Haru adjusted her witch’s hat by the brim, deflated and unprepared for what would inevitably come next after this encounter. “You’ll go no farther! You’ve foiled my plans to conquer The Plentiful Glade, and now you must pay!” She forced herself to speak her lines with bravado, but hints of anguish tinged her voice. But on the far side of the summoning circle, the player, a Legionnaire, spun strangely.
The oddness of the adventurer almost made her miss the timing of her next line. “V—Vernal, I summon you from the depths to deal with this interloper!”
Before she could sweep her arm overhead to call forth her companion, the player rushed over to a set of barrels stacked at the far end of the stone tower in which her summoning circle was placed. Then the adventurer began jumping at the wall. After multiple attempts, he finally stuck to a small brick jutting out. The player continued to do this repeatedly, ascending the wall with each success.
From a height far greater than the violet barrier, which prevented the player from entering the arena, the adventurer leaped just like before. But this time, the curvature of the ceiling dragged him higher, like an invisible crane was pulling him up and over the barrier.
As the player lingered near the top of the room’s dome, he fell into the arena, despite Haru not finishing her lines nor summoning Vernal. He readied his sword and targeted the witch. The fight hadn’t even started, yet the adventurer was already poised to strike.
That’s when Haru realized that the player was already wearing the Palatine Helmet, a piece of the Legionnaire’s artifact armor, gear for the end game. It was a golden, full-face helmet with red horse hairs on top. As she raised her hands over her head to continue summoning Vernal, she also looked up and remembered that the helmet was acquired from a chest hidden behind a world boss at the top of her tower. A careful and crafty player could navigate up the thick vines that engulfed the tower’s structure outside. With enough skill and luck, the player could sneak around the world boss and retrieve the chest.
Haru was facing a speed runner. Her spell finished. Vernal appeared in the center of the arena.
Before the cat could even target the player, the speed runner used Line Breaker on Vernal. In the blink of an eye, the Legionnaire closed the gap by charging and critically struck the cat, immediately sending him to 50% health. Haru gasped in shock at the blinding speed at which the player moved. Vernal reaching half health meant it started the second phase of the intended fight.
Haru tapped her staff, and her companion disappeared in a puff of smoke. The speed runner began running in a wide circle. She was impressed with the player’s deep understanding of how the game worked. The area mechanics would target a spot where a player was at the time of casting, which meant always moving would ensure it was almost impossible to hit them with an area attack. She wondered, considering the player knew where the artifact armor was hidden, if he were one of the raiders that reached Astra. To take her down, groups needed to deeply understand all of the game’s mechanics, and this speed runner certainly fit that description.
A red targeting area appeared beneath a spot where the player once was, indicating the damage area of the cat’s inbound attack.
Vernal’s second-phase opener missed by a wide margin. Now in his sabretooth tiger form, he brandished his claws. A roar followed his slam to the ground.
Once again, before the cat could even target the speed runner, the player charged him down with Line Breaker, and followed up with an AoE, Earthen Rage, which caused a zone of spikes to appear and sent Vernal’s health to 0% in an instant. The cat spun in place, then fell over and in another puff of smoke, he returned to his housecat-like stature.
But now was the time for Haru’s judgement, the ruse was up and now she had to abide by the original engagement’s design. It meant that now she would have to fight the player. Haru wished it didn’t have to be this way. The damage she was about to deal would certainly get the attention of the devs.
Instinctually, she recited the correct lines for her phase of the fight. “You may have bested my champion, but you won’t beat me! The Sisters of the Shattered Stars will rule the world with our unparalleled might! The Plentiful Glade will be mine!” Though the thought of actually having to follow Astra’s orders made her shudder, Haru liked that the story helped give the players direction, and a sense they were a part of something bigger.
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The witch jumped down from her platform. A sphere of mana with hexagonal panels slowly began to surround her. With regret, Haru aimed her weapon at the speed runner. She muttered an apology under her breath and readied a normal attack.
The light from the laser attack ignited within the blue orb of her staff. Her attack began to charge.
Before the mana shield, which had 999999 HP, could form—the player closed with Line Breaker, bypassing the sphere. An inkling of hope filled the witch. Though even the speed runner had no chance against her protective barrier, the game had a one damage rule. If an attack landed, no matter how weak, it would always deal at least one damage. And her encounter’s design was around defeating her barrier. Haru herself had only one hit point.
