Star Divers- Dungeons of Bane

by Stephen Landry

  It was an Easter egg set to another world. Another time and place. The three dead astronauts were wearing the uniforms worn by the original humans who had came through the world gate. Gorge theorized that they were the ones that entered the first dungeon and made the Spire accessible.

  ‘This feels like endgame content,’ said Kira.

  ‘More like something that was cut from the game,’ added Gorge.

  ‘It’s scary as hell, I don’t like this. It doesn’t feel like Bane,’ said Chaz. He was wrong though. Horror was and always had been a huge part of the game, but then again he had only seen a few Hollows and monsters in his time. The rest of us had seen the terrible forms found in the void. The eyes that stare back from the abyss. And just like that, we found ourselves being watched. Hollows. Hundreds. Shadows that stood tall, their eyes staring towards the walls. The entire room opened up as if it was the inside of some kind of hive. The walls were even etched in a honeycomb design as if dozens of giant shields had been welded together. As the scenery changed I began to wonder if we had gone from walking through the bottom level of the Spire to the inside of some kind of ancient starship.

  We moved closer to a giant door that looked like it would hold the answers. Maybe it was the key. The artefact we were looking for now felt so close. All that stood between us and the door were a few hundred Hollows. We moved as silently as we could, until we were just ten yards from the door. One of us had tripped an alarm. Aiko began to growl as several dozens of the Hollows turned towards us.

  That was the moment I lost it.

  I ran forward towards the door as if pulled by a force of gravity. Adrenaline. I heard the sound of rifles going off from behind me as I pushed myself forward. I could hear Aiko growling and biting.

  Gorge, Kira, Cass, Chaz, Pierce, Shiru all disappeared from my sight.

  Location: The Immer

  The First Dungeon

  A creature rushes forward, its two legs gracelessly carrying its wicked body with a sedated energy. A skeletal tail writhes behind it; coarse hairs cover its body in patches. Five cruel eyes stare at me with a burning rage and a loud blare reverberates from the creature’s cramped mouth as if a warning or challenge to me. I’m not inside the Chel tower anymore. I’m not sure where I am. There is nothing but my body, my weapons, the creature and time. A vortex of light surrounding us. I feel it move closer towards me. It knows what I am. It is a challenge.

  The next moment I feel I am falling. I can see seven worlds. Seven planets aligned in a sigil. Each planet revolving around a single blue-and-yellow star, pulling on one another as they continue to keep their shape. A starship flies past me. I’m in space, in the void. No, I am running inside of the starship. I’m on the back of a mech that is running through walls. Running away from something. Something horrible. My rifle is in my hand. The creature with five eyes is chasing after me.

  As I turn to fire, using my life as an energy source, I woke up back in the real world. The game kicked me. My heart was beating out of my chest as I struggled to catch my breath. I was having some kind of panic attack. Disoriented. My nose was bleeding, my clothes were covered in blood, and I felt like I had just been slammed hard on the ground. Did I die? Did I lose everything? I tried to stand but I was too weak to lift myself up. I tried to scream. I tried to search around the room for Reynolds or any of the doctors and nurses who had been monitoring me. I was alone. Bleeding, broken, and sitting paralyzed in my own piss.

  I moved my lips again and again until finally words.…‘Access’

  Initializing...

  Player environment meets necessary requirements.

  Retina scan / Identity confirmed.

  Dive 100%

  Loading player data...

  Name: Breq

  Age: 17

  Level: 51

  Status: Alive

  Mana: 100

  Class: Scout

  Health: 100

  Stamina: 100

  Load out: Naomi - M7-7 Ki Rifle, Aegis (melee)

  Short grip energy pistol, EMP grenades.

  Update 1.12.01 found. Access granted…

  24.

