Might as Well

The game, Magic Unbound, was a commercial success. No. It went beyond that. It was a worldwide success that managed to infiltrate all economic, societal, and even political strata.

With some very basic marketing.

A miracle in itself as he saw the first alpha build of the game.

Nonetheless, the game was a massive success and money kept rolling in. And pushed in on giant wheelbarrows. There was so much money, it was ludicrous. And that was before they green-lighted the RMT exchange.

Thus, the incoming money demanded they make even more of it, as security costs rose exponentially.

So many people, organizations, groups, governments, and even paramilitary operations tried to do their damned best to infiltrate their systems to acquire any kind of advantage over others.

Thankfully, so far their systems, AIs, and even cyber security specialists were up to the task.

He didn’t have to deal with any fallout of somebody breaching their system. The one time when somebody managed to acquire insider info (which he was pretty sure was allowed by the security guys even though he couldn’t prove it) the plan was already in place, he had just to stamp his approval on it, and out it went.

Nowadays, most of his time was spent on taking recordings from the game and crafting trailers, teasers, and short-form videos about different aspects of the game, depending on what his superior decided they wanted to advertise any given week.

They had countless different events they had going on, all aimed at different demographics, anything from pet photo contests to race to the top events for the trailblazers, to dress-up events in certain countries where the survey said they would do well.

Hell, they even had some celebrity cooking contests in a few areas…

He was about to go over the latest results because even though he was fully aware they were digital creations, they still looked mighty delicious, when his email client dinged.

Email clients didn’t ding.

Not with the number of emails and messages he got every day.

The client only dinged when the important messages came. Abandoning his plan to drool over the fantastical meals crafted in the game, he opened the message framed with red and blinking with a fucking warning light.

‘I didn’t know it could do that…’ he mused as he began to read.

It was from the group that had the distinct displeasure of being in charge of the online communities and keeping an eye on the happenings all over the internet. He didn’t envy them… Even just going online, he saw enough porn made of the game that he shuddered to think what those people saw…

Then, as he read, the good humor vanished from his face, replaced by a frown.

Oversight of the exploitation of workers for digital currency and the responsibilities of companies

A very on-the-nose title for an essay, but the more he read, the more he realized why it was sent to him. It didn’t name names, but he was not stupid.

He hit a button and a call went through immediately.

“Is it viral?” he asked without any preamble.

The person on the other side fumbled a little before answering.

“N-not y-yet, sir!”

“Will it?”

“Will it what?”

“Will it go viral?”

There was a momentary pause, as he could hear the clicking sounds. He didn’t say anything, waiting for the egghead on the other side to find the results.

“Predictions says yes. Over seventy percent chance…”

This time he was the one who stayed silent. Sadly, the egghead didn’t let him think.

“Should, we… I mean should we squash it?”

He snorted. Squash something on the internet? Maybe a century ago that would have been possible. But with AI technology scraping the internet for every scrap of data, deleting anything from it was a physical impossibility. And if their enemies or detractors caught a whiff of them trying to hide them, they would gleefully make every effort to showcase the essay.

“No. There is no need. Be a dear and put together an analysis package about it. I want to know everything. Where, who, how, and what crayon it was written with. Then send it up as soon as possible.”

Not waiting for the other person to answer he hung up and pushed another button to contact his secretary.

“Janice?”

“Yes, sir?” came the prompt reply from her. Impeccable as always. That’s why he paid the big money for a person and wasn’t just using a simple VI.

“Call an emergency meeting. Use my codes.”

“Time?”

“As soon as possible,” he replied as he loosened his tie.

“Message was sent out. Anything else?”

“No, unless there is something on your side?”

“Nothing current, sir,” came the reply.

He let out a relieved sigh. “Good. Make sure you’re ready. This is going to be a long night.”

“Understood.”

The speaker went silent, and he returned to his multiple screens. He needed to read the essay again, make some notes, and do some research.

This entire thing could be a catastrophe for the company if the wrong people picked it up. But if they played their cards right…

“Who the hell placed a titan there?”

Looks were exchanged but nobody was brave enough to reply. Thankfully, Selene was either very brave or just didn’t give a fuck.

“Titans were allocated randomly based on lore, history, and player density,” She stated with her smooth voice.

The head of their office just pointed at the screen where they watched one specific person climbing up on the leg of a titanic spider monster.

“Yes, I know that! What I want to know is whose bright idea it was to place it near that fucker!”

“It was just a coincidence…”

“Then how do you explain that the titan woke up without the requisite actions? We made all of them dormant!”

Selene smiled as she answered.

“One of the… fucker’s enemies decided to be pro-active.”

“Who was the genius?” he asked with heavy sarcasm coloring his words.

Selene smirked, and a small sandglass appeared next to her on the screen. “Searching…”

He opened his mouth to berate her, but she was faster. “Found it. It was one of the greater demons. The Shadowed One…”

“Can we remove it from the game?”

“I don’t think so…”

“Then make sure to add at least one more group that is dedicated to erasing it from existence.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Most of the anti-demon groups are aware of its existence and are already planning to deal with it. Adding more would disrupt the game balance.”

“Then…then make sure its left pinky is always itching…”

“It doesn’t have a pinky…”

“Why is he winning?” he asked, sitting in a chair and looking at the battle on the screen, exhausted.

One of the other developers near him piped up. “Probably because of his broken mana control?”

“That fucker!”

A person at the back of the room added another mark to the list, as well as the time. Many bets were going on about how many times their boss would curse about that specific person.

“What about the battle outside?”

Instantly, the screen changed from the person of interest fighting a very disturbing-looking arachne to the massive battlefield around the titanic monster.

“How many guilds?”

There was a little shuffling as people went over the number before one of them spoke up.

“Almost two dozen.”

