Today's Earth date: June 22, 1992

Horcus fucking flew onto the ship today.

Flew. In the air. With magic. And he updated his wardrobe to this cliche black robe with a hood. He said he learned some new tricks about the system that can help us in the Fire Temple, but in typical Horcus fashion, he won't say where he learned any of this.

He saw the monster's shadow too. The asshole is excited he got here in time to get the XP for killing. No concern for our safety or the crew's.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

The passage behind the throne immediately descended a long staircase. The fine green construction the Zeroes had seen everywhere else in the castle was replaced by a yellowed white, like that of old bones. The bricks were cruder here. The walls bowed in some places and had partially collapsed in others. There were no statues, and there were no murals.

"I've heard of kingdoms building on top of the ruins of a previous civilization," Fergus said. "This part of the castle might predate the elves."

"...And if they hid this, it can't be anything good," Armond added.

"Agreed."

The king had said his people opened a gate or sought to open a gate. Opening a portal to a strange new dimension universally ended in catastrophe in stories, and that seemed to be the case here as well. Given that demons invaded through gates, Wayne had assumed the king's monologue referenced the now defunct Desert Temple. That's where the gates would be if this content followed the temple-by-temple structure of the rest of the quest.

But this didn't feel anything like the Water Temple or the Earth Temple. The passages were too narrow. The ceilings were too low. And the halls were bereft of decorations aligning with an earth theme. If they were presently in the cut Earth Temple, it was very different from what the Zeroes had experienced before.

For the sake of party safety, Wayne kept his meandering thoughts to himself and diligently checked his HUD for signs of enemies.

This was the drawback of being one of the rare few to discover an area that never made it to the final release of a game. With nothing to actually do or fight, the novelty of the experience was short-lived. Great. It exists. You saw it. If you spent hours and hours trying to recreate the specific glitch that made accessing this area possible, congratulations to you, and also sorry for all the time you lost.

As far as what Wayne's HUD map revealed, there wasn't as much sprawl on these lower levels compared to the castle above. The party still passed by several offshoots and side passages, but they would have far less to sweep down here than above if they decided that was necessary. The main passage was more or less a straight shot to one staircase and then to another. Three floors down–having seen nothing but the same yellowed walls as before–Wayne called for the party to halt.

"The room ahead looks like a boss room," he said.

The last boss room Wayne investigated, a giant mantis shrimp killed him. With one punch, it blew his body into little wet pieces. That's how Hector described it, at least. Being dead, Wayne was unable to witness any of this. He had to hear about it after Armond resurrected him with Born Again from Tunnels & Trolls.

"Are we running Speedy Delivery?" Margo asked.

That was the name of a play the party devised to take advantage of relatively new skill synergy. Fergus earned an ability called Demolition Charges that allowed him to pack a pre-cast spell into a block of material resembling C4. Shortly after Fergus unlocked that, Margo unlocked Demolitions, which gave her the ability to place and activate Fergus' spell bombs.

Armed with four blocks of Hellbomb Burst, a nasty spell from Tunnels & Trolls, Wayne would use an Upsi-Toss, a combination of skills that when used together enabled him to hurl Margo great distances. Usually, they used that maneuver to set up Margo for a Backstab, but in Speedy Delivery, the goal was to get her to the target as quickly as possible. Once there, she would set the charges, Wayne would use Homerow to teleport her back to the party, and then boom.

"Assume yes," Wayne answered. "If what we see changes anyone's mind, call it. We'll adjust."

The double doors to the boss chamber swung open far more easily than should have been possible given their hefty stone construction. Hector breached first, his shield up and half a dozen protection abilities activated. Some of those buffs were his own, and many of them were courtesy of Armond's cleric spells.

Flag Girl activated and froze the scene.

The chamber was another throne room, a duplicate of the one they saw a few floors earlier. The walls were yellowed like everywhere else in this section of the dungeon, but other than that, the dimensions and layout were the same: a long room with a vaulted ceiling and a dais at the far end. A figure sat on the throne but didn't move.

When Flag Girl ended, the battle began.

Armond cast Ner on the rogue to buff her speed, and then Margo jumped into position. Wayne's abilities launched her into the air, the power of his skills and the buff from Ner combining to make Margo a lady-shaped missile. She landed in front of the throne and immediately crouched to set the Demolition Charges.

Wayne's mental finger hovered over Homerow, ready to yank Margo back at the slightest sign of danger.

