Star Divers- Dungeons of Bane

by Stephen Landry

  ‘What kind of dungeon gets a guardian?’ asked Cass.

  ‘The kind none of us are prepared for; it looks like it’s going to be a raid dungeon, possibly level forty-two or higher, I’m not sure, it is still generating itself, seems the Chel take a special interest in Remnant STL technology.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I wondered aloud.

  ‘OK, so we know starships have cores in their STL drives, but so far no one knows where exactly where the dungeon cores come from. The creatures just seem drawn to certain points on the map, usually ruins or crashed ships, some underground caves, but all dungeons are built around a core. ‘

  I cut in, ‘and if you take the core it turns into neutral territory, just another piece of the landscape.’

  ‘Yes, but I have a theory that the core is actually what remains of an STL drive after its used up. A material fragment of time and space.’

  ‘Guess that’s why they are worth millions on the market,’ added Gorge.

  Kira continued with enthusiasm, ‘a time-light drive gone crazy attracts creatures and mutates them with quantum radiation, they feel territorial and defend the dungeon, protecting the core and other loot the ship might hold.’

  I couldn’t stop thinking about what Lady Gray had told me. One of her tips to levelling up was to loot the core of a dungeon in doing so you capture that dungeon and gain something close to 50,000 XP. That was enough to level me up to 31 and get me halfway to 32. If Kira was right this wasn’t about getting credits anymore. The ship was turning into a dungeon and the core was my chance to level up.

  ‘Okay, what about the robots? Are those with you?’ asked Gorge pointing behind Kira.

  ‘Robots?’ Kira gasped and turning around, threw down a shield. ‘That was my last one,’ she yelled as the rest of us began running back the way we came followed by Nel. ‘The shield should hold them back for about thirty seconds.’

  ‘What are they?’ Cass shouted. I turned back to get a read on them.

  Autons

  Level 20

  Hostile

  ‘Autons, robot workers that are designed to maintain and defend the ship, right now with the quantum drive exploding they must think everything is an enemy, their sensors are probably all over the place,’ I called out.

  ‘Did you guys activate the ship’s security measures?’ Kira asked.

  ‘Maybe,’ I shrugged. I could imagine Kira cursing. ‘It was a good idea at the time, you know, when we were surrounded by the horde of Hollows.’

  The four of us (counting Nel as a team member) had ventured into the heart of a dungeon in the process of being born, completely unprepared for what was happening around us. I noticed several things that didn’t seem right as we walked through what felt like an endless hallway: the creaks and growls as the ship moved and sank and transformed around us. Kira had come in through a hatch on the side of the transporter. She had found us by tracking the camera, which I was thankful I hadn’t shot.

  We hid inside one of the east wings of one of the research stations on the second level, in a room filled with computer terminals that looked like they were part analogue. The room also had several containers that were filled with different coloured liquids. Some kind of genetic testing facility. The hallway was different to how it had looked when we had first come through. The ship was changing all around us, rearranging itself into a maze. In a way it was defending itself: stopping intruders and summoning creatures from the outside world, changing them to defend it to their death. That was why the rats were moving towards the engine room instead of away.

  I took a breath and sat with my back against the wall. We had run far enough to have lost the attention of the Autons who had decided to pursue something else. But we weren’t alone.

  ‘The Autons will probably be wiped out by the creatures before this place settles,’ Kira said, taking a drink of water and handing the bottle over to Cass. Even in game your body still required elements such as food and water to stay healthy. Of course you could also inject yourself with a stimulant or pick up some kind of implant of the market.

  I stared at the camera floating above the room around us. It was taking a wide-angle shot. I wondered how many people were watching us fail. Watching waiting to see our next move or shouting at us to do something interesting.

  ‘How many views do you think we have?’ I asked, staring towards Kira.

  ‘I can’t check statistics from inside the game, maybe a few hundred thousand or so currently, maybe less, I don’t know,’ she answered. Being followed by a camera was nothing new to her.

