P!gL3t strolled into an NPC owned tavern, swaggering his way through the crowd towards the bar. The few Players occupying the seats who recognized him scowled and scurried away, quest scrolls clutched in their hands.

He smirked at their attempt to hide their quests from him; they should know by now that doing so meant nothing to him. All it would take was just a tiny bit of code and he was in, but he hadn't come for that today. No, he'd walked into this tavern seeking information.

It'd been about two days since he'd woken that Elden Keep Guard up, giving it the ability to level up and other player stuff. The keep was too low a level for him to justify checking on his precious creation, so he decided to eavesdrop on the noobs scattered throughout the tavern.

Not many people travel to Elden Keep, he thought, idly pressing space to get the bartender's attention. They don't wanna deal with cold damage. It really is a pain for people who can't toggle elemental damage on and off.

Smirking, P!gL3t ordered his character a refreshing mug of Mana Ale. The drink boosted his MP regeneration by 20 for five minutes. Sure, he could just glitch the game a bit and come back with full MP but that tended to cause some...unsightly damage. He shuddered as he recalled the Mana Fly Swarm that had swept through the starter town he'd first tested the glitch in.

Not only were the bugs' name uncreative, but they also wreaked havoc on any Player unlucky enough to get caught up in the swarm.

Dev's should've named 'em somethin' cool, like Malevolent Mosquitoes or something.

As his character sipped the ale, he checked the levels of the Players still sitting at the bar with him. Most were above level 10 and had decent armor and weapon equipped. They wouldn't go to Elden Keep unless they wanted a matching set of armor - it was low-quality, though, so was it really worth it? - or a fire spell. He didn't know why an ice region castle would have fire spells as loot, but whatever. The Devs made no sense sometimes.

Just as he was about to move on to another gossiping group - their levels were in the 4-7 range - a familiar face burst into the tavern, panting hard. P!gL3t sighed as he glanced above the Player's head: the username read TruckNutz.

The young hacker didn't often associate himself with the {Great Warrior} but they'd met enough times for P!gL3t to come to the conclusion that the man was a giant mountain of glaringly obvious ignorance. The only reason that idiot managed to reach level 15 was because of his impressively high DEF stat. His class boosted his STR and END by 2 for every level, so the man had foregone leveling any other stat in favor of Defense. From what P!gL3t knew, most of his skills gave DEF and VIT boosts as well; he only had one attack skill, which was [Wide Swing].

If P!gL3t didn't think the guy was a total buffoon who could throw his character into a volcano for all he cared, he would've applauded his dedication to the DEF stat. Too bad his AGI was so low he wasn't worth having as a tank. Anybody could get around him as long as they had something like [Burst] or [Quick Steps].

P!gL3t downed the rest of his drink, deciding to ignore the hysterical player. Whatever was up with the {Great Warrior}, it wasn't the hacker Player's time. Unfortunately, TruckNutz didn't share the same sentiment. The giant character shoved his way through the crowd toward P!gL3t, his ax slapping against his meaty thigh.

"Hacker!" he roared, taking his ax off his belt and slamming it onto the bar counter. The Players who'd been enjoying their buff meals with P!gL3t scattered, shooting TruckNutz death glares but too fearful to do anything about it.

The {Giant Warrior} got in P!gL3t's face, sneering. "You did something," he hissed, his voice cracking as he spoke into that terrible mic of his.

P!gL3t stared blankly at him. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

In truth, he really didn't. He'd been doing a lot of things these past few days. He would've lost track of all his hacker shenanigans if he didn't write down his plans in his scheming journal...Not that anyone knew he had one.

"The guard!" TruckNutz shouted, throwing his hands up in the air. "You changed that stupid NPC!"

Oh. This guy had gone to Elden Keep? I pray for the party he'd gotten killed along the way.

P!gL3t would've willfully admitted to him messing with the NPC's code, but he decided to play dumb. Most of his plans hadn't come to fruition yet and he needed some excitement in this dull game. "Look, Trucky," he started, signaling the shock still bartender for another pint, "just because some NPC offed you doesn't mean I had anything to do with it."

"Don't lie! It regenerated way too quickly after I killed it the first time! It shouldn't have respawned before I was done with the keep!"

He. P!gL3t felt a spark of annoyance flash through his heart - his real heart, not his character's. The only reason he'd messed with the NPC in the first place was that he grew tired of how his fellow Players treated them as disposable. P!gL3t was by no means a boy with a heart of gold but he knew the Devs had worked hard...well, not really, but they'd put in some effort to make these NPCs. They weren't all bland, copy-pasted AI spawns but no one else saw that but him.

So he decided to do something about it and that Elden Keep guard was just the first step! The guard would grow so powerful, no one would be able to ever raid Elden Keep again! Soon enough, the Players would have to band together to pull off the greatest raid ever! P!gL3t didn't really know if the AI could handle that - nor did he particularly care - but he really, really wanted to see people ragequitting about the OP guard at some low-leveled keep in the mountains.

The game would explode about how unfair it was! The Devs would probably get contacted and then they'd likely fix the 'bug', in which case P!gL3t actually would have to make periodic visits to Elden Keep in order to save the guard's level progress but that was just semantics.

The work involved meant little if he managed to pull off his greatest hack ever. The name of P!gL3t would go down in history!

A scratchy voice brought him out of his revelry. With a start, P!gL3t brought himself back to game reality. TruckNutz was shuffling beside him in the tavern, his character giving the young hacker a strange look.

"You do realize you just said all that out loud, right?"

P!gL3t sighed.