by Jeff Sproul
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Riley
Level: 35
Tier: One
Status: Healthy
Hit points: 100%
Buffs: x / Debuffs: x
Stats:(+15)
Power: 5
Constitution: 15
Toughness: 15
Mind: 5
Stamina: 10
Dexterity: 11
Luck: 5
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He was level thirty five! He must’ve gotten a tremendous experience boost from fighting Saros. But if he gained five levels...why did his stats section show ‘+15.’ Where did the other 10 come from?
“Are your stats different?” Riley asked, as he looked over to Laura and the two paragons, who were also checking out their status screens, based on where their hands were and where they were looking.
“Hmm, I gained some experience, and eight stat points?” said Paladin.
“I gained five levels worth of experience and got ten points,” said Riley.
“You got more points than me?” Paladin asked with a slight huff. “Hmm, probably because you were here for a longer duration of the fight.”
“I got twelve stat points, plus the experience! Take that!” Red Shotgun gloated.
“Hmm, I only got eight points as well,” Laura murmured. “Plus the experience for the kill.”
“Looks like our reward is more stats, which is...pretty awesome,” said Red. “No guarantee that the loot drops would’ve helped us, but I can definitely use twelve points!”
Riley focused back on the status screen. He took the opportunity to spend the fifteen points. He placed one in constitution, one in toughness, two in stamina, and the rest in dexterity. That should get his dexterity stat to a better level, to help him use his cords faster and more accurately.
Riley dissipated the screen and looked over to Paladin. “I’m sorry, Paladin” he said. “I tipped the balance in the Weevil’s favor.” Riley turned his head, looking down to the streets below. “And got a bunch of players killed.”
Paladin looked back to Riley, then turned around and took a few steps towards him. He looked over to Laura, then to Red. He cleared his throat and took in a slow breath. His gaze met Riley’s. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “I wasn’t strong enough to win against it on my own. If I hadn’t taken that potion, it would’ve beaten me. I got careless. I didn’t think it was smart enough to do what it did.”
“Neither did I,” said Riley. “I’ve never seen a monster with reactions like that. The developers really had it in for us with that last patch, huh?”
Paladin’s arms slowly crossed against his dented armor. His energy weapons had dissipated. “I think we’re wrong,” he said.
Riley blinked a few times, giving Paladin a strange look. “What do you mean?”
“I think we’re wrong about the White Weevil,” said Paladin. “Every monster I’ve ever fought, popped up a health bar and a name, when I’ve hit it. When I hit that bug, I didn’t see anything come up. And trust me, I was looking.”
Riley’s eyes slowly widened. “Wait, are you...are you sure? But that would mean it’d have to be—”
“A player,” said Paladin.
“A player?” Red spoke up. “You think it’s a player? This whole time? Not a rare spawn?”
Paladin nodded. “It’s the only explanation.”
“What about an NPC,” said Laura. “We’ve seen NPCs running around with guns. You can hire them as companions and everything.”
“NPCs have served a very limited capacity in the world,” said Paladin. “They fill the world out, as citizens and companions for hire. NPCs have never gained powers before. They also have limited intelligence, just like the monsters. They act real, but only to a certain extent. You saw how that bug fought. It knew what Riley was trying to do, and twisted the entire situation around to its benefit. Either it’s a next-generation artificial construct in the game, which we’ve heard nothing about, or that white bug is a player.”
“I think Laura has a fair point,” said Red. “If you punch a monster, you get a name and a bar. If you punch an NPC, you get nothing. So it’s not a monster as we know it, but it’s not a usual NPC.”
“So it has to be a player, as Paladin said,” said Riley. “It’s possible that it could be artificial, but...I don’t know. It’s either a super advanced AI, or its a clever player. It knew that Laura and I were no actual threat to it, even after attacking it. It didn’t even try to kill us! Even though neither of us could’ve stood up to it. It went right for controlling Saros. Not to mention, my powers can’t buff monsters, which I’ve tested before.”
