Today's Earth date: April 11, 1992

Got a letter from Perris today. One of his friends came into some property on the Free Continent, and he thinks I might like to retire there when this is all done. He's even holding it for me so I can see it in person before I decide, but I think it's a straight up castle.

That's weeks, if not months, away for us, though. After we wrap up this sea monster issue, we'll take a boat from Bata to the Free Continent, which is this world's way of describing a bunch of city-states. There's no unified kingdom there like there is here. Every city is independent.

According to Perris, that's especially good for someone like me. Makes it easier to live a simple life. After all of this attention and all this travel, that sounds nice.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

The Water Temple basement was entirely bare save for the corner Vanilli had claimed for his bedroom. The Earth Temple basement was crammed full like a storage unit for a defunct film studio.

All of the props and decorations that had to be pulled or modified to swap the element of this temple from Water to Earth were piled on top of each other. There were dozens of mermaid statues, and then several dozen naga statues that were made from reshaping the mermaid statues. All of the sea-life statues that the party had seen in the Lighthouse basement were here as well, like octopi, starfish, sharks, and dolphins.

"I know the Temple is big, but damn," Hector said. "Could they really use all of this stuff?"

"Probably," Wayne answered. "Some of this might also be from the Lighthouse after they shuttered the basement levels."

"Like a dumping ground for the whole area?"

"Something like that, but that's just me guessing."

Mixed into the props at various points were stacks of cube faces as well as completely blank Diagnostic Cubes. Wayne spotted a few broken Spawners, the larger but hollow cubes like was beneath the weresnail. They were either slightly cracked or broken into several pieces.

Since his HUD map didn't register Temple basements as being part of the world map, Wayne couldn't use it to track the progress of their search. To be thorough, the party slowed their pace and hand-sketched the layout as they went.

Though everywhere they looked was another pile of dungeon stuff, the party had yet to see anything remarkable, so they bantered to pass the time.

"Does Earth really got shrimps like that?" Hector asked.

"Kind of," Wayne said. "They're only a few inches big, though."

"I was picturing those things attacking towns and shit."

Wayne laughed. "Thankfully, no. They do have a vague celebrity status, though."

"Yeah?"

"Governments on Earth often fund scientific research. A part of one study was observing how shrimps moved, so they built a device so shrimp could run in place underwater while scientists watched. Turned into this big thing about wasting tax money."

"They were studying mantis shrimp specifically?" Fergus asked.

"No, but the research connected to mantis shrimp," Wayne said. "We still don't really understand how they punch as hard as they do, and our world doesn't have magic, so that explanation doesn't work."

"Ah, so studying how shrimp move had the potential to reveal an insight there."

"Correct. The military was geeked about recreating what the mantis shrimp does at the same time politicians complained about 'wasteful' spending. It was wild."

"Seems obvious that understanding the mechanics of shrimp movement would help," Fergus mused.

"Exactly. Science was very frustrating on Earth because of nonsense like that."

"Look at this," Margo cut in. "This is the first plain old normal door we've seen in a place like this right?"

Margo stood in front of a stone door with a single metal ring hanging where a doorknob would be. Well, hanging where a doorknob would be were the intended user a dwarf, so it was quite a bit lower but still very obviously a door.

"Guards up," Armond cautioned as Wayne yanked on the metal ring.

This room had three Forgemaster Workbenches with mallets and chisels for each, three desks of the same style the party saw in the Lighthouse basement, and mounds of broken cube tablets. Several lines of dwarvish were scrawled on the walls, and the white smears beneath the writing suggested this wall had been erased and written over at least once.

"These look like Dungeon Memos," Fergus said, holding up a tablet shaped like a piece of paper instead of a cube face. "Whole stack of them here."

"Sure looks that way," Wayne said, taking in the room with his wrinkled thinking face. "Question for the party: Would you be okay continuing to explore while I sit here and translate? We can use Home Row if you run into trouble."

"Will Home Row bring you to us or bring us back to you?" Armond asked.

Wayne shrugged. "No idea. Both outcomes are good though, right?"

