Chapter 26 – Misdeeds

“Well this is… odd.” Logan mumbles as his eyes scan a series of monitors in front of him.

He scratches his wild beard as he leans back in his chair. This doesn’t make any sense. Why is the A.I. acting this way? Is it a bug?

The reason behind Logan’s current conundrum is the introduction of the A.I update a few weeks past. There’s something peculiar about it. With the introduction of high grade A.I automatons, things like bugs in the coding have become a surprisingly lesser problem when it comes to software development. It gives more wiggle room for developers to focus more on the design and creativity when it comes to creating new and exciting software.

Which brings to question as to why this update seems to create so many problems?

Sure, it works for all intents and purposes. Better, even, than he predicted. The upgraded A.I units have become scarily lifelike, sometimes giving him the impression they are more alive than some of the contestants. It’s beautiful, and the show’s ratings have skyrocketed to even greater heights. More people than ever tune in every second to watch the glorious show that is Fantasy Royale. It’s everything Logan ever hoped for. There really shouldn’t be any reason for him to complain.

The problem, however, is that with the update, he lost access to all of the V.I units affected by the update. He can’t do anything. Nothing. Nada.

Which infuriates the man to no end.

His fist clenches around the rubix cube in his hand.

“What the hell is wrong with this thing?” He growls while clenching harder, watching his knuckles whiten. The cube was a gift from Kelly after a year of working together. It’s just been laying on his desk collecting dust for the past ten years. Sure, he sometimes enjoyed picking it up and playing around with it when he’s stressed, but he never really bothered trying to solve it.

It’s ridiculous really. Logan may be one of the most intelligent people on the face of the planet, but he still has no clue how to solve something as simple as a rubix cube. Well, it’s more like he never bothered trying to learn the trick to solving them. What fun is a puzzle with a trick to it once you know it? The mystery is all the fun after all. Which is why he enjoys keeping it around as a stress reliever. Tossing it around while slowly contemplating which sides to twist and turn without really doing anything has become a sort of ritual to Logan when facing a difficult obstacle.

He has been playing around with it a lot lately...

There’s just been one obstacle after the other over the last few weeks. The worst one being the loss of Kelly. That annoying wench.

Really. How dares she betray him. Him. After everything he has done for her. Without Logan, Kelly would still be some anonymous secretary at some failing logistics company. He made her. And this is her thanks?

That bitch!

Logan throws the cube across the room, watching it shatter into a dozen pieces.

The pieces scatter across the room. He stares at the point where the cube impacted the wall. His breath is heavy as his cheeks slowly turn red.

Kelly has been a constant thorn in his side. He thought she would calm down given enough time, but her actions as of late threaten to ruin everything. Everything he has built. Why can’t that dense woman understand what he is trying to accomplish here?

He thought he stopped her by taking away her access to the systems. That wouldn’t really be an issue as only Logan himself a handful others have access to the A.I itself. He thought he had her cornered, but he underestimated her. She came far too close when trying to trick Brian into giving her access to the incriminating databanks.

That’s a mistake he would never do again. Not only did he fire that unloyal bitch, but he revoked access to the A.I for everyone except a select few loyal programmers. He’s too close to accomplishing his goal for some distrusting slut to tear down all his hard work.

He wanted to keep that bitch close where he could see her. He thought he could control her.

…

He won’t be making that mistake again.

He thought there was no way for her to get any actual proof of what he had done. Sure, she could go public with what he had done, but without any hard proof, she wouldn’t be able to back her claims up. Everything she has is just circumstantial. She could have caused some ripples because of her position as Logan’s right hand woman, but now she doesn’t even have that. Logan made sure to disgracefully dismiss her, so any claims she could now make would only sound like a petty and vengeful ex-employee.

She couldn’t even sic the government watch dogs on him.

Britain’s National Cyber Crime Unit, or NCCU, is nothing but a joke. After the new laws in the mid 2020’s, the citizens right to privacy and freedom of information on the internet has been under the thumb of megacorporations like SinTech Entertainment, or any company with access to A.I technology. There is just no way to conduct a proper investigation into a system protected by a high grade A.I. The A.I themselves are designed to safeguard a company’s information at all costs, which makes it nigh impossible for government law enforcement to perform any sort of investigation into their businesses. They could always come with their so-called warrants or their own A.I’s, but they really wouldn’t be able to do anything. A.I’s are fool proof, and is why Kelly has no chance whatsoever to get any physical proof of Logan’s misdeeds.

