The challenges of the mountain took
a lot out of us, so we’re resting back in the city in our special rooms. We
gained these for our skills and our previous experience in RHO. We’re in the
center building, which is a leaning tower with a golden bird at the top that
acts like a marker in the city, so they know where the center is. Even though
the tower itself is leaning, the resting rooms themselves don’t lean, but the
view outside of the window is leaned, which is a bit odd and cool at the same
time. The rest of the resting rooms in the city are for people who haven’t
earned the better ones. Once they do, a room is automatically generated for
them in the better buildings. The buildings can never run out of room as they
grow or shrink depending on their occupants. Heck, even the city grows depending
on how many businesses and apartments are needed.
This growing city still amazes me
when I look out at it. The city hasn’t changed much ever since the amount of
people coming in has nearly ceased. I hear that a lot of people coming in are
experienced VR gamers who think they can beat this game. I’m not even sure if
anyone else has beaten the mountain yet. I hope someone does beat the game
soon. I don’t even want to be the first one to beat the game, unlike the first
time. I’ve learned my lesson about rushing things like this.
Right now, Kerano is resting in the
living room while Angel is resting over me as I sit up on the bed while looking
out at the sci-fi city and its glow. Allen is sleeping in the room with us. We’ll
teleport him back to the system security when we’re doing resting.
“Do you think we should stop
playing these kinds of games? I think the government might shut them down after
this,” Angel says.
“No, because it’s not like we can find
a better place to make money for a living. I don’t think the government will
shut these games down because hundreds of thousands of people make their living
in here. The only jobs worth anything IRL are ones that you can only get with
expensive college degrees. The rest of the jobs that aren’t taken already by
robots and AI are ones that barely pay for anything.”
“Heh, we’re fighting to get out of
here only to go back in.”
“At least we aren’t as dedicated as
some of the pros. They’re already hooked up to a machine that feeds and cleans
them. I bet they don’t even care what’s happening right now.”
“Then it’s up to people like us.
This must be a scary situation for newcomers.”
“This situation is making me
remember the first time this happened. Remember when you were an angry tough
girl who wanted people to like her?”
“I think you're remembering it
differently than I am, but I definitely remember that you were a sarcastic
jackass who wanted to get to the top of the mountain first at the cost of our
lives.”
“Hey, that’s not exactly true. I
changed.”
“Yeah, you definitely did.”
“Do you remember the first time we
held hands? What about the first time we slept together?”
“I remember that. How could I not remember
getting cut to pieces for wanting to save your ass?”
“Oh, don’t bring that memory back
up. That was horrible.”
“I wish I could completely forget
it along with most of the memories associated with that game.”
“Except for the few good ones spent
with me, right?”
“Haha, you’re right. I want to hold
onto memories those forever just like how I want to hold onto you forever. Can
we just stay like this and let someone else finish the game? There are plenty
of teams of pros that can finish it for us.”
“I know that, but I don’t want to.
What that ass did to Allen was a direct challenge to me. I don’t care if
nothing actually happened to him. He did more than disrespect my son and us by
shooting him in the face. No sane good person shoots a baby boy.”
“You’re right, but I just want to be
with and protect both of you instead of just leaving him in the hands of the
system security.”
“You can’t save neither us if they
just teleport and insta-kill us. We have to go to them and beat them at their
own game. To do that, we should be heading out soon.”
“Let me spend some more time with
Allen first just in case anything else happens to him.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to Kerano. You
aren’t mad at him or me, are you?”
“It’s been too long for what he did
to matter to me, so no, but I don’t want to hear about it again.”
“Thank you for understanding.” I
get up and give my son a kiss, which makes him giggle and smile. “I’ll see you
later, buddy. I love you.”
I leave the room and sit on the
coach across from Kerano, who is checking his shotgun.
“Is Angel still mad at me?”
“She’s not mad at you at all. Just
don’t remind her of what you did.”
“Do you think she’ll tell my wife?”
“Probably not.”
“I hope not because I was being
stupid back then. I made a horrible mistake.”
