Star Divers- Dungeons of Bane

by Stephen Landry

  The next day - Update 1.12.1

  Quick Lore

  Besides tactical combat, Bane is full of other mini-games such as racing, gambling, endurance tests, ‘box’ games, and games of intelligence. Many of these games are organized by players or player organizations and have unofficial rules inspired by games of old. That is to say that many of these rules can be easily broken.

  Location: The Lady of the Lani

  Maitreya - The Southern Reach

  The Lani landed in a hangar just south of the start of where the Silvermanes, Steelstars, and Hooligans were readying their vehicles to race. There were several dozen other factions running about too, including the media associations Fluke Arts, Superdoor Studios and Green Camel Games. Gorge, Kira, and myself were each adorned with black masks and hooded outfits to mask our appearance. We were entering the race under a subsidiary of Moonrain Media called Terminal Velocity. We were sponsored in part by Moonrain Media, Upsilon, and the Silvermanes, from whom Gorge had acquired a third generation fighter for us to use in the race. Grateful for our having saved his character, Yueng was a huge help in leading negotiations with the Silvermanes, convincing them not to turn Kira and I over to the Spire (though Gorge was free to do as he wished), as well as providing us fake identities to use while we were in public. The Silvermanes agreed to help us under the condition that if we won, we were allowed only one thing from Trace’s secret vault and everything else belonged to them. We were also told we could keep the fighter, assuming we weren’t killed during the race.

  Gorge was a great mechanic and with the help of Cass and Chaz stripped the Gen-3 of unnecessary parts. Kira and I flipped a coin to decide who would be putting their life on the line and I lucked out again. Gorge even disassembled Nel’s AI core and installed it into the racer. At least knowing that I wouldn’t be alone made me slightly less nervous. We installed a cage, a small shield from the mech and refurbished the wings with carbon from the hull of the Lani so she would be lighter. Unfortunately, we couldn’t install any weapons but I was able to take my rifle along with me. Since we weren’t going to be breaching into space we uninstalled the ship’s cockpit shielding. I would be flying in open air but the mask I was wearing would make sure I wouldn’t pass out. I’d also have a small life support system in the ship. Each ship was equipped with a tracker that also acted as a detonator that would explode should the ship exceed a thousand feet in altitude, meaning we couldn’t fly up and over. Bringing weapons and killing other opponents was acceptable, but to cheat by flying into space and back down to the surface of the planet below was not.

  From the beaches of the Southern Reach to the Grey Gardens in the North. First place earned the vault key being auctioned off by the Silvermanes along with a hundred thousand credits. Second place would earn fifty thousand credits and third place ten thousand. Any racers to cross the finish line after that were given an achievement point that allowed them to enter another race for free. First time entrants like us had to pay ten thousand credits to compete and complete a practice lap. The practice lap was simple enough. Three laps around in and out of the jungle. All you had to do was survive.

  Laps complete 3/3

  Place: 5 / 12

  Time: 3:47

  Kills: 0

  EXP: 200 XP gained!

  With that done we had only a few hours to prepare.

  The rules of the race were simple.

  A hundred players move from point A to point B.

  No rules.

  TO: Hannah

  FROM: Breq

  SUBJECT: Gen-3

  You wouldn’t believe what I got myself into. I’ve attached some video feed. Never thought I would be a part of a racing team but it actually feels really cool. Terminal Velocity, our Gen-3, isn’t much to look at but it’s fast for what it is, plus it isn’t like we are going to be flying across the sky.

  I’m nervous, I feel like everyone is counting on me to win this but I’m just not sure if I can. I know Damien would tell me to try my best but he’s truly gone now isn’t he? I’m doing all of this for what? Vengeance? To save strangers who I don’t know, half of whom want to turn me into the Spire for a reward. Aiden’s been leading them on one hell of a chase. They’ve already jumped ship twice and trekked across three different worlds. He looks like he’s having the time of his life.

