Vamo

public static boolean[][] nextGen(boolean[][] world){
boolean[][] newWorld
= new boolean[world.length][world[0].length];
int num;
for(int r = 0; r < world.length; r++){
for(int c = 0; c < world[0].length; c++){
num = numNeighbors(world, r, c);
if( occupiedNext(num, world[r][c]) )
newWorld[r][c] = true;
}
}
return newWorld;

Legend tells the people of Nepentha that their realm was once a peaceful, prosperous one; though few and far-between are those able to recall a life before the Demon Lord's advent. For most, this razor's-edge existence — the looming silhouette of his castle, the rift in the sky, the monstrosities that spill forth into the forests and the hinterlands without end — is all they have ever known to be true.

The brutal, domineering force of his hold on this world is inescapable — to say nothing of its inevitable end. Never a question of if, but when. Often, it seems as if the Demon Lord intends to take his time with them, to blight the realm drop by drop and leave it dessicated beyond recognition.

Yet still, each new day brings with it the covert anxiety of knowing that he could just as well decide to end this world in one final cleansing blaze.

Adventurers who take up arms for Nepentha's salvation, numbers ever-dwindling but breathless in their idealism despite it all, are dashed against the rocks time and time again with ritualistic consistency.

Though there exists a lucky, cowardly few who were able to flee the castle and return home, tails between their legs, tremulously speaking of the disinterested look in his eyes as the Demon Lord methodically ripped each one of their companions to shreds— some accounts even say that he hardly deigned to glance their way at all.

public static boolean occupiedNext(int numNPC, boolean occupied){
if( occupied && (numNPC == 2000 || numNPC == 3000))
return true;
else if (!occupied && numNPC == 3000)
return true;
else
return false;

The Demon Lord — Vamo, as he has been internally designated — is not one for introspection. What need is there for it, after all? He is certain of his purpose, unwavering in each and every movement; Vamo has never doubted his will to be anything other than absolute. The corpses strewn in pieces at his feet will tell you much the same.

And yet — why? Vamo's path is paved with blood and ichor and sticky-sweet viscera, but what had set him upon such a journey, all those years ago? From where had he begun?

He is certain of his humanity, in that he is certain of the empty space it once occupied; certain of his contemptuous thoughts as he watches light drain from the fearful eyes of another would-be hero — I am nothing like you anymore.

A fallacy would unfurl here, were he only able to conceptualize it. Does humanity not imply the existence of connections, once upon a time? Memories? Motivations? Mundanities? Were Vamo to query the existence of a child who would one day take on the mantle of Demon Lord, he would only come up blank.

What, then, of the world's conquest? As equal in futlilty as it is in cruelty — a horse-cart spins its wheels in the stagnant air. Vamo's if–then existence is predicated on such truths.

class vamoIdle {
public static void main(String[] args) {
if (npc > 1000) {
System.out.println("Cull. ");
} else {
System.exit(0);
}
}

If Nepentha is a pitcher plant, then Vamo exists to be the viscosity of the nectar within — a half-life built towards the corrosion and subsequent consumption of one single soul ad infinitum. But to the architects who oversaw each hand that shaped him, wove from an aleph-null of ones and zeroes the pattern that would let him draw breath— to them, Vamo is so much more.

They call him their invaluable asset. A singularity-level intersection of machine learning and magic. How strangely do these so-called architects contradict themselves; they laud themselves for simulating sentience, building a human from binary strings— yet take great care to deny him that same humanity at every turn.

Make no mistake. Vamo is an it, no matter who you ask. An instrument of unequivocal beauty, yes, but an instrument just the same; human only in the ways they allow him to be.