Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, here we are. The last chapter of Heroes of Rune. It's been over a year since I first began uploading over at Fictionpress.net. And I want to thank you all for sticking around that long. I hope you all have enjoyed what I've written, and I hope you will continue to enjoy my stories. Here's to a good final chapter, and to many more great stories.
One week had passed since the second Battle at the Hacker's Castle. Alex barely noticed it go by however. Too much was going on.
For starters, he was coordinating the release of the video evidence proving the danger that the Hackers represented to all other major gaming developers. And unlike the developers behind Rune, these people listened. Alex particularly enjoyed the response from the CEO of 343 Industries who had been hit by the Hackers previously. He had gone on live television condemning the creators of Rune for endangering not only their own customers, but also everyone and everything that had anything to do with the internet. The media absolutely ate it up, different sources and stations taking sides in what was becoming known by everyone as the Rune war. Some went for the knee-jerk reaction and blamed gaming in general, while others chose to target the Hacker organization themselves citing moments of blatant disregard for human well-being. Others still focused their attention on the developers of Rune themselves, siding with 343 in their quest for vengeance. Members of the Coders were called in for interviews, Qilin especially receiving a massive amount of screen-time, keeping his identity a secret the whole time of course.
Secondly, his father was home. For the first time in over a year, their father was no longer missing, presumed dead. He was sitting in his regular chair at the family table, eating meatballs on salad night. After all, according to him, salad was just 'rabbit food with dressing'
"So after I confirmed to the board that I was in fact their long lost CEO come back from the dead, they still tried to remove me from my position," he said between bites from meatball halves the size of a softball. "They got the nomination for a vote, and all ganged up on me to try and throw me out."
"What happened then Dad?" Jessica asked, leaning towards him in interest,
"I used my sixty percent majority from all the stock I purchased in SAI," Alex's father answered simply. "The only reason they ever got to pass anything I opposed was because I didn't feel it was necessary to pull such a below the belt move."
Alex cracked up at this. He just couldn't hold it back. They had been worrying for months about the board removing their family from being CEOs, and his father went in and solved the issues in under an hour.
"So anyways," his father continued, "After that was all said and done, I was informed that there's an aerospace conference being held in Washington next weekend. Very big, very prestigious. All the other big names in the business are going, and Samson Aviation got an invite as well. I was thinking I could use the time to show of this new nuclear rocket engine design I've made during my absence. Could revolutionize space travel as we know it."
Alex's heart sank. To his right, he saw Jessica deflate slightly as well.
"The only problem is, I really don't want to only have a bunch of CEOs and representatives to talk to for a whole weekend," his father said. "I get tired of business rivalries and inter-company politics very quickly. Truth be told, I really hate most of these conferences altogether. So how would you guys like to join me? Could go see the Smithsonians again."
Jessica jumped up and wrapped her arms around her father tightly. Alexander Sr. wrapped his arms around her in turn. "I'll take that as a yes then," he said.
Alex was stunned at this. His father never took them with him to conferences. He had also never let on that he hated conferences. If that was the case, what did he do before now?
Alexander Sr. laughed when Alex asked. "I'd sneak off to the Air and Space museum and help renovate the planes," he answered.
It was a good thing, Alex decided, to have his father back.
It was an entire week before the developers of Rune did anything or replied to the accusations being thrown at them. Everyone expected them to shut the game down, remove the bug that allowed Hackers to enter other games or systems, reimburse anyone affected, anything to stop the Hackers from ever hurting anyone in the game again.
Instead they turned the game back on, applying a mandatory patch that supposedly prevented anyone from messing with the code. Alex had barely finished reading about the update when Sam texted him
Sam: you busy?
Alex: Not really. Just taking a peek at this new update for Rune. You think it'll work?
Sam: hop on and see for yourself.
Alex did indeed see for himself what Sam was talking about. The instant he logged on to Rune, he noticed something was amiss. The entire color scheme was off; the grass was too green, the sky was too, blue.
"As you can see, the developers did an excellent job at stopping Hackers," a very disgruntled voice said behind him.
Alex turned around and had to choke back a laugh. Miles looked like something straight out of a Japanese anime. Everything about him was in that style. His eyes were twice the size they usually were, his hair was spiky. What was most amusing though was that he was in a Japanese schoolgirl's uniform.
"Hey, Miles," Alex said, slowly losing the battle against the laughter. "You're looking, good."
"I look like a swordsman who picked up the wrong frikkin outfit from the cleaners," Miles said irritably. "Some asshole swapped out all the textures and models in the game."
