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Name: Avery Jane EllsworthAge: 24
ScreenName: Wraith
Appearance: https://pin.it/tiwhwbvauvowtw
https://pin.it/yeu4epmtfkyii3
In game appearance: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ea/53/...
A few days back, Avery had logged in to VG after getting home from work and eating and handling her normal chores, including feeding her cat. She’d logged in like normal only to find her account missing. When it loaded up, her screen name, her avatar, inventory, levels, everything was missing. She’d played for years and had gotten fully leveled up in her characters and had rare objects and everything. And now it was gone. She panickedly had tried reloading the game and relogging in, wondering how her account possibly could disappear and be replaced with some almost brand new one with a screen name of Lincoln’s Crown (Right? cause they switched?). After figuring out that it definitely wasn’t something wrong on her end that had led to her being signed in to the wrong account, she reached out to the developers, explaining that somehow her accounts had been switched, sending proof in the form of screenshots of her regular account and what she’d just now signed in to. She then left the game alone for the night to wait on the developers response.
The next day, the developers whom she’d reached out to had pretty much blown her off, saying that the account she claimed to own was still active and playing so she was probably just lying to try and get stuff. So Avery got to work, figuring she was on her own to solve this. She started by just playing for a couple nights, trying to level up a bit so her character wouldn’t be completely worthless.
It was now midday on Saturday. Avery had been playing since Friday night, trying to track down her character and whoever had taken possession of them. She had to get her character back. She’d worked for years to get that far, it couldn’t just go to waste now.
Valley of the Gods was something of a curiosity for Olivia, one of many. She had always like the idea of putting on a mask and seeing how people acted differently depending on which one she showed. An RPG seemed the perfect thing to toy out that little fantasy of hers. ABout once a week, sometimes more, she would log on and mess around with the world, far more interested in chatting than going on any quests. She might have even made friends on there, if she ever allowed herself to have those.This weekend though when she logged on the character on the screen wasn't the hansom blond elf she had been using for the past couple of month. Rather it was a haunting but striking silver haired female. "Well now that is rather interesting. Did I get drunk last time I played this?" That wouldn't be the first time she had blacked out and discovered the evidence several days later. Upon more exploration it became very clear that this wasn't just some new character she had created. Not with the insane amount of gold, items, and experience this 'Wraith' had.
What was furthermore of a surprise was how many messages that popped up the moment the game loaded properly. It was a slew of questions about on if she had gotten her account all fixed and if everything seem to be back in place. It didn't take long for Olivia to piece together that some kinda mix up had happened. Clearly whoever owned Wraith now had her Lincoln, though obviously she got the better end of that trade.
Without as much as a second thought she replied back to all the messages in turn saying that she had gotten her account back finally, making sure to tack on a little extra exclamation marks and how she was so relieved that all her hard work was safe. Olivia had no idea what this player normally talked like, but it was worth a shot. There was some other idle chatter, but it was brief since the friends of Wraith seemed to be ready to run some high tier quests.
Of course, Olivia jumped into the party. Unfortunately for the rest of its members she had no idea how the group worked together or how to control Wraith properly. She managed to play it off as nerves of finally having her account back and being exhausted from staying up half the night on hold with the developers. It wasn't a half bad lie, and it seemed to buy her another run at the quests. This time she got a better hold of the play, nothing close to the original, but at least she didn't hold this back this way.
Avery didn’t give everyone in her normal party her discord info, wanting it to be private and only given to those who she trusted. So a couple in her party had it. Thankfully, discord was completely separate so Olivia didn’t have access to it. She messaged them to keep them updated, saying the developers wouldn’t do shit about it and that she was screwed unless they could find her avatar and get it back from the person. So she told them to act normal to the person when they got online and just let Avery join their group whenever they did. Finally, her computer pinged with a message from her closest online buddy, known as NightDrakon. Saying she was online and claiming to have the account back. Avery quickly answered saying it wasn’t true with a screenshot of the game on her screen, still with Lincoln’s crown avatar. Drakon answered saying he believed her before sending her an in game invite to join them. Avery joined them and opened up the corresponding chat they were using. ‘Hey wraith? PM me? I think we need to talk.’ She sent, biting her lip.
The game was just starting to get overwhelming to the point that Olivia was considering backing out of the party to just go wander her normal haunts. It would be interesting to see how they others would treat her now as who was apparently a top tier player, given the quality of her teammates. Then things took a step in a direction she hadn't expected. Her own Lincoln showed up in the party. " Well isn't this a twist. I guessing my rouse is about to go up in flames." Olivia chuckled to herself as she pulled up the PM box and typed in her own character's name.'Hi there~ I don't know you, do I?' She couldn't keep herself from smiling as she hit send. Just because she knew that she was cornered didn't mean that she couldn't still have a little fun with this. After all she had no idea that the rightful owner would show up this quick. If she was going to get anything out of this then she was going to have to get a little creative.