  I just don’t know what to do. It’s not like Damien is going to come back and neither is Kira’s brother. How are we even supposed to know if Skull-Faced Man can kill without one of us dying? Maybe it was some kind of weird mistake and we are chasing a ghost.

  I feel guilty but at the same time I think this is the most fun I’ve had playing Bane since I first began. And outside I still feel like a prisoner. I can’t wait for this to be over. To be able to walk down the street again as myself. To go out without a bodyguard.

  I’m glad we were able to find a backdoor to message one another. I can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to.

  - Breq

  TO: Breq

  FROM: Hannah

  SUBJECT: RE: Race

  This backdoor is incredible. Thank Kira for me. I love the video.

  You ARE a REAL racer. I can’t stay on here for long. I’ve actually just started a new character. Naomi_2.0. Hard to believe it wasn’t taken.

  Believe in yourself. You’ve got this. You’ll win.

  I’ll be watching.

  - Hannah

  17.

  Terminal Velocity

  Location: Starting Line

  Maitreya - The Southern Reach

  A hundred players. Fighters, shuttles, escorts…most all of them stripped of weight, weaponized, painted in various colours and markings. Sponsorships sprayed on the sides. The smell of burning ion engines and thrusters in the air as we all line up in five rows, twenty players each. I was in the middle. We paid a little extra for the bump up but it wasn’t much. Even if I had been at the front I would be shaking. Sweaty palms. I had brought my rifle along with a small bag of supplies in case I should crash. I even brought the egg with me hoping it was maybe my lucky charm. I wanted to piss myself. I could hear the roar of the crowd and I was sweating hard underneath my hood and mask. I was identified as Gen-3, the Vigilante. I was about to fall under a microscope, it wouldn’t be millions of viewers but thousands watching me race. Half were probably watching in the hope of seeing some cool crash.

  We had to wait for a loud crack. A carrier floated in the sky was going to jump with their quantum drive the moment we started. The jump would cause a small burst around us as the air pressure changed. Those with cockpits probably wouldn’t feel a thing while those without protection, like myself, risked falling unconscious.

  Once again I was high on luck. When it happened, I felt my ears burst, while beside me another pilot’s eardrums were bleeding. I was safe for now as the crack ruptured the sky above, turning the daylight to darkness like an eclipse of the sun. There was silence and a moment later I was off, flying at over two hundred miles per hour in six seconds across an open landscape.

  Maitreya, a jungle planet, was covered in dense trees and alien life both large and small. Dozens of red lizards ran across the ground in a stampede below us in the clearing as we approached the opening of the actual jungle. Several of the starships fluttered and slammed on their breaks, unable to make the first opening that led to a small path cut out specifically for the races. Many more racers slammed into the trunks of trees, igniting fires and foliage in waves of orange and green. The opening led way to a path for those brave enough to enter.

  Nel helped guide me as best she could given the circumstances, but when we came to several cutaways in the path, we choose to go left every time. There was no telling when we would hit a dead end and that was exactly the point. Only a few ships flying above, slower than the rest, had the advantage, hovering just above the maze of green.

  One path along led inside a small cave and we were flying straight into a waterfall. I took the risk. Gambling with my life and lu
ck again. The water led back out into the dense jungle where Icopods waited to snatch unsuspecting players who had either slowed down or stopped at the exit. Several more players went down. A few activated their ejection seats, another item Gorge had stripped for weight. All in all, our Gen-3 was one of the lightest in the race. Gorge had done this before, it was probably one of the Silvermane’s favourite past times. They had enough money and material to race in whatever way they wanted. There were twenty-two Silvermanes in this race and they sponsored them along with another ten including myself. It was easy to imagine that they had cut the same deal with them as they had for us. They wanted that key and whatever Trace had in his bunker. The real question was, how did ShadowMask manage to get their hands on it first?