  Focus

  Location: Basement of the Chel Tower

  The Spire

  HACK

  100%

  Adrenaline 45

  Affinity (weapons) 15

  Agitation 15

  Animal / Aquatic Expert 35

  Artillery15

  Attack Boost (Damage) 5 (+5 Bonus)

  Blast Attack Boost 5

  Blast Resistance 35

  Bleeding Resistance 45

  Botany5

  Bow Expert 5

  Capacity Boost 5

  Capture / Tame 15 (+ 50 Familiar Bonus) = 65

  Carving10

  Charisma 25 (+10 Bonus)

  Constitution 5

  Critical Boost 50

  Critical Affinity 50 (+10 Bonus)

  Defence5

  Detection (stealth) 30 (+10 Bonus)

  Divinity / Fame 5

  Evasion5

  Explosives 15

  Fire Attack 5

  Fire Resistance 5

  Focus 40

  Fortification 5

  Gambler 5

  Guard 5

  Hacking25

  Handicraft (crafting) 5

  Heat Resistance15

  Health Boost 15

  Hunting (survival) 5

  Hunger (cooking)5

  Ice Attack 5

  Ice Resistance 15

  Intimidation 5

  Iron Body 5

  Latent Power 5

  Luck 25

  Medical Specialist 15

  Mind’s Eye 5 (+10 Piloting Bonus)

  Navigator 5

  Nullification 5

  Paralysis Attack 5

  Paralysis Resistance 5

  Peak Performance 5

  Piercing (Damage Boost)5

  Pilot 5 (+20)

  Poison Attack 5

  Poison Resistance 5

  Poison Duration5

  Psionic5

  Recovery 5

  Stamina30

  Sheath Speed (reflexes) 5

  Strength 10

  Stun Attack 5

  Stun Duration 5

  Stun Resistance5

  Survival15

  Tool Specialist 5

  Training5

  AKA Naomi.

  M7-7 Ki / Energy Rifle

  Description: Boss Slayer

  Level: 33

  Damage: 275

  Weight: 5.5 Ibs

  Weapon Type: Scout Rifle / Ki Rifle hybrid

  Rarity: Ultra-Rare

  Impact: 10

  Range: 9

  Stability: 9.5

  Reload Speed: 10

  RPM (rounds per minute): 300 bursts

  Affinity: 10

  Sharpness: 8.5

  Elemental: Shadow

  Critical Chance: 91%

  Modifiers: Bonus EXP gained against Robots,

  Bonus EXP against Hollows, Bonus EXP against Bosses

  — Quest —

  A Whisper in the Void

  Created by: Moonrain Media / Kira

  Expected Difficulty: Veteran

  Rewards: Unknown

  Details:

  1. Find a way inside the Cold Zone (acquired)

  2. Recover the echoes of the lost (0/3)

  3. Kill the man with the skull mask.

  Level Requirement: 50 (UNLOCKED)

  My hand had touched the door for just a moment. After that, I woke up in the real world. I could remember bleeding. I remember being alone there. I remember the smell of my own piss as I tried to move, to lift myself up and pry myself from my pod even if it meant I would land flat on the ground. I remember being paralyzed and finally mouthing the words that logged me back into the game. And for seven hours I have no other memories of where I was or what had happened. I disappeared behind the veil. Gorge and Kira had tried to open the door from the outside but there was nothing they could do. Th
e door was a solid object that reacted only once and to me. When I reappeared I was level 51. Almost all of my new points had been put into defence and resistance. I felt like my avatar had gone through hell but at the same time I felt stronger, faster. I felt the affinity I had with my weapon rise and when I looked at Aiko I felt our bond had grown by a factor of ten.

  ‘It worked!’ shouted Gorge.

  ‘Worked? What worked?’ I shouted back, still disoriented and unclear at what was happening to me.