In the same instant Margo called that she was done, the figure on the throne came to life, slowly and dramatically. It stood as Margo disappeared and then reappeared with her party on the opposite side of the room.

"It's some kind of golem," she reported.

The health bar on Wayne's HUD confirmed it. The system labeled the boss "ancient golem."

The golem pointed at the party, and its voice boomed. "Fools! You toy with powers you do-"

Four instances of Hellbomb Burst going off at once shook the throne room like the cabin of an airplane in a storm. Flames rushed toward the party, followed by dense black smoke. Armond shielded the party with his Deban and Protective Pentagram spells, sparing the party from any danger Hellbomb Burst might pose to them. Other than a slight increase in temperature and the quaking of the room, no one felt the effects of the 4x spell.

"Well," Fergus said as the black smoke faded into nothing, despite having no real place to go. "He might have said something useful."

Wayne nodded. "We definitely interrupted a cut scene."

"Sorry," Margo added, meekly.

"Don't be," Wayne assured her. "We all agreed on that plan. Second-guessing ourselves along the way only puts us in danger. Blowing the charges was the right call."

Fergus patted Margo on the back. "It's unlikely it had anything useful to say."

"Did you guys gain a level?" Hector asked.

Wayne opened his system menu. Yep, he had gained a level. He was now level 27 and the rest of the party advanced to level 23, except for Fergus. He was a level ahead and progressed to level 24.

"We should hold on exploring our new unlocks," Armond said via Voice. "And we should stick to comms discipline."

Armond was right, Wayne realized. "Roger that. Let's sweep the room before we do anything else."

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No additional battles triggered as the party traversed the throne room, nor did the earth golem suddenly rise again to begin another boss phase. It remained as scattered pieces of clay, baked hard by the flames of Fergus' spells.

"There's a door behind this throne too," Margo reported.

Now that's just lazy design, Wayne thought. Reusing a gimmick is fine, and frankly expected, but using the same gimmick back to back was pretty uninspired. After Margo confirmed there were no traps on this door either, they pushed the throne aside and stepped into a small, dusty treasure room. Chests lined the walls, and a pedestal sat at the center, a dwarven Diagnostic Cube resting on top of it.

While Wayne translated the lone side with text–the one facing up, signaling the "active" state of the block–the rest of the party searched the chests. Margo inspected them all for traps first, of course. None were trapped. None were locked. And they were all empty. No magic weapons. No gold pieces. Nothing.

By the time the careful search concluded, Wayne had finished the translation. Having a HUD full of notes to reference made that process easier, and he was growing familiar with many of the major symbols as well. Even before he began the translation, he suspected this cube was meant to be temporary.

When he finished, he confirmed he had been correct:

Placeholder 22399.7a

Earth Sigil Fragment = 2

Physical Guidance = True

Had the dwarves completed this dungeon as intended, this Diagnostic Cube would have been replaced by an Earth Sigil fragment. It was their second, the first being the one Sheeri had found to kick off this search, but it was the first in the sequence of desert riddles.

Wayne put both hands on either side of the cube and immediately felt a mental pull that he intuitively knew was roughly southeast of where he stood. When he released the cube, the sensation stopped.

"I think this is meant to guide us to the next sigil fragment," Wayne said.

"Not it," Fergus blurted.

Wayne rolled his eyes. "I'll carry it. We should finish searching first. Margo?"

"Right here," she replied, looking down at a blank part of the floor.

She tapped the runes that were only visible to her, entering the dwarven equivalent of a 1234 password. A square outline appeared on the floor, and the hatch flipped open.

Wayne went down first, dropping into a room that matched the other secret areas they had seen in previous dungeons. Nine pedestals arranged in neat rows of three occupied the center of the room. None of them bore Diagnostic Cubes, but Wayne spotted a stack of them against the wall. Two doorways exited from opposite sides of the pedestal room. At a glance, one looked like it had cots, while the other had workbenches.

"Clear."

Fergus was the only one to join Wayne in searching. The rest of the party stayed in the throne room. Wayne suspected Armond was already napping.

Wayne started translating the Diagnostic Cubes in the pedestal room while Fergus searched the dorms. Wayne was only through three faces of his first cube when Fergus emerged with a tablet in his hand.

"There's chalk on the wall like there used to be patch notes," Fergus reported. "They got scrubbed away, though. Otherwise, there were these."

