𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐒 || ready player one [DISCONTINUED]

0002 - An Origin Story

I had always expected IOI to be the first to find the location of the Copper Key. With all of the their Oologists working tirelessly, it seemed impossible for anyone else to the get to the key before the corporate bastards at IOI.

But I suppose it doesn't matter if this 'Parzival' is an independent gunter or not; IOI will be on his ass, begging him to join their Sixers teams, paying him whatever he wants to sell his soul to a devil named Nolan Sorrento. He's the CEO of IOI, and even my family thinks he's a monster. I can only hope that Parzival is a loyal gunter with at least some sort of back bone.

Then, as I sit bolt upright in my bed, a thought comes to my mind. It's a thought that has haunted me many times over the past two years, since I gave up the life that I had in the OASIS, but more importantly, as a gunter.

What if I were to go back? What if I were to put on my hat, hoist the sails, and sore across the OASIS skies once more? Now that one avatar has found the Copper Key, it won't be long before word gets out and everybody knows where it is. No doubt IOI will have every Sixer they can get barricading the area off to anyone who so much as tries to come near it.

So what's stopping me from going back? Two years ago, I would have charged against all of the Sixers and mercilessly struck them down if it meant that IOI would never get Halliday's egg. So why I am still sitting in my bed? Why am I even hesitating?

☠

I was somebody else before I joined the Vacation Planet camps. I wasn't obsessed with clothes and taking cute polaroid pictures with my friends, or sleeping next to a campfire on the beach. I love all of these things now, but it wasn't always like this.

Once, I had been in possession of a large collection of weapons from the Star Trek series that spanned the sixties to the early two-thousands, as well as original trilogy Star Wars blasters and vintage lightsabres. I'd had a ship a well, an exact replica of the RLS Legacy from Treasure Planet, a film released in 2002.

I was bounty hunter, and a very good one at that. When I was fourteen, I had become quite fascinated with pirates, and so fashioned my avatar into one. And once I had my ship, I crowned myself a Captain. I even had a crew of three.

I kept a blog, recording every adventure I had. Of course, I left out a lot of the details and very much over-glamourized each affair for entertainment value. I gathered quite a following as well, and those who didn't know my name dubbed me the Pirate Queen. But I never revealed my face, not even to my own crew. I kept it in the shadows with an enchantment on my hat. That way all I needed for a disguise was my avatar's face and a change of clothes.

For four years, we sailed the OASIS skies, scouting rare artefacts. I've only ever known luxury in my life and perhaps I thought if I found these rare items and gave them to lower level avatars, they might have a better chance with their own quests. But not long into my days of piracy, I started taking jobs exclusively for people who could pay well, or jobs in places where I was guaranteed a few kills of high level avatars and could collect whatever loot they were carrying. So much for doing things for the benefit of others.

I don't know the exact reason why it all ended, but it seemed that my crew didn't fancy taking orders anymore. We always split the coin, but I got the largest share and all of the credit. I did most of the work anyway, and I could have crewed that ship by myself if I'd had to. Then one day, I was staring over the side of my ship as we passed into the orbit of a PvP planet, and the next thing I knew, there was a blade in my back and I'm floating above my avatar, watching the OASIS replay the moment that my avatar was mutinously murdered.

I lost everything; my ship, my weapons, my coin. I lost the friends I thought I could trust. I'd never felt so alone in my life. I didn't log back into the OASIS for six months, and in that time, I took a greater interest in my real-world family business. I thought it would keep my mind occupied and that I wouldn't miss my other life. But even when I began to miss the old days, I was too ashamed to go back to the life I loved.

And so Captain Ak3l4, the Pirate Queen, was no more.

☠

I throw back the covers and go over to my bookcase. I kept all of the research I did for the egg hunt, including many box folders of hardcopy notes on the top shelf. I pull down a couple and sift through them to find the notes on the first clue, which I'd found quite quickly in the marked letters of Anorak's Almanac.

The Copper Key awaits explorers

In a tomb filled with horrors

But you have much to learn

If you hope to earn

A place among high scorers

As soon as I'd seen the clue, I figured out the part about the Tomb of Horrors, a Dungeons & Dragons campaign from 1978. But in all my trips across the twenty-seven sectors of the OASIS, I had never been able to find a reconstruction of the Tomb. And as for the second part of the clue, I hadn't the faintest idea.

I had studied that particular D&D module within an inch of its life, and would probably still remember many of the details to this day, but my digital copy of the module, along with all of my other shit, had been taken when I zeroed out. Thankfully, I had been smart enough to store a lot of the tv shows, music, films, and a copy of Anorak's Almanac on external hard drives, but I still lost enough to leave me sufficiently pissed off.

If this is the choice that I'm making, there isn't any time to waste. I wash, dress in comfortable clothes, and hurry downstairs to grab some breakfast. My mother and the family chef are chatting in the kitchen when I enter. I fill a bowl with an assortment of fruit and balance a slice of toast on top of it.

"I take it you aren't coming into work today?" Mother says.

"If that's alright," I say.

"Are you off into the OASIS? So early?"

"I have things to do."

"Where are you going?" she asks, frowning as I grin with manic delight.

"To get my shit back," I say, feeling a swell of excitement rise so high in my chest that it's almost suffocating.

My mother only shakes her head at such a vague reply, but I don't care. I leave the kitchen with a dangerous determination. After all, Captain Ak3l4 always got what she wanted, no matter the cost.

I don't think anyone can really stop being a gunter. Once the obsession starts, there's no stopping it. And even though I've spent two years trying to turn my back on it all, in the end, you can't let something, or indeed someone, like James Halliday go. Even if you wanted to.