Star Divers- Dungeons of Bane

by Stephen Landry

  It was almost midnight and the only sounds that could be heard were those of taxis in the streets. I had snuck out by crawling through a small vent in the penthouse. I wasn’t sure exactly where it led but I was determined. Hannah had sent me a rough blueprint and I followed it like trying to make my way through some hand-drawn maze. At that moment I really did feel like a rat. King Rat Breq. Maybe if I died I could make that my new player name. No. I wasn’t going to die. A few hours outside and I would be back, way before I had to login again. It’s not like they could force me to play. Worst case scenario, I oversleep and we postpone our plans again.

  The others and myself were starting to get used to distractions. It seemed no matter how many walls we climbed there was another, higher one, right after.

  It took half an hour to make my way to the lower levels and find a balcony with a fire escape. After that it was easy to find my way down to street level and contact Hannah who was coming to pick me up.

  When she arrived, she was more beautiful than I imagined. This was the first time we had met in person and neither her avatar nor her camera feed could do her justice. Hannah pulled up exactly as she said she would, on an old vintage motorcycle. She had her hair pulled up in a double knot. Underneath the padded red zip up jacket she was wearing was a shirt that said GO ECHO! with a cartoon version of the Ibanez and Nel giving a thumbs up. Below that, she was wearing black pants that hugged her hips and a pair of boots that made her stand almost as tall as I was. I was speechless at first. Thinking maybe I should make a joke about her t-shirt but then I already knew she was wearing it to be funny. I smirked as she threw me a red and black helmet and told me to get on.

  The streets lit up around us in a blaze of red, yellow, and green. The sound of the motorcycle echoed through my helmet and I felt the cold wind hug my neck and push back against me as I hugged Hannah around her waist. I wanted the moment to last forever. For the night to never end. As she leaned around a turn, I leaned with her and felt our bodies and the machine move in synch with one another. Without saying a word, the two of us were one-and-the-same until we finally arrive at an all ages club.

  Playing Bane had made the days blend together. Each felt the same. It wasn’t like I took off for the weekends or holidays. In fact holidays were busier in the game because of special timed quests and rewards. Tonight was Friday night. The venue was called Club Kaiju and the inside was just as one would expect. The walls were covered in posters of famous Kaiju and mythological monsters such as Cyclops, Kraken, and even a giant mural of Yamato no Orochi, the eight-headed, eight-tailed dragon, painted with neon colours across the back wall of the dance floor. At the entrance where we checked in and grabbed our wristbands there was a bust of Frankenstein’s monster standing to greet us. Club Kaiju was more than an all ages dance club though, there was a small bowling alley with pins that looked like giant monster teeth and of course laser tag and an arcade.

  Holding hands, the two of us walked inside. Hannah had reached for mine first. I was still nervous. Unlike in Bane I had very little real world experience when it came to socializing or going on dates. Most of my time before my parents died I spent being an introvert, writing and studying. After they were gone, I made a few acquaintances on the streets but couldn’t afford to go out or do anything. When Damien and I became friends, I found my social life increased ten-fold, but almost every conversation I had was related to Bane or some kind of new game tech that was coming out.

  Inside, we made our way to one of the ‘bars’ which served sandwiches, burgers, chips, coffee, energy drinks, and pop. Back behind the bar was a solid metal statue of Cthulhu and several other Old Ones. Hannah ordered something called ‘the Rattler’, which was a mix of herbal tea infused with citrus and some generic energy drink and I treated myself to a blend called ‘Destroyer of Worlds’ and a nice greasy burger. The cups they served our drinks in were shaped like small chalice with claws to grab onto. I must have been starving, the way she laughed as I devoured the whole thing.

  I tried my best not to talk with my mouth full as I told her first hand about all the adventures I had been having in Bane. I told her about my earlier adventures too. The ones with Damien and before…outside the game. As we sat together for an hour I told her about my parents and she told me about hers.

  Hannah’s father was a mechanic and she had been an only child after her mother died when she was young. Her father had helped her build her pod. Turns out her mother had once been a pro gamer back in the early stages of virtual reality. Hannah joked that her death in Bane wasn’t her fault but a curse that had been placed on her family after her mom had kicked some serious ass back in her day.

  Once we ran out of our drinks we made our way to the arcade and underneath a poster of Sasquatch fighting Grendel we played an old arcade game with a fantasy setting. I picked a Paladin and Hannah picked a Mage. The game was so old-school it took us several tries before finally getting the hang of the controls. It was the first time in years I could remember playing something besides Bane. Two other players joined us and we started ripping through the first few levels before losing all three lives we had. The arcade was full of wonders just like that. Games from the past, from an age forgotten. Most all of them were released before we were even born but it felt important to keep their memory alive. They were a part of our history. Maybe that was romanticizing it a bit, but each and every game we played felt like a work of art. Each created by a group of individuals who had to conceptualize, code, paint, play-test, program. Some were made by small teams while others had been created by hundreds, if not thousands, of people working around the clock.

