As stupid as Bo’s plan sounded at first, Elijah was actually fairly certain it could work. Bo told them about a rumor he had heard regarding a ‘Dev Room’ that they could access from in-game near their current location. Normally, a gate ?stood in the way that needed a key that the developers hadn’t programmed into the game.
“If I understand how powerful your abilities are though, you should be able to unlock it for us with no issue.” Bo had told Elijah when the party had asked how Bo planned on getting them in.
“How do you even know about this place, Bo?” Nicholas had asked him. As usual, the rogue was cagey about the information he had. Benjamin told Elijah later that Bo seemed to always have information about places and monsters that someone as low level as him shouldn’t have. Benjamin thought the likely reason was that Bo had lied about having never played the game before and was actually the alt account of a much higher-level player.
Elijah had his own thoughts on the matter, and his own theory, but kept them to himself for the time being.
Bo led them through the forest to an abandoned graveyard that wasn’t on the map that he had shown them.
“Last time I looked, this wasn’t even shown on the Celestial map,” Nicholas mentioned, looking around the place with astonishment.
Bo simply shrugged his shoulders. “That’s one way the devs keep these places a secret. Not only do they not show up on the maps, and there are more unmapped places like this that don’t have dev rooms, but players will be more curious about figuring out why they’re unmapped rather than looking for almost impossible to find hidden rooms.”
Ghostly NPCs seemed to flicker in and out of existence. To a normal player, they’d seem like they were going invisible and reappearing, but Elijah could tell there was something else going on here. Their code felt wrong to him, as if it was half finished and glitching. There were thin strands of data flowing from these ghosts to somewhere deeper in the cemetery.
Elijah was fairly certain that the data strands led to the dev room, and once he was higher level, he’d be able to follow them without Bo’s help.
“Alright, team, let’s spread out and see if we can figure out where this hidden room is.” Nicholas commanded the party. “But stay sharp; we don’t know if these ghosts are friendly or dangerous.”
Bo laughed, “We could look around, or I could just lead the way.”
Nicholas stopped and turned to Bo. “I suppose that’s a good solution too. Lead the way,” he grumbled.
Bo led them past the tombstones and obelisks towards a large stone mausoleum. The doorway appeared to be made of solid brick with no way to slide it aside. He spent several moments poking and prodding at various bricks around the opening until one finally gave way as if it were a button.
“This is it,” whispered Bo. “I just got a notification that this door requires a key that doesn’t exist.”
He stepped away from the mausoleum and pulled a rusty iron key from his inventory, offering it to Elijah. “You should be able to link this key to the door with your power. “
Elijah reached out hesitantly and took the key. “Before we go in, what should we be expecting? Will there be enemies?”
Bo shrugged his shoulders. “I really don’t know, Elijah. I imagine all the dev rooms are different, but I don’t think there will be hostile mobs. It doesn’t make much sense for them to place any in their testing grounds when they can just spawn them with their admin access.”
Elijah nodded his head slowly, then turned towards the mausoleum. He set his fingers against the stone that Bo had pressed. It felt warm to the touch, in stark contrast to the chill that seemed to pervade the air. As if some internal energy were heating it. No, more like the energy was external and heating his fingers instead of the stone. It was a strange feeling.
Channelling his ‘Reality Warp’ skill, the debug menu popped open. It was exactly as Bo had said. The menu listed ‘Null’ in the required key section.
He did the same for the key in his hand, getting its entity ID, then he replaced the missing information with that of the rusty key. He looked over his shoulder at this party.
“I think we are in,” he said with a crooked smile. “Is everyone ready?”
They all gave him their confirmation, so he reached forward, pressing against the stone. A scratching pop sounded as it gave way beneath his fingertips.? A deep rumbling sound echoed through the ground as the brick plug to the doorway slid away slowly.
Elijah expected a portal similar to that of the Dragontooth Fort one; instead, he was greeted by stairs.
“Well,” commented Bo. “Since our little goblin friend is all the way back in Raystown, I guess it’s my job to scout ahead, isn’t it?”
“Actually.” Elijah grinned at the rogue. “I think I have something for that.”
He held out his hand, and the shadows within his sleeve seemed to darken unnaturally and creep along his wrist into his palm. When the shadows receded, he held one of his Dragontooth Scout bats. He could still feel his connection to the two remaining within Raystown, and the connection to this new bat sent a sharp spike of searing pain into his temple. He tried to ignore it as his friends inspected the little furry creature.
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“You know?” Benjamin said, taking a step closer and looking at the bat. “These guys are kind of cute when they’re not actively trying to kill you.”
The bat turned its head at an unnatural angle, inspecting Benjamin right back. Benjamin gave a look of disgust and stepped back. “Okay, nevermind. That’s just freaky.”
Elijah laughed as he held his hand up towards the entrance to the mausoleum, instructing his bat to take flight and scout ahead.
“Well, Bo,” Nick said with a grin. “I guess your services are no longer required. Not now that Elijah can pull double duty as a scout class.”
“I can get behind that. It’ll be nice only having to split the loot four ways instead of five.” Benjamin agreed.