Hopefully…

Logan hates to admit it, but Kelly is both resourceful and quick-witted. Those are not her foremost qualities, however, as she is also probably the most stubborn person Logan has ever met... Apart from himself, of course. It’s the reason he hired her, after all. He underestimated her once, and he can’t afford to do it again. There is no doubt in his mind that Kelly won’t let this rest.

He sighs.

If that was the only problem he currently has…

In order to keep Fantasy Royale interesting and fun to watch, there needs to be good content. The game is all about making everything seem natural and fair, which Logan also really wants. But, sometimes, adjustments needs to be made. He hates to do it, but Logan had to directly manipulate the game to make it more interesting. Granted, he will never do anything that would break the balance of the game, but he did ‘tweak’ a few details to give certain circumstantial advantages to the more interesting players out there.

When the game first started, Logan had carefully selected ten different players to feature in fun and interesting storylines for the viewers to enjoy. These ten players have been nurtured by SinTech to seem as fun and intriguing as possible. Every one of the players has some interesting aspect to their personality or background which Logan exploits to create a dramatic story with individual goals for each one of them.

And, it has been a huge success.

Eight of the storylines have flourished and have grown immensely in popularity. The most popular of which is Gregory’s Avenger Storyline, the Japanese pop-idol Minakawa Shuzitsu’s and Korea’s Gang Joo-Sin’s Lover’s Storyline, and the recently discovered Allison Jackson’s Diplomatic Storyline. That last one was a lucky find after one of the other storylines in her biome didn’t pan out. Allison and her information network based on her Centaur Divinators really turned the table on Logan’s analysis's. Using the information to manipulate her neighbours and control their actions is a completely unexpected strategy to use in Fantasy Royale. It is so different and unique, Logan just had to give her her due. Her storyline is especially popular among left-wing viewers with higher education, which is a target group that is difficult to appeal to with Fantasy Royale.

These eight storylines are Logan’s pride and joy, and he has spent a lot of time to make certain these storylines progress in a fun and interesting manner. He tries to interfere as little as possible, but sometimes it’s necessary.

Which has become increasingly difficult after the A.I update…

After he introduced the upgraded and untested A.I modules into the game, the main A.I has shut out certain access paths to Logan. He understand this is the A.I’s way to keep an absolute control over the foreign A.I coding, but it irks him nonetheless. Logan now has next to no way to manipulate the players. Not that he needs to anymore, but if he notices another potentially fatalistic problem with the storylines, he damn certain will make sure they won’t end for no good reason.

Take Gregory’s emotional meltdown as an example. If Logan hadn’t been quick on his feet and hijacked his advisor, the entire storyline would be in jeopardy. That’s a loss Logan is not willing to take. Not for something as insignificant as an existential crisis.

He has great hope for Gregory and what he can achieve. He just needs to stay alive for long enough to face Richard Kenworth. The odds are certainly stacked in both of their favor…

Before the game even started, Logan took certain precautions to give the selected players the most advantageous starting positions as possible. All ten of them were placed into Biomes alongside the worst rated players possible. It goes against every promise Logan made to make sure the distribution of players is randomized, but a good storyline would be wasted if the players die early to nothing but bad luck.

Take Gregory’s biome for example. Most of the players in his biome have been deemed to be below average gamers. The game’s A.I analyzed most of their gaming history, and determined these players were an easy match up for Gregory’s presumed playstyle. Both Ork’Grimlar and Qargon were cowardly defensive players by nature and Aria was far too reckless. Harvalon was a surprising dark horse in the competition. Since there are hardly any strategy games on the market these days, the A.I failed to analyze his competence with these games. They had just analyzed his rating in different RPG and FPS games and determined them to be sub-par for someone with such long gaming history.

Nevertheless, he was a welcome surprise. Logan wouldn’t have hesitated to give Harvalon a storyline of his own if he had succeeded, and even in his defeat, he has become a valued ‘expert’ on the game to be featured on the news broadcasts. Logan still beats himself up over the fact he didn’t notice this hidden talent earlier. It’s such a waste really.

Logan just needs to make sure the storylines flourish for a while. If they can successfully capture their biomes, they should be able to stand on their own. Now, Logan just has to be on the lookout for other hidden gems among the population. He seems to have found a few already. They just need to be given a proper chance. A chance he has trouble giving them.

