If you have the chance, always rip the core from a dungeon or salvage it from a starship. If the core is taken from a dungeon it will turn into neutral territory and is almost guaranteed to level you up. If a core is swiped from a starship it can be sold for millions of credits.
‘We’ve barely made it this far and you want to go after this thing’s core?’ yelled Cass. She was staring me down.
‘I don’t want be walking through miles of ship if I don’t have to, and especially not when low on ammo. Get that door open and let’s go,’ Aiden ordered.
As if on cue, the ceiling opened up and we saw a ship appear above us.
Another shuttle. I didn’t recognize it at first. It looked like it belonged to some kind of raiding company. Maybe one of the smaller guilds? We began climbing to the top of the starship’s hull. The ship beneath us was being overrun with emerging Hollows: black humanoid monsters that seemed to swallow the ship’s hull as it began transforming into the fungal landscape.
The cameras that had been near me rushed downwards to focus in as a Hollow grabbed hold of Pierce and pulled him down. My squad UI showed his health dropping fast and he began screaming from the pain. Cass and I were nearest and dropped back down as Aiden, Eli, Shiru and Brand boarded the rescue shuttle. While I provided covering fire, Cass went in hand-to-hand, finally forcing the Hollow to let Pierce go. I could see the shimmer in world around us as the Remnant ship’s quantum drive broke down reality.
I was still firing when Cass handed Pierce over to Brand who immediately began treating his wounds. When she came back for me it was already too late. From the outside of the shuttle I turned and saw Gorge and Kira were piloting the rescue craft. It looked like they had made an alliance after the guardian had started chasing me in the Spire. It made sense that Gorge would want a cut of whatever was happening and I was sure Kira wouldn’t mind using his resources. So, the two of them had teamed up and had been watching everything.
‘Damnit,’ shouted Gorge, jumping down beside me, just outside the shuttle. ‘Get out of here,’ he motioned for Kira to take off.
There were three cameras following us as another group of Hollows began to make their way towards us across the hull of the abandoned ship. As the shuttle rose, Kira provided some quick cover so that Cass, Gorge and I could scramble away from the Hollows by going back inside the ruins of the transport ship, dropping into a corridor that currently sitting above the overwhelming horde. This was it. I thought about Lady Gray and Cass, if I survived this, they were going to kill me.
‘You’re an idiot, you know that,’ I said looking down at the black mass below us. One wrong move and it would all be over.
Gorge only smiled, ‘I’m retired.’
An icon blinked in the bottom left hand side of my vision. I motioned with my finger, blinking twice to open it. Gorge and I joined a party together. A moment later another message appeared and a third name. I quickly made the circular motion with my hand as the interface disappeared and I saw Cass standing with her rifle at the ready and a rocket launcher strapped across her back: ‘I am going to kill you for this.’
+1000 XP
Nel was with us too. Apparently nobody had helped her into the ship.
Pro Tip
Never under any circumstances dive alone.
8.
Ruins
Quick Lore
There are currently 300 available dungeons in Bane.
Correction: now there are 301.
The first time I dived alone I was only level 5. I had stolen the Adept and crashed it answering a distress call on an alien moon called Minerva. I still remember the accident like it was yesterday.
‘Trust me,’ I said, turning the starship Adept downward towards the rings of Minerva, using the ice to slow our descent as we dropped out of STL too close to the planet’s orbit. Minerva was a beautiful sight, shadowed by the gas giant Aquila-1 which covered the entire line of sight from the ship. I would have been in awe if I wasn’t too busy crashing.
‘Famous last words,’ Nel replied, calculating our odds of survival as being somewhere between ‘pretty awful’ and ‘painfully remote’.
Chasing an artefact across the Jellyfish Nebula we intercepted a distress call originating from a research outpost on the moon. Neither of us the type to turn down an SOS, we turned from one quest to another. Stealing the Adept and not telling anyone where I was or what I was doing was probably not the best idea in the world, but this wouldn’t be the first time I’d taken matters into my own hands. Damien, my best friend and mentor, had been pushing me to take control of my own life. What better time than now. Looking back, I’m still not sure if I would chosen any differently.