  ‘You’ve passed level fifty; the time dilation; the military application buried in Bane,’ he said. That was right. Bane was based on code engineered to experiment in time dilation for military training. Somehow, I had cracked that code. It was an event much like the one that had happened to us on Rem but on a much, much larger scale. I looked back at the door. It appeared as a normal door now. I didn’t feel drawn towards it or anything. Rather, I felt relief as I started to move away from it, like something horrible had happened to me there. I could smell the dust and decay of the tomb around us in the air. The Hollows were the echoes of the dead who had failed. Failed to come back. Several were starting to gather and move towards us. The others had done a great job defending the door in my absence but it was my turn now. I powered on my rifle and fired. The damage Naomi did was almost three times what it would have been seven hours earlier. I felt like no time at all had gone by…like the game had only just kicked me out and I had immediately logged back in, but as the smoke cleared Gorge quickly filled me in.

  ‘You were gone for seven hours here but behind the door you must have been trying to survive for months on your own,’ Gorge was smiling.

  ‘Most likely around seven months,’ Kira interjected.

  ‘When you passed through the door a neural interface in your pod must have activated, blocked your brain from retaining any memories of what was happening inside, but from how you spent your points it’s obvious you were doing everything you could do defend yourself. Can you remember anything from the other side?’ Gorge was looking me up and down, studying my body and armour. My armour was darker, dustier, and had several dozen scratches across the front and side which came from a giant creature.

  ‘I remember waking up in the real world and being alone, my nose bleeding,’ I said.

  ‘It could have been some kind of glitch?’ said Kira.

  ‘Maybe a hallucination?’ added Chaz.

  ‘Most likely a failsafe measure when you found your way out,’ Gorge said.

  I believed him. It felt right. The way my body felt. The way I had spent my experience points, all of it. Aiko came up to me and rubbed her head on my leg. ‘I missed you,’ I said, without realizing just why. On the other side of the door I knew I had been alone: trying to survive. Just as lost and confused as when I woke up. I survived. I lived. Mission complete.

  ‘Let’s get out here,’ Chaz yelled.

  ‘We still have to find a way into the Cold Zone,’ Cass pointed out.

  Somehow I knew. I knew the answer. ‘At Eternity, the world gate, that’s the answer, we just have to activate it,’ I said. How I knew this and why I was certain of this was a mystery to me. Lost in the memories I had erased of my seven-month venture. Memories that couldn’t exist in the real world. Only it seemed that I retained small pieces of information from that experience.

  ‘Good enough for me,’ said Gorge.

  ‘And now we have our advantage,’ Kira smiled. The others agreed and we began to move out. Passing back through the shadows of the tomb that was entrance to the first dungeon and back through the catacombs and into the library. When we reached the panel that had led us to the secret entrance, we found it closed. It didn’t take Gorge much effort to punch his way through, albeit at the risk of shattering his cybernetic hand in the process. As the wall tore away he smiled and said that he had always wanted to do that. Outside, in the basement of the tower, we were welcomed back by several FTC troops that were waiting for us.

  I felt my focus grow. My latent power +10. Time seemed to slow down for a moment as I looked at the world as though through a blue filter and I aimed my rifle at the first FTC trooper on my left. I fired. I felt my rifle as if it was an extension of who I was. Repeatedly, I imagined pulling the trigger and my targets falling one after another. Time returned to normal and four of them were down. As the fifth dived for cover, Aiko was already behind him.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Kira exclaimed staring at me.

  I looked at my rifle. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘That was the power of shadow. A psionic power up, your latent power,’ said Gorge answering the question all of us were wondering. I double checked Naomi’s stats. He was right. There it was. Elemental: Shadow.

  ‘My psionic level is only five though?’ I said doubtfully.

  ‘Doesn’t matter, you gained an exploit with your weapon, that’s the kind of power players usually beg the Chel for,’ Gorge answered. I could tell he was awestruck by everything that had happened, maybe jealous even. I couldn’t blame him. Something new, something strange had happened to me and it wasn’t just something in the game. I might have been the first human being to experience the effects of time dilation and not lose my mind. That being the case it only raised more questions…why didn’t the time dilation kill me? If it worked, why wasn’t the military using it to train soldiers? Why was this not exploited before in Bane?

