Fenris is moved by something to play chess by himself.

The Cloning Machine is standing a few feet away. A perk of being a scientist.

Felix is similarly moved towards the Cloning Machine where he starts the process of creating a clone of himself.

Then he blinks and... with a sudden sharpness in his mind he wonders why the hell is he doing that? He turns around and tries to... figure out how to turn the machine off. Maybe if he tries to damage it?

He tries kicking it.

Fenris pauses in moving a pawn.

"Why...?"

He doesn't have time to finish the question.

The machine explodes and there are sparks, and smokes, and a third person in the room.

"Uh."

"Mhm... what did I do that for?"

"Don't ask me? Hey, do you know why?"

"No..." He looks around. "And why did we move here?"

They exchange looks.

"I... uh-"

"Well, it looks like no one knows. At least no one here. Fun."

Fenris looks down at the chess piece still in his hand. He puts it down.

"I remember... things? From, before... here. But they are weird."

"Vague? Like... I don't know, this is weird."

"Well, to me, this is the normal."

Right about then, there is a knock on their door.

"Let's go see who it is?"

They do. Fenris opens the door...

And there is a small group of people standing in front of their door.

"Welcome, neighbours!" says the lady at the head of the group, flashing a fanged grin. "It's so nice to meet you!"

        She's carrying a tray filled with what looks to be a fruit salad of some kind, and a couple of the others have trays with food themselves. "We brought regular food in case you're not vampires," one of them says, causing the others to chuckle.

    "We also have vegetarian things!" says a third, even though presumably the fruit salad is vegetarian.

Fenris looks down at the salad and then back at the fangs. He starts moving to close the door...

"Don't be rude," Felix says reflectively, stopping the door from closing. "Thank you."

"Did you just say vampires?"

"Of course!" says the one who mentioned it originally.

    "I'm a vampire," admits the first one. "Did you know vampires don't need to drink from other people? It's true! My salad is a plasma fruit salad."

"Oh, that must be cool!"

Felix and Fenris give the third one a look.

"Uh, thanks for the food?" He says, unsure of what else to do and going for... the polite (?) thing to do.

Fenris reaches for it. "I don't think we knew about plasma fruit."

"Plasma fruit is great! You can just plant it in your backyard and then you don't need to drink blood anymore."

"I think... there was a celebrity vampire going around talking about it? And doing vampire activism?"

He can't recall the exact details, but there is a fuzzy sense of interviews on the topic.

"Maybe that is why we moved in. Anyway, do you guys want to come in?"

"We would love to!" says person #2, and then without further ado they make their way inside.

    "If you saw an interview with a vampire it was probably Caleb Vatore. He lives here too!" says the vampire lady.

Okay, they are doing this. Fenris goes to put the food away.

"Oh," that makes sense? What is even 'sense' anymore? "That sounds right. Sorry, we just got here and are just getting acclimated to things."

"Like me starting to existing a few minutes ago. Also, we are all collectively confused about why we just moved here."

"What do you mean?" says the fourth person, they only one who hasn't spoken so far.

"He cloned himself," he points between Felix and himself. "And our memories from before that are weird."

"How curious."

    "So you're a Scientist?" asks vampire lady. "I have heard exciting things about them! My name's Angela Beryl, by the way."

        "I'm Josh Norton," says welcomer #4.

            "Kayla Real," says welcomer #3.

"My name is Alex Poel," says the last one.

"I am... yes. Are weird memories a common problem here?"

"I am Thunder Bright, thanks for asking, unlike Fenris and Felix here."

Felix opens his mouth. Then closes it. "Are weird memories a common problem here?"

"I can't say I remember anything like that," says Angela, and laughs at her own joke.

        "Vampires can do mind control," adds Alex.

Angela looks somewhat irritated by that. "Only rude vampires do it."

"...That doesn't sound right," Felix mutters, not commenting on the joke.

"I wish I had the life experience to compare."

Fenris quietly agrees with Felix here. But he doesn't know. It's just... his mind feels sharp. Or maybe the past feels... dull.

"Do vampires alter memories?"

"Only rude vampires do it," Angela says. "And it's illegal," she adds.

"That wasn't my question."

"What was your question?"

"Can Vampires alter memories?"

"Only rude vampires do it," she says for the third time. "And it's illegal," for the second.

"You already said that," Thunder sing-songs.

"He is not accusing you or vampires in general."

She nods, then starts looking around their place in curiosity.

It's a not-too-big but relatively nice house, the living room has a couch, a tv, and a bookshelf.

"You... didn't answer the question."

She turns around to look at him again. "What was the question?"

"The one about altering memories?"

Angela frowns and folds her arms. "You've already asked me this question."

"You didn't answer it properly!"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"Maybe she doesn't want to admit that vampires can alter memories? Though, I don't think this is what happened?"

Fenris makes a face. "I know... it's just... her phrasing was weird? And she kept repeating the same answer."

"I'm right here, you know," she huffs.

"I am sorry. We shouldn't burden you with your problems. Maybe you could come back another time?"

"Or tells us how to revert vampire confusion?"

"It goes away on its own after a while."

    "We can come back later," agrees Alex. "It's been lovely, thank you for having us, and welcome to the neighborhood again!"

Then without waiting for anything else or saying another word the four of them just... leave.

"That... that was weird, right?"

