"You did the right thing to call me here. Even if that's something that you should have done sooner."
The voice of their mysterious companion sounded both approving and irritated at the same time. Frowning, both of the players, their levels significantly reduced, exchanged a dark look.
"We did not know that he could change our settings. You didn't tell us! If you told us about that, then we would have asked a few more of our friends to join. Then we would have had him for sure!"
"I understand. He's progressing much faster than expected. He should not have been able to do that, yet."
"He stabbed me through my stomach! Twice! Do you know how much that hurt? We should totally sue! I probably gonna need to see a shrink or something. This is gonna give me PTSD or something! Frick this!" Marko complained, while their third companion only made an amused smile, his lips stretching a little beneath the shadow of his gray hoodie. The smile did not reach the man's gleaming red eyes, which held on the younger human with cold appraisal.
"You should have called me as soon as you understood that you were dealing with the real thing rather than a bot. He is far more devious and resourceful than a normal program. That's how he was designed to be."
"Pfft! We know that! Its just that…" The younger Player gave his older partner a hesitant look. "We thought we could really take him." He finished with frustrated huff. "Your weapons worked! We had him on the run! He was down for the count, no different than those bots! I mean, look!"
The image of the last footage appeared hovering before them in the air in form of an opaque square, where a one-armed man unsteadily stood in the darkness of a small space, his white eyes eerily illuminating his sneering face. Only two hearts remained blinking above his head out of ten, the rest of which showed black.
"He was not faking those stats! He was almost done for! And if it was not for that weirdo Player, we would have finished him for sure!" Marko scowled at the second figure in the distance. Looking very similar to the first figure, except his eyes blue and face twisted by fear, the man cowered, resisting the effort of two white eyed Endermen pushing him toward the gaping gateway. The man's terrified eyes looked in direction of the Players, his expression changing to obvious concern as his gaze shifted to the one-armed villain, who only moments ago held him hostage.
"I don't know what game he is playing, but he was helping that bot! He lied to us, pretending to be a local! And led us around for nothing, searching empty caves, while that dang glitch was chilling at his house that entire time! I cannot believe he wouldn't tell us about this. Even if his settings really did get jacked up that high… He should have told us!" Marko glared at the unknown player with an angry frown, though some uncertainty held in his tone of voice.
"Well, I don't know. Could be Stockholm syndrome. It's a really old term. When prisoners start to care about their captors and even help them."
"I know what it means! We are not stupid!" Marko exclaimed, turning to glare at their strange companion, instead. "But because of that dumb guy, we didn't get to that bot in time. He escaped! I got eaten by a fricken dragon? Do you know what its fricken like? Get chomped by a bunch of sharp, pointy teeth?"
Their companion huffed, his lips twitching in amusement. "No, cannot say that I do, no."
"Its not funny!" The younger man seethed, his hands clenched. "Adler, tell him! This is not OK! We didn't sign up for this! If I knew that it would be like this, I…"
"Would forfeit three million dollars in real life credit?" Their unknown companion hidden beneath his guise, skeptically quirked an eyebrow. Marko clenched his teeth shut, still fuming as he appeared to think about it.
"Tell us one thing." Adler interfered, his irritated voice dull and far from friendly, even though his face remained calm. Both of those present looked to the older man, who gave their companion a sharp look. "That player… Your glitch claimed that he… wiped out his memory. Is that true?"
Their contact idly shrugged. "Well, we don't exactly know what he is capable of now. But that's why we're trying to get rid of him."
"Heck, yeah!" Marko exclaimed. "You should have done it before! When you still had him! I cannot believe that I was so dumb that thought that it was cool that you found the real Herobrine and he really existed. That guy's pure evil! If it were up to him, me and Adler would now be his puppets, same as that poor noob." He gestured to Steve, anger battling with concern in his dark eyes, wide open and anxious.
"He is NOT the real Herobrine, though. Right? He is just a glitched bot. That's what you told everyone." The older player insisted, his gaze at their companion's reactions unwavering and mistrustful.
"Of course not." The Admin lightly scoffed. "He is not the real Herobrine… Otherwise we would have never allowed Notch to take him in the first place. Then, we really thought that he was just a glitched bot. If he was that original Virus, believe me, turning up your settings to max would be the least of your worries… Only he is not just a glitched bot, either. That's something that we found out only recently. And this data just confirmed it." Admin nodded and lapsed into silence, still looking at the images playing on the recording.
"What do you mean?" The older man demanded in distaste. Their disguised companion didn't answer right away.
"Hmm. Can I tell you something? Off record?" He asked idly. After a moment, both players nodded, making motions to switch their accounts from recording mode.
"That bot is not just a glitch. He is some hacker's malicious attempt to recreate that original Virus from scratch. And he came close. Dang close. If that bot continues to exist, he will become a serious problem. Maybe not as bad as the first, but bad. That's why we must remove him now, while we still can."
The Admin representative gave them a calculative look. "That's why we approached your guild, even before we gave everyone the new quest. Our team worked for months, trying to figure out how to counteract that virus! And you practically gave him the cure!"
