Chapter 11: The Five Million Gold Potato
[LOCATION: ABANDONED SUBWAY TUNNEL - SECTOR 7] [TIME: 09:00 AM (Day 3 of Integration)]
Sleeping on concrete isn't great for your back. Sleeping on concrete while holding a legendary loot box for a pillow is even worse.
I woke up with a stiff neck and a notification blinking in my face.
[SYSTEM ALERT: GLOBAL ANNOUNCEMENT] [SENDER: THE IRON VANGUARD GUILD]
"Guys," I whispered, kicking Miller's boot. "Wake up. The Warden is tweeting."
Miller groaned, rolling over and grabbing his shield. Sarah sat up, rubbing her eyes. Dave was already awake, counting the small pile of Monster Cores we had stolen from the Zoo.
"What does it say?" Miller asked, his voice rough with sleep. "Did he declare war?"
"Worse," I said, opening the message.
A massive holographic screen appeared in the center of our damp maintenance room. It wasn't just for us; everyone in the city was seeing this.
The face of The Warden appeared. He wasn't wearing his helmet. He looked like a supermodel who had decided to become a warlord—sharp jawline, glowing purple eyes, and a scar running down his cheek.
"Citizens of Sector 7," his voice boomed, echoing off the subway walls. "Yesterday, a terrorist attack was carried out on the Iron Vanguard Treasury. The culprits are a group of low-level glitches led by a player named 'Jax'."
My face appeared on the screen. It was a terrible photo—taken by a security camera while I was eating a ration bar. I looked like a confused chipmunk.
"These criminals threaten the stability of our Safe Zone," The Warden continued. "Therefore, I am issuing a Personal Bounty."
The number that flashed on the screen made Dave choke on his own spit.
[WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE] [TARGET: JAX (CLASS: UNKNOWN)] [REWARD: 5,000,000 GOLD + CITIZENSHIP TIER 1]
"Five... million?" Dave squeaked. He looked at me. Then he looked at the rusty knife in his hand. Then he looked back at me.
"Don't even think about it, Dave," Miller growled, stepping between us.
"I wasn't!" Dave defended himself, sweating. "I was just... doing the math! That's enough to buy a castle! A small one! With a moat!"
"It's enough to buy an army," Sarah said, her face pale. "Jax, everyone in the city saw that. The noodle vendor. The guys we helped at the inn. Everyone. We can't go back to the surface. We'll be swarmed."
I paced the small room. My [Debugger's Specs] were scanning the broadcast signal.
"He's smart," I muttered. "He knows he can't find us in the tunnels. The map down here is procedurally generated; it changes every week. So he's turning the player base into his search dogs."
"So what do we do?" Miller asked. "We can't hide here forever. We're out of food. We have maybe two ration bars left."
"We need to go out," I said. "But we can't go out looking like this."
I pointed to my face on the holographic screen.
"If they see this face, they see five million gold," I said. "So, we need to change the face."
"Plastic surgery?" Dave suggested. "I know a guy. Well, I knew a guy. He's probably a goblin now."
"No," I sat down at my portable console (the Dev Box I had looted). "I can't change my actual face. The System locks physical attributes. But I can change the Bounty Board."
"You want to hack the Iron Vanguard's servers again?" Sarah asked, terrified. "Didn't we just barely escape an Anti-Cheat Sentinel?"
"I'm not hacking their secure server," I corrected, cracking my knuckles. "I'm hacking the Public Assets folder. The images on the Wanted Posters aren't stored in the vault. They're stored in the cloud so everyone can see them."
I opened my command prompt.
> CONNECT: PUBLIC_BROADCAST_SYSTEM > [STATUS: UNSECURED]
"Amateurs," I scoffed. "They spent millions on the vault firewall but left the JPEG folder open."
I found the file: WANTED_JAX.PNG.
"Okay," I muttered. "I need to replace this image with something else. Something that will confuse them."
"Make it look like someone else!" Dave said. "Make it look like Miller! No, wait, don't do that."
"I can't make it a specific person," I explained. "The system will cross-reference the ID. I need to replace it with a generic asset. Something the system won't flag as suspicious until it's too late."
I scrolled through the library of default game assets.
Rock_01. Tree_Birch. Potion_Small.
"Found it," I grinned.
I selected a file: VEGETABLE_POTATO_RAW.
> [SELECT: WANTED_JAX.PNG] > [REPLACE WITH: VEGETABLE_POTATO_RAW.PNG] > [APPLY TO: ALL_SCREENS]
I hit [ENTER].
[LOCATION: TIMES SQUARE - SURFACE]
Above ground, chaos was brewing.
Hundreds of players were gathering around the massive digital billboards, weapons drawn. They were forming hunting parties.
"I saw him near the sewers!" one guy shouted. "No, he's in the park!" another yelled.
Then, the screens flickered.
The menacing photo of me eating a ration bar vanished.
In its place appeared a high-definition, 4K render of a russet potato.
The text underneath remained unchanged:
[WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE] [TARGET: THIS GUY] [REWARD: 5,000,000 GOLD]
The crowd fell silent.
"Uh," a large Orc warrior scratched his head. "Is that... code?"
"Maybe he has a disguise skill?" a Mage suggested. "Maybe he polymorphed into a potato?"
"So we're looking for... a vegetable?"
"KILL ALL VEGETABLES!" the Orc roared, smashing a nearby crate of cabbages. "WHERE IS THE GOLDEN POTATO?!"
[BACK IN THE SEWER]
I closed the laptop, satisfied.
"It won't last forever," I told the team. "The Warden will realize the file has been swapped in an hour or two. But right now? Every hunter in the city is going to be looking for a shapeshifter or a literal potato. They won't be looking for a guy in a hoodie."
Miller stared at me. "You turned your wanted poster into a root vegetable."
"Distraction is the best camouflage," I said, standing up. "Now grab your gear. While they're raiding the grocery stores, we're going to raid the Black Market."
"Black Market?" Dave perked up. "I like the sound of that. Do they have food?"
"Better," I adjusted my specs, which were now highlighting a hidden path through the sewer wall. "They have Skill Books. If we're going to survive a five-million-gold bounty, we need to level up. And I know exactly where to buy the XP."
I walked toward the dark tunnel.
"Let's go shopping."
[QUEST STARTED: SURVIVE THE HUNT] [OBJECTIVE: REACH THE BLACK MARKET AUCTION HOUSE] [TIME LIMIT: 2 HOURS (BEFORE POTATO HACK IS FIXED)]