Username: Ginganinja
Password: *****
Reenter Password: *****
Email Address: alexjr@sai.org
Username Accepted
Password Accepted
Welcome To Rune!
Please Proceed To the Character Creation Menu
Alex’s first logging was about as uneventful as first log in's usually go. He breezed through the tutorial and was in the real world within 10 minutes. He looked around and saw that he was on the top of a grassy slope with several trees, and a winding path nearby. He marveled the game’s graphics a bit, then opened up the PM system in the game and sent the two players he’d met at the café a message. When he’d researched the game, he had also looked them up. They were indeed players who participated in tournaments from time to time. They weren’t the best player in the game by a long shot, but they were good enough to generate hate comments and accusations of being hackers.
Ginganinja: Hey.
Master_Saru: Who is this?
Ginganinja: I’m the guy you met at the internet café.
Master_Saru: Oh hey! How’s it going? I see that Saru convinced you to give the game a try!
Ginganinja: Yeah, I got some time the other day, and gave it a look. It looks pretty damn cool! I looked you guys up to. I have to say, I’m impressed with how you won your last tournament.
Master_Saru: Please, they were pushovers. A kindergartener could’ve beaten them. Anyways, you want a bit of a tour? Saru and I just logged on for some practice, but we’d be glad to give a newbie a hand. You game?
Ginganinja: Yeah, sure. Beats wandering around and getting lost.
Master_Saru: Excellent. We’ll warp to the nearest town and be there soon. Try not to die.
Ginganinja: Will do.
Alex exited the messaging system, and waited. Within 5 minutes, he heard footsteps coming up the path. He turned in their direction and saw an extremely odd sight.
A fully grown grizzly bear in a black leather vest was bounding up the path in his direction. Alex reached for the sword he’d gotten in the tutorial, before remembering that this was Bearzerker’s character.
The bear loped up to Alex and gave him a long look. Finally he grinned and slapped him on the back, sending Alex tumbling down the slope. When he finally came to a stop, he found himself at the feet of an even stranger sight. He was at the feet of a short monkey in a martial arts Gi with a black belt wrapped around his waist. In his hand was a Bo staff he was using as a walking stick. He was Master Saru- Bearzerker’s fighting companion. He looked at Alex and said in a quiet voice, “Welcome to Rune young Ginganinja.”
“Thanks.” Alex said as he stood up. “Please tell me you don’t talk like that all the time.”
Saru gave him an amused look and said “only when I feel like it young one.”
Bearzerker had ran back down the slope by now and grinning sheepishly. “Sorry dude. I didn’t mean to hit you so hard. Just wanted to see what you were worth.”
“It’s okay.” Alex said. “I was going pretty slow.”
Master Saru let out a loud laugh, completely abandoning his character. “Slow? Kid, if you were going any faster, I’d be a smear on a tree! You lagged the game for crying out loud!”
“So that’s what you sound like normally” Alex muttered before asking, “Does the game do that normally? Lag you out when you go really fast?”
“Only in a few rare places.” Bearzerker assured him. “No game is perfectly bug free. Rune is no exception.”
“The fact your first log in at one of the few areas this strange phenomena occurs, is quite interesting indeed.” Master Saru said, reverting back into his passive state.
The two gave Alex’s character a long look. After a long glance, Master Saru said “I have met many a character in my time, and have noticed that some choose a character that resembles their name. While I understand the Ginga part of your chosen name, the ninja part eludes me. You do not wear the usual outfit of a ninja. You fail to even possess a mask!”
Alex shuffled uncomfortably. He had used the advanced character modeling to look relatively close to how he did in real life- skinny build, slightly larger than average height, and of course, short messy red hair. Clothing was a different story. Alex did the best he could, but ended up wearing a black v- neck shirt with dark blue jeans. A short saber hung at his side.
“The clothing options were randomly generated.” Alex explained. “This was about the best I could do without looking like a clown.”
Bearzerker grinned and said “don’t worry about him man. He’s just giving you a hard time. Most MMOs give you crappy clothes when you first start out. Truth be told, you did pretty good with what was available.”
Alex was about to respond, when a throaty yell came from above them. The three looked up to see a lone man charging down the slope at them. He was dressed in ragged brown pants and a long-sleeved shirt with a vest on top. He sported brown hair with a lumberjack beard on his chin. He wore no armor other than a single gauntlet on his left arm. The way he was yelling and charging down the hill would’ve been extremely comical had it not been for the massive sword he was drawing from a sheath strapped to his back.