"Welcome to my life."

"I guess we should figure out more about vampires?"

"One of us read about them. One checks the internet. One... watches TV?"

"I call dibs on the TV."

Thunder can find the channel guide next to their TV.

Their bookshelf is already populated with a handful of books—mostly fiction, although it does also contain an introductory book about painting and another about playing chess—but they share the vague memory that it is possible for them to acquire more books without having to physically go somewhere to get them. It feels like it should be... pretty intuitive to do. Almost a primitive action.

And as for the computer research, they can use Siimgle or Go Go Duck or Bang in order to start their searches into the topic.

Thunder searches for interviews with vampires.

Felix... tries the intuitive book-getting action.

And Fenris types "Vampire abilities" on Siimgle.

The TV channels are not so helpful. They have names instead, such as Network of Cartoons or Raccoon TV or XYZ or The WC or Lickenodeon. Fortunately, Thunder does seem to come equipped with pre-installed memories about the sorts of contents those channels might have!

Felix's intuitive book-getting action fails! Maybe he can use his phone?

And finally, Fenris's search is the most useful one, probably: he very quickly finds a Simpedia page about vampirism that seems to also be one of the current Hot Pages on the website's front page.

What does it say about vampire mind control?

This is fun, but maybe he should actually figure out something useful if he doesn't find any vampire-related content.

Okay, he will try that. It's weird that thing didn't work, but he will try that.

The header of the page mentions that active research on the subject of vampires is ongoing, and most citations seem to be pretty recent. There is a section on known powers, which goes into some detail about how turning into a vampire halts aging and starts a process of atrophying most other biological processes. The subsection on mind powers is relatively sparser, though, and it mentions that these more than any other vampire power can vary dramatically between individuals, so it's very hard to study. There have been claims of powers such as behavioural compulsions, hypnosis, emotional control, memory alteration, memory erasure, and memory creation, but not all of those have been demonstrated in experimental conditions. And more relevantly, every form of mind control or alteration that has been demonstrated in a lab could be resisted or reversed.

Thunder has, unfortunately, very little luck with interviews. However, Raccoon News is showing a section on how awful vampires are and how they want to take over the world and turn everyone into them and also they're ugly.

As for Felix, he can in fact very easily find a bookstore app with a large catalog. It even includes books about vampires, although most of them are pop science with sensationalist titles. A couple of them are anthologies of scientific papers, however.

Felix orders one of the non-sensationalist anthologies.

Well, if they can do the kind of thing the three just experienced, then Thunder can kind of get it, but the sensationalism is pretty suspicious.

Also, they are not all ugly. Kind of the opposite in some cases, and the fangs are hot.

Interesting, Fenris searches for "vampire memory recovery" next, then just "memory recovery."

Felix's bookshelf now has the anthology!

The Raccoon News commentator sounds weird in the same way those visitors sound weird—she says random sentences that are all related to the topic, but they don't form a whole coherent narrative and don't seem to be logically connected otherwise. After a few minutes of this, she starts talking about one specific high-profile vampire—yep, you guessed it, Caleb Vatore—and the way he seems to be all over everywhere relevant nowadays. Not only is he a "vampirist", he's also a public proponent of the recent "free bodies movement", and has also held protests about that, a couple of which even included some spontaneous public orgies. Here's the uncensored footage taken by one of the participants on their phone.

Fenris can find some kooky articles about that, but his best bets are probably the same papers that got cited earlier on the Simpedia page. The papers go on in detail about their methodology, but if he keeps to the Abstracts to be quicker about it it seems like mere introspection is enough to identify the ways vampire powers have affected you and to throw it off. The issue is that the effects can be made so subtle the subject doesn't even consider introspecting on said effects. Also, memory alteration is one of the powers that has not been independently confirmed by a rigorous laboratorial study.

Okay, maybe this is more interesting than he thought. And they definitely should make friends with the guy. Thunder watches the footage closely. How fascinating.

Felix feels weird over having to relearn this basic and pretty normal sort of action. But... anyway, he checks the relevant book and starts reading.

Well, this does not make Fenris feel less paranoid, but sure. Maybe they can do the instrospection thing. Is there any particular method to it, or just paying attention to one's mind should be enough?

The footage, low-quality and taken from a phone, does indeed show a rally, one in which... the majority of people are naked. Or various levels of naked, there's actually a ton of variation. Caleb himself is giving a speech, and he's wearing Galce & Dobanna sunglasses, an extremely expensive-looking faux-fur scarf, a faux-leather belt with a golden buckle, and ridiculously fancy designer shoes. He is otherwise nude, but somehow manages to look more richly appointed than anyone else there, even in the low resolution. Also, he sounds like an actual person and his sentences have actual logical coherence. Not that anyone remarks on this.

Felix's new book is indeed an anthology of scientific papers! This specific book is covering a slightly different subset of papers than the ones Fenris has run into, but the content is very similar—replication and all that.

As for how to resist vampire powers, it seems to suffice to pay attention to the fact that it's happening and to actively want it to not happen and focus on one's own emotions and thoughts. This seems to work in all cases when it comes to straightforward suggestions, although a couple of volunteer ancient vampires seem to be good enough at this that it takes rather a lot of mental effort to throw them off.

Okay, that does turn out to be more informative than expected.

"Guys, check this out."

