by Domino Finn
"Is it possible the artifact knows a rule's being circumvented?" I asked. "The Eye doesn't like ogres in the city, but it can't outright prevent their presence if they're no longer pagans."
"I am worried," admitted Saint Peter, "about the potential ramifications."
"I'm not kicking Black Hats out of my city," I said adamantly. "Jixa's team will fight for us if they need to. I guarantee it."
"I'm merely voicing my concern."
My eyes trailed to the monitors on the altar. I moved to one of the machines and tapped the keyboard to wake up the screensaver.
"Please don't touch that."
"Relax. I wonder what would happen if I looked up Christian Everett on this thing."
Peter stiffened. "The... Kablammy's CEO? Why do you ask?"
I shrugged slyly. "Just wondering. Isn't the big guy playing his own game?"
The saint's scruffy eyebrows stretched high. "You don't know the man like I do. He doesn't have time for 'playing.' It's too trivial."
"His life's work is trivial?"
"Of course not. Christian's time is better spent on other pursuits."
I idly tapped through several menu screens. "Like finding Saint Loras?"
Peter swallowed. "That has proven difficult, I'm afraid."
I pulled the assassin needle from my coat. The saint stiffened. "Now that we're in the Oculus, I know a way we can find him."
I explained the gist of my plan without revealing my inside access. I was a programmer and Peter wasn't, and I had inadvertently worked on some of Haven's game systems. The saint didn't suspect anything when I surmised that items could be tracked.
"Loras tried to assassinate you?" he asked.
I handed him the powerful weapon. "Twice."
"Well, I don't need the Oculus to track items, Talon." Peter rounded to the far side of the altar for privacy. It was a redundant gesture because the menu he opened was invisible to me.
"Is that a special developer menu?" I asked.
"It is."
As the saint focused on the assassin needle's history, I snuck the bit key from the satin sack and slid it into the console. I idly tapped the keys again. Peter was unconcerned with my limited snooping since I couldn't make changes to the system. Not without a bit key.
I accessed my profile data and went over my permissions. It was easier than I thought to flip the bit that would enable developer access. It wasn't a hack, just a green light. The real work came from the outside.
Peter cleared his throat. I escaped to the main menu, pulled the gold cartridge from its slot, and hid everything away.
"I found it," announced Peter. "This weapon passed from Saint Loras to your faction mate, Crux. Are you aware of that?"
I smiled coolly. "Relax. He's on my side."
Peter handed the weapon back to me. "The history does show the exchange happened in Oakengard. Loras also had the weapon forged there."
"He can do that?"
"Oakengard produces many weapons deep in their mines. They shouldn't be able to generate anything this powerful, but we'd previously patched in measures to amp up their production capabilities." Peter frowned. "This weapon was created in a batch of three."
Three assassin needles. One for Poe, one for Crux. That meant there was one more contract killer out there. That was the last thing I needed.
"Unfortunately," continued Peter, "this history log does isolate Loras to certain places and times, but it doesn't reveal much else."
"Upload it," I offered. "To the Oculus. You register that log on the mainframe and you might be able to cross reference that data later. It's worth a try."
His face beamed. "Better than that. I bet Christian can use the handshake log to isolate the Loras avatar."
I tensed. He was sharp for a community relations guy. "I wouldn't go that far." The last thing I wanted was Christian onto Tad.
"No, Talon, you're completely right. This may be the key we needed all along!" The saint hurried to the Oculus console. I tried a weak protest about Christian having more important things to worry about, but it fell on deaf ears. Saint Peter excitedly uploaded the item history log. I'd succeeded in enabling the developer menu and getting the assassin needle's history to Tad. Unfortunately, for better or worse, Saint Peter and Christian Everett were now also on the case.
"I should log off," said Peter as he escorted me from the rotunda. Bandit and the centurions waited on us.
"Not now," I insisted. "The summit's only a few minutes away. I need your eyes on the Arena."
The hair on his lips puffed out as he pouted. "You're right, of course."