  ‘Why did it work with me?’ I asked unsure if Gorge or anyone else for that matter had the answers.

  ‘Because of the neural interface in the pod. You haven’t retained any training or skills, only your levels and power ups. Seven months of your life flashed before your eyes. Your nose was probably bleeding in the real world because of the stress on your brain,’ Gorge answered without hesitation. I knew he had done his research.

  ‘What would happen if I went back and did it again?’

  ‘You would die. You’re lucky you found a way out when you did, if you had stayed any longer your mind would have eventually shut itself down.’

  ‘Do you think we should go back? Do you think you guys should travel through the doorway?’

  ‘No, it’s too much of a risk, we’ve gotta keep moving forward,’ Kira answered.

  ‘I have one more thing I have to do,’ Gorge said trailing behind us.

  Right after he said that, Gorge lit up the secret room with an explosion that caused us to run farther inside the tower. The library, catacombs, all the tunnels and secrets were gone.

  ‘What did you just do?’ Chaz yelled.

  ‘I made it impossible for anyone else to exploit Bane,’ he said.

  A part of me questioned whether or not using this kind of exploit was the right or wrong thing to do. Bane was a game with rules but I wasn’t actually breaking the rules. I was using a program inside the game. I had levelled up on my own, fighting for my life for seven months whether I had the memories or not. I was there, it was real to me.

  We crossed paths with another Hollow in the tower. This one was different. It looked like several dozen had gathered in mass together, forming one solid black body, The Hollow mimicked our steps as we moved forward, neither attacking or moving in our direction. It stared at us with dozens of glowing red eyes that looked like orbs of energy.

  Hollow Mass

  Level 55

  Hostile

  It was stronger than I was, but weaker than all of us put together. In fact a part of me wondered if maybe our group was too overpowered now. We stood before it and readied our weapons. Gorge fired first and the Hollow absorbed the blow disappearing. Small footprints surrounded us as if the Hollow had split into dozens of invisible forms before it reappeared behind us. It still didn’t attack as it hovered over Shiru. The rest of us turned, far too slowly, as Chaz and Pierce brought up their weapons and fired. Shiru was lifted into the air as the Hollow Mass transformed into a snake-like creature with fangs covered in red orbs.

  We fired relentlessly at it until Shiru fell to the ground, hit
ting the red orbs and causing the Hollow Mass to retreat to the front of the tunnels again. For a moment we stood silently, before slowly moving as one, with the Hollow Mass keeping pace alongside us. Once again, it was mimicking our movements, anticipating our choices, looking for the right time to strike. Without saying a word, Kira and Cass moved forward and motioned for Gorge and I to move in the other direction.

  Our party split into three groups, as far apart from each other as we could manage inside the entrance to the tunnels. The Hollow Mass moved closer, centring itself between our three groups and the exit. Several more eyes appeared across its body. Each eye was fixed on one of us and followed our movements as we continued to spread out as much as we could. Gorge signalled for us to cover our eyes and threw a flash grenade in the air.

  The light blinded the Hollow Mass and made it go into a frenzy. As it thrashed around, Aiko jumped behind it and bit down on its neck, snapping it before any of us could get a shot off. If it had been any other animal besides Aiko it would have had poison damage, but being my familiar Aiko had gained the same resistances that I had. This transformation had gone unnoticed by me until now, but I checked Aiko’s stats and saw the change that had quietly taken place over my seven hours lost in time.

  Name: Aiko

  Level 10

  Health: 100

  Mana: 100

  Friendly

  Stamina: 100

  Adrenaline 70

  Agitation 15

  Attack Boost 15 (+5 Bonus)

  Blast Attack Boost 15

  Blast Resistance 35

  Bleeding Resistance 45

  Charisma 75

  Constitution 25

  Critical Boost 50