“Then change the goddam protocol!”
Darcy finally broke into the conversation. “That would require taking the system offline for an extended period. In order to ensure player safety, the Asimov laws of robotics were hardwired to her core, making it impossible to alter or bypass in any way in the event a rogue element did succeed in gaining access and had the knowledge to alter Matrice’s programming.”
Vincent wrapped his knuckles on his desk as he thought. “OK. So we lost an NPC and a single instance quest. That’s not that big a deal. Hell, other than the players who have already done it or were on their way to do it I doubt anyone will even know it ever existed. You’re sure Edison doesn’t have any more devices hidden away that would let him try this again?”
Darcy shook her head. “My people and I have scoured every piece of hardware and connection attached to Matrice. There’s nothing.”
“I’ve also begun writing a program that should prevent any attempt to alter any game elements from outside without authentication from the master terminal in the ACR,” Michael added.
Vincent cast him a baleful look. “I feel so much better now, because you have done such an amazing job of filling me with confidence in your abilities.”
Someone knocked on the door.
“Fuck off, I’m in a meeting!” Vincent yelled.
Instead of leaving, the door opened and a nervous man poked his head through. He spoke hurriedly before Vincent could shout at him again.
“Sir, I think this pertains to the problem at hand.”
“Who the hell are you?” Vincent asked.
“Kermit Baxley, sir. Ingame support supervisor.”
“We aren’t in the game and no one called for support, so this had better be damned good, or I’m going to have you beta test a special chair I’m building in the sublevel.”
Kermit stepped farther into the room but not so far he could not retreat through the door. “No, sir, not good. In fact, it’s bad. Possibly very bad.”
“Then spit it out, man! One more broomstick up my ass isn’t going to make much of a difference now.”
“Yes, sir. My team received a trouble ticket from one of the beta players. He mentioned the NPC and quest we’re having a problem with. He’s not gone from the game. He’s left the reservation.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Jandar Barati isn’t gone from the game. He simply isn’t tagged as an NPC anymore and has gone completely off script.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure, sir. The player reported that the NPC trapped several players in an inn and burned them all alive. Only the logs don’t show any NPC by the name of Jandar Barati anywhere in the game. The last recorded reference to that name was in the bandit cave that’s part of his quest where he was killed.”
“Shit. That’s brutal.” Vincent turned to Michael. “Cho, how big a problem is this?”
Michael raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “I have no idea. An NPC losing its tag and going off script has never happened before.”
“It’s worse than that,” Kermit said.
“Of course it is. Go ahead; upgrade my broomsticks to baseball bats. When the board fires me I can rent out my asshole as a parking garage,” Vincent said.
“The reason the player submitted a ticket was because he was unable to resurrect his character. We can’t either. I even called the ACR and they were denied as well.”
“Permadeath. That’s what Edison wanted from the beginning,” Michael said.
Vincent looked up at the ceiling, sighed, and returned his gaze back to Kermit. “You look like you want to add another baseball bat. Out with it.”
Kermit swallowed and looked helplessly at Darcy and Michael before saying, “This is not a singular event. Every player killed in the fire was also affected. Most of them, being low level, simply made new characters and reentered the game.”
“Grab another bat while I unclench,” Vincent growled.
“Every new character created by the affected players shows a permanent buff called Greater Mortalitatis Amplecti.”
“Mortality’s Embrace,” Darcy said.
“Go ahead, light the match and turn my ass into a bonfire,” Vincent told Kermit.
“It…it appears to be infectious. The new inflicted characters entered in the starting zones, which are quite crowded. The greater variant appears to have a small AoE and infects others with a lesser strain, which requires direct or incidental contact like talking, shaking hands, or exchanging items.”
“How many are infected?”
“Last I looked there were 68 players and 432 NPCs and mobs; ten of them with the greater debuff.”
“And how long did it take from the moment the first infected players reentered the game to reach this number?”
