‘So you’ve played it?’ Damien asked, ordering two shakes from a waitress. The waitress was Cass, though I didn’t know it at the time, and she was the reason Damien frequented The Sparrow so much.
‘I don’t want a shake. And to answer your question, no, I never played it. Dad said it was too mature, too real and that I’d have to wait until I was older.’
‘Too bad, you’d probably be a pro by now if you managed to get in on the ground floor,’ he said, ignoring my shake comment.
‘I don’t want to play it,’ I answered back, still unsure what I was doing there. Maybe I had just been alone so long I needed the company.
‘I can see it in your eyes,’ Damien began, ‘you’ve lost so much in so little time maybe playing Bane is something that will help bring you closer to your father, closer to figuring out who you are.’
My comeback: ‘My eyes are brown and you can’t see anything in them.’
‘You’re wrong; you are a warrior like me.’
The rest of the conversation was more about my family and the game. Damien told me about Bane and Keen Industries, the dozens of other companies and studios that were working both inside and behind the scenes. An entire sub-culture built around something my father had been a part of. I listened. It was the first time I heard anyone give anything so familiar to me so much praise. By the end of the night, Damien had convinced me and the next day he moved along some paperwork that got me a job as a player. While I would be working for Keen Industries, technically my contract was as a freelancer so they wouldn’t be held responsible for anything idiotic I said or did in the game. Damien had to call in about a dozen favours so that I could join the Corpse Divers though. Taking responsibility for me when I was hardly taking responsibility for myself.
I signed in. Created my character. My original user name was ‘Wild_Dog47’ but since I had the option to show my real name and because of a point made in my contract, I changed it to ‘Breq.’
Displaying your real name had become common practice in Bane. Most players, at least those without scripted names, choose to show their real names. Settings could easily be adjusted for safety and privacy but since the game was such a massive part of real life this was unnecessary.
Slightly disappointing was my discovery that I wasn’t allowed to customize my appearance at all. Signing in as a solo player I could have made a character with alien characteristics, various body shapes, or even changed the colour of my skin to something strange like blue or purple. As a Corpse Diver, however, there were specific rules to follow set down by Lady Gray.
I could still remember my first day in Bane. Waking up in a small cruiser called Adept, looking up at the logo of Lady Gray’s guild, and equipping my starting set of weapons before dropping into Terminus. The first thing a player sees is a cut-scene. A starship comes out of a rip made in reality hovering above an unknown planet. The type of starship varies depending on how the player came in. The starship moves across the player’s vision like a silhouette in front of the planet. The camera zooms in towards the engines and showcases the outside of the ship.
For many players, this was a monumental moment. After a few minutes of spectacle, the camera cuts to black and players wake up as if from a deep sleep to be greeted by an interface that allows them to choose their backstory.
Most everyone had the same origin. We were remnants. All that was left of humanity after a massive exodus through the world gate At Eternity which had since gone offline.
The current timeline is three hundred years since the exodus and we have several pieces of backstory to choose from. The first option was that having just graduated from Starlight Academy, now setting off on our own. The second backstory was of waking up from stasis to serve some kind of greater purpose ranging from elite guardsman, paladins, tech-mages, mech-pilots, etc. This made it easy for players to integrate into various guilds and jobs set up by external forces programmed as part of the game. Some were wardens, admin, others part of specific guilds. Some others were playing the game as part of therapy and were bound by certain laws and restrictions programed via external software into their pods before playing.
After figuring out what your backstory was you next had to choose a class:
Soldiers (Five sub-classes Warrior / Paladin / Boomer / Sniper / Tank)
Scout (Three sub-classes Hunter / Rogue / Ranger)
Medic
Merchant / Trader
Engineer / Tech-Mage (being the advanced class)
Specialist
Psion
I chose Scout. If I wanted to at some point I could change it to Hunter or Rogue, enhancing my skills in either combat or stealth. I preferred to play as a balanced character. Besides the basic classes there were dozens of titles someone could earn in the game such as ‘mercenary’ or ‘bounty-hunter’ even titles such as ‘slayer’ or ‘captain’ and ‘commander’ depending on how you played and how your guild operated. Also, the more proficient you were in skills had a direct relation to your class and identity. An example would be that a specialist with a high pilot level could unlock the class ‘Pilot’ or an engineer unlocking the ‘Tech-Mage’ class.
After getting your avatar and distributing your first set of skill points you were ready to play. The first seven hours covered basic movement and control, plus weapons and practice at a firing range with an energy pistol. A few tweaks here and there by Damien helped give me better control of my new avatar body, but for the most part I grew into it. Just as he had told me I would. I still feel my character growing. Every day, every battle, saw me gain experience and grow stronger: even in the face of non-stop conflict. Damien wasn’t a tough teacher, not like Aiden or Brand, Corpse Divers who had been forced to take me onto their team. Damien was always patient. That was a part of what made him a good leader, a good friend.