"That's true." Armond looked around at the other Zeroes. "Looks like no one is against that plan."

"Great," Wayne said. "Stay in touch via Voice, and if you see something you want to spend time investigating, that's entirely up to you guys."

The Zeroes nodded and followed Armond out of the room.

After a deep breath, Wayne started the process of translating all of the dwarvish he saw, starting with the chalk notes on the wall.

Like the wereshark dungeon, these also appeared to be patch notes:

2.0.0 Water to Earth

2.1.0 Temple reskinned

2.2.0 Monster theme updates

2.2.1 Enlarged sea hornet wings to address flight issue

2.2.2 Recolored kiddy krakens for Earth theme

2.2.3 Shrimp damage adjusted

2.2.4 Shrimp damage adjusted

2.2.5 Shrimp damage adjusted

3.0.0 Disabled all encounters

3.1.0 Removed all narrative-linked deco

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

3.2.0 Enlarged demon world portal

3.2.1 Updated barrier permissions to contain demons

And the tablets, as Fergus guessed, were more dungeon memos. Many of them were shattered beyond repair, but of the ones Wayne could actually read, this is what they read when he put them in order:

Project Change Order 1.6.2a:

Known Issue: Ocean-themed were-variants unable to breathe upon transformation.

Action: Hold the deployment of were-variants until the issue is resolved.

Project Change Order 1.9.8a:

Update: Were-variant breathing issue remains unresolved. Please continue holding on monster deployment but move forward with all other development.

Project Change Order 2.0.0a:

All Staff Notice: The Producer for this region has been terminated and replaced due to budget and development challenges.

Immediate Changes: The Water Temple will be converted to the Earth Temple. Previous Earth Temple project to be shuttered completely. Development of water breathing mechanics (Hero as well as were-variants) has been scrapped completely.

Action Items:

-Drain the ocean

-Retheme all ocean assets in region to Earth

-Remove any content reliant on water breathing mechanics

-Disable all were-virus region rules

Note: This region has already exceeded its allotted budget by a substantial amount. Please repurpose as much as you can from the original vision. Any new content additions must be approved by the Producer prior to development.

Project Change Order 2.6.0a:

Inverted Lighthouse content has been cancelled. Excess materials, tools, and supplies to be relocated to Earth Temple Storage. Lighthouse structure to remain to conserve budget.

Note: Secondary team en route to address dimension anomaly.

Project Change Order 3.0.0a:

All Staff Notice: Production of all narrative-driven content to stop immediately.

Due to challenges meeting budgets and milestones, a new Executive Producer has been appointed to oversee and direct all future development. We still fully intend to submit to the Human Universe contest and believe that we can, in fact, win. Thank you for your patience, and thank you for your hard work.

Action Items:

-Implement dormancy protocols for Hero-triggered content

-Set all demon gates to "cycle" instead of "summon"

-Set all demon gates to "automatic" instead of "manual"

-Submit a detailed inventory of current assets, including their production status

Additional directives to follow.

Wayne read through the translations several more times. Where he could only draw parallels to game development before, he now knew for certain that at least portions of this world were indeed designed to be like video games. Or perhaps that was backward, given the age of this world. Since modern game development came much later than the first dwarves, the very dungeon Wayne stood within was a precursor to what he understood video game development to be in his time.

"You all are welcome to read the transcripts, but the summary is that our suspicions about the dwarves changing directions on content were correct. This whole area was intended to be an ocean-themed story for the Chosen Heroes that ended in the Water Temple. They hit a bunch of problems, ran out of budget, and pivoted to making it the Earth Temple instead."

"The text is that plain and direct?" Fergus asked.

"It is to me. There's even a line that says, 'Previous Earth Temple project to be shuttered completely.'"

"Confirming the theory that there's another Temple out there. They also mention sending a team to 'address dimension anomaly.'"

"Are you thinking that's a reference to the Dead Zone?"

"Yep," Wayne said. "I'm going to pack up the hammers and chisels for Vanilli. I see your dots on the map, so I'll head your way right after."

"Turn right as you leave the workshop and then turn left at the first junction," Fergus said.

