Crimson Sands
Sosaku Online - Book 1
J. Arthur Klein
Copyright © 2020 John Klein
All rights reserved.
This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, game systems, monsters, religions, mythologies, nightmares, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book is dedicated to my loving wife and amazing son without whom none of this would have been possible. Thanks for reminding me that our mothers would want to read this and having me take out that one chapter, dear.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Appendix - Kheph Sa’tep
Author’s Notes
About The Author
Marketplace
Chapter 1
I glanced up at the small red light blinking in the corner of my vision indicating that recording was in progress. Alright, show time, I thought, and then began to narrate my latest discovery, “Hey there dev team, this one took a little while to figure out, but I think I have it down now.”
“Okay, there is a bit of a complicated interaction here. Several things have to line up, but once they do you can pretty much do this every time without fail.”
“First, you need to be a blacksmith with a recipe that uses more than one type of metal ingot. Second, you need to have the bare minimum strength score for the level of blacksmithing required for the recipe. And lastly, you need an item that lowers your strength skill in your inventory ready to be equipped.”
I moved over to public forge, making sure there were no other players around at this hour and opened the crafting interface. I selected the Ornate Breastplate option which caused the various tools around the forge to highlight and indicate the different materials required.
This recipe required twenty steel ingots, ten gold ingots, twenty five steel rivets, and ten hard leather straps.
This game had two different ways to craft. For players who want the full experience, they could manually perform each step via a mini game. This method rewarded those willing to put in the time and effort and gave a chance for small bonuses or increased skill-ups.
The second option was more for players who didn’t want to bother and didn’t care about the extra bonuses.
The player could assign the resources from their inventory to the required tool slots and stations, hit a button, and watch the progress bar tick away until they had either the desired product, or a hunk of worthless junk.
“For this exploit, we need to select the ‘quick craft’ option and assign all the reagents to their slots,” I continued to narrate, assigning the ingots, leather straps, and other sundry ingredients to the appropriate stations in the forge.
“Now all of the mats are assigned where they need to be, but in my inventory window the stacks are still there, just greyed out,” I explained and clicked on the interface to start.
Slowly the count of ingots in the crafting interface began to decrement as the progress bar of the craft attempt began to fill up.
“At my current skill level, this recipe takes about sixty seconds to complete which gives me a bit of leeway here, especially since I am not concentrating on the minigame. I recently got hold of a ring that seems geared more towards magic characters than blacksmiths, called a 'Mage’s Bauble', but there is no class restriction, so it’s perfect for this.”
I moved the inventory window to the center of my view.
“Now as you can see, the stacks of materials in my inventory are still full, just grayed out. The crafting interface on the other hand, is counting down the mats as they would have been used up had we been going through the manual process.”
I closed the inventory window and watched the timer and the ingot counts in the crafting interface count down.
“So, at this point, we are approaching the finish line, at which point the system will check to see if we get our ornate breastplate, or lump of slag, so we are going to spice it up a bit.”
As the timer ticked down the last five seconds, I equipped the “Mage's Bauble” ring, dropping my strength by two and increasing my intelligence by four.
“Four, three, two, one… Boom,” I said as the error message appeared across the screen.
# ERROR – Minimum requirements for “Ornate Breastplate” recipe not met – Crafting Canceled. #
“Survey says,” I said as I popped open my inventory again. “Winner, winner, chicken dinner.” Sitting in my inventory were now duplicate stacks of materials.
“So here we have it, a quick and dirty way to duplicate materials in the game. I’m pretty sure this hasn’t been spread around yet since the economy hasn’t taken a dive, but I know at least the ‘Champions of Eris’ guild is using it since their strange behavior at the forge is what put me on the trail of this one. I tried this with single metal recipes, and it didn’t work, so it’s likely limited to whatever makes these dual alloy recipes different. My skill isn’t high enough to try it with any of the more expensive mats, so I’ll leave that up to you.”
I ended the video and attached it to the bug report that I had typed up earlier detailing the exploit and hit send. Another one bites the dust, I thought, starting the logout process from this game for probably the last time.
As the game closed, I unbuckled my VR headset and slipped off the control glove, blinking to readjust to normal lighting.
I stood up from my bed and stretched out, groaning as my muscles complained after having been still for so long.
