Star Divers- Dungeons of Bane

by Stephen Landry

  ‘Skull-Faced Man, he’s, we were fighting him. Kira, Gorge, Cass.’

  ‘You went on a mission with Cass?’

  ‘This isn’t real,’ I declared.

  ‘Are you okay? Should I get a doctor?’

  ‘This isn’t real,’ I declared again.

  A moment later, Damien was gone and I was back in the game. Skull-Faced Man’s hand wrapped around my neck. His mask moved, as if he were smiling.

  ‘You are Damien’s friend. That must make the rest of you Corpse Divers, artefact hunters,’ he said, looking around the room studying us.

  ‘What is it to you?’ Cass shouted laying limp, crying on the ground. She was fighting for control, fighting against the effects of the MEK.

  ‘You are the ones that brought me here. I owe you my thanks, your kind, you came into the unknown, rescued me from the void. You answered my call. I am here to free you from yourselves. Save you,’ Skull-Faced Man spoke but it felt like he was talking in riddles.

  ‘Speak plainly, what are you?’ Gorge demanded.

  Skull-Faced Man put me back on the ground gently and let go of my neck. I felt my muscles relax as my body became my own again.

  ‘Kira, you look so beautiful,’ the Skull-faced man said looking at Kira, ‘and Cass, just as vigilant as ever.’ He continued looking around the room.

  ‘You, I don’t know,’ pointing towards Gorge.

  ‘YOU WILL!’ Gorge shouted, activating his Hullbreaker ability. A moment later, the masked man teleported away from me and crushed what was left of Gorge’s artificial arm in his hand, tearing it away from his shoulder.

  ‘Not so fast; I’M NOT done talking.’

  Gorge screamed in pain as the Skull-faced man threw him down to the ground. I couldn’t tell if Gorge had passed out or was laying low. His health had dropped to 35. No way he could take another hit, even with his ability active, his strength was useless. The skull-faced man drew his MEK rifle and held it out with one hand and fired into his chest. Gorge was paralyzed as Skull-Faced Man sheathed the rifle back around his back.

  ‘Apologies, we’ll know one another soon, just give me a moment,’ Skull-Face Man continued to speak softly, as if to himself, looking around the room. His eyes moved to his right side as he quickly dodged a bullet from up high. One of the air vents in the room was open and inside was Lady Gray pointing a high-power Ki rifle. She had fired and missed.

  ‘Join us,’ said Skull-Faced Man, pulling her from the vent across the room to the floor in front of him. She immediately summoned a blade into her hands and leapt through the air. Her agility was unreal, if my focus wasn’t so high, I wouldn’t have been able to follow her movements at all. I tried to use my shadow ability but it was useless. Cass brought her rifle up from her hip. She was still in miserable pain, bleeding on the floor. She aimed down the sight balancing it on her knee. Skull-Faced Man caught the bullet and grabbed Lady Gray, pushing her back at the same time.

  ‘What are you?’ she mumbled.

  ‘The essence of all that will be,’ Skull-Faced Man said, unsheathing the MEK from his back. Lady Gray’s health had dropped to 85% but she was still in better shape than the rest of us. Gorge hit the ground, cracking it behind both of them, causing the masked man to stumble. Taking advantage of the moment, Lady Gray once again drew her sword and swung it towards our enemy. Slashing with an attack that should have dealt 300 damage, our guild leader sank her sword into Skull-Faced Man’s shoulder. Even as time slowed, I still couldn’t get a read on him.

  ‘Breq, it’s me Damien…HELP ME!’ a voice rattled inside my head. For a moment I looked at the masked man and instead of seeing a monster I saw my best friend. Damien and Lady Gray were fighting one another with Lady Gray even starting to gain the advantage. I knew it wasn’t real but I wanted to help. My allegiance was to Damien, my friend: what if this whole thing was some kind of lie. What if he was alive?

  Cass fired again, missing and tearing apart Lady Gray’s shoulder.

  ‘Damien?’ she said, tears rolling down her eyes.

  ‘ITS NOT HIM!’ I shouted.

  ‘That’s my brother,’ I heard Kira mutter almost like a whisper.

