Chapter 89 - Ripple of Disturbance
Falling down from the sky, Rogue slowly touched down to the ground. Remembering the last place that she was in, she looked around her. Aero-Island did not change much at all; however, there seemed to be more of a frenzy of activity occurring in the town. Given how everything has been happening, she wasn't surprised if people were in a panic. Not so much the AIs and townspeople, but more so the gamers that were trapped in the game.
'Now where should I look-' Renee thought when she felt something menacing and evil.
Remaining still and slowly turning to her left, there was no one standing next to her. Blinking and scanning around with her eyes, nothing was happening. Staring at the horizon passed the floating landmasses, that seemed to be the direction of the sensation she was feeling. Getting into a defensive stance, she slowly pulled out her holy long knife. Waiting for something to happen, the dark presence slowly faded away after several seconds.
'...what...was that?' the thief thought breathing a little harder. 'None of the demons feel like that when they are that far away...what's going on here?'
'Anyways...first thing is to see if Jin's in here,' she continued.
About to open up her menu, her Stalker window came up. Reading what it stated, she dashed forward and rolled. Skidding to a stop, she turned around held her weapon at the ready. In the place that she was, there were two individuals standing there. Both had swords out and had done over the head slashes to where she stood. Both swordsmen became irritated then looked up at her.
"Well well well...long time no see thief," one of them stated lifting his blade and pointing it at her.
"Finally caught up with you running away," the other stated. He moved his sword and got into an attack position.
'...these two idiots?' Renee thought with a sigh through her nose. Holstering her knife, she put her hands on her hips.
"What do you two want? Sore from getting knocked out last time?" she asked with a smirk.
"Sore? Heh. No...we just wanted to find you to return the favor," the first warrior stated getting into his battle stance.
"Don't think you can pull that stunt a second time."
"Oh yeah? I am like...so scared," Rogue mentioned impassively while looking at her gloved hands. Seeing something, she began to brush off some invisible dust on them.
"You are acting pretty cocky for playing with such a weak and useless character," one of the swordsmen stated. After making his comment, he charged her.
"We'll give you the treatment that we should have done the first time we caught you red handed," the other warrior claimed.
He charged her just after the other dashed forward. Just as both got in close, Renee still didn't move. Swinging their swords at her quickly, a small smirk grew on her face. In a blink, she was gone. Seeing their blades hit nothing but air, they felt something warm from their sides. Looking down, each had a deep gash that started to flow out blood slowly.
Gripping their own wound that burned them, they took a sharp breath in. Dropping their weapons to the ground, both dropped to one knee. Seething out loud in pain and anger, they looked behind them. Standing a few feet away was the thief. Holding her long knife with a firm grip, she turned around. Looking back at them with an unimpressed gaze, she spoke to them.
"Next time you try to attack me...I'll kill you both...slowly," Rogue threatened. Putting her blade back in the holster, she put on her cape with a hood. Looking forward, she headed for the town. Keeping an ear open, she could hear both of them swearing and saying nasty things. Pressing her lips together, she did not stop or turn around.
'They aren't important...I need to make contact first,' she thought shaking her head mentally. After walking several steps, she almost stopped from thinking about the small battle.
'...wait a minute...' the thief thought then looked back. Both swordsmen were still there and tending their fresh wounds. It was the crimson that was coming out that made her startled. Turning back to the town, she walked quicker.
'...they're bleeding...the game settings and environment aren't suppose to do that,' she stated in her head. 'When getting a wound...it only shows a bright red cut mark.'
'Only when Jin was playing was this setting active...but it was solely on him...does that mean the demons have altered the environment to be more realistic?'
'...first thing first...' the junior told herself and shook her head. 'Find a secure place and make contact.'
At the Gamco Inc. HQ, Mr. Bennett got off a call regarding about the crisis on hand. Assuring the organization that his company is working on fixing the issue as safely and quickly as possible, only a small portion of groups that called were not convinced. Putting down the phone, he rested his elbows on his desk and rubbed his face. The PR image of the company has been rattled greatly since the expansion of Entrenchment: Darkened Eve. Even though the popularity of the game surged, the recent debacle has been more damaging.
'It has only been half a day...and we still haven't resolved this damn issue,' he thought standing up. Going to his door, he opened it and headed straight to the monitoring and programming floor.
'What is taking them so long? The longer this thing continues to go unsolved, the worst Gamco will be in afterwards.'
Going across the hallway and into an elevator, he traveled down one floor. Watching the lift doors open, he exited and went to the programmers office spaces. Immediately upon entering, he saw everyone stressed and working furiously. Blinking and just observing them, the monitors were calling out things like announcements. The coder team responded back and typed quickly on their computer stations.