  In one of the fantasy games we played called Stormcaller I picked up a weapon that reminded me of Aegis. A large, thin, slightly curved blade made of ivory and a grip made of gold, dust-covered leather. Sharp on both ends the blade’s twisted cross-guard was smooth and seemed to move as if it was an extension of the character on-screen arm. I imagined that this must be what I looked like when swinging a melee attack with my own sword.

  ‘I bet we could get someone to create a mod for these weapons!’ I joked.

  I was trying to be classy. Maybe a little suave, but most of the night I felt like I was tripping over my words, only for Hannah to come rescue me. Ever since we started talking everything seemed to click into place. I wasn’t the only one that had lost someone, something. I wasn’t the only one trying my best to survive this world. Searching for answers that didn’t really exist. As I looked around Club Kaiju I saw others like me who were walking along the same thin line I was. Some were farther along than others but we were all doing our best to feel alive, to find happiness, to find family. We were living real lives and after Hannah and I both lost all three of our game lives in Stormcaller, we were outside the arcade dancing.

  Electronic music played and Hannah did the shuffle, moving her right foot forward and walking in place with her knees held high. The next moment her left foot was crossing her right and she was turning around all while her arms and hips moved side to side.

  It was almost midnight when the music started to slow down and she placed her arms around my neck. She leaned her head into me and for a moment I heard her whisper something in my ear. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it sounded like…‘please don’t go.’

  ‘Please don’t go where?’ I wanted to ask, but kept the words to myself. I wanted that moment to last. I wanted to feel the warmth of her breath against me as I held her and we swayed to the sound of a ballad from the past. Oldie music. Slow pop from the early twenty-first century that made me feel like we had time travelled into the past. Maybe she didn’t want me to go back home. Maybe she didn’t want to stop dancing. Maybe she didn’t want me to go back into Bane knowing that it was possible I was putting my life on the line. The image of Skull-Faced Man flashed before my eyes and I felt fear. I held Hannah tighter until the music changed again and I watched her shuffle once more with a smile lit across her face. A smile I would never forget for th
e rest of my life.

  Just outside the dance floor I could see several people starting to huddle together. They looked like they were whispering as one of them checked the net and I saw a holo of one of the scenes from Bane play. A moment later an entire wall was lit up with highlights from the last few days of my life in Bane and people were staring.

  ‘You’re Breq!’ someone shouted.

  Another soon followed and a mob was forming. It had taken them so long to realize who I was, I thought maybe I had nothing to worry about. But I was wrong. I grabbed Hannah’s hand and the two of us began to retreat. I felt like we were being chased by a killer mech. That rush I had the first time in the Spire over again. Twenty, maybe thirty people were taking pictures of the two of us now. Even as I blocked my face I knew this incident would be hard if not impossible to hide from the company. We ducked inside the laser tag arena, jumping the gate and flying passed the staff. He shrugged it off and blocked the mob from following behind us.

  Hannah and I sat with our back against a wall under a purple black light laughing and it was in that moment I kissed her.

  A few minutes later the lights in Club Kaiju came on and Reynolds entered, surrounded by dozens of personal bodyguards wearing black suits. He looked at me in a way that was both scolding and proud and told both of us to come along. Escorting us to a limo outside he told us to wave to the crowd surrounding us that had grown to nearly fifty. Both Hannah and I did as he asked, smiling and waving as if we were a part of some kind of parade before Reynolds opened the doors to the limo and the three of us entered inside.

  There was no lecture, no remarks such as ‘don’t do that again’, there was nothing but an awkward silence as Hannah rested her head in my lap, falling asleep as we drove her home.

  ‘Access’

  Checking for necessary update files...

  Initializing...

  Player environment meets necessary requirements.

  Retina scan / Identity confirmed.

  Dive 100%

  Loading player data...

  Name: Breq

  Age: 17

  Level: 33

  Status: Alive

  Mana: 100

  Class: Scout

  Health: 100

  Stamina: 100

  Load out: Naomi - M7-7 Ki Rifle, Aegis (melee) Short grip energy pistol, EMP grenades.

  Update 1.11.9 found. Access granted…

  Location: The Ibanez

  Orbit above the Spire

  ‘Maintenance ship zero-one-nine-zero-one-zero-nine request docking,’ Nel was talking back and forth with a dock closest to the Chel tower. We had forged access codes claiming to be a work ship with a hold full of fork lifts that had just come out of production. Once landed, we would have to pass through a scanner that Nel would hack remotely and we would land. After that it was as easy as walking into the Spire with our disguises on and Shiru and Pierce by our sides. Aiko would accompany me while Nel stayed and guarded the ship with one of the mecha/guardian armours we had picked up courtesy of Lady Gray. Then, once we made it inside the tower, we would have to track down some secret passage no one had discovered before and find or fight our way through a dungeon into the depths of the Spire’s core. From there we would discover the artefact Ra described, the one that allowed a player to hide his or her level from the game and thus access all zones, including the Cold Zone.

