Chapter 269: Offensive Security

> One Real World Month Later…

Nicholas was sitting in an office simulation with hundreds of screens all around him. Some showed moving text logs, and others live streams of players playing his game. Conversations with employees and other information filled out on charts and graphs all jumbled around him. Also standing nearby, like a statue, was the full-body form of Samantha. She had no clothing nor any human features outside of a plain female body silhouette. Her face was pretty, but she had no eyebrows or hair, just wide, pure white eyes that blinked on occasion.

Eventually, he pulled forward a screen that displayed the current alignment of the player base. It had shifted greatly from one month prior, now displaying 34% alignment for Light, 11% for Dark, and 53% Neutral, with 2% undetermined. He briefly turned from the screen to reply to several messages sent to him on other screens, using a floating virtual keyboard. Once he’d finished, he switched to a collection of livestreams on display, particularly of Seraxus, who he enlarged and pulled front and center. He watched with a serious expression as Seraxus spoke to his audience and cut down several fleeing farmers as he was in the process of raiding a small hamlet in a burning forest to which he had set fire to himself.

“That doesn’t look good.” A voice commented, taking Nicholas away from his focus on the stream. He hadn’t realized that two people materialized within his office simulation behind him. One of the people was Mike, who gave Nicholas a nod as their eyes met. The other wore a plain white dress shirt tucked into black dress pants and shoes with short blonde hair and bright blue eyes.

“Andrew, Mike.” Nicholas nodded back at them, respectively. “What can I do for you two?” he asked in a formal, polite voice, which irked Andrew somewhat.

“Knock it off. We can speak freely here. It’s us. The heart,” Andrew motioned to Nicholas, “the muscle,” he motioned to Mike, “and the Brains of Averon.” He smirked while motioning to himself with a wave of his hands. Nicholas simply rolled his eyes at this. “Mike tells me you’ve got a problem?”

“Had,” Nicholas replied coolly, with the VGN streamers still playing behind him. He was looking at Mike and Andrew, but it was clear they were paying more attention to the streams on display on the floating screens behind him. “Since one of our Junior Offensive Security team members spotted a vulnerability, we set up a trap to try and catch the culprit, but they haven’t tried it again. We must’ve tipped them off somehow.” Nicholas sighed.

“Or, they just don’t need to do it anymore,” Mike suggested. “That network has more or less taken over the top 10, with very few exceptions.” He waved his hand in the direction of the streams.

“Nah. They definitely knew we caught them. I’ve got a list of all of the AI protocol changes that Ryan found. They were regularly making 5 to 10 of them daily but suddenly stopped the moment his report came in. So…” Nicholas pulled up several other screens and drew the other’s attention to them. “VGN is public and was founded during our second closed beta test. I’m willing to bet that the culprit discovered the vulnerability there and worked with an outsider to establish VGN with plans to take advantage of it. Someone with extreme faith that Averon and our game would succeed.”

“Have you cross-referenced VGN employees with our security team?” Andrew asked.

“Yes. There were a few hits in other departments but nothing in our security team. Everyone here is vetted personally by me for anything that might compromise their loyalty to our company before being hired.” Mike replied.

“Just old classmates, cousins, etc. Mostly in the art departments or customer support that connect to people in VGN. None that link anyone directly to the VGN founder.” Nicholas added.

“Hm.” Andrew began scratching his chin. “So, what do we do, Mr. Heart and Mr. Muscle?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell us, Mr. Brains?” Nicholas replied in a sarcastic tone.

“It sounds like, unless they act again, you can’t catch them. And they have no reason to act again, as they’ve already accomplished their goal. So, how much damage did they cause to Samantha’s design?” Andrew asked. Nicholas didn’t answer but instead avoided eye contact with Andrew by turning around to face the screens again, pulling up the live streams of the VGN streamers, mainly Seraxus.

“That is one deranged kid.” Andrew shook his head in disbelief as Seraxus cut down several elven children cowering in one of the farmhouses of the hamlet, then cheering as the strength of his sword increased as their bodies disintegrated, their souls were absorbed by the sword, and their simple common children’s clothes fell to the ground where they’d been a moment’s before.

“Well.” Nicholas took a deep breath, briefly looked at the still Samantha, then pulled up several more screens. “Samantha’s initial game design parameters were based on studying all of this genre's predecessors. She determined that with specific incentives and punishments for various types of player actions, she could encourage immersion and maintain a peaceful balance of the player base’s good behavior and bad behavior. This meant that we could permit the gameworld to be fully PvP-enabled without worrying about it devolving into chaos. As long as she could maintain balance long-term using her carefully crafted system, we could give our players absolute freedom.”

“I know all of that. It’s part of our investment deal. I gave you loads of money to build your dream game and experiment with your AI,” Andrew motioned to Samantha, “And so long as she is able to successfully keep the chaotic behavior to a minimum of 20% or lower, I am able to safely guarantee that to our investors and everyone is happy.” Andrew smiled, motioning to the alignment screen that showed Dark Alignment at an all-time high of 11%.

