by Wade Adrian
Paul turned his head slightly, as though listening to a distant voice.
Toby lifted his sword.
Miller noticed. “So, how do you like the sword?”
“Come closer. I’ll let you sign it.”
Miller smiled. “Have you figured it out yet?”
“It grows stronger by killing players.”
“Indeed.” He nodded. “But not just that. It’s tied to the world. Did you think events just kept happening to favor you randomly? There’s an algorithm running that decides where events should be and when. I helped write it, so of course I know how to lie to it. The sword’s head count isn’t just increasing its damage. All those it cuts down, player and mob alike, are tallied and fed into that algorithm as if they were players standing next to you.”
Toby’s eyes shifted to the sword. That… kind of made sense. Events kept popping up near them while the scouts working without them had trouble finding anything. He was a walking raid group as far as the game tracking him could tell. Hell, a few raid groups at this point.
The game was trying to give him appropriate challenges.
He blinked a few times as he recalled his dream where the dead were working for him… he’d just thought it was referencing Soulbreaker growing stronger as it killed players.
Paul’s attention snapped back to Miller. “Your objections are noted. You can leave now.”
Miller shrugged. “I could, sure. But I don’t think I will. As I see it, you’ve already failed. Why draw this out?” He lifted his hand.
Everyone vanished from the room except for Miller and Toby.
Miller let his hand drop. “Sorry, kid. I was pulling for you. Really.”
Toby shifted his stance but he didn’t lower his sword. It was still the only thing in the game that would hurt Miller… of course, it had been Miller that said as much.
“That why you took out Mitchel?”
Miller tilted his head a smiled a bit. “Didn’t fool you for a second, did I?”
“Not really.”
A voice appeared beside Toby’s ear. “Distract him. Keep him talking.”
“But you let me wander around.” Miller raised an eyebrow.
“We had eyes on you the entire time. Also arrows.”
Miller nodded a few times. “Practical.”
“Why save me?”
Miller sighed. “That’s… complicated. And I don’t really see why I should go into it. It won’t matter to you in a few seconds.” He raised his hand again.
“So, just like that you’re going to cheat. You won’t even give me a fair fight?”
“Don’t see the point. We’re not vying for head Klingon, here. I kill you, you all lose, I win.”
Toby smiled and poured all the sass he could find into it. “It’s no wonder they badmouth you that way, now that I’ve had a chance to talk with you myself. Hell, I even tried to defend you once or twice, but you really are just a self centered prick.”
Miller’s eyes lost their mirth. “Get that out of your system? Good.”
Toby threw the sword. He hadn’t really been planning to so it wasn’t his best throw, but it crossed the open space and struck the solid wooden chair… because Miller had just managed to twist himself out of the way.
He scowled at Toby. “You know, I only picked you because you were the first one I came to that lacked beta experience and picked a stupid class. But maybe I doomed this thing from the start by picking such a moron.”
Black electricity played over Miller’s hand as he lifted it once more.
“An error easily corrected. Goodbye, kid.”
Soulbreaker returned to his hand. He held it up to defend himself.
The black energy coalesced into a ball and flew at Toby. It got bigger as it moved, growing to the size of a small car. It destroyed every object it hit, just deleting them from existence.
He couldn’t get out of the way. He couldn’t hide behind anything.
A burst of white light appeared before his eyes… was this what dying looked like? Fade to white? Happy clouds? No. Death wasn’t supposed to be permanent here.
The light faded to reveal a figure in flowing white robes standing a foot in front of Toby. He held up his hand, the black ball of electricity stopped dead. It spun in the air and sent off electric tendrils, but it wasn’t moving anymore.
Miller narrowed his eyes. “That’s hardly fair.”
“You threw out fair, asshole.”
The figure’s hand collapsed into a fist. The ball of energy condensed into nothingness, its last wisps of energy escaping between the tightly clamped fingers.
The white figure swiftly turned and laid a hand on Toby’s shoulder. It pulled his hood up.
The church disappeared in a burst of white light. It was dark outside when his eyes readjusted. He stood on an unfamiliar beach facing a churning ocean.
Toby blinked a few times. “Tim?”
The white hood turned to regard Toby. Tim’s face was inside. He grinned. “Sup?”
“You’re… dead? Right? Locked out?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “But as Miller showed you, GM accounts can look like anybody. Guy in charge of this one stepped out for a minute. So I figured, what the hell?”
Toby laughed. “It’s good to see you.”
Tim nodded and rubbed at his chin. “Of course. But we can’t stay long. He’s sure to follow.” Tim leaned in close. “In fact, that’s the idea.” He winked and grabbed hold of Toby’s shoulder again.
White light washed over him and the world faded away. The light faded to reveal a mountain top covered in deep snow.
Another figure in white robes stood only a few feet away. Toby didn’t know this one, but Tim nodded. “Your turn, Greg.”
Greg nodded and held out his hand. “Off we go.”
“Uhh…” Toby glanced aside at Tim.
He nodded. “Quite safe, I promise.”