Weapons training was difficult at first. The two of us walked onto a range: a large arena that looked like the outside world with floating islands and waterfalls that ran upward from the ground. The environment was surreal and yet all of the plant-life looked natural. The targets were holograms placed across an open field at different ranges. I tried various different weapons, including a few heavy weapons that Damien had brought with him for fun.
Pro Tip
Bane is full of different types of weapons. Assault Rifles, Energy Rifles, Mana draining rifles, SMGs, pistols, shotguns, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, melee weapons. In all there are around 15,000 different variations of ballistic and energy weapons alone. All weapons can be levelled up for higher affinity and sharpness as well as increased damage and critical chance. Find a weapon that matches your play style and stick with it. Players that use the same weapon have a stronger advantage over other players who change their weapons frequently.
Weapon Types:
All weapons come in two forms. They are either material weapons that shoot bullets or items made of various substances, or they are kinetic rifles that fire powerful bursts of energy.
Assault Rifles - great short round bursts; provide excellent cover fire and are effective for taking on hordes of enemies in game.
Scout Rifles - Precision rifles that reward a skilled player. Usually semi-automatic but can be found in automatic or modified forms. High accuracy.
Shotguns - Great for close quarters but like their real-life counterparts can be used for range. Pump action and automatic types. Usually limited ammo.
Sniper Rifles - Kill an enemy from a mile away. Used only by those who have mastered scout rifles and have high sharpness. Known to do immense damage in small spaces. Sniper rifles take the most skill to master.
Pistols - Stealth weapons can be modified into semi-auto or automatic variants that are on par with assault rifles as far as damage.
Explosive Weapons - Grenade launchers, rocket launchers, anti-matter rifles and nuclear detonation canons. All things RED.
I was awful. Seriously, I felt like the worst player in history. For three hours I didn’t hit a sing
le target. The game gave some assistance but unlike most games with auto-aim it was still more about skill than mechanics. Damien taught me to aim, to breathe, to look down my sight and how to hold my weapon just right. I became attached to rifles - specifically energy or Ki-rifles - because of their light weight. We spent far too long with the guns: the motion sickness that came after I first logged out was bad enough that I slept fourteen hours the next day and ended up late for my first mission.
My assignment was a beginner’s quest in a training zone called ‘Point Zero’, a zone that might as well have been its own game. Set on a moon in the Terminus binary star system in Quadrant 3, it was world where anything felt possible. I can still remember that magic feeling of floating in zero gravity and the opposite intensity of feeling as we hit 2G, thrusters firing in reverse as we entered the planet’s atmosphere. It was so real. If I hadn’t known I was in a game I would have thought I was dreaming.
Damien has joined your party.
Name: Damien
Age: 17
Level: 30
Class: Paladin
Health: 100 (+10 Armour)
Status: Alive
Mana: 100
Stamina: 100
Load out: Ki Rifle, Energy Pistol, Combat Dagger
Location Discovered: Training Ground Landing Point A / Terminus
Quest: Quick Salvage
Expected Difficulty: Low
Rewards: 500 EXP
‘That hurt,’ I said falling out of my stasis chamber. The Adept had just had a rather rough landing on the planet’s surface.
‘Sorry about that, Nel is new, just starting to learn the ship,’ Damien answered. He was wearing his usual gear, equipped with a M7-7 rifle and an energy pistol along with a combat dagger.
‘Our imperfect landing was a result of the intervention of Damien,’ I heard an automated voice say into my ear. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from and it startled me: I jumped back holding my rifle up just as Damien had shown me.
He, however, was looking at me curiously. ‘What’s the matter Breq?’
‘The ship says it was your intervention made for the bumps.’
‘Tell Nel if she ever wants those brand new ion canons attached at the front, she will stop blaming me for its faults,’ Damien was laughing now. I felt like I missed some kind of joke.
‘Ship says you are too poor to buy new ion canons and expects you would most likely buy used,’ Nel spoke both in my ear and through the ship’s PA. I didn’t jump this time. In fact, knowing I had a robotic companion to help me made me feel safer in a way.
‘Nel, if you help me level up I’ll make sure the ship gets new ion canons from a top dealer in the Spire and you get as many upgrades as you want,’ I said, trying to show my determination as a new player.
‘Chances of your success are thirteen percent, I will, however, be cheering you on.’
‘Stop flirting with the robot,’ Damien chuckled. I thought about making a comeback but I had nothing.
Probably, anything I said would have sounded stupid and by the time I had finally thought of something, Nel had already answered back with, ‘organics are not my type.’
Damien was moving down the ramp and out of the ship. The planetscape was barren except for a few scattered trees and what looked like Mayan ruins.
Location Discovered: Training Ground Site B
/Terminus
‘Chel ruins; a city that was once prosperous now long forgotten,’ Damien said. It was easy to forget all of this was made up. The world around us felt lived in, dirty, real. ‘Did you check your weapons and ammo?’
I had, but just in case I checked the power battery on my rifle again to make sure it was fully charged. Fifty-five percent! If it dropped below that figure, it would drain my HP points every time I fired. I wasn’t sure how the charge had gone down so quickly, but we had gone to the range to practice one last time before picking up the game-quest.
