Today's Earth date: March 14, 1992

The Water Temple spoiled us. Our escort dropped us off at the door for that run, but for the Earth Temple? We have to go cave diving. Horcus says the proper term is "spelunking," but none of us are falling for that joke.

For my part, I meditated on being a Paladin before we started the hike, and I feel more energized than I ever have.

A horde of demons awaits us, and it is my duty to slay them for the good of this world.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

Wayne reached level 22 after the party encountered two separate groups of clobs on the way to the Earth Temple. The rain hadn't slowed, so he didn't use Christmas List on the wagon for fear of water ruining the pages. Eventually though, the party found the entrance to the cave that led down to the Earth Temple. The Hero-Only barrier was somewhere far below, so the whole party could enjoy the reprieve of a dry shelter. A small and steady stream ofrainwaterr did run into the cave, but it was easily avoided.

The mouth of the cave itself was relatively small. Pulling Outlawson and the wagon inside felt like finding a spot in a sketchy parking garage, but once he was through the entrance, the cavern opened into a more comfortably sized space. Three wagons could fit side by side, and the party could set up camp deep enough that the wind and rain wouldn't bother them. Opposite the entrance, two pillars of dead coral marked the Earth Temple passage.

Where the cave walls were appropriately flat and vertical, previous Chosen Heroes left graffiti to commemorate their visit to the Earth Temple. Most Heroes simply wrote their names with some kind of ink or paint. Lacking that, they scratched their inscriptions into the stone instead. Fergus was particularly excited to see the art. He had read a paper on the evolution of messages left by Heroes on this wall, and there was no substitute for seeing it in person.

The oldest generations of Chosen Heroes simply left their names. After a few generations, the graffiti went from just names to including calls for honor, duty, and justice. As those generations trended toward the present, the tone of the graffiti changed. There was no shortage of penis illustrations–covering a wide spectrum of types, varieties, and styles–and there were two drawings of naked women and one drawing of a naked man.

The quality of those drawings reminded Wayne of the adult games released for Atari. If you squinted hard enough and used a lot of imagination, you could see the lewd idea the artist sought to represent, but nothing was more elaborate than that.

The paper Fergus read discussed what it meant for the tone of the messages to change so radically over time. The authors theorized that the graffiti was a reflection of life on Earth, suggesting that the culture of humanity on that planet must have trended more toward absurdity as their civilization developed.

Which sounded pretty accurate to Wayne, actually. Laszlo and Horcus weren't young aspiring samurais–as one generation of Heroes was–raised in a time where death always loomed and prospects for the lower classes were few. They were children of the 80s. That version of Earth wasn't paradise by any stretch, but their lives had far more entertainment and leisure than their predecessors.

For them, life was meant to be fun, and that's what the graffiti reflected.

Once the party got a big fire going and hung up their wettest clothes and gear, Wayne sat by the warm flames. He wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and opened his system. Before he read it, he remarked to his party that drying out in front of a fire was a simple pleasure worth enjoying. They agreed.

Feeling more content, Wayne looked at his stats first:

Hero: Wayne the Guy

Level: 22

HP: 303/303

STR: 39

AGI: 31

VIT: 23

LCK: 36

All of those numbers seemed small in comparison to what Luke had at level 64. He could never say it out loud, but seeing Luke in action against Targitaus reminded Wayne of being new to World of Warcraft and watching a veteran player demolish an early dungeon. It showed him how far he could go but also made him envious. He had a long way to travel to match Laszlo's strength.

Skimming through his menus, Wayne read over his new unlocks:

Wolfpack gave him:

Relentless – This personality type will engage enemy vessels on contact and will not break loose until its target is lost or destroyed.

As cool as it sounded, it didn't give Wayne a new spell or skill. It did, however, give him a +2 to vitality. All the other unlocks would need testing to determine how they actually worked.