Kermit held his breath a moment. “Nine minutes forty-three seconds RWT.”
“That’s about half an hour ingame,” Michael said.
Vincent plopped back down into his chair and cradled his head in his hands. “Oh, Edison, you really fucked us.” He looked up at Michael and Darcy. “Do you have any idea of the hit our stock value is going to take? This isn’t some basic MMORPG people toss a few bucks at every month to play. We’re providing a subscription to an entirely new life, and they’re thanking us for only charging $1500 a month for the privilege! Do you think they’ll continue thanking and paying us when they find out the life they paid so much for can be snuffed out like that?”
He snapped his fingers and began drumming them on the desk. “Cho, now that Edison is unemployed, you’re the highest paid programmer in the world. If you don’t want to be standing in the unemployment line by this time tomorrow, you better throw us a life raft, or we’re all going to drown.”
Michael’s mouth hung open as he looked between Darcy and Vincent. He closed his mouth and snapped his fingers. “Eternity stones!”
“What?” Vincent asked.
“In Edison’s original design, he was going to create rare drops called eternity stones. If a player possessed an eternity stone, they could resurrect their avatar. It would consume the stone, but it created a way for smart, cautious players to get a second chance. The problem he saw with most of the other MMORPGs allowing players to resurrect at will was that it created too much chaos. They were essentially free to run around killing at will with no real fear of dying. Tackle a raid boss and wipe? No big deal, you just lost a bit of XP or gold or whatever mechanic the game used.
“The problem with that was that high level players had plenty of both. It’s also why Edison insisted on a limited perception ability. Players were going to be far more cautious with their actions, particularly in regards to attacking mobs and NPCs, if they weren’t sure about its overall level, hit points, power, and abilities. It was all about game purity and self-regulation for Edison, and the best way to get players to self-regulate was evening out the risk vs reward.”
Vincent nodded as the gears turned in his head. “OK, so we just introduce these eternity stones into the game and negate Edison’s little mortality debuff. We can have vendors sell them for a little gold. Better yet, sell them as additional content!”
Darcy shook her head. “Matrice would see that as a violation of game integrity. Since the stones were part of Edison’s original idea, I’m positive she’ll allow us to add them to the game, but it has to be balanced.”
“Boss drops,” Michael said with a nod. “She also might let us get away with injecting a resurrection spell into the game, although it will likely be limited in scope. That will make healers even more desirable. It could open up a real-world market for healer mercs.”
Vincent wanted to explode, both for Darcy referring to the AI using a personal pronoun and reminding him that they had limited control over it. “Krammit!”
The ingame support supervisor looked around the room. “Uh, me, sir?”
“Yes you! Is there anyone else in this room named Krammit?”
“It’s
Kermit, sir.”
“Cram it, Kermit. I don’t care. This disease, this debuff, where is it?”
Kermit cleared his throat. “Truale, sir. It’s centered in Ambercross, but we have found small but expanding pockets of it in Altina, Meglea, and Ceblen.”
Vincent steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “This could work. Your GM’s avatars are like royalty in the game or some shit, right?”
“They’re more like Matrice’s holy messengers.”
“I don’t give a damn if they’re a pack of kiddy-diddling priests as long as the NPC rulers will do what they say! Unless they’re actual kiddy-diddlers, then they gotta go. We have a big enough PR problem right now.”
“Uh…no, sir. None I’m aware of. The game filters won’t allow any sort of sexual misconduct ingame regardless.”
“Good on both counts. Have your GMs visit every king, queen, duke, duchess, and anyone of any significance to lock down their borders. No one, and I mean no one, from Truale can travel outside the kingdom. Not player, not NPCs, not anyone. They are KOS; kill on sight. Tell them there’s a plague in Truale, and the same goes for anyone who gets within fifty feet of an infected. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“OK. I’ll get PR to draft up a press release announcing our new, and planned, hardcore region. Anyone who logs into the hardcore zone is permanently bound there by their account, not just their character.”