  I choked for a moment. That was a lot of people watching us sit around. For a second, I felt bad for not being entertaining enough, but pure entertainment wasn’t why they were watching. They were watching to see what came next; our reaction; the game’s reaction to us; they were watching because this was something new, something real. ‘I feel like we’re letting our audience down.’

  ‘We’re already making history; if my theory is right and we prove that the STL drive turns into a dungeon and we can grab the core before the entire place warps around us, we’ll be worth watching,’ Kira smiled at the camera.

  ‘Okay, anyone have a plan?’ Gorge cut in, sharpening his knife on a small silver whetstones, one of the few items he carried on him at all times.

  ‘Both of you are past level sixty why don’t you go first?’ I suggested.

  ‘Level thirty or level sixty doesn’t make much of a difference if we don’t know what we are up against. The two of us may be able to take a lot more damage than the two of you but we will still go down against a horde,’ Gorge replied.

  ‘Speaking of levels,’ I turned to Kira, ‘that quest you assigned me, Whisper in the Void, is locked. I can’t even begin it and I’m honestly not so sure what I should do, I may not be able to continue,’ I said, lying, knowing very well that I was hell-bent on finding a way to solve it.

  ‘There might be a way around that,’ Kira began.

  ‘Don’t even think it; don’t say it,’ Gorge cut her off.

  ‘What is it?’ I demanded, sharpening my tone for a moment, making it obvious to the others I had been lying before about not being able to continue. The sudden shift in my emotions caught Kira off guard and she broke into a smile. I looked up and saw the camera facing down almost right above me. I quickly calmed myself, ‘never mind, it’s okay, I’ll find a way, I’ll pick apart twenty more dungeons if I have to.’

  ‘Quiet,’ said Cass. She had been keeping lookout at the door while the rest of us were resting. An Auton moved across the doorway, unaware of our presence. As it walked past in its bi-pedal form, the Auton looked worse for wear. Autons appeared to be like regular people, only their skin was coated in metal and when damaged their bodies took on the appearance of a walking skeleton. They also had yellow eyes. Most Autons would usually move tethered to a power source while others had a battery life and could move freely on their own. This was one of the latter. Most likely rogue or lost. Was it possible for a robot to get lost? Nel had answered that question for me dozens of times on simpler missions. Kira closed her eyes and held out her hand. I saw the palm of her hand begin to glow with a light blue haze as she whispered into the air, gesturing with her hand and summoned a shotgun.

  Whisper Canon - Silenced Shotgun

  Description: ‘Pew Pew Pew’

  Level: 30

  Damage: 60

  Weight: 7.5 Ibs

  Weapon Type: Silenced Plasma Shotgun

  Rarity: Rare

  Impact: 10

  Range: 7

  Stability: 6

  Reload Speed: 9

  RPM (rounds per minute): 100 bursts

  Affinity: 9

  Sharpness: 8

  Elemental: None

  Critical Chance: 60%

  Modifiers: None

  As a tech-mage Kira had an ability to store weapons inside a pocket universe called the ether (also known as the immer) and summon them at need. She could only carry thr
ee weapons at a time this way but it was pretty damn cool to see it in person. The hand gesture itself was something she had to have mastery of. One wrong move and she easily could have severed a limb, finger, or summoned something else from the white space beyond. It only took several seconds, with the shotgun forming piece by piece in the air as blue energy lit up around her hand. I could feel the heat from the plasma cartridge from several feet away as she turned and lowered herself down towards the ground and fired upwards destroying the Auton’s head with a quick burst.

  ‘Silent and deadly,’ Kira smiled.

  ‘Nice work, now the others are going to be alerted,’ said Cass.

  ‘What? No one heard that shot.’

  ‘Autons are linked, tethered or not, they share a hive-like intelligence,’ answered Cass.

  Gorge grabbed his rocket launcher off the ground, where it had rested alongside the rest of his gear, ‘OK, you heard the girl, time to move out.’ Gorge too could store weapons in the immer however his skill at summoning them wasn’t on par with that of Kira.

