"Okay," started Kit, standing from his chair at the holotable. He faced his fellow Codemasters, all now here and seated around him. The young man let out a stressed sigh, "I think we all know why we're here."
He called the others with an auditory code on their scanners, one signifying the need for a meeting. The council paused their current activities and matches and gathered in the conference hall of their clandestine headquarters inside Chaotic. Kit needn't explain why he summoned them. They all knew why he did, unfortunately. Nothing else had caused one of this urgency, nothing except an ongoing, fragile problem—and it had intensified.
"Bomber players?" asked Mackenzie, the current Amzen. The ashen girl's long red hair waved down her shoulders and back, while her amber eyes returned Kit's troubled stare with her own.
"Bomber players," Kit confirmed. The other Codemasters exchanged worried looks, fearing this news.
It started only a few weeks ago but worsened fast —renegade players, somehow in possession of explosives, destroying locations throughout Perim. This had never happened before. Nothing came close to it. It was a nightmare come reality.
The council only knew they were humans from locals in the places attacked. Sadly, they didn't see them close enough to discern their faces, just vague descriptions of what they wore.
"Oh, great," said Ethan, their Hotekk sarcastically. Seated beside Mackenzie the near-bald, twenty-something folded his arms. "What did they destroy this time?"
"I'm still missing details, but," said Kit, shuffling through the initial report on the table, "according to a tip, they took a sacred sublocation in the Maelstrom Lands. Local guardians have orders to shoot humans on sight. Investigating the blast site will be hard. Well, harder than usual."
"That's the fifth location this month," sighed Mackenzie, her shoulders sinking, "and we're still no closer to getting them."
Indeed, they weren't. Apart from the local witnesses, they struggled to find more clues to the case. They found no players in Chaotic matching the locals' descriptions. They did learn their explosives were all the same, but a very common type of gear. Tracking player activities in Perim was impossible (that irked Ethan majorly).
Tirasis, nicknamed Tira (she never gave her real name) sat across from the redhead. Her own glasses reflected the cyan light of the holotable as she sat quietly, her brown hair covering parts of her face. Among the six she remained one of the calmest and quietest, like always.
"Any deaths?" she wondered, a girl of few words.
"Surprisingly, no," answered Kit with relief.
"Then still just property damage?" concluded Mackenzie, straightening up in her chair. "That's the silver lining in all this."
"Let's sure hope no one dies," chimed Cal, the present Imthor. His tired brown eyes, matching his medium hair skimmed between the other Codemasters. "OverWorlders are already pissed about this. If they kill creatures, all our work into making them like us? It could be gone. We might even see anti-player laws."
"And there have been proposals," Mackenzie added exhaling, "lots of them."
Another moment of silence among the council. Cal spoke a harsh reality, one not so improbable.
"You know, MajorTom could help with that," asked Jesse, the Chirrul. The teenage boy was the youngest of the young adults, his long blonde hair untied and green eyes shut. He relaxed with arms behind his head, tipped back in his chair. "He's cool with Maxxor, right? Saved his life from Chaor? He could tell him not to pass one."
"It might work," chimed in Ethan, "if he didn't have creatures demanding the opposite."
"Oh, Ethan," said Jesse, not discouraged, "always seeing the glass half-empty."
"That's not half-empty, just realistic," countered Ethan, just as confident. "You've much to learn about Perim, young grasshopper."
"Speaking of the attacks," spoke Tai, the Oron of the council, also one who kept to himself. The tannest of the seven, his black hair spiked up at the front. He pushed his own glasses up the bridge of his nose, having something to say. "Now that we're on five, we might be able to see a pattern now."
"And with a pattern, we can narrow down their next targets," realized Mackenzie, rising in her seat.
"Exactly," said Tai, pointing to Mackenzie. "We can plant our drones in similar locations… and hope they're not found by creatures. Which I do because a certain someone argued with the robotics department, again."
Tai briefly focused on Ethan. The entire council harbored a dislike for the mysterious, shady company behind the game who seldom reached out to them. Ethan hated these people the most, sometimes making it vocal during said communications... a pettier hatred.
"What?" Ethan asked defensively, finding more eyes on him. "They didn't send someone to fix the drones the last time they were damaged. And they still hadn't fixed the espresso machine."
"Ethan," Kit interrupted with an annoyed look, "stow it."
"Where did they hit again?" Mackenzie asked Kit. He pulled up the growing list of locations to read aloud.
"Let's see," he started, "they destroyed... a hidden shrine near Skeletal Springs. A giant tree in old Graalorn. Magic garden past the Riverlands, and some preserved ruins in a jungle south of Zygor Village."
All eyes in the room fell to Tai. He pinched his goatee, humming lowly.
"What do you think?" asked Tira.
"Well for starters, they're all in OverWorld territory," Tai discerned, unsure of how else they correlated, if at all. "Any of these sound familiar?" he consulted the others.
"You know, they don't," said Mackenzie, looking to Ethan. "Hotekk?"
"No, actually," he answered, grasping his bearded chin in thought.
"Me neither," Jesse chimed in, the rest giving the same answer.
"They could be undiscovered," Tira suggested. "To players, anyway."
"That's what I'm thinking," said Tai, staring off in thought. "But why target obscure locations so far apart?"
"Hate crime?" suggested Jesse half-seriously.
"The OverWorlders are the last tribe to get that," mused Mackenzie. They were no angels, but they still acted better than many of their rivals.
"Okay," started Cal, leaning forward in his chair, "maybe they're working for someone?" he suggested. "Those places sound important and they're all in one territory. Say another tribe wants them destroyed. Using humans isn't a bad idea."
"Agitos has talked about using humans as agents," recalled Tira, looking to Callan and sharing grins. She frequented Chaor's palace in UnderWorld City, sometimes hearing of happenings and plans from the tribe's ruling body. Her frown sunk, "but, I heard that secondhand. If it is true, anything about it is well hidden. Him and the higher-ups, they're no Bodal."
The others slouched in disappointment, their lead quashed.
Kit exhaled as he finished reviewing the report. "Wouldn't be a first," he mumbled, refacing the others. Apparently, one player helped Chaor with something involving Van Bloot.
He thought to himself about the new findings and theories. He considered many solutions to this, all of which feeling week.
A new one came to mind—one that stood apart, albeit outlandish. He decided whether or not to even tell the others because of it.
"You know, something Jesse said," he told them, choosing to speak. He began a steady pace around the table, "it gives me an idea."
"You're welcome," said Jesse smilingly, earning a shaking head from Mackenzie.
"And it involves MajorTom," presumed Ethan, rolling his eyes. Somehow, that player always landed in wild situations.
"Yes," Kit confirmed, starting to pace. Slowly it came together in his mind. "It's kind of a long shot... but it might work."
"Well, it's not like we're getting anywhere," Ethan admitted, reluctantly. Nobody else objected, awaiting Kit's plan. "What you got, big shot?"