"Yes... and what are you watching?"

Fenris goes to stand in front of the TV. "Huh."

The bit the news show shows is short, and focuses on Caleb talking about how society needs to abandon the traps of tradition and move forward, as well as how the status quo is holding everyone back. He admits that this is related to how he's a vampirist and he believes that the long history of this world of treating anything occult as, well, occult has done it more harm than good. But he believes in almost full generality that holding onto the status quo for itself and not questioning it is keeping humanity (et al.) from reaching its full potential.

That's when the video is cut short, and the news commentators say vaguely-related sentences such as "He wants to destroy our society's values!" and "Vampires just want to take over everywhere." and "I thought vampires couldn't be out in the sun!"

"Caleb is not wrong."

"The way he talked made sense too? It's like everyone else can't string more than two sentences together."

"Maybe we could try to reach him?"

"Maybe, maybe one of us does that and the others continue the research if that is productive?" He looks down at his clothes.

He spins around... and the clothes are still there. He tries it again.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to get naked, but it's suddenly hard for some reason?"

"Suddenly into the free bodies movement?"

"I don't think clothes are more comfortable than not-clothes."

Felix looks up and down. "Huh... the shirt and the pants. I think we could remove them by pulling them up and down, respectively?"

"It's not urgent, but we will need to take a shower eventually."

Maybe if he is on the floor, he can do that himself? He tries that.

Felix will help.

So will Thunder. And between the three of them, they soon acquire a naked triplet.

"We look good."

Fenris sits on the floor, naked. "In fact we do. We should remove your clothes too, then?"

They proceed to do that. During the process, they share their findings.

"Well, I volunteer to go meet this Caleb guy then. You two can keep doing your reading."

"Are we sure it wouldn't be better to go together? Strength in numbers?"

They are all sitting cross-legged on the living room floor.

"Possibly, the sites say that you can resist the effects of vampire powers."

"It sounds better if there is someone to call the police if something does happen."

"Well, two could go and one stays? Then that one can call the police if the others take too long."

"I was thinking of all three going, so if two are attacked, there is still a third one to make calls. But that works."

"Well, I definitely want to meet the hot naked friendly vampire. Who is with me?"

"I will go, Felix stays."

"I will go, Fenris stays." Said nearly at the same time.

"Ugh. I don't think the guy is dangerous just because he is a vampire? His whole movement is about that and, honestly, I don't think he needs to trick people to get away with it. So the three of us should go."

"Fine by me then."

Sigh. "Works." He stands up. "Let's go. Do you know where the house is?"

"I think I can recognize it."

Out the door they go, looking for the famous vampire neighbor.

Forgotten Hollow is a reasonably small town, and it's easy to find the Vatore manor, especially with how Caleb's address is not exactly a secret. The mansion is by the park, all the way across it from the cemetery, and while it does cut a somewhat imposing figure against the landscape, it's nowhere near as terrifying as the abode of the most famous vampire around should have been.

Felix thinks that it could use some more vivid colors, but no judgement. He rings the doorbell.

The door is answered shortly by a young man with short hair, a warm smile, and the muscles of someone who goes swimming often. The only things he is wearing are a pair of silver earrings and a long silver chain around his neck.

"Oh, hello. How can I help you?"

"Hello, can we talk with Caleb?"

They are still naked, except both Felix and Thunder have watches.

"It's about vampires." Fenris adds.

"Well, maybe it can be more than about vampires?" Thunder says, looking down at the mighty fine body.

The man raises a slow eyebrow at Thunder. "Maybe it can. Do I know you? I feel like I know you." He snaps his fingers a couple of times then says, "Oh, right! I've seen you at FutureSims, haven't I?" This is directed at Fenris specifically.

"That sounds right, though, I don't think we really know each other."

"You definitely don't know me, but I don't mind if we change that. I am Thunder, these are Fenris and Felix."

"It's a pleasure meeting you."

"No, we don't. I, ah, am kind of the owner," he says with a sheepish grin. "Anyway, come in, come in, give me a moment and I'll get Caleb for you."

"Thank you." There is presumably some space to sit?

Indeed!

The front door opens directly to a flight of double stairs. "I'm Red, by the way," the man says as he climbs those stairs, two steps at a time. To the right of the stairs is a small foyer with minimalistic deocorations.

To the left is what's presumably the living room, with sofas and a pipe organ and a chess table and a bookshelf.

And also, a person who looks identical to the one who greeted them except for how he has golden earrings and necklace is sitting on the sofa, one leg crossed over the other, reading a book.

He looks up when the three walk in and smiles warmly at them. "Welcome, welcome!" he says, scooting over to the side and closing his book. "Make yourselves at home."

Thunder plops himself next to golden earrings. "Thank you! I am Thunder, these are Fenris and Felix. So, are you twins? Clones? Twin clones?"

"Thank you so much for having us over," Felix says, taking a seat.

"...huh," he says, after a pause. "Clones," he replies. "I'm the original, name's Cor. But you... are not spellcasters. So did you..."

"Cloning machine. I used it on myself... I don't know why."

"Well, I am not complaining."

"Me and Felix are twins, Thunder is Felix's clone," Fenris clarifies. "The cloning machine was mine."

"—well, then."

Red appears behind the sofa by Cor in a flash of pink light and places both hands on Cor's shoulders. "So?"

