0. 27mm

The sniper was itchy. His arms felt stiff. His eyes were heavy and now his back was aching. There was nothing glamorous about him despite what others perceived from the outside looking in. While from an aerial viewpoint his form and general appearance would have induced gasps and excitement, the truth underneath his navy blue Symbiote armor was that he was a man like any other. A man that had been logged into Lodestar for forty-six hours straight.

Naturally he had logged off briefly with alarms set to go to the restroom and eat. But that nutrition consisted of nutrient dense protein drinks and soup broth. Anything that he could consume quickly without jeopardizing his health too much. And like many others in the online space he had his bedrest’s I.V. Drip keeping him hydrated while he was immersed.

For some, that may have seemed a sad existence. But this world doubled as his job, a job he took seriously. In the real world snipers could be submerged in muck, and forced to stay in the same position for days on end. Their life was not glamorous and he would never compare himself to the real men and women that made such a terrible profession their own. However, that didn’t change the fact that some targets were tricky and he had remained untouched and racked up the kills by emulating real-life techniques. He didn’t want to work a traditional job, he enjoyed the freedom of living inside of a simulation as contrary as that may sound. Therefore Aufhocker persevered. He took deep breaths and focused on staying as alert as possible.

He had already surveyed the area days beforehand, he had placed listening devices and cameras around the combat zone, along with a special surprise. His only true concern was the numbness in his arms. As special as Lodestar was when it came to Virtual MMORPG’s the level of detail the developers put into the game came with a small caveat. They made certain things too realistic. While pain was removed beyond thuds and pressure as far as gun play was concerned. They kept the feelings of weight and the ache of lifting or straining muscles. This was meant to reward players that focused on increasing their stamina, strength, and agility, though these ability modifiers were not the key point of the game. The main difference in strength was in gear. A good rifle, a good Symbiote, those could make or break the game in the right hands.

Which was why Aufhocker found himself waiting in silence for his next target. The player’s name was BrickBones, no doubt a name that recognized his love of heavy-plated Symbiotes.

Symbiotes were in the simplest terms armor. They all performed some basic functions similarly, they were exoskeletons that allowed for flight, increased strength, durability, protection. But how each one functioned, and their limitations varied greatly. There were probably more Symbiotes than there were weapons and everything mattered depending on its designer. That was the truth of Lodestar, there was absolutely no downloadable content, the entire economy of the game was built in-game. The developers created all of the tools and allowed the Hephaestus classed players, or blacksmiths as most were familiar with in other games, the opportunity to build. Naturally, those players that dedicated themselves to researching materials, learning how to build, and creating interesting gear, armor, and weapons tended to lack the time to learn how to fight properly…but, that didn’t matter because they made a crap ton of money. While you couldn’t purchase anything beyond the monthly subscription to the game the variety of materials and possibilities appeared endless. Everyone was making something new and that information was incredibly valuable if you wanted to be the best player, whether that was for monster hunting, or player killing.

And that information was what Aufhocker wanted. BrickBones had been flaunting his new “impenetrable” armor for weeks now. He had flaunted it in the Grind House, an arena where players could have one on ones and show off their gear. The Hephaestus was a newbie in the scene, a player named ConejaBlanca not much was known about them. But the armor was the real deal. Aufhocker had reviewed the footage from the live stream many times. He analyzed it for weaknesses and came up with a simple solution. Typical .22, 5.56, or various other hand guns, rifles, submachine-guns, and even small-explosives merely bounced off of the new plate material. BrickBones was a walking tank.

It would be possible to hit him with a heavier RPG or a tactical missile, but that was incredibly expensive to use on one man. No, Aufhocker had a better plan. Though it would be difficult. Against many foes his sniper, which was the most secret of weapons aufhocker possessed, could murder someone even aiming at their chestplate, such was the strength of his anti-material sniper. But that wouldn’t work against this opponent.

Target sighted. Distance 2800M.

The targeting parameters that Aufhocker had set to be automated triggered and he turned on one of his cameras. Based on intel he gathered, BrickBones and some friends had accepted a material gathering mission on Chimera BX2’s, which were strange biological abominations found in the desert region of Mokahm, one of the six-biomes in the eastern continent of Austrios. The world of Lodestar was quite large and the settings, creatures, and weather varied greatly. That’s what made having different gear types important. Everything had physics and micromanagement. If your armor ran too hot and you came to the desert without the proper specs you’d be shut down and bricked in the middle of a pile of sand, begging for rescue. While there was no chance you’d die in real life, a creature or another player could find you and take you out. Once you die a player could steal one of your schematics, whether it be for a weapon, your symbiote, or optional gear, all of it was valuable and the person that kills you gets to steal one.

Information was power.

Now was the time for Aufhocker to get his hands on that power, and subsequently the huge payout on the bounty board. At any time someone could put a bounty on a player and people could pool money to add to that bounty. Coincidentally, Aufhocker’s bounty was the largest amount yet. He was worth 15.6 million credits, which was the equivalent of around 15 thousand dollars in the real world. Though no one knew much about him so all of his gear schematics were worth quadruple that amount. Normally, the bounty on the kill was low, for example BrickBone’s death was only a paltry 250,000 credits, but his armor schematics would net you 10 million. At the end of the day players respawned, but getting the schematics was far more important.

“Low-dim,” Aufhocker said and the lighting in his helmet adjusted. It was a sunny day. He took aim and zoomed in, analyzing the distance. BrickBones was with two others.

