So many Japanese light novels and their corresponding anime have tackled the plot of getting stuck in a game. While Alice was in no way stuck inside this particular MMORPG, she was also much more inside it than one would expect. It was not like any of those novels at all, perhaps because it was just a computer program with limited graphics. Alice wondered if this was how that chosen dude in that cyberpunk movie viewed his computer-generated reality; she would've liked to compare notes.

As it was, as she floated through the spaces between this particular game's code, watching the pulses fly to and from the server, she could still generate a virtual screen where she could see what someone who normally played the game could see. She took a moment from watching her character... a melee/support hybrid... was walking, to look at where a certain bunch of signals came from and went to. To her site, all the other signals were easily visible, where they went away in the maze that was the Internet... except for this bunch. It was why she was here in the first place... she was curious about this particular black hole.

She had first seen it in an innocuous forum about this particular game--- and if she was to be honest, she hadn't really heard of the game at first, ending up at the boards at random due to boredom. While of course the coding of a forum was less active than that of a game that pulled together the inputs of various people, sometimes even from around the globe, there were of course traces of where a post came from--- an I.P., if you will. The address was there... but the address pointed to nothing.

It was curious, because she had never encountered something just like this, before. Of course, there were ways to obfuscate just where your signal was coming from, but that just meant that for Alice, she would simply have to take the long way around. There was no... blank space. Well, there could be, but there should be no posts coming from it, and if it was the shenanigans of an administrator she would have seen the traces.

So, she decided she'd try to verify it. She made an account in the game, fiddled with things to get a character that could satisfy his request (yes, she cheated. Cheating in this sort of thing was her superpower, okay? She wasted time looking up a ton of things to figure out how, too!), and then posted, similarly. She watched the post come... and it did come from that nothing, from which she could not see anything, which she could not enter.

Well, she supposed she might as well go through with the whole masquerade. So, here she was now, making her avatar in this game, azureAlice, trot towards this triAngle person, her humongous sword equipped. Sure enough, from the server side... the actions of the triAngle avatar... came from the nothing. How mysterious.

"Hello!" she made her avatar speak... well, message, more like it. "Sorry to keep you waiting!" She loved not having to type to get those messages out. The little things counted, and they were great. Let's see if Mr. Black Hole will give himself away...

"Shall we go?"

delta

Alice saw the commands that triggered the waving motion, and imitated it. If she were to be honest, she actually knew little about this game, even after poring through various conversations and discussions about it in various places in a pace faster than a normal human could possibly read. There were things that players took for granted, that ones found out by experience and immersion rather than the words of others, and so she might be found out in such a way.

A dialog appeared; triAngle was asking for her to join his party, and she accepted with a thought.

azureAlice: thanks~
azureAlice: please do~

She followed the gunner as he went to activate the dungeon's instance. The aesthetic of the game was not something that she'd usually entertain herself with--- she was more a fan of brighter colors and less ambiguity--- although she did play a little of two certain games by the same maker that were partly high school simulators--- although one could say that those two games had departed substantially from the original flavor.

The path opened, and as soon as he entered, she did, mostly mimicking what he did.

---

She watched as he changed his pet--- they were actually a major part of the franchise, she had observed--- 'demons', they were called, although their diversity made her think of them as just a shorthand for supernatural creatures. She wondered, if this MMORPG's world's details managed to carry over into her reality, which could be fantastic sometimes--- hey, her existing was already filling up the quota--- if she would be considered a 'demon'. Well, with her luck, there was probably a real demon running around somewhere. Maybe even Kingsport.

She buffed them with her Pulses, as he requested... and then he had asked if there was anything in particular she wanted.

azureAlice: well~ not really~
azureAlice: but if I see something interesting I'm getting it~

Aaaah, not very convincing. she chastised herself. She was bad at this undercover stuff, and she needed to get better, considering her superpower set. Well, maybe it was at least better than trying to bluff some random item from some random floor? Maybe she should have looked up the stuff more... well, nothing like the present.

azureAlice: let's get chopping~

delta

She'd selected a melee character because... well, it was not like she did melee in real life beyond a few bits of self-defense her Dad had her learn, which were now not quite applicable with her spectral form. It was just... well, she missed doing things physically, you know? Even if it was just an MMORPG.

Before this, she had only played things with her father, mostly--- she'd heard of things like these, but never really got into them very much, just an occasional bit of dabbling when a friend insisted. She'd used the physical-sort of characters, then, too, the warriors and sometimes the archers--- her dad would have used the equivalent of a mage or a cleric. The enhance tacked on on her character's build was... maybe a bit of homage, she supposed. And also to help this guy she was interested about.