'...something...doesn't seem right,' Bennett thought slowly walking into the office areas. 'This can't be just a bugged coding aspect. Maybe a virus, but this team is usually pretty skilled at fixing and recovering.'
"..." the head admin person said hearing a familiar voice. Turning his head to the left, he saw one of the lead programmers. Rodger was at his station and seemed to be supervising while working on something at the same time. Even when Bennett approached him, the man didn't seem to respond to his presence.
"Rodger."
"..." the programmer said blinking and looking up quickly. "Yes Mr. Bennett?"
"...what is exactly..." he began and turned to the workers that were all focused on their tasks. "...is going on here?"
"One team is monitoring the activity in the E.D.E. game world and calling out irregularities. The second part of the team is responding to those calls and working to fix the anomaly of them."
"What irregularities are we talking about?"
"...from what we all gathered from when the expansion "Surreality" shut itself down, there are viruses in the game that are causing them. A bug has been put in the code that disables gamers ability to log out completely."
"I understand...how closer are we to fixing this issue?"
"There has been some progress in fixing the coding issues that have occurred," Rodger stated bluntly and went back to typing quickly on his computer. "Stopping the viruses has proven to be more of a challenge."
"...do you have an ETA of when this will be resolved?" the head administrator asked crossing his arms over his chest.
"Given the rate that we are going at...maybe in a few days?"
"A few days!?" he replied with surprise and agitation. It caused a couple of workers to stop and turn to the person that had the outburst.
"..." Rodger replied with just a short nod looking at him.
"We don't have a few days to spare! The longer that we don't resolve this issue, the more the company takes a toll. There has already been several organizations that have called for assurance. They have already threatened to sue our company if they feel that this crisis puts not only the current trapped gamers in life threatening situation, but future ones as well!" the man stated with sternness and irritation. Seeing the lead programmer was about to respond, a monitor called out something.
"Large scale dark energy picked up in the Special Cloning Offstage!"
"Dark energy?" Rodger repeated then closed a couple of windows on his screen.
Bringing up the monitoring window that was minimized, he typed in the location to monitor. After the small loading screen came up, it showed a profile view of two buildings lone in a grass field. Cycling through the camera feeds, he stopped at one that was radically different from the others. All the Eve clones on the second floor were out of their cell and converging toward a Grim Reaper. Oddly, the environment around them was in darkness with a gray mist hovering above the ground.
Within several seconds, the cloaked demon slaughtered and butchered the clones. It gave the ones watching the feed a jump scare when its face appeared on the screen instantly. Intense and shaking all over, it cackled loudly at them with colors of only black, white, and dripping crimson. When the loped off heads from the Eves fell to the ground, the dark environment slowly faded away. The remaining person still standing amongst the bloodbath was the reaper.
"...what game feed...is this from?" Bennett asked a bit disgusted from how graphic and disturbing the content looked.
"...this is from E.D.E...and that is...a player with cheat codes," the lead programmer mentioned with tenseness in his voice. Without thinking about anything else, he picked up the phone. Calling the number he used last time, it rang a couple of times before it was picked up.
[Hello?] Adam asked with tiredness in his voice.
"Rodger here. The new gamer with cheats has entered the second cloning facility and massacred the Eve clones on the second floor.
[...he did wha...no...nevermine...for now, continue to monitor the player]
"Copy."
[Anything else?] the programmer asked. There was a small scuffle on the other line and the sounds of someone put the phone to their ear.
"Adam. It is Bennett. Where are you?" he questioned feeling ambivalent.
[On a flight back to HQ. Why?]
"What exactly were you trying to do flying out all the sudden?"
[...] the man replied with a small pause. [I was trying to get beta tester to be our code breaker and virus extermination assistant...but he turned it down]
"A beta tester? What good will they do? All they do is test new programs. They aren't programmers Adam," he corrected with both confusion and irritation.
[...well...this one is a hacker so his perspective and assistance to solving the crisis at hand would have helped] Adam remarked back with firmness.
"...when you get back...we need to talk about a strategy to get this problem solved...immediately," Bennett stated with emphasis.
[...sure...]
"Good. Bye," Bennett spoke then ended the call.
Looking back at the crew, he expected them to be looking at him. However, all of them were focused on their tasks at hand. Glancing at Rodger, he was not at his station. He was at one of the monitors and discussing something with the employee. Feeling all he could do was sit and wait, he went back to his office. While walking back, he put his hands in his pockets and frowned.
'I don't like this...I don't feel in control of what is going on.'
'Also...this beta-tester...it had better not been that kid we tried so hard to get rid of.'
"...haaaa...hhaaaa...haaa..." Jin breathed and wheezed.
