Haru: Novice, Level 4/20

EcruEmu: Novice, Level 5/20

Optifex: Novice, Level 4/20

Alara: Apprentice, Level 5/20

Haru braced and pushed herself as hard as she could against the deadwood tree trunk. To her right, the beak of the Corrupted Gryphon world boss poked out. It jutted forth just enough for its massive nostril to blast her with air as it exhaled. The hacker was controlling the world boss.

“Why are you doing this?” Haru shouted at the gryphon.

The hacker scoffed. “Is it not obvious? Look at your companions.”

Haru hesitated.

“Go on. Look.” The gryphon boomed.

Haru turned to find Emu and Alara whispering to each other from behind a tree.

“This is such a stupid place to put a world boss.” Alara spoke harshly. “Why would they make raiders come all the way back to a starter area?”

“Yeah, it’s not the best.” Emu replied. “Very frustrating.”

Haru turned back to the gryphon. “You’re just doing this to frustrate people?”

“Just.” The gryphon laughed. “If only frustration and anger were simple throwaway emotions and not delightful, aged wine. Something to be fomented, then consumed.”

Haru thought back to their fight in the cove. The demon mentioned that there wasn’t much to feed from them. She never really had a reason to be frustrated, or angry. Especially not at the game. She loved it, and her encounter, so much. The realization for why he made that comment back then fell upon her like a hammer.

Her eyes widened. “You’re not a hacker. You’re an actual demon.”

The gryphon cackled. “Slow little thing. It took you long enough to figure it out.”

“Then you’re a rage demon. You feed off people’s anger.” Haru grimaced. “I’m going to stop you.”

“Stop me?” The demon belly laughed. “Why, this little venture of yours has only helped me.”

Haru balled her hand into a fist. “I would never.”

“No? Still not paying attention then.” The gryphon motioned downwards with the tip of its beak. “Look in area chat.”

Haru pulled open the chat window. Users were arguing with each other that hers was the only party that got past the town with the dragonlings. Everyone else was dying and couldn’t figure out how to finish the quest. In their anger, players quarreled, calling each other names.

“So that’s it? You’ve come here to gloat and finish me off?” Haru stood her ground.

The gryphon cackled. “Why would I do that?” The beast edged forward, revealing a single red eye from behind the tree. “How could I stand here and not call you, Blight Witch Haru, my greatest ally? No, I wouldn’t dare touch you. I couldn’t ask for a better minion to do my bidding.”

As Haru grew frustrated with herself for not seeing this sooner, the pain in her chest from the infection returned.

“Yes, even you can give yourself to my insatiable hunger.” The demon’s voice was condescending.

A stone soared through the air and smacked the gryphon on the beak. Optifex, standing several trees away, wagged his arms over his head. “What a lame rage demon. We both know you’re still mad that you can’t catch me!”

The gryphon turned to Opti and shook the ground with a terrible cry. “I’ll make you regret ever setting foot within my sights again, Optifex!”

Opti bolted, weaving around trees as he laughed a boyish chuckle and hooted like an owl at the bird. Haru could finally catch her breath as the gryphon departed, easing the infection’s grip on her. As she watched the two disappear deeper into the woods, she couldn’t help but notice that, despite the demon’s newfound ability to control mobs, it was still bound to the game’s rules of NPC movement.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The gryphon helplessly sprinted along the same path that Opti took, often getting stuck on trees because it was too big to fit through the gap between the trunks. It had to turn around and try a new path each time.

After a while, the gryphon disappeared entirely. Opti had lost its line of sight, and it was too far away from its origin to simply walk back, so the server de-spawned it and returned the creature to its original spawn location. This was standard server functionality for when players fled from mobs.

The pain in Haru’s chest eased. The demon must have released control of the gryphon and returned to the cove.

“Finally.” Alara called out from behind her tree. “That was getting annoying.” She emerged and stepped out onto the road.

Emu came out from his hiding spot and looked around. “Well, at least that thing is far away now. Maybe it will be easygoing to the quest area.”

Haru, still out of breath from the pain called out while leaning against her tree. “Did you hear what that thing said?”

“What thing?” Emu turned to her.

“The gryphon.” Haru puffed out.

“It didn’t say anything.” Alara started. “It just stood there, glitching into the tree for a while before getting de-spawned.”

Haru’s eyes widened.

“Hey, where’s Opti?” Emu walked around, peeking around the trees. “I don’t see his arrow in the group list.”