“Don’t worry about it. It seems
like you got what you wanted anyway since most of our time is spent making
money playing video games.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“So, why are you cleaning your shotgun
there? It’s not like it gets dirty.”
“Unlike you.”
“Hey, the smell and the guts are gone.”
I smell myself to make sure. “Right?”
“Haha, it’s gone. I just like
cleaning it because it’s my favorite.”
“It’s one of the starting shotguns.”
“It’s also the shotgun that I’ve
done the most with, but
it’s one of the best because of the rest of my perks.”
“I swear you got lucky with that. The
mechanist perk that you choose decreases the damage of your primary damage so
your turrets can do more, but since the perk subtracts the damage of your
shotgun to negative one, the damage amount loops around so that your shotgun
does the maximum amount of damage to make it as powerful as the most powerful
shotguns in the game. That’s not all either since the starting shotgun has an
above average fire rate, it makes it better in some cases than the best shotguns,
which have lower fire rates. To top it all off, what’s happening to your gun
isn’t a glitch.”
“I was surprised when the developers
said it was a secret to make the ordinary weapons legendary. Do you remember
the story they told about how a basic weapon saved their lives in a gaming tournament
and allowed them to win it?”
“Yeah, I don’t blame them for
getting attached to basic weapons because of that.”
“But just because my main gun is
good doesn’t make your guns less special. Your golden roaring lions with its
sixty round clips coming out of both barrels of your gun and ability to change
into swords is amazing.”
“You got that right. This gun is
exclusive to my combined build.”
“Your other guns are amazing two like
your twin viper shotguns, death’s kiss handguns, and siren’s scream submachine
guns.”
“They’re pretty great, but all you
have to do is beat the same high secret level quests that are exclusive to my
build to get them. Tons of people probably already know how to get them, so the
quests aren’t as much of a secret now. Besides, Angel’s heavy weapons are great
too. The white lotus LMG packs a punch and staggers every player and small to
medium-sized AI enemy it manages to hit once. It’s deadly despite its low fire
rate because once it hits you, you’re dead in seconds.”
“There’s also that purple dragon of
wrath rocket launcher. We had to kill an actual purple dragon to get that
weapon.”
“How worth it was it to get it?
That thing causes bigger explosions along with greater damage along with fire
damage. It’s basically a mini-nuke launcher.”
Angel comes into the room and says,
“Are you two done talking about gun porn?”
“If you’re ready to go,” I say, “Did
you teleport Allen back to security?”
“I did.”
“Then let’s go. Are you ready?”
“I am.”
I cock my gun then say, “Let’s go
then.”
“That wasn’t as cool as you thought
it was,” Angel says.
“I thought it was. If it isn’t, why
do so many people do it? Whatever, let’s just go.”
We head out to the survival wasteland,
which is both the place that is used for the hunting, dungeon, and one-third of
the story mode of this game. The story is found by talking to people in the
different areas of the game world. Unlike a lot of games, you have to keep note
of what you have to do unless you get a helmet or visor that will help you keep
track of your quests. Kerano has a visor that also doubles as a headband. He uses
it to keep track of the health of his turrets.
The dungeons are mini-quests that let
you earn different loot and also affect the world in different ways such as;
the look in certain areas, the enemy spawns, loot drops, random encounters, events
in the areas, and your faction’s status. Now, the survival part of the area
lets you face dangerous areas while obtaining loot and secret quests. If you
die before you exit the area, then you lose everything and have to do it all
over again. It’s less of a gamble than gambling in town for rare loot and it’s
more exciting. I wonder what the asses who trapped us here want us to do.
There are a lot of people near the
gate into the wasteland both on the outside and the inside. They’re talking
about what to do and what groups to go in. It appears that they beat the
mountain, so we join in on the conversation. Angel and Kerano talk to a few
people while I talk to one who looks like he specializes in pistols and
submachine guns, so he’s a fellow gunslinger.
I say to him, “Hey, man, do you
know what everyone is doing here?”
“We’re planning on how we should
approach the wasteland to find what we need for everyone to escape the game. You’re
Kaylen, right?”
“I am.”
“It’s an honor to meet you. I’m
surprised you picked a gunslinger class like me.”