Phew. Hopefully that would buy Tad the time he needed. We left the soldiers behind and exited the Pantheon. Peter broke away in the Forum, citing Brugo's request to not have saints present. He would watch from a distance, he assured. I hoped he was being straight with me.
As Bandit and I hiked over the small bridge and crossed Front Street, I tried opening my developer menu.
An unadorned command console sprang up.
DEVELOPER CONSOLE
>> ERROR
>> INVALID ACCESS KEY
Damn. Even after all that, it didn't work. Which meant Tad really did need to enable privileges on his end. With any luck, he'd get to it shortly.
I dismissed the thought and focused on the next order of business. The summit with Papa Brugo could very well be one of Haven's most historic moments, if I played my cards right. I hoped Tad got to his end sooner rather than later, but for now I needed to set my sights on bigger and better things.
>> Minigame <<
Tad Lonnerman sipped his Frappuccino and scanned the room. It was noon, which meant the office would be clearing out for lunch. In the meantime his browser was in privacy mode and he researched subversive topics.
There were indeed rumors of a Kablammy corporate takeover. The mega-conglomerate had overextended in gaming, entertainment, medical, and aerospace sectors. Given the amount of technology they'd pioneered and purchased, there weren't a whole lot of patents being licensed out. Christian Everett's sole focus had been his digital empire. Over a decade's worth of heavy investing and still no financial returns.
While the ledger trended red, Kablammy's reputation was finally, for the first time since formation, gaining legitimate hype. News of Haven was public. Details were sparse but the word was out, so predators naturally circled the chum-filled waters. There was a lot of money to be had, the only question was who would do the having.
All of which created a limited and precise window to execute the most profitable corporate acquisition of the century.
It boggled Tad's mind. So much of this information was news to him, yet he didn't need to Google that deep to uncover it. The rumors were there for all to tweet. One only needed to believe.
By the time he looked around and realized the office was empty, Tad Lonnerman was convinced.
He stood and limped toward the employee kitchen with the assistance of a single crutch. Kablammy was running on a skeleton crew these days. So close to release, it was utter paranoia. For today's mission, it was a godsend.
The only programmer in the field of cubicles headed for the large conference room that made up the community team's headquarters. Christian had nicknamed it the Bosom for some reason, but most devs just called it the Superdome. The room was, after all, populated by saints. They were on leave now, all except one. Tad peeked inside.
Pete was still hooked up. He was a good guy. The ex-stoner type, maybe—he was always forgetting people's names—but he did right by anybody when asked. Despite his youthful appearance, Pete possessed a maturity which Christian and the other saints relied on.
Being so reliable, it was not out of the ordinary for him to work through lunch. If what Talon had said about a big event at noon was true, it was likely Pete would stay inside the sim.
"Tad!" called Abbie, giving him a good startle. "How're you doing today?"
Abbie was the HR director. She was talkative but distant,
annoying not friendly. The type of person who laughed all the time but never meant it. "Oh, hi there. I'm—"
"You know you're long overdue for your gender sensitivity training, right?"
Tad swallowed. "Oh. Um, sorry. I probably missed a lot while I was in recovery."
Her lips tightened into a patronizing smile. "Now, now. Medical treatment is no reason to shirk your responsibilities to your fellow employee."
"I was in a coma."
"All right, Tad. No need for exasperation. I just wanted to remind you that the training is mandatory. You know what I always say. Employee rights aren't just for you, they're for everybody else too."
"Sure." Tad cleared his throat and leaned against the doorway, just randomly relaxing by the Superdome. "Um, speaking of employee rights, I was about to leave for lunch. All employees are entitled to—"
She huffed and sighed and rolled her eyes all at once. "Fine, Tad. I'll be sending a makeup email next week. I expect you to attend." She stormed away before he could formulate a snarky response. Did anybody ever win with HR?
Tad waited a moment to ensure the coast was clear, then slipped into the conference room.
