Star Divers- Dungeons of Bane

by Stephen Landry

  There was nothing there.

  10.

  Crucible

  Quick Lore

  Bane is full of hidden locations and secrets. After development ceased, the AI continued to generate new content inside the game. To date it is believed that only twenty percent of Bane’s secrets have been discovered.

  Nine hours in. My physical body can only stay inside my pod a few more hours before I will get sick. We’d managed to make it halfway through the new dungeon. We opened the sealed door to a stasis chamber we believed would reveal a Chel and found nothing. Not even a dead husk. The chamber was filled with the same liquid protein that was prevalent in regular stasis chambers. The Chel’s pod was large but the liquid only ran half way to the top. We speculated that maybe Michel or Adrian had destroyed the creature in order to ensure it couldn’t ever wake up, but small cracks in the top of the structure made us believe there was something more going on.

  ‘You remember that hybrid we killed earlier?’ said Cass.

  ‘The reptile thing that had Chel, Dargon, and human DNA?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I think it’s possible the Chel woke up when the ship crashed and it started banging against the glass, drowning,’ she paused, pointing out that the glass looked like it had been smashed from the inside out.

  ‘As the ship sank and began turning into a dungeon the Chel got caught in the transformation and its DNA was spread to various degrees over the entire ship. The creature we encountered had very little Chel DNA, it was mostly a hybrid of Dargon and human, most likely some kind of lab experiment gone wrong,’ Cass paused and pointed towards Nel, ‘robot! I order you to analyze the materials used in the walls of the dungeon,’ she put down her finger and smiled…

  ‘I am an artificial companion, not a robot, you do not command me,’ Nel sounded very disapproving of Cass’s tone. Cass, however, was a Corpse Diver and in fact Nel had to take orders from her, just as if they had come from me or Lady Gray. The only people who couldn’t command Nel were Gorge and Kira.

  ‘Scanning now,’ Nel turned towards the wall. I watched as a blue laser shot out from one of Nel’s round eyes and moved up and down across the wall. The results were sent to my heads-up display.

  Carbon nanotubes

  Lithium

  Titanium Alloy

  Ceramic composites

  Steel

  Bio-organic compounds (including two unknown samples)

  ‘Nel can you identify the bio-organic compounds?’ I asked.

  ‘Can you say please?’ Nel responded, before answering: ‘Chel, human, Dargon, various insects, rats, moths, and mole DNA signatures found as well as several dozen plant species,’ Nel sent me the list. It was half a dozen pages long but proved Cass’s theory right.

  Many starships were made of the non-organic materials in this list. Carbon nanotubes were stronger than most metals and could be spun together to create the outside of the ship’s hull, with titanium alloy and ceramic composites making up the inner shell, reinforced with steel hallways and rooms. Cover all that with an artificial biomass that acted like skin for a ship and you could sail through space against radiation and asteroids all day long. When this ship turned into a dungeon and the core broke down, the biomass fused with the humans aboard as well as the plants and animals that were living in the gardens. The Dargon was probably a prisoner of some kind or lab experiment. The Chel, the other prisoner, had tried to break free only to find its body evaporating before it could escape.

  ‘Can you tell how much of the ship is made of Chel DNA? Is there a concentration of it anywhere?’ I asked.

  ‘No; request unable to be completed. The Chel DNA is scattered everywhere, no concentration detected.’ Nel paused, ‘I would, however, like to inform you that I have detected an echo in the area,’

  ‘An echo? How is that possible?’ It almost seemed like Cass’s elven ears perked up with excitement. I knew what she was thinking, that there was no way any other players could be alive down here. But there was. Recon. The first team sent inside the starship had never left. It was plausible that they had made it farther down than us…maybe even to the core itself. If Nel was only now detecting an echo that meant that something had killed at least one of them and a new artefact had appeared.

  ‘It must be the recon team,’ said Gorge, echoing my thoughts.

  ‘How did you know about that?’ asked Cass.