Avery sighed at their response but she reminded herself to keep her composure if she was gonna have any chance of getting her account back. She sat back and watched her screen for a minute before responding. ‘I think you must know me considering you’re currently in possession of my account and I’m guessing I’m in yours.’ She sent. She then sent copies of the messages to drakon, trusting and relying on him to help her. They’d first met when they were both decently new to the game and they worked and leveled up together a lot of the time. They even occasionally talked outside of the game too. Avery bit her lip lightly and wandered a bit with the Lincoln avatar, just needing something to keep her busy while she talked and negotiated with this stranger.
Olivia didn't respond right away, a whole two minutes passed before she sent'Really? That's super weird because I just logged in like normal today.' It wasn't a lie, she really had just signed in with her normal account information. Just had a different character now. In reality she knew that there was no way to bluff her way out of teh conversation, so she quickly sent another message just for fun, 'I have to say though, your character is devilishly attractive. Did you model him off yourself?' Even though Olivia was actually blonde like Lincoln in the game that was really the only characteristic she shared with him, not like that at all matter. She was just throwing out a distraction to see if she could rile things up a bit. It wasn't like she intended on keeping this account, it would be far to much work to maintain.
Avery bit her lip. ‘As did I. But my account changed. I am the true wraith. You’ve just somehow acquired my account. I don’t want any trouble and I’ll pay you or give you whatever you want from my inventory, I just want my wraith back..’ She sent, taking a deep breath. “Just give it back prick. You don’t need them.” She muttered lowly, glaring st her computer screen. She pushed her chair back from the desk slightly, taking another breath. “They’ll cooperate Avery. It’s fine.” She assured herself.
A small whistle escaped her lips and then it rolled into a chuckle, "Damn, I forget how easy it is for people to hide their emotions through simple text." She chuckled again as she chided herself for doing that exact same thing. Olivia considered the offer though mildly surprised. Just give up game items and gold just for a silly name and face? Certainty this player could just recreate this Wraith. Unfortunately for whoever was on the other end of this, game stuff meant nothing to Olivia, but perhaps there were other things she could get out of this? 'Well I really am sorry Linky but I don't know how to help you do that? I don't understand what happened in the first place.' Alright that one wasn't entirely true. The blonde had an unhealthy knowledge of networks, databases, and operating systems, and had already formulated a guess at how the mix up happened. Not that she was going to share any of that. It probably would incriminate her as pulling this trick in the first place.
Avery glared and cursed faintly at the persons answers. ‘It’s quite simple. We either meet up or we just trade account info and I can get them linked back with the proper persons computer. It’s not that difficult. Just tell me what you want in trade to giving back the wraith account.” She sent to them, continuing to take screen shots and sending them to drakon, getting his advice on how best to go about this. After a moment, she sent another message to Olivia. ‘Look. I’ll do most anything. I’ve worked for years on that account. I just want it back..’
"There it is. Wow I must be loosing my touch to scrounge up that scrape of honesty out of someone." That's what the goal always was, to get honest words out of someone. Even though Olivia rarely ever spoke the truth herself, she found a special talent it poking and prodding someone into revealing their true feelings. And now with the fact that it really was just the name and face that matter, she could really set to work. 'We can't just meet up. Meeting a stranger from the internet is like asking to be on one of those 48 hrs shows. Also the odds of us being anywhere near each other isn't likely. Though I have say that is an offer I don't think I can refuse.' She paused briefly in her typing as she considered just how to word this. "I guess there is one benefit to manipulating via text rather than talking." Writing and deleting a couple of lines she finally finished out the message with, 'How about we take a little time to get to know one another, that way we can be sure neither of us are serial killers. And in the mean time you can do a couple of 'almost anythings'. Then soon enough I should be comfortable to share my personal information on the internet."
Avery rolled her eyes. ‘I’m not a killer. And it’s not like I’m asking to meet in some seedy back alley or anything.’ She sent, sighing. She glared at the computer as she kept typing. ‘Fine. In the mean time, I want a bit of an agreement between us. Just a few things I don’t want destroyed while you have my account. As a fair trade, I’ll do the almost anything’s you want along with leveling up this character to a more reasonable level.’ She sent, trying to protect the Wraith as best she could from this stranger. She would honestly be devastated if this stranger destroyed it all; the gold, inventory, reputation, any of it. Avery had worked for years to get where she was and now she had to trust this person.