“You should combine it with the
sword class. You can get some sick weapons like the ones I have.”
“I’ll think about it if I ever
decide to play this game again.”
“Has anyone decided to do anything
yet?”
“So far it looks like we’re going
to separate into large groups of seven to search the dungeons and the wasteland.”
“That sounds like a good plan. I’m
up for it if you guys are.”
“Did you hear that?” he says to the
crowd, “We got Kaylen approving our plan!”
The crowd of people seems excited
and starts cheering as they get into groups.
The gunslinger then says, “I’d like
it if you’d join my group since we only have five. We can use an expert like you.”
“I will as soon as I can ask what
my wife and best friend want to do.”
Angel manages to find me. She’s followed
by others who have similar weapons to her.
“Angel, what group are you going
with? Do you want to go together?”
“My group over here is planning to
take out the tougher enemies together, and they need a person like me to help
them. Can you handle being without me for a while?”
“I can as long as I get to see you
again. The real question is if your group can handle you on their team.”
Angel jabs me with her elbow, “Oh,
shut it. I’ll see you later.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too.”
I then find Kerano in a group of
people who in a similar build class as him. He says the same things as Angel
except his group is going to handle the hordes of lesser enemies and act as
distractions to draw in the bigger enemies for heavy hitting groups like Angel’s.
I let him go and join the group with the gunslinger. Together we go out into
the wasteland in search of a possible dungeon to raid for secrets. Along the way
I talk to the group about how the developers held secrets such as the one that
makes Kerano’s starter shotgun so powerful, and how their fond memories of
video games could help us find what we’re looking for.
We find a few possible places to
search and separate into teams of two to investigate the different areas with a
campsite that we use as a rendezvous and fast travel point. The gunslinger and I
go investigate a dungeon behind a waterfall. It’s where one of the developers
had spent the first day with his newlywed wife who had a similar interest in
games. The developer wrote his and wife’s initials near the cave’s entrance and
made the lore reflect the first time he met his wife. It’s a bunch of romantic mumbo
jumbo that I can’t help but like because I know what it’s like to be in love. The
enemies in the dungeon are nothing special that can’t be taken be easily taken
out with a single headshot since gunslingers like us do better headshot damage
than most builds.
“So, you didn’t tell me your name
yet,” I say to the gunslinger.
“My name is Dante.”
“Is that your username or actual
name?”
“It’s my actual name.”
“I’m sorry. I thought it was just a
reference.”
“Don’t worry about it, I get that a
lot. In fact, I picked gunslinger as my main class because of it.”
“What’s your secondary class?”
“It’s the secondary part of my
reference. I use buffs and debuffs that I activate by saying quick lines to activate
them. The ones that I use are the second part of the reference in my build,
which is Dante Alighieri. The lines taken from the Divine Comedy are some of
the best buffs and debuffs to use.”
The carryovers from the previous game
aren’t just guns that can turn into swords and melee weapons builds, but also healing,
buffing, and debuffing magic. There is offensive magic, but it is limited to
giving your weapons certain effects as if it were a magic wand. You got be
shooting magical bullets or throwing out long-range slashes with your swords. I
think the game blends its previous fantasy elements with the sci-fi ones pretty
well.
“Spitting poetry while being a
stylish gunslinger? You sound like a real cowboy.”
“Haha, you think so? Oh, I think we
might found something.”
The boss that spawns at the end of
the dungeon is a couple who look like the developers. They’re both wearing
their wedding outfits and they’re using a dual sword build that can deflect our
shots. They work well together, which gives me an idea.
“Dante, we need to focus on taking
out one of them. The other should easily fall after that.”
“Okay, but which one?”
“The woman.”
“Gotcha.”
“A man is nothing without his woman,
am I right?”
“I see. You’re right.”
The developer should fall if his wife
does or at least lose the will to fight, so we concentrate on her. She’s more
skilled in defense and the developer tries his best to defend her, but our
concentrated fire eventually goes through her defenses to defeat her. She might’ve
been fast and skilled, but her health was low enough to deplete within seconds
of getting staggered. The developer falls to his knees, which gives us the opportunity
to finish him off. Dante and I then bump fists with our guns in victory.