"They're people!" Cor says excitedly.

And Caleb Vatore—looking exactly just as tall and pale and languid as in the video, if a little bit more naked—doesn't teleport, but he's sprinted through the door so fast it was almost like he did.

"Hello, I heard you wanted to chat," he says, non-sequiturially enough.

They jump a little at the two sudden appearances. "We do," Fenris tells Caleb, "And we are people, yes?" he says, in the direction of Cor and Red.

"Hi..." Felix says meekly. "We had a confusing afternoon and would like help getting less confused, if that is not imposing too much."

"Long story short, most people aren't really people, they just act sort of like... not even robots." Shrug. "Like video-game NPCs. And then it seems like sometimes some of them kind of... spontaneously wake up."

"Are you kidding?"

"It makes sense, actually. From the TV, the people there just were odd."

"That can't be true... we have family. They love us... we love them."

"Do you have... actual family or only the vague memory of having a family? It's a genuine question, so far the only examples we have of people spontaneously waking up are, uh, him," tap on Cor's head, "and you guys. And he—we—don't have any real memories of any family members."

"It's like I spontaneously appeared one day with fully formed but vague memories of having been raised and having had a family except I can't recall their names or faces and I don't have them as contacts on my phone or anything."

"Oh, I am so sorry to hear that. We, or at least I, do remember their faces and names?" He checks his phone for their contacts.

"Our parents are Easter and Nathaniel, our grandparents are Jonas and Jocasta... I don't remember our father's parents. And we had an uncle Ernest before we were born."

"...well. If you want to run an easy test, you could call one of them and... try to hold a conversation?"

"Okay, I will do that."

"What exactly does it mean that they are not people? Like, everyone is sort of weird, but I am not sure how to describe it."

"They don't act like there's anyone in there. They don't really remember things, or make any logical inferences, or try to figure out where the conversations are going. You can just say random stuff and they'll react to it as if it's normal."

"And they kind of act like... the way they think about everyone else is just a number. If they really like you, you can punch them in the nose and they'll be slightly mad at the time but then act like nothing happened, because you're still in the positives."

"That is... huh, do you have any idea why?"

Felix is getting more and more distressed hearing this.

"That's just... how people are. Have always been, as far as we can tell."

Felix's call connects.

"Hello?" says the familiar voice on the other side of the line.

"Hello! Mom, are you alright?" Felix asks, relieved. She is real.

"I'm wonderful! How are you?" his mom asks casually.

"I am... something weird happened and our memories are sharper..."

"Don't forget to mention me."

"And I cloned myself."

"Oh dear! That sounds worrying. How are you feeling about that?"

"I am... fine? I just... I am checking on you. See if your mind is normal?"

Felix is out of his depth here.

"I feel fine, thank you, dear. No illness to speak of."

"Yes... but, do... I love you, mom."

"I love you too, dear. Send your brothers my love."

"Okay... but. How... are you feeling about Thunder?"

"I haven't seen him in a while, the three of you should visit!"

"You... you never met Thunder."

"Well, then I would love to meet him. Why don't you bring him over for dinner sometime?"

"You... please, take a moment to think."

"...yes, dear? About what?"

"About..." Felix is not sure how to complete that. "Anything? Your emotions?" Felix is getting teary-eyed.

"I'm feeling just fine, dear. Are you alright? You sound sad."

"End the call, I think that is enough."

"I love you, bye."

"Bye, dear! Don't forget to visit!"

Felix disconnects.

The clones' faces have grown almost just as tense and upset as Felix's over the conversation.

"So before you all get sadder it is possible to turn NPCs into people," says Caleb, trying to cheer them up.

He stands up and wedges himself where Fenris is sitting to snuggle up.

"How?"

"The way that seems to reliably work is convincing them to live with you," says the clone, patting Cor's shoulder.

"These two," explains Caleb, "invited me to live with them in their tiny, ugly, dingy apartment—"

"Hey!"

"—and the moment I accepted I woke up and immediately got them to move in with me because for shame."

Blink. "Is that really all it takes?"

"Reality is fucked. Like, it is obvious, but I want to openly acknowledge it."

"Is there a risk of going back to that state?"

"We haven't heard of it but it would explain some things if it were possible."

"If you move in with your parents it also works," adds Cor. "When Caleb was technically living with us his sister was still an NPC, but as soon as we came here she also woke up."

"To my eternal chagrin."

    "I heard that!" calls a voice from upstairs.

"Love you!" calls Caleb back.

"Okay. I think we can do that rather easily."

Fenris makes a face. "It's only the four of you? Or have you 'woken' more people up?"

"Just one, Lilith's girlfriend Morgan, but she moved back to her place after becoming a person to acclimate."

"And it happened to that asshole Count Straus, who is in fact a vampire but keeps pretending he's not and going against everything I've been working for—"

"Before you wake your parents," interrupts Red, "you do need to think about—whether they'd want you to do it. It's not all upside, and the world could... be better."

"Did Count Straus wake up on his own too? And I guess we do need to fix things, but I don't see why that is a reason to keep people... as not people." He makes a face.

Felix buries his face on Fenris' shoulder (who pats him).

"Well..." Thunder says to Fenris. "I guess they don't suffer as much when 'sleeping'? Or Are there other reasons?"