The rear thrusters burned out and the ice that built up on the wings of the Adept melted away when we hit the moon’s atmosphere. When we cleared the boundary, our fall came fast. Thirty seconds between the edge of space and the clouds.
After crash-landing near the SOS call, Nel and I made our way to the research outpost and I met an NPC named Niburi. She was a young girl, in her early teens. She had sent the distress call out herself. Her father had gone missing, having left with a small team to combat some kind of creature in a mission called ‘Celestial Pursuit’.
I found myself taking the reigns. Niburi was accompanied at the time only by a rusted robotic companion named Cocoa. The two were a sight for sore eyes. It was my first real solo mission out though and I didn’t want to let anyone down. Especially since the quest promised an artefact as a reward. After Nel and I journeyed to her father’s last waypoint, I found an excavation site being guarded by a giant unmanned mech. The mech, acting on its own was defending the area. Defending Niburi’s father’s grave. It was heartbreaking at first. That was my first boss battle. The mech had been programmed to protect Niburi. After her father died in battle, it continued on its mission. Apparently, it had killed the real celestial being of the mission’s name, however, the only way it could continue to keep Niburi safe was to keep watch at the excavation site, which continued to spawn low level Wraiths.
Defeating the mech wasn’t hard. The hard part was going back. I found the artefact, her father’s pendant. It was an heirloom I could have kept and sold as a cosmetic at the Spire (players were always interested in unique accessories) but I couldn’t. The look on Niburi’s face evoked real sorrow as she screamed and cried in my arms. I told her I knew how she felt. I told her how I had lost both of my parents. I contacted a guild called the ‘Astra’ in the Spire and within half an hour they came to pick her up. Some players probably would have left her there. She was just an NPC, what did it matter? Maybe it didn’t. Maybe I should have kept the pendant and runaway, but I couldn’t. Just as Cass and the others had come for me, I saw in them a reflection of myself.
When Damien arrived to pick me up in the Ibanez he congratulated me on my mission. Two months later I accompanied him to the Spire where I met Gorge at the Upsilon for the first time. He was fixing up Cocoa: upgrading the little robot with all new parts and weapons. Niburi walked in at the same time, maybe Damien had planned it, maybe it was scripted. She had joined an archaeology guild and had become a research assistant on a starship set to explore the outer worlds.
Despite the cost of repairs to the Adept, Damien had congratulated me on my mission success, but others weren’t so happy with me and I almost got kicked from the guild. Cass was the one that came to my rescue. She convinced the others to let me stay, arguing that she would never let me go alone again. Her and Damien were always the two that had my back no matter what I rushed into.
That was over a year ago and this is now. Now, I just have Cass.
Location: Planet Rem
Inside the Remnant Starship
We only spent a few minutes outside standing above the Hollows watching as they swarmed below us like rats. I checked my gear. My shield was charged. My battle armour still in one piece. I unpacked a dark grey and red jacket from one of my pockets and watched it unfold. Cass followed sui
t and did the same before leading us into the ship through a small tunnel that was still being held together by metal hinges.
A black shape scurried past the feet of Cass, disappearing into the belly of the starship. Gorge was leading us and halted, holding his hand up as we crept through a narrow dark hallway towards what we hoped was the engine bay of the Remnant starship.
‘Was that some kind of rat?’ Cass said, pointing with her rifle at the ready. She sounded as unsure as I was about what we might be facing next. Rats weren’t dangerous and were pretty common for the most part. Every planet had its own species of rat, of course, and they looked different on different ships, but they were all mostly the same in nature. Rats on the Spire were called Spire Rats, rats on Orithyia were Orithian Rats, rats on Rem were called Rem Rats. Maybe someone knew what the creatures were actually called but for the most part rats were always rats. And always a sign of misfortune.
