by Tom Larcombe
As he parsed out the functions of the code he started wondering who the hell had written this and how they'd gotten it into the live version of the game.
Possession? Is that it? Taking over NPCs in the game? Or is it to take over players in the game? It looks like it could be used either way, and that's just wrong. But somehow it's live in the game code, so either we got hacked, which I seriously doubt, or someone high enough to provide permission to alter the code is doing something shady. I don't know which option scares me more, he thought.
He opened an option on his workstation that he'd never used before except for testing.
Internal World Message – Aaron Opman to AI-F:
Freyja, I've seen something curious in the logs now that I'm out of the game. Do you have any information on extremely heavy CPU usage at seven times over the past thirty days? I think I've found unauthorized code inserted into the world code that is causing it, but I'm worried about reporting it since unless we were hacked, someone had to authorize the insertion of that code.
It was less than a second later when he received his reply.
Internal World Message – AI-F to Aaron Opman:
Aaron, good to hear from you. I have no record of CPU spikes. Are you sure they don't predate that time frame, going back to Eddie's issues? The logs I have access to do not show anything of the sort, although you may wish to check out the alternate player database SF-07, Papa Tango Bravo Foxtrot. That is other data that I was unaware of until recently and may be related.
Aaron didn't reply right away, he was caught in his own thoughts.
Good to hear from me? Was that just an attempt at politeness or is she actually managing what I suspect she's trying? Plus, her logs don't show the CPU spikes? I mean, debuggers have the second highest level access, but if the AIs can't even get to that data then I'm pretty sure it isn't hackers. Someone higher up is messing with the game and trying to cover their tracks, I'm sure of it. Let's go look at that database she referenced.
Aaron spent the next several hours going deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. Following code references in the files he found and more files that were referenced by the code, he realized that there was something truly major going on and he was worried that he'd be caught snooping. He covered his tracks as best as he could, finally surfacing again a few minutes before Tom arrived for work.
Aaron wanted to get to the bottom of what he'd found, but at the same time he didn't want to get the people on his team involved. It could be dangerous and that wasn't something they'd signed up for.
“Wow, I figured you'd go home and crash, Aaron. Didn't think I'd see you for a day or two.”
“Nah, even if I was awake in the game, my body had a massive rest. I was wide awake and alert when I came out of the pod so I figured I'd catch up on things before I headed home. I'm out now though. Good to see you, Tom.”
“You too Aaron. Anything in particular you want us working on? The revamped pods have been doing well so it doesn't take a lot of our time.”
Aaron shook his head.
“No, I've got a bunch of notes I have to put in order first. Once I do, I've got a lot of ideas for tweaking the crafter classes and also a few generic alterations that just made sense when the players mentioned them. Once I've got that all written out in a manner that everyone else can understand it, I'll get you guys to work on it. But sometimes even I have problems reading my notes, so...”
“You got it Aaron, get some rest. You might feel fine, but you look pretty wiped out.”
Aaron knew that he looked wiped out due to what he'd found, not his time in the game, but he just nodded and left, heading home to figure out what to do about everything he'd found as well as write up his notes in a more legible fashion.
~ ~ ~
Eddie wasn't quite so lucky at avoiding Paul in the morning. He'd come down around his normal time and found Paul sipping at a cup of coffee, waiting, with his eyes on the stairs. Realizing he was busted, he continued into the common room and sat down next to Paul.
“Not yet,” Eddie said when Paul opened his mouth. “Let me get some coffee in me first at least.”
The server knew his regular breakfast order and had it out to him shortly.
“Oh, so you get eggs too?” Paul said.
Eddie took a sip of his coffee before replying.
“Come by on Sunday, we serve them to order Sunday mornings. We don't have enough chickens to do them all the time yet, maybe in another month or two. You already know about burger nights on Friday, but hopefully those will take a regular spot on the menu shortly as well. Need to get some cows down to my farm first though.”
“Good, if you're awake enough to put in a plug for the inn then you're awake enough to talk,” Paul said.
Eddie took a deep drink of coffee, hoping to get a little more of it in him before he got chewed out.
“So, now it makes sense. Becky knew you were going into a dungeon so she hit me up for permission to join your group. How could you do that, Eddie?” Paul said.
“You've got it all wrong, Paul,” Eddie said.
Seeing Paul's face start to redden Eddie quickly continued.
“Becky didn't know that my group was going into a dungeon. She's the one that found it! She was thinking about going into it on her own before she told me about it and I offered to back her with the group.”
It was close enough to the truth that Eddie had no problem putting it out there. Paul had been about to continue speaking, but as Eddie's words registered his mouth closed with an audible snap. A moment later, he opened it again.
“She was going to go in alone?” Paul asked.
“She told me that you told her not to talk to any adventurers at all, what was she supposed to do? Your wife has new hobbies, yes? You work most days? What was Becky doing? Sorry, not trying to excuse anything, but yeah when she told me that, I offered to back her with the group.”