  ‘I have ears everywhere. But in this case, everything is being broadcast over the net,’ Gorge answered with a chuckle. Of course. We still had a camera hovering around us, recording and broadcasting everything we did. Right now there were probably hundreds of players searching for a way to dive into this dungeon, hoping they could follow our path to the core should we fail.

  ‘So the dungeon is part Chel?’ I asked.

  Nel gave a human-like nod, ‘yes, that would be the simple answer.’

  ‘Can you lead us to the echo?’ I asked, instead of ordering.

  ‘It would be my pleasure Breq; thank you for treating me like the companion I am.’ Nel set off to towards a wall in the Chel chamber, which she scanned: a door materialized in front of us.

  ‘Hidden by a hologram, neat trick,’ said Kira.

  Again, Gorge led the way, followed by Cass, myself, Kira, Nel and the camera drone. The next room was larger than the one we had sealed ourselves shut inside, larger than the Chel’s stasis chamber and probably the largest part of the ship we had seen so far. It looked like it had been some kind of garden at some point, but the plants were gone and nothing but soil and broken stems remained. I could still smell the dirt in the humid air as we walked further into the garden. I could see small creatures hiding in the corners of the room but there was no indication that any of them were dangerous. There were Voths flying around as well but not in swarms like earlier. I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the Thorn we encountered earlier.

  Gorge walked through the garden to the next door. Behind me, Nel lit up the area, casting our huge shadows on the far walls. When the rest of us followed, we saw two figures standing nearby. Gorge was standing with his arms up in the air with a rifle pointed towards his head. The echo was coming from a dead soldier in the room. Three Hollows stood in the shadows with their eyes facing the walls. They weren’t the predatory kind we encountered earlier. These were more typical Hollows. Ghosts that guarded the echoes of the deceased. They were neutralized at the moment.

  ‘Name and association,’ one of the figures, a man, said. The second figure was a tall, beautiful woman with brunette hair. She looked like she was around my age, maybe a year older. She was dual wielding a set of rifles aimed at the rest of us.

  ‘Gorge, space trader, tank, level sixty. Now put down the toy gun before someone gets hurt,’ he said smirking.

  The man didn’t do as our veteran said and instead demanded, ‘who sent you?’

  In one fluid movement Gorge turned to his right and wrapped his wrist around the rifle and quickly disarmed the soldier. ‘Put your toys down girl,’ Gorge demanded.

  The girl was shaking. She looked nervous. I doubt she had ever met anyone level sixty before. After about ten seconds of staring down Gorge who was now holding a knife to her friend’s chest she lowered her rifles.

  ‘Now that’s settled, how about we talk. You guys are the recon team right?’ Gorge let go of the soldier and handing him back his rifle.

  ‘Yes sir; what is left of the recon team,’ the soldier stood up.

  ‘How many of you were there?’ Cass asked.

  ‘Five total: two were killed by Hollows and Riley, our third died just recently after the ship started to sink and we found ourselves stuck down here.’

  ‘Names?’ Kira asked.

  ‘Chaz, Scout class, Level fifteen,’ he responded.

  ‘Naomi, Scout class, Level twenty,’ the girl said.

  ‘So Naomi, are you the one in charge?’ Cass asked.

  Naomi looked at the rest of us. The recon team were scavengers hired
out by Lady Gray to investigate the ship just after it crashed. They were supposed to keep an eye on things until we were able to arrive and salvage. The scouts were also prospects of hers for joining our little guild. At this point I wasn’t sure whether they would pass with flying colours for having survived this long, or would fail miserably for having failed in preventing the ship from sinking and transforming into a dungeon.

  ‘I was in charge,’ Naomi replied.

  Cass ran a hand through her red spikes, looking sombre. ‘I’m sorry for your losses; why didn’t you call for aid?’

  ‘No signal, we haven’t been able to get a connection to the outside since the ship started sinking into the sands,’ she replied.

  ‘Tell us exactly what happened,’ Kira demanded in a soft tone.