Haru stood upright, still fatigued. It seemed that Optifex wasn’t just some bugged player who just couldn’t log out, but somehow was related to the demon.

“I’m sure he’ll catch up.” Alara wagged her staff. “Let’s just keep going. We can get him the quest objective when he gets back.”

The mage’s words struck Haru. She realized that her real objective wasn’t only to just get to high enough level to defeat the demon. She needed to starve it as much as possible too.

“I’m sorry.” Haru looked at her companions. “I have to go.”

“Aw,” Emu started, “so soon?”

Haru bowed. “Thank you for your help so far. I hope we can play again some time.” She left the party and turned to walk back to the starting area.

Alara sighed. “It’s fine EE, we can keep pressing ahead, right?”

Emu opened his mouth to speak but hesitated. “I don’t mean to be nosey but, “he watched Haru walk away, “why are you going back? I thought you meant you had to log out.”

Coming to a slow stop, Haru thought about how to explain why she wanted to return. “I… I…”

Opti slid to a stop next to her. “She wants to do some exploring. It’s her first time playing. Just getting carried around without seeing the sights is no fun.” He panted, out of breath.

With a cocked eyebrow, Haru wondered how Opti knew what she was going to do.

“Oh,” Alara raised her eyebrows, “are they new players? I never would have guessed. You’re pretty good for newbies.” She pointed up the road, toward the quest objective. “But the area around here is kind of boring. Once we get to the glade, it’s more worthwhile to sightsee there.”

Haru puffed her cheek, insulted, but decided not to say anything. This was originally her area when she was a boss encounter.

“Well, when we get there, I’m sure it will be exciting.” Opti waved goodbye to Emu and Alara.

“You’re going too?” Emu sounded disappointed, looking at Opti.

“I want to sightsee too.” Opti nodded.

Emu sent a friend invite to each of them. “Let’s party together again some time. It was fun.”

The two pairs each waved goodbye and parted. Haru and Opti left to walk back toward the starter area.

“I don’t understand. How did you know what I was going to do?” Haru asked.

Opti shrugged. “I didn’t. Last time you got a bright idea, you charged straight for the demon without a plan. Maybe I figured if I went with you, we could work out a better way to do whatever it is you wanted to do.”

At first, Haru felt slighted by him insinuating she didn’t know what she was doing. But then, she realized she had a friend looking out for her, and insult changed to gratitude. “Thanks, Opti. That’s a good idea, let’s go together.”

As they walked, she wondered if the professor heard what transpired with the demon acting as the gryphon. Trying hard to talk to him in her mind multiple times throughout the trip, nothing happened. A sense of isolation loomed within as he didn’t or couldn’t respond.

The two arrived back at the fountain in the starting hamlet. Swathes of dead players lined the fields which contained the boars for the first quest. Each time, players would die, respawn back at the fountain and rush back to the field, only to get clobbered again.

“So, what is your plan exactly?” Opti turned to Haru.

She motioned for him to follow, and the two walked between the houses and into the pumpkin patch where the boars roamed. The pattern for the players rushing to their deaths was almost identical between all of them—run in, auto-attack, not deal enough damage, try to retreat, die.

Haru cradled her chin with her fingers as she thought. Then she smiled, inspiration striking her. “I’m going to do what I do best.” She darted over to the first player and watched them fight. “Good, that’s a good idea. Now he’s going to hit you hard, so don’t run—” She tried to coach them but was interrupted by their sudden desire to flee. The player died.

The next one she ran over to attacked but then backed away out of melee range, interrupting their auto-attack cycle.

“No, don’t do that, you’re just going to—” Haru couldn’t stop them from fleeing.

The player died because he didn’t attack again.

Another player engaged and struck a boar. Everything was looking good, so Haru ran over to encourage him. Then the player turned to look at her, which paused his auto-attacks because his back was pointed at the boar.

“You need to look at the enemy if you want to strike them.” Haru pointed frantically.

The boar struck with a charge and the player died.

“Haru, I like the idea.” Opti started. “But maybe it would be best to be a little more engaged in helping them?”

“Engaged? What do you mean?” Haru tilted her head.

“Think back to how we started. Why don’t you do for these players what Emu did for us?”

Haru’s eyes lit up. She opened area chat. “Anyone who needs help with the first quest, come join me!”

A tsunami of party invites buffeted Haru. The soft ding of the menu appearing grew louder with each passing second.

“Oh no.” Haru sighed. This was going to be far more complicated than she had hoped.