The group scattered as he swung viciously at them. Bearzerker shoved Alex back as he unsheathed his claws. Master Saru leapt back as he got into a fighting stance- staff pointed threateningly at the man.
“You fucking assholes have screwed me over for the last time!” The man yelled. “I am sick and tired of you walking into things, and ruining the fun others are having!”
“We’re assholes who keep walking into things?” Bearzerker called out incredulously, “You’re the one constantly attacks us! Day after day, whenever we log on, we have to deal with you! What will it take to get you to freaking stop?”
The man yelled in anger and charged both of them. As he ran, Bearzerker activated a powerup, creating an aura of red around his claws that streamed behind him in wisps as he advanced. A faint whine could be heard.
Master Saru swung with his staff while Bearzerker attempted to flank him. The man blocked the master fighter’s strike and kicked Bearzerker in the chest as he attempted to swipe at him with his claws. The unfortunate bear went flying into the air before hitting a tree and knocking it down. Master Saru then found himself facing the man all by himself. He frowned in concentration and retreated to a more defensive stance.
Alex ran over to Bearzerker. He didn’t have much, but he was able to offer him some of the low level healing potions he’d picked up in the tutorial. To his amazement however, Bearzerker was already shaking off the damage, his health bar already restoring. He grinned at Alex before loping back into the fray.
The battle wasn’t going well for Master Saru. Despite having activated the same powerup that Bearzerker had, he had been backed up to a tree and was barely able to keep his attacker from cutting him to ribbons. He had a cut in his arm that while it was already healing, it was not healing fast enough to protect him from the next attack. The man was about to run him through when Bearzerker tackled him from the side. The two went rolling as Bearzerker slashed at him. The two grappled for a moment before Bearzerker knocked the sword from his hand and buried his fangs in the man’s throat. The man gave out a cry of agony as his health dropped to zero. Bearzerker stood up and let out a triumphant roar.
“Thank you.” Master Saru said as Bearzerker stood up. “He almost had me.”
“Yeah, what happened there?” Bearzerker asked “Normally, you could’ve taken him on no sweat!”
Master Saru shrugged. “I suppose it’s just not my day.”
They looked over to the body. As per rules of the game, whoever killed someone got first dibs on loot, but as Alex watched, an icon appeared, signaling that the loot was now available to anyone.
“GN, you take the loot.” Bearzerker said.
“Me?” Alex asked incredulously, “I barely did anything! All I did was offered you some health potions.”
“It is the thought that counts, young ninja,” Master Saru said wisely. “And for your first battle, while you didn’t have the chance to fight, the fact that you did not run is very commendable.”
“What he’s trying to say without sounding like a dick,” Bearzerker interrupted, “is that we’ve got plenty of loot stashed away. Keep it. It’s yours.”
Alex shrugged and went over. All that was salvageable was a small pile of coins, and a black leather vest- similar to what Bearzerker was wearing.”
“How come the sword isn’t there?” Alex asked. “It looked pretty awesome!”
“I think it might've been a custom sword.” Bearzerker said, “They’re pretty damn rare due to how hard and time consuming it is to get one. You have to go through a difficult quest and pour thousands of coins down the drain just to get the douchiest blacksmith in the game to allow you to access the custom weapon and armor interface. It’s something you don’t want to lose every time you die. He must’ve had a gem of binding placed in the hilt so that it’s bound to him, even in death.”
“Wow, someone would actually go through that?” Alex asked.
“Like the male peacock shows its plume to get a female mate, so do some players with their tools.” Master Saru said philosophically.
“Right,,” Alex said, unsure of how to respond. “But seriously, who was that guy? Seems he knows you two.”
The two looked at each other as if deciding how to answer. Finally, Bearzerker spoke up.
“Not to worry you or anything,, but Rune is kinda in the middle of a civil war right now.”
“What? Is that even possible?” Alex asked, shocked.
“Yeah, it is. See, after the developers released the game to the public, they pretty much left the players to do whatever they want. They only come out to fix a major bug, or release an expansion.”
“It is known as the EVE method of governing.” Master Saru said. “Rune is not the first to use such methods, but it is the first to be taken to such an extreme.”
