay, what's up? Got some theories?” Laura herself used a voice changer, but all it did was scramble her vocal patters not maker he sound like a new, random woman each session.

“Yeah. Your story was interesting. The first thing I'd need to know is if that actually happened.”

“It happened.” She confirmed.

“Believe me.”

“Okay. Well, you get why most people wouldn't believe you, right?”

“Yeah... They don't normally do that. So what?”

“They aren't programmed to do that, so it's pretty hard to believe. That behavior should actually be a bit impossible based on everything I know.”

“No, that's stupid. The NPC AI in the game is supposed to be able to grow. Everyone knows that.” Laura argued.

“That's a surface level fact on the iceberg of O2O AI. Something that's interesting is, despite the fact that the NPC's can learn and grow, the environment actually just does not work to allow them to do so. It's completely against them.”

“What do you mean? They make forts to defend themselves. They're becoming smarter.” Laura was considering that the Goblin AI had advanced from living out in the open to holding out in defensible locations to make themselves relatively unassailable. It would not be strange to her for them to take an additional leap.

“If that were true they would've already taken over, right? But what we witness here is actually a death loop.”

“What?”

“Okay, so... NPCs in this game don't work the same way they do in other games. They learn and grow but they also require resources and food and they are 'trained' to seek all that out. They are also trained for self preservation and learning to make it a bit challenging... If they live long enough to learn. The two balance each other a bit. So, they exhibit survival behavior in that they want to get food and do so in a manner that preserves themselves.”

“Sounds like we have the same information.”

“We do, but you don't seem to know what any of it means. To someone like you it looks like they're learning to defend themselves and fight better but what's actually happening, like I said, is the AI looping. There aren't smart goblins or dumb goblins, they're all the same. The goblins out in the forest are the same ones from the Fortresses.”

“What? But that doesn't make sense.”

“It makes perfect sense when you consider the loop. A goblin group goes out to hunt and their learning AI tells them that they are vulnerable, so they move to defensible positions and survive and gain food and resources that make them appealing to kill for players but still somewhat vulnerable. The ones that live retreat to defensible positions. Repeat that cycle until they enter a state where they are not worth hunting. Players in this game aren't people. They aren't going to behave like people, not even roleplayers. They take info from the Net and use it and metagame.  No one goes to a goblin fortress because there's no point. Can you guess what happens next?”

Laura sighed. She felt like she could follow the loop. “Yeah... So, the goblins need resources so they go down into the open areas. The cycle repeats.”

“Yep yep!” GL complimented.
“That's good. Basically, that's the loop that stops almost all NPC's from winning in this game and keeps killable enemies on the chopping block. A lot of people are calling you crazy or a fanfiction writer, but I think that's because they only understand the tip of the iceberg. What you're saying actually represents  something revolutionary.”

“What's that? A break in the loop? Feeding players to goblins gives them resources beyond what they could otherwise get for themselves.”

“Not just that. That's still surface level thinking. The important factor that nobody has considered is that the event you described shows that an NPC learned to fish.”

Laura stared blankly at the screen. “Sorry?”

The voice chuckled in it's fake, girly tone. “Sorry. An old saying. If you give a man a fish, they eat for a day, so on and so on.”

“I get it.”

“Of course. The AI in the game isn't supposed to 'learn to fish' even if it looks like that. What it is is the game giving them fish. Where the learning comes in is when the goblin recognized your abstract contribution beyond just being another slave. See what I'm saying?”

“Yeah!” Laura leaned forward excitedly.
“That means they CAN be taught to fish. They can recognize that there are certain individuals that would bring more food and resources if they were left around or used.”

“If it isn't just a random quirk, yeah. That's exactly what that means.”

“What should I do?” Laura asked.

“You should see if you can repeat the results. I'm guessing you don't have an issue attempting to do so?” The voice giggled again.

“Not at all.” Laura grinned.

-

According to GoblinLover, the easiest and most surefire way to replicate the results of the first experience would be to make it clear to a Goblin group that she was on their side through easily identifiable actions like before. Basically, if she was seen unambiguously selling out her own kind and surrendering, it could work. If it did not work, she figured her second goal of being captured could at least be accomplished. The girl figured that if she was to succeed, and word got out, her character would be a bit of a fugitive within the game, so she purchased a mask that would had her name from the average user. She stared down at it with a wide smile.

“Hey Luara!”

She jumped a full foot in the air, considering what she was holding and what she was thinking about. “Holy crap, Nyle!”

He smiled nervously and held up his hands as she turned around. “Sorry. I just hadn't seen or talked to you in a while. Also, the others have gone dark, too. Isn't that a bit weird?”

“Yeah, yeah... It's whatever.” She waved her hand dismissively, then glanced at him scrutinizingly. He was surrounded by higher-level players, mostly women.
“Who are they?”

“Oh... Well, I met a lot of nice guys that wanted to join me and quest. We did that for a while, but then I got to know their girlfriends and one thing led to another.” The lithe Elf shrugged innocently. Luara stared at him blankly, triggering a sudden realization in Nyle.
“It's not like that! They're friends.”

“Right.” Laura nodded. The three girls exchanged a knowing look.
“So wait, you just have a roster of High Level players you can cycle through to join groups with you? What level are you?”