“Now that’s not fair, Nicholas,” Sasha said, with her own amused expression lighting up her face. “We still need Bo. Who else is going to walk blindly into all the traps for us?”
Bo mumbled something under his breath and blew a raspberry at the party before taking his position at the entrance in front of the party.
“Oh yeah, pick on the guy who just led you to a cache of unreleased, overpowered weapons and armor.” He crouched down slightly, and Elijah felt him activate his ‘Sense Traps’ skill. “If you jerks are ready, let’s begin.”
They took up formation with Bo in the lead, followed by Nicholas. Following him were Sasha and Benjamin side by side, followed close behind by Elijah. Normally, the rear guard position would be taken up by a tank class, while the position Nicholas was in would normally be their DPS, but because of the unusual makeup of their party, their only tank was also their only true DPS. That meant that it fell on Elijah, as the party member with the most health points, to take up the position of rear guard.
Elijah kept a mental finger on his ‘Dragontooth Swarm’ ability. If the party got attacked from behind, it was powerful enough to give them a few seconds leeway while they reorganized into battle formation.
After several flights of stairs, he felt his scout calling for attention. He briefly shut his eyes and focused on the string leading to his bat. He saw it was at the end of a long spiraling staircase hovering near a set of doors.
He could sense the magical power emanating from behind one of the two doors. Something about it felt wrong, incomplete. Exactly what he would expect from a testing ground. He didn’t know where the other door went, and his bat gave him no answer. Other than the sight of it, the bat’s senses seemed to think that the door did not exist.
“Looks like there is a set of doors up ahead,” Elijah said, sending a mental command to return to him. “I’m pulling the scout back; he can’t do anything until we open one of them.”
Even with his warning, he noticed the others startle at his bat’s arrival back up the stairs. It landed on his shoulder, squeaking happily up at him. He almost felt bad that he didn’t have a treat for it.
“What kind of treat do you even give to a flesh-eating bat conjured from nothing but shadows and mana?”
Sasha looked back and cocked her eyebrow at him; he hadn’t realized he had spoken aloud.
Bo looked over his shoulder. “Flesh eating nightmare bat from beyond human understanding? Probably the blood of a virgin. I bet Benjamin would be a tasty snack.”
“What makes you think I’m a virgin?” Benjamin snapped back.
Bo was about to answer when Sasha cleared her throat. “Knock it off; this is serious.”
“Yeah, guys. This is serious,” echoed Nicholas. “So behave before the babysitter spanks you.”
His comments earned him a smack to the back of the head, then Sasha looked over her shoulder and glared at Elijah while mouthing, ‘Your fault.’ at him.
He held up his hands in a peaceful gesture, not wanting to get smacked as well. She rolled her eyes at him as they made it to the bottom of the stairs.
“What do you think?” Asked Nicholas, “One door leads where we’re trying to go; the other leads to a death trap?”
“Probably,” agreed Bo. “Any developer trying to reach this room would have their dev tools active that could tell them exactly which door to go through.”
“But why go through all the trouble when there is an impassable barrier up there?” Sasha asked.
“Paranoia, or extra insurance,” Elijah answered, understanding the developer mindset better than most. “The door out front is a good step, but there is always the risk of something getting screwed up, or a player being able to glitch through it.”
He watched Sasha and Benjamin closely as the party discussed how to figure out which door to go through. Powerful magic was radiating from the door on the left side, but nothing from the one on the right. He was curious to see if they, as fellow magic users, could sense it too. They seemed just as unsure as Bo and Nicholas. That made Elijah curious; was his ability to sense which door they needed to go through linked to his debug menu?
It was interesting, but also frustrating, to see how each of the party members tried to solve the puzzle. Bo tried to work out the psychology of one door versus the other, Benjamin looked closely at the doors to discern any differences, Nicholas suggested a coin flip, and Sasha recommended splitting the party.
He racked his brain trying to come up with an easy way to lead them towards the correct door without giving away the fact that he had some amount of admin access. He felt bad about lying to them, but this was a secret that he had to keep closely guarded.
The party seemed set to decide between one or the other. Elijah had to act; he couldn’t let them choose the wrong path when they were so close. He pushed past Benjamin and opened the correct door.
“Elijah!” Sasha yelled before looking in and seeing the room ahead.
“Sorry, guys, but my gut was telling me it was this one.” They all seemed to at least accept his reasoning, especially since it was now obvious that it was the correct choice, but the belief didn’t land as strongly as he would have liked.
“Alright,” Nicholas grunted, looking between the doorway and Elijah. “Send your bat ahe—”
The bat screeching cut him off as it launched itself from his shoulder and took off up the stairs.
“Someone else is here. Get in the room.” He hissed, kicking himself mentally for not shutting the entrance to the mausoleum. He didn’t know who had followed them here, but he had a very good guess.
And it would not be good if they found his party.
The group bundled into the room, and Elijah slammed the door behind them just as the connection to his local scout cut out. Somewhere up above him, he heard the sounds of a blender shoved full of razor blades.