"No, that's pretty much it. People... die. And, you know, getting them back from the dead is doable, but it seems altogether easier to only turn them into people once we have scalable solutions to mortality and all that."

"And vampirism is a good one at that, which is part of why I've been trying to get vampires more accepted."

"I think I was trying to work on that? Or at least... dunno, it doesn't sound like a new resolution. But, I guess it's not a bad approach."

"Wouldn't it be easier to convince them if they are woken up and able to help?"

"Maybe! But as far as we know it's irreversible and having the looming threat of death in the horizon does not help."

Caleb vampire-runs to an unoccupied seat.

"Also most people are, not to put too fine a point on it, crap. Being... like this... there's..."

"So there's the other thing which is that it looks like the universe changes to uh. Help us."

"I never founded the free bodies movement, it just kind of started existing at around the same time I decided that since everyone isn't people I don't need to bother wearing clothes anymore. It was suspicious."

"And once I started being public about being a vampire and all that there were a lot of other people doing the same. People who... I had never heard of. Who probably didn't exist before."

"If becoming a person like us means that the world starts listening to your opinions about how it should be shaped, then..."

"Well, I am definitely in favor of immortality and not a fan of clothing. I don't even think it matters that there are people around or not? And I guess people should be... better in general. Help others. Or just help themselves in pro-social ways."

"You could start the Forever Nude movement, which combines immortality and nudism."

"And people... are not really that bad?" Felix says to Caleb's comment. "Especially if the problem here is them not actually... being people. Clearly, they can't think the right way to be good in the state they are."

"That'd be all well and good except Count Straus is a person and is still an evil bastard."

"Our point was more that if the universe listens to what people think to decide what to be then at least the first few people to exist should be... good. To shape it for the next people."

"And, again, being a person is not all roses. Let's see, you are now very conscious about how your tongue is in your mouth, and also you're breathing manually, and you can feel your face. Oh and on a more real matter you might be thirsty, which is really not something you had before. And wait until you sleep for the first time."

They make faces as Cor says this. "Well, now I am really aware of those things, thanks."

"What happens when you sleep? And what is the Count doing? Attacking people and escaping the consequences?"

"Your back hurts," shrugs Cor.

"The Count considers himself to be a defensor of the traditions, including, yes, attacking people with impunity. He pretends he's not a vampire and goes on talk shows with Raccoon News and the like to denounce the evils of vampirism. He wants vampires to be secret again and to keep eating people with no consequence. Also he's our bloody neighbour, you can see his house from the window over there," he says, hiking a thumb in the direction of the foyer.

"Are you sure he is fully awake? That is just crazy."

Fenris peers over the window. "Well, what are you going to do to stop him?"

"Thanks for making me aware of my back. Also, that we live in a two bedroom house."

"I'm going to fucking—"

"Try to convince the universe that his way of thinking is not so great," Red interrupts, again, "because we are against murdering sapient beings in this house."

Grumble grumble.

"And yes, pretty sure. He's the only person other than us, Morgan, and now you who can string sentences together like this and remember what we were saying five minutes ago."

"I am sorry the pacifists keep ruining your style."

"I know the unawake are weird, but I don't think it's okay to let Straus keeping attacking them? I mean, is there some non-murder way to stop him?"

"There are various magic containment options but we don't know whether they'd work and we don't know what kinds of other tricks he might have up his sleeve."

Frown. "What happens if you try to convince non-people that he is a vampire? Might not be the best way to deal with him..."

"You can convince people of it, but he'll still show up in Raccoon News anyway and there will still be a following of conservatives who think he's great. Possibly people who didn't exist until yesterday, even."

"Gosh, that people creating thing is sure very weird."

"Well, I think it's worth try to talk the universe into listening to our side more in that case. And maybe research ways to stop him. Which, I guess leads us back to our original reason to come here: asking about vampire abilities."

"...huh. Really?"

"Lilith would probably be interested in turning you guys."

    And just as he says that, a woman with a definitive family resemblance to Caleb shows up. Given how femme Caleb presents, the only real difference between them is that her hair is long and she has boobs and a vagina. Also, she is ripped. Where Caleb strikes the goth emo stringbean aesthetic she is definitely going for athletics. "Did anyone talk about turning people? Also hi, I'm Lilith, nice to officially meet you."

"Hi!" Fenris says surprised. "We actually came here to talk about vampire mind control, it was our only lead for the weirdness..."

"You're welcome to do a vampire sales pitch."

    She starts counting on her fingers. "You live forever, superspeed, super hearing, can turn into a bat, can turn into mist, there's a bunch of other superpowers you may or may not get over time..."

"You can't be a wizard, though," says Red, "if you're a vampire. No idea why, the Rite of Ascension just fails to work for them and they can't do any spells."

"And there's, you know, the need for blood-or-similar, out-of-the-box weakness to sunlight and garlic and wooden stakes—"

    "Hey, my sales pitch," Lilith complains. "How am I meant to make a sale if you keep talking about all the drawbacks?"

"Remember, Lilith, we want people to make an informed decision."

    "Well," she grumbles, and she sounds a lot like her brother when she does, "you can become immune to all of that. And besides, if you really don't like it, you can get back to being a regular boring human, I guess."

"I doubt the three of us would want to turn right away. But it might be useful. Maybe we could even each take a role and figure out how to combine our talents into a new state of being."