“Kay?” Toby took hold of Greg’s hand and the world was a wash of white again.
They appeared to be deep in a forest now.
Toby blinked a few times. “That’s going to blind me before long.”
Greg chuckled. “Like a flashbang. Close your eyes when you see it start up.”
Toby nodded. “Probably a good idea.” He glanced around. The forest was quiet. “What’s the play, here?”
“Quite simple. Miller tipped his hand. He’s planning to be done with this, so we’re making sure he can’t.” He pointed at Toby’s hood. “You’re missing from search results, but we’re not. So we’re playing hot potato. Miller has to search for us, then pick who to follow. So we’re all moving about at the same time, and each time one of us is moving you.”
“I… see?”
Greg shook his head and grabbed hold of Toby’s arm.
As the world turned white again Toby clamped his eyes shut.
It helped. A little.
They were inside a stone structure now. There were no windows to light the place, only a few sputtering torches. Yet another white robed figure stood waiting. This one was shorter and had long dark hair spilling out of the front out her hood. “Hi.” She waved. “Steff.”
He nodded. “Toby.”
She held out a hand. “It’s my turn. Don’t worry, I pick nicer places than this.”
Greg crossed his arms. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s dark. Damp. Claustrophobic.”
“And secret.”
“As secret as any place we can go.” She shrugged.
Toby glanced back and forth between them. “Can you fight later, maybe?”
Steff nodded. “Sure.” She opened and closed her outstretched hand. “Come on.”
Toby took hold of her hand.
Greg nodded. “Two jumps, then it’s Tim’s turn again. I’ve got the rest for now.”
“Righto.” She nodded.
Toby guarded his eyes against the light. He opened them again to see a vast desert. “Yeesh, you guys have an underwater city,
too?”
“Working on that one.” She nodded.
He shook his head. “So, I don’t get it. We just keep jumping around until, what? I’m the only one that can hurt Miller.”
“Oddly enough, that’s actually true. I peaked at your sword. It’s actually a hard coded item, like he made it back when he worked here. It can ‘kill’ game masters.”
“What? How’s that work?”
“You know what a DDS attack is? Whole bunch of people trying to connect to one thing, usually if it’s an ‘attack’ it’s simulated because people don’t really care that much. But people can actually kill websites unintentionally if they aren’t prepared for the traffic. Hug of death. Anyway…”
She grabbed his arm and he barely had time to close his eyes. They were in a swamp now, standing on an island in the middle of a river.
“The sword can crash a GM’s station by flooding it with nonsense data. Tiny little DDS attack. Not really a sword, either. He just attached the code snippet to a weapon your class could use. Looks like one we had been prepping for the next PVP arena event. Content completed but not implemented yet.”
Toby looked down at his sword. He’d kind of gotten used to the idea that it was a unique and special item… it seemed less so with all its moving parts laid bare.
“But… why give me the power to actually hurt him?”
“Good question.” She nodded as she grabbed hold of his arm.
They ended up standing on top of a rooftop, ceramic shingles clanking underfoot. They were surrounded by buildings stretching as far as he could see in the dark.
Tim appeared a moment later. He waved. “Yo.”
Steff nodded to him. “Near as we can tell, Miller can’t alter existing code. We can’t either, not while the server is running. So he only has access to things that are already running which includes some things he put together when he worked here that no one found to take out. The code running on your sword is one big thing. One block of code. It counts kills as players to trick events into appearing, and it can hurt GMs.”
Tim scratched at his chin. “Turns out it has a few other talents, too. But, like she said, it’s an all in one deal. To get the events ticking like he wanted, he had to give you all of it. Including the ability to ‘kill’ GMs. We can only surmise he put that block of code together for himself but decided to give it to you as part of his attempt to distract us. Only so many plays in his book so he had to improvise.” He nodded to Steff. “I got him.”
She bowed politely and vanished in a burst of white light.
Tim grabbed Toby’s arm. “Eyes.” He warned.
They appeared next on top of a different mountain. The rocks were much less jagged. Almost rounded in places. It must rain a lot here… or be meant to imply that.
“Okay…” Toby nodded. “Let’s say I understand all that. Do we just keep teleporting me around indefinitely?”
“Nope. One or two more should do it.”
“Do what?”
Tim tilted his head to the side as if he was listening to someone standing just behind him. He nodded. “Or that one did it. Cool.” He grabbed hold of Toby’s arm again. “Eyes.”
Toby sighed.
27
They stood on a small island in the middle of a serene looking lake. There were a handful of old buildings clustered in the middle of the island with roofs in need of attention. There was well at the center. The world’s tiniest town.
Tim let go and wandered toward the buildings. “Come on. This is you for a bit.”
Toby frowned. “Umm?”
“The point of all that wasn’t theatrics.” He sat on the edge of the well. “Every time someone teleports it forces the server to talk to them twice. Once at point A, and once at point B. The points are tested and the server has to agree that you moved or you get fun rubber banding effects that make you throw up. The farther one teleports the larger the information that the server needs to deal with.”