It goes without saying, the A.I update took away his best tool for ingame manipulation. Replacing the higher grade V.I’s with prototype A.I units certainly made them more lifelike and interesting, but introducing foreign A.I coding into the systems isolated them somewhat from the main A.I cluster. Logan has tried, but he seems unable to get access to any of those units. At least, not yet.

This makes it damn hard to directly influence the game at this point. Sure, he can still hijack a lesser V.I unit, but those are also influenced by the foreign A.I coding to a lesser degree. He could force his way into control of one of them, but he fears it would cause harm to the system. Harm he might not be able to hide from the NCCU.

The foreign A.I code is both excruciatingly frustrating, but also quite odd. Logan thought he had a good grasp on the coding before, but it seems to have evolved after merging with the game’s main A.I. He has quadruple checked that there is no way for the foreign A.I modules to seize control, but the sheer complexity and odd behaviour of the software is mind boggling. It functions on a whole different level that makes his own A.I coding seem like a potato battery in comparison. An A.I shouldn’t be able to have this level of complexity, should it?

Logan peruses the logs for the umptenth time. The data he has generated is massive, so massive he doesn’t even understand all of it. But, there are certain peculiarities in there. The individual A.I units seem to have developed individual subsystems to compliment their own behaviour. His scans shows they aren’t a threat to the main A.I cluster, but they are peculiar nonetheless. What is their purpose? It’s almost as if they are each trying to evolve their coding into something unique. Almost as if it’s of their own free will.

Logan snorts, before he dismisses that ridiculous notion.

---------

“Wake up you blasted youngling!” A voice shouts into my mind.

My eyes shoot open and I roll to my side, grabbing hold of my crossbow as I take cover behind a nearby log.

I blink a few times as my mind shakes loose from the deep slumber I was in just a mere moment ago.

“What the fuck, Gut!? Why the hell are you shouting!?” I yell through my long distance communication skill.

“It’s been eight hours since I last heard from you, and you are snoring into my damn ears as if I’m some sort of blasted trogg.” The voice growls in my mind.

“Jesus christ man. It’s not like I can control this damn thing. What the hell do you want me to do?”

“Don’t get me started on what you can do…” He grunts.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Why the hell does he have to do this to me every fucking morning?

“... What do you want?” I ask.

He grunts. “I want to report on our current situation. We have finished constructing the [Scout’s Tower] and a third [Longhouse]. After you gave me access to promote the [Rider]s yesterday, we have begun constructing the [Beast Stable]. We are planning on starting constructing the [Archery Range] afterwards as soon as you give the all-clear to upgrade your [Archer]s.”

Oh! I nearly forgot!

I turn towards my nearby forces and locate my five veteran archers-in-training. I quickly inspect them to confirm they have indeed reached [Ranged Mastery] and [Bow Specialization] level 10. I open up the class description.

[Archer]

Unlock Criteria: Any Ranged Weapon Specialization Level 10.

Gain: Possibility of raising mastery levels above 10. 50% increase to [Ranged Mastery] acquisition. Unique passive ability: [Enhanced Aim].

Lose: 50% decrease to [Spell Mastery] acquisition. 25% decrease to [Melee Mastery] acquisition.

Warning!

Choosing this class will cause the unit to lose all accumulated skill levels in [Spell Mastery]. [Melee Mastery] with all corresponding specializations will be reduced to level 5.

Excellent. Truly excellent! My forces are growing more powerful every day. The sheer amount of classes I have unlocked already is staggering to say the least. I have so many developmental options I don’t know quite where to start anymore.

“Great work, Gut! Halt progress on the [Beast Stable] and prioritize making the [Alchemist Hut] followed by the [Archery Range]. It’s priority number one. It’s about time we start expanding our capabilities.”

“It will be done, reckless one. I also want to report that our food stores are starting to dwindle. It would be wise to increase production sooner rather than later.”

“Alright. I’ll grant you authority to spawn two [Hunter]s... and also an [Alchemist] as soon as you complete the [Alchemist Hut] and…” I get an odd feeling swelling in my chest. “Hmm… I suppose I’ll hang on to the last SP for now incase something comes up.” The odd feeling in my gut tells me I might need them in the coming battle.

I’ve been meaning to upgrade our production lately, but I can’t risk neglecting combat units while I’m out attacking with the main combat force. Gut is surprisingly resourceful though, so I’m certain he has the issue well in hand.

“Anything else?” I ask.

“Grr. Nothing as of yet, reckless one. There are no enemy sightings, and the Centaur messenger reported there are no nearby players amounting any large combat forces unaccounted for. There is no guarantee they didn’t send out a smaller raiding party though.”

