— CHAPTER SIXTY —

  Sniffing for a Scoop

  City Guards or Attack Dogs?

  Is the World Guard Manipulating NPC Enforcers to Target Protestors and Dissenters?

  For most players, the city guard are simply another piece of the background - something as natural as the cobblestones and market stalls. They patrol their designated routes on the hour every hour, break up player fights, chase down thieves with electric nets, and generally keep the chaos of thousands of players from turning our cities into complete anarchy. They're meant to be neutral arbiters of order - unbiased, predictable, following their programming to keep the city in check.

  But have they become a weapon wielded by the World Guard? Recent events paint a disturbing picture of the matter. Across multiple incidents throughout the kingdom, a pattern has developed. When World Guard peacekeepers enter the equation, the behavior of the NPC guards shift - they become more choosy about their targets, more discriminating.

  Consider it: During the Stonehearth Calamity, the World Guard operated freely within the city, using the city guards not just to defend themselves from the Fringe terrorists, but to corral the world boss and funnel the fight into their control. Both Fringe and non-Guard-sanctioned volunteers were either sidelined or outright attacked by the very same NPCs that were aiding the World Guard.

  Then there's the Falconworth incident. Sunday, two weeks ago, there was a peaceful protest in Falconworth - if you haven't heard about it, it's because the Guard covered it up. Players had gathered to voice concerns about the Guard's opaque policy-making processes. By all accounts, it was orderly - no weapons drawn, no aggressive behavior, just citizens exercising their right to assembly. Then it became a standoff between the Guard's riot squad of Shieldwalls and a gaggle of sign-wielding activists. All (available, non-redacted) reports agree that it was the World Guard who made the first move, attacking with non-lethal measures to break up the gathering by force. However, the city guards somehow interpreted this as aggression by the protestors and opened fire with area-effect shock cannons - Falconworth's version of the anti-burglary stun net. In the ensuing chaos, three were killed - two protestors and one bystander, all civilians.

  Even in Celestia Grand - in the red light district, the mafia guilds wage turf wars. In normal circumstances, the response by the NPC guards is a toss-up - either they attack both factions indiscriminately or ignore the violence altogether. Yet, when World Guard members step into the fray, the guards become far more selective in who they target.

  And the World Guard's influence is not limited to combat situations! The guild maintains exclusive access to the game's prison system, determining sentences with no oversight. They control vast stockpiles of resources through their partnership with the Trade Union, keeping the majority of available materials in off-market storage facilities, allowing them to set prices.

  The question that demands an answer: How are they doing it?

  Have they simply reverse-engineered the behavior patterns, learning to manipulate the guard AI? Have they found a way to access console commands?

  The answer remains elusive, but one fact is clear: The World Guard is reshaping the world according to their vision, using tools that were meant to protect us as weapons to control us. Today it's protesters and Fringe members. Tomorrow it could be anyone who questions their authority, challenges their monopolies, or simply looks at them the wrong way.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The time for passive acceptance has passed. We need transparency about how city systems work. We need accountability for those who abuse these mechanics. And until we demand answers, until we refuse to accept "it's just how the game works" as an explanation, we'll remain pawns in their increasingly authoritarian game.

  Sewer People News - Digging through the muck to bring you the truth!

  |Ace>

  Grey set the article down on his desk, his fingers drumming against the wood before he looked up at us. The permanent crease between his eyebrows deepened as he studied Cherry and me, his usual slight frown twitching. Around us, the Sewer People's printing room hummed with activity - people working on drafts and running the pamphlet presses and, and underneath it all, the endless rush of water through the tunnels.

  "I'm impressed." Grey said finally.

  Cherry's fist shot into the air. "Yes!"

  I couldn't help but smirk, leaning back in the rickety chair across from Grey's desk. "I told you we could bring the receipts. Bringing us on was not a mistake!"

  Grey's expression didn't change. If anything, his frown deepened. "We still can't publish this."

  "What?!" I swung forward, the chair legs hitting the stone floor with a sharp crack.

  Cherry's shriek could have shattered glass. "Why not?! We spent all week on this!"

  Grey picked up the article again, scanning over it. "Because it's too speculative. We need something of substance to reveal to people."

  "But these are important questions that need asking!" I protested. "The public deserves to know what the Guard might be doing with the city systems!"

  Grey nodded slowly. "The questions are important, yes. But our business is not asking questions - it's showing answers. Do you understand the risk every time we distribute our pamphlets?"

  He gestured toward the main room, where a group of volunteers were bundling freshly printed newsletters. They would be smuggled topside, passed hand to hand through a network of sympathizers, slipped under doors and left in tavern booths when no one was looking.

  "Our distributors risk being arrested every time they surface with those papers. If a single one gets caught and breaks under interrogation, it could be traced back to all us. Everyone in this room - the writers, the printers, the runners - we're all criminals in the eyes of the World Guard." Grey leaned forward, his elbows on the desk. "Every pamphlet we distribute has to count. When we accuse the World Guard of something, we need proof that will stick. Not theories, not patterns that might be coincidence, not suspicions. Hard evidence."

  I exchanged a glance with Cherry. Her face mirrored my own frustration - we both knew he was right, but it didn't make it any easier to accept. It'd taken us a week to track down witnesses at Falconworth and Stonehearth.

  "Listen," Grey said, his tone softening slightly - which for Grey meant it went from granite to merely stone. "This isn't a bad thing to report on. The connections you've drawn, the patterns you've identified - they're probably real. But 'probably' isn't good enough for what we do. You need to get hard information on the system the Guard uses to control the NPCs. Documents, screenshots, recorded conversations - something concrete."

  Cherry threw her hands up. "How are we supposed to get that?! It's not like they leave their 'How to Manipulate City Guards' manual lying around in the break room!"

  "That's your job as investigators, isn't it?" Grey glanced back down at the article in his hand. "Oh, and what's up with this tag line? Take that out - we don't need a catchphrase."

  He handed the pages back to me. Cherry and I stood up from our chairs with synchronized sighs of defeat.

  "Thanks for the feedback." I mumbled. Grey was doing his job keeping the operation safe, sure, but come on - he had it out for us from the beginning.

  We turned to leave, navigating between the long tables where other writers and editors worked. The printing room had been set up in a hidden rest chamber deep within the city's sewers. Normally intended to give adventurers a place to sit down while exploring the monster-infested sewers, they done the place up nice - turned it into something not too far off the Celestial Daily's office. A printing press dominated one corner, and the wall held cork boards covered in notes and photos of intel on the Guard's coverups. The only thing missing was air freshener.

  "Oh, guys!" Trevor looked up from the pile of papers he had spread in front of him as we passed. "Liz was looking for you!"

  "Oh, cool." I tried to inject some enthusiasm into my voice. "Is she in her workshop?"

  "She should be!"