I lied, told him it was full, and he threw me an extra battery. I guess he already knew.
M7 - 7 Ki Rifle
Description: Standard issue
Level: 1
Damage: 10
Weight: 8 Ibs
Weapon Type: Assault Rifle
Rarity: Common
Impact: 5
Range: 6
Stability: 3
Reload Speed: 4
RPM (rounds per minute): 250 bursts
Affinity: 3
Sharpness: 5
Elemental: None
Critical Chance: 20%
Modifiers: None
‘Follow me, keep low, remember you are a scout. You want to try to use stealth as much as possible when entering into a battle zone. The more you use it the more advanced your detection skill will become,’ Damien crouched down and followed a path that descended into the ruins. The path led to a small tunnel. The tunnel was filled with small lizards and red moss. The lizards seemed to blend in with the moss until we began to cross paths with them.
‘Don’t waste any ammo,’ Damien said. He wasn’t talking about the lizards. In front of us inside the tunnel was an opening with a giant waterway. A large animal that looked like a multi-coloured hippo with massive tusks was drinking from the small river that flowed north in the direction we were heading. The two of us crept forward and I had to admire the abundance of alien life that surrounded us. Each new animal felt like a new discovery. My senses were overloading with imagery. The various colours and the abstract essence of Terminus.
Half a mile underground we found the wreckage we were looking for. Buried deep below the ruins of Terminus was an alien starship called Decrepit. The loot inside the ship was constantly being re-spawned and it was a perfect starting point for a new player like myself to collect some credits and experience points.
Location Discovered: Training Ground Site B - Decrepit / Terminus
‘A light mech and three raiders are guarding the entrance, what should we do?’ Damien asked. At The Sparrow Damien would frequently tell me things about the game, decisions I would have to make that would define who I was as a player. Here, he was letting me lead.
‘Analyze the situation and move in as quietly as possible,’ I said.
Nel spoke up, ‘it seems your enemy has a hostage. Based on your current skill level and affinity for weapons she has a two percent chance of survival.’ I was starting to get used to hearing the voice in my head.
‘Damn, wasn’t expecting that,’ Damien was pointing towards a character tied up next to the entrance. Raiders were common NPC combatants: easy low-level enemies who scavenged ruined worlds; for them to take a hostage was strange behaviour.
‘It’s been awhile since I’ve played; this is new,’ Damien said.
‘Does the hostage matter?’
‘Player or NPC, if they are good, they matter, that hostage might be a trader or someone with a high reward, they could also be a bounty of some kind but either way it’s our job to get involved,’ Damien answered. It was the first time I had heard him speak so sternly and the first time I realized just how seriously I had to take the game.
‘Can you take on the mech by yourself?’ I asked.
‘It’s only a level 10. It shouldn’t be a problem.’
‘You draw out the mech, I’ll take down the three guards and rescue the hostage, if she can help I’ll give her my energy pistol and if she can’t I’ll run her back to the entrance and meet back up with you here.’
‘That actually sounds like a good plan.’
A minute later we moved ourselves into position. Damien fired first, aiming at the mech, drawing its attention and running further into the caves as we planned. The mech and one of the guards followed while the other two moved closer to the hostage. I crept behind them and from a crouched position blind fired at one: a hit! I felt powerful as my hands shook. It was amazing, my heart raced. I felt like I had gained something. Like having superpowers. Determined more than ever now to win, I fired again just as the second guard
turned, aiming down the barrel of my gun as Damien had taught me.
+10 EXP
+10 EXP
+5 Stealth
+5 Luck
As the two guards vanished from the game, I approached the hostage and untied her hands. She was an NPC around my age, athletic, with short blonde hair that was dreaded around the tips. Wearing a tank top and cargo pants, she had a scar across her eye and it was obvious her life had been rough, rougher even than mine. Her only armour was a single shoulder piece, which was covered in alien runes; I could only assume it had been salvaged from the Decrepit a long time ago.
Having ripped off the tape that had been placed over her mouth by the raiders she spoke in a language that was hard to understand. Quickly, the game translated it for me. She told me her name was Riley and she had been a scavenger by trade. Both her and her sister lived in a colony, a small settlement based on the planet where players could travel and trade for low level items and implants.
As looked at her, Nel instructed me how to scan other players and NPCs for valuable information. While it was possible the information could be false in the case of players it was less likely an NPC would be able to hide their stats.
Riley
Level 6 (Health: 90 Stamina: 80)
Friendly
No Weapons Equipped
She was five levels stronger than me. Not that it mattered. Without Damien by my side it was nice to have company.
‘Chances of survival have increased: you have a very good chance,’ Nel announced.
I thanked the robotic voice in my head as Riley turned and looked at me like I was talking to myself. I tried to explain but it was useless. She didn’t quite understand what I was or what I was doing. She was focused solely on saving her sister.
Star Divers- Dungeons of Bane Page 7