'I'm pretty sure a killer wouldn't admit that they were one via something that could be recorded, like a private message.' Olivia didn't believe for a second that the owner of Wraith was a serial killer, though there was a possibility that they might a creep to some degree. The rest of the message gave her a bit of pause though. She could care less about Lincoln's level, she rarely ever used him for the actual game play. But it gave her some ideas.She finished out the message quickly, 'Destroy? I wouldn't destroy any of your stuff. From what the internet says, a good chunk of your inventory is limited edition and no longer acquirable. No I wouldn't trash any of your stuff. How about the first thing we do, is you take me on a questline tomorrow. As you can probably guess from Linky's character screen I wasn't so great at the game. Let's start with you teaching me some of the ins and outs eh?'
‘Fair point. Either way, still not a killer.’ Avery shrugged. ‘Okay. We can do that. What time tomorrow? And what time zone are you in so I can make sure we’re on at the same time?’ She sent back, frustrated but at least the person wasn’t gonna destroy her stuff, hopefully. She ran a hand through her hair and messaged Drakon again, venting her frustrations to him since he’d understand and would talk her through it if needed. She looked around her apartment, not nearly as focused on the game since her character was missing.
Oh she wasn't falling into that trap so easily. It was probably a safe assumption that this player didn't actually care where she was, but in the small chance that they were a creep she wasn't about to hand out info like that. "I think that this time tomorrow will be just fine. I've got a party tonight so I doubt i'll be able to get on any earlier than this. Make sure to pick out a good quest line alright~ I'd hate for us to die right off the bat ;)' And then before the other had a chance to reply, Olivia logged off the game and pushed her laptop away. A wickedly pleased smile tugged on her lips, just went she was starting to get bored with the game things got a hell of a lot more interesting. Still in the game Drakkon responded almost immediately to Wriath's most recent message, 'Seriously? Who the hell does this bro think he is? It's like it's all a joke to him. God I wish I could actually strangle people through a computer screen.' It was still a little weird talking to Wraith via a different username, but the situation was already well past weird. 'Did he just fucking log off?! You have the worst luck Wraith, I'm sorry...'
Avery rolled her eyes when the person failed to answer her with an actual time zone. “Well you suck.” She muttered to the computer before moving to start some random quest. She brought up the messages with drakon again. ‘Yes this is weird and really shitty. They wouldn’t even give me their time zone. AndThe company is no help so I’ve got no choice but to bargain with them and get my account back. I’ve worked for years on it. There’s no way I’m gonna just start over.’ Avery sent to him, ranting a bit. ‘Sorry. I’m just pissed. I have no idea how they got my account, it’s locked and has 2 step authorization and everything.’ She sent after a minute, feeling bad about pushing it all on him
'You should be pissed! Hell I am pissed for you. I know how many hours you have put into Wraith. Actually I'm pretty sure hours doesn't begin to cover the amount of time. Though I have to say that is a super weird request. Have you lead him through a quest line? There was countless mentoring parties out there that take noobs along on quests. When is it happening? I'll make sure to join in as well. He was on about as often as Avery was, even though he was an hour ahead of her on the clock, so it wouldn't be a problem for him to be online tomorrow to support her. 'Hey if I bought one of those princess costumes would you stick his character in it? Just for a little pay back?
‘It’s probably because they know that I’m skilled. Might as well get what they can from me. I already said that I’ll level this one up slightly..’ She sent. ‘And thanks for joining and following along. It’ll be good to have a third person there to keep an eye on them. And as for the costume, I’d love to. But I don’t think it’s a good idea. They could spend all my gold or just get rid of all my it’s which would put me back where I started anyways.. so I’ve gotta work and just appease them...’ she sighed softly and kept working, heading off on a random quest to just gain some levels and stuff. She wanted to just go offline but she needed this character to at least be decent so she could make it through the quests.
'You are far too considerate sometimes Wraith. You should still let me do that when you finally get to switch the accounts back for good. Drakkon stayed online with Avery for a while, helping her get through so e higher level quests so she could skip through some of the grinding parts of leveling up. 'Do you think that this guy did this on purpose? Like hacked into your account? Your name and avatar on fairly well known. He could be trying to cheat adn just got caught before he could siphon off any of your stuff. Wouldn't have been the first time this game has been hacked.'