"Their code patch really didn't fix the hacking issue. All the update really did was repair the damage done by the Hackers, and strengthen the affected areas," Janus said, striding up to them. His outfit was hardly changed, the only real difference being his black and white jumpsuit being replaced with what looked like something out of Naruto, and his normal mask now looked more like a traditional Kabuki mask. "Everywhere else was kept the same. And as you know, it's incredibly easy to hack this game."
"So someone really had time to create an entire texture pack for this game?" Alex asked. "I'm not going to lie, that's some serious skill there. Hey, where's Croe?"
"Riding on a Pegasus re-textured to look like Rainbow Dash while trying to reclaim his scythes before Arachnoid can," Miles answered.
Alex was going to reply about how that seemed a very Croe thing to do when his mail box pinged. It was a message from the developers to everyone.
Dear players of Rune,
It has come to our attention that for some time now, a malicious group of Hackers have been harming the programing of Rune. How they managed to accomplish this feat without it coming to our attention sooner is unknown, but we assure you that it will be addressed.
Due to the severity of the damages done to Rune and its players, we will be forced to shut down Rune's servers as of next week while we repair the damages. This is done with the safety and well-being of our community in mind, so we ask that you be patient as this could take several months.
We would like to apologize to anyone harmed during these events, and hope that you continue to be a part of what we have created
Sincerely,
The Developers at Arcanis Interactive
"Can you believe this horseshit?" Miles said in outrage after he had read it. "They're acting like they just learned about this, and aren't even acknowledging what the Coders did! And now they're shutting us down?"
"To be really honest with you Miles, I'm surprised they're even mentioning a possibility of turning Rune back on," Janus said. "I've seen what the Hackers did and were planning on exploiting. Fixing the exploit alone is going to require a complete rewrite of their security protocols. And the Hackers and Coders have changed so much of the coding, I'm not certain even the Developers know what's original."
"Yeah well, they could at least say thank you saving our game and everyone on it," Miles said. "Not to mention the entire freaking internet. Thankless bastards," he muttered.
"Hey, the rest of the internet isn't like that," Alex said. "I mean, have you seen all the thank you's we've gotten?"
"We even got our own nickname," Janus chimed in. "One newsgroup called the four of us the 'Heroes of Rune'."
"God no," Miles pleaded. "Change it, change it now! I don't want to go through life with a freaking guild name attached to me!"
"Too late," Janus said. "I've already gotten several in-game messages from news stations asking for interviews with the Heroes of Rune, and Ubisoft sent Croe a code to download the next Assassin's Creed game for free."
"Oh, so not only am I going to live my life with a guild name following me, but everyone else gets all the good stuff?"
"Oh calm down Miles, they sent him three spares as well." Janus chidded.
"Wait, number sixteen or seventeen?" Miles asked.
"Sixteen."
"Then all is forgiven," Miles said, brightening up.
"Guys, aren't we forgetting something," Alex asked. "Rune is closing. We might never see each other again."
"There's always other games," Janus replied. "Rune is great and all, but it's by no means the only great medieval MMO out there. And besides, there's also email, texting, and even meeting up in real life! I heard there's a really good convention in Texas we could go to."
"Ugghhh, why Texas," Miles moaned. "I live in freaking Alaska. Do you have any idea how much plane tickets cost?"
"Absolutely nothing when you ride SAI Arlines," Alex answered.
Miles looked at Alex with suspicion, suspecting a joke. "I've never heard of SAI Airlines,"
"Dude, my dad built the first supersonic private jet. We can get to you and back to the con in like, a day."
"Oh, right. Awesome aviation dad," Miles murmured.
Of in the distance, a cry of joy was heard. The three of them turned to see Croe riding towards them on a cyan Pegasus shooting lighting and fire from his newly acquired scythes. The only difference was that Arachnoid's was now black and red, with some weird angular bits jutting out of it. Almost like someone fused a scythe with a rifle. He landed with a perfect touchdown and dismounted from his ride. "Gentlemen," he said with an attempted french accent.
"God, can't anything any of us do be normal?" Miles asked.
"Have you considered cosplaying at conventions?" Croe asked.
Miles looked at him for the longest time, then sighed. "Fuck it. At this point, anything is normal."
And that's that Ladies and Gentlemen. That is how the Heroes of Rune saved the MMO, and the entire Internet. I'm not going to mark this story as complete just yet, as I have an epilogue that will be uploaded tomorrow, on New Years Eve.
Also, I will begin writing a new story called "Space Dust" in a few days. As with Heroes of Rune, I won't be uploading chapters immediately once they're done, but will wait until I'm about halfway done with the story to begin uploads. I hope you all stick around to see it, as you may see some HOR references discretely mixed in.
-Wrench
ns 15.158.61.20da2
