“Great,” Hang Ten’s bubblebum pops. “We’re going to get fragged before we even start.”
“I thought you said you have access to RiftElite zones!” Queen WaqWaq scowls.
“I do!” I shout. “It’s not us they’re targeting, it’s Mister Stampy!”
“Vessel 015381G!” Shouts the security forces. “Heave to and prepare to be boarded!”
I snatch the IFF Rebrand node I found in Duggler’s refinery and smack it into Stampy’s console. I had intended to do it as a precaution before we arrived, but I wasn’t planning on accidentally hitting the Start button with my ass. I flick the node on and pray.
IFF Rebrand—Ping Active
Your ship is now redesignated as Medical Supply Ship #XX to all mob vessel sensors.
“This is Medical Supply Ship…” I check the IFF Rebrand code number. “...69. Medical Supply Ship 69. We’re delivering… uh… medical supplies. To… Xanadome Carousel.”
There’s a long pause. Pepper leans in. “You have to say over.”
“Over!”
There’s a crackle of static on the speakers that goes on too long. “Copy that Medical Supply Ship Six-Niner, you are cleared for approach. Docking Bay Niner-Four.”
“Docking Bay 94. Roger that, I mean… copy that.”
“You have to say over and out.” Pepper whispers.
“I know what I’m supposed to say!”
“It doesn’t seem like you know.”
I press the com. “Over and out.” I flick off the microphone. “There! Happy?”
Queen WaqWaq raises an eyebrow. “Is the whole quest going to go like this?”
I steer our kaiju ship toward the highlighted bay on the station. Hank looks upset. “Does this mean we’re not going to be able to use Mister Stampy?”
“Looks like it.” I jerk my chin at the massive Carousel. “I don’t know if Mister Stampy would do us any good against that anyway. We’re going to have to beat this thing from the inside.”
Hank pouts. “But he’ll be lonely without us.”
It turns out we don’t get much of a say in the matter. The instant we get close to the dock, the ship is pulled into position with a tractor beam, and we are teleported with a blip from the control deck and into another world.
I doubt you saw a movie called Logan’s Run; you’d have to be at least 50 to remember that one. Set in a psychedelic-laced pleasure palace where they kill anyone over 30, Logan’s Run was part of that Bob Guccione period in film when sex was baked into everything, and it wore a lot of eyeliner. The Logan’s Run sets looked like Cloud City mixed with the Playboy Mansion… that’s the vibe of Xanadome Carousel.
Roman columns in pure white marble line great halls where the classical architecture of Caesar’s Palace meets luxury spa life. Jade fountains spray dancing towers of neon-blue water that would put the Bellagio casino to shame. Glass walkways arc over crystal-clear views of aurora storms while gondolas made of ivory slip through the air, steered by toga-clad gondolieresses. And everything, everything, everything is plated in gold. It looks like a living fantasy of Donald Trump’s dream casino.
Welcome to Xanadome Carousel!
Enjoy tranquility, opulence, and decadence here in the luxury accommodations of the Galaxy’s Finest Resort, and home to the Black Rim Raiders Season 2 Mega-Quest. Here you will find everything your heart desires. There is no hunger left unsated in Xanadome Carousel, and all edibles are included with your stay. Feel free to eat anything you see, including the staff. They are here to serve you in whatever way you require. Please note that the luxurious oxygen, scented with jacaranda and lavender, will be charged at the rate of 1 gold per minute. Please explore the Outer Ring at your leisure, and thank you for your RiftElite membership.
This is a No-PVP Zone
Matchstick scowls. “They charge for bleedin’ air?”
“We only have 10 hours for the quest, that’s 600 gold apiece,” Pepper says.
I turn to the Night Shift. “Does everyone have 600 gold?”
Everyone does, but none of them are happy about spending money to breathe. Join the club. Wasting no time, we explore deeper into the Carousel’s Outer Ring. As I mount a golden staircase, I hear it speak. “Oh, no, sir. Allow me!” The Scarlet O’Hara-sized staircase moves like a gold escalator, lifting me to the next level, complimenting me the entire way. “You must be very strong and intelligent to become such a powerful player, my king! Such a fine specimen of a man! Enjoy your stay, sir!”
As I exit the staircase, I see RiftElite players lounging in floating beds like Roman emperors, fed grapes by half-nude sylphs. A group of women players is being tended to by a shirtless man fanning them with the tail of a living peacock. Servants massage players’ backs and feet on a series of golden tables. A woman walks her dragon-poodle as winged mechs serve her shrimp cocktails. Toga-wrapped NPCs take social media videos of RiftElites posing in front of a RiftBorn background that changes every 30 seconds. Many pose with some of the big-breasted sylphs.
“Gross.” Hang Ten pops a bubble.