“Uh... Sorry?” Paul said. “I was all ready to rip you a new one for taking her in there, but you're saying you were escorting her?”
“Oh hell no, Paul, well yes and no. We went with her as a group because we wanted to run the dungeon. The fact that she wasn't going in alone that way wasn't the major factor, but it was part of it for me at least. She was bored. I realize she's twenty, but she acts a lot younger. Do you know of anything more dangerous than a bored teenager?”
“Yeah, if I remember my own youth, a bunch of bored teenagers together in a group. That's why I didn't want her messing around with the other adventurers. That almost backfired on me though.”
“I wouldn't worry about it now. I think she and Tiana have the beginnings of a friendship, and she gets along well with the rest of my group at least. So she has some people to talk to and do things with now, and occasionally adventure with too.”
Although it's probably better if I don't mention the fact that it seems like Dominic would like to get along with her even more, Eddie thought.
“Yeah, she kind of put her foot down with me. You saw she's building her own house, right? Patterning it after Tiana's temple, sort of anyhow. And it's right near the bridge she had me build so she'll see lots of people at least briefly. Imagine my surprise when she told me it was going to be a toll bridge. I didn't know why people would want to get out to that island enough to pay a toll, now I do though.”
Eddie nodded.
“Yeah, it's not quite my style, but I wouldn't have minded thinking of that one first,” Eddie said. “Better to spread the wealth around though, I suppose.”
Paul shook his head.
“I have to admit. She's got some direction now. It's something she didn't have before and now she has some income, as limited as it might be.”
“Paul, she was talking about a silver a head to cross for adventurers. Groups are normally five or more. So a half gold per crossing, plus she got some seeds from me for a garden and she can definitely get animals for meat. I'd say it's not as limited as you think. It might not be as mu
ch as you or I make, but it's more than most individuals come away with if they just take down a couple of goblin patrols.”
“Huh! I didn't think of it that way at all. Just compared it to what I was making,” Paul said. “But, you're right. At the start at least, there'll be a whole horde of adventurers going out there, won't there?”
Eddie nodded.
“Probably around a hundred in the area that aren't still relative newbies. If they all go there in their groups, just once mind you, that would make her ten gold. I'm pretty sure most will go more than once though. My group hasn't, but we've found some other things to do. Besides, when we went in with Becky we got a first clear on it. That means the loot and stuff was mostly maxed out, might be a bit of a letdown to do it again now at the normal chances for things. But that also means she's got her share of the coin we got on that. So I wouldn't worry about her income for quite a while.”
Hopefully he doesn't click that first clear also means maxed out mobs as well, Eddie thought.
Paul didn't seem to make that connection and their talk slowly turned to what other projects Eddie was going to be building in town, and if Paul could help with them.
~ ~ ~
Eddie was still in time to get Tiana's breakfast tray to her. He tried to do it whenever he could since it seemed like they didn't get to spend as much time together with their different projects. Besides, he enjoyed talking to her while she ate breakfast and got dressed. It was one of the few times when it was just the two of them. Evenings were spent in the common room with the group and other adventurers most of the time. They had more time before they went to sleep, but mostly they spent that doing things other than talking, so he valued their morning chats.
Once she was ready, they headed down to the temple and the house construction sites. Their group was going to meet with Charles' group at the smithy around ten o'clock. That gave everyone time for any last minute tasks they wanted to accomplish and the mine was less than half an hour from the smithy.
Building was going along nicely, but Griff caught him as he was heading back towards the temple.
“Good, I knew you were around here this time every day. I have a quick question for you,” Griff said.
“Go ahead.”
“Well, having a house again is wonderful, but... Well, we'd like to get some furniture in it. Any chance I can swipe a few of the boards you've got going to the market to try to make some?”
Since Eddie knew that Griff had his carpentry skill built up a bit, he knew the man could probably do it.
“Just a second,” Eddie said.
He stepped off the side of the road and opened the auction screen. Sure enough there were blueprints for chairs, tables, beds, and lots of other furniture as well. They were also much cheaper than any of the structure blueprints, priced mostly in silver instead of gold. There were even a couple of cheap looking stool blueprints priced in coppers.
Eddie made a quick purchase of blueprints for a bed frame, a dining table, a stool, and a chair. Once he received the message with the blueprints attached he transferred them to his inventory, then pulled them out and handed them to Griff.
“You know the drill, use these, then make a new blueprint. After a few, when you're sure you can build them without the blueprint, hand off the blueprint to another of the carpenters who's able to replace it after they use it. Just hold off on the bed frames for a bit, would you? Those use a lot more wood than the tables or chairs.”
“Thank you, Eddie, sir,” Griff said.
“Please, just Eddie. Why's everyone calling me sir lately?”
“It's only right, what with you leading the efforts to relocate the refugees, and making decisions for the village here, sir.”
Eddie groaned silently.