  I didn’t have time to contemplate. The question came and went. I was relying on my instinct. The game. Damien had always said I was a natural fit for the world of Bane and now I was living proof. A living weapon…my first race and I was already in the top ten as we screamed around a rocky curve and passed into another clearing. I could see the others in front of me. There were maybe thirty racers still alive at this point but I wasn’t about to look back and count. That would mean defeat. All of my flight training, honing my skills as a pilot, as a player had led to this moment. I was alone and yet I stood together with my team. The Vigilante was a symbol of what we could do if we put our heads together. I guess the only thing we didn’t think about was a toxic rain storm.

  ‘Poison gas dead ahead, the rain is toxic to organics, you,’ Nel said, along with some other things I couldn’t quite make out. The wind was so loud even with the mask and hood I had on. As we crossed from clear blue sky into black clouds I could see the smoke rise from burning cloth as my hood began to unravel.

  ‘This mask is made from the hull of a broken Titan, wear it with pride,’ Gorge had said, handing the mask to me only that very morning. It had been made from the remains of one of the Titans he had destroyed. A trophy that belonged to the Silvermanes and now it was the only thing between acid rain and my own skin.

  Nel took control of the fighter as we slowed down and I covered the visible parts of my body. I was still wearing my diver gear, so luckily my arms and chest weren’t in any kind of danger. Nel took us higher into the air and flipped the ship upside down. I was thankful Gorge had decided it would at least be a good idea to keep the five point harness plugged inside. The rest of my gear was strapped below one of the console controls, but a part of me still worried I would lose my lucky egg.

  ‘Three minutes and we’ll clear the clouds,’ Nel said.

  I counted the seconds till I had control again. With the blood rushing to my head I began to feel like I was going to faint. Then the life support system kicked on and a needle slipped into the back of my spine. Nel had been a good pilot but could only keep the fighter steady for so long. After all, Nel had been programmed to protect me at all costs and flying into a toxic thunderstorm was the opposite of that programming.

  Three minutes passed and we turned right side up. Nel gave me back the controls and I saw my health had dropped to 55. Why didn’t I feel any pain? Internal injuries. Nel’s maneuver had managed to injure me but far less than landing…or crashing.

  ‘I suggest we give up, we are now twenty positions behind,’ Nel said.

  ‘No way, we have to push through.’

  And we did…right into another cave. This time the cave went down into the planet. I couldn’t decipher whether the tunnels had been made for the course or if they were old mines that had been stripped for resources but it all looked the same. We had no visible light besides the ships in front of us and I copied their movements like a shadow in the night. Occasionally, a bright light would tell me I was heading in the wrong direction or that I needed to turn right instead of left. Again, another light, another race in front of us would appear and lead our way. We followed this course until we were back in fourteenth place and back outside in another clearing.

  Laser fire came up from behind us. A player who had loaded their fighter - a new one - to the max with weapons. They had sacrificed speed for artillery. Not a bad plan but I was still too fast for them. Nel guided me, telling me when to zig and zag, turning a sharp left at one point to escape a missile that had locked onto us. The fighter continued their assault only to crash and burn as they focused too much on their target and not enough on the landscape.

  Giant geysers erupted form the ground hundreds of feet high. I was in twelfth place now. Apparently, the fighter behind me wasn’t the only one not watching the landscape change around us.

  ‘Focus,’ I said it over to myself again and again . As I looked down towards the ground, I saw a small shuttle crashing in front of me. It had been high enough to skip the trees and caves and strong enough to withstand the rain but the pressure built up from the planet itself erupted against their hull, melting it, causing a fracture that took them to the ground.

  ‘Eleventh place,’ I grinned.