She allowed the gunner to take the lead, although she was aware that she was probably supposed to be the tank or something. She watched as triAngle's beast drew one of the foes, and picked off some herself with azureAlice's large, nasty sword, although she took care not to draw more than they can handle--- it was a pretty tricky thing considering how some of the monsters liked milling about. She wondered why they did that--- did they like each other's company? Sometimes, when things got a little intense, she dropped a heal or two.

When they were done, she checked the items too and pocketed some of them, not quite sure what all of them did. She did notice that triAngle preferred a certain sort of item, the magnetite, so she left that for him.

azureAlice: not very often
azureAlice: yeah, ichi
azureAlice: although I don't play often in general, hahaha

Welp, she did the bluff, anyway, despite not knowing exactly what Ichi was, although she bleakly remembered one of the places in this game to start off with something like it. Eh, we're pretty transparent anyway~ let's just chat on and on. Maybe we can find something to bait him with.

azureAlice: what about you?
azureAlice: what do you usually do?

delta

At around this point, Alice was getting bored.

When you came right down to it, MMOs were pretty repetitive things. Click, kill monster, gain experience, collect loot. Of course, graphics and storylines and events and of course, the company, helped spice things up, as well as things to aim for, like a new class, a new weapon or armor, a new pet, a new customization option. Unfortunately, not only was this particular game a bit low on the graphics side... Alice had jumped into the thick of things... and so was quickly losing interest.

It didn't help that her goal was nowhere in sight. She really should've thought this through--- how do you make a random player of an MMO cough out why his I.P. Address lead to the void? How do you explain that you can see said address, anyway? She thought things were just going to happen, stars were going to align, her object of curiosity would let something slip, but she was apparently too naive. She sighed.

To pass the time she began encoding a pattern for azureAlice to respond to monster threats. Essentially, she was making a bot on the fly. (Kids, do not try this at home, it kinda defeats the purpose of playing a game.) See a monster, estimate the threat, attack if the threat was just right... stuff like that. With the other half of her attention she continued chatting with triAngle.

azureAlice: yeah
azureAlice: it's been a while since I've played, actually

...unfortunately, as she typed this, her little program responded to a clear room with... moving to the next one, even as triAngle had stopped.

azureAlice: might be a bit rusty, haha
azureAlice: been a bit busy with life

...or lack thereof, Alice thought... until she noticed her character's sprite wandering off. Wait, why is it doing that?

Before she could correct that particular bit of the program, or even get back the manual controls, azureAlice found herself with too many monsters than she can handle.

delta

Aaaah, crap!

Inside the game server, Alice might think faster than a regular human, but ultimately she was not very smart. As monster upon monster barrelled over to eat her avatar whole, she made azureAlice fight with everything she got... even as she recognized that, normally speaking--- she had done the calculations, even--- her character was supposed to die from something like this.

Still, she wasn't going to let this whole thing go to waste, she thought, and so... she cut corners, just a little bit. Rounded down some attack numbers, slowed down a few of the monsters, a lot of little things, enough for azureAlice to heal herself and remain alive as she did her best to kill off the uglies.

While this little bit might just be the slightest bit believable, Alice knew that... well, that little moment where she was inattentive and the monsters failed to beat her because of a safety precaution of hers... that stood out. So it was that triAngle's message was strange, even as he came to her aid.

azureAlice: you're laughing at me, aren't you
azureAlice: (＃`Д´)

...she totally took the time to look for that emoji.

delta

Well, it looked like she was found out--- well, not as an electromagnetic ghost, the average player probably wouldn't hazard such a guess, but with what she did, she supposed his guesses were close enough.

azureAlice: your last comment just sounded sarcastic, haha
azureAlice: hrm, hacker, i guess
azureAlice: i didn't really mean to do that
azureAlice: please don't report me? （´Д｀人）

Well, she could always remove all traces of her malfeasance, but she supposed she would ask him all the same.

Hrm... should she ask about him in turn?

azureAlice: ...your connection is weird though

delta

azureAlice: what do you mean? (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

By the time she had typed the message, every statement in their conversation regarding hacking had been removed. She accomplished this with two actions--- first, the simpler one, was removing the data in the servers' database; the second was sending a program into the void that was triAngle's connection, that would delete the relevant dialogue at the same time on his end. She couldn't be quite sure if it worked on his computer, though, considering the strange warp about it.

azureAlice: well, see, you have an IP and all
azureAlice: but if I follow it the data that goes in it just disappears
azureAlice: 's why I stalked you a bit, haha~ (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

She was a bit forthright with her information since she thought the other person still thought of her just as a hacker... a hacker who noticed that his connection seemed to go to nowhere. Maybe a super-hacker or something. She thought it was believable enough.

delta