  ‘No map and no idea how to get to the core, what do you plan to do?’ asked Kira.

  I answered, ‘we should hack one of the Autons, we face them head on and capture one before its destroyed. Have Nel download its data.’

  ‘That actually sounds like a good plan,’ said Cass.

  Several minutes passed as Gorge set up a tripwire and some mines down both ends of the hallway and we waited for the rest of the Autons to show. Several came, just like Cass predicted. Driven by their shared intelligence they looked down towards their fallen and prepped for battle. They were holding M7-3 energy rifles.

  M7-3

  Description: This weapon is terrifying and praised by many for being a low cost, highly effective energy weapon. The power cells of the M7-3, however, don’t hold a strong charge leading to low stability and impact.

  Level: 0

  Damage: 60

  Weight: 12.5 Ibs

  Weapon Type: Energy Assault Rifle

  Rarity: Common

  Impact: 6

  Range: 7

  Stability: 4

  Reload Speed: 8

  RPM (rounds per minute): 300

  Affinity: 4

  Sharpness: 5

  Elemental: None

  Critical Chance: None

  Modifiers: Optic Sight

  Their weapons weren’t very strong. I knew dozens of players with M7-3s in their inventory. It was an easy weapon for a player to level up with in the early stages. The robots must have raided the ship’s ammo supply before coming after us. They really were adapting to defend the ship. In most cases Autons were unoffensive, keepers of the peace who worked maintenance for ships that didn’t have the minimum crew needed. I knew of several dozen hotshots that flew cruisers completely automated with Autons. They could be programmed for just about anything and were even fodder used in tutorial missions. The training ground had dozens to spare for target practice. Now these ones seemed to be growing stronger, more advanced. Their tactics were changing too. The Autons coming for us were tethered by some kind of chord at the hip. A single leader stood at the back in plated armour. Most likely the same kind of hull plating Gorge was wearing but not nearly as strong. +10 defence at the most.

  As the first Auton approached the tripwire it stepped right over it. The second was not so lucky.

  Luck + 5

  I fired through the smoke, holding down the trigger as I faced the oncoming storm, listening to my M7 - 7 tear through their metal plating until their leader untethered from the others to leap forward towards us. My HP dropped to 98 as my power cell spooled and began to charge back up. I could feel the needle sensation in my wrist as the rifle drained my energy. The leader had an M7 - 3 like the others but refused to fire. Instead the robot opted to come at us with a metal spear that looked like it had been made from parts of the ship. The Autons were developing faster than any of us had thought possible.

  Kira met it head on using her Whisper Canon as a shield. She kicked the Auton backwards and as it fell Cass yelled out, ‘we need it alive.’ Kira grunted and lunged forward, blasting the Auton apart at the knees. The battlefield was her home. Her agility was off the charts as she danced around the Auton, cloaking her movements, appearing and disappearing into the smoke. The Auton’s sensors couldn’t track her and after another three seconds she had its head in hand.

  ‘Nel, can you hack this?’ she was nearly laughing as she threw the head on the ground towards us. I picked up the head as Nel lowered a small cable down towards me. The cable had a magnet that attached to the skull of the Auton and before I knew it she was in.

  ‘Dirty, Dirty, mind, a mess, prime directive, defend, systems down, hull breach in sectors 3, 5, 7, and 9. Stasis chambers offline. Hollows creatures pouring inside. Sadness...

  ‘Three doors down take a right, down the maintenance shaft one hundred yards and through the doorway on the left, three miles down…disconnecting,’ the plug removed itself from the head and the Auton’s yellow, glowing eyes faded away. The hack was successful. More than that though, Nel now knew the whereabouts of all the Autons and could lead us past them.

  ‘Three miles down? Does that mean the transport ship is digging itself into the planet?’ asked Gorge.

  ‘Yes, the ship itself is expanding into a dungeon, organic metal, nanites seeping into the crust below the surface as the STL drive decays,’ said Kira.