“Any of them important?”

“Only the local guilds are participating as the rest were too far. Abyss Vipers, Eternal Light, and Greyskull, Redfang are the biggest.”

“What about… what was the name? Iron cats?”

“Steel Lions, sir.”

“That! What about them? Weren’t they enemies with the fucker?”

“Yes, sir. But everything indicates that they’re focusing on the Valley of Distortion,”

Everybody who wasn’t occupied watched as their boss had a minor breakdown, while the person at the back quietly wrote down the time.

“What did I just see?”

Upon hearing the question, there was only silence. All of them stared at the giant screen on the wall of the room. Nobody could really comment. They all worked on the game in some manner, but they couldn’t have imagined that somebody would do something like this.

“Is that even legal?”

Selene shrugged on the monitor where her digital avatar was displayed. “Using the environment to their advantage is not against any rule.”

“That’s not the environment,” he exclaimed, pointing at the screen where the dust cloud was beginning to clear up. “That is a humongous spider monster that had a small mountain on its back!”

“The mountain is an environment… technically.”

“The fucker dropped it on them!”

“I believe it was the guild master who gave the ord-“

“As if that man would do anything without orders from the fucker!”

There was a moment where everybody looked at the man worriedly, but then he closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths.

“All right… all right. I need to calm down. My blood pressure is already too high.”

Wisely, nobody decided to comment.

“What about the casualties?”

The answer came promptly and a little gleefully, from one of the people staring at the screens where the statistics were displayed.

“Chrysalis retreated in the last moments, only losing a few people who acted as bait. Most of the players under the titan perished, including the bigger guilds. And as you can see on the screen, the rest are being hunted down by the cordon set up by Chrysalis.”

“What about the scouts and loot goblins?”

“Most of them were caught by a cordon, but some of them got through.”

“Did they manage to snag the loot?”

There was an ominous silence.

He looked up from his tablet, where he was slowly surveying the scene. “What?”

“The loot is the body, sir.”

“What?”

“The personal loot is in the Core Dimension designed for an assault team while the rest of the group holds off the titan on the outside.”

“Which the fucker just soloed.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, fuck…”

Another pregnant silence.

“What about that special guild blueprint I heard about?” he finally asked.

Selene chortled a little while his face fell. “Oh, don’t tell me…”

“Yes! It was planted by…”

“THAT FUCKER!”

“Well, what have we learned?”

“Watching people fighting giant monsters is very fun?”

He looked back at his employee, suppressed the rage that threatened to erupt at the thought of that person, and nodded. “Yes, it is.”

“Do we have the entire recording sanitized?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then cut it up in manageable chunks and forward it to marketing.”

“Like?”

“Have one for when it erupts, a montage of firing spells at the legs, then finish it with the collapse,” he spoke as he watched a replay of Solar’s fight with the arachne. “Sprinkle in a few teasers of that fucker’s fight.”

“Sanitized?”

“Can we actually show him for real?” he looked around hopefully. Sadly, he only saw people shaking their heads. “Dammit…”

“So…?”

“Yes, sanitize it…”

“Look on the bright side, sir.”

“What bright side?”

The person reporting grinned. “We did a little math and figured that with the reward from the fight, our ‘hero’ would be around level ninety-nine…”

He immediately perked up. “Which means, he would shoot up to the top of the race, displaying his name for everyone to see!”

The other man nodded. “Exactly, sir!”

There was another moment of silent anticipation as everybody watched the boss digest the ‘good’ news before they watched him jump from his slump and begin issuing orders.

“All right, people! Make sure the posts about the race are bumped and add some more visibility to it!”

“Yes!”

“Do we have pictures of some figurines that we planned as the reward?”

“Yeah, they sent over some prototypes…”

“Post them! Increase the hype!”

“Roger!”

He stood there, hands on hips and a manic grin on his face.

“Avoid this, you annoying fucker!”

“How the hell did they do it?”

“What?”

“I ran the numbers. Those attacks shouldn’t have killed the titan!”

His friend grinned and leaned closer in a conspiratory manner. “Well, you’re right! I heard from a friend of a friend that there was an actual fracture thing on the top of the monster. They had to go in and kill a boss there.”

“Ahh, now that makes sense!”

“Yeah! I heard it took an entire team of elite players from Chrysalis to deal with it!”

“Wow! So, the ones outside destroying the legs weren’t the elite?”

“I suppose…”

“Bonkers…”

“Did you hear?”

“What? Is it about the Spider Titan?”

“Yeah!”

“What about it?”

“I just spoke with my friend and they said they found an entire gold mine in the spider!”

“Gold mine? That’s stupid! The inside was red crystal! It should be a crystal mine!”

“What do you use the crystal for?”

“Wasn’t there that crystal crafter chick?”

“Oh yeah… she is hot…”

“Do we have anything like that around our city?”

“Have no idea…”

“Then go and research it. Open-world raid bosses should drop some impressive things.”

“Not to mention the corpse, right?”

“Mhm. Any idea what they got?”

“Heard anything from mana crystal mine to an entire city decked out in gold…”

“So we know nothing…”

“Pretty much, yeah…”

“Do you have any contacts who could get us that info?”

“They found some kind of titan monster over in the Emerald Kingdom…”

“Huh…”

“You don’t care?”

“They are on the other side of the continent. Why would I care? Hand me the number five…”

“Here… But seriously. The fight was super epic. Are you not curious about how they managed to do it?”

“Maybe. Do we have to fight a giant spider?”

“Well…no.”

“Then I don’t care. Hand me the number seven.”

“Ugh, here… sometimes you’re so lame.”

“Maybe. But I make bank…”

THUD

“There, the vault door is open. Let’s start looting…”

“Sometimes I wonder about you…”