“Hmm… Keep your eyes peeled. We can’t afford to blindly trust their reports. Stay vigilant.”

Gut snorts. “Cheeky brat. What the hell do you think I’m doing here anyway? Prancing around like some wimpy elf? Goblin’s are always vigilant. Don’t forget it.”

“Right, right… Whatever you say…” I mumble as I break off the mental connection, but not before I take the brunt end of some really inventive profanity. I have to hand it to that wrinkled old geezer. He certainly is creative…

Bah!

There’s enough time to worry about base expansion later. We have to start moving north post-haste, and we have a lot of planning to do while on the move.

Now where is that infuriating woman…?

I snap out of my internal monologue and look towards the Hobgoblin encampment. I can’t really see much movement… which is odd. We were supposed to move at first light. What the hell is taking her so long?

Cursing softly, I stomp my way towards the enemy base. Wrex and a few of his goonies wordlessly form a loose defensive circle around me.

As we approach the base, the Hobgoblin Lieutenant comes out to greet us.

“Greetings, short chieftain…”

I sigh. “Where is she? Why aren’t you moving?” I ask the priest.

“Ah… about that…” He mumbles while throwing a glance over his shoulder. “Our ferocious leader is a bit of a… heavy sleeper in the mornings. It’s best to give her some space.”

I squint. “Are you kidding me? Tell her to get her ass out here right now. I don’t want to waste any more time here than I have to.”

“That would be… problematic…” The priest winces. “The last time we tried to wake her up early she threw an axe at me. She made it abundantly clear she only wakes up on her own schedule. We just need to wait.” He says, dejected.

“Oh for the love of all that is green and holy… Tell her to get her ass up before I set fire to her hut.” I growl at the priest.

Warwick lets out a heavy sigh before he turns around and heads back to base. I don’t doubt he was hoping I would be more understanding to his plight. Hell, I might have mustered up some sympathy for the guy. A cranky woman in the morning is no fun for anyone anywhere, no matter if you are either digital or biological. There are just some things that you universally try to avoid. Too bad for Warwick, though, I’m not really in a sympathetic mood today.

A short moment, some distant cursing and a flying axe later, Aria steps out of her hut with a mean scowl on her face. She quickly orients herself, glaring in my direction.

“Oy! Shorty! Do you want to get your tiny head smashed in? And I sure as hell ain’t talking about your dick.”

“What? That doesn’t even…” *Sigh* “Whatever. Your PMS aside, it’s about time we head out. I don’t have time for your drama today.”

Her right eye twitches. “Listen here you little…”

“Step back, bitch. If you value that bloated head of yours.” Wrex growls while taking a step forwards, raising his cutlass in a threatening manner.

“Or what, pipsqueak?” She hisses at my Lieutenant.

“Oh for the love of god. This again…” I sigh. “Stand down, Wrex. You two can fight each other to your heart's content after we deal with the Minotaur. And, Aria, just get your shit together and let’s move. I’m sure neither one of us want to stay in each other’s company any longer than we have to. Okay?”

Aria grunts, not taking her eyes off Wrex. “Fine. I’m sick and tired of you guys, anyway.”

She turns on her heel and heads off to base, shouting a few short angry commands at her hobgoblins.

This day is going to be fun… I just know it…

----------

It takes another half hour, but we finally managed to get on our way.

Aria brought eighteen soldiers, the entirety of her military forces. I had to bite my lip trying not to point out she shouldn’t leave her base undefended. Not that she would have cared anyway. I’ve become used to the fact that this woman is far too reckless for her own good. Besides, if she wants to bring everyone on this raid, it’s only a good thing for me. That means there are more meatshields for me to sacrifice.

Not that they’re very impressive looking meatshields either. Of her eighteen units, besides Aria and Warwick, only three Hobgoblins have managed to rank up into [Warrior]s. Their gear isn’t anything impressive, as seemingly only about half of them have a piece of armor each. Two pieces per [Warrior]. They look so weak, I’m pretty sure my own goblin [Warrior]s could go toe to toe with any one of them.

At least there’s many of them though.