“Your plan worked. How did you know
that killing his wife wouldn’t just send him into overdrive?” Dante asks.
“Eh. Honestly, it was a gamble.”
“Haha. Alright, let’s see what we
can find here.”
Dante and I search around the room
and don’t find anything. We didn’t earn anything special besides high-level loot
and a lot more money and EXP than you would usually get from a dungeon like
this. Hold on…
“Dante…”
“What’s up?”
“Do you remember this letter being
here before?”
“No, I don’t think so. What do you
think a giant T means?”
“I don’t know. It could be part of
a password. Oh! There’s a bunker in the destroyed nuclear test site with a keypad
that you can enter a password in. The developers said they would eventually
reveal the password to it to show us something special.”
“Oh, that’s right! I forgot about
that since it was impossible trying to find the code.”
“I didn’t think they had this
planned from the beginning.”
“I hope we can get back at these
people before they do this again.”
“That’s the same thing I was
thinking. We should regroup with the others to see what they found.”
When we get to the campsite, we
find that the other two groups have one member whose died once, but they’ve managed
to find a letter like we have. They’ve found the letters T and O. Tot? Like
tatter tot? Maybe it’s thot? I don’t know. We probably need more letters. While
we talk about where to go next, Kerano finds us and joins in on the conversation.
After we tell him what we found, he
says, “It sounds like you need help from yours truly.”
“Doesn’t your group need your help?
What happened to them anyway?” I ask.
“My group has more people who are
better at crowd control than I am, so they’re fine without me.”
“That’s good. Would you mind if we
left to go help our friends earn the lives they lost? They’re scared to lose
all of them,” one of the others say.
“Are you serious? It doesn’t matter
if you lose all of your lives because people can just earn them back for you,”
Dante says.
“Dante, it’s fine. You two can go
if you want,” I say to them.
“Thank you.”
Once the two of them leave, Dante
says, “Why did you let them go? They could’ve helped us.”
I explain to him that, “You have
the two of us with you, so you have nothing to worry about. Besides, I’m sure
we can find other people to replace them.”
“What if we face a threat that’s
too much for the three of us to handle?”
“Then we retreat and find someone
who can help us.”
“Alright. I’m just wondering
because I want to get at the people who trapped us here as quickly as possible.”
“Don’t worry about it. We feel the
same way. They’ll get what’s coming to them soon. Let’s move out.”
The three of us head out into the
wasteland. After we walk through the wasteland while Dante introduces himself
to Kerano, we discover a lake near a small town.
I tell Dante and Kerano to stop
here because, “A few developers came from a small town near and a lake. Also, who
wouldn’t hide an easter egg near a lake in a wasteland?”
We search through the town first
before going near the lake.
As Dante looks closer into the lake,
he says, “I think I see a letter down there.”
Before Kerano and I can see what he
sees, a giant Hydra with six heads.
“Kerano!”
“I got it!”
Kerano starts laying down turrets
to distract the heads of the Hydra while Dante and I start firing at its heads.
We don’t seem to be doing the much damage to it despite hitting critical hits.
I think I see a small glow in the Hydra’s mouth when it opens it, but since the
turrets are making it shut its mouth, I can’t hit it.
“I’m going to need you to shut down
your turrets except the ones to defend you, Kerano!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I am!”
“…alright then.”
Kerano self-destructs his turrets
that aren’t protecting him, which makes the snakes open their mouths to spit
their poisons at us.
“Dante! I’m going to need you to
shoot the snakes in the mouth particularly the glowing part.”
“Those glowing spots are really
small. Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Gunslingers
like us specialize in hitting the enemy where it hurts most after all.”
We both smile at each other and
shoot the snake in its mouth like real sharpshooters. When the glowing spot
takes enough damage, it explodes along with the head of the serpent. We then
repeat the process until there are only three heads left. The three heads into
turn into one serpent that’s larger with sharper scales and teeth. It tries to
eat me, but I manage to stop it and hold its mouth open with my assault rifle swords.
“Guys, I’m going to need your help
here!”
“We got it!”