  ‘We had been running in darkness for a what felt like forever, maybe not forever but it was a long time. Something or someone was chasing us but we couldn’t get a read on it, occasionally the lights flickered on and we could see the shadow of something that looked like it had no real shape or form. It was like a tentacle, decaying everything it touched. I remember turning back and aiming my rifle at it. Nothing, no damage at all. It was like the ship had come to life and was trying to catch us with its tongue.’

  ‘Naomi, do you know what happened to the ship?’ I asked.

  ‘It sunk into the sands of Rem?’ she said, hesitating.

  ‘It’s turned into a dungeon, a Chel dungeon to be exact, got a guardian on the outside protecting it while it transitions and everything,’ Gorge explained patiently.

  Naomi looked confused, ‘a dungeon? Is that even possible?’

  Cass was the one who responded first. ‘Doesn’t matter. It has happened; they were holding a Chel prisoner and after the ship started transforming, Chel DNA got scattered, becoming a part of the dungeon itself. We’re trying to track down the core now, maybe we can neutralize this place and get some nice loot out of this whole thing,’ Cass said.

  ‘More than loot, I’m here to level up,’ I said.

  ‘We’ll have to raid a lot more dungeons for that, but yeah, that’s another reason we are here,’ said Kira. Naomi looked at Kira and I could see the realization hit the recon scout that here too was a seriously high level player.

  ‘I had no idea,’ she said.

  ‘How did you escape? How did you neutralize the Hollows?’ I asked.

  ‘We kept running until the three of us made it past the garden. Eventually, whatever it was stopped coming after us. I had some home-made cryo-bombs and used them on the Hollows, that put them out for a few hours at a time. I’m also using a Biotek rifle, I can load it with special ammo that will boost my party’s defence. If I’m able to upgrade it I can boost their attack as well.’

  ‘Wow, that’s impressive, must have a pretty good crafting skill to make bombs like that. Why didn’t you kill them?’ Gorge asked.

  ‘There is something else down here, it escaped into the vents, thought maybe if we kept the Hollows around we would be safe for a little while,’ she answered.

  ‘Any idea what it was?’ I asked.

  ‘No idea, just that it was level thirty and hostile,’ she answered.

  ‘Maybe a Wraith?’ said Kira.

  Gorge shook his head. ‘Doubtful, not this low, probably some kind of Rem fauna that got mixed up in the environmental shift.’

  ‘You guys can theorize all day but right now those Hollows are going to wake up. Since two of you are high level players, we should be able to make our way back to the surface,’ Chaz said.

  ‘Can’t do that, gotta complete this quest,’ I answered at once.

  ‘What, are you their leader?’ Chaz asked.

  The others looked at me, all of them, Gorge, Kira, Cass, all smiling and nodding their heads in approval.

  ‘Yes I am and we’re going deeper.’

  ‘You’re all insane,’ Chaz said.

  ‘I’m in,’ said Naomi.

  ‘Thank you, welcome to the Corpse Divers,’ I said shaking her hand and adding her to our party.

  Name: Naomi

  Age: 17

  Level: 20

  Status: Alive

  Mana: 100

  Class: Tech-Mage

  Health: 100

  Stamina: 100

  Load out: Biotek Rifle, Energy Pistol, Charge Blade

  ‘I thought you said you were a scout?’ I said reading her class: ‘Tech-mage’.

  ‘I lied, at that moment, I thought it was better that you didn’t know. A lot of pressure comes with being a tech-mage and I’m still developing my skills,’ she answered.

  ‘That’s AWESOME!’ shouted Kira, ‘I’m a tech-mage too!’

  Naomi stood staring at Kira for a moment. ‘Please, I’m sorry, I’m really not very good, I don’t know why I even chose the class, I can’t properly use any of the skills; I just have always liked the idea of magic and using elemental powers, but I can’t even cast a shield,’ Naomi was about to go on but Kira silenced her and created a ball of blue energy in the air. She slung it at the three Hollows who were turning towards us. The ball of energy dissolved them to ashes. The room was silent. Kira’s eyes looked like they were glowing from within a halo of golden hair.

  ‘You weren’t kidding about the high level enemy, I can feel its presence. And it’s not level thirty anymore…it’s growing stronger.’ Kira looked around the room.