‘I know. I will. I just don’t want my account destroyed while it’s in someone else’s hands...’ She sent to him as they kept going through quests together for a while. ‘I don’t know honestly. I mean, it would make sense; I’ve got rare objects and a ton of gold. But if you watch them play, they don’t have a clue what they’re doing. So I don’t think they were the one who hacked and caused the switch. But who knows. They might just be playing dumb..’ She shrugged at her computer and kept playing.
Drakkon started to send link of different super girl costumes to stick on Lincoln's avatar. 'Just because someone sucks at the game doesn't mean they don't know computers. But I'd assume they are playing dumb. Like you said, you had your account completely secured. Glitches like that don't just happen.' He stuck around for a couple more hours to help Avery grind out some experience, then he explained he had to sign off for the night but promised to be back tomorrow to help deal with the impostor.
‘I know. I know. I’m just frustrated I guess. Sorry...’ She sent to him, knowing she was just whining and complaining a lot. She messaged him a bit more after that but more just random stuff so it wasn’t much to talk about. She kept playing for a while. ‘Alright. Goodnight. I’ll talk to you in the morning then..’ She sent to him when he said he was getting off. She played for a bit longer on her own before going offline for the night.
A hour or so before the impostor claimed to be coming back online, Drakkon logged on and instantly sent Lincoln's Crown a message. 'I KNOW WHO HAS WRAITH' While normally the all caps was a bit a excessive, he had his rights to be excited. He had spent a lot of the night before considering the situation and it hit him like a truck, who would have a vendetta against Avery to actually hack her account and taught her with it.
Avery had went to bed and just taken it easy the next morning. Her computer was on and she was online early the next day despite not paying much attention to it,’just chilling in a safe place. She jumped at the ping on her computer and glanced over. ‘Switch to discord and tell me.’ She sent to him, wanting to make sure it stayed just between them and right now, she didn’t trust the game message interface. She waited impatiently, wondering what he’d figured out.
'And they call me paranoid.' No one actually called Drakkon paranoid, but dramatic on the other hand. Still he promptly pulled up Discord and opened a new chat window, 'You remember that PvP tournament last fall? You annihilated that showboating cow, I think his name was Icehammer or something. But doesn't matter. He blasted you for months on the forums claiming you cheated that victory. I bet my entire bank, this is him trying to get some kinda payback against you. He made some bogus second account and managed to get it switched with yours.'
‘I’m allowed to be paranoid, thanks..’ She sent before switching tabs to discord. The messages on the game stuck around and could be recovered if deleted, so she didn’t want the person finding out they’d been talking about them when their accounts were switched back to their rightful owners. Avery glanced through the message from Drakon, biting her lip lightly. ‘Hmm. Maybe. I wouldn’t be surprised. But oh well. It doesn’t do much to help me. I don’t remember much about them or anything. Thanks though..’ She sent.
When you talk to someone long enough online, it's possible to actually start to read emotions in the words of a message, and the defeat in Avery's words killed him a little inside. 'It totally can help you. IceHammer isn't anonymous. He's posted his social media all over the forums. He is a show pony remember? He used to invite people to roast him on twitter and facebook. We'll just take to his profiles and show his dirty trick to the public. A second message came in right after the first, 'Or I'm sure we can find plenty of blackmail stuff to send back his way. Get him to give back the account without a fuss.'
Avery read through the messages. ‘Only if it is actually them. If not, I just look stupid for calling him out If it’s not them..’ She sent back. She just wanted this handled as simply as possible without blackmail and without much drama and attention or being drawn to it. She was willing to just cooperate and do whatever with the person to get her account back. ‘I just want this to resolve without a ton of fighting or drama. That’s why i offered to do whatever to get them to just give it back,’ She explained to him. ‘So I’ll do whatever bullshit tasks they have and then I’ll get my account back and it’ll be fine. I’m still talking with the developers too. I don’t want give up with them in case working with the person doesn’t work out.’
'Alright fine. I don't get to have any fun.' A picture of a pouting puppy came with the message to represent his disappointment. A minute later though another message followed it. 'Not that this should be any fun at all! I know how much Wraith means to you. Me and everyone will do whatever we can to help.' Drakkon stuck around waiting with Avery for the mystery new owner of Wraith's account to show up. An hour passed from the suggested time and just as he stared to gripe about the coward not showing up when the notification of a 'friend online' popped up. 'Finally! Looks like they are in the market. Meet ya there?'
