Alex spent most of the next day inside Rune. He wanted as little contact with the outside world as possible. It hadn't been doing him any favors as of late. He spent his time grinding through quests; specifically the monster camp raids. It helped him take his anger out. Every goblin he decapitated was a board member of SAI. Every troll he disemboweled was pedostache and his stupid psychotherapy. He didn't even pick up any of the gold or loot dropped by them. He left it where it lay and torched it with the rest of the camp. He hated them. He hated them all.
As he finished off the last troll in a particularly nasty camp, a voice came from behind him.
“Wow. I think that last one was actually trying to run away. Can't say I’ve ever seen that before.”
Alex turned to see Janus leaning against a tree at the entrance of the camp, bow in hand with an arrow nocked on the string.
“Sucks for him,” Alex said dismissively. “You going to just stand there, or are you going to help me torch this place.”
Janus pushed off from the tree and replaced the arrow he had nocked with a fire arrow. “Sure, why not?”
Between Alex's fireballs, and Janus' arrows, the camp was soon ablaze.
Janus placed his bow back in his quiver. “Remind me- why did we leave the loot to burn?”
“Wasn't worth the time to sell it,” Alex said shortly.
Janus turned to him. “Dude, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I'm fine,” Alex snapped. “I've never been better in my entire frickin life.”
Janus took a step back. “Sorry man, I was just asking.”
Alex sighed. “Christ, I'm sorry Sam. Things, things just got worse around my house.”
“Really?” Janus said astonished. “I thought they had cleared everything up.”
“Apparently not since the board has somehow found a way to claim my dad's personal accounts, and the house.”
Janus slumped over as crashes and yelps of shock came out in the background. Apparently, Sam had fallen out of his chair.”
“Really smooth bro,” Garrett called out in the background.”
Sam finally managed to set himself back up, and Janus looked back up again.
“Dude, does that mean that they’re taking everything?” Janus asked, shocked.
“Including the kitchen sink,” Alex said miserably. “But that's not the worst part.”
“It gets worse?”
“Should they actually be that big of dicks, there’s no way Dunham can support Jessica and I. We'll be put in foster care. Probably even split up.”
Janus slumped again. Alex could hear Sam tear off the headgear and set it down before taking deep breaths and clenching and unclenching his fists. From their time together, Alex knew that Sam used those methods to calm down without making a scene. Alex had tried them once but found they worked better for Sam.
After a few minutes of calming himself down, Sam finally put the headgear back on and Janus perked back up. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I just needed to get that out of my system.”
“It's okay,” Alex said. “That's what I’ve been doing in Rune all day; getting it out of my system.”
“Has it worked yet?”
“Not one single bit.”
Janus reached around and one armed hugged Ginganinja. Alex couldn’t feel it, but appreciated the thought. “Hey, whatever happens, I’m here for you man. Garret to. Hey, it’s nearing 5 o’clock. How ‘bouts we go meet the others. That’ll cheer you up.”
Alex smiled at this. “Yeah, you’re right. Thanks Sam.”
Janus’ mask showed no expression but if he did, Alex figured he’d be smiling. “Hey, what are friends for anyway?”
@0@0@
The Citadel was in the center of Rune's massive map. Easily the largest city in the game, multiple major roads branched out of it like a spider web. In ancient time, all roads led to Rome. In Rune, all roads led to the Citadel. It was also the safest city in the game. In earlier versions of Rune, new players would start their journey in the central hub of the Citadel, next to a massive multicolored fountain that took up most of the hub. Due to the importance of keeping new players entertained and safe from more experienced gamers, the Citadel had the largest population of NPC guards in one city; easily over a thousand. Even after the game began to assign random initial spawns, the guards remained. Soon, the Citadel began to be known as the capital city of Rune. Most major trading took place on the streets of the Citadel as players spread out there wares ranging from enchanted armor to owl feather tassels.
A few weeks after destroying the Hacker's castle, Alex, Janus, Miles, and Croe had realized that meeting up could take far too long. To solve this, they usually took a portal to the city and met at a table at one of the cafes dotting the city.