“Other developers intervene if someone’s causing an economic crash through an exploit or something. The developers of Rune don’t even do that.” Bearzerker said seriously.
“Soooo, what’s that got to do with this war?” Alex asked.
Bearzerker eyed him. “I was getting to that. Basically, a bunch of hackers got together and are screwing with the players. It’s more than just bots, or cheats. They use their hacked abilities to spam, troll, and attack anyone on any server at any time.”
“We are part of a group who’ve set out on a path to bring their destruction.” Master Saru said. “Our quest is to catch each hacker, and place their IP address on the permanent block list. One by one, we will eliminate the hackers.”
Alex was stunned. He had no idea that stuff like this was happening, let alone could happen. Something bothered him though.
“Wait; I’m no computer genius, but aren’t their countermeasures to stop people from stealing IP addresses? I’m also pretty sure permaban lists are not available to the general public.”
Bearzerker and Master Saru shifted uneasily.
“Ah- sadly, in order to stop them, we’ve had to somewhat stoop to their level.” Bearzerker said sadly. “It’s a simple hack that leaves personal information as secure as possible. It’s for the greater good!” He said quickly, seeing the look on Alex’s face.
“What it does is establish a temporary link between the permaban list and the user’s IP address.” Master Saru said, breaking his normal air for the sake of explanation. “The link then then scans their player data and compares it to an unedited version as well as one of ours. If the data doesn’t match either, they’re banned. The link then collapses in on itself, erasing any weak points.”
“I didn’t want to bring it up just yet, seeing how you’re new to the game, but when I hit you earlier, I did it to add the program to your character model. With it, you’ll at least be able to protect yourself from them.” Bearzerker said.
“Why would I need that?” Alex asked angrily. “I want nothing to with this. I just want to play a game! I thought you said this was such a good game! Where does a civil war and hackers fit in to your definition of a good game!?”
“Woah, dude, bro, chill!” Bearzerker said. “It’s still a great game. The hackers are bad and all, but they can’t be the same place at once. Often they’re just situated in one town, causing trouble. We come in, and duke it out. Pretty soon they’re gone.”
“And to answer your question of why you need it,” Master Saru added, “there are many hackers who would steal your personal information, or infect your computer with a virus. The program you now hold not only has the ability to take them down, but also to protect your data stream from such situations, so long as your character is alive.”
“So, basically you did that to protect me.”
“Correct.”
“And that guy who attacked you is a hacker.”
“You catch on quickly, young one.”
“So he’s on the ban list now.”
“Hopefully.” Bearzerker said. “The program is sound, but the same can be said for the hacker's. Once they realized what was happening, they began to use better cyphers for their programs. They hide it with the normal cypher-text that every player has. The program has a harder time finding it nowadays. ”
“Wow.” Alex said. “That was a shocker. Now I feel bad for taking you away from your training. You guys need all the training you can get if you’re going to win a war.”
“Hey, not a problem. It’s the least we could do for a guy like you who's just starting out.” Bearzerker said.
Suddenly, Alex’s headset was ripped off of his head. Alex yelled in pain as the earbuds were violently scraped up his ears. He turned to see Jessica holding the piece of gear in her hand.
“What the hell was that for?” he said, rubbing his sore ears.
“We’re leaving in five for the psychologist.” She said. “Dunham says to get off and come down.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll be right down.” Alex said. “Jeez, you didn’t have to pull it off so hard!” He grabbed the headset from her hands and turned to the screen.
“Dude, you okay?” Bearzerker asked. “You’re not getting assaulted right now are you?”
“No, I’m being called away. I’ve gotta go somewhere. I think I’ll have to give that tour a rain check.”
“Damn. Oh well. Can’t win ‘em all, can you. I’ll see you around GN.”
“You too.” He was about to log off, when Bearzerker said, “Hey. If you happen to come across that guy again, let us know. He’s taken a personal grudge against us for some reason. We’d like to return the favor.”
“Sure, I can do that.” Alex replied. He logged out and ran for the door.
Back in Rune, Master Saru and Bearzerker conferred for a moment, before taking off in the direction they’d come from.
What no one noticed was a user by the name Milesoftheblades was watching from behind a boulder. He sat down and unsheathed his sword. The sound of coffee being slurped could be heard through his microphone as he settled in for a long wait
ns 15.158.61.48da2