Aufhocker turned on his listening devices and examined the three.

“Oh piss off, what the hell does that have to do with whether or not Manabi is alive? Did you even watch the last episode? They didn’t even show her body,” BrickBones said irritatedly.

One of his two friends snapped back, “It means everything! I actually watched it, it's a total fake out, they want us to think she lived, but I’m telling you she's dead as dirt, because even if she survived the fall Yuriko hit her with infinite infection Z, and they didn’t show us her death because they’re going to add an emotional opening when Kenzo runs to her, to see the infection scars and it’s going to lead to her dying an him going bloodlusted!”

“Y’all going to keep going on and on about this crap?” The third guy sounded annoyed.

“Shut up!” The other two snapped.

“You’re an idiot, bro they’re not going to kill the best girl like that!” BrickBones was getting even more heated.

“Whatever, you’ll see.”

Aufhocker, ignoring the typical online banter, took note of the other two’s armor. They were wearing standard medium-weight symbiotes with nothing too notable. They seemed to be of a decent build quality but nothing you couldn’t buy secondhand. They both had Assault rifles, and BrickBones was carrying his minigun. It wasn’t a special weapon like his symbiote was, but it was powerful and extremely dangerous when the man wielding it was impenetrable to begin with.

“Two shots, then rush…” Aufhocker mumbled to himself. But he had to wait. He watched the three walking forward.

“Where the hell are the other guys?” One of the other two asked.

“Joey said he’d be late, and Miguel is with Andras, grabbing some food first, they said about fifteen minutes,” BrickBones answered.

“Well damn,” the third man cursed, “Think we could do a run without them, Mr. Indestructible?”

“Pft, Probably, but it would take forever with only three of us, the Wyrm in that grave has a huge health pool. And we have to kill that to get to the Chimera’s.”

Finally Aufhocker thought. As they were talking one of BrickBones’s companions leaned against a pillar outside the entrance of the gravesite where they were going to raid.

“Shot success?”

Narrow window, distance, outside of aim-assist parameters, accuracy rating 28.3%

One in four. While some people thought aim-assist was cheating, it was functionally available to everyone and it had extreme limitations. For example it was as good as your weapons, symbiote, and stats were. It scaled with you. It was disabled in fire-fights, and most importantly it was more of a guiding line, a dot on your HUD that presented your variables and parameters, wind speed, distance, elevation, etc…so, while it was called aim-assist, it was not auto-aim, it was the equivalent of having an in game spotter for a sniper.

Aufhocker took a deep breath. He adjusted the position of his sniper and then carefully considered his options, of which there was ever really one. The visor. Aufhockers target was the roughly 27mm wide visor on BrickBone’s helmet, only slightly larger than an eyeball and just enough for Aufhocker’s .50 caliber bullet to land true. The visors were sensitive parts, tough enough to survive blunt force trauma and .22 rounds but most other weapons could damage them or penetrate. That was what the shield that most people had was for. It could defend against a small amount of damage before breaking but it consumed a lot of power and added weight, not everyone used them. BrickBones did, however, instead of using armor piercing rounds, Aufhocker had substituted for shield-disruptors, they were weaker against armor but ignored shields, and considering the vizor was weak to begin with, Aufhockers sniper was more than enough.

If he could hit him.

He had to do it, “Turn off Aim-assist.”

With the reticle gone and no further assistance, Aufhocker inclined his sniper a miniscule amount. BrickBones and the others were arguing about something else when Aufhocker pulled the trigger, the blast would normally have been heard from quite a distance but that was the secret at play. Aufhocker had no doubt, his sniper was the best in the game, his real authority. Though everyone argued about him being invisible or him having a game-breaking auto-aim, or even that he had figured out a way to make homing-bullets, the truth was that Aufhocker’s symbiote was epic-quality, extremely expensive and well-built, but it was not something impossible to buy if you had connections to the right Hephaestus. However his sniper was remarkable, one-of-a-kind and he’d keep that secret to himself.

The bullet traveled with extreme velocity and the impact through the vizor and into the skull behind it was the only thing they heard. BrickBones body fell backwards and he collapsed.

“What the fu…” Was all the man leaning against the pillar could mutter before a pre-installed explosive detonated and sent him flying. The third man pulled out his rifle but received a shot to his head, his helmet exploded and he too, died. In all of three seconds, all three were gray-screened.

Aufhocker acted swiftly. He put his sniper away, mounting it to his back and shot forward, his jetpack propelling him from his perch with lightning speed. He had three minutes to collect his rewards or the timer would end. That was the real difficulty of collecting schematics if your target was in a group. If their teammates could prevent you from reaching their body, for a measly three minutes, the kill meant nothing.

Aufhocker skidded as he landed and plugged a reader into BrickBones first, he had to make sure he got what he came for before everything else. A display popped up listing all of BrickBone’s schematics, his armor, weapon, accessories, jetpack etc…But Aufhocker knew what he wanted. He selected the armor and moved onto his friends, neither had bounties, and he doubted their gear was worth much but it was worth checking. You could read through attributes and data but that took a while, what most pro-players did was check the Hephaestus that made it, if they were well-known it was probably worth at least a small amount. Unluckily the second guy had nothing of value so Aufhocker picked at random and moved on to the last. Most of what he had was basic, but there was a scope for his AR that was made by a pretty famous builder so he selected that.

As the three minute timer ended, Aufhocker was already a ghost in the wind. Even if the three men still felt his presence pressuring down on them.