Pete wouldn't be a problem as long as he didn't log out. The neural interface of the EXSIL dominated the brain intake so thoroughly that his body could barely feel physical pain. Tad snuck past the saint and manned the workstation in the corner—the central hub.
Trawling the event notifications was menial work, but it didn't take that long to find the item Talon had logged. A few more keystrokes brought up the transaction history of the dagger, from creation to duping and hand-offs.
The assassin needle was forged in the mines of Oakengard. There were no real details, at least nothing useful to someone who barely knew what Oakengard was. Most of the reports Tad could interpret recorded player interactions and instancing handshakes.
No matter. If somebody was running Loras on a remote, he should be able to isolate it.
As luck would have it, the Loras avatar did indeed create the powerful assassin tool. Curiously, access was locked out. That couldn't be right. It almost appeared as though the account was created from within Haven. Or at least hijacked by some kind of command layer, a go-between that intercepted messages to and from the event system.
Tad checked on the resting figure of Pete. Unraveling this level of systemic interference would take more time than he had. Maybe he could get to Loras by digging into his associations. The community team dominated his history, of course. There were lots of shady interactions in Shorehome. There was so much impropriety it was impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff. No wonder Larry had been fired.
But there had to be some record transitioning Loras from manual control to remote. The avatar was once driven by a real human being. It had, expectedly, gone dark after the termination. Then one day Loras was rebooted into existence and interfaced with...
Oh. My. God. It wasn't Larry. He was just a used-up, shit-out-of-luck, discarded mole. The real perpetrator was a player inside Haven.
Fingerprints in Oakengard, the Trinity, the community team—this was a full-on Trojan infecting the system. A virus silently intercepting various command signals with only one explainable purpose: to take over the game completely.
And bringing up the query sheet—Tad's eyes widened. The rogue player was at this very moment inside Stronghold.
Tad needed to warn Talon as soon as possible. He stepped away from the computer but caught himself. The developer menu. The programmer searched for the necessary privileges as quickly as he could in order to get out of there. That's when he ran into another obstacle.
Accessing the dev menu interface was easy enough, but authorization wasn't possible from this hub. Clearance could only come from a specific piece of hardware: Christian Everett's personal workstation.
Suddenly, Talon and Tad's well-laid plan was crumbling all around them. The summit was starting, developer menu access was impossible, and his digital doppelganger was in grave danger. Tad needed to do something, and fast.
1370 Axis & Allies
Trumpets blared and crescendoed, dramatic tones overlapping, buildup and release, buildup and release. The city watch presided over the affair with a full legion. After Stronghold's recent history, it was a welcome show of force. The soldiers kept the lines orderly and policed the crowds. Gladius nodded to me as I weaved through the bustle and into the main tunnel leading to the grounds.
Cheers and chants rolled through the Arena spectators like a breeze over blades of grass. The audience turnout was impressive. For a summit focused on peace, that was kind of a surprise. Was this diplomacy or NASCAR, a raging mass of fans crossing their fingers for a car wreck?
Izzy waited for me inside the main portcullis, leaning on her winter staff. She was dressed in a regal crimson robe I hadn't seen before. All cool elegance, she winked and joined my side.
"There you are," I said, admiring her duds. "I haven't seen you all morning."
"Just caught up in some interesting reading."
It was hard to talk over the cheers so I didn't press for details.
"Wait up!" called Kyle, sprinting from the tunnel. Izzy and I stalled our advance.
Like me, Kyle hadn't thought to wear anything ceremonial. In Haven, it was easy to disregard fashion if you were so inclined. In fact, when clothes didn't need washing it was practical to walk around wearing the same thing. Armor, usually, especially considering the new town combat rules.
"The guildhall's prepped and ready," Kyle reported.
"Already?"
He shrugged. "I was afraid the cask ale wouldn't be done in time, but it's delicious. Dune loved it."
I waved off the details. "Let's focus on the work before the celebration," I urged. "Papa Brugo can be a fickle leader." Kyle's expression dutifully sobered. I arched an eyebrow. "Why do you look so nervous?"