"Listen for the arguing," Armond said. "That's how you'll know you're getting close."

Before Wayne could ask, Margo spoke. "Hector thinks it's pointless for mermaids to have boobs because baby fish don't drink milk."

"It's impossible to drink underwater. Tell me I'm wrong."

Wayne chuckled softly to himself. "On Earth, there are ocean creatures grouped with animals we call 'mammals' because of how they breathe, I think. So like a dolphin would be considered a 'mammal.'"

"But does it breastfeed?" Hector asked.

"I can proudly say I have no idea."

"Big help you are, Wayne," Margo said.

The rest of the Earth Temple basement was uneventful and uninteresting until the party neared the outermost wall on the west side.

Margo raised her hand to signal the party to stop. "Sounds like rain," she said. The rest of the party listened.

"Yeah, it does," Armond concurred while the others nodded their heads. It was a faint whisper at the moment, but it steadily grew the farther west they traveled.

The rain turned to a roar when they rounded a corner to find a massive chasm between their side of the corridor and where it continued on the other side. When Wayne poked his head out into the rain, his HUD map flickered and blinked like a television struggling to hold an analog signal. Through the chaos, Wayne caught glimpses of an overworld map.

He looked up. He could see a grey sky overhead.

"I think this is Drumin's Divide," Wayne said. "And it looks like the rest of the basement continues on the other side."

"I see more openings to either direction," Margo said, squinting to see through the rain. "Looks like they line up with hallways too."

Wayne started laughing.

Fergus looked at him, quizzically.

"I'm imagining a dwarf being in charge of draining the ocean but fucking it up and breaking off part of the Temple basement in the process. Bet he caught an earful."

"Is that a joke or a theory?" Fergus asked.

"As funny as it is, I'm serious," Wayne said. "Nobody would ever be able to get down here, so they didn't bother fixing the mistake. At least, that's how it looks."

Turning to address the rest of the party, he asked, "Explore the rest of the basement on this side and then hop across?"

"Works for me," Armond said while the other Zeroes nodded.

The party found little else of interest on their side of the Temple basement. The most unusual discovery was a room filled with bufo tridents, so many of them that they spilled out when Wayne opened the door. By the time they finished mapping everything else, Wayne saw that his party was tired and proposed they rest before exploring the other portion of the basement.

Agreeing gladly, they made camp at the end of a broken corridor, enjoying the novelty of fresh, rainy air after weeks underground in the Earth Temple.

Wayne was refreshed after just two hours of sleep, so while his comrades snoozed, he checked in on his party's progress, finding that they leveled up from the fight with the shrimp.

Fergus hit level 21 and the rest of the party reached level 20.

All of the unlocks came from Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday, but Fergus was the only party member who now had all six slots full. He learned:

Demolition Charges – Are blocks of plastic explosives with a short delay detonator. They can be used to blast stubborn doors.

Fergus was greatly enjoying the novelty of grenades already, but Wayne couldn't immediately imagine how the party could put plastic explosives to use. Figuring that out would definitely be fun.

Margo's new unlock gave her stronger laser arrows:

Laser Rifle – Is a larger, more powerful version of the laser pistol.

Armond's unlock gave the party a buff if he was calling plays:

Battle Tactics – Is the understanding of small-group combat tactics. If a character makes a Battle Tactics role at the start of an encounter, the whole team will receive combat bonuses because they act better as a team.

And Hector's new skill was self-explanatory:

Tracking – Is the skill to follow tracks and signs in a wilderness environment.

Everyone but Fergus had two more Buck Rogers unlock left, and Wayne didn't have another game that met the RPG criteria Four Score used to determine whether or not a game could be assigned to party members. Thankfully, Fergus had three open slots from Phantasy Star II, so he switched Fergus to that game and quietly hoped he would find another compatible RPG within the next few levels.

He would hate for Fergus to level without earning new skills, and he knew for certain Fergus would be vocal about hating it too.

Wayne sat back and opened his documents with his HUD. He passed the rest of his time waiting for the party to wake by reading over his notes.

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