Both Kerano and Dante concentrate
their fire into the hydra’s mouth until the glowing spot blows up along with
the hydra’s head. The rest of its body disappears as we get a reward for killing
the beast. We raise our guns and cheer in victory.
“You must trust Kaylen a lot to let
down your defenses without any explanation,” Dante says.
“I trust him. He’s been like a
brother to me ever since that time we played RHO together.”
“I mean we basically live in the
same house so we might as well be family. We both left our families behind to pursue
our careers in gaming.”
“Really? That’s dedication to your friends
and your beliefs if I’ve ever heard of it.”
“Haha, I guess you could say so.
Now, what’s that letter you saw?”
“Let’s see. It’s an A.”
“An A? So we have T, O, T, and A.”
“Nothing about that sequence of
letters brings up anything to my head. What about you, Kaylen? You know your
references.”
“Nothing. Let’s keep moving. I
think I know where we should go next.”
“Right,” both of them say.
We head out to a volcano
near the bunker. This surrounding area in general has a ton of easter eggs such
as; the destroyed nuclear test site is a reference to a town used to test nukes
in a popular multiplayer game, there’s a cabin nearby that’s broken in half
with a giant arm coming out of it, a downed alien space ship that’s in the form
of a C, and so on. As we get closer to the volcano, we find groups of people
fighting all kinds of enemies. Among these people is Angel.
Kerano starts setting up his
turrets as Dante and I start cleaning the killing floor. I shoot my way through
the crowd of enemies with my pistols in order to not hit anyone else until I get
to Angel.
“Hey, babe, you come here often?” I
ask her.
“Hell no. Did you find anything?”
“We found hidden letters that I
think we can use to enter the bunker that’s not far from here.”
Kerano’s turrets then activate and
launch a barrage of homing shots that kills the crowds of enemies. I give
Kerano a thumbs up and he does the same. The ground then shakes as the volcano
begins to become active. An enormous dragon made of fire erupts from the
volcano and yells out as fire begins to rain from the sky. Knights also made of
fire form themselves from the fire rained from the sky and the lava pouring out
of the volcano.
Angel says to me, “Think we can
take them?”
“Of course we can. We can do this!
Let’s kick some ass!”
I say to the group to rally them.
They scream out with their guns raised. The players with short to medium ranged
charge the enemy while the ones with long ranged weapons take up positions to
shoot at the knights while others shoot at the dragon. Angel and I go after the
dragon as it flies towards us while Dante and Kerano with his turrets help the
others with the knights. The dragon itself has no real critical areas to
hit-wait, strike that. Its weak points move as the bubbling fire on its body
reveals it. I fire at those to bring it crashing to the ground.
Angel uses her rocket launcher on
it while I empty clip after clip of my assault rifle in it until I run out of
ammo. I then switch to my shotguns and get up close and personal to the dragon’s
head. It tries chomping at me while breathing fire at me, but I dodge its
attacks while switching my shotgun to a short sword then back again to keep its
attention as Angel peppers it with light machine gun fire from a distance. The
dragon then gets mad and switches its attention to Angel.
I can’t aggro it to me, so I stab my
swords into its fiery skin and climb on top of it, then yell out, “Watch out, Angel!”
The dragon then flies a short distance
above the ground then charges towards Angel.
“Grab my hand!” I say with my hand
out.
Angel grabs my hand as we go up into
the sky with the dragon.
“You’re crazy!” she says as climbs
on top of the dragon.
“And you’re even crazier for going
with my plan. It’s also crazy that this dragon made of fire isn’t that hot to
stand on.”
“We still can’t stay on it without
taking a little damage. What’s your plan?”
“Put your rocket launcher in its
mouth and blow it up. I think its weak point is somewhere in its chest.”
“Do you have a plan to get us back down?”
“Kind of. Just get on my back.”
Angel gets on my back as I use my
swords to climb up to the dragon’s face as it flies around trying to get us off.
Once we get to the mouth, I cut the dragon’s jaw so that its mouth is wide
open.
“Do it, Angel!”
Angel puts her rocket launcher in
the dragon’s mouth then says, “Eat this!”