“Never mind that. Yeah, it turns out I'm really good at networking from my job so I've got all these different groups and guilds that I run with.”

There was a pause. Laura cocked her head to one side. “Do you think they'd be interested in helping me out?”

“What do you think, girls?” Nyle asked.

-

“What're we lookin' for out here, honey?” Maylene, a blonde paladin that sounded like a southern bell asked. Luara decided she would make a fantastic cow with that accent, whether it was real or not.

“Sorry. Should've told you. My old party got ambushed by a goblin hunting group. We just got really unlucky. Seeing if I can find them again to get our stuff back.” She explained. It was a lie, but there was enough truth and logic to what she was saying that none of them questioned her on it. Not Maylene, the traditional Paladin. Not Arka, the dark-haired Eastern mage. Liddy, the Elven healer, was apparently alt tabbed through some third party program, and was only half paying attention. Luara did not blame any of them. They were far too high level for a Goblin hunt.

With all of the factors considered, Luara had it all figured out for when the group got spotted by a familiar hunting party out in the woods. It was dark, but the Paladin's light lit them up, as well as the enemies making the threat very slight.

“These are the ones, maybe?” Maylene asked, placing her shield in front of her.

“We'll see...” Luara had it figured out to the point that she was already acting. The mask was on and the  Paladin was facing forward. She was a rogue, the perfect build to pull off something like what she was attempting, even on higher level players. When the Goblins fully occupied the Paladin, that was her cue to slip up to the mage.

She blinked. “I'm good, I don't need guard-d-d...” She began to say politely before losing control of her character mid cast. Luara had to risk it to make sure she was in full sight of the Goblins so that they would know. She had purchased a mind spike through some of her channels. They were popular, simple implements, but deceptively hard to find through legitimate means and especially hard to use correctly. The mage, Arka, buckled and fell backwards with her eyes wide at the ad-hoc lobotomization. Luara stared down in satisfaction, seeing that the character remained alive but all mental stats and all the derived coordination values had likely hit as close to 0 as they could. The Mage trailed off and began to drool as her folded over body splayed out on the ground.

The Goblins noticed her, but so had the healer. She calculated for this, however. The woman was above to offer her full attention, but Luara prayed that she would make a subtle miscalculation so she did not have to move to the next stage of her plan.
“What the hell?” She cast a spell on Arka. Luara grinned and fist-pumped internally. It was not going to be common knowledge that the status effect was unable to be healed with the spike still lodged in the characters head. Arka twitched a little, but that was it. If Liddy had used the precious second to do anything other than that, Luara and the Goblins could be in trouble, but she managed to slip behind her as the goblins came around. She gasped as her arms were suddenly being held behind her back.

“H-help!” Liddy begged.
“They got me!”

“What?” Maylene turned to see Arka down and being set upon. Goblins had mounted her body. One on her face began humping into her mouth until he was hard, then once he was the devious creature just fully started fucking it as the trapped girl could only watch and experience what was happening without moving. Mage was one of the strongest classes in the game, but not when one could not speak or move. Luara found it very satisfying to see. A second goblin moved between her thighs and lifted them to thrust into her waiting cunt. It was not part of her plan, but it was favorable that Maylene was extremely shaken by the sight. It was to the point that when she looked over, all she saw was Liddy being held by a nameless, masked character that was obscured.

It was the Paladin's mistake to turn and allow a Goblin to jump up and thump her across the head, then another. Then more gripping her legs. The little creatures relentlessly attacked the powerful armored character until she was brought down and pacified.

“H-hey, what is this?” Liddy struggled but there was no way for the girl to escape as Goblins took over for Luara in holding her down. A familiar Goblin sauntered  into the forefront and circled her as she stepped back. She dropped to her knees submissively and bowed her head. He lifted her mask, as if that would provide him any information at all. Luara did not flinch and freely allowed him. To her surprise he offered a grunt of recognition and began ignoring her as the group knocked the healer out and began dragging all of the girls back. He left as well.

“W-wait!” she begged.

The shaman looked back and motioned for her to follow. Along the way the unconscious Paladin had a spell cast on her that moved her body like a marionette. It was the type of spell that could only really work ona n unconscious character but Luara remarked that if they could keep them unconscious or unaware it was probably perfect. She got excited as the Shaman mounted his new pet and continued like that the rest of the way. Each new step of the way a new piece of armor or equipment was sheared away and added to the loot that would be taken back. It was a horrible fate in a game. Not only does the character die or get held over, but all of the items they worked for were going to an NPC's loot coffer. Luara could not get any more aroused.

It was not perfect. Their players would probably have left the game at this point and were already complaining about the event on the forums. Hopefully they will not have seen her, and assume her fate to be the same. She smiled. Normally a players body would leave the game when they logged off, except in two. A restrained character can not leave the game and neither can one affected by an impairment. This was to prevent egregious combat logging. It was still possible but nothing was going to save someone sent to in game prison, or someone that was poisoned.

Luara was happy to be allowed to walk freely beside the goblins, but she also felt a bit sad that she was not being restrained like the others. The bright side was of course that she was going to be treated first hand to what the goblins had in store for characters in the long term.