Alice's Phishing Trip

This is an experimental Creative Write/Free write. I wrote this in the Pizza Guild Discord while sharing my screen and asking for input/direction/whatever from the community. I think it will be an interesting way to construct a post and have no idea how this will turn out!

Rules!
They are few:

Anyone else in the voice channel's input overrides mine- I will type and incorporate ideas and input as I do- ANYONE in voice can make me edit or whatever!

Pizza Tips for participants throughout the event

Other than that this is a standard free writing format! So lets GOOOOOOO!

We were lucky enough to have the amazing @anikekirsten draw with us again this week! Check out her amazing art work! She has been added as beneficiary on the post as well!

Shoutout also to @creodas who was kind enough to give us a reading of the story (including epic Gandalf voice) after we had finished writing!

Thanks everyone for participating!

"They aren't buying enough PIZZA! We are gonna go out of business if we don't do something about it soon!" He shouted at the poor developer who was busily tapping away at his keyboard, trying to roll out the next wave of smart contracts for DEDNET. PIZZA was the flagship token- a partnership between an established restaurant chain called Ned's Pizzeria. It was a struggling franchise establishment attempting to turn its fortunes by frontrunning the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Justin turned away from his screen, momentarily he was mesmerized by the leftover cheese and pepperoni stuck in Alice's enormous bushy beard.
"I can't make them buy up our tokens boss. You were the one that wanted to leave it up to price discovery when we launched!"

"Well we've gotta do something or we are gonna lose the PIZZA partnership! If we lose that we lose funding for all of our nodes and the network goes down. They are the ones paying most of our bills! There must be something we we can do to get things moving in the right direction and gain some momentum!"

"I don't know what you want me to do boss, we've built up a solid following on Twotter and shilled it as much as we can! They just aren't buying enough to outpace the issuance." Justin scratched his head then turned back to watching the DEDNET blocks flow past on his screen. He could see more selling action than buying happening on the swaps and dexes of DEDNET.

Little known to Justin, Alice had been researching the depths of the pizz web and discovered something phenomenal. A repository of ancient dark magic that had been digitized and tokenized for the modern world. The wonders of smart contracts crossed with the efficacy of dark magic! He thought he had found his solution- but suddenly a pop up blocked his screen and gave him a better idea.

It was one of those autoplay videos that you can never find the close button on so he had no choice but to watch the entire video:

"SECURE BLOCKCHAINS HATE THIS ONE TRICK: C++ command breaks block security and allows "digital entrepreneurs" like yourself to propagate any data you want across the chain. REARRANGE BLOCKS, FORCE ADVERTISEMENTS, SECURE SEED PHRASES, EXPLOIT BRIDGE VULNERABILITIES! Get access to the code now by clicking below."

Of course Alice clicked, who wouldn't! Immediately he was greeted by another series of pointless and useless ads: "WHOEVER OWNS THIS NFT GETS ACCESS TO THE DARKEST ARTS!" and "BUY NOW TO GAIN 4 INCHES" before he finally was able to pay 10 BOTCOIN to access the C++ command that had been promised.

It was mind blowingly simple and absurd:

C:\PIZZEUS ADSTURMO

Of course Alice viewed this command as confirmation that he was doing the right thing- it involved PIZZA and he was trying to save his PIZZA project partnership. The blockchain gods had provided! He quickly read over the README file which indicated a few strange rituals would also be necessary for the command to work... Strange, but anything is worth a shot at this point He thought as he memorized the command and ritualistic components.

He knew he would have to consult with Justin before proceeding, his knowledge of programming languages and code was second to none. He had coded DEDNET and all of the smart contracts single handedly. Alice was just an idea guy with a gross beard.

"Justin, I might have a way to sell more tokens, or at least bring in more funds for cash flow. I need your help though. I don't know enough to make this happen!"

"What do you mean we can bring in more funds. How can we do that when we've already tried every trick I know?"

"Well... it does involve something I found on the pizz web..."

"No way Alice, not on your beard, I fell down that rabbit hole once and nearly ended up in prison! I'm not touching anything from the pizz web. Neither should you! It's not worth it!"

"Well at least lets discuss it over a slice!" Alice headed back to warm up a couple of slices of leftover Pizza from the night before. He knew he had to convince Justin somehow... Luckily he had a stash of Magic Mushrooms that he enjoyed on the weekends and knew how impressionable they often made him... perhaps they would help him convince Justin. He added a few caps to the slices and smothered them in Justin's favorite- hot sauce. He would never know that he had been dosed!