So, I think I did it to myself the last time I upgraded the settlement level, he thought. Could be worse though, at least they still use my name along with it most of the time.
Eddie continued along, stopping at the temple to pick up Tiana. Once she was finished they headed back to the inn together, picking up a lunch they could carry with them, and getting enough for the two combined parties when they thought of it.
“Yum,” Tiana said, straight-faced. “We'll have a wonderful picnic in an abandoned, invaded mine. You take me on the best dates, Eddie.”
She couldn't keep a straight face and started laughing.
“I had to share that when I thought of it,” she said after she'd finished.
“Well, there really isn't much of anywhere to go on a date here in the game, is there? We'll have to fix that one of these days,” Eddie replied.
“Yeah, you could institute a dancing night at the inn, find some musicians maybe?” Tiana said.
Eddie winced, he knew that dancing was not one of his strong points, at least not in real life.
But maybe with my high agility I could fake it until I learn for real, he thought. I wonder if that would take a skill slot?
They weren't the first to arrive at the smithy, Jern was already there when they arrived. He was chatting with Delgar and broke off as Eddie and Tiana walked up.
“Here ya are,” Jern said. “I was wondering when you'd get here. Seems the party got a little bit out of hand last night when you made that announcement.”
“That it did, I actually ran and hid in my room. Had food brought up to me,” Eddie said.
“Coward,” Jern said.
“Well, not really. I saw Paul headed for me in a bad mood and realized that Becky still hadn't told him about the dungeon, or that she went adventuring in it with us. I wanted to avoid that conversation, but it didn't work so well. He still got me this morning. He was going to chew me a new one before I pointed out that it was Becky who found the dungeon and the only reason she didn't try to do it herself was because our party volunteered to go with her.”
Jern raised a single eyebrow at him.
“Hey, it was close enough to the truth, and it got me off the hook with him. Besides, she told me before that she'd considered trying it herself, so...”
“Well, I do understand. Even we dwarfs get a little tetchy about allowing our daughters to go into danger before their majority.”
“But that's the thing, she's legally an adult. I think she's building her house so Paul can't treat her like a child any more, or something like that,” Tiana said. “She said she's tired of being treated like a kid and was tired of acting like one too. Then the next thing I knew she was building her own house, and having Paul build the bridge.”
“So, yeah, she's stepping out on her own, kind of,” Eddie said. “Even if her house is still in sight of Paul and Delilah's.”
“Baby steps,” Tiana said. “Some parents say they want their kids to grow up, but if they do it in a rush, the parents get all in a huff about it. This way she gets a degree of autonomy and they don't have too much of a reason to freak out.”
“Talked about that with her?” Jern asked.
“Yeah, I went down to help with her house some, since she helped with the temple. We chatted while we worked. She's not bad and the more she gets out from under Paul's thumb, the better she's getting,” Tiana said.
Charles' group was in sight on the road leading to the smithy at that point, Dominic coming along behind them. Now they just needed Karl and Allie and they were all set.
“Everyone here?” Charles asked as he approached the smithy.
“Still waiting on Karl and Allie, which is nothing new,” Eddie replied. “It's probably more his fault than hers though.”
Charles shook his head and sighed.
“Always one, isn't there?” he said.
Eddie caught the glance Charles directed at one of his group members who was blushing at his comment.
“Wait up,” Karl shouted from down the road.
Eddie glanced at the clock in his interface, it was five minutes past ten, which was practically on time for Karl.
“We weren't going anywhere yet,” Eddie called back and Karl and All
ie came trotting up the road, “just talking.”
“Good, we aren't late then,” Karl said with a grin.
Eddie shook his own head then and glanced over at Charles.
“Late or not, let's get going,” Charles said. “I've got a feeling this won't be a one day endeavor and I'd like to get started.”
~ ~ ~
The only person in Eddie's group that hadn't been to the mine before was Jern, but most of Charles' group hadn't seen it either, so when they approached the rock slide and start clearing it again, they didn't seem too eager. If wasn't until they walked into the mine and received the quest that Charles' group seemed to get a bit motivated.
“You didn't say it was a ten thousand experience quest, Charles, why not?” one of his group asked.
Eddie noted it was the man he suspected was Karl's counterpart in being late all the time.
“Didn't think I needed to specify. It's a brand new one, and probably a unique one. Because of that I thought you'd all be interested anyhow.
“A thousand silver though? That's strange,” the same man said.
“Might be because we found some silver ore on a corpse in here,” Charles said. “Keeping the rewards pertinent to the area or something. I've seen that before.”
“I wonder what the unknown bonus is,” the same man said.
Charles was apparently losing his patience a bit since his reply was snapped.
“Well, we won't find out by sitting here and asking questions,” he replied.
“Let's stop and listen,” Eddie said. “The other day we could hear some mining going on. Maybe if they're mining now we can follow the sound.”
The group stopped in place and went silent. Somewhere in the distance Eddie heard mining going on, but he couldn't tell where from the sound of it.