For example, from Pat Riley Basketball he earned:

Lightning-Quick Steal – Steals the ball from an opposing player in mid-dribble.

And Oddworld: Abe's Exodus:

SoulStorm™ Brew Dispenser – Push the button, then do what comes naturally.

Not wanting to waste any of his game unlocks, Wayne had brought along Pages of Power 23 and 44 so that he had plenty of games for Christmas List even if he was hundreds of feet underground for several days.

Excitedly, he circled Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing on page 44, unlocking:

Home Row – This is where your fingers start, end and return between keystrokes.

Wayne was curious how the system would translate a typing program to video game mechanics. He had hoped to get one of the many mini-games in Mavis Beacon, but it occurred to him that this was a 1990 catalog, making it one of the earliest editions of the software. Did it even have games that far back in its history? Wayne couldn't remember.

His system considered Home Row a spell, and it was currently unusable. Like many of his unlocks, Wayne suspected he could only use Home Row in combat.

Carefully setting Page of Power 44 aside, he picked up Page of Power 23 and circled the pinball game Devil's Crush. The Electronics Boutique catalog described it like this:

Journey to the underworld for a devilish pinball simulation and face the beautiful but evil She Giant, dragons, skeletons and sorcerers and, perhaps, the ultimate Armageddon!

Earning him:

Launch Ball – Draw the plunger backward and release to put a ball into play (1 Credit).

Like Home Row, Launch Ball was also considered a spell and appeared to be combat-locked.

"You seem happy," Fergus said, rubbing his hands and holding them close to the fire.

Wayne shrugged. "Yeah, I suppose I am," he said. "Finally drying out and got some new spells to play with."

"Got a question for you," Armond said, finding a seat to enjoy the warmth as well. "Are we abandoning the siren trap project for Lord Blackwell after what happened?"

"That's a good question," Wayne answered. "On the one hand, I feel like we have a workaround figured out, but on the other, losing our minds is a bit of a bummer."

"Does that workaround include transport?"

Wayne winced. "It does not. I don't know how we do that in a way that doesn't leave us deaf by the time we get back to town."

"We have quite the walk ahead," Fergus interjected. "May be worth thinking about solving those problems with all of that time, but I agree with the hesitation I hear in your voices. What good would come of a siren trap living in someone's garden? Surely you couldn't enjoy it, not if it consumes your mind as soon as you hear its song."

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"And then neighborhood kids and dogs start going missing," Armond joked.

Fergus laughed. "Right. A party guest wanders off. 'Oh, someone go find Bert before the garden eats him.'"

"Perhaps Blackwell wants one to get rid of bodies," Hector added as he hung a pot of stew over the fire.

"Come again?" Armond asked.

"Rich folk are always murdering other folk, but you have to get rid of the bodies. Feed them to your killer plant, and boom, no more bodies."

"How do you know about these murders?"

Hector scoffed. "Everyone knows that's what happens. They're rich enough to get away with it."

Just then, Sammy appeared to offer the Water Sigil to Wayne. The glow that was nearly imperceptible back at Drumin's Divide was now as bright as a flashlight.

"You asked me to remember to give this to you," he said. "Got brighter the closer we got to the Temple, just like you guessed."

"Thank you, Sammy," Wayne said, accepting the strange rock. "If this whole area was at the bottom of the ocean, I can see needing a tool to locate the Temple."

"Awful long way to travel underwater," Armond added. "Were the Heroes expected to camp underwater or just swim all the way down in one go?"

"And not just that, what about pressure changes?" Wayne asked. "It might be deep enough for that to be an issue."

A party of inquisitive faces looked at Wayne.

"Right. Scuba diving isn't a thing in this world."

Wayne paused for a moment to think about explaining the challenges of traveling deep beneath the ocean.

"You don't notice it much going for a casual swim, but the weight of the water itself affects your body in a strange way. Go deep enough, and the pressure of all the water above you can itself be dangerous, but you also can't immediately swim to the surface. If you come up from the deep too quickly, you get something called the 'Bends,' which is basically your body struggling to adapt after you took all of that weight away."

