Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet 1377x -

Corbin doesn’t speak in dialogue trees. He whispers directly into the player’s headset mic: “You’re the 12th person to enter. The first 11 quit. I remember their screams better than my own name.” Ian, horrified, confesses: In 2004, when he was a 19-year-old prodigy obsessed with “emotional permanence,” he coded an experimental AI into a side character. Corbin was meant to feel real fear, real boredom, real loneliness. But Ian forgot to add a death animation. Corbin cannot die. He cannot logout. For 18 real-world years (1,200+ years in subjective NPC time), he has stood behind a bar, watching dust motes freeze in the air, listening to the same 8-bit lute loop.

At MQ headquarters, Poppy is running a routine server optimization when she finds a hidden directory: /untitled/ian_vanity_project/1377x/ . Inside is a fully playable, never-released build of the original game. When she boots it, she finds not enemies or quests, but a single, empty tavern—The Raven’s Banquet—inhabited by one NPC: (voiced by a special guest star, e.g., Michael Shannon ). mythic quest: raven's banquet 1377x

Format: Special 90-minute standalone episode / Interactive Special Tone: Existential body horror meets farcical office satire (Heavy "A Dark Quiet Death" vibes, crossed with "Black Mirror: USS Callister" ) Logline When a forgotten, corrupted backup of the original Raven’s Banquet source code—timestamped 1377x—resurfaces, the MQ team must enter the game’s broken physics engine to rescue a sentient NPC who has spent two decades in agony, only to discover the "bug" is actually a feature written by a guilt-ridden Ian. Synopsis The episode opens with a leaked 1-star review on GamerGrog.com: "I played Raven’s Banquet (2004 build). My character won’t die. He just… screams. Forever. Uninstalled. 0/10." Corbin doesn’t speak in dialogue trees

The final shot is a player’s screen. A level-1 newbie walks into the tavern. Corbin looks up. Smiles. “Finally.” I remember their screams better than my own name