Star Divers- Dungeons of Bane

by Stephen Landry

  Each of us had to plug our nose as we passed by the monster’s corpse. The smell reminded me of rotten banana peels and only eased up when we found ourselves back in the room that Naomi and Chaz had been hiding out in. It was here that we passed through another sealed door into the R & D stations.

  ‘Figures they would have everything so close together,’ said Cass.

  The R & D stations were smaller rooms filled with terminals and various types of research equipment and tubes. Some contained small creatures: alien fauna from different quadrants. There were a few Dargon embryos and even a large liquid container with a dead Dargon-human hybrid, like the one we had killed near the surface.

  Sitting in the second research station, Cass put her rifle down, setting it to lean against the wall. There were several cells. Each one was rigged with glowing green bars whose energy hummed through the air. Only two cells were occupied. The creatures inside were neither creature nor man. They looked like shells. Husks that had turned to cocoons and broken apart.

  ‘Why go to all this trouble? What were they doing here?’ I asked.

  ‘Trying to find a way to survive,’ answered Gorge.

  I still didn’t get what the Remnants had been trying to achieve. ‘They saw the Chel as an enemy, they saw them as a threat, and they were trying to find a way to become stronger, but why?’

  ‘Maybe the Chel really are the enemy. After all, what do we know about them, other than they built the first world gate and they like to remain hidden deep inside the Spire?’ Cass lifted her red head away from the screen she was studying.

  ‘That’s blasphemy, you know that?’ Gorge’s voice was amused, ‘they might send a guardian after you just for talking like that.’

  ‘The Remnants fought the Chel and when they were neutralized they ran into the stars like heretics,’ offered Chaz.

  I studied my teammates. Both Cass and Kira’s eyes had hardened since we began our adventure below the surface. I felt like I had become closer to all of them. For the first time I noticed how callus my own hands were becoming. I hadn’t levelled up yet but I could feel my avatar growing in strength.

  Turning away from the others, I looked carefully around the lab. Even if the Chel were the enemies of our species, it didn’t change anything. It would take an army to go against a single guardian, so if war with the Chel was what the game had in mind, we as players were nowhere near powerful enough to win. Not to mention how it would break the economy built around the Spire. If we had somehow stumbled upon a main quest line, we could be doing more damage than good.

  ‘This isn’t normal,’ said Cass.

  ‘No shit,’ I replied.

  ‘Watch your language,’ it was Nel who pulled me up.

  ‘Sorry, but this whole dungeon, this whole thing, has been set up since we arrived. Maybe we stumbled upon it but maybe we didn’t. It’s just too much pure coincidence,’ I stopped. The camera was hovering closer to me now. I didn’t want to say another word. I felt like I was preaching. ‘It was a mistake for us to come here,’ I finished.

  ‘A blessing and a curse sometimes take the same form,’ said Gorge.

  We continued towards the core with little resistance. A swarm of Voth attacked us, but we cleared it away without too much trouble. There were a few Autons in the lower level as well but many had been ripped apart by some other creature and those that remained were barely functioning. Then there was a moment when Chaz had tried to open a sealed chest he had found, only for it to come to life. If Gorge hadn’t pulled him back at the last minute he would have been swallowed whole by the mimic.

  As well as these encounters, we had an anxious few minutes passing through a tunnel filled with floating Hollows. Everyone managed to sneak by them. I gained +10 stealth for that. We passed from tunnels that looked like they were a part of the ship to caverns that smelled like the inside of an empty fish tank. Inside one of the labs we found a video recording. One of the experiments run on the ship involved creating homunculi. When the crew had spliced human and alien DNA in their labs, they had yielded deformed creatures that fed on blood. Some of the specimens were still living inside jars. They could sense our presence as they followed us across the room reaching towards us to press their hands against the containers.

  After three hours in game, I finally gained enough XP and levelled up to 31. It felt great but I still had a long way to go. If I was going to succeed I would have to do more.