“Vincent,” Michael said, “this is not going to go over well with the players. Especially the ones already in Truale.”
Vincent waved a hand in front of him. “Nonsense. They’re gamers. You sprinkle enough Cheetos dust on a turd and they’ll eat it and beg for seconds. Everyone already in Truale gets one-month free subscription, and their subscription prices are now halved. Same for anyone who chooses Truale as their starting point. Just make sure they know that their account is permanently bound to that region. Put that shit in 72-point bold font in the EULA. Right at the top. You know how gamers are a bunch of crybabies when it comes to their avatars. No one gets to whine about not knowing the rules on this one.”
“That’s going to create a rather small zone, relatively speaking, for players limited to Truale.”
“Bullshit. Truale is one of the largest kingdoms in Mortalia. Besides, with the new hardcore mode, most of them will probably die every few days or weeks. It will take months to explore even half of it, and that’s assuming they play smart and don’t die. For those who do, there’s a big ocean out there. Plenty of room for us to plop down some new hardcore content.”
“You’re not a gamer, are you, Vincent?” Michael asked.
“Of course not. Look at me. I get laid plenty. But I bet you are.”
“I am, or used to be, and even with reduced subscription rates, we’re going to get some backlash.”
Vincent drummed his fingers on his desk. “True, they don’t care about money or they wouldn’t be paying us so damn much. So other than adding hentai for them to jerk off to, what can we offer?”
Darcy pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at Vincent. “And you know about hentai how?”
He ignored her and snapped his fingers. “The experience curve is pretty steep, right? Flatten that shit out. Reduce the progression curve by…fifty percent for everyone in Truale. Goose the loot drops a bit too. And improve the perception ability. Players are going to need a little more help to stay alive.”
“We have to be careful about maintaining game balance,” Michael warned. “The limited information was a cornerstone of Edison’s idea of full immersion. Matrice may not allow it.”
“Fucking AI. It’s like I’m married to it. Worse, it’s like I’m divorced from it. It’s still a pain in my ass, costs me a fortune, and doesn’t even suck my—”
“That should work,” Darcy cut in.
“Great. We have a plan. No one finds out we’ve effectively lost control of the most powerful AI on the planet. Tell your people to expect new NDRs with maximum penalties for violations and that they are considered already in effect. Goddam it! What a shit show. Don’t just stand there; get to work, people! Darcy,” hold a minute,” Vincent said as they began filing out of the room. “That Dark Web thing you mentioned. Get me those names.”
Darcy arched her eyebrows. “Are you serious?”
“I just want the board to know all their options.”
Chapter 8: Meet Thy Maker
JANDAR SHIFTED THE PACK on his back and glanced up at the sun. He had put several miles between himself and Whitbell in the last few hours. If only he could distance himself from the nightmare he was trying to run from as easily. The haunting memories clung to him like his own shadow. There was no outrunning it. No distancing himself from it. It was part of him.
He tried to blink the eye mote away, but it persisted. It was like he had been staring into the forge all day, but for some reason it just would not leave him be. He wondered if something had broken in his brain. There was something different about him since he woke up yesterday. Something very wrong.
Jandar continued plodding down the rough, narrow road toward the distant mountains. Darell was right. People were going to come looking for him. He thought about Jesse and Lenora. Maybe he should let them find him and send him back to them, to whatever afterlife they resided in. No! He was not done here yet. Besides, he murdered a lot of people last night. Justified or not, there was no paradise waiting to welcome him.
The trees began to thicken and the road started to become little more than a narrow wagon track slowly being reclaimed by the countryside. Jandar did not notice the men camped a short distance off the path until they began moving toward him. By the looks of them, they were as surprised by his arrival as he was to their presence.
“You’re a long way from nowhere, friend,” one said as he and another man stepped onto the path ahead of him.
Jandar turned his head and saw a third man coming up behind him. “So are you.”
“Yeah, me and the boys don’t take to townsfolk life, and they don’t tend to take to us.”
