MMORPG: How a Computer Game Becomes Deadly Serious (37 page)

“What do we do now?” he asked, directing the question at Rebecca. He was still feeling a little giddy from what they had just done.

Rebecca shrugged and looked at Andy. Their Dutch friend had glittering eyes as well. “Maybe it’s best to log off?” he offered. “The question is, what would real hackers do?”

Right at that moment, Argus received an invitation to join a Party. The invitation came from Malak, the guild leader, a.k.a. Pharad, a.k.a. Muhammad al-Moutti.

They all stared at the window that had appeared in their screen. It offered two options, Accept or Decline.

“That’s obvious,” Rebecca announced and resolutely pressed Decline. “Ordinary hackers ignore all whispers and invitations. They are focused on one thing only: making money!”

“That should set off all their alarm bells,” Robert mused. “What will they do now?”

The answer came almost immediately. The Party invitation popped up again.

“He must think Khalid accidentally hit the wrong key. It happened to me often enough. But I don’t think he’ll still think that after this!” With relish, she declined the invitation again.

[Malak] whispers: what’s wrong?

They looked at each other. Suddenly, all their former bluster and glee were gone. Each realized that they had just been addressed directly by Muhammad al-Moutti, one of the most dangerous people on earth. A minute passed, during which none of them moved.

[Malak] whispers: argus, is that you? verify your identity code five.

“They must have a protocol to ensure that it’s really one of them,” Rebecca said.

Robert stood, unable to bear the tension. He was thinking that maybe they had pushed it too far. How smart was it to anger these people deliberately?

Rebecca must have been thinking almost the same. “The best thing to do is to behave like ordinary robbers,” she said. “And unfortunately for Pharad & Co, that means that they’re going to get robbed as well!”

She moved Argus a few feet to the right, and clicked on the guild bank. “As I hoped,” she said. “Our friend has full access to the guild bank account.” She started to systematically transfer items from the guild bank to the empty bags of Argus.

“The guild bank works more or less in the same way as a personal WoW bank account,” she explained while she worked. “The main difference is that it can be accessed by multiple people. A guild leader controls the access the other members of the guild have.”

Soon, the bags of Argus were full. There was still a tremendous number of items left in the bank. The Sphyrnidae account held several tabs, each of which was completely filled with all kinds of different things, most of them rare and valuable. It was a treasure trove of expensive potions, flasks, food, gear and materials.

“Now, how are we ever going to get rid of all this stuff?” she mused. “I think we must hurry, so there’s no time to put it all on the auction house as we’ve been doing until now.”

“Destroy it?” Andy suggested.

“Too slow. I have a better idea.”

Rebecca walked Argus over to the mailbox. “Do you see that level twenty-eight rogue over there?” she asked, tapping the screen with her finger, indicating a random low level player. “He’s going to be rich!” She entered the rogue’s name as recipient of her mail and started to send him the contents of the guild bank. “I wish I could see that person’s face when he checks his mailbox the next time!” she said smiling.

When she was done, she turned her attention to the guild bank again, quickly and efficiently refilling Argus’ bags.

“Shouldn’t we take the cash as well?” Andy asked. He pointed at the bottom of the screen.

She slapped her forehead. “How could I be so stupid! Of course, that should have been the first thing we did!”

“Auction house, minor health potion,” Robert announced. “Giving away that much gold might be a little over the top.”

“And a waste!” Andy said.

With a nod, Rebecca moved Argus over. She looked up the item Robert had mentioned and quickly found the auction. She paid 9,000 gold for the potion actually worth maybe fifteen silver. The money would flow to Hunterino, with a deduction of the fifteen percent fee of course.

“What do you think Pharad is doing now? Andy asked. He checked his watch. “We haven’t heard from him for more than five minutes.”

As if in answer, a message appeared on the screen.
You have been kicked out of
Sphyrnidae
it read.

“Damn!” Robert sighed. “He threw us out of the guild. We can’t really blame him. It’s the fastest way to cut off our access to their bank.”