  While the others took a break, I was able to access my skills. At level 1 you automatically have 5 points in every category. There are an initial 60 skill sets in Bane, though some players manage to find extra sub-categories or pick up brand new skills as they play, making for a total of over a hundred skills available for top tier players. Every time you level up you are given a total of 15 skill points to allocate. A few of these can boost your affinity, sharpness, elemental powers, critical chance, etc., but for the most part skills simply allow players to function properly inside of Bane and they also dictate how NPCs (whether they are human, enemy, or animal) react to your presence. The botany skill for example: plant science allows players the advantage of learning new lore about the plant life found on certain worlds, including knowledge of what can be crafted from certain vegetation. A player with high botany and handicraft skills can actually extract poison from plants to use on their weapons, while a player without these could end up suffering badly if they tried to do the same.

  As a scout, I had poured most of my points into evasion and stealth (otherwise known as detection) and as well, to resisting attacks such as fire, ice and poison. Skills points can also be picked up in-game while playing. Such as when I earn a +10 Stealth bonus: this temporarily boosts my stealth stats for a limited time. The time duration varies, however, and can wear off at any time. Bonuses like that feel like adrenaline in real life. Besides the sixty skills listed there are also hidden skills players can’t access or manipulate, often related to intelligence or memory. Also, if you are incapable of a skill such as a particular type of crafting in real life, then adding it as a skill is useless. Your avatar is an extension of who you are. At level 30 I had spent 450 points. I now had 15 more points to use.

  Level 31 Breq

  15 Points Available

  Adrenaline 45

  Affinity (weapons) 15

  Agitation 15

  Animal / Aquatic Expert 35

  Artillery (Heavy Weapons) 15

  Attack Boost (DMG) 5 (+5 Bonus)

  Blast Attack Boost 5

  Blast Resistance 35

  Bleeding Resistance 45

  Botany (Biology) 5

  Bow Expert 5

  Capacity Boost (Carrying) 5

  Capture / Tame 15

  Carving 10

  Charisma 25 (+10 Bonus)

  Constitution 5

  Critical Boost 50

  Critical Affinity 50 (+10 Bonus)

  Defence 5

  Detection (stealth) 15 (+10 Bonus)

  Divinity / Fame 5

  Evasion 5

  Fire Attack 5

  Fire Resistance 5

  Focus 35

  Fortification 5

  Gambler 5

  Fortifying 5

  Guard 5

  Hacking 25 (+10 Bonus)

  Handicraft (crafting) 5

  Heat Resistance 15 (Armour Bonus +10)

  Health Boost 15

  Hunting (survival) 5

  Hunger (cooking) 5

  Ice Attack 5

  Ice Resistance 15

  Intimidation 5

  Iron Body 5 (Armour Bonus +10)

  Latent Power 5

  Luck 25

  Medical Specialist 15

  Mind’s Eye 5

  Navigator 5

  Nullification 5

  Paralysis Attack 5

  Paralysis Resistance 5

  Peak Performance 5

  Piercing (Damage Boost) 5

  Pilot 5 (+10 Bonus Active)

  Poison Attack 5

  Poison
Resistance 5

  Poison Duration 5

  Psionic 5

  Recovery 5

  Stamina 25

  Sheath Speed (reflexes) 5

  Strength 5

  Stun Attack 5

  Stun Duration 5

  Stun Resistance 5

  Survival (general) 15

  Tool Specialist 5

  Training 5

  Having already thought about my build, it only took me about thirty seconds to decide. I put all 15 points into Detection (stealth) bringing that skill to 30, with a +10 bonus currently active. Most of my skills were based on dives I had run, hence my bleeding resistance and ice resistance. In this dive, I didn’t want anything getting the drop on me.

  Pro Tip

  Decide early on what kind of player you want to be.

  Name: Breq

  Age: 17

  Level: 31

  Status: Alive

  Mana: 100

  Class: Scout

  Health: 100

  Stamina: 100

  Load out: M7-7 kinetic Rifle, Aegis (melee),

  We set out again. Back into the metallic ruins of what was once a ship. I could feel it. All around us was a presence unlike anything I had felt before. I moved ahead, in front of the others. Kira followed close behind. We had one more door left to open. Drawing up to me, Kira hacked it in about three and a half seconds.