“And it disappeared,” said Paladin.
“You can equip NPCs with items,” said Laura. “They’ll even use them, too.”
Red sighed. “So, NPC or player. What’s it matter? That thing has some real ass-kicking power.”
“It matters to me!” said Riley, his fists tightening. “I need to know if I’m hunting a player or just another monster. If it’s a player, then that means it’s willfully killing the rest of us, just for the fun of it! At least if it's a monster, it’s only following what the developers told it to do.”
Laura looked down to the ground. “If it's an NPC, then we should be able to predict some of its behaviors.”
“It shows up at completely random times, with huge gaps of time between,” said Paladin. “First, that fight with those five paragons where Radiance died. Next, the fight with the scorpion. Then, here with Saros. There doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to its behavior.”
“Laura reached up and ran her hand through her hair. “Maybe...it appears when certain conditions are met?” she murmured.
“Or, it's a player that seizes opportunities. It could even target players it has a grudge with,” said Riley.
“Or!” Red spoke up again. “It’s just having fun. I don’t think we’re going to know until we find it again.”
“Gargantuan is going to take a big economic hit because of this,” said Laura. “Saros caused a lot of damage to the plaza, the vendors, and even players. I don’t think we’re going to be able to catch this bug unless we know how it thinks. So, until that happens, it has free reign to do whatever it wants, and to continue being a huge pain in the ass.”
“I wasn’t prepared to deal with such a formidable opponent,” said Paladin. “I’m going to stock up, and make sure I’m better equipped to deal with it the next time I find it.”
“You going to hunt it solo?” asked Red. “That’s your thing, isn’t it? Always hunting solo, doing things alone. How did that work out for you today?” She placed her hands on her hips, her head tilting subtly as she watched Paladin.
“If we’re going to kill this thing, player or not, I think we need to work together,” said Riley. “I’m not saying always grouping up, but if one of our groups comes across it, if we can pull everyone together, we might be able to bring it down. But only if we overwhelm it. Today, we got owned because we weren’t prepared to deal with it.”
“This is true,” said Laura. “Everyone’s going to see the footage from today. Lots of players are going to be too scared to hunt in small groups, or hunt at all. I don’t know about all of you, but I live off my earnings in this game. I may hunt rares, but there’s only a certain amount of risk I’m willing to take here. My livelihood is at stake.”
Riley stared at Laura as she explained the exact same situation he was in.
“Same for me,” said Paladin. “Perhaps I need to change up my own habits, if we’re to defeat this bug.”
“Me too,” said Red. “But I’ve already got people I run with.” She looked to Paladin with a smirk. “But if you guys wanna set up a network of teleportation cubes, I guess it would be a smart investment.”
“Those are expensive though,” said Laura.
“They might be the only way we’re going to beat the Weevil,” said Paladin. “I often give them out to my friends, in case they need me. Sometimes PKers ca
n be a real problem in certain areas.” Paladin then lifted his hand and tapped in the air. He made several more taps, and then three white cubes appeared in his hand. They were roughly the size of a golf ball and their edges emitted a soft glow. He held his hand out. “Take them. If you encounter the Weevil, crush it, and I’ll get a ping. Hopefully I’ll be in game at the time. I’ll only have about a minute to respond to the ping and teleport to your location.”
Red reached out and took one of the cubes. She opened her inventory and then drew out three of her own. “Yeah...I might as well hand out some of mine too,” she said and passed one out to Riley, Laura and Paladin.
“Sorry, haven’t bought any of my own” said Laura. “But I know where you guys sleep, so I’ll send a parcel to your mailboxes once I buy a few.”
“I’ll do the same,” said Riley. “I know I can’t do much on my own, and I doubt I’ll be able to steal the Weevil’s powers, but if there’s a monster nearby, I might be of some use.”
“Didn’t you just hit tier one?” asked Laura. “Teleportation cubes are pretty expensive, you know.”