All said, it was a good way to end my play of Talion Online. Hopefully my report would be the first on that exploit so I would get a nice bounty. Since Talion allowed people to buy in-game currency with their real-world credits, something impacting that economy could be pretty serious if not patched.
I glanced over at my wall clock and cursed at the time. 4AM had come and gone, and while tolerant of my gamer lifestyle, my mom tended to frown on sleeping past noon.
I tucked away my VR gear, visited the bathroom, and then crawled into bed, falling asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I awoke the next morning to a banging on my door and my mother calling me down for breakfast. I groaned and started to tuck my head under my pillows to drown out the banging but saw that the light on my phone was blinking indicating I had a message.
I reached ove
r and activated the display, opened the messenger app and began to read, the hopes of getting more sleep dashed.
=Transfer received from: Talion Online Inc.
=RE: Bug Report #67-221-56913.1
= Thank you for your report. Our development staff has confirmed the issue and has awarded you a Tier 1 bounty for bringing this to our attention. Our records show that all materials that were generated as a result of this issue on your account were deleted by you except for those produced in the instance used to create your report. Please feel free to keep those materials in addition to the bounty payment enclosed.
=Transfer Amount: 10,000 credits.
“Holy Shit!” I exclaimed. Ten thousand credits was enough to help my parents out with their bills and fund my next gaming adventure. With a bounty that big I was pretty sure that the exploit probably impacted the higher-grade mats in the game as well.
I almost felt sorry for the rain of fire that was going to fall on the Champions of Eris guild, but quickly quashed the undeserved pity. Whatever punishment they face will serve them right. Damn cheaters.
Tucking my phone into my pocket, I headed out of my bedroom and into the family common area. The expression on my face must have worried my mother because she put down what she was doing and rushed over, saying, “are you okay?” while feeling my forehead to see if I had a fever.
I laughed, “Yes Mom, I am okay. Just didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Okay dear, have some breakfast,” she replied as she motioned to the table where my sister Amber sat, her eyes focused on her tablet as she methodically shoveled eggs into her mouth.
“Good morning, Amber,” I said, taking a seat and filling my plate with food.
“Good morning, James,” she replied. “Stay up late again slaying dragons and watching elf girls dance on tables?”
“No sis, its slaying elf girls and watching dragons dance on tables in this one,” I replied with a wink and a laugh. “Just finished up my last night in Talion Online, although I guess I’ll have to log back in one more time to fully close out my account.”
I shared a small apartment with my parents and my sister, although my father was often away on deployment. He was an officer in the Navy and was often away for months on deployment, but it was a noble profession and when he was in town he made sure to make up for lost time.
His pay kept food on the table and a roof over our heads but didn’t leave a lot of wiggle room for emergencies.
I took out my phone and popped open the banking app, finding the saved account information for my parents’ bank account and transferring five thousand credits.
“Mom, I got a pretty good bug bounty last night, so I sent you some credits to help out with the bills. Maybe we can finally replace the broken dishwasher.”
She gave me a kiss on the head as she moved around the kitchen and squeezed my shoulders in thanks. My parents were proud people and while I knew they were thankful for everything I did; they also were saddened that they couldn’t provide everything that they thought we deserved.
I closed the banking app and started browsing through the latest news sites and social media. I popped open the Talion Online companion app that allowed players a limited interface to their current character stats, inventory, and auctions.
A good source of the company’s income came from a “pay-to-play” scheme. The first thing I noticed was an announcement that a hotfix had been applied this morning to correct “a logic flaw discovered in the quick-crafting functionality.” A job well done.
I clicked past the hotfix notes and opened the inventory access page, seeing that the duplicated materials were still there. The materials could net me a couple of credits if I sold them on the auction house, but in my mind it still didn’t feel right.
I took the original stacks of materials and put them up for sale. Those were legitimately obtained. I also put some of my rare equipment that wasnt character bound up for auction since I wouldn’t need it anymore.
The duplicated materials I deleted. Cheating was cheating, even if the admins said I could keep them.
I returned my phone to my pocket and began straightening up the table, collecting the dirty dishes and bringing them over to the sink and washing them before setting them in the drying rack.
Finishing up, I walked over, gave my mom a kiss on the cheek and headed out. I wanted to get out of the house before she saw the amount I'd just transferred as I didn’t really want to have to deal with any tears or questions.