“Did that guy just spend $100 on a skin?” Wahoo points to a booth called LootCouture, where RiftElites purchase costumes and cosmetics like they’re penny candy, displaying big purchases in the CoinRiver, where there seems to be a competition for who can spend the most of daddy’s money. As that’s happening, I watch a pack of giant snakes marked EXPythons slither around the edges of the crowd, subservient and meek, like they’re kitchen maids. “Free XP, misss? Free XP?” One of the players blasts the mob with a hand cannon. I hear the snake say, “Thank you, misss, enjoy your game!” as it disintegrates. An alert pops up: +500XP.
WaqWaq scowls. “So this is the Elite version of grinding?”
Wahoo blasts an EXPython for himself, then another. I glance around, worried he’s going to draw attention. “Stop. We’re here for the big quest, not chump change.”
“Aw, come on, it’s free XP.” He blasts another snake.
“What the hell is that thing?” Rincewind asks. I check where he’s pointing and see a big closet-sized machine with a glowing platform in the middle marked Ctrl+C / Ctrl+Me. I watch one of the female players walk up. She steps inside, the closet glows bright, and when she steps out, she is holding a baby version of herself, her exact duplicate the size of an infant.
“It’s a cloner!” Hang Ten gawks.
As the lady walks away, I watch her clone get older and bigger. She puts it down when it hits the size of a 3-year-old, and it keeps growing as it walks behind her. I stare at the thing. “Why does it make a younger version? Why not just a full-sized copy?”
“Who cares?! That’s lovely-jubbly! Watch this!” Matchstick jumps inside the cloning machine and an instant later, he reappears with his Mini-Me. He grins; his clone grins back. “Blimey, I’ll be twice the trouble!” He hi-fives himself. “Me mum won’t know which one to slap!”
“Oh that’s fun!” Pepper claps. “Can I hold him? I mean you?”
I glance at the opulence around us. The masseuses, the social media stations, the half-naked servants. This isn’t a quest, it’s an orgy. I watch Matchstick’s clone get bigger, now the size of a five-year-old. We’re getting distracted already. We only have 10 hours; I’m not wasting it on this.
I see a group of players in an area marked Vanity Fairground, watching themselves on a RiftTok screen a hundred feet wide. “Hey, how do we get to the quests?”
“OMG, look at this Ohio drip.” One of the girl players, dressed up in something that looks like a neon-feathered Big Bird costume, eyes us dismissively. “You guys are so Season 1.”
I realize she’s right. Compared to all the RiftElite players here, we look like bums who just wandered into the Met Gala. I don’t particularly care, and I don’t have the patience for this. “Listen, lady…”
WaqWaq steps in front of me and flips her hair. “I knaow, rite? It’s so vintage, full OG, yah? I love your top!”
“Yaah.” Big Bird preens. “It’s Prada, they only issued like 5 of them for the game, I got all 5.”
“So fresh.”
“So fresh.”
WaqWaq moves a little closer. “So… which way are the quests?”
“Ugh.” Big Bird pouts. “Quests are so mid. Nobody’s doing those, we’re just waiting for the Deathmatch.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“I knaow, we’re doing quests ironically.”
“Ooh. That’s fire.”
“Fire.”
“I think the big one is down there.” She gestures to a hallway and turns as the Vanity Fairground video switches to Big Bird on a digital ski slope, sporting a dangerous amount of cleavage. “Oh that’s me! That’s me!”
WaqWaq grabs me by the elbow and leads me away while the passel of idiots claps for themselves on the screen. “You’re not very good at talking to rich girls, are you?”
“You’re a Free-to-Play gamer.” I scowl. “How do you know anything about rich girls?”
“My dad’s restaurant is full of fancy bitches. Different outfits, same bitches. This way.”
As we get closer, I realize the quest entry hall seems remarkably empty. For something called a MegaQuest, it’s decidedly unpopular. I hear the klang of a heavy door and a RiftElite party tagged A$$Bla$ters comes around the corner. One is limping, and another’s armor looks like it’s been torched by a dragon. “Forget it,” one mutters to us. “It’s not worth it. Not for what they’re charging.”
“Oi! How bad was it?” asks Matchstick.
“Yeah, how bad was it?” repeats Matchstick’s teenage clone.
“It’s a meat grinder, and the loot sucks!” An A$$bla$ter jerks his chin at Hank. “You LivingLegends aren’t going to help, either. We had a LivingLegend the first time through, and they just got shredded. Six million gold gone.” One of them stops and looks at Pepper. “Hey, how much for the penguin?”
“Keep walking, d§pshit.” I move past him around the corner.
There, at the end of the hall, is a round metal door that looks like it belongs in a bank vault.