‘I know. Thanks drakon.’ Avery sighed and stayed online, doing random grinding tasks to keep busy as they waited for the imposter to get back online. She got a bit impatient but didn’t complain, just keeping it all to herself. Avery perked up a bit once she heard they were online. ‘Yeah. Meet you there.’ She sent before heading to the market and searching around. ‘Hey.’ She greeted in the online chat once she saw them.
Olivia took her own sweet time rolling out of bed that afternoon. She had gone a little over the top at the party the night before but that only meant she would oversleep rather than suffer like most with a hang over. It was either due to good genes or proper planning, but she really didn't care as long as it meant she wasn't miserable the next day. Finishing up a luxurious shower, Olivia heard her phone chime with a reminder. The notification said that she was supposed to be online, 45 minutes ago. She recorded everything on her phone, else she would end up way overbook with things to do. Still she made no hurry as she dried her hair and finally set up her laptop, not bothering to get properly dressed. She was pleased to see that the Wraith profile still popped up. Selecting the market district as her spawn, she was curious what it would be like to shop around with gold burning a hole in her fictional pocket. Before she could get as much as window browsing the first vendor, a message popped. "Damn they are quick." but instead she responded with, 'Hey there Linky~ How was your night?'
‘Fine. You wanted to go on a quest so let’s go..’ Avery sent back as soon as the imposter responded. She didn’t want to wait and let them wander the markets, spending all her gold on useless stuff. She glanced around, knowing drakon should be nearby as well.
The blunt reply was a little bit of a downer but Olivia expected about as much. 'Alright, alright, straight to business it is. Let's do the Yarrow Catacombs one. It looks like fun.' The quest wasn't particular difficult, though Lincoln's crown was about 5 levels under what he needed to be at. The real obstacle with that one was the fact it was a maze with a time limit. If you didn't reach the end in time, you were ejected back to the beginning. Drakkon spawned into the market district a little late since he had stopped by his storage to swap out for as much supporting gear as he could handle. He had a sneaking suspicion that the impostor was going to make their playing more difficult that usual. Once the market loaded up, he sent a party invitation to Avery immediately, 'Join up with me first that way you aren't stuck with that bastard by yourself.'
Avery rolled her eyes. ‘Okay.’ She Agreed. She’d played through that quest a lot of times before so it wouldn’t be too challenging even with the lower level. As long as the imposter didn’t try to sabotage at least. ‘Thanks.’ She accepted drakon’s party invitation and then invited the wraith imposter to go too. Once she joined, Avery tried to relax. ‘Alright. Let’s go.’ She clicked through the spawn to get to the quest areas where they could pick the right one from there.
Accepting the party request, Olivia noticed the third name in the rooster. It looked vaguely familiar and she was fairly certain it was one of the players that had run into yesterday before her own avatar showed up. This poor sap brought virtual back-up? No matter, it wasn't like it would change anything. She followed the other's lead, though wasn't nearly as swift with navigating the menus to pick out the proper spawn location. By the time she loaded in, Drakon and Lincoln's Crown avatars had been there for a few minutes. 'So, since you are obvious magnificent at this game, what strategy would you suggest for this one? I have never had a chance to go through this one."
Avery got to the spawn area that led to the quest that the imposter had chosen and waited there with drakon until they showed up. ‘Umm. Don’t be stupid and run through. Just follow our lead and we’ll keep you from dying or anything.’ She told them. ‘Got it?’ She asked. ‘You also should have a weapon.’ Avery added before suggesting a few ones that would work well.
'A' is a hard core gamer, or at least as much as an overworked corporate IT employee can be. They spend 90% of their free time online in a well known MMORPG called Valley of the Gods or VG for short. To say that they good at the game would be a dramatic understatement. They have accomplished things in that game that the forums used to chalk up as only urban legends. VG was their escape and passion, until one night they logged in to find their account was gone. And not just gone, switched with some casual player's account that didn't even have a fully leveled character in it.
Panicking that all their hard work would be washed away, they reach out to the developer and get a less than enthusiastic response to help. Taking matters in their own hands, 'A' tracks down the new owner of their account, 'B'. 'B' has been masquerading as 'A' and frankly is ruining any sense of a reputation they might have had. At first 'A' tries to politely explain and get the accounts switched back, they find that 'B' is an arrogant SoB that seemed far more interested in taunting 'A' that cooperating.
Eventually 'B' agrees to give the account back, (after a grueling and embarrassing series of tasks that served zero purpose other than to entertain 'B') but only if they meet and exchange them in person. Despite better judgement, 'A' decided they didn't go through all that struggle to just give up at the finish line. But when the fated day comes to meet, what happens when 'A' discovers that 'B' isn't as much of a stranger on the internet as they thought?