The attack missed Haru, and she was automatically shoved back by the ability’s secondary shove action. The witch and the speed runner became trapped within her mana shield, at opposite ends. Immediately after, he followed up with Earthen Rage. But his last move’s reaction put him too far out of range and the AoE had no effect on Haru. The shield took one point of damage.
She gasped in panic. Her attack was about to land. The only chance the speed runner had to complete the fight missed.
The laser was about to burst forth. The speed runner rushed forth to get in melee distance again. The light within the orb grew brighter. Haru winced, not having the guts to look at the inevitable aftermath.
Then, the sword attack sound filled the arena. At the last second, the speed runner’s auto-attack triggered and hit Haru. The light within her staff extinguished. The auto-attack dealt exactly enough to put her at 0% health. Her shield collapsed, each hexagonal panel tumbling to the ground as it dissipated.
She stretched upwards and fell to the ground. Then the witch shuffled on her stomach. “Now Gunther… will never notice me.” She recited the scripted line, reached out, then collapsed, falling to the ground with a cry. Haru was defeated.
The player jumped around waiting for the reward chest to descend. Before it could reach the ground, the speed runner jumped and opened it. Then he barreled out of the now-open double doors behind Haru’s platform.
Vernal exhaled deeply in relief. “Well, so long as everyone who does the encounter from now on is a speed runner, I’m sure we’ll be fine.” He stretched.
Haru rolled on her back and stared at the ceiling, grateful for the speed runner. “Yeah. If only that could be the case.”
But the calm didn’t last long. A looming sense lingered at the far side of the arena, near where players would enter. It felt like someone was watching her, lying in wait to strike. Someone with a terrible power. Still laying on her back, Haru couldn’t help but look toward the player entrance and spotted a shadowy figure lurking.
The witch stood up in haste, unease mixed with a muted panic. Her encounter was instanced and limited to a single player. There was no way another adventurer could enter the same encounter.
Vernal traced Haru’s gaze and spotted the stranger, hopping on all fours and arching his back threateningly.
“I got a bad feeling about this.” Vernal muttered.
The server’s insistence to follow the encounter’s routine was missing. It usually droned in her ear throughout the battle. But the quiet let her know this was definitely not something that should be happening.
Haru didn’t want to panic a player who might have accidentally discovered a bug. “This is a completed instanced encounter, maybe there was some kind of mistake. Please exit and try to enter again.”
For a moment, the shadow took the form of a standard human male NPC, like one that lingered on the streets to make things lively in Fairbank. But the shadow stood in a T-pose, as if the NPC didn’t have any animations. It was something she’d seen in the Backlot, when the game was in alpha testing.
The sight of the shadowy smoke around the figure and them hovering around unsettled Haru.
“Roo, I think that’s a hacker.” Vernal hushed out.
“Hey! Are you hacking?” Haru shouted at him, angry at the idea that someone would want to ruin the fun of the game for everyone. “That’s against the rules!”
A deep rumble emanated from the stranger, and they hovered forward into the summoning circle. The area shook. Suddenly the cutscene barrier rose with a shriek. The arena lighting was snuffed. Now with darkness all around, the violet glow from the barrier and the indigo hue of the summoning markings on the floor were the only means to see. All three of them were trapped within the battle area.
From behind the hacker’s form, tendrils extended, glowing a dark blue against the void. His hover, for which he was only a few finger lengths off the ground, extended to flight. He rose high above the arena.
Haru had never seen anything like that, even from any of the raid bosses. There wasn’t an ability or spell in the game that remotely resembled what the hacker was doing.
Suddenly, a puff of luminescent white smoke appeared above the arena, and Vernal’s sabretooth form appeared within, separate from her actual companion standing at the ready next to Haru. The real Vernal, standing on the ground looked up and gasped in shock and fear.
In the blink of an eye, the hacker began whipping the sabretooth form. Nearly instantaneously, the animation for the beast’s defeat played and the white cloud disappeared along with the sabretooth.
Then the lights reignited all around and the arena barrier fell. The hacker flew away into the now-open exit.
Haru watched the hacker leave and shuddered. “That was strange.”
“Roo… I don’t feel so good.” Vernal stumbled, then collapsed.
The witch scooped up her companion. “Vern!” He was completely unresponsive.