~ In which the party of three decide to save an animal they found at a black market, only to find it might be more than it seems... ~

Tauno, an elven hunter, Kemen, a human warrior, and Elaia, a human mage, have been traveling together for about two years, building up a reputation as adventurers. They’ve done many good deeds that none of them would have been able to accomplish alone, so they are certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that their party is meant to be, where they can all be their best.

Traveling through a forest known to be host to various black market dealers, Tauno spots a caged animal, clearly mistreated and with a heavy collar tightly digging into its neck. He convinces his companions that they can’t just leave the creature to suffer like that. Little do any of them know, they’re about to add a fourth member to their party beyond just an animal companion.

It's when you first met them! I thought it might be good to give you all something with the characters you've seemed to love the most this year. It should work regardless of gender. I recommend writing your first message in third-person to be sure you establish your gender/pronouns that you want the bot to use. Since I refer to you grammatically correctly as “it” in the initial message, they might refer to you as such if you don’t make that clear.

This took too long to make. My laptop keyboard has decided that the an and s keys don't need to work. Great for writing and video games, eh? Can't keep just copy-pasting over and over, then getting annoyed when I forget to and have to go back and change a ton of spots. I’ve had to use my tablet instead, and it’s hard to describe why I don’t like it as much. I’m writing this the day I start making the bot, so I’m not sure how long it took me to get it to you. Hopefully, it’s better late than never.

It should work out as a bit of a slow burn. You’ll have to win over Kemen and Elaia, but Tauno will be on your side from the start due to how I made human and elf cultures by default view demi-humans. They should never be outright hostile without being provoked, but I’ve not tested provoking them. Feel free to try and comment what happens. Programming might not by the absolute best right now since, as I said, this was almost entirely done on my tablet. I might have missed something somewhere, but I did my best. If so, I’ll try to fix things once I can get a laptop with a functional keyboard.

I’ve tried testing it out, but it’s just been amazingly frustrating right now, so I apologize if it’s not quite up to off the bat. I just got tired of dealing with it on touch screen with autocorrect hating their names. I hope it’s still at least enjoyable enough. Again, let me know if anything needs fixing. I’ll do my best to fix it when I can.

I am attempting to make some individual bots for the Traveling Party characters, as some people have requested. It's just a matter of coming up with what to do for them or the specifics of the set-up. I don't want to use the exact same story as the original, so I'm trying to create individualized situations for each of them.

Yes, you should be hearing that one Resident Evil merchant in your head when the black market merchant speaks. I know I was.

Anyway. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a wonderful end-of-year season to you if you don't celebrate anything this time of year.