Star Divers- Dungeons of Bane

by Stephen Landry

  I continued to read up on the many creatures that had been discovered across the worlds. Each quadrant had its own rich collection, each was filled with both the most beautiful and deadly life-forms. All of them surrounding the Spire, the core world, the first quadrant. The heart of it all. And at the centre, the Chel. The tower from which they bestowed powers to their most valuable players and from which all the energy in the galaxy flowed. A city protected by guardians.

  Our meeting came to an end soon after Lady Gray explained the plan. The Lani was ours. Nel was also going to accompany us, her mech suit packed away in the hangar alongside several fighters. Once the others departed for the Ibanez we would be on our own.

  16.

  Far below

  Quick Lore

  Besides Hacking players use the term Slicer or Slicers to describe players that manipulate technology for their own benefit (or the benefit of sponsors). While everyone can hack or slice the best slicers fall under the class Tech-Mage and fuse powers that are indistinguishable from magic to control and understand various technologies in Bane.

  Location: The Lady of the Lani

  Deep Space

  The World Gate Lux Aeterna

  The engines kicked in as we crossed from the gate closest to Rem and passed through the world gate Lux Aeterna. We were weightless for a moment as reality seemed to shift around us. Passing through the world gates was a fast travel option that allowed us to bypass the need to use our quantum drives. This saved money, fuel and other expenses we would need to make our way into the Spire. Lady Gray had deposited a nice sum of cash, passed down to us from the company (who knew little of her plan). She was the driving force behind our cause. Unfortunately, this also meant her keeping track of Aiden and the others so that we could synch up our game time.

  We had three days to prepare our dive into the Spire’s underground, but first we had to find a way back to the planet. Aiden and the others already set out on their quest for the Soulcursed Silver Edge. They were moving on the far side of the Spire, away from us, and had already run into trouble with a bounty-hunting guild called the Pristine Gunslingers, who were working alongside Avenging Claw. The two groups weren’t really a threat to them and watching the live feed it looked like Aiden, playing me, was having a blast taunting them.

  ‘So this is how everyone else sees us,’ I said, watching the feed beside Kira and Gorge. I couldn’t help but admire the way Aiden and the rest of the team handled the bounty hunters. We had one camera with us now, Kira’s camera that recorded without streaming anywhere. Should anything happen to us the stream would upload to the net and everyone would know what we were planning. We were en route to the planet Maitreya, a jungle world with beaches, Icopods, giant reptiles, bio-tech mutants and several small settlements, home to the infamous MonsterStrong, Steelstars, Trembleriders, Lost Hooligans and a group of raiders Gorge use to be good friends with called the Silvermanes. Gorge was a considered a captain among them as well as an elite member of their own honour guard. He had fought beside them at the Battle of Vel, an enormous battle event that took place both on the ground and in space, in which five guilds battled for control of the planet Vel and the surrounding system.

  Vel was an Earth-sized world but mostly mountains and rock. It had two small oceans on the surface and three more below the surface. Turns out almost all of the rock was salvageable. Mountains made of diamonds. Mountains that could be turned into starships, guns, swords, armour. I wasn’t sure if the Silvermanes were all players or both players and NPCs but that didn’t matter. The Battle of Vel was one of the largest events in the history of Bane with a total of twenty-seven Titans destroyed. Three of them destroyed from the inside by none other than Gorge himself. The entire battle had cost millions of dollars in real world revenue but once the Silvermanes gained control of Vel they were able to quickly re-coop their losses, selling resources and artefacts via the black market and the Spire. Gorge retired shortly after and started the Upsilon shop in the Spire. A part of his reward was a twenty percent discount on Vel materials for his service.

  ‘It’s like a game show, only they don’t realize we’re fighting for our lives,’ Kira said.

  ‘Fighting for their lives as well: if we do discover a weapon that can kill players in real life than there is going to be chaos,’ Gorge added.

  I looked over at him, ‘if there is a weapon do you think we can destroy it?’

