Freeze or Fall

Chapter 4: Finally Getting Somewhere

Xisuma idly tapped at the screen, doing his now daily routine of checking the server and its inhabitants. It had became a necessity, with the huge amount of mega-farms as well as the brand new minigame district in progress. Not to mention the other crazy projects like Scar's drill and Tango's insane dungeon game.

It was a good thing he'd made it a daily habit, since he managed to catch an unauthorized connection that went out-of-server, something that sent up red flags.

Frowning, Xisuma tapped on the hyperlink, checking to try and see who'd managed to cross the Firewall. He prayed it was someone he knew, he didn't want a repeat of last season. Not after what it had done to his family, leaving Doc with PTSD and Grian...

He shook his head. Focus. Xisuma squinted as he read the IP Address, not recognizing it. Huh. Well, time for plan be. Find out who, or more accurately what sent it.

Transmission sent from 01001110 01010000 01000111

Oh. Binary. Great.

Xisuma rubbed his temples as he grabbed a spare piece of paper and a quill to scribble down the calculations. He prayed the ASCII and Unicode translations were the same, he'd rather not have to dig into the IP to see which language was used.

Lucky for him, both translated to three letters. NPG.

Xisuma hesiated, not sure who or what that was. It's species read as an Alter though, which was quite interesting, especially since it was it's own host.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his door.

"Come in!"

"Oh uh. Uhm this is kinda. Well, hi Egg-zooma." The admin easily recognized the voice as Mumbo's, and turned around.

"Hi Mumbo Jumbo. What brings you here? Issue with a gold farm I presume? Those have been rather frequent with everybody recently."

"Well, no, but uh-"

"HELLO ARE YOU X?"

Xisuma nearly fell out of his chair at that, the startlingly monotone voice coming from behind Mumbo.

"Mumbo? What did you-"

A robot, one slightly taller than Mumbo, stepped into the room. "I AM GRUMBOT. HELLO."

"I uh, have no clue how voice modulators for robots work, sorry." Mumbo apologized with a sheepish smile. "So yeah, this is Grumbot. And this," he stepped aside to show a short little robot hiding behind his legs, "Is Jrumbot. I uh, built them. Impulsively. Because of a dream."

"Oh." Xisuma blinked, before his mind snapped back to the transmission. "Hey Mumbo, did either of these um... Carry out communication with something or someone not from his server?"

"Uh... Yes?" Mumbo rubbed the back of his neck. "It happened as soon as I turned Grumbot on. He connected with what I believe is another robot, one under the name 'RH'. RH also mentioned someone named 'Red X' which was weird too."

"Red X?"

"Yeah."

Xisuma immediately thought of his brother, Ex, but almost pushed the thought away. Hadn't Ex perma'd a couple years back? But then Xisuma remembered something that weird Taurtis guy had said. Something about Ex helping him in a way that did nothing. Well actually, maybe a way that saved his life. And if that was true...

"Hang on a sec Mumbo." Xisuma turned back to his screens and pulled up the character changelogs as fast as he could, clicking on his own. He scrolled down to a few months ago, the week the whole thing had happened.

A simple code cast on him, one that confirmed his hunch.

"Xisuma? What is it?"

"Back when I was, ahem, removed from the server, the captor put a code on me. I think he thought it would make me weaker or something, but actually it was a completely different one, just a similar line. They actually put a virus in my code unknowingly, one that would half any damage I take."

"I don't follow."

Xisuma couldn't do anything but stare at the screen.

"I'm not sure who RH is, but I do recognize this code. Only I and one other person know it.

"Who?"

Xisuma glanced back at Mumbo, a grin on his face. "Evil Xisumavoid."