“Yep, they must have verified that Khalid’s account has been stolen.” Rebecca leaned back in her chair and stretched. “They probably contacted Khalid directly. I bet he’s somewhere behind his computer trying to get his account back.”

She was right. Khalid was in his hotel room in Germany, staring in disbelief at the fading illumination of the little screen of the cell phone that had come with the new computer. At first, when he couldn’t access the game, he blamed it on a faulty Internet connection. It happened sometimes. When he verified the connection, he had to admit it was something else. Had he forgotten his password? Had he really been so stupid? He couldn’t believe it. He cursed the order to change the familiar one.

Now he knew his account had been hacked. His leader had just confirmed that Drimm, he still thought of his beloved hunter by that name, was walking around in the virtual world, with someone else at the controls.

Khalid was livid. He couldn’t remember ever being as angry as he was now. How could this have happened? The only explanation that made sense to him was that the firewall protection on the new laptop computer had been inadequate, allowing a key logger to slip through. His angry fingers jabbed at the keys, looking for the details to contact customer support. There was a toll free phone number to call in case of a stolen account. He dialed the number and was told to wait. While holding, he surfed to the Armory. He accessed the profile of Argus. The Armory was updated continuously, making it a live database of each WoW character. Sure enough, the level eighty-three Night Elf hunter was completely naked. He kicked the wall in frustration.

[Malak] whispers: Whoever you are, you just made a big mistake. You have no idea what you have done. This is not over.

Of course, they didn’t reply.

“Idle threat,” Rebecca said dismissively. “For all they know, we’re some anonymous poor peasants operating out of China or India.”

The next instant, there was a puff of smoke and, on the spot where Argus had been standing, a small penguin was suddenly skittering around. “What the f-’ Robert began, but Rebecca silenced him with a hard slap on the arm. It hurt.

“Log off!” she yelled hysterically at him. “Shit, shit, shit! Log off, now! NOW!”

When he didn’t react, paralyzed by her sudden outburst, she shoved him out of the way. She took control of Hunterino and quickly moved the level twenty-two hunter away from the auction house area. She ran up the wooden ramp and turned into the inn situated around the nearest corner. Once inside, she logged off.

On the other computer screen, a level eighty Troll mage walked into view. His name was Jinn. He looked at the penguin that used to be Argus. He started to cast a spell. Little sparks of fire danced at the tips of his fingers.

“Pyroblast, Presence of Mind, Pyroblast,” Rebecca muttered absentmindedly.

After what seemed like an eternity, a huge boulder of fire leaped at the penguin. On impact, Argus was restored to his original form. The ball of fire had eaten away nearly half his health. Worse, he was actually on fire. Flames cackled
within
his body, eating away more of his precious health. Even if he had wanted to, there was no way the hunter could have defended himself. All his weapons and gear had been sold. He didn’t even have a small skinning knife left. He was totally defenseless. Under the circumstances, it didn’t matter at all that he was three levels higher than his attacker. Almost immediately after the first, the mage released another Boulder of Fire, similar to the first one. It hit the poor Night Elf squarely in the chest. He let out a shriek and tumbled to the ground. Argus was dead. The mage called Jinn walked up to the corpse and spat on it.

A nervous Rebecca exited Khalid’s account. Robert had never seen her like this. Her hands were trembling and her face was as white as a sheet. Her hair was all sweaty.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She looked away. “We made a mistake by bringing Hunterino into this. I thought I was being clever, using an account that we weren’t playing with anymore. I was concentrating too much on the consequences of getting caught by Blizzard. You see, when Blizzard catches someone doing what we just did, the account is banned immediately.”

“What’s the big deal?”

“Hunterino is known by Khalid. He knows that hunter belongs to you, Robert Barnes from England, currently living in Leiden. I simply never guessed they would actually find us in that black hole in the middle of nowhere. They must have guessed we’d use the auction house over there.”