"We've been trying! It seems like a hard constraint for now, but who knows, maybe the three of you being genetically identical will help somehow."

"I guess I wouldn't mind copying myself more times too."

"One new relative at a time, please. But I guess we could have a spellcaster, a vampire and a standard human to be experimented on?"

"In the interest of full transparency, here—"

"You are far too nice for your own good."

"You don't even know what I'm about to say!"

"Do too."

"Harrumph. One vampire power that some vampires have is personality detection," he continues. "Vampires can use it to figure out general details about what kind of person someone is. Lilith here has it, and she used it on you guys when you arrived."

"And she was confused how Felix isn't followed around by rainbows and unicorns?"

"What... is that supposed to mean?"

    Lilith however cracks up at that. "Something like that, yes."

"You were asking about mind-related powers, this is one of them," explains Red. "And a damn useful one since it was clear as day that you guys were legit."

    "The three of you are nauseatingly nice," Lilith says, sticking her tongue out. "Exactly the kinds of people these goody-two-shoes would like."

"There's probably a lot more details we should go over about both spellcasters and vampires before you guys commit to anything."

"But spellcasting is straight-up an improvement over being a regular human, the literal only drawback is that if you do too much magic in a row it can backfire but even that can be mitigated with yet more magic."

"I am not nauseatingly nice, I am just young and innocent," Thunder says with a mock pout.

"Anyway... either of those options sounds good. And I guess we can help your causes regardless... I still want to check on our family..."

"Far be it from me to stop you but it will be pretty disturbing," Cor warns.

Snuggle. "We should wait to do that? I think it won't be any worse if we get ourselves more oriented."

"A sound plan."

"Any of you hungry? Actually I don't care about the answer, I'm about to show off one of the perks of being a wizard."

(The Vatore siblings roll their eyes in unison.)

Red ignores them and produces three bottles out of thin air. "Magic potions of making everything better, on the house," he says, offering the triplets the bottles.

"Make everything better?" Felix says, accepting two bottles and giving one to Fenris.

"Cheers!" Thunder doesn't wait for an answer and chugs his.

If Thunder was hungry, he is not anymore. If he was tired, he is not anymore. If he needed to go to the bathroom, he does not anymore. All of his body's physiological needs, from the most pressing to the most mundane, are just... gone. He's fine, probably better than he's felt since he started existing earlier this day.

"Ooooh, that is... great. In a bottle. It's like there is a party all over me and everyone is having a good time."

Felix sips.

"Wow."

"Red and I haven't slept in... years, at this point. And the potion also serves as a replacement for human blood or artificial plasma for vampires, too."

("You seemed to like it when I bit you.")

("Context matters, dear.")

Thunder bites his lips and stares at the fangs.

"This must free up so much time."

Caleb's grin widens and it's almost like he's showing the fangs off to Thunder.

"It really does," agrees Cor, pretending to ignore Caleb and Thunder. "If nothing else, the hours of sleep we don't need to worry about anymore..."

    "I still sleep," Lilith declares. "I have forever, I don't need to spend all my day going full speed ahead on whatever crazy project these two always have going on."

"Not crazy! All of our projects are perfectly sensible."

"And the faster we get there the more of a forever we get to enjoy."

Thunder is really reacting to those fangs.

"Are vampires, ghosts, and spellcasters all there is out there? I remember hazily of rumors of other things."

"We did have first contact with aliens a few years ago, and someone invented person-level AI recently, but as far as I know out of things humans can become that's the list."

(Cor has noticed Thunder's reaction and since they're sitting next to each other decides this is a good moment to start running a finger on Thunder's thigh.)

"I was thinking of things humans could turn into. But I guess talking to aliens could be useful? They must have technology or maybe their own magic to share. The other things I remember sounded like just wild stories, like, bigfoot and mermaids. Or people turning into humanoid plants after eating ice cream."

Well, running a finger on Thunder's thigh will cause a bigger reaction. And Thunder will bat his eyelashes at Cor.

"I guess we could make Servos and then recruit them to our movement, but I don't think that is much of an improvement over getting to know existing humans. Or existing aliens, and other beings."

"Oh man we'll need to have a whole conversation about what the world is actually like. Spoilers: the planet is not spherical."

Cor feels like this is sufficient invitation to wrap a hand around Thunder's dick.

Red slaps Cor's arm playfully and kisses the top of his head. "We're in the middle of a conversation, love."

"He's the one making faces at me," Cor says in a defensive tone. He also does not let go.

"Who? Me?" Thunder says with the least innocent smile possible. He does not do anything to move the hand away, and his cock is fully hard now.

"Do you two want to get a room—"

"Three! I'm joining them!"

"—do you three want to get a room," Red says with an eyeroll, "or are we tabling this discussion for after an orgy?"

"I like this idea."

"I think this discussion is more important," Fenris says, though he's sporting a semi.

Felix is too, and he looks down between his and his brother's semi-hard dicks. They are still cuddling and oddly enough, he feels unbothered by this. "Uh, is sex the same as before? Since apparently the world is not round anymore I can't be certain."

"The discussion can wait, four of us are already immortal and if the three of you somehow die between an orgy and us resuming the conversation we have reliable resurrection."

And while he starts stroking Thunder, he reaches behind himself with his free hand to grab Red's dick, which is already fully hard and had been poking him on the back. He licks a tiny drop of precum off it.

