Star Divers- Dungeons of Bane

by Stephen Landry

  Affinity = A player’s chance to deal either more or less damage with a melee attack. High affinity can lead to critical hits. High affinity is usually used by tanks and paladins who will use swords and staffs in melee combat.

  Sharpness = A player’s chance to deal either more or less damage with an energy or projectile based attack. High sharpness is absolutely necessary for snipers, scouts, and other player characters that use firearms.

  Elemental Powers = Powers based on Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and Soul. Enchantments that give player characters ‘superpowers’.

  Modifiers = anything that can be used to take advantage or increase skills such as strength, stamina, intelligence, and elemental abilities. Modifiers can also be used on different weapon types to increase the affinity or sharpness of weapon.

  ‘Nel how fast can you get to the frigate?’ I asked, staring at the floating robot that was our only hope of escape.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ Nel said patiently. Of course I didn’t expect the AI to be freaking out like the rest of us.

  ‘Go,’ I commanded and watched as Nel took off through the doorway just as quickly as I gave the order.

  Gorge was suited up. Unlike my armour, which could be broken down and put into a case, his was bulky. It made him look more like a tank though he wasn’t happy about having to wear his gear. Since opening his shop in the Spire after the Battle of Vlel he had been retired.

  ‘It’s not coming for you, what are you doing?’ I asked, trying to clear my thoughts.

  ‘Rumour gets out I let a guardian take down a customer I might get a bad reputation. Anyway, I’ve been playing this game a long time...’ He paused. ‘Guardians show no mercy, they are mindless giants that stomp out everything and everyone they go after. If the guardian really is coming for you I’m expecting half the block to look like it was hit by an orbital strike.’

  ‘That’s not a bad idea? Have you anything in here that can do that?’ Kira asked.

  ‘Sorry hun, nothing that powerful on this planet,’ Gorge replied.

  I looked at him. ‘On this planet?’

  ‘Think this is my only shop?’ Gorge was laughing. I was surprised. I guess it was true, he didn’t really care too much for the Spire or the people here but it was the best place to make money.

  Gorge’s face grew wary and when he spoke again his voice was low and serious, ‘we have about thirty seconds before the guardian lands.’ He moved towards the doorway.

  A moment later, we were stepping outside the entrance of the Upsilon. Several other players and NPCs were standing in the street looking up at the sky above. There was a purple light shining down from the heavens like a line of sight. Three seconds later, a giant mech landed with its fist braking apart the ground.

  I shot first into the smoke that rose to the sky above us. The mech looked more like a shadow in the mist as it turned towards us. Through the haze I saw it take a giant rifle off its back, a rifle the size of my own hover cycle, and fire a blast of energy in our direction. Players on the street began running in every direction as the wave of red hit the Upsilon and tore it apart. Gorge looked back for a moment and fired armour piercing rounds towards the guardian. Not even a scratch.

  ‘That first shot was a warning!’ shouted Gorge.

  ‘A warning to who?’ I shouted back as the smoke faded and the guardian stood about twenty feet high looking down on us.

  ‘Anyone not us!’ shouted Kira firing from her energy pistol. Her other weapon was dangerous. A Ki rifle would draw its power from mana and health: use it enough you could die.

  Guardian Aegialeus

  Level: Unknown

  Hostile

  Nothing we did depleted the mech’s HP at all. The guardian was a weapon of mass destruction. I guess it had to be. It was designed to keep the peace and protect the Spire and, most important of all, it was designed to protect the Chels, regardless of the cost.

  Gorge took out a smaller rifle as he swung the artefact behind his back. I was surprised he was still holding onto it. The second rifle was named White Lilly and it looked like a cross between an M60 and some kind of railgun. White Lilly was actually a gauss rifle. Holding the rifle with both hands as it pushed him backwards, Gorge fired at the guardian. A hit from a gauss rifle would normally be critical against a player but the guardian stood its ground.

  -10 HP

  ‘It did some damage!’ I shouted with delight. For a moment I felt like we had a chance.