She hesitated before continuing. “That Jinn character got a visual of Hunterino. The question is, did he connect it, did he catch the name and will he tell Khalid about it?”

“What do you think?” Andy and Robert both asked simultaneously. They were back to deferring to Rebecca as the guru of WoW.

“I think he didn’t connect it. The gold mafia typically uses only level one characters for their business. They lose accounts all the time because Blizzard pursues them actively. There’s no use investing time in an account like that. They must be expendable. That Jinn fellow wasn’t looking for medium level characters. So I think we’re in the clear. I would say we got away with it.”

“Let’s get drunk,” Andy suggested. “Just not here. I need some fresh air.”

~~~

Chapter XXXIII

Khalid’s
access to his account was restored to him shortly after completing the call. A friendly young man verified his identity, and after ensuring he was the rightful owner of the account, told him that all his possessions were going to be restored to him. It was going to take some time though, anywhere between several hours and several days.

He logged on once, just to make sure the account was his again. He found Argus lying dead on the wooden planks at the Blackwater auction house in Booty Bay. He was simply too frustrated to make the effort of resurrecting and walking his ghost all the way back from the cemetery to his corpse. What good was Drimm, or Argus, to him, when he was stripped of all of his superior gear?

Only an hour later, he decided that lying on his bed, smoking cigarettes, wasn’t a fruitful way to pass the time either. He got up and logged on again. He would prepare himself for the moment his gear was restored to him. Besides, only two more levels and he’d be at the new pinnacle of level eighty-five. New epic gear would become available to him then, and he would soon be equipping himself with items vastly superior to what had been the ultimate summit at level eighty. Until then, there was a new operation to prepare for. He’d already missed this evening’s training session. His guild would supply him with adequate stuff to participate. Those items would take him to level eighty-five, if his own things weren’t restored by then.

He resurrected at the graveyard, accepting the penalty of the so-called resurrection sickness. It temporarily lowered a player’s stats and a player incurred enormous damage to his gear. Well, at least that was one thing Argus didn’t have to worry about. Immediately after coming back to life, he used his hearthstone to return to Ogrimmar.

Robert had no idea what time it was when he grudgingly emerged from a deep slumber. His mind was still fogged by the after effects of all the beer they had drunk. He wasn’t much of a beer drinker to begin with, and his two drinking mates obviously had more training in beer drinking. As punishment for trying to keep up with them, he was experiencing the all too familiar headache. Rebecca tugged at his arm again. He sat up with a groan, shielding his eyes from the light of the single lamp. The movement made him feel even worse. Instant nausea threatened to overtake him and he quickly lay back. He wondered briefly how it was possible that they had made love before going to sleep.

“Come on, wake up!,” she repeated urgently.

“What is it? What time is it?” He hardly recognized his own voice.

In answer, she tossed him the shirt he had been wearing the day before. He sat up again, this time more slowly. Their clothes were scattered all over the floor, and she was collecting them frantically.

“No time to explain. Just get dressed,” she whispered. “Please?”

“Okay,” he answered, shaking his head in an effort to dispel some of the fogginess. He put the shirt on and started to tug on his underpants. By the time he had his jeans on, she was fully dressed. He looked around for his socks.

“Just put on your shoes!”

“Rebecca, what’s going on?”

She hushed him with a telltale finger to her lips. “We have to get out of here,” she whispered. “We made a serious mistake. They might come here. I have this feeling. Please hurry!”

For the first time in his life, Robert actually
felt
Goosebumps form on his arms. It hurt. “The Hammer?” he asked disbelievingly.

With her lips in a tight line, she nodded.

“Where are we going?”

“Anywhere.” She waited impatiently while he did the laces of his shoes. With one arm she was holding his coat out to him. With the other she held the door open. Now they were standing in the corridor together. It was cold. Out of habit, Robert locked the door behind him. The ancient house was shrouded in silence. It was dark as well. Most of the lamps in the hallways were broken, only a sorry few actually worked.