Red's grip on Cor's shoulders grows firmer but he says, "Sex is the same, yes, but feels much better. Perks of having awareness over your full body, I guess."

    "Don't mind me, I'll just be here on my phone playing Birdy Flap," says Lilith.

"You never join in anyway, you just like to watch."

    "It's yucky, thank you very much."

"It's my cloning day, what better way to celebrate it than with a spontaneous orgy!"

He reaches for Cor's dick, using his hand to explore it like a tactilely fascinating object... which it is. So smooth.

Fenris glares. "You can wait until we are a little better informed." His own dick is now quite hard, the traitor.

"Uh... I guess you and some of you could... busy yourselves? Though, I am not sure if I want you to have unsupervised sex."

"You both are welcome - encouraged - to watch."

"Cor and I have gone through some pains to not become very different people," says Red, "so having both of us here is redundant."

"And I'm useless," declares Lilith cheerfully.

"Useless?" Felix asks Lilith.

"You could show my sweet and pure, innocent self what to do as a preparation for the cloneday orgy?" Thunder offers.

"The clones and Caleb are the ones trying to change the world. I'm just along for the ride."

"But at least you have useful powers."

"My point was if any of you want to go to the play room downstairs with Cor I'm sure we can catch you up later."

"Ooh, am I designated slut of the day? Nice!"

"I am sure your day to be the designated slut will arrive soon," Thunder stage-whispers at Red.

"I thought you wanted to turn people into vampires?"

"May I ask what is in the play room?"

"Workout machines, computers, my video streaming station, and a sex toy cabinet."

"Sure, I do want to turn people into vampires," shrugs Lilith. "But I wanted that—before."

"Well... I want to help people since before too."

"Dude, I don't think she is suffering from a self-esteem problem," Thunder tells Felix. To Caleb: "That sounds like a great set up. Are you planning to stream the thing to FansOnly?"

"I'm not going to stream anything without participants' consent. Besides, most of my content is far too tame for FansOnly."

"Oh, I wouldn't mind being on FansOnly with you, don't worry. Anyway, I am curious to explore and be part of your content."

"Despite the similiarites, it's amazing how Thunder and Felix diverge," Fenris muses out lout. "Is it easier for the two of you to remain similar?"

"I was made by magic," shrugs Red, "so I was—literally identical to Cor at time of creation, except for how I was an NPC. But after that we just kind of..."

Shrug. "...really wanted to stay the same person?"

"Felix is lovely, but I like being myself. Thank you very much. And I am sure you two are lovely too." He pats Cor affectionally... on the dick.

It twitches.

"We didn't quite stay exactly identical, though, because Red went and started working at FutureSim while I was making money so he's gotten a bit more of a science background than me since."

"Also it turns out NPCs just know instinctively how to tell us apart. They track the relationships separately. But at least the relationships themselves got duplicated when I was made, I would have been pretty annoyed if I had to seduce this bitch," head gesture towards Caleb, "all over again."

"Oh puh-lease, you would have enjoyed it a lot."

"Cool, I get the benefit of all of Felix's hard work at being friends." He is stroking Cor's dick now, a fingertip playing with a drop of precum.

He twitches again, and offers Thunder a squeeze of his own.

"Can we please make a decision about who's gonna fuck whom here I am going to go insane."

"Well, I want to stay and discuss the important matters. Caleb and Thunder and one of either Cor or Red want to have sex. I am not sure Lilith wants to have the conversation, but she finds sex 'yucky'. I think the real question is which of the Tarletons should go and if Felix should follow too."

"She does like to watch, to be clear," offers Red.

"Clearly I'm the one going."

"I have superhearing and I can multitask."

"I... should stick around for the important conversation, but I don't want to leave Thunder unsupervised."

"Hey! I am as matured as you."

"I think Thunder will be fine on his own for... a while."

"Up we go then," says Cor, pulling Thunder to his feet by the dick. "Let the grownups have a conversation."

"Yessir," his dick doesn't get any softer under the circumstances.

"Now, back to the grownups' conversation. Which is, what is the planet is if not spherical?"

(Here's the side room with the stairs down to the play room.)

(The Vatore siblings follow along, one with superspeed and the other by becoming mist.)

And Red vaults over the back of the sofa to take Cor's seat.

"The world is a connection of non-continuous spaces." He grabs his wand from his inventory and starts waving it around to create a little holographic illusion to illustrate. Here's a little 3D model of Forgotten Hollow, which fades out into nothing at the edges. "Forgotten Hollow is one such space." And then another floating model of a village elsewhere. "As is Glimmerbrook." Now a tiny model of a walking Red appears in front of the model of the Vatore mansion and starts walking south in fast forward. "When you approach the edge in the right direction intending to go somewhere specific," and tiny Red disappears from the edge of the model of Forgotten Hollow and reappears on the Glimmerbrook model, "you get there, but there's no intervening space."

Thunder follows, the magical powers are so cool.

Blink. "I don't know why I was expecting something like, the world is flat, I guess I am still foolishly clinging to the notion it might make sense?"

"Is this like... teleportation or something? Does time pass at all between the two points? Does the direction you leave in matter at all, for the direction you arrive in at the other place?"