Xanadome Carousel: Inner Rings
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here! Beyond this point begins the Season 2 MegaQuest: Infinity Crown. A challenge so difficult that only 1% of our test players were able to defeat it! Five golden rings, each more deadly than the last! And if you survive to the Final Circle, you will face the most impossible challenge of all: the Womb Tomb.
Infinity Crown is a Congrats, You Suck Again! quest. You may exit the Inner Rings at any time to stop the quest, but if you die inside, you will respawn exactly where you entered Xanadome Carousel, without any gear… at Level 0. Hope you like wooden swords and burlap underwear!
But take heart, hero! Anyone who defeats the Womb Tomb will walk away with ten million gold, 1000 Gems to spend in the CoinRiver, and an S-Tier LootBox for every survivor. Good luck, and be sure to scream loud for the cameras when you die!
“Oh, that sounds scary!” Pep grabs my leg. “Do we have to go in?”
“Yeah!” Matchstick and his Not-So-Mini-Me clone both grin. “That’s why we’re here!” They grab the vault door to open it and I see an alert.
To pass the ring gate, please insert your RiftElite RED KEYCARD
“Oh bollocks. I don’t have one of those.” Matchstick and his clone turn to me. “Do you?”
None of us does; we just have the Yellow Key from the Dig Duggler fight. Locking the Mega Quest is another layer of gatekeeping by the designers, one more barrier to keep out the riff-raff like us. Whales only.
“Maybe it’s for the best.” Hang Ten says. “Let’s just get in one more quest before the end of the season. Something where we can use the kaiju.”
“Yeah!” Hank agrees.
“Pep,” I whisper to her. “How popular is the Infinity Crown on RiftTok? Can you see those numbers?”
“No, but…” Her eyes glaze pink neon as her MemeQueen skill kicks in. “There are a lot of popular hashtags. #CrownTown #Xanadumb and #WombTomb are all trending.”
If I’m ever going to buy my way out of this game, the Infinity Crown is exactly what I need. Hank and I can’t afford to miss out on this kind of chance. I turn to the Night Shift. “Most of the RiftElite aren’t even going to try… because they have too much to lose. They’re scared of giving up everything they’ve purchased. But we’re low-level grinders, right? If we go back to level 0, it won’t take us long to get back to where we are now.”
“Nothing to lose.” Rincewind nods.
“All for it, mate.”
Queen WaqWaq throws up her hands. “But how are we going to get in?”
Hsss! The ring gate opens, and another party of RiftElite comes out: the Vektors. They’re not as injured as the last group, but look even more pissed. One of them glares at me like an angry child. “More LivingLegends! You guys suck!”
I let them pass and try to slip in the ring gate while it’s still open, but I get flashed with an error message and rejected by a force field. As I draw away, I see the last member of the party come through the door.
Dr. Broadchurch (LL)
Race: Human | Class: Grudge Monk
She’s an attractive woman, dressed in all-silk Tibetian monk robes with powered-up brass knuckles that crackle with magic. Halle Berry with a kung-fu grip.
“Hey,” I say, surprised.
“Hey!” Broadchurch smiles. “Always nice to see another LivingLegend.” She glances at Hank. “I’ve never seen two in one party, that must be nice.”
“Come on, Doc!” One of the Elites yells at her, clearly furious at being beaten. I recognize that voice. I look at the player and see—
Mockquaman.
His Skins have been upgraded and he’s joined a new party, but I’d know that overprivileged sneer anywhere. The shitstain who killed Buck Granger. “Let’s go, you lazy b§tch!”
I raise my hand, forcing myself not to punch Mockquaman in the face. ““Hold up, guys.” I adopt a tone of authority. “RiftBorn’s had reports of a virus in the game. It’s infecting CoinRiver accounts and making false purchases.”
“Really?” One Vektor turns to another. “Now I can tell my mom it really was fraud! We should rack a bunch of sh!t and then cancel all the charges!”
Dr. Broadchurch glances at me, curious. She knows RiftBorn wouldn’t use a LivingLegend for a security alert. I pray she knows to keep her mouth shut. She does. She smiles, watching.
Mockquaman stares at me. “Hey, do I know you—”
I hold out my hand to him, palm up. “The virus is infecting the Red Keycards. Let me take a look at yours.”
“Yeah, great, whatever!” Mockquaman slaps it in my palm. “Just fix it!”
“We could do that.” I turn the keycard over in my hand. “Or we could just rob you.”
I flick the M1 into my hand. Hank is right behind me, threatening them with his axe.
Mockquaman glances at my rifle and snorts derisively. “The Outer Ring is a No-PvP Zone, dipsh!t.”
“Good thing I’m not a player, dipsh!t.” I blast him in the face.