Which was exactly where Alex and Janus found Croe and Miles. As they approached them, Croe noticed them and waved. “Hey, how's it going?” he called out.
“About as good as it's going to get,” Alex replied, not wanting to explain himself again. “What did you find?”
Croe reached into his coat and brought out a thick leather folder. One of the perks of Rune that set it above other MMOs was that it had editable books that you could copy and paste word documents into. “Miles and I have been talking it over while waiting for you two, and what we've found is pretty scary. Fourteen other games with online functionality have some people complaining about loud noises and headaches.”
Alex frowned. “That doesn't make sense. If it happened in those games, why didn't the news media report it as well?”
“Because that’s just what they are: complaints.” Miles said. “The incident in the Halo match is the only one with video evidence. The talking heads need something more than just complaints from a bunch of people on the internet.”
Janus grabbed the file and after riffling through it for a few minutes, pulled out a file of his own and added some of its contents to Croe’s. “I managed to find a few forum posts from players in the other games affected who’ve been trying to do something similar to the Coders. They haven’t had as much luck though.”
Miles shrugged. “Not surprising. The only reason we learned how the virus was added was because a Hacker let it slip a few weeks after it showed up.”
“Do you think they’ll succeed?” Janus asked.
“Well if they’ve got a mountain man, a scarecrow, a bipolar archer, and a fiery ginger on their side, they should have it under control easily,” Croe said.
That cracked them up. Even Alex, who was having one of the crappiest weeks ever managed to laugh a bit. He immediately regretted it though as his ribs flared up and he started coughing in pain.
“You okay?” Janus asked, concerned.
Alex nodded but continued coughing.
“Damn GN, don't cough up a lung on us,” Miles joked. “We don't have Spicy around to sell it off”
Finally, Alex stopped. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I got hit hard by Master Saru yesterday and haven't fully recovered yet.”
Miles' eyes widened. “Whoa, where was this?'
“At Janus' work, Coffeenet,” Alex replied.
“You mean he tracked you down?” Croe asked astonished.
“No, I think he actually lives close by. I ran into him and Bearzerker a few days before I joined Rune. We just ran into each other yesterday.”
Miles' eyes narrowed and he turned to Janus. “Tell me, where exactly is this Coffeenet that you work at?”
“Um, why do you want to know?” Janus asked nervously.
“So I can find those two and show them what they did to BA,” Miles growled. “I want to teach them what pain feels like.”
“Dude, I'm not going to tell you where I work, just so you can hunt down two guys and hurt them,” Janus said affronted.
“And why not?”
“Because it's wrong to track someone down from the internet and beat them up!”
“Wrong? Don't talk to me about wrong,” Miles yelled. “You don't know what wrong is.”
“Miles, calm down” Croe said frantically, “Taking those two down won't solve anything.”
“I will not be lectured by three people who haven't been through what I have. You have no idea what it's like to watch your best friend get tortured into a coma and be powerless to stop it. You have no CLUE what fear and pain means until you spend an entire month not knowing if your best friend is alive or not, and having no idea where to go and see him, or at least find out.”
Alex stood up. “Miles, please-”
Miles slammed his fist down on the table, completely shattering it. Alex instinctively raised his arms to protect himself from splinters, and got slammed in the gut for the second time in two days. He flew over the low fence bordering the cafe, and skidded to the other side of the street. A second later, Janus and Croe landed beside him. He looked up just in time for Miles to land right next to him and point his sword at his throat.
Miles’ face was a mask of pain and rage. “You, Know, Nothing” he choked out.
Guards were swarming towards the scene and several players had formed a perimeter around Alex and Miles in-case things got ugly.
Miles took down the first few guards, then logged off without saying another word.799Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5wzY65fZSE
So, Yeah. That happened. Why you may ask? Tune in next time to find out!799Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiW2w3kgfBm
Also, Something cool is happening tomorrow. No details, since as River Song says, "Spoilers"799Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEXh8ElweES