"Direction does matter, yeah, to some extent," and now the two models shrink down and many others (which the Brights might recognise as other towns or cities they have been to or heard of, including the town their grandparents live in) appear, in specific directions from each other and with specific distances. "There seems to be a standard direction most of these places are from each other, and time does pass when you cross the thresholds, but you go less-than-NPC when you do it because you don't even keep the memories of crossing the distance."

"Yikes. Filming or recordings still work? Hunger or need for sleep still move on?"

"We experimented with that actually! If you try carrying a phone with you or something and filming your walk, the film cuts just after the threshold. However—" And right then a little basketball-sized and—shaped floating robot with a smiley on its screen and a small camera on its forehead emerges from downstairs to float around the living room. "Yes, Caleb, thank you for the prop," Red calls as he dismisses his illusory model of places.

"Drones still work?" Fenris completes the thought.

"They don't, actually! They vanish for a while and then emerge on the other side without having recorded anything. That's what makes us think there is probably nothing between places. If there is something, it's not something we've been able to get to at all. Trying to teleport anywhere beyond the thresholds that's not some specific place also fails."

Fenris makes a face.

"The same is true of NPCs? ...I guess they can't be trusted. Do you have some estimate of how big is the not-planet?"

"The number of places that exist is minuscule and probably doesn't cover everywhere that can exist. Especially with how entirely new people seem to be created, it should probably be possible for new places to be created too. ...Count Straud is meant to have founded this town but he is, as we've mentioned, evil, so we have not been able to get anywhere with him."

Nod. "His situation is probably more urgent. Which, what exactly is the situation with him as far you know?"

"The official history is that he is the great-grandson of Count Vladislaus Straud I, who was part of a 25-person party that founded Forgotten Hollow many years ago and then all died in mysterious circumstances that the original Count was too distraught to recount to anyone. Now Count Vladislaus Straud IV lives in the creepy mansion and is a vocal activist against vampire rights."

Caleb zooms back into the room, with a boner, and says, "'Vampires need to get back to their crypts'," with a scoff before disappearing again.

"That's something he likes to say," agrees Red. "Now, Caleb and Lilith's memories are that they got turned by him and one of his offspring over eighty years ago because he wanted their family's wealth to stay in this town and thought offering them promises of power and immortality would seduce them, but he didn't count on the two of them being fucking decent people so they instead moved the hell away from here. Then they came back a few years ago to try to make Forgotten Hollow less of Straud's personal sandbox where he feels like he can do whatever he wants, and soon after that I met them. ...Cor met them."

"I guess I would read that book. And I guess because... of the way the world is there are no more characters to the vampires in that story. No more children by Lilith or Straud' spawns."

"Correct."

"How long ago did he turn PC? And how hard is it to turn people into vampires? He might have created 'spawns' since."

"We're not really sure. It was probably after we got Caleb and Lilith, but we don't know how soon after. And yeah, he might've, but unless they moved in with him they're still NPCs. It's not very hard."

"I guess it depends on how hard it is to command them. But I am concerned that he is a malicious agent with a lot of power and far smarter than most people around him."

"He might be smarter but not necessarily strategic or willing to... dunno, have a secret vampire army in Selvadorada."

"...honestly, I wouldn't entirely put it past him, but you can only give other people commands sort of one at a time as far as we know. Then again, if anyone could give mass orders like that it'd be him."

They both make a face.

"That sounds like recruiting should be a higher priority to us, but let's not get ahead of ourselves." He thinks. "What are the periods between you waking up, the Count, and ours?"

"Cor was a person for years, I think it got to five or maybe six? Before we managed to make me a person. Then we got Caleb a few days later by asking him to move in with us and as soon as he woke up he said, and I quote—"

Actually here's Caleb again to quote himself. "'What the fuck got into me, why would I move into this dingy, minuscule apartment rather than get you two to move in with me'."

And back to the orgy.

"—yes, that. No idea about the Count, though, our main clue that he's a person is how personlike he sounds on Raccoon News interviews and speeches around here and how hard it has been to convince other people of things with him around. But Caleb and I have been people for a bit over a year now."

"Thanks," Fenris says, where Caleb was. "That is too few people to know if there is a pattern, but it sounds somewhat contagious."

"Five years... alone?" Felix is screaming internally, trying to imagine.

"Oh, however bad you think it was, I assure you, it was worse," Red says cheerfully. "Cor had numerous mental breakdowns over it. He's doing better now, though."

Felix nods. "And you...? Are you alright as well?"

Red laughs, but it's a little bit bitter. "Now I am, but thank you for asking. It started a little rough, there was a slight problem with the cloning spell as it was, I was dead for a while, but I got better."

"We are glad you both managed to pull through. Also, Felix is going to give you both a lot of hugs."

"I'm not going to say no but we're really fine, it's been a year. Also, fun fact, ghosts need to concentrate to interact with solid things properly, and orgasms are terrible for concentration."

Felix will just let his jaw drop for a moment. "Okay. Since you... say so, but still..."

He stands up and makes his way towards Red's couch.

Red pats the seat next to him.

"Being a ghost feels very weird. You don't get hungry, or tired, or sore, but it also feels like you can't properly relax. A nice bubble bath just doesn't really feel like anything. Also ghosts can't cast spells, that was a big one that made me want to come back."

Felix snuggles, resting Red's head on his shoulder protectively.