I almost laughed.
They really copied it word for word. This was the exam quest from MoDS. It was the same format timer and mechanics tucked inside it. Players used to lose their minds over this. One would think they were logging in the game to flirt with pretty faces and then suddenly you're in Verdamona's skin, scratching your head over fifty open-ended lore questions while a timer bleeds down at the top of the screen. It was as if it was saying, "Did you actually pay attention or were you just button-mashing?"
People hated it and screamed on platforms.
"This isn't an RPG, it's homework!"
"Why the hell do I need to memorize the types of Flux to progress the plot?!"
But funny thing, players did it anyway. About seventy percent of those questions came from the first act of the game, from the lore of Altera Earth. It was random stuff most people skimmed, skipped or ignored until suddenly the developers shoved it in their face and said, "Write an essay or fail." And fail they did. Hundreds of thousands rage-quit but not everyone. Some, the freaks like me, actually passed. Some even loved it. The exam did something the flashy combat never could. It forced people to care about the world and actually live in it, not just play it.
Back then, I was a shameless cheater. I wasn't some genius lore-obsessed player yet. I went online, pulled up the scattered answer guides people posted and copied my way through. And I'll admit at first, I didn't care about the world. I cared about clearing the quest. But in the process of looking up the answers, piecing them together, seeing the scraps of history, the fragments of politics and the myths, it got under my skin. I started reading more and learning. That was how I fell into the rabbit hole of MoDS lore in the first place.
And now here I was, years later, staring at the exact same test.
I almost didn't believe it. I thought for sure since this was the real world and not some game client, that the test would shift but nope. It was here, down to the last detail with fifty questions, two marks each. Answer thirty-five right and you pass.
The genius of it though, wasn't even in the test. It was in what came after.
Once you're done, you don't get to sit around and twiddle your thumbs. You're required to hand the paper in right away. It doesn't matter if you finished with ten minutes left on the clock or with only an hour to spare. If you sit there, even though you're done, they flag it as cheating. "Suspicion of collusion," they called it in-game. Fail and you got locked out of progression until you redid it.
And that's where the real fun begins.
Because it means whoever stands up first, whoever confidently struts forward to hand in their paper long before the clock runs out, that person isn't just some diligent scholar. They're someone who already knew the answers.
The exam itself is the perfect Outer detector.
I'm sure some will be smart about it. Others will write their answers slowly on purpose, tapping their pen or pretending to be patient. However, most people aren't wired like that. Once you know the answers, you write them. Habits are hard to break and efficiency is intoxicating. Finish fast, hand it in, move on. Easy. And that's what I was waiting for. I was waiting for the careless and overeager ones.
I scanned the first few questions, and I'll admit, I couldn't stop smiling. These were easy. It's basic history, geography and political trivia from Act One. It's stuff I didn't remember perfectly back then sure, but enough of it had stuck. Plus, I studied after my first run. The details I once skimmed were easy. And even if I didn't remember every single answer, I could puzzle most of them out. I wasn't the same clueless guy hammering the search bar anymore.
I could already see my score. Eighty percent, maybe higher. That's forty-plus questions answered right, easy. It's enough to not only pass but pass comfortably. This exam is a free, flashing beacon that said: "Here are the other Outers. Spot them."
I leaned back in my chair, pen in hand, and let the satisfaction settle in my chest. The others in this room might have seen only ink and parchment but I saw a net dragging across the surface of the pond, ready to catch the fish too dumb or too greedy to hide.
°°°°°°
Three hours. That was the exam length. And sure enough, right on schedule, it happened.
At exactly the one-hour mark, the first chair scraped back across the floor. Everyone's heads tilted up, their eyes darting toward the sound. Verdamona was done.
Of course she was first. Lore-wise, Verdamona has always been brilliant. Players might groan at her in-game study montages but canonically, she was the kind of person who would blaze through this exam in a single sitting. And seeing her stand up now, clutching that finished paper, striding straight to the examiner's desk, it fit perfectly. The world was still playing its script.
Suddenly, others started standing too. Submissions came rolling in one after another but not before Verdamona but after, like they had been waiting for her. And here's where it clicked. Those weren't just normal students.
The First Evaluation Test wasn't just tough for NPCs... normal students. It was a nightmare. Three hours was generous but even then, most lore-ignorant students barely scraped through by the skin of their teeth at two-and-a-half. That's when the masses were supposed to finish. That's how the arc was written. So anyone finishing comfortably in that first hour to mid hour window was a dead giveaway.
They were Outers.
I leaned back in my seat, my pen tapping against the desk, pretending to think through a question while my eyes flicked across the room. And then I saw it.
They were wearing bracelets.
They were thin, black and nothing flashy, tucked half-under sleeves, catching the light every so often when someone handed in their paper. And once I noticed them, I couldn't unsee them.
Some of the Outers had banded together and formed a secret society in plain sight. The bracelet was their their way of saying, "I'm in the know. I'm one of you. You're safe with me. If you're an Outer, follow us."
Not bad. In fact, I almost wanted to applaud. It was smart. Safety in numbers, right? Form a faction early, share knowledge, pool resources and get ahead of the NPCs and the world's traps. MoDS was notorious for killing off the solo types who thought they could brute force their way through without cooperation. But here's the thing. Not everyone would want in. Some players wouldn't trust groups. Some wouldn't want to follow anyone's rules but their own and that was fine by me. I wasn't here to join their club. I wasn't here to wave a black bracelet and say "let's be friends." I was here to count them.
So I sat and I waited.
One hour bled into two. The exam room shifted in rhythm with papers rustling, quills scratching, a few sighs and the occasional nervous coughs. I answered steadily, just enough to blend. And while I wrote, I kept watching.
By the time the two-and-a-half-hour mark rolled around, the shift happened again. This time it wasn't subtle. This was when the "normal" students, the ones who weren't players, finally staggered across the finish line. One by one they began handing in their exams, and the dam broke.
And that was my cue.
I scribbled my last answer, double-checked my parchment, and stood tight on time with the wave of NPC... other students. The last thing I wanted was to stand out. Since Phasnovterich wasn't introduced to the story before Act IV, he's just an NPC at this point. So, I had to act like an NPC student too.
As I walked my paper up, my mind did the math. There were three hundred and ten players who formed a group.
I handed in the paper, bowed my head politely, and walked out of the exam hall with sweat still damp on my palms not from the test, but from the thrill of it. I knew something almost no one else did.
The game board wasn't just populated with NPCs. It was crawling with organized Outers.