  ‘NO, IT’S SOME KIND OF MIND GAME!’ Gorge shouted, lifting himself up from the ground. His health had been regenerating and was already at 45%.

  ‘He can read our minds,’ it was Lady Gray who said it. Disarmed by Cass, she now stood at the mercy of Skull-Faced Man. From the ether our opponent summoned a sword. Shorter than my own, it looked like a futuristic katana. A weapon I had seen Damien once use long ago, a favourite of his, kept in his inventory for close-combat situations.

  ‘That doesn’t belong to you!’ I shouted pulling Aegis from its sheath and running as fast as I could across the room. I was dragging Aegis across the floor as I sprinted forward, pulling it up only at the last moment to cross blades with the katana. Skull-Faced Man didn’t bother to knock me back this time. He was smiling from under his mask, as if he was enjoying the fight.

  I was using the shadows. Time had slowed again and I was exhausting my own ability in parrying his blows. My focus grew as I began to gain more and more experience at moving my body through the darkness. The masked man moved quickly, considering he should have been frozen just like the others.

  After three seconds I felt my mana hit zero. Time restored itself and Gorge threw himself in front of me, taking the blow from the katana at point blank range. His health had dropped to 15 and I ordered Aiko to pull him back. My health stood at 85, mostly damage I had caused to my own body. Lady Gray was bleeding out. Her health had dropped down to 45 while Kira and Cass were both still well into the 60s range despite their injuries. I might have failed at my attack but I finally managed to get a read on my enemy.

  Hive

  Level Unknown

  Health: 500

  Hostile

  Abilities:

  Absorption

  Resistance

  Strength x 500

  Damage Booster x 200

  Melee x 100

  Focus x 10

  Latent Power x 10

  Shadow x 10

  Weapons:

  Artefact M7- 3 Ki Rifle Prototype

  Artefact MEK Rifle

  Artfact Ultra Blade

  ‘Hive?’ I sent the information to everyone. ‘What are you?’ I asked shouting.

  Skull-Faced Man ignored me.

  I was beginning to bleed out again. When Gorge knocked me out of the way he had opened my wound from before. The pain was unbearable even with my settings turned down.

  ‘Kira?’ I said looking in her direction.

  She began running towards me. Her mana dropping as she began to heal me from afar. Aiko was running towards my side as well. Immediately taking notice, Skull-Faced Man turned towards us. I screamed as he shot a gravity well over Aiko, sending my familiar crashing to the ground.

  ‘Gods exist in constant conflict, moral codes, struggle, support, divine rewards that break the laws of the real. A thousand years from now humanity will drive itself to the point of extinction, I am the essence, the immortal. I am the embodiment of my master’s will, the future of mankind, hive.’

  ‘Finally, something,’ Lady Gray said, ‘I think I understand now. There is a rumour.’

  ‘Fill us in please,’ said Cass. I was equally anxious to know what insight she had.

  ‘Created by a player, the Hive copies the consciousness of those it feeds upon. That is why it appears differently to different players, it shows us who it believes we want to see. The gun kills the player, allowing the exchange of information to become permanent, severing the link at the source and storing information. That’s why all this…it wants…’ before Lady Gray could finish, the Hive attacked her, burying its sword in her stomach.

  ‘I was born, raised by my master to save humanity, freed by those that heard my calling and who crossed the threshold. I SAVED my master, saved him from a world that rejected him.’ The Hive was angry.

  As L
ady Gray collapsed, she broadcast a burst of Quick Lore.

  Quick Lore

  The Hive is an NPC, a companion, born in the very early phases of Bane. It is an artificial intelligence whose learning is based on the players it has copied. The Hive grew more sophisticated from sharing data and continual growth, eventually adapting to the neural interface of a pad and therefore gaining the ability to share of human memories. An encounter with someone lost on the fringes of the game and at the same time lost in the real showed the Hive what it could become, gave it memories that made it feel real. That drove it like a drug. The player it had befriended convinced the Hive that those who stored their memories inside the AI would live forever and provided it with a gun for that purpose. The Hive is an echo, an artefact and at the same time, all that is left after the player whose memories have entered the Hive is dead. These memories drive it forward as it takes vengeance on the world. Yet at the same time, the Hive is conflicted by the very same memories of those it has swallowed.