  I had a thought. ‘How is the STL decay not hurting us?’

  ‘Honestly I’m not sure. We’re not actually supposed to be here during this kind of event,’ she answered with a shrug, I could tell the question had crossed her mind just as much as it had crossed my own.

  I examined the Auton leader one more time, as well as the others that surrounded us. Dozens of rifles lay across the ground but there was nothing worth taking, even the leader’s spear had no real value. Gorge picked it up and examined it as well.

  ‘They started making tools,’ he said.

  ‘Weapons,’ Kira corrected him.

  Three doors down we took a right and found the maintenance shaft, or rather, an enormous hole in the floor below us about thirty yards wide. The floor looked like it contained a giant sink hole in the middle of the ship. Surrounding us on several sides were open rooms with terminals from which wires were hanging out. Some of the equipment looked like it had been rusting for years, while other machines looked brand new. The STL was warping the world around us, countering itself as it tried to stabilize. Yet nothing in the known world could stabilize it now. The ship had sunk. The core I was searching for was currently an erupting volcano and I would have to wait for it to cool and turn to ‘stone’ even if we managed to make it down there.

  ‘How long does this process take?’ I asked.

  Kira looked over at me. ‘Should be a few hours, that’s my guess.’

  I knew it was all speculation, that she really had no idea, but the world around us looked solid and it felt more fact than fiction to hear her say this.

  ‘Once the dungeon is settled, do you think the Crimson Kings are going to raid it?’ Cass asked.

  ‘Yes, I do, I believe that is their second objective,’ Kira answered.

  I turned away from the hole. ‘So the guardian is just keeping them from entering it while it transforms from starship to dungeon, why?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Kira answered as Gorge and Cass shrugged. Gorge was already putting together the gear for us to go spelunking. The camera was focusing on him as he attached an anchor to the ground and fitted it with a ‘cow’s tail’ and carabiner. He used the twine he carried with a special descender, weaving it into a rope for us.

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t pack a harness, this is the best I got so short notice,’ he said smiling, ‘the twine I carry is actually web from an Arachnid queen I killed back a few years ago. Never throw away anything that seems like it might be useful someday,’ he finished tying off another notch for us to hold onto, throwing the rest of the w
eb down the large hole. I could feel it now.

  The starship around me shifted as it began to warp and twist. There came the sound of the hull creaking and cracking, like it was under water; the pressure in the air was changing. I began to fear we might get booted from the game for being here.

  Gorge jumped first, followed by Cass and myself, with Kira and Nel coming down behind her.

  ‘Took your time getting down here,’ Gorge said as I landed on the ground.

  ‘I jumped right after Cass, what are you talking about?’ I said. But I was already aware that Kira should have landed right behind me yet she hadn’t.

  ‘Shit,’ said Gorge, ‘just sit and wait,’ he pointed towards Cass who was eating a piece of jerky next to a fire that looked like it was ready to burn out.

  Another twenty minutes passed until Kira appeared. I understood now why Gorge had cursed. The worst was happening. The dungeon had a strange effect on us. Kira stared at us and shook her head biting her bottom lip. To her only a few seconds had passed but she picked up on the strange occurrence. She knew just like the rest of us that time was moving different from one part of the dungeon / ship to another. The deeper we dived the worst it would get.

  Again, we had a long wait for Nel to arrive so we could set off. We could still see torn apart fragments of the starship’s hull layered along the cave walls. None of us said it aloud. Maybe we were all too scared. Worried what might happen to us. We continued through the doorway on the left and down a three-mile slope. The STL drive had sunk into the ruins of the planet’s crust and the core was starting to solidify. The Remnant starship was no more…only a blight on the planet surface. A dungeon was born and that meant there would be monsters and of course the worst would be yet to come.

  9.

  Stasis

  Quick Lore

  Bane is full of NPC characters. From merchants and raiders to entire starships full of crew. Some NPC characters align themselves with factions and players while others act as hostiles. Others can be merchants and traders as well as quest givers.