"Look, we've gotta come up with something soon and I don't see why we shouldn't at least try everything we can to make this work. I've sunk my life savings into this Justin, and so far we've got nothing but some cool tech to show for it. Ned's Pizzeria wont pay our debts for us forever. And you had such huge ideas! This was gonna be so much bigger than just a single token and a few nodes! You want DEDNET to be bigger the BOTCOIN! Lets make it happen!"

"Don't tell me about my dreams Alice, some things just aren't worth the risk... and some of the stuff you see happening on the pizz web... well... there are worse things than failing..." He took an enormous bite of the hot sauce slathered pizza and chewed contemplatively. "I don't know boss, maybe I can think of something. We still have a little time before the funds run out..."

An hour of chatting about the ins and outs of the pizz web and possible prison life later...

"Justin we have to do it- there isn't any other way... Now it doesn't seem like it will be that difficult. I haven't even told you how it says it works yet!"

"Fine Alice, how is it supposed to work... Where did you find it again anyway?" He swayed in his chair slightly and seemed to become very absorbed in the screensaver flashing across his monitors. The colors were vibrating ever so slightly... thankfully Justin didn't seem too concerned just yet. He returned his wide eyed gaze to Alice.

"We just have to connect up to the cell phone tower out back and input a C++ command into the router for the tower and it will do the rest... but... there are a few other things we would have to do as well." Alice hoped he wouldn't need to explain everything else to him. He had called Ned's an hour earlier to order 1000 "Ned's Specials" topped with Pineapple and Anchovies. According to the prophecy in the sacred README.TXT these 1000 pizzas would need to be sacrificed around the foot of the cell phone tower at the exact moment the command was executed. Thankfully he already had a plan for how to sacrifice them... though he had never done anything quite so strange before... at least not since he grew into his beard.

He turned back to Justin who was frantically tapping away at his keyboard as usual... but he appeared to be typing nothing but nonsense on the screen. "Justin what are you doing?"

Like a man covered with the madness of a thousand ancient gods Justin continued to type letters and symbols, some of which Alice never even knew existed. To the common eye, to Alice's eye, what was being born on the laptop looked nothing more than a toddler smashing their hands on a piano but in the hands of a true artist like Justin this seemingly random smashing was in fact the birth of a future token. After an indeterminate amount of time he seemed to pull out of his revery and looked across at Alice's gaping face. "It is ready." He breathed.

"What's ready Justin?"

"I'm not entirely sure." Was all he would say in response.

Just then Alice's phone began to ring. It was Ned's announcing the impending delivery of 1000 Ned's Specials.

Alice ran to the door and began unloading the stacks and stacks of Pizza.

Luckily it was only about 1000 feet behind the building to the cell phone tower. Alice and Justin made dozens of trips to place the boxes in the appropriate pizzagram shape encircling the tower. The time was nigh. The pizzagram complete. Justin was beginning to have doubts.

"Alice I'm not sure we should do this... I don't even really understand what the code I wrote does! I was typing as if possessed, there were creatures dancing across my keyboard that I was trying to crush... at least... that's what I remember."

"I don't care Justin! We have to save the project at any cost! Now go and get the gasoline!" Justin staggered off to the garage, returning moments later with a jerry can. "I hope you at least remember how to input the command! Do I need to go over the README again?!?!?"

"No boss, I can do that still at least."

"Good, now go get ready, I'll take care of the PIZZA's!" With that he began dousing the pizzas with the jerry can, careful to make sure they would all burn effectively. Justin climbed the tower and connected his laptop directly to the signal box. He looked down at the enormous pizzagram around him and saw Alice watching him intently. He had finished dousing everything and simply awaited Justin's signal.

Justin hesitated for a moment, trying to remember exactly what his code would accomplish to no avail. He shrugged, telling himself Well you always have done your best coding while high! and opened up the console on his laptop. Verifying he was connected and that all of the prerequisites of the sacred README had been met he signaled down to Alice who dropped a match on the first pizza.

With the Whumph of igniting gasoline around him he quickly typed in the execute command:

C:\PIZZEUS ADSTURMO

Followed by his own command:

C:\HELLO PINEAPPLE/q /u

With that he began climbing down the tower into the intense heat of the enormous pentagram shaped flame. The smell of sacrificed pizza surrounded him and he lost sight of Alice in the cloud of smoke. As he reached the ground once more he was struck with the realization that he could not get out of the Sacrificial Pizzagram. He shouted for Alice over the crackling of the flames and managed to make him out to the left of the tower. He appeared... somehow distorted. Perhaps it was just the heat playing tricks... or the remnants of his mushroom trip... or perhaps Alice really was melting... he had enough cheese in his beard after all.

Suddenly Justin was distracted by a nagging sensation of being watched. He looked back up at the tower and seemed to see himself dissolving into pizza slices and disappearing into the signal box.

Well... at least I got that code right... He thought as his body was consumed by the flames.