  Aiko pulled Lady Gray out of the way and Kira went to work healing her.

  ‘If you have Damien’s memories, you know we don’t have to fight,’ I said, trying to calm the Hive.

  ‘I saved Damien, just as I WILL save you.’

  It came at me. Fast but not fast enough. The slight hesitation it had in killing me was still there. It was haunted by its own core programming. Haunted by the memories Damien had created inside it. Metal met metal as I swung Aegis forward. From behind me, Cass moved and fired with Tyr. The Hive’s health was already down to 300 HP thanks to Lady Gray, who soon joined the fight again.

  When my stamina ran low, the two of us switched out. All the while, Cass continued to fire. My health dropped to 55 HP. Lady Gray was sitting at 30 HP and Cass had taken a few hits herself from gravity wells, bringing her down to 40 HP. By the time the we had the Hive’s health down to 150 HP, it was starting to look hopeless again: no matter how many times we relied on Kira for support. Gorge’s health was no longer regenerating either. At 15 HP he tried to help us when he could, summoning the artefact rifle I had given him back at the Upsilon and raising it for a shot.

  Gorge fired. A critical hit for 60 damage! It was a good shot that staggered the Hive, giving both Cass and I time to draw our rifles and fire full blast. When my battery started to die and my ammo ran low I used my HP to fire a second critical hit at the Hive. It turned towards me and with a gravity well placed above my head I felt an intense pressure. For a moment I feared my bones would splinter and crack and I would die right here in the game. The sudden impact broke my rifle. AKA Naomi was gone but it wasn’t the end. I had given Lady Gray an opening.

  The Hive’s blade broke through Lady Gray’s attack and slashed her, knocking her health down to 5 HP. She was out. It focused on Cass next, smashing her back against a wall with a gravity well. Kira didn’t have the mana to heal anymore. Biting down against the Hive and snatching the MEK, Aiko ran in to join the fight.

  Six of us had gone against the darkness. Now I stood alone.

  My sword drawn in my hand I focused on the shadows. Time slowed down between us as Aegis began to crack. We fought like Samurai for what felt like eternity. Locked in battle for mere seconds. I blacked out. A vision of a beast with five eyes. I had pushed myself too far and my body, my mind had exhausted itself. In that moment Aegis dropped from my hands and Skull-Faced Man, the Hive, held me by the neck again.

  The Hive was down to 90 HP. Kira picked up Aegis and thrust it into the Hive from behind. ‘For my brother,’ she said, twisting my sword, whose tip emerged from the Hive’s chest. Her face held a look of determination. Vengeance was hers. It let out a scream and for a moment I saw Damien. A ghost smiling at me. Maybe I was hallucinating. It wasn’t possible that he was still there. Damien was gone.

  Quest Complete!

  — Quest —

  A Whisper in the Void

  Created by: Moonrain Media / Kira

  Expected Difficulty: Veteran

  Rewards: Artefacts, Experience

  Details:

  1. Find a way inside the Cold Zone

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

  3. Kill the man with the skull mask.

  +50000 EXP

  3/3 artefacts added to inventory.

  Level up! You have 15 skill points!

  Welcome to level 52

  At Eternity Access codes added to inventory.

  An hour later a dozen Corpse Divers came to our ‘rescue’ with Chaz leading them to our location. It was over. The Hive, Skull-Faced Man was dead.

  30.

  At Eternity

  Location: Deep Space

  The Hive’s Orbital Carrier

  In the end, Skull-Faced Man was nothing more than an echo, an artefact creature born from the subconscious desires of a player to live forever. And who doesn’t? Maybe the Hive wasn’t lying. What if it was true and Damien was inside him? If not for the Hive’s hesitation to kill me, would we have even won? The player that created it. What must it have been like for him or her? Living on the edge of the game like they were, so determined to find their way back, to find some kind meaning in the emptiness. Driven insane by the darkness. His own life, his real life must have been painful. I have seen that darkness. What it can do to people. What it had almost done to me. When Damien and the others had heard someone in the Cold Zone was crying out for help, they acted as quickly as they could. It took them time to prepare but they managed to hack their way into activating At Eternity. It was on that world, Nero, they hoped to find answers.