  It was the engine room and it was in the same shape as the rest of the vessel. Ruined, there was debris thrown around. Some of it looked like it had aged a millennia. Crucially, we could see the core sitting only just ahead of us. The core itself looked like a metallic sphere hovering just above a rectangular podium. Several metal columns around us were etched with images showing what looked to be human soldiers fighting against hordes of alien monsters. But there were no actual monsters, no alien creatures, no Hollows around.

  The room was silent and still. The air untouched and stale. Not even dust remained. For a moment it was hard to believe that this dungeon had once been a ship. As we approached the core, we saw behind it, hidden in the shadows of the floor something else. A black box, the kind for audio records. Kira picked it up and let it play.

  All I can do now is rest…May God forgive our souls.

  - Adam Asher, Captain

  There may have once been a body but it was gone. No bones, no remnants, nothing but the audio recorder, the artefact that had been left at the end of the dungeon for only those brave enough to dive this deep to find. I turned away from Kira as Captain Asher stopped speaking. There was a low growl at the end of the message. Something unsettling.

  ‘How much time do you think passed?’ Kira asked.

  ‘Since he made that recording?’ asked Gorge, coming into the room. ‘It’s not absolute time, of course, it’s relative. In here it looks like more than a thousand years. The core sat here at the eye of the storm.’

  ‘Have you ever seen anything like this?’ I asked.

  ‘Not in Bane,’ Gorge answered after a pause.

  ‘Another game?’

  Gorge was not meeting my eye. ‘Not a game, it was an experiment, it was virtual reality, yes, but it failed.’

  I didn’t press him. Whatever Gorge was thinking, he wasn’t willing to share out right and I wasn’t going to push his buttons.

  ‘Take it, it’s yours,’ Gorge said pointing towards the core.

  The sphere was small enough it fit into the palm of my hand and as I pulled it down from the air I felt my muscles tense. The core was heavy. Not ridiculously heavy, but much heavier than I had anticipated, ten pounds at least. As soon as I touched it, the metallic core stopped glowing. Cold to the touch. I could feel the heat from my body move over it as I wrapped my fingers around the sphere.

  ‘So that’s it? We’ve won?’ I said, holding the core in my hand.

  ‘Only the beginning,’ answered Kira.

  The metallic sphere began to peel apart, as if centuries of waiting had finally caught up to it. As the metal shell fell to dust I felt something strange against my skin.

  ‘Nel, what is this?’

  ‘That, Sir, is an egg.’

  ‘What the hell do we do with this?’ I looked the egg up and down. It looked like a dinosaur egg, at least the kind I had seen in holos.

  ‘Keep it safe, could be one of a kind,’ said Gorge.

  ‘Once we get back to the surface we can have it analyzed,’ added Kira.

  ‘OK, should be a short trip back to the surface right? Destroying the core turns a dungeon mute.’ I placed the egg in a safe-box and inside my bag.

  Gorge was walking slowly around the room, studying the images on the columns. ‘Maybe, I’m not sure that was really the core,’ he answered.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look here,’ Gorge moved around the base of the pedestal we had taken the metal sphere from and pushed down against the surface. The chamber around us moved, my stomach telling me it was descending.

  ‘We’re inside an elevator shaft?’

  ‘Is that a question?’ Nel responded, scanning the walls around us as the sensation of motion continued.

  If this were an elevator, we were going deep. ‘This starship was nowhere near this big when we entered.’

  Nel turned her life-like eyes to mine. ‘It is fused with the planet’s crust; it can do what it wants.’ Then she swivelled back to the wall.

  ‘Finding anything interesting?’

  ‘The crust is speckled with a metallic coating, nanites,’ Nel answered.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Chaz asked.

  ‘It means we aren’t alone!’ Kira shouted, readying her rifle as the elevator stopped. The walls began to move close in upon us as though alive.

  ‘What the hell is it?’ Chaz was the first to fire, aiming low into the wall.