Turns out, after fighting the Minotaur and clearing out a bunch of local quests, Aria managed to reach level five three days ago. The majority of her SP has gone into summoning fighters, and her base only contains the baremost of support staff. I find so many flaws with her strategy, it figuratively makes my eyes bleed. The only saving grace I could have complimented her on with her choice of strategy is if she tried to Zerg Rush her neighbours like Harvalon did. No need to point out she failed at that though…

Even with what should supposedly be a vastly numerical advantage against her neighbours, she still hasn’t accomplished much. Sure, she seems to have faced off against a tough opponent, but that hardly excuses her. She had a near infinite amount of options available. She could have adapted against her foe, tried to harass him down by using her numerical superiority or just plain outright swapped targets to the neighbour on the other side.

Qargon would have been an incredibly easy opponent for her.

Ah well…

It all worked out for the best anyway. For me at least. The two remaining opponents in my biome are both weakened, and I’ve allied myself with the presumably weaker one. The odds are heavily in my favor.

There’s only one potentially catastrophic variable to my plan...

“Hey, Aria! We need to set up a plan. Is there anything you can tell me about the surrounding area?” I ask the glum looking Hobgoblin walking in front of me. I’m not even going to comment on the fact that she so casually leaves her back exposed to me like that.

…

Nevermind, I just did.

“Huh? … Aah, Shorty. Don’t sweat it. There’s mostly just trees around here, and don’t worry about the plan. I’ll attack the bastard while you support from behind. It’s going to be easy peasy.”

I wince, trying my damnedest not to spit back an insult. “When you say mostly, what else is out here?”

“Ehm. There’s a big river about half an hour ahead of us. That’s where most of our skirmishes have taken place. I guess he likes to hang around that area.”

A river? Hmm. That seems about right. I vaguely remember that a rather wide river ran through the Minotaur’s area when I scouted out the map back at base. I don’t recall the specifics, as I focused mostly on Aria’s territory. I didn’t expect to fight the Minotaur at all during this attack, really.

I need to know more.

“What can you tell me about the river and your skirmishes? How do you cross it? How deep is it? Where exactly did your skirmishes take place? ... Hold on a sec.” I halt in my tracks and take a step to the side. I find a short twig on the ground and start drawing a rough sketch from memory of the river.

“Err. I’m not really too good with remembering stuff like that.” She sighs. “Hey Warwick! Get your skinny ass over here!” She shouts further down the path. Soon after, the scruffy looking Hobgoblin priest hobbles his way over.

I briefly explain what I want the Lieutenant to do, and he quickly explains what information he has about the surrounding area.

The river is deep and the current is strong, which makes it impossible for even tier three races to cross safely on their own. However, there are three natural crossings along the riverside in the form of makeshift bridges. Which loosely translates into toppled over trees and stone outcroppings. Not exactly the image of safety, but Warwick promises the tree trunks are relatively wide enough.

The keyword being relatively. Whatever that means…

Warwick further tells of their skirmishes. They had four lesser, and one major battle along this river. Two of the lesser skirmishes were at the eastern crossing, one at the northwestern, and two lesser and one major battle at the center crossing. From what Warwick can tell me, the Hobgoblins are always the team to take the initiative in each battle, and the rough terrain is the primary reason they have suffered such large losses.

What intrigues me by this, though, is that the Minotaurs seems to have shown up with a relatively huge force during each encounter. I doubt the Minotaurs have enough units to effectively cover each and every crossing, which suggests the Minotaur has some sort of forward scouts or intelligence network to predict our movements. Considering his quick reaction time and efficiency, it’s probably magic related.

This could spell trouble.

I hope he doesn’t have access to Divination magic like the centaurs, but it’s reasonably safe to assume he at least has access to some sort of scrying magic. I already know their chieftain has a [Warrior] oriented class, and his advisor was a [Shaman] type. I know for a fact they trained more [Shaman]s before the Advisor’s untimely demise. In common fantasy lore, shamans often have access to nature oriented scrying magic, be it the common long range far sight ability or some sort of elemental short range sensory skills.

If it’s either one of those types, I seriously hope the latter is the case, or else our approach might already have been revealed. That would completely shatter our strongest weapon, which is the element of surprise. Naturally, the best outcome would be if only the dead [Advisor] knew how to use this kind of magic, but it would be foolish of me to make that assumption. I guess I just have to assume the worst and act with care, hoping I’m just being paranoid.

Nevertheless, we need to take precautions.

I frown as I dive deep into my own thoughts. I’m not sure how long it takes, but I eventually snap out of it. I raise my head and notice both Aria and all of our Lieutenants have gathered around me, patiently awaiting my next words.

I release a deep breath.

“Alright, here is what we are going to do…”