  ‘We’ll have to run tests, a full scan of it, find out how the man masked with a skull was able to do what he did and than find a way to patch it, fix the game. If that doesn’t work we’ll tell the truth and shut down Bane’s servers. Millions of players will lose their line of work, their escape from reality, and, like us their livelihood…but death is not a doorway, we can’t allow innocent people to play the game if there is a weapon that can kill them,’ Kira was earnest, studying the video she had shown me days earlier. She zoomed in on Skull-Faced Man. Before our quest even began, she had hired another mercenary group to investigate this strange character but they came up with nothing. Not even the best slicers could figure out Skull-Faced Man’s true identity. With no other choice, Kira brought me into the fold, knowing my connection to Damien and the Corpse Divers. Gorge and Cass joining us was a happy accident. Chaz joining us…just an accident. Not that we didn’t enjoy having him on the team, but when we let him know just how high the stakes were we all thought he would run, back out, never to log in to Bane again. We were lucky to be proven wrong. Chaz had already demonstrated that for a casual player he could hold his own and now that he was a part of our team he wasn’t just playing for fame and glory, he was one of us.

  ‘So why Maitreya?’ I asked Gorge.

  ‘Besides what I told you, we’ll need the help of one of their techs, an old friend, to scramble your, our, player identities to enter the Spire. Without it we’ll be disintegrated the moment we enter the system. Guardians, bounty hunters, raiders, NPCs: all of them want us dead, the rewards have even gone up. Five million each. Enough to live the good life both in-game and the real world,’ he answered with a slight smirk. There was a part of me that wondered if he was having fun with all of this. This cat-and-mouse game against the universe. I felt like we were leading some kind of rag tag group of rebels in a resistance against the tyranny. Like all the epic stories of heroes rising from nothing that I had read as a kid. Now I was one of them. That was the point of Bane to begin with. To forge your own path and be a part of a greater universe. A galaxy of terror that only the strongest and most determined players could traverse.

  Location: The Lady of the Lani

  Maitreya – Upper

  Lower atmosphere

  ‘Coming in hot, might want to buckle up,’ Nel said through a loudspeaker. Nel, of course, was flying the ship at top speed down through the atmosphere of Maitreya.

  ‘Are we crashing?’ asked Chaz worried.

  ‘No, of course not, Nel is an advanced AI whose primary concern is preserving the lives of our avatars. I don’t think Nel would crash the ship,’ I almost stopped mid-sentence as we hit turbulence and the gravity fluttered. I felt like I had three-Gs pressing against me as my insides turned on their side. Chaz was lucky, he had his pain receptors turned down for the moment. Something I knew he was going to change once we reached the surface of the planet…which in this case was about thirty seconds away. We weren’t crashing but we were in for a rough landing as The Lady Luni scared the tops of trees and landed hard against the ground in a clearing just northwest of the coordinates Gorge had given us.

  ‘It seems new information is available. The planet of Maitreya has less than one G of gravity,’ Nel said, apologizing. I guess not even an advanced AI like Nel could have expected that.

  Luckily, we were all alright. We grabbed our weapons, gear and Nel, along with several hover cycles. I decided to take along the grey and red jacket I had been using. It had become a lucky charm since I opened it up. Kira changed from her battle armour into a more casual steal
th outfit that consisted of a ballistic shirt and skirt. She kept her combat boots from before, only I could see she had loaded a small dagger into the side. Chaz and Cass continued to wear their battle armour over their standard environmental suits except Cass had added a brown scarf to her outfit. Chaz also had a double-handed sword that had a secondary function allowing it to activate an energy shield. Gorge had shaved a part of his beard; he looked more orcish than human. Having taken off the arms, his armour covered only his chest.

  The trees of Maitreya were massive. Three times the height of anything on Earth and ten times as dangerous. We were fortunate that Nel had been able to find such an open area to land. In fact, the open area looked like it had been cleared out for that very purpose.

