Phreak

Phreak
???
Biography
Role	Hacker
Location	Abandoned Core City facility
Loot	Remote Control Energizer Glove

Phreak (also known as Mit Draper and Old Hacker) is a hacker from North Underrail currently residing in Core City. He is an extremely elusive figure whose style of hacking is brute-forcing something until it works. He is hiding out in an abandoned facility full of Coil Spiders, and to reach him the player has to activate all the EMP generators in the facility. It is noteworthy that performing this quest-line allows the player to bypass doing any main story quest for the Oligarchs.

Player Interactions

Before he is even met, the player can find several orange phone boxes in Lower Underrail that (usually with certain hacking and electronics skills) can give insight into Phreak's handiwork and interactions with the Protectorate, Lunatics and Ironheads.

To reach him, the player either has to get in Motion 6 times or to have enough Perception to find either the ladder entrance in the south-west of the middle level or the pipe entrance in the Utility section of the passages. If the player has performed enough quests for any of the Oligarchs, he will be missing (along with most of his rewards) and only his laptop may be found.

The player may eventually find him and be tasked to retrieve a set of heavy-duty cables from the Acid Hunters' lair, unlocking a trap door leading directly near their hideout. After that, the player is tasked to retrieve two items from two different hideouts in Upper Underrail, for which he grants the Orange Box to complete the sound-based puzzles. Afterwards, the player will be tasked to turn on as many boilers as possible in the abandoned facility in order to stress-test the system. Doing so will enable a path leading directly to the Research Facility and to the Abomination's Lair, but it is dangerous as there are both a robot (likely varying in difficulty, up to an Industrial Robot) and several Death Stalkers.

By the end of his quest-line he likely allows the player to buy Contact-Activated Capacitative Sheets and forged Underrail Express Tickets. The player may also receive a reward such as a Camera Jammer. Additionally, with a high enough Persuasion check he can be convinced to grant the player several extra minutes in the Gauntlet.

Phreak may have a hidden relationship modifier that increases and decreases with dialogue and which determines what he will reward the player with, but this is unconfirmed.

As a side-interaction the player can gloat about their own hacking skills that Phreak will scoff at, but if the player has the Huxkey its design completely takes Phreak by surprise.

Fate

Doing enough quests for any of the Oligarchs will cause Phreak to end up in a number of scenarios: Doing Coretech's quests will end up with him hired by Coretech and found on the second floor of their headquarters. Doing JKK's quests will end up with him randomly found in Upper Underrail in an extremely dizzied state, infected by a "mind-virus" through one of JKK's Tri-Monitors. Doing Praetorian Security's quests will end up with him arrested. Notably however you can free him, but whether he can be found in his hideout again or not is unknown.

Trivia

• Phreak is based off John Draper and the phreaking culture.
  • His style of "crunching" is a reference to John Draper's discovery that the toy whistles that came with the Cap'n Crunch cereal boxes played at a perfect frequency suitable for phreaking.