“I remember,” said Riley. “I didn’t really use them on my last character though, due to the expense.”
“Last character?” asked Paladin. “Were you recently killed?”
Riley’s lips parted to speak, but he froze. He hadn’t meant to let that slip. Why did Paladin have to be so inquisitive? Sadly, most players became curious when they learned that someone used to be someone else.
“Yeah, I was killed, about a month ago,” said Riley.
“A month ago?” Paladin lifted a brow.
Riley looked at Paladin, who was eyeing him rather intently, as if he was secretly putting the pieces together in his head.
“I was Radiance,” Riley blurted out.
“You were the guy the Weevil killed when it first appeared?” Red gasped. “Damn! Small world, huh?”
Paladin watched Riley. “So you were there when the Weevil first appeared, but to my knowledge, you weren’t one of the members present during its second appearance?”
Riley nodded. “That’s right. I wasn’t anywhere near that location with the scorpion.”
“Guess we can rule out it hunting you,” said Laura. “But damn, why didn’t you say something sooner? I didn’t know you were Radiance. I thought you were some scrub who had to re-roll their character.”
“Radiance was a scrub in my opinion,” Red said, tossing Riley a smirk.
Riley gave Red a hopeless look. He wanted to defend his previous honor, but...Red had saved him earlier from a PKer, so he figured he’d let it go.
“Can you tell us anything about the Weevil, that we didn’t see here today?” asked Paladin, returning to the topic at hand.
“The video showed everything,” he said. “We went into the room with the giant worm. We fought it, it spit out the bug, and the bug used the monster to beat us. It didn’t even try attacking us individually. But if it was as powerful then, as it was today, it could’ve solo’d us one by one, I imagine.”
“Didn’t the news say that the bug rose out of some rubble in the room?” asked Laura. “In the second attack, that is.”
“That’s what I remember as well,” said Paladin.
“That was according to the players that fought it,” said Riley. “They could’ve lied, since we didn’t see the video of the bug appearing. They might’ve even been hunting it. Or, the monster could’ve spit it up before they even started fighting it. All we have to go off of, is the word of a few players, when we’ve seen twice now that it arrives via the monster spitting it up.”
“So it has some kind of ‘monster-stride’ ability,” Red chuckled. “Sounds really gross if you ask me.”
Laura spoke up. “I’m changing my mind,” she said. “I think it’s a player after all.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Paladin.
“One of the guys in that group,” said Laura. “The group that fought the scorpion. He’s actually a player that streams his live-feed. He makes a nice bit of money doing it. But due to the fact that you don’t want to reveal where you’re going, you generally put on a delay. Else, PKers are always going to wait for you, if they can.”
“Of course,” said Red. “But even PKers have trouble intercepting live-streamers, given the limitation of travel items and powers.”
“But what I’m saying,” Laura continued. “Is that the live-streamer, Greg, was streaming his feed as they got to that boss.” She looked to Riley. “Was someone live-streaming in your group?”
Riley thought for a couple moments. “I don’t know? Maybe...I don’t remember ever asking, but Glasser, Blue, or even Witch might’ve been. They were waiting for me that day, so if they were streaming that...then maybe—”
“Maybe that’s how the Weevil finds targets of opportunity,” said Laura. “He or she, could be watching live-feeds and if he has some way to appear in a monster’s stomach, and then enter the area that way, he can beat players to the boss, or intercept them mid-fight.”
“It’s definitely possible,” said Paladin, who looked around for a moment. “And if that’s the case...we should keep this quiet.”
“Well, there’s nobody on this roof but us,” said Red.
“Precisely,” said Paladin. “If the Weevil is a player who targets people through their live-feed, then we can hunt him, just like he’s hunting. I’m sure others might figure out what we have, but the sooner we can act on this the better. If we keep this a secret amongst ourselves, we can lure the Weevil into a trap.”
“Find someone to live-feed, and prepare for him ahead of time?” asked Riley.