  ‘Too bad that was only good for one shot charged like that, cool down is five minutes,’ Gorge shouted back switching rifles again. The three of us started to run and dodge as the guardian powered up another blast from its rifle and fired, this time taking out the merchant next door to Gorge that had been selling cupcakes.

  ‘That was my favourite snack place!’ Gorge cried out firing back at the mad titan with his artefact. There was no effect. The guardian’s health might have been dropping but the change was so negligible it didn’t even register. All we could do for the moment was continue to fire. The only thing we had going for us was that the guardian itself was a bad shot with poor accuracy. A small weakness we could exploit.

  Kira moved her hands in the air, letting her rifle fall to rest down by her side next to her Ki rifle, which hung on a wolf-sling. She was summoning a decoy. A mirror image of her appeared and began running towards the guardian holding a ghostly broadsword. The guardian turned and followed the image as the three of us recharged our weapons and shot at it again. Nothing. The guardian’s armour was made from the same metal as a starship’s hull. It was no wonder we weren’t able to break through. The gauss rifle was good for one shot but we didn’t have the time. The guardian fired for the third time and decimated the street and the decoy along with several bystanders who were caught in the blast. I felt bad. This would be all over the net. ‘Guardian Attacks City: Player Lives Lost: Corpse Diver to Blame’. I could see it now.

  Gorge had a special ability of his own. Several drones appeared from the wreckage of the Upsilon and began flying towards the guardian. Each drone quickly split apart and the pieces attached themselves across the mechanical monster. A moment later, Kira cast a shield around the entire guardian and the drones exploded sending shrapnel flying through the air. A few small pieces managed to break the shield and escape. One, the size of a dime, hit me and I felt my HP drop to 85.

  The guardian on the other hand was also harmed.

  - 5

  - 5

  - 5

  Over and over, about a dozen times.

  ‘Can you do that again?’

  ‘That was the last of my stock,’ shouted Gorge almost cringing. The drones must have been worth a small fortune. Easily 100,000 credits each. If the guardian didn’t kill me Gorge was going to fine me a fortune.

  ‘Can we call for help?’

  ‘I’ve already contacted Moonrain Media and they are thirty minutes out, probably watching us from a safe distance,’ said Kira.

  That was true and I knew it. She had come alone. I was sure her media company would help her if they could, and it was obvious they had kept in constant contact, but facing down a guardian was a suicide mission. Yet somehow Kira had known there was a possibility of this happening. I would have to ask her about it later…if we survived this.

  ‘I reached out to the Silvermanes but no answer,’ said Gorge.

  The Silvermanes were a guild Gorge did regular business with and they had enough members they could afford lose a few in battle, especially if it meant not losing their arms dealer.

  ‘What about an admin?’ I shouted, wondering if maybe this attack was a result of something being wrong with the game. Maybe we could talk our way out.

  ‘Not going to happen,’ said Kira. She motioned with her finger and a hologram appeared in front of her. She flipped it towards me and I saw we were already banned from the Spire. Player bans were rare and didn’t always mean a player would be banned from the actual game…that was near impossible with how the game
itself worked. Banning players from certain areas was easy though…like uploading a wanted poster that made every NPC a hostile. This was bad. Being banned from the Spire meant no contact with the Chels and no way to progress the game. It also meant I would never be able to trade with any of the merchants in the Spire again, including the black market, unless I found a way to disguise my character. That was possible. I used a hack before to break my way into the Alpha Centauri system. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything I could do about the ban for now. We couldn’t face down the guardian, we had no choice but to run.

  I took a deep breath, ‘we have to split up.’ I saw Kira and Gorge nod their heads around the same time as the three of us split off in different directions. Kira ran to the right and Gorge back into an alley parallel to her. I ran to the left. I had a one in three chance I would survive. A one in three chance that the guardian wouldn’t choose me.

  It chose me.

  Luck -10

  I was close to a hover cycle so I jumped on. Firing backwards at the guardian, despite knowing it wouldn’t make much of a difference. I started the cycle and felt its anti-gravity drive begin to spin. The guardian was locking onto me as I powered the thrusters and surged forward. I was a block away from it when the guardian began skating towards me as if the streets were ice. It rammed buildings like they were made of toy bricks, destroying residences and offices alike. It didn’t care for any of the players in its way either. I flew by several who were screaming at me to slow down, only to turn around and see the foot of the iron giant crash down upon them.