  ‘What was left of the Autons. Evolved,’ Gorge threw a grenade and the nanites scattered across the floor. Hundreds of tiny hands appeared, as if they were drowning. The hands soon began to take other forms as they gathered together in a puddle. We could see a door leading to another hallway behind them: the nanites were blocking our only escape…the way to the dungeon’s true core. As the nanites melded back together, they began to look like a mechanical Tyrannosaurus Rex made of fused bio-organic hands. The head and body of the assembled creature moved like a current of water across ropes of wire that resembled veins.

  Even as it took form, all of us had opened fire on the robotic monster; I was hoping that if we could do enough damage it would fall apart at the seams before attacking. With hope, I saw the skull fracture and the faux Tyrannosaurus face turned into a giant hand as it tried to reform.

  ‘Run past it!’ I shouted. We barely had seconds to make our way around. Some enemies are too strong to face head on. Sometimes fighting doesn’t even feel like an option. Once we were all in the far room, Gorge slammed his fist down on the ground and a shield appeared up around the door keeping the Auton monster out but also giving it time to fully transform.

  Auton Guardian

  Level 75

  Hostile

  ‘Nel can you scan any weaknesses?’

  ‘None identified,’ Nel replied almost at once.

  ‘Scan it again!’ I shouted.

  ‘High pressure; high electrical charge; high energy output; electromagnetic pulses; nuclear fission; dark matter,’ Nel stopped.

  ‘Blast it with all we have; Gorge, is there a way for you to trap it inside a shield?’

  ‘No, that was the last one I had,’ he answered.

  We were running out of time. The Auton Guardian was beginning to break through as our barrier lost energy. It was also getting stronger, regenerating from the metallic dust that lined the elevator shaft.

  ‘The self-replicating cells of the Autons, they evolved, multiplied,’ Kira said.

  ‘Percent survival is...’ Nel was cut off by Gorge screaming at her to shut up.

  ‘Aren’t Autons supposed to protect humans?’ Chaz shouted.

&nb
sp; ‘They are made to protect the ship and now that we’re threatening the core they have turned on us,’ Kira replied.

  ‘Okay so kill the core: stop the monster,’ I said running down the hallway. Ahead of me was something that probably was the real core. This time, rather than a metal sphere there was a pedestal holding what looked like a piece of blue blown glass with a red centre.

  On the pedestal just below the sphere I saw the face of Skull-Faced Man carved in gold. I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or some trick of the light, maybe even something in the room playing with my mind. Maybe it was the game itself. I raised my rifle.

  Gorge had caught up with me. ‘You destroy the core we won’t be able to sell it.’

  I didn’t care and pulled the trigger, pouring shots into the core… to no effect. My gun stopped firing and I drew Aegis from its sheath. I was seeing red. The image of Skull-Faced Man burned into my mind. I ran as fast as I could towards the core and hit it just as Cass cried out.

  ‘It’s through!’

  I could feel the electricity run across my blade as my health dropped twenty points and for a moment I thought I was going to be forced out of the game. My hands felt on fire.

  + 5000 EXP

  + 10 Adrenaline

  + 10 Critical

  +10 Intimidation

  +10 Peak Performance

  Turning, I saw the nanite creature dissolve, just as it was about to take a bite out of Cass’s left arm. The others looked at me with relief. I placed my sword back into its sheath and picked my rifle back up from the ground. My sword, Aegis, had levelled up. I hadn’t. Destroying the core gave me no bonus. I was supposed to loot it. To reach level 32 I still had to collect close to 20,000 EXP. I could do this. I had to do this. I still had a long journey ahead. For every dungeon there is always a boss. A beast, a being that lives to protect its home, its sanctuary, whether it be good or evil it just is as it always has. The lights in the room turned off as all power died and the dungeon which had just come to life passed away, just another ruin on Rem.

  Aegis - Broadsword

  Cut down by the forces of Lintirmai, the depraved creature known only as the beast’s soul was imprisoned inside a great metal sword made from the hull of an ancient alien starship. Passed from one cursed soul to another Aegis is a living weapon that not only protects its master but eventually devours their very being.