“And these are just the cases mentioned in the petitions,” the speaker noted. “In truth, their number is much higher — many simply think that it’s par for the course. After all, this is Sphere!”
This is Sphere! Yamato pursed his lips. Everything was going wrong. Utterly wrong.
“All right, let’s go over it again.” He coughed. “What do we know about these creatures?”
They didn’t know a lot. The initial appearance of a creature dubbed a “Nomad” — either a monster or a spiderlike organic ship — had been recorded three months before the meeting. Players shared screenshots of the unusual creature and tried looking for more of them but to no avail. Nomads manifested completely unexpectedly, seemingly out of nowhere, and launched deadly strikes, leaving no witness alive. They drew the administration’s attention when several vassal clans of Pandorum were forced to leave the world of Infernis because of constant attacks. They wrote several support tickets, but the case was closed — with the Pandas being fond of wiping out NPCs, the admins took Nomads for a punishing tool of the Balance. The problem didn’t make the news, and people investigating it were buried in routine work. Until the previous day, nobody had considered Nomads an issue — Sphere had tons of weird factions created by the procedural generator.
“We were unable to track down their homeworld. They somehow open portals to the Astral Plane, but we don’t know where they go from there. Our methods aren’t working. It’s as if — ”
The speaker faltered, but Yamato encouraged him with a gentle nod, and he continued, “...as if the Nomads were designed to counter all tools at our disposal.”
Yoshito winced. The Nomads that had destroyed the Seraphim in Infernis seemed absolutely unhinged. All of Sphere suddenly became the stage for their unmotivated attacks. Or was there a motive, and they simply couldn’t grasp the Balance’s elaborate game?
“One hundred forty-three attacks in twenty-four hours, you say?” Yamato said slowly. “Have you analyzed all of them? There must be a common trigger shared by all of the victims! They couldn’t be attacking at random. It would be pointless and illogical.”
“I’ve run the data by more than forty parameters. Attacks occurred in thirty-seven worlds and targeted more than five hundred players in eighty different clans. Seventy percent of the attacks happened in the Dark Worlds, less than five in the Upper. This is the first pattern. Second, sixty-seven percent of the attacked clans had the majority of players with negative karma and hostile reputation with NPCs. Many also had three or four ongoing wars...”
“We’re getting closer. What do you have?”
“I have a theory. The procedural generator might not see players as in-game factions. It’s possible that for the AI, they are a foreign element, outsiders, strangers playing by their own rules. That’s why it’s sending out Nomads to fight these outsiders, specifically fitting them out for battle. The stakes might be higher than we thought. All of this could lead to a global war between players and NPCs. How’s that for a working hypothesis?”
“It might work for a sci-fi story,” Yamato snorted. “Any other thoughts?”
Another employee raised his hand after a pause. He said, “Forgive me, Chief, but... Ananizarte’s death was clearly the trigger. Nomads appeared right after that. They attacked the Seraphim, starting this mayhem across Sphere.”
“Thank God there aren’t many of them,” his neighbor agreed. “Definitely no more than ten — screenshots and videos show the same specimens. If there were more, attacks would be much more frequent.”
“I don’t think there can be many of them. Their number is limited by the Balance,” Yamato replied.
“Yes, as is their activity! The experiment with the Blood was too risky, I think.”
They all thought that, Yamato realized as he looked over the room and the twenty people inside. They were simply afraid to say it to his face — that his plan had failed and only served to push further the already imbalanced game system that was on the verge of going berserk.
“All right. Let’s abandon this question for now. What about Pandorum’s petition?”
The employees stirred, smiling. Nobody liked the Pandas, including the admins. They were too annoying, too obstinate, too rich. They had an army of lawyers and preferred to settle arguments in court. Actually, that was the reason why the administration still hadn’t confiscated the respawn circle in the Astral Plane and many other imbalanced items, including the infamous Soul Eaters.
“I checked. There are no grounds for a rollback. Everything’s fair and square; there were no bugs. All actions were performed via alliance control features.”
“Can you tell more?”
“Of course, Chief. In short, it’s all about common greed...”
Chapter 22
IN SOME MOMENTS, you really want to wake up and breathe out in relief, realizing that everything that happened was just a nightmare. For a second, Phantom closed his eyes, feeling the formerly unshakable world reel around him. How could that even happen? Why? And who was at fault?
Several clicks gave him the answers. He finally knew who the perpetrator was. That arrogant bastard hadn’t even blocked his inbox and PMs. Phantom sent him a brief but articulate three-word message and turned back to Kronk.
“Dick! Drag all of the coordinators out of their beds! Make a new Courier channel. I’ll reform.”
“Reform what?”
“The clan and the alliance.” The leader’s voice was full of steel and resolve.
However, even there, he met a roadblock. Someone (and Phantom had a fairly good idea who) had planned this out extremely well. The system coldly informed him,
Pandorum: name already in use!
The same happened to the clan name. After disbanding his alliance and clan, the traitor — or his accomplices — immediately created another clan called Euthanasia and an alliance named Pandorum, stealing the