  A small sphere floated beside me as I raced towards the Pier. It was just like Kira had said, Moonrain Media were watching, along with a dozen others. Several more drones appeared and I crashed into them knocking several to the ground while several more tried to follow behind me. Everyone would be watching. I would lose my job for sure after this…no more playing, no more game. I might as well give up, I thought, feeling more hopeless than ever. But that wasn’t my style. I never gave up. I became a Corpse Diver because I wanted to explore the deepest dungeons in the game no matter what the cost and that was exactly what Kira had offered me. This was a once in a lifetime.

  This moment…this chase would define everything.

  I could feel all the world’s eyes on me as I crossed the border from the merchant’s district to the financial district and turned the corner again, trying to find my way to the Pier by crossing under a bridge. Behind me, I could feel the ground shake when the guardian ripped it apart. When I hit a straightaway, two airships appeared like daggers from the darkness coming towards me. The guardian was maybe thirty yards behind me and catching up quickly. As it skated, however, it couldn’t fire or charge its rifle…another weakness. For a moment I thought the airships were going to fire upon me. Maybe they were friends of his…but as they fired several ballistic missiles, slowing the guardian to a near stop, I recognized the emblem on the side. A sword and a rifle crossed over a shield that looked like an eighteen-string guitar with teeth. It was the badge of the Ibanez.

  A chat request appeared.

  Incoming message

  I swiped my finger right and listened.

  ‘Breq, you idiot, what kind of trouble did you get into now?’ the voice was that of Cass, who was shouting at me.

  ‘Someone requested a dive,’ I responded turning down another street. I could finally see the Pier. There was a wall between the street and the entrance. The guardian had control over the city, a small but crucial detail I had forgotten. The Pier was on lockdown.

  ‘A job huh, really, must be one hell of a job if you have a guardian chasing you,’ she responded. The airships were flying back around again.

  ‘Take out the gate,’ I shouted.

  The guardian was gaining ground. This time I could see its health had gone down about a quarter of the way. They weren’t immortal and now everyone watching would know it.

  The two airships fired at the gate, blowing it into fragments.

  Cass wasn’t playing around. The missiles they launched could tear apart a starship’s hull, which was the only reason they were working on the guardian. I wanted to scream at her to stop. To tell her that the entire team would get banned.

  I couldn’t slow down. If I stopped the guardian would fire.

  The hover cycle and I moved through the darkness.

  ‘Nel, fire up the frigate,’ I shouted into my comm.

  A voice, Nel’s voice, ‘negative Sir,’ she said.

  ‘Nel, please,’ I shouted.

  ‘Negative Sir, the frigate is impounded; I have acquired other means of transportation,’ a bright light flashed blinding me for a moment. As my vision adjusted I could see the Crimson King’s destroyer hovering about fifty yards ahead with an open hatch. Ten seconds later I was swallowed up inside. The thrusters on my hover cycle were blown out and the Crimson King’s destroyer was flying upwards away from the Spire as the guardian fired one last shot into the air barely missing us. One small camera sphere had made its way inside. I fired at it and watched the small pieces spark and fall apart. At long last I took a deep breath and fell onto the cold steel floor.

  ‘Breq,’ Cass’s voice came through on my comm, ‘boss wants to see you.’

  4.

  Meet the Boss

  Location: The Crimson King’s Destroyer

  Alpha-1 Star System above Apus

  I felt the quantum drive kick in as time distorted around the starship and we entered one of the pathways. We were on our way to another star system. Probably a good idea to get away from the Spire after everything that had happened. The guardians could hypothetically chase us anywhere in the system and it wouldn’t have been long before they came after us in that way. After fifteen minutes, I felt the drive ease off. I was already being greeted like a prisoner by the guards. Among them, several players I had joined the ranks with. Cass was leading them. She looked at me with a sly smirk on her face lecturing me at first…asking what the hell I thought I was doing and how she was scared to death they were going to lose me too. At the same time she was impressed. I had done something no one had attempted before.