“You both agreed to not interfere with her world so long as she could maintain that balance, right?” Mike clarified.

“Right.” Nicholas nodded. “While we set the initial parameters of how she should design the world and tweaked minor details during the beta testing phase and end phases of development, the complexity of her world is too easily disrupted by outside interference. That’s why I am unwilling to go in and start nerfing, buffing, deleting, or modifying anything outside of obvious glitches and bugs.”

“That, and if you do, the deal is off, and we get to modify the game to be more befitting to investors.” Andrew shrugged.

“That short-sighted decision-making is what killed a lot of the predecessors. Aren’t we making enough money as it is?” Nicholas grumbled at him.

“We are. That’s why I’m sticking with our deal. But, we could be making more.” Andrew smiled playfully.

“Well, I’m not making any changes,” Nicholas replied coldly.

“You sure? That sword looks like it could use a nerf. What could Samantha possibly be planning by giving something like that out to an evil player?” Andrew motioned to Seraxus’ livestream once more.

“The problem isn’t the sword or the player. It’s the Network as a whole.” Nicholas sighed as he pulled up the other streamers belonging to VGN.

“Explain?” Mike asked curiously.

“I’ve been observing the threads of Samantha’s design since beta, and I’ve somewhat come to understand her process and how it’s been so successful up until this point…” Nicholas pulled up several more screens until there was a total display of 20 in front of them. Some were of VGN streamers, some not. “To gain power and knowledge within the Shattered World - it’s done primarily through immersing yourself in the world. The best information is from getting to know the inhabitants of the virtual world, which, in most cases, has the players grow attached to the NPCs and civilization around them. Players regularly return to the same cities and call them home, and become very protective of these areas and any NPCs that have ever helped them on their journey…” Nicholas pulled up several clips demonstrating this.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“In return, these players who are more involved in the game world quickly figure out things that others who don’t show the same care for it do. Hiring loggers to work in your logging company turns out much better if you pay your NPCs well and train them personally.” Nicholas pulled up a stream specifically of a player cutting wood alongside several NPCs, all of them wearing matching uniforms and talking cheerfully with one another as they worked.

“Get to the point…” Andrew said impatiently.

“The problem with VGN is that they have gained power within the Shattered World Online very quickly. It shot them to the top of progression charts on various islands, and there are many of them.” He pulled back and revealed a 10 by 10 grid of VGN livestreams. “They have not earned this power. It was given to them. Therefore, they’ve been acting outside of Samantha’s behavior controls. Worse yet, the most charismatic of the bunch are influencing many players to follow in their footsteps. And they do so for the benefit of each other, despite being on separate islands with separate goals in alignments.” Nicholas said while turning to Andrew and Mike, expecting them to understand what he was saying. Instead, though, they had blank stares on their faces, causing him to groan.

“Look. Samantha’s got the Great Prophet of Zeus sending all Zeus Clerics, Crusaders, and Paladins on missions to slay the Sword of Hatred wielder. Crusader-class players who follow Zeus cannot get their advanced class without first destroying that sword. In turn, the Sword has given a quest to Seraxus to kill the Great Prophet of Zeus in order to gain more power.”

“So it should resolve itself, right?” Mike asked.

“That’s just it. Makaroth, Feng, Deahyun, and several other VGN streamers have since had all of their Zeus crusaders switch who they worshiped to avoid any conflict with Seraxus. It’s now established to be too troublesome to try and stop him because none of the ‘big’ streamers are willing to do it. Worse yet, a team of players went to Puagas a while back and tried and lost horribly.”

“Just ban them all.” Andrew shook his head.

“There’s a good chance they don’t even realize someone cheated for them. They have plausible deniability. With money now involved, you’d most likely be looking at crippling lawsuits, as we’d have no clear violations to our user agreement that the bans would be based on.” Mike raised his eyebrows at Andrew.

“Oooh. I don’t like the sound of that. Scratch that idea.” Andrew began rubbing his chin. “Really puts you into a corner, doesn’t it?”

“She designed a great conflict between good and evil, which under normal circumstances would be interesting. The problem is, no one is stepping up to stop him.” Nicholas said while pulling the stream of Seraxus back to the forefront of the others.

“Whelp. No choice then, right? You’re going to have to intervene. If you don’t do something about that sword, the alignments are definitely going to get out of hand.” Andrew replied calmly.

“You’d like that wouldn’t you?” Mike grumbled at him.

“Hey, I’m not the one who left the vulnerability in,” Andrew answered defensively.

“No, you’re the one doing nothing but counting the 0s in your bank account.”

“You two had no 0’s in your accounts before I came along.”

“Knock it off,” Nicholas shouted, breaking up their small argument. “We do nothing. We’ve closed up the vulnerability. We’ll let Samantha clean up the mess. Her AI is made specifically to keep the world in balance. She’ll be able to handle it.” He added as they all turned their attention to Seraxus’ stream and watched him and his party march proudly through the village, now devoid of all life save for themselves.

