> Your character, Ser Bryn, sidesteps. > (Roll 1d20: 14 + 4 Agility = 18. Success.)

Kael let his hands rest. He smiled.

Kael’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. In the old days, Valdris would have erupted in a corona of black flame, his sword a smear of violet light. Now, there was nothing. Only the cold math of the simulation.

> Ser Bryn lowers her point. > (Morale check: Automatic success due to player choice.) > “No,” she says. “Tell me about the poem.”

Kael’s breath caught. He typed the command for a finishing strike, but something made him pause. The hackers hadn’t just broken the graphics. They’d broken Valdris’s AI too.