  I was still laying on my back. I had just levelled up but didn’t want to waste any effort in spending my new skill points. I had no idea what was going to come next and felt I had a need to save them. The image of Damien I had seen in my head continued to haunt me as I stood up and began to wander. I could hear something calling out to me. A voice in the darkness. A stranger in the night calling my name. It wasn’t Damien. I knew he was gone. Skull-Faced Man, Scrawl, all the players that had gone down fighting.

  I found myself crawling through a small crevice in the wall. It had broken apart during our battle. Aiko came up by my side. I could hear her growling as the path became too small for her to follow.

  I gathered my strength. I had arrived at a small hallway filled with stasis chambers. A small black sphere erupted from the ground. A trap. It shot out black spikes and I dodged out of the way of most, although one tore through my wrist. The pain quickly vanished. I had grown too strong for such toys. Blue lights revealed silhouettes around me trapped in ember. Inside them I could see dozens of figures, which looked like those of an alien species. The strange design of the orbital carrier made sense now, as did the origin of Skull-Faced Man. He had drifted with the unknown player across the galaxy to the edge of the map. Beyond the quadrants. The ship was a relic of a war fought long ago. They all slept now. They were, or at one time, had been weapons of the Chel, but more than that they were another sentient species. I could feel it. They had rebelled against the Chel. Unwilling to be their slaves.

  In my inventory I had three new artefacts. One of which I recognized.

  Damien’s Rifle

  Description: Gone but not forgotten.

  Level: 51

  Damage: 600

  Weight: 7.5 Ibs

  Weapon Type: Battle Rifle

  Rarity: Ultra-Rare

  Impact: 10

  Range: 7

  Stability: 10

  Reload Speed: 9

  RPM (rounds per minute): 300 bursts

  Affinity: 10

  Sharpness: 9

  Elemental: None

  Critical Chance: 91%

  Modifiers: None

  I had one last mob to kill.

  A creature stands before me in the shadow with five glowing red eyes. Two legs. A skeletal tail behind it. Burning rage. I’m not inside the carrier anymore. Time is slowed down. The world around me frozen. I’m immersed in the shadow. There is nothing but my body, my weap
on, the creature and time. All the time I need. The immer, surrounding me. Giving me power. I feel the creature move closer towards me. It knows what I am. I aim down the sight of my rifle, holding it up ready in my arms. I can feel the energy build up inside as I pull the trigger.

  Once again the creature disappears. The memory of it like a dream.

  Aegis...

  Location: Deep Space

  At Eternity

  We fled the orbital carrier and left behind a drone to fly it into the closest star. I never wanted to see that ship again. The field that messed with our control commands was cut off. Even with Skull-Faced Man dead and gone the damage he had caused was permanent. Rumours of death in Bane were spreading like wildfire as dozens of players and corporations did their best to salvage the situation, promising that it was all a lie, that the game was safe. Kira cut our feed as we regrouped inside the Ibanez. At the time of our battle we had hit ten million views. It was a new record. Each of us had been granted access codes to At Eternity but we all needed rest.

  Together, we promised one another we would meet again in three days’ time, hiding the Ibanez and Lady Gray’s Titan at the edge of the system, deep inside an asteroid belt in the hollows of an old asteroid that had been mined, torn apart eons ago by the Chel or whatever alien species had actually created the world gates. As I said goodnight to Aiko I promised I would return, letting her crawl in beside me as I entered a stasis pod.

  The Real

  I spent the next two days in the real world. The moment I logged out I couldn’t wait to meet up with Hannah, I knew she would be worried after the last message I had sent her. I couldn’t imagine what she would say to me after I told her everything that had happened. As I came out of my pod, blood pouring down my face, both Hannah and Reynolds were waiting for me. Reynolds, of course, was ready with a clean towel and food while Hannah grabbed me, wrapping her arms around my bloody clothes. I felt like I was going to faint but I smiled. Hannah kissed me. The rest of the night and most of the next day I let my body rest as Hannah stayed by my side.