“Exactly,” said Paladin.
“That’s going to be a tall order, I think,” said Red. “If we’re not careful, we’re going to end up getting PKers on our ass.”
“It’s not without its risks,” said Paladin. “But there’s a player out there who needs to be stopped.”
“Agreed,” said Laura.
“I guess you’re right,” said Red. “It’s really going to throw my schedule out of whack, hunting a player that can spawn in any monster it wants to.”
Riley placed the two white cubes into his inventory, one bore the name ‘Paladin’ the other ‘Red Shotgun.’ He then looked around to the three others on the roof, and said. “Let’s hunt it.”
Chapter 20: In Other News
“I can’t believe you were in the Saros fight!” Aaron exclaimed. “You were there from the beginning? How crazy was it? I’ve only been in two invasion events, and with the one, I was just passing through the area! I saw the news reports yesterday and saw that it was in Gargantuan city and I was like ‘That’s where Riley is!’”
Riley sat across from his friend in the cafe. It had become his daily routine. The coffee was inexpensive since he’d bought a membership to the cafe. Not to mention, he loved talking to Aaron, usually to hear about what was going on in his region of the game, but today, the conversation fell towards him, and the invasion event.
Aaron hadn’t even touched the blueberry pancakes sitting in front of him. All the while, Riley sipped relatively quickly on his warm coffee.
“It was...probably the craziest fight I’ve ever been in,” said Riley. “When I was Radiance, the game felt...easy. Like, all I had to do was heal when people got hurt, and then damage the boss when I wasn’t healing. But with this new power, it’s just so much more...work! But also rewarding, in a weird way.”
Aaron’s eyes seemed wider than normal. “So it was pretty tough, huh? Saros, The Interdimensional Terror?”
Riley nodded. “Yeah, it was really power. It had a ton of health and kept changing up its attack style. Not to mention, for the majority of the fight, we didn’t have a huge amount of people there. It was only towards the end, that we had something close to an actual raid group in the area.”
Riley’s attention was drawn over to one of the nearby televisions. They were showing the segment where Paladin arrived via a bolt o
f lightning and blocked Saros’ descending hand.
“What was Paladin like?” Aaron asked.
Riley took a sip of coffee, then sighed. “He was actually pretty legit. It’s one thing to watch all these video feeds of the players who were far on the sidelines, but up-close, Paladin was a total badass.”
“I bet,” said Aaron. “Did you sell any of your footage? The news has been talking about all the main fighters in that battle, and you’re all over it.”
“Yeah, actually,” said Riley, lowering his coffee mug. “One of the news agencies reached out to me for a private interview. You know, just audio stuff. But they paid me for a Q & A session, and they said they’d pay me for any video segments. They told me they’d pay per minute worth of footage, so I snipped out a few minor things, and then sent them the rest to work with.”
“I haven’t seen any of your point of view yet,” said Aaron.
“They told me they’re going to air my footage later today. I wasn’t really the flashiest person there. I bet Paladin and Red and even some of the others like Snow, or even Laura, probably got offered more than I did.”
“As long as you made money from it,” said Aaron.
Riley nodded. “Yeah, they paid really nice. Selling the footage, along with the Q & A, will let me easily pay my living expenses for three months. If all I did was put that money towards bills and food.”
Aaron smiled and shook his head. He began to cut into his pancakes. “I wish I could luck-out like that, and sell my video feed for three months of rent.” He glanced up to Riley. “At least that gives you a nice buffer, right? Like, you won’t have to worry too much about money.”
Riley shrugged. “Yes and no,” he said. “It definitely alleviates some of my stress. I can still cover about two to three months, from what I had in savings, but I still need to keep myself decently equipped. Right now, I’m not holding a lot of consumables, like I normally would’ve on Radiance.”
“I sell consumables,” Aaron spoke up with a smirk. “You should just..send me some money, and I’ll send you a parcel back to your place in Gargantuan.”