  Gorge pumped one of his shotguns, ‘several different groups roam the jungles, a few of them friendly to the Silvermanes, but since we are aliens here they are likely to try to pick us off. This landing area is probably a hunting ground, a trap.’ He had three times his usual gear. Partly because less gravity meant he could carry more, but also because he was planning to trade some weapons for information. Truth was, he had no idea where to find his ‘friend’ or even if his ‘friend’ was on the planet at this time.

  Having discussed this, we made the gamble to come here anyway. Worst case scenario, it was nice to have a change of scenery compared to the deserts of Rem.

  Three hours later, having dodged pit traps, laser mines, stun gates and wild boar we found ourselves in a ‘tree’ spying on one of the Steelstar camps.

  ‘They have hostages,’ said Chaz pointing towards a cage.

  ‘Looks like a Silvermane soldier; why didn’t he logout?’ I wondered.

  ‘And lose everything? Probably hoping for a rescue party, which means if we wait long enough we should be able to meet up with them as well,’ said Kira.

  ‘Not going to work, Silvermanes are trained so that even if they are captured they will continue to wait days, weeks, even months. Only under the worst circumstances do they sacrifice a character. Sometimes, other gangs will ask for ransom but its more likely they are holding the player hostage in order to take control of this piece of land,’ Gorge told us sombrely, ‘we have no choice, if we want to meet up with the rest of the Silvermanes we have to rescue the caged one and have him call for support.’

  ‘Enemies are surrounding the starship,’ Nel reported.

  ‘We’re three hours away, what can we do?’

  ‘I could call the ship towards us and control it via sky-signal so that it will remain in orbit until we are ready to abandon the planet,’ Nel answered.

  I thought about this. ‘Not a bad idea, but that leaves us one mech down and missing supplies and shelter should everything fall apart.’

  ‘Not a problem. Controlling the ship remotely will be more beneficial to our quest.’

  ‘Why didn’t you suggest that earlier?’

  ‘It was an unnecessary action; controlling the ships system remotely requires half my processing power and means I am unable to use certain abilities such as stealth, remote hack, and augmented weapons.’

  ‘Okay, we’ll watch your back Nel. Take the ship up and we’ll call for it when we need it, maybe we’ll get lucky and they will think we left the planet.’ I was a little frustrated, but it was the best decision. Maybe I should have let Cass or one of the others make the call, but it seemed that alongside Gorge I was leading our little squad.

  ‘Flying the ship, remotely, gives me an idea!’ I exclaimed.

  Everyone looked at me with surprise.

  ‘Nel can you fly the ship over the enemy’s camp, really low?’

  ‘With seventy-five percent chance of success.’

  ‘Great, that’s good enough: bring the ship in as low as possible, focus all shields on the lower decks. When we attack, drop a cargo container from the bottom hull on top of their network antenna so they can’t communicate with any other groups that might be in the area. Chaz, Kira, Cass flank them on the left while Gorge and I hit them from the right side.’

  It took three minutes for the starship to traverse the three hours of terrain we had journeyed on foot. Taking off and frying the scouts, Nel directed the ship to hover right above the prison.

  ‘Cass, take point, stay here and provide sniper cover to both sides,’ I ordered, still wondering how the hell I had started to take charge. Cass, Kira, and Gorge were all still ranked higher than I was but they were letting me run this operation. I guess I was lucky, without having realized it earlier. Since we had been chased by the guardian in the Spire, the three of us had grown to trust and rely on one another. Cass and I had always been a part of the same squad but now things were different. It felt for the first time since starting my character with Damien by my side that I truly was a member of a team.

  The shields of our ship covered the lower hull and our plan went off without a hitch. It was the first real success we had as a team with no losses and no repercussions. Even Nel was impressed. The lighter gravity made our attacks that much more deadly as we jumped across from one tree to another, taking cover on the high branches and picking the raiders off one by one. We gained a little experience from the player kills but not much. Most were low levels. The highest was a level 20 Paladin.

