AIN SOPH Part 4

Episode 1

Long ago, on a far away planet that Lilly Katt never visited, King Dagon had surged from the depths to stomp any players and NPC’s in his path. Resembling something between a great white shark and a tyrannosaurus, King Dagon had been constructed by a game designer for the TAO world who’d forgotten to remove a section of code that allowed King Dagon to access the outside Internet. It didn’t take long for the monster to figure out how to steal all the money in the entire world, creating mass panic and rioting around the globe. Advertising was effective these days, and Lilly didn’t remember much about the event. The monster was still talked about frequently in TAO chatrooms, but very few people could remember the real-world devastation it created.

Andy McCarthy was that designer. He still worked for SpectraCom Games, and still played a White Knight named ‘Duke’ after a long-lost friend. As per his contract, Andy needed to spend 20 hours a week as a Moderator in the game. Like most employees, Andy logged in hours when he had other work that needed be done. A Mod only needed to stand in one place and be there for a player needing help. Most employees did this when they needed to finish reports or on long phone conversations. Andy did it working for the Piscean Knights, a loose brotherhood that decided to keep TAO Fantasy separate from TAO Science Fiction.

The Pisceans operated on whisper, rumor, and coded-emails sent on laptops and library computers that could not be traced back to the player. Rooted in the black market created by the MERC trade, the Pisceans paid real money to hunt down and kill any rookie player bent on recreating the favorite scene of some alien-invasion movie. This problem had once been so bad that an expansion pack had been created where PC’s discover intelligent life on an unexplored world. The NPC’s always behave the same way on replay, and nothing compared to the real thing, so the expansion quickly tanked in favor of raids on TAO Fantasy attacking real players.'

Episode 2