  I could see the other ships ahead of me and knew I wasn’t far behind. I continued to push the limits of my Gen-3, shutting down power to my life support system and to some of the minor operating systems to increase thrust. We were overheating as we entered another jungle, slowing down from three hundred to one hundred and fifty miles per hour. Knowing these ships could go far faster than that didn’t help me feel any better as a racer passed me: a shuttle that had been stripped bare besides a thin, almost translucent shielding that had protected it from the rain. I could see the pilot inside, a young woman about my age, wearing pirate gear with a sniper rifle across her back. I realized now I had no choice. I asked Nel to take over the controls and I unlocked Naomi from the sling I had attached on my waist and aimed. I fired at the shuttle, watching as the pilot fell backwards and the ship ran into a tree. The fire ignited behind us as we flew past. I aimed at the next ship in front of us. It was still far away but I had learned to become a damn good shot. I fired and felt my health drop as my rifle stole my own energy from me.

  My rifle levelled up.

  Naomi.

  M7-7 Ki / Energy Rifle

  Description: Robot killer.

  Level: 5

  Damage: 75

  Weight: 5.5 Ibs

  Weapon Type: Scout Rifle / Ki Rifle hybrid

  Rarity: Rare

  Impact: 8

  Range: 9

  Stability: 9

  Reload Speed: 8

  RPM (rounds per minute): 300 bursts

  Affinity: 9

  Sharpness: 8

  Elemental: Unknown

  Critical Chance: 81%

  Modifiers: Bonus EXP gained against Robots,

  Bonus EXP against Hollows

  Nel handed control back to me and began repairing the ship using a self-repair mode Gorge had installed in case of emergencies. Nanites broke loose from the wings of my Gen-3, leaving only crossbars to hold the two thrusters in place, but they repaired one engine and I was back to two hundred miles per hour. The same couldn’t be said for my second thruster. I could feel the fighter pulling to the right as I relaxed and prepared to crash.

  Out of the jungle and over a lake. I sank the right thruster into the water and watched as parts of it tore away but the spray was enough. More than enough to cool it. Three hundred miles an hour.

  A giant sea creature emerges from the depths, tentacles grabbing two of the ships in front of me. I fly through dodging the creature’s tendrils. I can see a large beak appear from the depths of the lake, like some kind of Kraken.

  Three more of these creatures emerge and I find myself rolling through the sky like a leaf on the wind. Fifth place. No sign of the others. I begin to fear I’m lost or maybe I missed a turn but Nel assures me I’m on the right path. We’re more than a third of the way. I look down at the egg and realize its gone. Cracked open. I feel something touching my leg. A small blue creature that looks like a baby fox with small horns across its head is rubbing itself against my leg. I loose focus for a moment befor
e pulling it up into my lap where it tucks itself down below my arm.

  By the time I was about to cross the finish line I was in third place.

  It wasn’t enough.

  I lost.

  Laps complete 1/1

  Place: 3 / 100

  Time: 3:47

  Kills: 2

  EXP: 500 XP gained!

  18.

  Sliver

  Location: Finish Line

  Maitreya - Grey Gardens

  Bane, sure it is immersive. A player can easily sink five thousand hours into it even if parts of it might feel mundane, like clocking in and going to work. Wait times, drinking, eating, taking elevators, flying from one place to another without fast travel, walking from A to B, buying, selling. All the immersive features that feel novel at first…people used to believe it would get old quick while others thought it would be taken for granted. Dozens of games provided similar worlds built on themes of racing, fighting, trading, exploration but none of them combined it the same way.

  The more players immersed themselves, the more they found Bane a second life, an escape, a place to free their mind and for some even develop ideas. People made a business out of playing the game, crypto currencies, economy, a population of players that love and live it even the boring parts. So many worlds, so many ways to escape. Some set up pleasure palaces, some weapons shops, others joined guilds and chased adventure. Some even built manufacturing plants on planets creating an endless stream of goods, so long as they could collect the materials.

  Grey Gardens had once been a pristine shipyard run by players and NPCs but now it was in ruins, a mass of mechanical pieces covered in green vines that rose from the ground. Every so often a tree would be growing where there was once an assembly line. Pieces of leftover materials still lay scattered about in small ponds of toxic water. The entire area was coated in a small metal dust called the grey, from which it earned its name. Someone had built this place up only for it to be torn down and taken back by the fractal pieces that make up the world itself…