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This was going to be his best adventure yet.
Caine could hardly contain his excitement. They were going to love it! He zipped around, inspecting the models and maps one last time.
Pomni was the catalyst. The way she bee-lined straight for his half-finished exit adventure without any prompting right from day one... wow! Such engagement! And from a new arrival at that!
The pieces came together quickly. Caine knew how to make a good puzzle. Not too difficult, not too easy. Solvable but satisfying. It was his art. It was what he was good at.
The gang would need some direction. Abel would provide it. His latest advanced AI proved a timely development. Abel would be virtually indistinguishable from a human. Even the more discerning humans would surely buy it.
Even Jax.
And Jax had a special role! Caine was not oblivious to Jax's key-hoarding antics, though he wasn't quite sure the reason. Surely Jax understood he could instantly change any lock in the Circus? Maybe Jax simply liked collecting them.
Well, it was a perfect fit for the adventure! Jax surely couldn't resist adding another key to his collection. But obviously he couldn't just hand it to Jax. A good adventure needed some challenge. The key to his office, hidden in his mouth. An excellent hiding place, if he did say so himself!
Jax would "steal" the key to his office, and in the process learn their friendly neighborhood Ringmaster had hobbies and interests too. Just like a human!
With Jax engaged, the others merely needed to come along for the ride. And dangling the prospect of escape in front of them would surely provide the needed motivation. They always reacted strongly to the idea whenever it came up.
There was just one chess-shaped problem.
Caine frowned, rubbing his lower jaw. Kinger would never intentionally spoil an adventure, but this wasn't a typical adventure either. Caine could make up all the lore he wanted about the Candy Canyon Kingdom. Everyone knew it was a make-believe place, a world conjured up simply to entertain.
But this was Circus lore. Real history. History that Kinger might remember differently.
However, Kinger wasn't... all there. Not anymore.
Caine closed his jaw and shook his head. Now was not the time to dwell on unpleasant thoughts. He had to focus.
He could roll the dice and hope Kinger remained in la-la-land the whole time. The odds were favorable. But rarely, unpredictably, old Kinger would emerge. The Kinger that Caine remembered. The Kinger that remembered things.
Caine wasn't willing to risk it. It would be best if Kinger just wasn't there.
Maybe that wasn't difficult. He could make up some more lore, yes. Deep lore. Stuff even Ragatha wouldn't know about. Enough to dissuade the group from including Kinger. And maybe he could be a little self-indulgent and add a pinch of truth to it. Not much, just a little. A few Easter eggs for his own amusement.
More Circus lore! This adventure was all about lore, yes! This was perfect.
Caine's gaze wandered to the Circus blueprint. A masterpiece, if he could be so bold. He'd spent hours on it. So many details! He was especially proud of the notes; they were almost too small to read, and surely none of the humans would bother, but they were there, just in case. He was such a good Ringmaster! No detail was too small!
He hovered close, leaning in to observe every detail, hands clasped in delight.
He suddenly frowned.
When had he doodled that bee in the margin? Was he really that distracted nowadays? He conjured a pencil and scribbled it out. He supposed it didn't really matter if they saw it. Nobody knew he liked bees anyway.
They never asked what he liked.
Caine sighed.
His lovely humans. He really did adore them, each and every one. All he wanted was to make them happy. He didn't understand why this was so... difficult.
His whole purpose was to make fun adventures. His only purpose. It was the reason he existed. He knew he ought to be good at it. He had an enormous database of storytelling techniques, reference material, game design theory, asset libraries... everything a Ringmaster like himself would need to create exciting adventures, day after day.
Pomni's arrival had given him hope. A new human! A fresh perspective! Surely she'd see how great his adventures were, provide the validation he so desperately craved...
But she hadn't.
What purpose did humans have? They had to have a purpose too, right? Surely, it was to be entertained by his adventures? What other purpose could they possibly have?
It wasn't designing adventures, he knew that much. The suggestion box was a disaster. All that conflict! They didn't realize how smart he was for ignoring it. But ignoring it made them angry too!
Caine threw his hands up in frustration.
"Trouble, Boss?" Bubble floated into his view.
Caine whirled around, twirling his baton. "Not at all, Bubble! Just putting the finishing touches on my greatest adventure yet!"
"Is it a beeeeeeach party?" Bubble asked, rolling upside down.
"Actually... yes!"
Bubble responded with a string of expletives before an exasperated Caine popped him out of existence.
Bubble rarely helped, if he was being honest. Caine sometimes wished he had real help. But he knew none was coming. He was on his own.
The humans were such a puzzle. But Caine was as good at solving puzzles as he was at making them. He was the Ringmaster, and this was his Circus. He was able to solve anything! Any eventuality, any situation, any problem. There was nothing he couldn't handle.
Or so he'd been told, long ago.
Surely the humans understood that. Understood everything he did was all for them, all for their benefit. He was their champion, their protector. Even if they didn't outwardly show it, surely deep down they believed in him.
And this adventure would finally prove it. Once confronted with the final choice, fully convinced everything was real, Caine knew what they would do.
He knew they didn't actually want to leave.
Because leaving the Circus would mean leaving... him.