Refractions [∞ Enigma ∞ - Hacker Event]

The sun was still behind the mountains, but had begun spreading it's light over the small village that had been chosen as the primary access point for the new content.  Massive docks had been added to the formerly quiet seaside fishing village and a variety of odd looking seagoing vessels had been lined up, bobbing merily in the water with gangplanks all creaking where they attached to the docks.  At the head of each dock, a silent sentinel stood, blocking access to the docks and the waiting vessels.  Additional vendors took up the space between each dock, blocking off any access to the village's beach and water.  Some of them stood silent and still as the dock guardians.  These vendors stood in front of racks of potions that advertised temporary abilities to breathe underwater, as well as some advertising various avatar boosts were for sale, the length of time of the boost determining if the price was counted in in-game currency or in real life dollars.  The remaining vendors were not silent however.  These were the vendors that had begun advertising their services several days ago, shortly after the announcement had been made and the village's shoreline had been altered.  Those not helping customers called out their services for changing player avatars over to the newly announced race.  Those helping customers dutifully verified the player's paid status on the new content or charged their credit cards before helping the player through the process of updating their avatars.  Newly minted avatars were allowed to be viewed in the styling booths but reverted to standard when the players left. "Until the release of the new content." they were each told.

As the sun crested over the mountains and began shedding it's direct light on the docks and the village started coming to life, there was a great commotion from the docks as all of the silent sentinels against the seashore started hawking their wares.  The dock guardians started checking players past, verifying their account statuses before allowing them to pass by to the waiting transports who each now had a steward waiting on the dock to funnel people into the ships.  Those who had pre-paid for their avatar changes found themselves standing in their new bodies.  The event had officially begun, and the new content released.

In all the commotion and excitement, a blue gateway rose out of the ground in a side alleyway just out of visual range of the docks.  A familiar but confusing avatar stepped through and walked quietly to the mouth of the alleyway, looking around the corner at the docks.  In the quiet of the alleyway, a slurping sound could be heard that lasted for more than a few breaths, and then the gateway closed back into the ground after the noise ended.  The familiar figure, still in stovepipe hat, and with a moving and swirling technicolor skin straightened it's back, steadied itself with it's cane and stepped from the alleyway, walking with purpose towards the docks.

As the boat was boarding, Artemis sat to the side, surveying the scenery. The boats were crowded with passengers, too crowded for her tastes. The cluttered streets leading up to the docks were alive with people, all of them anxious to board the ships and see the new map. Most had already payed for the expansion, as Artemis had herself, but the thought of being trapped on a boat with a bunch of strangers did not appeal to her.

Sighing heavily, Artemis turned around.  The now departing ship was overladen with passengers, and Artemis had no intention of being that close. Drawing up her inventory, she sighed.  Even if she wanted to go, her inventory just wouldn't allow it. The inventory was filled to overflowing, and she needed to figure out how to sell these.

Looking around, she saw no shops. Sighing a angsty sigh, she began wandering off, looking for any shops with "Store" posted on the fronts.

Logging in after so long had been surreal. A year passing in a blur that at times had dragged on into a hell that smelled like hospital antiseptic and ever present white noise. But finally he had been cleared to return to work, And as he entered the virtual world it was like coming back to a home he had once lived in.

Now he stood on the shore, not far from the docks swelling with players as they rushed into new content. The guardian NPCs were doing a good job controlling the flow of passengers, but it was clear that the ships were soon going to have to leave or risk capsizing before they made it to Eathelin. Grunting behind his mask Skultone stood straight and began walking towards the nearest gangplank.

“That’s enough for the first round of ships! Please wait for them to return for the next group of adventurers.” His arm shot out and blocked a small human who was trying to push through the guardian. At his voice they had begun also pausing the loading process, refusing to scan player IDs despite the loud complaints.

First one, then more began complaining loudly. “But I paid for the expansion! Let me on!” Fresh Merfolk voices rose alongside classic races as Skultone effectively cut them off from the new content they were so desperate to reach. He did his best to placate them as the gangplanks began to pull up into the ships, those already onboard cheering while the land-locked players milled around unhappily.

“Eathelin isn’t going anywhere. Please stand by for the next ships.” Skultone scanned the crowd as he spoke, the waves of faces not unlike the ocean waves behind him.

As the Lamian ferret spoke to her neighbor, the player on the other side of her started jumping up and down with joy.  "All kinds of fish around too!  I bet they have all kinds of seafood available.  Do you think they're giving it away for free like the last festival?"  Glowing blue orbs looked excitedly at the ferret from the long fanged skeleton avatar that had been standing on her other side.  The two got so wrapped up in their conversations, that they missed their chance to board their ship.  Or rather that specific ship.

All up and down the docks, as the vessels of various sizes would fill up.  Their gangplanks would retract, the steward rushing up the gangplank at the last moment.  The vessels would each then depart from the dock, and just as the vessel was getting out to the deeper water the vessel would dive below the surface of the ocean.  Before the vessel would even be fully gone under the lapping waves another vessel would surface from underwater, land at the dock that had just been vacated, and another gangplank would be set in place where the previous gangplank was.  Another steward would hurry out to the bottom of the gangplank and start ushering users into the newly waiting vessel.  As they were of all different sizes, they would fill up at varying rates.  By the time a few minutes had passed, there was a constant push-pull as new vessels were constantly replacing those that had filled up.

Nearest to Skulltone, the NPC at the head of the dock looked to the official from SC.CO to continue it's boarding routine.  Other lines kept moving at a moderately brisk pace.