“So, when you bamfed about, it… hurt the server?”
“Hurt it? Fuck no, it’s a computer, man. Besides, I could only go a few feet. As far as the game is concerned, I walked real fast. Shadow step can’t make you change areas fast enough for the server to care. What we have been doing, though? Yeah, it cares. It took notice.”
“And… you had three of you jumping about.”
“Classic shell game. Miller was following behind. Why we didn’t stay put for long. He’d search for GM accounts, get the locations, then pick one to check. By the time he made it to any of the three we were gone and he had to consider checking the other two to see if we dropped you off, or checking the three new ones. Only one of him, no way to know more.” Tim pointed at Toby’s head. Or, more specifically, his hood. “Because you don’t show up when he searches your location.”
“So you were tracking him in turn.”
“Barely needed to, really. He didn’t seem to care about hiding his tracks as he gave chase. When Greg dropped out of the shell game it was because he was moving on to phase two, which was checking the server logs for high activity. Only five pings. Me, Steff, Greg, You… and Miller. And only one of those IP addresses wasn’t in the building.”
“You banned him?”
“Blocked the IP, yeah.”
“But…” Toby shook his head. “Weren’t the feds trying to avoid pissing him off? Afraid of other bombs and whatnot?”
“Miller is all ego. I worked with him and I can tell you with certainty he’s working his butt off to get a new IP right now. Honestly we’re not sure what he’s up to, but whatever his goal is it involves the game. Being locked out isn’t acceptable. He knows we can’t block his account because it’s set as admin level, so he’ll figure out the problem soon enough. Besides,” he shrugged, “we tweaked his nose pretty good. He won’t stand for it. But lucky for you he can’t track you with that hood on. So I’m out of here in a moment but you’re staying. At least for now.”
Toby glanced around. “Seems… quiet.”
“Isolated is the better term. The big building has a basement which you access by moving a bookshelf. Super high-kinda-low tech. You get in there, and the odds of him finding you, even if he checks the island, are piss poor.”
“And I just… stay here?”
“For the moment. Miller seemed willing to kill you, which would have ended his event. Means whatever it is he was up to he’s done or damn near done. Paul is going to call him out, or at least try. He’s going to assemble the raid at the entrance. When he’s ready, we come get you. I can’t say if Miller’s ego will get him into that raid… but he’s kind of a dick, so it might. Can’t read his mind.”
Toby blinked. “Paul is okay? I thought Miller…”
“Killed them all? Nope. He just dumped them outside. Part of why we don’t think he’s done yet. He could just go on a tirade as a Godzilla sized cricket if he wanted to, but he hasn’t. Makes you wonder, huh?” He shrugged. “At any rate, don’t get too comfy, I doubt it will take long for Paul to assemble the raid. In the meantime we’re going to be informing everyone we can about the event coming to a close… one way or the other. Sucks that we have to spin it all neutral like… but such is life.”
“Tim?”
“Hmm?”
“Thanks for coming back for me, man. From the other side of death, Tim the White returns to save the day.”
Tim grinned. “I was getting bored, so I took over Rich’s station while he stepped out. But I probably won’t give it back, so… I guess so, yeah.” He tried to make himself sound older. “I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.” He nodded. “But I can’t stay. Don’t want Miller to find me here. Peace.”
Tim vanished in a burst of light.
Toby sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck.
This was getting crazy.
All of the buildings were unlocked. He wasted no time exploring the rest, he just checked the doors. Better they were open and not set up to look like they were hiding something.
The largest building’s door nearly fell off the hinges. The roof was open to the sky in more than a few places.
There was more than one bookshelf in the room. The entire back wall was lined with them. If one wasn’t looking for a staircase, they might not notice the room inside looked smaller than the walls outside would account for.
The bookcase that moved did so without much prompting, exposing a small space beyond with a narrow trap door. He opened it and took a few steps down the equally narrow stairs before shutting the book case behind him. There was a latch on this side… he hoped it held pretty well. Tim and the other GMs wouldn’t need him to open it.
Of course, Miller counted as a GM. Hopefully everything being shut and locked was just the normal state.
He ventured down the rickety steps and shut the trap door as well. It had a latch of its own, but it broke off when he tried to use it.
Light filtered down through the floorboards over his head. He glanced around. It was dark down here, but his eyes adjusted after a few moments. The space under the stairs had a few old barrels. He shifted them around a bit and sat with his back in the corner. He could see the whole room, and he could see anyone’s feet that started down the stairs.
Not exactly a regal sort of place… dust and cobwebs were the order of the day. Then again, he was pretty sure lots of royals had spent time in places like this when their lives were endangered. Perhaps it was more traditional than he first thought.
Well, he couldn’t be much safer. He didn’t log out for fear of that pinging the server or something, but he reached up to remove his headset.
Claire was standing barely a foot away. She wrapped her arms around him, her own sensor vest clacking against his. “That was too close.”
Paul glanced over from the center station. He was still decked out in his own sensors, minus his headset. “I take it you’re safe then?”