‘Not sure, maybe; seemed like it was running towards something,’ Gorge picked up one of the rats and scanned it, like it was a clue to a bigger mystery.
‘Maybe running away,’ Cass said, just as we heard a low growl break the silence that surrounded us. Gorge let the rat go and readied his weapon, holding it just above his chest, attaching a wire from his cybernetic arm to the stock.
‘It’s a kinetic mod,’ he whispered, as I wondered what he was doing.
‘What does that mean?’
‘My cyber-leg collects energy and stores it in power cells throughout my body. All my weapons are modded so that I can run power straight through from my body to them.’
It was a brilliant idea. So long as Gorge kept moving he gathered more and more energy that could be used to fight off enemies, without having to worry about the power levels of his weapons or carrying extra supplies like batteries or ballistics. He also never had to worry about a Ki-rifle draining down his own HP, since he always had energy stored up.
‘This is totally not a trap, right?’ I said.
‘No, it’s probably a trap, this whole thing doesn’t feel right,’ Cass was two steps in front of me. I doubt any of us liked feeling so exposed. Enemy snipers could wreak havoc on us from all the places we couldn’t see into and monsters could come from any direction we weren’t constantly watching.
‘We will do everything we can to protect you, but enemies outnumber us, maybe the safest thing for us to do is turn back,’ Cass said.
Gorge came to a halt. ‘It’s too late.’
Everyone was quiet. A wall of mist was blanketing the rooms around us. Kira had managed to give us cover support and divert the Hollows away from our position after we dropped in, but they had probably figured out by now that we were here.
There was another risk: the possibility of running into other players who wanted the bounty on me. The presence of a drone was a constant reminder that everyone was watching us. At any given moment we had a hundred thousand people wondering what we were going to do next. Probably screaming at us what to do and where to go. Based on what I knew about Moonrain Media and streaming feeds, I assumed that the number was rising. I wanted to shoot the camera that had managed to follow us but I knew if I did I would probably be dragged out of my pod immediately for costing the company and sponsors hundreds of thousands of dollars.
As we descended through the darkness, everything I did now was being tracked. No doubt a bidding war was taking place in the real world for ads and relevancies. Not that I really cared about celebrity. What I did, I was doing for myself, for Damien. I wasn’t going to let them tell me I couldn’t risk my life. I was still grateful though that I wasn’t alone. Gorge had come out of nowhere and was surprising me again and again. The more I followed him the more I began to trust him.
‘Can we use more light down here?’ Cass asked.
‘You’re the scout, you tell me,’ Gorge replied sarcastically.
It was dark. The only light we had came from our rifles but Nel, who followed behind us, could have lit up the hallway in an instant if we asked. That could easily attract unwanted attention though. At least with the light from our rifles we could quickly flicker it and cover our tracks. A creature hiding in the darkness was less likely to attack a suspicious floating light if it didn’t know what was on the other side.
‘Sorry, Cass, I don’t think it’s a good idea,’ I said, knowing she knew the answer well enough.
‘I’m just worried there might be traps or ordinance: something we might run into or trip on that will end all this sooner rather than later,’ she replied making a fair point, ‘if we see something or attract something, Nel can lay down cover fire while we make an escape, but if we fall into some kind of acid or blow ourselves up we’re screwed.’
‘Fair enough, Nel, shine some light for us,’ I said.
‘You didn’t say the magic word,’ Nel replied as the hallway lit up in front of us and I mumbled, ‘please,’ under my breath.
Cass was right.
The skeletons of a dozen soldiers stood at the end of the long hallway, next to a barrel of open waste. We saw several dozen small creatures dart away from the bodies and fumes that were leaking into the air. The waste wasn’t a threat, nor were the dead. The fumes, however, would have killed us if we had come any closer.
‘Air quality check!’ I shouted towards Nel.
‘Toxic, recommend breathers,’ Nel paused, ‘immediately.’
We each placed a respirator mask over our mouths and began to move closer to investigate the fallen soldiers.