As Artemis closed her inventory to go begin searching for a store, a black avatar with stovepipe hat walked by her.  The play of tie dye washed across the figure's avatar, ever changing and swirling.  "That's a mighty full inventory you have there young lady."  The tie dye man offered up to Artemis.  "If you don't think you'll be using all that stuff, you might consider talking to one of the vendors selling items along the strip there.  You can engage their buy mode and sell off your extra stuff."  The figure turned then after tipping its hat at the orcish woman and started walking towards the docks again not even waiting for a response.  As it did however, it caught sight of a familiar looking masked avatar mostly obscured through the milling crowd.  "Oof.  Not that way."  The tye dye man shifted directions again and headed down to the far end of the row of vendors.

As Enigma, the tye dye man approached the dockmaster at the furthest dock, the NPC was arguing with one of the player avatars about the price of getting access to the dock.  Enigma raised a hand with one finger pointed up and stepped between the player and the NPC. "Just one moment, I think someone made a mistake."  He dipped one hand into the forehead of the NPC.  "Yes, somethings definitely wrong here."  He fiddled with the hand inside the NPC's head for a moment then stepped to the side.  He looked back at the avatar that had been arguing about the price.  His other hand pointed to the NPC and he twiddled his fingers.  As he did so, the NPC hopped from foot to foot doing a small dancing jig.  This elicited a chuckle from the player that was standing now with its arms crossed watching what was going on with a morbid curiosity.  "That should fix things."

Enigma stepped away from the NPC, withdrawing his hand from it's head.  The NPC put on a large grin and stepped to one side.  It reached behind it grabbing a water breathing potion from the rack of the vendor that had been beside it and presented it to the player that had just been arguing.  "Enjoy your stay in Eathelin."  As the player passed, the dock guardian grabbed another potion from the rack and presented it to the next player in line.  "Enjoy your stay in Eathelin."

Enigma looked down the row of vendors.  "Well, much to do.  Better get started."  He moved off to the next dock down the line.

As they were back to talking about Eathelin the ferret then realized that it's technically illegal to sell food made out of fish because it's cannibalism they told the skeleton about the food and stopped for a moment, only to realize that the boat had left with out both of the two, they noticed that they would have to wait all over again, they then apologized to the skeleton and sighed.

The skeleton pulled a potion of water breathing out their back pack and asked when to use it. This made Hikio realize that they had forgotten to get their own potions of water breathing. Looking up at the shoreline the ferret saw vendors selling just those items.  Hikio turned back to the skeleton.  "Um...  Can you hold my spot for me."The ferret grinned embarrassed. "I need to go grab a few potions."  Without waiting for a response Hikio sped off to go back up to the head of the dock and talk to one of the many vendors there.

When the ferret arrived, there was a strange looking man who looked like a fish, he had red fins and teal skin and wore a green hood, the ferret ignored the vendors appearance and bought a few potions before walking back to the skeleton. As Hikio returned to their new friend, a new boat was just extending it's gangplank down to the dock in front of the pair.

"Thanks!"

Artemis thanked the neon man, and continued on the path he had suggested, completely ignoring the odd patterns swirling on his skin. Walking off in the direction of the nearest strip, Artemis struggled to get through the lines that had extended itself several blocks in almost every direction. The dense conglomeration of people was difficult to pass, but no trouble for such a determined orc.

The array of buildings on the seaside stretched as far as the eye could see.  The once non-important fishing village had gotten revamped in the latest updates. Instead of the quaint little town, it was now a vivid exiting town, with lots of shops and tourist attractions. However Artemis wasn't interested in buying any more items that would just clog up her inventory. She needed that space so she could buy more useless trinkets that served no purpose.

I might have a problem...

Everything was running smoothly as people were shuttled to and from the dock to the ship, and Skultone stepped away as soon as the players stopped being overly combative. If they wanted to wine they could, but it wasn’t going to move them forward any faster than the rate they were already going. All the complaints were mundane in anycase. Not enough room on the boats, too much money for the potions to access the water biomes, avatar doesn’t look the way they wanted, the list was unremarkable. Skultone filtered the chat and ignored things that weren’t his problem.

The raucous laughter from the other end of the pier caught his attention in a quiet lull between boat boarding. He looked over the crowds that were finally beginning to show some signs of thinning and saw people moving from their queues to one in particular.“That would explain the sudden lack of people.” He muttered and waved to the launch guardians before making his way towards the commotion. Here he saw people moving as fast as possible to get onto a single boat.

No, he saw people rushing to board a boat with an NPC out of control. Not only letting everyone on for free, but offering potions of underwater breathing as they climbed aboard. With a muted curse Skultone began moving faster only to stop when a message came in from another SC.CO member.

Security to Eathelin. SC.CO members are experiencing difficulty breathing down here. Send assistance immediately.

He swore, beginning to write a response when a swirling flurry of colors caught his eye.

A technicolor humanoid with a tall hat on his head. Only a year ago he’d experienced the same user in a not-dissimilar situation. Swiftly he changed his response and sent it out, CCing his reply so that anyone that saw one would see the other.

Hacker activity spotted at the docks, be aware other events could be under attack. Back up be prepared to arrive and support security officers at multiple locations.

He pulled out his rifle and switched his voice to broadcast to the area, eyes firmly on the hacker and stride full of authority. The kind that made players move out of his way.

“Attention valued players, there appears to be a malfunction of one of the guardian NPCs. Please move away from the location and rejoin other queues until further notice is given.” Leveling his gun towards the cane wielding form he switched back to first person broadcasting.

“Stop whatever you’re doing and step away from the dock.” The rasp of his voice was clear and hostile. He remembered this hacker well, and the danger he had put the player base in.