"What? Its not like we lost that sword on purpose." Adler grumbled. Marko only blinked, not quite understanding what they were talking about. The Admin huffed.
"You practically walked into his trap! Why do you think he waited for you to get there rather than simply gate away? He was waiting for you to come so he could get hold of that weapon we gave you! And if he didn't have to worry about keeping that other player away from you, he would have done it!"
The older player winced, frustration running across his face before his emotions shut down once more and he stubbornly frowned. "If you told us what he was and what he could do from the start, we would not have made that mistake." He stubbornly grumbled.
"Fair point." The Admin conceded, instantly changing his accusing tone to his former calm one. "At least you managed to track his current location. That is good. I've already sent this to my team, so they will start setting up blocks. In a moment, we'll contact the guild who owns that sector. If we manage to isolate him to a cluster of servers, it will be much easier to find him." He nodded slightly with satisfaction, eyeing the recording where the players emerged on the other side of the gate only to face the one-armed figure of the villain once more.
A few more minutes revealed the images wildly jumping around, with the younger player's nearly muted voice shouting faint strings of expletives, before shutting off entirely. The gray-hoodie guy firmly dismissed the image and turned to face them both.
"Overall, you did very well in your task. One hundred and nineteen mansions and two hundred and twelve bots. Eliminated. And you even found and fought the real Glitch himself, nearly defeating him in the process. That he gained additional abilities is not such good news, but it could have been far worse, and this data is going to help us to determine what tactics to use against him for sure. There is also the matter of that player… And, this."
The Admin turned to look at the ruins of the mansion, which looked dark beneath the swiftly descending darkness of the evening as the last rays of the sun disappeared behind the tops of the mountains.
"You have proved your value and you can still get your reward, if you choose to continue in your original task. I know that our target has evolved, displaying additional abilities, but it can be handled easily, by simply limiting player interface from outside. We will immediately issue a public warning of this matter to all the players. You can resume your original task. However, given your actions so far, I can now offer you a new task, which can considerably increase your rewards. It may require that you carry out a few actions, which some might consider… less than proper. Considering your actions today, I don't think it will be a problem for either of you. However, this mission will not be official and if you tell anyone else about this, we will simply deny everything. Of course, your reward offer will be withdrawn, also."
The Admin looked at them with his eye-brow lifted and both Players exchanged looks. The older man's frown grew deeper.
"How much?" He demanded in a dry tone of voice. The Admin faintly smirked.
"Multiply your current earnings so far by the power of four. Plus the official reward if its you who will bring him down." The Admin quirked his eye-brow. Both Players exchanged a look. Adler then grit his jaw together as fierce determination settled on his face.
"I am going after that glitch no matter what. Its now personal. But if what you tell us is going to help us to bring him down, then a little more money will be welcome."
"Oh, what I can tell you will definitely help." The Admin smiled.
"Then count me in!" The elder man nearly growled. The young man, throwing both of the older men wide-eyed looks, nearly jumped up. "Heck, yeah! Me too! I'm in!" He exclaimed. "What do we have to do?"
Their mysterious companion gave them both an approving look. "I will explain everything to you later, once we finish here." Turning away, he faced the ruins of the mansion.
Lifting his hand palm up, he summoned a light, which shot to the air above them and exploded into a mini sun, which flooded the area below them with light. Crumbling rocks and stone of Herobrine's mansion once again became visible. And the sign, "Here Lies Herobrine" mocked them once more above the empty grave.
The elder player frowned while the younger winced at this reminder of their failure. That clever bot misled them to believe that he was merely a normal modded copy, without mind or will of his own. He barely reacted even when he had lost his arm! Neither of them said anything, waiting to see what their odd partner would do next.
The Admin's lips twitched slightly in a smirk at the sight of the sign. Then, he slightly lowered his head as he concentrated. And the code of the game around them began to respond.
Large chunks of rock began to lift, dust streaming below them to the broken ground. Effortlessly, bits of ruins floated through the air to the rocky sides of adjoining mountains, where they settled. Logs and other debris did the same. Finally, the area below them cleared as something suddenly flared in the midst, a piece that looked like a bent bit of wood, completely covered by dust.
The Admin smiled, abandoning further excavation effort as the object shot from the ground and sailed across the air to float before the Admin, who narrowed his red eyes at it.
Recognizing the thing, Marko's face twisted with disgust. "Gross…" He stared at the severed arm that hovered before the pleased looking Admin. The thing looked disturbingly realistic with scratches and bruises covering it. Even as they watched, some of those injuries began to fade away, leaving behind barely noticeable scars. Only the ragged edge of flesh remained unchanged, showing bit of severed bone.
"This is exactly what we needed." The Admin grinned. Something slightly binged with a soft sound of falling coins. The younger player briefly froze, before his brown eyes widened and a big grin split his face.
"Twelve thousand dollars just for that? That's rad!"
"Just a small token of our appreciation. Consider it payment for a job well done. Now for your next task…"
The severed arm vanished while the Admin turned to them once again, his red eyes observing their reactions with mild interest. Adler only nodded, not appearing impressed by their reward at all. Frowning, he held his dark eyed gaze on the Admin.
"...We are listening."