  The plan was full of holes but there was no stopping what we had already put into action.

  Half an hour after logging back in, we docked with the station and began making our way through it. The Spire was just as glamorous as it always had been. Large buildings towered around us as the futuristic cityscape covered the horizon with neon lights. Grey and black metal bridges connected one location to another. I felt like an ant. It was like standing in the centre of London or New York Times Square. Hundreds of players and NPCs moved around us as drones monitored the actions of everyone from above. Everyone had somewhere to go or someone to meet.

  Some of the players were dressed causally while others wore power armour and showed off their heavy weapons. Some players around the tower were wearing formal priest outfits and were screaming about the Chel being the saviours of the human species. They were easy to ignore; the poor, who also lined the streets, were not so easy walk past. Dozens of players who had become down at luck and refused to start a new game for one reason or another were begging for credits, to join parties, or searching for adventurers to help them on quests. It was possible some of them were fake but the truth was most weren’t. They were lost and yet desperate to hold on to their characters. Maybe they had a high ticket item that had cost them everything and they were just looking to get a new start without resetting their game.

  One of the beggars stared intensely at Shiru and Pierce, seeming to recognize them from the holo feed in the real world. When he scrambled to attack, Gorge had to knock him away. The attack drew the attention of some of the FTC security guards, but they looked the other way the moment the scavenger backed down. When we finally were clear of the street traffic, I listened to the crowds and skimmed for a moment through some of the headlines via my interface. Besides some headlines about my ‘adventures’ and the usual races and arena events taking place, rumours were spreading of players disappearing and dying in the game.

  ‘It was only a matter of time,’ said Kira catching wind of the headline I was reading.

  ‘The skull-faced man isn’t just laying low in the cold zone anymore, should we even go through with this?’ I asked turning the holo program off.

  ‘We still need to be able to chase after him, if this goes right we won’t have to worry about being bound by any of the game’s rules.’

  ‘This is a big risk.’

  Kira shrugged. ‘Sometimes it takes a leap of faith, a big risk to move forward.’

  ‘I would rather take the fight to him.’

  ‘And die in the process, at least we might be able to uncover something here that will give us the advantage.’

  ‘We are going to have to face this head on eventually.’

  ‘And we will, this is about being several steps ahead. We aren’t going to win by shear luck or numbers. When the truth gets out that we can die in the real world all hell is going to break lose. Right now there is nothing but rumours and a few deaths here and there that look unrelated. People are still playing. What happens when hundreds or thousands of players start to go missing?’

  ‘Chaos, both in Bane and the real world,’ I answered holding still for a moment pulling my hood over my head. Kira and I started running forward to catch up to the others. Our conversation had taken a dark turn. I wanted more than ever to attack Skull-Faced Man when we ran into him but we stood no chance. Even if he showed up now it would be no good. We still had two dives left and a lot of work to do before we could face him.

  Several smaller guardians stood at twelve and fifteen feet tall, staring down from the gates that led inside the Chel tower, their red eyes regarding and analyzing the citizens of Bane that walked around them. I prayed under my breath that our disguises worked as they were supposed to. Landing had gone according to plan and we had tested the technology multiple times onboard the Ibanez. Aiko heeled by my side as we crossed the threshold that led into the tower gardens. From there we took an elevator to one of the sanctuaries in the lower levels. Kira and Gorge believed it was here that we would find the key to going deeper. They had come with some expensive scanning gear, but it turned out that wasn’t needed. Like the good familiar she was, Aiko found the secret entrance for us as though it had been calling out to her.

  A panel on a wall opened to reveal a library full of ancient text: alien text that was discernible on sheets of metal that glowed with a blue light. A part of me wondered if the alien text was just Greek writing, a placeholder set in the game that no one was meant to find, or if there was something more to this place. The Chel had their own real language but it wasn’t fully translated in the real world yet. Designed
by several human scholars and the game’s artificial intelligence itself their language had evolved many times over since the game’s launch each time falling farther and farther away from what we could decipher in real life. Not without our trying.

  Kira filmed everything we saw with a handheld holo recorder attached to the edge of her rifle while another camera floated above us. We weren’t streaming but if anything went wrong the recorders were set to upload everything to the Moonrain Media servers. It was our contingency plan.

  Inside the library we found another hidden passage that led us into the catacombs of the Chel tower. The underground passage was full of fossilized, wild alien fauna that must have once been the inhabitants of this world now long extinct or living, endangered, far outside the city. I couldn’t help but notice a small resemblance that Aiko had to some of the wild creatures. The entire catacomb felt like we were walking further into the Chel’s past. A tower that became a tunnel that ran farther and farther down. As the bones disappeared, more of the wild blue text appeared. This time it was written in the walls glowing with a fungus. Three dead astronauts stood at the end of the tunnel. Hanging by their necks.