When he had enough air in him and felt mildly recovered, he slowly stood up straight. Glancing around him, he felt sick. Looking at his hands, he thought they would be bloodstained. But from examining them, there was not a drop of crimson on them. Hearing a hissing sound in his head, he clenched his hands into fists hard with anger.
'...amazing...I could feel that carnage through your fingers...your emotion of savageness and merciless...simply breathtaking...' his reaper self commented with satisfaction.
"...whatever..." he said out loud.
Instead of sinking through the floor again, he went to the staircase across the prison cells. Avoiding the floor with blood splatter and body limbs that were bloody and ripped apart, the male teen reached the other side. Going through the doorway and turning right, he started his descent. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, he walked to the opening toward the 3rd level of prison cells and stopped. Prepping himself of the fear that will be induced, he focused on just doing "Fast-Reactions" from doorway to the other side.
'...okay...like last time...dash in...do another...get to the other side...' the sophomore thought closing his eyes and going over what to do.
'...heh...heheeh...your skills...are what you...had...heeeeeeee...' his double hissed at him with cruel mirth.
'...that is good to know...'
Frowning and opening his eyes, he gave up and just walked through the doorway. Instantly, all the Eve clones turned to him and stared him down. All the sinful acts they were doing feverishly stopped quickly. A majority of them walked to the cell doors and gazed at him with piercing blue eyes. Oddly, the fear he felt last time was only a fraction now.
"..." Jin responded hearing something to his right.
Turning his head, a couple of the clones were fisting the doors hard. Though it didn't do much damage, mild impacts were seen. Blinking, the male teen looked at the opening across the room. Walking toward it, more clones tried to break down the doors. Others tried to seduce him in which he ignored coldly.
When he passed through the doorway on the other side, the Eve defects went into a madden frenzy. Continuing down the next level of steps, the banging on the doors became louder. Though he didn't feel fear, he descended down quickly. After some time, the opening for the cloning lab was seen. Getting against the side wall, he peered through the doorway to see inside.
Everything was back to what it was prior to him destroying it. The big orb in the center was back in operation as it was generating demons. Lab workers would obtain and secure the newly created individuals to a operating table. Like before, one would inject the black liquid into the individual. Slowly, the hell person would morph into an Eve clone.
'...well...any suggestions?...Actually, what do I call you?' he thought feeling the scythe morph. Looking down, he saw it turn into what seemed like liquid metal. Converging above his hand, it settled onto his palm and remained there as an orb of silver.
'...other than...your reaper self...I do not have a title...'
'How about...Wraith?' he suggested then looked down at his hand again. The scythe started to morph into a grappling gun.
'...heeee...pray tell...am I a phantom that feeds off of your emotions?' it asked amused.
'You seem to enjoy it...greatly,' Jin thought continuing to watch as the organic weapon grow.
Even though it completed the shooting apparatus, the scythe started to extend up his arm. It seemed to latch onto his right arm firmly. Oddly, Jin felt a sensation of octopus suckers latching onto the cloak sleeve. Slowly, they seem to go through the cloth and dig into his skin. Squirming a little from the bizarre and creepy feeling of them wiggling, the grappling hook looked a bit massive.
'...yyyeeeessss...' the reaper answered while giving a menacing grin. Moving its skeletal arm through the sophomore's limb, it gripped the firearm tightly.
'...hey...what are you planning?' the male teen questioned. He felt a pseudo act of his arm wanting to move on its own.
'...to find the source...we must go to...the world under this one.'
Doing a vertical swing of the grappling gun toward the opposing side wall of the stairs, a rift opened up. Immediately, the breaker felt his arm wanting to move to the center of the portal. Not resisting, he aimed and pulled the trigger. The large hook shot out and went through the swirling vortex. At the same time, several loud bangs followed by metal crashing to the floor was heard from above.
'...looks like the defects are free...' Jin mentioned in his head.
'...care to...be a part of their...blood orgy...?' it asked with an airy cackle.
'Hell no.'
The lab assistants all the sudden stopped and looked toward the opening. All of them seemed to freeze up seeing what looked like a Grim Reaper at the opening of the stairs. Fear came to their faces hearing Eve clones roar and shout from the stairs. Feeling the grapple jerk and become secured, the male teen hit the reel button. Almost getting whiplash, he was pulled harshly through and into the portal.
Just as the rift closed, a couple of Eve clones had lunged to impact with the reaper they saw. Landing hard on the stairs and bruising their feet, they screamed in anger and frustration. Hearing voices, they turned to the underground lab. Seeing the workers, they grinned and began descending the stairs. The other clones that broke free copied the same expression and followed them to confront the individuals working. Ignoring the whimpering and cries for mercy, all of the Eve copies grew out claws and gave sadistic giggles at them.