He set two tablets on the ground near Wayne and ventured into the workroom.

Of the five cubes Wayne translated, four of them were related to enemy spawns, providing multiple options for quantity and frequency. Had the dungeon been active, earth golems and bone golems would have filled this section, and all of the animal statues they passed in the previous area would have come to life to fight them.

That would have been oh so tedious, Wayne thought.

The fifth cube was different. One of its faces read:

Spawn Override = True

Earth Sigil 1 = True

Earth Sigil 2 = True

Earth Sigil 3 = True

Earth Sigil 4 = True

The exact opposite face of the cube read:

Spawn Override = False

Earth Sigil 1 = False

Earth Sigil 2 = False

Earth Sigil 3 = False

Earth Sigil 4 = False

The remaining four sides were more variations of the same, starting with Spawn Override = True, each side added another True statement.

"Vanilli will be happy," Fergus said, returning from the workroom with a hammer and chisel. "There's a bunch of golem parts and diagrams in there. My fantastically educated guess is that these are preloaded to forge golem enemies."

"That would make sense."

"How are you doing in here?"

"Almost done. Working on the tablets now."

When he finished, he shared the translation for a Project Change Order with Fergus:

Project Change Order 2.0

To align with Water Temple changes, please implement the following immediately:

-Terminate all development on the Hell's Gates, Heaven's Flames quest line

-Disable all quest and spawn markers

-Disable access to quest content using as little budget as possible

-Move unusable content to storage

"Are you sure-" Fergus began, but Wayne cut him off.

"Yes, I checked it three times. It says 'Hell's Gates, Heaven's Flames.' I'm certain."

"Why did saying that make you a touch pale?" Fergus asked.

"There was a church thing in my world called Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames. It was a play that showed several families dying. They go to heaven, but not all of them get to go in. The others are dragged into hell. Screaming, crying, begging, the whole bit."

"I had the impression you were not a religious man."

"I'm not," Wayne said. "This was meant for kids. In hindsight, it's pretty fucked up."

"Does that mean you have theories to explain those similarities between worlds?"

Wayne shook his head. "Not a one. It goes on the list of weird things that seem to overlap with Earth for no apparent reason."

"Unfortunate."

He read the translation for the second table next:

All-Staff Memo:

You have no doubt heard that our entry for the Human Universe contest has encountered challenges. While this is true, we remain hopeful that what we are building together is truly special, and we thank you for all of your hard work as well as your patience as we navigate these challenges.

We do not have the option to push back the launch date any further. Our only choice is to buckle down and work harder than ever before! This crunch period will be brief, and we have complete faith in the talents of our developers to make us proud.

–Dormo

"That sounds befitting for the cancellation of a whole region," Fergus observed.

"Agreed."

"It further supports our hypotheses about the Temples. Unfortunate that it's not more interesting than old cut content."

"I was bummed too, but there is good news." Wayne pointed to the only non-enemy cube. "I think this is a debug tool."

"What does that mean, exactly?"

"A lot of cheats in video games started as developer tools. Playing the entire game from start to finish every time you made a change wasn't practical, so they used shortcuts to automatically set the game to specific states. That way you could test what you wanted to test and skip everything else. A lot of times, developers left things like debug menus in their games because no one would find them unless they knew where to look, in theory."

Fergus nodded along. "I can see the logic in that."

"If I'm right, this is the dwarven equivalent."

"Which is significant because…?"

"We might be able to set all of the quest conditions as complete. Right here, right now."

"Making it unnecessary to solve the next two riddles?"

Wayne grinned.

"Are there risks to pursuing this method?" Fergus asked.

"It will break the logic of this whole area, but I don't think that matters. We've already done that with the point of interest upgrade I got. Worst case, we have to solve the riddles anyway to get coordinates or something for the Desert Temple. Nothing to lose, really."

Double-checking his work, Wayne selected the appropriate face to point upward before he set it on a pedestal. If he was right, all of the quests prior to the Desert Temple would auto-complete. Moving carefully, he hoisted the cube into place. He wiggled it a little to line it up with the pedestal.

Wayne's world froze. He was fully aware of himself but had no control over his body, not even his eyes.

Loading…

That word flashed in front of his eyes for several seconds. When it disappeared, the world returned to normal.

"Did you see the same message as I did?" Fergus asked.

"I'm sure it's fine," Wayne answered.

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