  Cass had always seen me as a younger brother. I couldn’t imagine how torn up she was now that Damien was gone. The two of them always had a connection but it was a relationship they were building slowly. I could remember Damien telling me once about his crush on her…how he met her in the real world for some coffee and donuts, even brought her a rose. Turns out she was allergic and the date didn’t quite go as planned but Cass liked Damien too and the two started to see one another more and more during their days off. Both of them were like the older siblings I never had and when the three of us went out together I never felt like the third wheel…it always felt like we were a team.

  Cass wasn’t happy with me now and after they stripped me of my gear, told me in a cold voice to wait for the boss. As her smirk faded and she turned to face away from me, I could see she was holding back tears.

  I didn’t defend my actions. I felt like all of it would be too hard to explain. Too hard too understand. But I wanted to. I wanted her to know that Damien was the reason I had gone off on my own. I wanted to tell her about the woman at the funeral, Kira. I still had the data cube on me when they found me, if she watched it maybe it would give her some comfort. No. I watched it and I only felt worse. I wanted vengeance. The skull-faced man and whatever it was they were chasing in the Cold Zone. Damien had always told me he admired my resolution, my determination to level up, to survive, to be independent.

  Two S-class soldiers, elite, from the boss’s personal guard, stood at the front door of the suite. They had asked me to wait inside. Dressed in red and black armour, they each wore a small cape with a symbol of a wolf. A sect of the Corpse Diver core I had never seen before. Elite players, handpicked from applications submitted to the boss herself. Each elite was at least level 50 or higher.

  I was told not to log out or to leave the Crimson King’s destroyer.


  When you logged out of Bane your avatar would still be wherever it was you were last. Logging out in the middle of a mission was a sure way to get killed, same as logging out inside a dungeon or deep space. Usually players had to pay for a room at an inn or board up on a vessel somewhere. Most of the time I put my avatar inside stasis before logging out, even if it meant taking a few extra minutes to break away from any action around me. I knew if I logged out the two guards would execute me. I would lose my job, my reputation, everything.

  The suite was nice. Before Nel had taken control of the destroyer the suite must have belonged to one of the Crimson King’s generals. The room was filled with dozens of key artefacts some of which were easily recognizable while others were rare and probably worth millions of credits. One in particular caught my eye. Buried behind several artefact rifles that looked like they were historical antiquities there was a broadsword. The sword itself didn’t look too different from other broadswords in game, however on the side of it there were several runes scratched into the metal blade.

  Since I had nothing else to do, my eyes kept coming back to those runes. Should I? After what felt like an hour of waiting, I lifted the glass plate protecting the sword. Expecting some kind of alarm to trigger and knowing that touching it was the same as stealing, I still couldn’t help but want to hold such an incredible object of power in my hand. For all I knew the boss was coming to kill me anyway, so what did I have to lose? I wouldn’t let that happen. Already, I was planning an escape: analyzing the room around me and devising scenarios in my head. At best I was going to be demoted and penalized, at worst I would be back on the streets in real life. If the situation looked like it was going south I would at least be holding a weapon.

  I reached out and grabbed the sword with both hands.

  For a moment I feel like I am stepping outside my body. Transported to some kind of void, I can hear a moan in the darkness that surrounded me. The heat that surrounds me is nearly unbearable, almost as bad as it was when I was trapped inside the Lockhead falling into a star. As my eyes adjust I can see a ghostly figure. An elemental with chains wrapped around its wrists. Its body broad and robust, it almost looks like the sword itself has taken the form of some kind of creature. Four long fingers reach out towards me as the creature stares at me like I am some kind of prey…but it almost seems bored. Two wings extend themselves fully, revealing blackened bone with tiny tears. They stretch upwards. The monster moves through the air towards me as the void fades away and I’m still standing inside the suite with the sword in both hands. The creature disappears, swallowed up by the sword which begins to burn against the skin of my hand.