She fires her rocket into the
dragon, which causes its body to explode, but the neck and head are still
intact.
“What now?!” Angel asks in a panic
as we begin to plummet to the ground.
“Hold onto me!”
Angel holds onto me as I get us to
the top of the dragon’s head with my swords. I try to keep the dragon’s head on
the bottom as we fall, and I manage to do this as the dragon’s head digs into
the ground then throws us off when the dragon’s head and neck turn into ash. I
roll on the ground with Angel in my arms until we come to a complete stop. Man
is she shaking after the ride.
“That was fun, wasn’t it,” I say to
her with a smile.
“That was horrible.”
“It was amazing. I don’t know what you
were worried about. Even if we couldn’t survive the fall, we would still have two
more lives.”
“That’s not the point. Falling to
my death is terrifying even if this is a game.”
“But don’t lie that you weren’t at
least a little thrilled.”
“…okay, I was.”
“Want to do it again after this is
over?”
“No!”
In the distance, I see that the
group has finished off the small army of knights. The once activate volcano has
calmed down and the lava is now cooled off. We search the volcano and find the
letter, Y.
I say aloud, “T, O, A, T, and now Y…hmm.
I still can’t make anything out of that.”
“How about toasty if we add an S?”
Angel says.
“Toasty? That sounds like it could
be it since it’s a reference. Let’s see if the bunker will accept that.”
We go to the bunker and fortunately
enough, it accepts it. Our group cheers with cheers for Angel in particular.
As we descend into the bunker, I
ask whoever can answer it, “Why toasty of all references? It sounds like
something someone would’ve tried on the door.”
Everyone just shrugs while Angel
says, “I don’t know, but I know that I was the one who got it after so many
other people failed.”
“Ooooh, you’re so special.”
“You’re damn right about that.”
When we get to the bottom of the
bunker, we find a bunch of monitors. All of them activate and form a picture of
a cloaked face.
The person on the monitor says, “Congratulations
on finally getting into the bunker. I’m sure you’re wondering why toasty was
the password. Well, it wasn’t originally, and the password history suggests
that dozens of people already tried it.”
Angel puffs her face.
“The password was originally
something easier to guess, but we changed it to toasty later. So the main
reason why toasty is the password is because my friend and I were always bad at
fighting games even though we loved playing them. We barely used two or three
special moves from our favorite characters and just button mashed for most
games, but for every match we played, we finished it with an uppercut.”
Ah, I get it now.
“You must be hearing this message
after you were all trapped in this game, which must be slightly unfortunate for
you. The truth is, if you figured out the password beforehand, you would’ve
never been trapped here, and we would’ve never bothered you by doing it.”
What? Are they serious?
“We don’t even know why you would
want to free yourselves since you must know that the world sucks. When you free
yourselves, you’ll probably be back here again to make money and have fun. If
you want to free yourselves, nevertheless, you must get to the PVP area of the
game and find our developer building. Search it and you’ll find the key to your
freedom. We really hope you’ve been enjoying our game and will continue to for
however long you play it.”
The monitors then shut off. The
group talks amongst itself while exiting the bunker while I stare at the
monitor. Hmm. Nothing? No after secret message after what you said? There we
go! It’s on.
The person on the monitor says, “No,
there is no secret after credits message. You should know that we hate those.”
It turns off again. That’s bullcrap!
Oh! It’s back on!
“Okay, here’s a hint since you’re
so patient. You’re probably not going to defeat the challenge after your next.
Sorry, but that’s how it’s going to be.”
The monitors turn off again.
I shoot the monitors then say to
it, “Fuck you! We’re going to make sure you pay for everything that you’ve done!”
“What do you think they met by
saying we’re probably not going to beat the last challenge?” Kerano asks as we
leave the bunker.
“It’s probably BS to get us scared,”
Angel says.
“You’re damn right about that.”
Once we’re out of the bunker, I
state, “We’re going to free ourselves from this game and get back at those
developers for what they did. Nothing can beat us when we fight together!”
We fist bump with a battle cry then
head out to the PVP area. Just you asses wait. We’re going to free ourselves
soon enough.
