The tournament colosseum is absolutely
massive. Almost every player in the game is currently watching a match play out
inside of it. The members of The End of The World Club however are loitering
just outside the main entrance. Bob is pacing back and forth. The Matriarch is
teaching Trart how to knit, Blackout is sitting against the building with his eyes
closed trying to relax. Stygian is looking at the sky.
“What time is it?” Bob asked.
“Three minutes after the last
time you asked.” Blackout replied without opening his eyes.
“So we have almost two hours till
our first fight.” She said to herself. She notices Stygian looking at the sky. “Stygian
what are you doing?” She asked.
“There’s a Shuster and Banes marathon
on, they’re showing the arsonist cycle right now.” Stygian replies without
moving.
Bob stops pacing. “You’re
watching tv?” she asked.
“Yeah, we’ve got two hours to
kill, so unless you want to run a dungeon or something I’ve got nothing better
to do.” He replied.
Bob perked up at the mention of a
dungeon. “That’s not a bad idea.” She said and started pacing again.
“Oblivion Sanctuary?” Blackout
asked.
“Too easy, Trart could run it
alone with his eyes closed.” Bob pointed out.
Blackout nodded. “Yeah but it’s
got no lockout timer, it’s short, we’re guaranteed not to die, and one of us
might get lucky and loot the Oblivion Key.” He explained.
Bob stopped pacing. “I still don’t
think it exists.” Bob replied.
“What’s the Oblivion Key?”
Stygian asked.
Trart turned away from watching
The Matriarch knit. “The last expansion to the game was called ‘Legends and nightmares.’
It added a ton of content for all levels that required players to collect and
decipher stories, to interact with the narratives of the world in a way that no
other MMO had ever done before. Of Course the Data miners dug through the
source code and found the names of items and all kinds of graphical clues and
hints, but while they knew what was in the expansion they couldn’t discern the
relationships of the things they were seeing, there were thousands of new items
and interaction pathways. Most of it has been figured out by the players at
this point but there is one thing that is still unconfirmed.” He was talking
like he was telling the beginning of a ghost story. “The Oblivion key
supposedly drops off the Overseer of Time in the Oblivion Sanctuary. But it’s
not in his loot table, and no player has ever actually been able to prove they
have the item in their inventory.” Trart explained.
“What does it let us access?”
Stygian asked.
Trart smiled. “The plane of
Judgement.” Trart smiled. “A dungeon that exactly five players have ever been
in.”
Bob “The online wiki shows that
five players have been tagged to the dungeon. Those five were most likely Game
Masters. This is all speculation.” Bob chimed in.
The Matriarch put her knitting
down. “I have it.” She said bluntly.
Everyone looked at her, including
Stygian.
Bob was shocked. “Have what?” She
asked skeptically.
The Matriarch’s knitting disappeared.
“I’m one of the five.” She answered
Blackout stood up. “Prove it.” He
demanded.