Mockquaman goes down with a smoking hole where his head used to be. It warms my heart to watch him die. Hank wipes out two Vektors with his laser axe. I nail the fourth guy before he gets his gun up, and suddenly I’m standing over a pile of smoking RiftElite corpses with a Red Keycard in my hand.
EmpathyEngine?: Naughty Naughty!
No-PVP applies to Players, and corporate entities are exempt, but please reconsider hostile actions against RiftElite paid subscribers. You are permitted to kill players who are not members of your party, but those medical bills don’t pay themselves, and forcing a paid respawn only counts for so much. Hesitate before you assassinate! Hype: -?50
A fifty-dollar fine for killing Mockquaman? Worth it.
Dr. Broadchurch bursts out laughing like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever seen. “Haha–oh! Oh, that was perfect! Oh, thank you!” She wipes away tears. “That guy was such an a**hole.”
“Happy to help.” My laugh joins hers.
“Let’s loot some corpses!” Rincewind shouts as Vektor bodies transform into Epic LootBoxes. Damn. I was hoping we could loot their RiftElite gear, but no such luck.
“Once players are dead, they just become a gold box.” Broadchurch flicks my pocket. “You were smart to get the keycard off him before he died.”
“Lucky.”
“Did the world a favor.” She gestures at the space Mockquaman went down. “That guy’s dad owns 6 Audi dealerships, he’s never worked a day in his life, and thinks he’s king of the universe. 27 years old.”
“No work ethic.”
“Kids today.”
I laugh again. “Rincewind. Invite Doc Broadchurch to the Night Shift.” There’s strength in numbers, and I like this Broadchurch lady already. I give her a smile. “Us LivingLegends have to stick together.”
“I can’t, our party is capped at 8.” Rince shrugs. “Besides, we don’t have another 6 million.”
“Not yet.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Dr. Broadchurch giggles. “I’m contracted with the Vektors until the end of the season, but that was totally worth it.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, and thank you.” She smiles. “You just made my week.”
I can tell by her voice she’s about my age, and I realize how long it’s been since I had a decent conversation with someone like me. While the Night Shift opens the LootBoxes, I ease her off to the side where they can’t hear. “You’re a doctor? In real life?”
“With a medical degree and everything.”
“A HumanAsset doctor?”
“Not any more.” She laughs. “Just a patient these days, like the rest of us.” She holds out her hand. “Jane Broadchurch. Pediatrics. Santa Fe.”
I shake it. “Dave McClain. Tallahassee. Unemployed.”
“You’re DDD!” She grins. “I know about you. You’re on the LivingLegend Leaderboard, right?” I nod. “That’s pretty impressive.” I see her check her HUD. “Ah, damn. The Vektors have respawned, and that stupid EmpathyEngine is bitching at me for not going with them.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want to show a lack of empathy for these little sh!ts, would we?”
She laughs again. “Poor little snowflakes.”
Yeah, I like her. “You’re a doctor, you’re smart. Any chance you came up with a way to tell people what’s really going on… what the LivingLegends really are?”
“You mean HumanAsset breaking every oath doctors are sworn to take? No. Maybe send some kind of message in the code, but I don’t know how I would do it. I’m not a hacker. You?”
“Same. Everything I think of would land me in an Icebox.”
She sighs. “Well. Time to get back on the clock.” She raises a finger. “But when I see you again, DDD, I want you to tell me some of your secrets of how to get on that Leaderboard.”
“It’s a date.”
She smiles, clicks a button, and blips out of existence.
“Well, she was nice.” Pepper smiles. “I hope we see her again!”
“Me too, Pep.” I sigh. “Let’s go not die.”
I take the Red Keycard and approach the ring gate scanner. For a moment, I hesitate. If Hank and I get killed in here, it’s going to be the end of our Season 2. I might have two hearts left, but respawning at Level 0 means I won’t have the gear or the time to try another quest before the RiftStorm burns the galaxy down.
Screw it. There’s nothing to lose but my life. I run the card, and the vault door opens for us.
Welcome to the Infinity Crown
“All right!” Matchstick fires up his pyro-magic; his clone does the same. “Now let’s kick some ass!”
“Too right!” His teenage double agrees. “Let’s kick some as-–”
His clone explodes.
A spray of blood, guts, and brains splashes all over me. Pepper, Hank, and the Night Shift are splattered in gore as the entire hallway is painted bloody red. Clumps of Mini-Matchstick corpse slide down the walls.
Clone Timer Expired
Your 20 minutes are up! Please visit another Ctrl+C / Ctrl+Me station for your next clone!
We’re all frozen, covered in blood. A wad of entrails peels off the ceiling and hits the ground with a splat.
I wipe guts off my face. Matchstick stands beside me, covered in his own entrails. “You go first.”