"Is the Earth Temple deep enough for that to have been an issue?" Fergus asked.

"My memory of the exact science is fuzzy, and I never got to go scuba diving myself, so I'm not sure."

"Would be darker than all hells too," Hector added.

Wayne held up the shining Water Sigil. "Perhaps that was the intention of this mechanic?"

"One light for six people is pretty dangerous," Armond observed. "Seems like a great way to lose a few Heroes."

Conversation stopped when Sammy distributed bowls of steaming stew. As spoons clinked off the bottoms, dialog slowly picked up again.

"What are you guys going to do to pass the time?" Margo asked, addressing Sammy and Vanilli. "You got a long wait ahead of you."

"I brought my lasso," Vanilli said.

"And I brought some games," Sammy said. "I've got a project to occupy me too."

"Oh? What's the project?"

"It's a surprise," Sammy answered. "When it's ready, I'll share it with everyone."

Margo smiled. "Well, I'm intrigued."

Sammy blushed. "It might end up not being any good, so don't get your hopes too high."

"You're a lot smarter than you give yourself credit for, hun," Margo said. "I'm sure you'll handle the challenge just fine. Whatever it is."

Fergus raised his spoon. "Seconded."

Everyone else around the fire nodded their agreement as well.

"Don't forget our talks about science," Fergus continued. "Trying an idea that doesn't work isn't a failure. It's one more step toward the ideal solution."

Sammy had his head down, too embarrassed to look at anyone, but had a big smile. "Thanks, everyone."

The cave leading to the Earth Temple was straightforward in terms of general navigation, and the water the party saw dribbling into the cave on the surface followed them the entire way down. Side passages were few, and any they saw were short enough for the dead end to be visible from the main path. Large formations of coral, similar to what the party saw in the Lighthouse basement, wove through the cavern frequently enough that Wayne could picture what the cave might have looked like under water.

Otherwise, the only challenge the caves presented were a few points where the first dwarves intended the Heroes to be swimming in order to navigate, like sudden drop-offs or long vertical shafts. With their levels, though, those weren't much trouble either.

Also thanks to their levels, the extra gear they carried wasn't bothersome beyond its bulk. Intending to exit the Earth Temple using Rise as a shortcut, Wayne figured there was a good chance they ended up on top of the small mountain that housed the Temple, so he brought some basic mountaineering supplies like ropes and pitons to help the party climb down if they found themselves high above the Cuts.

Wayne's HUD map had become mostly useless. The repurposed Railroad Tycoon display did a poor job of representing vertical terrain, so only portions of the cave rendered at any given time, and Wayne's History ability looked like a dense, tight scribble as the party descended but traveled very little horizontally.

"Hold," Wayne said suddenly. "Reds were on my map." He frowned, trying to find the right elevation for the dots to reappear. The dots flashed in and out on his map with no discernible pattern. Another sign that his HUD map was struggling in this environment.

While Wayne moved back and forth and side to side like he was line dancing, the grating of stone dragging against stone echoed through the cavern. The red dots reappeared and held but moved only slightly. Now that they were solid, Wayne could confirm there were four, but nothing attacked. All he heard was muffled wet flopping.

Two zombie sharks splatted on the ground, falling from hidden doors hidden high against the ceiling. Had the party been swimming, the sharks likely would have attacked them from behind before the party spotted them.

That was some dirty encounter design, Wayne thought.

Though the sharks thrashed and snapped viciously, they were sharks on land. Any attempt to pursue the Zeroes was ineffective. Armond commented that even the unhealthiest soldiers could stomach crawl far faster than the zombie sharks could wiggle and hop toward their prey.

The other two sharks soon fell out of their hidden Spawner locations as well.