"Rodger...uh...about the Special Cloning Offstage..." one of the monitors started to speak then stopped. Hearing the lead programmer walk up to him, he looked at the live feed. Immediately feeling disgusted, he pressed a button. It changed the feed to a different area.
"If that gamer isn't there, it is not of our concern...where did he go?"
"He opened a portal and went through it. I couldn't trace where it went to."
"Got it," Rodger stated then stood up. "All monitors. If you see any gamer that appears as a Grim Reaper going through your area, call it out so we can track that individual. Reason being is that the individual is using cheats and is creating rift portals to transport to various areas of the E.D.E. world."
Seeing all of them turn to him, they nodded. Going back to their screens, the workers continued with their task. Going back to his computer, he sat down in his chair. Placing his elbow on the counter and holding his head up with his hand, he let out an annoyed sigh.
'...I didn't tell Adam about the gamer that partnered with the gunslinger character...she just logged into the game,' the man thought then looked at his screen. It showed the menu screen for Rogue's character. Going to the admin options, he stared at the only button that was disabled.
'Why would she log in knowing that she will be trapped?'
Passing through the open gates of the town on Aero-Island, Renee headed toward one of the local pubs. Whiling walking, she observed her surroundings with scrutiny. The hustling people were both gamers and a couple of towns people. A general sense of stress and anxiety seemed to make up their presences. Normally she would go and ask one of the locals why the rush, but she just kept to herself.
Reaching the front door of the establishment, she opened it. Walking in, there was a small amount of people sitting at the tables. All of them were players of all different warrior types. There was one that was a gunslinger and the person was not being shunned from what she could tell. The person at the counter stated it was open sitting and the thief sat herself at one of the tables.
Seeing the owner's assistant come out, she order just a drink. Watching the individual walk away and come back with the drink, Rogue opened up her menu to the items category. Quickly looking through and selecting one, a small book slowly materialized in her hand. Opening it and holding it up, she stared at the pages. Without moving, she moved her eyes only to survey who was in the pub.
'...no one seems to be of concern...or looking my way,' she thought of the ones that she could see. Feeling that she was safe for now, she opened up her menu again. Going to the admin section, she was about to hit the messaging icon when something caught her eye. Blinking then looking closely at it, her eyes widen.
'The log out button...I can't highlight it,' the thief said in her mind. 'So...they did disable it...'
'This must be what Jin was going through when Selbith turned the button off.'
'Now whomever plays this game, they'll be stuck in it until something resolves the issue...or kills the demon viruses.'
"...?" Rogue responded with a blink. A message was sent to her. Clicking on the icon, it was from her boyfriend.
[Renee!? Why did you log in!? Didn't you hear what happens if you do!?]
[...hi Juan...yes, I knew about it...I take it you got stuck here while playing?]
[Yeah. All my teammates are stuck and can't log out...we can't even find the exit to leave the Hell stage]
[...you were in Hell when Surreality was announced that it was shutting down?] she messaged surprised. She was also relieved to know why he was rather quiet for the past couple of days.
[My team and I were in the middle of one of the quests when we saw the message come across our HUDs. When it ended, we saw that the massive passageway close up...after that, nothing really big or threatening happened. But oddly, everyone can feel pain and bleed for real now. Of the other gamers trapped in here, most liked the added feature. However, there are some in here that are close to snapping] Juan messaged.
A window popped up in front of Rogue that stated if she wanted to accept the video chat connection to him. Pressing the button to confirm, the small screen blacked out then showed a live feed. The messaging window closed and the video window opened up more. Seeing an large ax wielding dark knight with a helmet on, he took it off and revealed his avatar's face.
[This is better...hey...what happened to your character?] he asked seeing something different.
"...my character? What do you mean?" Renee asked confused.
[You got this holy aura around you now...did you join a church or something in the game?]
"...uh...no. Anyways, what progress have you and the others in finding a way out of hell?"
[With all of us combined, we completed all the Hell quests...but that didn't offer a reward on a way out of here. We had a council meeting on doing group exploring and see if there are secrets hidden. It is our best option in finding a way out of here]
"Makes sense...anyone have conspiracy theories that the game company is doing this or that some faction of players are cheating and causing this havoc?"
[There are a couple of guys and gals in that department...why? Do you know why this happened?]
"...yeah...I do. It is due from some A.I. demon viruses taking control. They re-coded a few things in the game which the most noticeable one is the log out button not working."
[...uhhhhh...hey Renee?] Juan asked and lifted his hand a little. Pointing at the monitor, it seemed to be more to something on the right side of her.
[Who is that with you?] he asked with interest.
"...?" Rogue answered blinking a couple of times. Slowly turning her head to the right, there was someone with their head close to hers. It was a familiar face of the water-serpent demon. She had a perky smile while her eyes were glowing with intensity.