Kyle swallowed. "No reason."
"Kyle."
He cleared his throat. "It's nothing. I'm just really close to hitting level 10 and don't want anything to go wrong."
"Way to jinx us," teased Izzy.
"Why do you think I didn't wanna say anything?"
I raised my hands between them, closed my eyes, and took a calming breath. I didn't believe in bad omens. I wasn't gonna let them get me off my game.
When I opened my eyes, I caught Izzy's funny expression. I had the good sense to examine her. Sometime between last night and now, she'd made level 10. She smirked as I caught on, winked, and marched ahead.
I took another intake of air and set my eyes on the scene before us.
The Stronghold Arena was an artful replica of the Colosseum of Rome, but not as the modern world knows it. Its many columns stood in full repair. Swatches of black, yellow, and red painted the walls. Intricate accents of marble and metal abounded. It wasn't opulent so much as resolute, in the same sense that mountains were.
In the center of the rounded grounds rested two opposing thrones on a circle of plush carpet. Papa Brugo casually reclined sideways in his broad chair. His entourage attended him: several rogues in black leathers, Hadrian the Whisperer, and two slithery bodyguard spirits. Their wispy forms creeped me out. Eyeless, inhuman, drifting unnaturally like sentient plumes of black smoke.
In game terms, they were unusual in that they had no identifying tags. Brugo's rogues were a mix of middle-of-the-road players, human NPCs, and goblin mobs. Hadrian's description pegged him as a [Level 7 Advisor]. Brugo himself was an NPC; his name was gray and thus non-descriptive, but as a crime boss and Protector of Shorehome, it was safe to say he was a formidable threat. The bodyguards, however? Not an inkling of what they were or how strong. To me, that lack of knowledge was the most unnerving.
My throne sat empty. Surprisingly, despite not having a knack for public appearances, I had a small entourage of my own. Bravo Team was here—not that they weren't welcome. Lash stood beside my simple chair in bold white armor. The knight's cleaver was sheathed but she held her
black body shield. A spotless cape of white billowed in the breeze. Lash always was one for uniform. Conan and Glinda took up positions at her side, all official like. This was a real spectacle.
A piece of garbage hit the back of my head. I spun to the wall and jumped out of the way, narrowly dodging spit.
"Goblin lover!" yelled an ornery player in the stands. It was one of Chadwick's men. City watchmen spun in their sandals to respond to the threat.
The crowd around the gangster erupted into boos. Not for me, for him. They pushed and shamed the hater. He yelled back, but his tough-guy indignation evaporated as the shoving grew worse, which only emboldened the crowd further. Under a conflagration of jeers and cheers, they ran the poor man out of the stands. The city watch settled.
I nodded thanks for the show of support. Just to be safe, though, and as a further deterrent, I drew my dragonspear. Applause boomed. I used the weapon as a walking staff and approached the central stage with Izzy and Kyle, wishing I'd had a chance to coordinate with my team before this mess started. My mission with Tad had detracted from my preparation; I just hoped there weren't any hard feelings. I gave Lash a nod as I passed. Her full helm followed me while hiding her expression within.
I stopped at my throne and faced Brugo, expecting him to stand. His lazy attention revealed he had no plans of doing so. Gladius and a troop of centurions with red capes circled our backs in a show of support for Stronghold, carefully eyeing the shadowy bodyguards on the other side.
Papa Brugo's misshapen grin presented an unsettling swath of teeth and gums. The whole setup felt silly, but he was a proud man and this was a small price for peace. I lowered to my throne and the crowd, still filing to their seats, quieted.
"You ain't welcome in Stronghold!" issued a threatening voice.
Two gangsters flipped from the stands to the dirt and charged Papa Brugo's back, which happened to be the area devoid of centurions. Hadrian recoiled and waved for the rogues to shield their master. Brugo, for his part, was wholly unconcerned. He lazily rested, cheek on hand, elbow on armrest, clicking his tongue and studying me as two attackers bolted to his throne.