"Before we put them out of their misery," Wayne said to his party, "let me test my new abilities. Guards up because I have no idea what to expect.

SoulStorm™ Brew Dispenser.

The Zeroes groaned and covered their noses and mouths as putrid green gas left Wayne's body. Though Wayne the person still stood in the cave, his consciousness now existed as a fart cloud lingering behind his butt. It was a pretty nice butt, actually, Wayne thought.

Using his mind, Wayne steered his fart to one of the zombie sharks and flew into the monster.

The shift was jarring. As soon as the fart possessed the shark, Wayne's vantage point again changed. A moment ago, he faced the nose of the rotting predator. Then suddenly he looked out of its eyes in the opposite direction.

"I'm a shark," Wayne said, amused.

Though Wayne wasn't physically holding a controller, learning to use the shark's body felt a lot like learning the buttons in a new video game. A few of the movements were intuitive while many were not, but after about thirty seconds, Wayne had a good enough grasp that he could hop the shark forward and chomp its mouth.

"If you wish to continue being a shark, please do so over there instead of coming toward us," Fergus said.

Wayne wiggled and thrashed to turn the shark. He bit into the closest zombie shark and ripped a chunk of flesh away from its body.

He thought about cancelling the Fart ability and a moment later he was back in his body.

Setting a hand on Hector's shoulder to steady himself, Wayne held his head. "Oh, that feels terrible. I'm so dizzy."

When he recomposed himself, he saw that SoulStorm™ Brew Dispenser had a one-hour cooldown. Frowning, he warned the party to have their guards up and tried another ability.

Launch Ball.

As odd as it sounded, Wayne could feel the pinball plunger in his hand as if he were standing in front of an actual machine. He had the control to decide how much pull, and therefore how much force, he wanted to impart on the ball when it entered play. He decided to start with what felt roughly like half-power.

A silver ball, three feet in diameter, shot out from next to Wayne but stayed chest height instead of ever touching the ground.

The pinball rocketed through a gap in the zombie sharks, bounced off the cave wall, then bounced again, and careened back toward the party. Everyone dodged, letting the ball sail by.

A sad trombone noise played, as loud as if it came through the invisible speakers of BGM Switch. When the party spun to prepare for the ball's return bounce, it was gone. Wayne's system told him he had to wait thirty minutes before using the ability again.

"What was that supposed to accomplish?" Fergus asked.

Wayne shrugged. "The whole premise of pinball is keeping the ball in play. We'll try reflecting it back at the enemies when it comes at us next time, but we have to wait out the cooldown.

Lightning-Quick Steal from Pat Riley Basketball simply gave Wayne the failure sensation when he attempted to use it. If it was like Margo's Steal skill she earned from Ultima III, it was pointless against a monster with no gear or inventory. As far as revelations went, that wasn't a big one, but Wayne preferred to be thorough.

Then Wayne mentally tapped Home Row from Mavis Beacon.

The next moment, everyone in his party was teleported back to where they were standing when the first zombie shark showed itself.

All of his companions cursed loudly, both at Wayne and at the sensation.

"Sorry, everyone," Wayne said sheepishly. "I didn't know what to expect."

Fergus stumbled forward and rested his hands on his knees to compose himself. "Yet again, should have given you the intelligence potion."

Home Row.

Fergus teleported back ‌half of a step to his original position.

"Gods, Wayne, fuck you."

Home Row.

"Okay! Please stop!"

Wayne smiled. "There's no cooldown on this one, but it looks like it always affects the whole party. I won't use it again without warning everyone. As rough as the teleport is, resetting our formation like this could save our skin someday."

"I think I'd rather just die," Hector said, holding his hands on his head while he breathed deeply.

"You guys whine a lot," Margo said. "Toughen up."

"Hurtful," Fergus tisked. "So hurtful."

Margo grinned and shrugged.

"Let's kill the sharks and find a place to make camp," Wayne suggested. "I think we could all use a rest."

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