  Naomi stared at Kira in disbelief. I could tell she had never seen anything like that. ‘Please make me your apprentice!’ she sounded excited.

  ‘Wait? What?’ Kira turned around staring at Naomi.

  ‘You have to train me, if I could be half as good as you…’

  ‘I’m not really looking to take on an apprentice right now.’

  ‘Hey Kira, remember everything you do is being broadcast live right now, to the world,’ I reminded her.

  ‘Maybe,’ Kira said, ‘first, tell me, we detected an echo in this room, was it your fallen comrade?’

  ‘Yes, we haven’t picked up the artefact yet. It didn’t seem right.’

  ‘You know echoes attract monsters right? More Hollows and whatever that thing is that has been watching you. They will all come back,’ Kira replied.

  ‘I didn’t know that, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK, don’t worry about it; if not for the echo we probably wouldn’t have found you guys anyway,’ Kira smiled and gave a thumbs up towards the rest of us and then the camera. She was trying not to appear too arrogant to help a lower level player. Unlike the rest of us, she had a reputation. That was the price of being the head of Moonrain Media.

  A moment later Chaz joined our party as well.

  Name: Chaz

  Age: 16

  Level: 15

  Status: Alive

  Mana: 100

  Class: Scout

  Health: 100

  Stamina: 100

  Load out: M7-7 Standard Scout Rifle, Energy Pistol

  We now had five members in our makeshift squad.

  Gorge and I moved towards the artefact unsure of what we would find. Inside the dead soldier’s corpse we found a small tome hidden in the coat of his jacket pocket.

  The tome was inscribed in a code.

  ‘Think you can decipher it?’ I asked.

  ‘No, unfortunately this isn’t my area of expertise, tomes can unlock all kinds of different things, even level players up automatically,’ he said, handing it over to me. The tome looked like a square piece of rock. For some reason it made me think of a key but that was probably reaching. I set it aside and stuffed it into my satchel with the other gear I had.

  ‘We need to keep moving ahead,’ I said.

  Kira shook her head, blonde hair swinging to emphasize the movement. ‘No Breq, we need to stop, your body can’t take anymore of this.’

  ‘How do you know?’ I was being stubborn. I didn’t care that I was going to get sick, I couldn’t just logout in the middle of a dungeon.

  ‘We can double back to th
e Chel stasis room and Nel can weld the doors shut, from there you can logout and get some rest, the rest of us will follow, I’ll have people watching us with the camera to make sure nothing happens and we can log back in quickly if something comes up.’

  ‘Fine, you win, I’ll logout,’ I was reluctant but I knew arguing with Kira was not going to get me anywhere.

  I followed the others back to the Chel stasis room back through the garden. We weren’t alone this time. I could feel the presence of something.

  ‘I am detecting a large life form underneath the floor,’ said Nel.

  As one, we raised our rifles. Chaz was the only one shaking. He was new to all of this. A casual player who never expected to get caught up in something like this.

  ‘See something, say something,’ I called out. The floor began to rumble but after a few seconds it stopped. Gorge rested his gun down by his side and placed his ear to the ground.

  Vrax

  Level 30

  Hostile

  I saw the enemy display on my heads up, but I couldn’t see the enemy until it was right beneath us. The Vrax was a type of Aberration. An underground animal that lived in the sands of Rem. Usually, they were docile creatures but we were deep inside this one’s territory and I could only imagine how the quantum radiation had mutated it.

  Gorge fired at the ground and soon the Vrax emerged. It was seven feet tall and fifteen feet long. It looked like a mole, only its tail was longer and its body was covered in sharp black spikes that were poisonous. It also had tusks and teeth like a boar, with a jaw that unhinged and opened outward towards us as we dodged its first attack.

  Pro Tip

  When fighting monsters try to break them apart. All creatures have a weak spot EVEN guardians. Most creatures are able to take 1 - 2 forms, however, creatures inside dungeons can have 2 - 5 forms. Each form requires a different approach. Fighting against high level opponents is a test of endurance not speed.

  ‘Fire!’ I shouted.