“Are you sure about that?” Andrew asked him with a hint of anxiety in his voice.

“Yeah. It’ll be fine.”

“Alright. But remember, 20% and hands-off time is over.” Andrew replied.

“I won’t forget.” Nicholas sighed. “Now, leave me to it. I’ve got actual work to do. Keep me updated on finding the culprit.” He said dismissively, without turning from the screens to look at the two behind him.

“You got it,” Mike said.

“Good luck,” Andrew said, and with that, they both vanished from his office simulation, leaving him in peace. Nicholas silently watched the VGN streamers, mainly Seraxus, and witnessed the alignment shift from 11% to 12%.

“Samantha, are there any live streams of Zeus Crusaders left?”

“Several.” Samantha replied robotically.

“Show me the highest level Zeus Crusader,” Nicholas asked, and she replied in kind by pulling up a livestream of the Crusader in question. [Mikael - Level 83] was floating above his head. He was wearing heavy iron armor that had the symbol of Zeus etched on the front. He was not alone and had several similarly dressed companions surrounding him. Short blonde hair with a chiseled jawline and dark brown eyes, his cloak flapping in the wind as he stood on a wooden pier.

The pier was built into the side of a mountain, with a grandiose walled city behind him and an open gate leading inside. Large structures of various heights made of dark gray stone blocks and bricks could be seen reaching towards the clouds, and some successfully touching them.

As his camera panned around, it revealed that dozens of large wooden piers extending out into the open air were built off of the tall mountain’s wall just outside the cities’ gates. The drop below the wooden piers was massive, and the bottom wasn’t visible due to the clouds surrounding the mountain's high peaks—giving a sense that this mountain was already high enough to be in the clouds.

Nearly all of the many piers had a docked Airship of varying sizes. There were dozens of NPCs moving about, loading and unloading cargo onto the ships. Some ships had strange looking player-made banners, but most of them bore the mark of Kingdom behind it, of which the wall around the city had several matching banners draped on them, waving in the winds.

“Which island is this?” Nicholas asked as he took it all in.

“Tarolas. Home of the Great Prophet of Zeus. This is the Capital City of the Kingdom Olympiod. The city’s name is Stormtop.” Samantha explained robotically.

> “Come on, one trip. You don’t even need to get close, we’ll bring winged beasts to take us the final few hundred meters.” Mikael pleaded with another player who was somewhat ignoring him, focused on directing NPC’s to load cargo onto his Airship.

> “I told you guys already, I can’t. Daehyun’s orders.”

> “Just ignore his orders. It’s your Airship, not his, right?” Mikael replied.

> “He’s the Master of the leading guild of Olympiod. He’s not gonna let me dock in Stormtop if I don’t follow his rules.”

> “Who’s going to tell him?” Mikael suggested with a devious tone.

> “Bro, for real? You’re livestreaming.”

> “I can turn it off though.”

> “Bit late for that, ain’t it?” The pilot rolled his eyes at him.

> “Tch, man.” Mikael gave up, turning to his companions.

> “You’re an idiot.” A female companion teased him.

> “Buncha cowards.” Another shook his head disapprovingly at the Pilot. Following this, Nicholas muted their livestream and leaned back, pondering for a moment.

“If that’s the situation…” He mumbled to himself, followed by a few more moments of thinking. “Maybe we can correct it using the good ol’ fashion way. Samantha, summon the security officer Ryan I spoke with a few weeks ago.”

“Very well,” Samantha replied. A few moments later, Ryan materialized inside Nicholas’ office simulation wearing his casual attire, looking dumbfounded. When he saw Nicholas, he straightened his back and slapped his hands to his sides.

“You called, sir?” Ryan asked as he became as stiff as a board. He had to resist the urge to look away from Nicholas to stare at Samantha’s avatar standing off the side.

“Yeah. The person behind the AI modifications hasn’t acted again, so it’s not about that. But I’ve got a question for you… How’d you pick up on that change in Makaroth’s footage when no one else on the security team did?” Nicholas looked at him curiously.

“Well… Like I said, it felt off.”

“Off, how?”

“I dunno… the damage should’ve been enough to kill the scorpion way earlier, based on the time it took to enrage, coupled with the health of the other enemies in that dungeon leading up to the boss encounter.” Ryan shrugged.

“You play a lot yourself, right?”

“Well, yeah.” Ryan shrugged. “I love it. If it weren’t for being able to work my dream job here, I’d probably try to take up a job in the game world and make a living that way, if I’m being honest.” He chuckled awkwardly.

“So, you just used game sense to detect something that felt off…” Nicholas eyed him carefully once more. “Good. How would you feel about a special assignment?”

“A special assignment? Sure! Anything you need, sir.” Ryan replied excitedly.

“Thanks to you, the attacks on AI protocols stopped, but I’m afraid they may have already done a bit too much damage in influencing the game world. I would like for you to assist in correcting it as a player.”

“You want me to fix something by playing the game?” Ryan asked with glowing, wide eyes.

“More or less.” Nicholas cleared his throat.