The Technology of Narration · 10:01pm Jun 13th, 2020
Once more, I greet you, my dear readers, in one of my rare (and hopefully curious) blogposts. This once I shall tell you about a fascinating piece of technology, but first - a story.
Once upon a time in a kingdom on the edge of the world lived a knight. Skyguard was his house name. He was noble and chivalrous, and made his house proud during his training years. He proved to be a gifted warrior and quickly grasped everything his instructors had to teach him, but alas, his horseriding skills could be better. One cannot be good at everything, I suppose.
On one fateful day, the young knight came to his liege and asked him for a mission. A glorious and noble quest to prove himself to every other knight in the kingdom. Lord Oren, inquisitive as he was, saw an opportunity the adventurous warrior presented him. There indeed was a quest for which the knight asked, for in the distant kingdom always was a trouble to deal with.
Lord Oren told the young knight of a blue-scaled dragon that made lair in Oren's own hunting woods and only had to accept the vow to slay the beast from the upstart knight.
The brave warrior quickly made his way on foot to the specified forest and immediately discovered that something wasn't right with the woods. The game was abundant and the birds chirped, no, it was something else. The knight unexpectedly discovered a chest on his way through the forest. It was locked, but the lock swiftly gave way to his armored kick. Inside was a single silver key. The discovery perplexed the knight, for there was no other chests he could see, so he elected to move forth instead. But this was barely a first taste of the forest's curiositites. The knight indeed find a dragon, a pair of them in fact. The beasts both had red coloring to their scales, these were not the dragons he intended to hunt. The dragons did not attack him and his liege made no mention of other dragons in the forest, following the laws of Chivalry, the knight hailed the larger beast. He wasn't sure if the creature could speak and it didn't at first, but on his second attempt it did respond to his greeting. "What do you want?" the red dragon asked.
"I seek a blue-scaled dragon that lives north from here," the knight explained himself. "Do you know how can I find its lair?"
Amazingly, the beast showed no sign of irritation at the request,
"My assistant will help you," it said. The word the dragon choose perplexed the knight, but he thanked the large dragon for its service and addressed the lesser one: "Can you help me find the blue-dragon's lair?" the knight asked.
"Yes," the smaller dragon responded. Unexpectedly, the creature raised its head to the sky and roared.
"What did you do?" the knight immediately asked.
"I summoned the storm," the dragon routinely responded. The knight was confused as on what to think, but he still thanked the dragon and went further north.
Soon, he indeed feel the approaching storm. The wind pushed him in the back, aiding his speed, but the most bizarre effect the storm produced is that it created a trail for him to follow. The wind blowing at him somehow spread the scent, the knight realized was his own (his armor did tend to run hot.) Somehow, the bodily odour created a clear way for him to follow with his nose. Even more amazingly, the scent swiftly lead him to a cave big enough for a dragon to crawl through.
Venturing further down into the cave, the knight started to hear loud growling sounds he recognized as snores. He did find hid dragon after all. He chases all his few fears away with the thought of glorious victory and began to slowly sneak up to the sleeping beast. Once he was close enough, he pulled out his trusty sword and jammed it right into the dragon's eye, hoping to reach the brain, yet the beast lived.
With a deafening roar, the dragon swan his tail madly and sent the knight flying into the nearest wall. Thanking his armor for the lucky deliverance, the knight stumbled upon his feet and rushed back to the entrance, before the dragon realized where the tiny warrior was. The knight went to climb the hill towering over the burrow and waited for the dragon to stick his head out of the cavern. The beast did exactly what the knight hoped it would. With a battlecry, he leaped at the dragon's neck using all of his weight and momentum to pierce the hide and sever the spine. Just like that, the blue dragon was dead.
And this, my readers, what brings us to our today's subject - technology. You see, only a few bits of the narration above are my invention. Everything else was invented by a machine, an artificial intelligence, to be exact. Are you familiar with tabletop RPGs, my readers? Rolling dice, listening to your dungeon master creepy voice as he describes the monster your party is about to face, the reaction of your partymates upon rolling natural 1! Oh, hardly anything can creep close to this!
Yet, it seems that in not so distant future human dungeon masters will find themselves a competition in the form of machines. Now, you can play a very authentic RPG with just a machine alone. Developed by a tiny group of enthusiasts, AI Dungeon lets you play with the AI in a narrative game. The AI supplies you with the exposition and based on your input moves the story. If you want to open a chest, you tell AI so and it tells you what you found. If you wish to chop down a tree, the AI will tell you how successful you are. You can even have a proper dialogue with it. I myself found myself engaging in a philosophical discussion about the nature of loyalty once I returned my knight to Lord Oren. The AI managed to teach me something new and not by simply stating what it randomly generated. The AI used imagery to carry its point across.
Once my knight returned to Oren, the Lord took him over to his library and showed him a magical ladder that could take him outside the castle if he wanted to go there. My knight asked him why did he suddenly take him here, to which Oren responded: "To show you that no matter how far one may stray from their lord they will always be his faithful servant," having said this, Oren turned away to return to his castle. Did he just let my knight go to find his own adventures now? Or did this mean something else?
I was speechless either way.
Wow.....that's incredible.
5285421
I highly recommend you play it too. The AI derps out every now and then, but it actually makes the story better. I didn't write it here, but the next mission Oren gave the knight is to find a drug dealer in his town. I followed the instructions and I did find a dealer, but the wrong one. That one was selling another kind of stuff that he dropped in alcohol. I reported back to Oren and we ended up having a mad party with this bud's stuff.
5285437
That's amazing.
An AI did that?? Now that is impressive
5285502
Indeed so, highly. It all still looks like Sci-Fi, now doesn't it?
5285747
Indeed.
I had seen one other instance that another user shared....that one...got kinda...henti like....like a lot henti like.....with a young girl....
5286085
A machine would not understand the intricacies of what it is saying.
5286102
true, true,