I rubbed my eyes as they fatigued from starring at the screen for too long. I looked over at the clock, it’s 7pm, I’ve officially been watching game footage for 12 hours now.
There was a ring at my doorbell. I got up and walked over to the front door. “Hey Tom, come on in.” I said, inviting him into my condo.
“Thanks for letting me crash here during the investigation, Vin,” Tom said, walking in, taking off his coat. I took the coat from him and put it on the coat rack near the door. Then I led him further into the place. “Wow Vin, this is the first time I’m seeing the place. It looks like you’ve all grown up.”
“Thank you, but summer would suggest I need more paintings and decorations.” I said, guiding him to the kitchen. “She says the plan walls and bland furniture screams bachelor pad.”
“Don’t take advice from your sister about decorations. When I talked to Autumn, she told me how you can’t sit on the couch because it’s filled with throw pillows.” Tom said with a face of disgust.
“Believe me, I am not taking any interior design tips from her; you should see the curtains.” I said, opening the fridge. “Do you want something to drink? Are you hungry?”
“I’ll take water for now; we can grab food after we discuss the case.” Tom said, catching the water bottle I threw at him.
Grabbing a water bottle for me, we walked over to my office. “It would seem that the killer has a special way of killing his targets.” Sitting in my chair, I pulled up the last video I was watching. “I watched the footage of all the players you sent. One thing I found in common is our killer seems to be only targeting high ranking characters. He lures them into a 1v1 match and kills them.”
On the video I was currently watching, I moved the video back to the beginning. “He can somehow mask his real gamer tag, Glich_Slasher, and his appearance until a certain point in the player vs player match.”
“That shouldn’t be possible, right?” Tom said.
I pointed to the screen. “It shouldn’t be possible. We have specific protocols to prevent players from doing that. Which leads me to believe our suspect works for the company.” I said. When I clicked play, we both watched as Glitch_Slasher with black long hair and a purple blade with a trench coat on his back. “I noticed that after each victim completes some mission, with a purple knight. They get a notification to go to the fight arena in Gleley.”
“Do you know what mission he uses to spring his trap,” Tom said.
“No, it must be one of the new missions that was approved by me. Oh, it’s about to start, pay attention to that character with the purple sword, that’s Glitch_Slasher” The character with the purple sword approached a character that seemed to be an adult sized tinker bell with a blue dress. Her gamer tag was Tinker_Blue. The players chatted for a bit and then they both accepted a player vs player match.
“So, is this how Glich_Slasher is doing it? He gets them to accept a PVP match after that mission?” Tom asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, that’s been consistent with every interaction Glitch_Slasher has had with each victim. Then, during the match, he snares his trap and, after a certain point, death is almost guaranteed. Watch, it’s about to happen.” I said, pointing to the screen. The match seemed in favor of Tinker_Blue, she could bring Glitch_Slasher down to about 20% of his health.
“Please have mercy on me. I’m not as skilled as you.” Glitch_Slasher said.
“Come on now, your level 50. You’ve played this game long enough; you know how this works.” Tinker_Blue said, as she raised her sword to give the finishing blow. “Also, you could have picked any other sword besides that level one sword. This is your own fault.”
An almost demonic grin started to spread across Glitch_Slasher face. “Perfect, just what I like to hear.” He leaped forward and slashed at the Tinker_Blue character. however, as he swiped his sword, it started to glitch and shifted to a purple and black sword with wings on the hilt. When it connected the Tinker_Blue only loss on 1 hp. However, Glitch_Slasher’s appearance completely changed, and you could see his real gamertag. He now had short black hair, and he was wearing armor that you would unlock in the first part of the game.
“Whoa, how did he do that?” Tom said, pointing to the screen.
“I have my developers and animators looking into it. In a nutshell, how slashes work in the game when you slash you enter a pre-programed animation, the VR headset gives you the illusion that you are really slashing, but there is no way to stop the animation by yourself. You can definitely be knocked out of the animation, so it’s impossible to have players switch weapons in the middle of an animation.”
I changed the video to show the Tinker_Blue’s perspective. “For PvP and other one-on-one player interactions, we record them in the event there is a complaint or an issue of cheating.” I rewound the video to where Glitch_Slasher reveals himself.
We were now watching the video in first person; we could see there were a bunch of debuffs placed on the Tinker_Blue. But what was most concerning is the message in front of us You’ve now entered a one-sided death match you will be at an extreme disadvantage if you can defeat the player in front of you then you’ll receive a huge coin reward but if you lose, you will die. In other words, no hp, no life. The message disapears and she looks up at the opponent’s health, slowly climbing back up to full health. His gamer tag changed to his real name, Glich_Slasher, his level was now 2 times that of the Tinker_Blue’s.
“I have reviewed all the gamers that you gave me and once they get to this point of the match, they end up losing and begging for their lives. Then he cuts down their last remaining health and the player dies. After that Glitch_Slasher logs out.” I said, ending the video before we watch him give the killing blow. “Was the medical examiner able to find something?”
Tom scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, but it leads to more questions than answers.” Tom pulled out his phone and tapped on it probably looking for his notes. “All the victims died the same way. There was an electrical current sent through the victims’ eyes and would fry their brain.”
“Hmm, there has to be something that is connecting them all. I doubt they’re all unrelated occurrences.” I said, turning back to the screen.
“We’re not going to be able to find anything from their real lives. There’s no unifying fact that can connect them all.” Tom said, scrolling through his phone.
“There are a few shared traits between them. They’re all in the 50–60 level range. Probably because the highest level in the game is 140, so he picks on people he can beat. It’s also worth mention these are all solo players, he’s never tried pulling this trick with a group of players. We can assume that he can only do this trick on one person at a time.”
“Hmm, that’s a good amount of information, but we’re max level, so we’ll need to lure him out. But that can wait. We still don’t know enough about how he is selecting his targets.” Tom clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Let’s get some boots on the ground and solve this mystery.”
“Finally, Thomas Morningstar returns to the front lines!” I cheered. “Should I tell Ruzo to join us and get the band back together?”
“No, leave him out of this. Kalina would have my head if she knew I brought a minor into an investigation.” Tom said.
“Or is it because he’s….”
“Shush, you might slip up and tell the boy if you're not careful.” Tom chuckled. “If you mess up, I am not saving you from autumn.
A shock sent a shiver down my spine. “Your right. I should stop joking around before I slip up.”
There was a growl that came from Tom’s stomach. “Alright, let’s get some food. I’m starving.”
Comments (0)
See all