‘NPCs?’ asked Gorge nudging one with his rifle.
He studied the dog tags for a moment as Cass and I covered the area. We had reached the end of the hallway and found ourselves at a fork. Two paths. One left, one right.
‘Sergeant Bach,’ Gorge said, ‘definitely an NPC, been dead quite awhile too it seems, decay makes it look like a hundred years or more, body structure and bone is preserved pretty damn good too, though, looks like something might have eaten the skin off it.’
A soft growl came from the left. Both Cass and I dropped and prepared to fire. Nothing. We continued in that direction. Whatever was making the growl didn’t sound large. It was the atmosphere around us and the firefight we had been in nearly an hour earlier that still had us on edge. If we ordered Nel to go ahead of us we could probably use her to map out the entire area and we would be less at risk. Any smart diver would probably have done that but over the many missions we’ve had together both Cass and I had grown attached to our robotic ally. We pushed forward as a team.
‘Nel turn the lights off,’ I whispered, ‘please.’
Nel did what I asked without question, perhaps having noted my heart rate had risen quickly. I could feel something watching us. Something that wasn’t quite right with the ship. The three of us turned off our lights and we stood our backs against the wall in complete darkness. There was a beam of light that flashed ahead of us. Someone or something was heading down the path towards us. Cass stepped towards me and grabbed my shoulder, pushing me down lower to the ground.
‘Hide,’ Cass whispered.
The light was coming towards us quicker now but what was it?
Gorge led us down the hallway, tossing a small piece of twine into my hands. We followed along the wall patting our way across so we wouldn’t run into one another until finally we found a small hatch.
‘Get in,’ Gorge whispered to the two of us.
We followed his command.
Nel couldn’t fit, so instead hid above us, flattening out across the ceiling. The beam of light approached closer, angled down towards the ground like it was looking for us, like it had known what our next move would have been. Cass and I squeezed tightly together with our faces down, not wanting our eyes to reflect the light that could might across us.
More noise came from the wreckage that surrounded us echoing through the hallway. The three of whispered into our coms: as soon as the light came close enough we were going to have Nel blind whoever it was and fire on them.
The light suddenly went out.
‘Plan B. On three we light up the hallway and fire,’ I said.
‘One…Two...,’ I paused. Nel’s lights flashed on and, as we fired, a shield surrounded us like a bubble. The floating head of Kira stood in front of us laughing.
‘You three look like you wet your pants,’ she said.
‘Not funny,’ answered Gorge.
‘Why are you a floating head?’ I asked.
‘Stealth tech, artefact clothing,’ Kira was still laughing as she hit a button on the upper left-hand side of her outfit, revealing her slim body in the black mesh-and-honeycomb spandex she was wearing.
The bubble was a shield she had thrown down at the last minute, when she realized we might attack.
‘Smart,’ said Gorge, ‘got anymore?’
‘Sorry only a few exist,’ she answered.
‘Too bad,’ Gorge grunted.
I had questions, ‘how did you find us? Where are the others?’
‘Back in the colony on Rem, probably playing scraps in a hangar.’
I looked down for a moment in disappointment.
‘Kidding, they’re all pretty worried about you guys but none of them had the balls to come back, this area is off-limits now. They are waiting just outside the border. A Crimson King cruiser was spotted descending towards the planet’s surface and we think they might be after you.’
‘You’d think they would learn their lesson.’
‘A cycle of vengeance; all is fair in love and war, for many of them that is what Bane is,’ Kira replied.
I quickly asked my next question, ‘what do you mean off-limits?’
‘I mean this transport isn’t just some pile of junk etched into the landscape anymore, its turning into a full-fledged dungeon as we speak, there is a guardian outside guarding it and that makes it off limits to anyone that isn’t completely invisible,’ Kira smiled. Hearing about the guardian made me feel fear. I was beginning to regret our dungeon dive.
Star Divers- Dungeons of Bane Page 10