Plus, since I was up early anyway, I might as well get some coffee and head over to the VR arcade. I needed to set up an account to make sure I would have one of the new VR pods available for next week’s release of the most anticipated VRMMORPG in this decade, Sosaku Online.
Surprisingly the developer of Sosaku Online had managed to keep a very tight lid on their project so far. Leaks were few and far between, and the last one was way back in the alpha.
One of their testers had recorded a small thirty second clip from inside the game and attempted to publish it on the Dark Web, but the IT team at SO caught it before it was completely uploaded.
Violation of the NDA cost that poor shmuck his job, most of his savings, and depending on the outcome of the trial for IP theft, some years of his life as well.
The official media releases from the publishers, Kabishiyama Holdings, Inc., showed a lush fantasy world full of breathtaking scenery.
Landscapes ranged from lush rainforests all the way to barren desert wastelands; the hype was real.
However, the game rules, races, skills, classes, etc. were all, as of yet, a mystery. The developers had revealed that the class and skill system was very open, but not much else.
Players could choose a starting class, but their progression from there would be pretty free form, with the potential for class shifts if play style warranted it. This was clutch, as they had also stated that each player would be limited to a single character.
The game would be accessible via standard VR interface, but Kabishiyama was the inventer of the first full immersion VR technology and had developed this game with that technology in mind.
Their full immersion pods started at hundreds of thousands of credits to purchase and required more power to run than most residential locations could support, so would only be available at VR Arcades that were set up specifically for that sort of draw.
There was one such arcade a couple of miles from my apartment complex. A group of professional e-Athletes had pooled together their winnings a couple years ago and purchased a derelict automobile factory at the edge of the city.
The power grid was intended to support a fully automated assembly line, so was more than capable of powering the VR Pods, game servers, and anything else the arcade could throw at it.
Originally, they used it as a team dojo, but eventually they had accumulated enough hardware and software that they decided to open it up to the public, renting out the equipment they weren’t currently using for some added revenue.
After a few months of booming business, they realized that they had a pretty good moneymaker on their hands and started outfitting their arcade with the latest equipment. And thus “The Lobby” was born.
Now they were a thriving business. They had recently completed an expansion into a neighboring lot and were days away from opening their new wing.
Based on the construction being done and the added powerlines, I was pretty sure that they were prepping for the new Kabishiyama pods.
With the money from the latest bounty, there was a good possibility that I could arrange something to ensure regular access to a pod before word spread about the new additions.
I hopped in the elevator and took it down to the ground floor of the towering housing complex, walked down to the bus stop and waited. I hopped onto the bus and then walked the rest of the way to the arcade.
I arrived at the arcade around 9AM. The Lobby was technically a twenty four hour operation, but their main clientele were c
asual gamers and would be otherwise occupied during the day. Only those who made gaming their profession were here this early.
I had a degree in computer science and had a decent grasp of software development and programming, but found early on after graduation that the field was flooded with people of the same education, and much more drive.
I worked for a couple years in the corporate software development field, but quickly found that the hours demanded by upper management and their obsession with the bottom line, regardless of the shortcuts needed, was not for me.
I worked to be able to live the life I wanted, not to live for some bigwig corporate masters. So, before my spirit was smothered by corporate demands, I tried my hand at something more… me.
Blogging, streaming, game reviews, professional beta testing... I dabbled in it all. I had a pretty decent following on my stream channel that was usually enough to pay my own personal bills and had published several game reviews in the past.
But my main moneymaker was bug hunting. I hated cheaters and exploits with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, and when one came to my attention, I had an almost obsessive compulsion to dig into it until I rooted out the cause and brought it to the attention of the developers. Most modern development houses paid good money for that sort of thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t go seeking these things out. My main focus was actually enjoying myself and playing the game, but if something caught my eye, I was not one to look the other way.
I waved at one of the techs as I entered the arcade and headed over to the main desk. I saw one of the owners through the door behind the desk and caught his attention.
I was nowhere near as famous as these guys, but I was at least known to them. I used to spend a good deal of time here before I was able to buy one of their older headsets from them and do my gaming at home.
“Hey there, James,” the owner said. “Good to see you again. Looking to upgrade your rig? We have some of the newer headsets that we'd be willing to sell.”
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