“You’re hunters then?” Jandar asked, already certain they were not.
The man grinned and spit on the ground near his feet. “Somt’n like that.”
“Hunting can be dangerous work, depending on the prey. Some animals will turn on you if cornered and put up one hell of a fight.”
The man grinned, showing a mouth with almost as many blank spaces as teeth. “Yeah. You just gotta make sure there’s more of you than them. Why don’t you drop that pack and purse, and we’ll let you go back the way you came. I think that’s a fair offer. You don’t become prey, and we don’t have to worry about no cornered beast.”
Jandar directed his icy gaze at each man in turn and unslung his rucksack. “Under normal circumstances I might agree with you, but we’ve got three problems.”
“And what’s that?”
Jandar clenched his pack by the strap in one hand. “These aren’t normal circumstances, I need to go that way,” he lifted his hammer, “and I really hate bandits.”
The blacksmith swung his laden pack at the group’s spokesman, knocking him off balance. He barreled ahead, caught the man next to him with a shoulder in his rush forward, and brought is hammer around to crush into the leader’s jaw before he could recover. Several of his remaining teeth flew out of his mouth, trailing bloody ropes of saliva.
The bandit to his rear charged at his back, his dagger leading. Jandar spun on his heel, knocked the dagger aside with his bag, and drove his hammer into his gut. The bandit let out a loud whumph of air, dropped his blade, and fell to his knees while clutching his stomach. Jandar followed him to the ground and hit him with an uppercut, flipping him onto his back.
The third man recovered and drew a rusty shortsword. Jandar intercepted his thrust with his rucksack. The rusty blade pierced the leather and a few items inside. The tip appeared out of the back inches from his face. Jandar heaved on his pack, stripping the weapon from the man’s grip. He ch
arged forward as the bandit backpedaled and fumbled for the knife at his belt.
Jandar’s hammer caught him once in the chest and again in the face. The highwayman fell backward, and Jandar lifted his hammer to deliver the finishing blow. Fire erupted in his back, and he dropped his pack as he stumbled forward. He spun about and stared into the furious, bloody face of the group’s leader. The man snarled, spitting out blood and two more teeth.
He lunged at Jandar, ducking beneath the smith’s hasty swing, and cut a deep line across his body. Had Jandar been wearing his heavy leather apron, the wound would have been trivial, but it was rolled up and strapped to the top of his rucksack. The thief’s blade arced for his midsection again in a swift backswing, but Jandar caught his wrist with his strong, calloused hand and brought it to an abrupt halt.
Jandar showed his teeth in a snarl and brought his hammer down atop the bandit’s head. The highwayman dropped to the road and lay still. The furious blacksmith stalked over to the other two thieves and made sure they never harassed anyone ever again.
He took a clean shirt out of his bag, tore it into strips, and did his best to bandage his wounds. He searched the bandits and collected anything of value, which was not much beyond a few coins and some shoddy weapons.
He decided to use the highwaymen’s camp as his own. It was a few hours until nightfall, but it was as good a place as any to ride out the night. Better really as everything was already set up, including a canvas lean-to with three bedrolls and even a pot of stew cooking over a fire. It was slim pickings for a group of three but more than sufficient for just him.
He removed the pot from the tripod suspending it over the fire and set aside to cool. He found what he assumed to be the bandits’ loot hidden in a small hole under one of the bedrolls beneath the lean-to. It contained a fair amount of money, a bit of raw gold in both powder and small nuggets, and a few pieces of cheap jewelry.
Jandar returned to the campfire and began devouring the entire pot of food. He began feeling better almost immediately. By the time he finished the pot, his wounds had stopped bleeding. He removed the bandages and found that his cuts had even begun to close. Jandar furrowed his brow as he pondered the unusual healing. Only adventurers blessed by Matrice healed this quickly without potions, magic, or healing herbs.
Chaos Unchained- The Mad Smith Page 10