Haru stared the strange NPC down, ready to blast him with her staff if he so much as twitched the wrong way. She inched forward to get a better look at his face, his head lying flat on the cave floor. After targeting the stranger, she realized that he had stats and skills, like a player. Though it didn’t make much sense for the hacker who broke into her encounter to advance to higher level zones then come back here. But there was no way this guy wasn’t a malicious actor of some sort, considering the game was still down for maintenance.
Another groan from the strange player forced her retreat with a startle. She brandished her staff insistently, ready to invoke a normal attack.
The stranger wheezed. “Please… so… hungry.”
The witch flared her nostrils and grit her teeth. “I’m not going to fall for that.” She grumbled. “Hunger mechanics were taken out in alpha, players hated it.”
The emaciated stranger raised a feeble arm toward her. “Starving… please…”
Haru backed up, worried that getting close to the stranger would be the end of her. That’s when she noticed the player’s HP ticked down by one. And there was a debuff icon she’d never seen in the game before, a drumstick with a cross over it, on a red background. Inspecting it, the description was labeled ‘Starvation’.
She thought back to the alpha and tried to remember what items were involved in dealing with hunger. Was it potions? No, those didn’t have any major mechanical changes since the beginning of the game.
The stranger shuffled on his stomach, whined in pain.
Maybe it was sticks and stones. Those were junk items common around this zone. Haru pulled up her planner and began searching the change notes to see if sticks and stones were used to fix the starvation debuff.
The odd player’s health ticked down again. This time the effect was double the previous HP reduction. He squealed as the health was removed.
No, sticks and stones weren’t mentioned anywhere in the change notes. Haru scratched her head, wondering why such a silly mechanic ever existed in the first place. It was all downside, there weren’t any buffs that made the hunger mechanic useful or fun. She understood why players disliked it so. With the flick of her finger, she scrolled again through the patch notes. Maybe cave moss? That was also a junk item.
After the next tick chunked away over 50% of the player’s max health, Haru sighed in frustration. Cave moss wasn’t it either.
“What do you use to get rid of that debuff?” Haru looked at the stranger with suspicion.
The odd player panted. “Food…” He coughed. “Water…”
The witched blinked in confusion. She had orange juice, a low-level food item that restored HP and mana, still in her inventory. Long ago, she bought it for Vernal as a treat, but he thought it was too sweet. Haru thought it was too sour. She searched through the patch notes and discovered the stranger was telling the truth. There was a patch during alpha which remarked that food items no longer were used in hunger mechanics and became out of combat HP and mana recovery items.
Inching forward again, she closed in enough to drop the item on the ground. Then she retreated once more, so that there was plenty of time to react to whatever the stranger might do if he decided to become aggressive.
The odd player reached out and dragged himself toward the glass of orange juice sitting on the cave floor. He drew the straw closer to his mouth and took a sip.
Haru watched with the utmost of curiosity.
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The debuff disappeared from the stranger, and a large tick of HP returned to him. In the blink of an eye, the scrawniness of the player disappeared, and his physique transformed to become the same as any other male human in the blink of an eye.
The stranger sighed in relief. “Thank you.” He pressed his forehead against the ground.
Haru took another step back and brandished her staff with a frown on her face and one eye twitching. “Why are you hacking? Where did your other bad friend go?”
The odd player raised his head and searched the ground in thought. Then realization struck across his face. “I’m not with that guy.”
“Don’t lie.” Haru took a step forward, ready to blast him. “The game is down for maintenance. How are you, a player, connected right now?”
The stranger placed an elbow under his chest to prop himself up. He stared at the staff’s orb and flinched. Then, after a moment of recomposing himself, he let off a nervous chuckle. “Oh that, you see—” He cleared his throat and his face grew serious. “I can’t log out.”
“That’s a lie.” Haru grit her teeth and motioned forth with her staff. “That can’t be the truth.”
Carefully motioning with his hands to show that he wasn’t a threat, the odd player slowly rose to his feet. After getting his legs under him, he raised his arms and turned his back to Haru. “I’ll show you.”
Haru didn’t know what he was up to but kept a close eye on his every move.
The stranger pulled up his menu over his right shoulder. He pointed at the button marked ‘Log Out’ at the very bottom of the panel. “See? It’s grayed out.” He motioned with his finger repeatedly.
“Push it anyways.” Haru’s tone was harsh.
The odd player looked over his shoulder at her in desperation. He then began prodding at the log out button repeatedly. “I tried this for hours, I promise. The button does nothing.”
The witch looked between him jabbing the button to no effect, and the rest of his body, searching for any sign of a trick. After a long while of him relentlessly poking at the button and getting the same result, the tension in Haru’s body eased. “So you are trapped here.” The aggression in her voice faded away.
Staring at the button, the stranger continued to try and press it ceaselessly. “If I could make it work, I would. But for some reason, I’m not allowed to leave.”
Remembrance struck Haru and she brandished her staff once more. “Was it because you did a hack?” She spoke awkwardly, not sure if that was even the right way to phrase what she wanted to say.
Still prodding the button, the odd player shook his head. “I’m not trying to break the game. I swear.”
Haru lowered her staff and sighed. “You don’t have to keep pressing the button. I get it.”
The player didn’t relent. “But it might work at some point. What else can I do but try?”
With a tinge of regret in her voice for accusing him, the witch turned and motioned toward the hacker’s scar on the cave wall behind her. “Do you know anything about how that happened?”
The stranger raised his finger to try the ‘Log Out’ button yet again but then stopped and turned to look at the fissure. He blinked with concern on his face. “That thing…” He squinted. “Yes, I remember now. I was following that guy, hoping that whatever he was doing would drop some food.”
“What was he doing?” Haru voice exuded nervousness.
“At first, I thought he was a normal player farming for levels. But he moved really fast, and every time he defeated a mob, all their items would explode everywhere. Multiple copies too. And he would get a ton of EXP in one shot.” The player scratched his head. “It wasn’t one of my finer moments, but once I realized he was deleting mobs, I knew something was wrong with him. But I was so hungry, so I followed him around for a bit. Crawling on your hands and knees for a morsel wasn’t something I thought I would be doing today.”
Haru gasped in shock. “He’s deleting mobs?” She shuddered, thinking of Vernal’s second form in her encounter and wondered what it would mean for him.
The stranger nodded. “Yep. Just a single shot with the whip of one of his tendrils and boop, they’re gone forever.”
The witch clutched her staff, worried about the devs finding her out, and the game as a whole being in jeopardy of shutting down because of what the hacker was doing.
“But, for some reason he only took out specific mobs. I don’t know what the deal was with him. If I had that power, I would have gone for everything.” The player shook his head and shrugged. “Why not, right?”
Haru thought back to the encounter. Just before, she fought a speed runner. Though she didn’t know what the hacker’s goal was, it made sense to get to the end game as fast as possible. A lot of players focused on getting to the raid content in a hurry, to catch up with their friends. So, whatever he wanted was likely in the end game.
She thought about how to catch the villain in the act, to bring him in. If he was rushing to get into the raid content, his goal would be to take down all the main encounter bosses quickly.
Then worry and panic gripped Haru. “Leonora!”
Her best friend was the hacker’s next target. She rushed off.