  The prisoner himself a level 15 scout. Too young to have fought in the Battle of Vel, but still he recognized Gorge from footage he had been shown by his superiors.

  ‘It’s an honour to meet you,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks, we have a problem. I need you to contact Trace. I’m calling in a favour,’ Gorge said.

  ‘You can’t be serious? Trace? That’s impossible,’ the scout replied.

  Gorge looked at the soldier, frustrated, and grabbed him by the neck, picking him up and tilting his head sideways said, ‘we just saved your life, your career; now contact Trace or, unlike the Steelstars, we’ll show no mercy,’ there was a slight pause as Gorge put more pressure against the scout’s neck. For the first time since trading with him I remembered just how intimidating Gorge actually was, ‘how is it that impossible?’

  The scout mumbled the words, ‘Trace is dead.’

  Gorge threw the scout to the ground before reaching his hand down and lifting him back to his feet. When he crossed his arms I could see again how strong Gorge actually was. Cybernetic limbs, enhanced strength. He closed his eyes and asked, ‘how did it happen?’

  Trace was a tech-mage. Level 60. One of the best. He could slice into anything. During the Battle of Vel, Trace had been the reason Gorge had managed to sneak inside three Titans and destroy them from the inside without getting caught. Trace was a ghost. No one but the Silvermanes spoke of his legend. And now a Silvermane scout spoke of a man who came down from the heavens in a starship that looked like a rotting hand and had destroyed one of the Silvermane settlements…‘capturing’ all the players inside. The man had a skull for a face.

  After the scout, named Yueng, told the story to us, we all knew what had happened. Skull-Faced Man wasn’t just working inside the Cold Zone anymore. He had attacked a settlement here in our territory…the Silvermanes weren’t captives: they were dead. Gorge uncrossed his arms and smashed his fist against a wall. The wall quivered and cracked, a loud echo of cybernetic steel beating on metal that swallowed us whole. Yueng looked terrified that Gorge was going to kill him but as Gorge turned towards the young player he managed a smile, ‘where is the settlement?’

  ‘Trace was working on developing some new tech just north of here, modding some old starships we found. We were stripping them down for the track but he had other plans for them. It was a pet project of his I guess, I don’t actually know much about it..’

  ‘Can you take us to it?’ Gorge interrupted.

  ‘Yes I can, but you won’t find anything there…Trace’s stuff has already been salvaged. Spare parts for the races; rumour has it if you win you get a key to his vault, recovered by the main sponsors of the race, a group called ShadowMask. The key opens a secret underground bi
o-lab where the settlement was. Least that’s what I heard,’ Yueng responded.

  ‘When are the races?’

  ‘Tomorrow: one race, a sprint from the beaches to grey gardens, an abandoned ship factory.’

  ‘So are we going to steal the vault key?’ I asked.

  ‘No, we are going to win the race,’ Gorge smiled back at me.

  The Real World

  I managed to get a hold of Hannah via a DOS messaging system, practically analog, on one of the old net servers. A private network set up by Alexis, aka Lady Gray, so that I could interact with her and any other members of my team without the company knowing. I told Hannah bits and pieces of what we were planning and that she should ignore the video feed of Aiden and watch the races instead. She had already figured that out in her response to me, saying how Aiden stood a little taller than I did so the camera was always hovering higher above the ground.

  Hannah sent me a real life picture. She looked much like her avatar only her skin seemed to glimmer and she had shorter hair with curls. I sent her a photo of myself in return. I looked identical to my avatar minus some muscle, and in the real world my hair wasn’t quite as nice or shaved on the sides but that was how I chose to play the game. There was no point in being anyone else even if I had the chance to change the things I didn’t like about myself. She admired that and promised that after I made my way back outside the Spire we would meet in the real. That she wasn’t far and that she would be in touch. I was excited about the idea, nervous honestly, I couldn’t wait. Every second I was logged out I was waiting for her messages. Despite everything that had happened, it was starting to feel like there was a silver lining.