INSERT 25¢ TO CONTINUE : Into the AudoScape

Level 6: Curse of Comet Cliff

Kids bounced in and out of various arcades and games in the main room, but avoided the concessions as there seemed to be nobody working in them. It was dark in the back kitchen, and stunk of rotting animal carcass. Nothing appeared to be alive in there, so naturally, Freddie completely avoided it.

There was life in the party room, however. Beyond the handful of excited children in front and on the stage, hanging, tugging, and pulling on the moving machines like their own play toys, Freddie could spot some kind of cartoonish bat-lizard-astronaut-looking creature in the middle of it all. It was purely robotic and stiffly swung its torso side to side as kids pestered and climbed all over it. It moved its lower jaw part of the rubber mask to make it seem like it was singing alongside the music on the speakers. Behind the peculiar creature were other various sci-fi creatures. While not getting as much poor treatment by their audience as their leader was, they clearly had been worn down more than they should have been over the last few years. The room was large and filled with separate sections and tables. Freddie entered, and remained at the back of the audience as children jumped and cheered for the strange-looking machines.

Meanwhile, Allope was ducking down to insert her coins to start up Dragon's Lair again, but this time all by herself. She wasn't sure what to expect this time around; but she assumed that she was pretty good at it, and was pretty sure she could do it without the moral support of Jack (though she still hoped more than anything she would make her appearance), so she started up the game anyway.

To her surprise, she started off pretty strong without the aid of her friend. Dirk was able to pass the creature of the lagoon, the falling room, and even the trial of burning ropes flawlessly. Suddenly, a level that Allope had never seen took place of all of the other obstacles seen in previous routes. It started out at a slower and less demanding pace; even being able to take some time to start an introduction cutscene. The focus cut away to a cyan mystical skull-artifact sitting in the corner of the room and emitting an eerie fog from its mouth, completely covering the floor in an opaque mist. Dirk gallantly entered the room with his usual confidence, but was slightly taken down a notch as the fog dazed him in a sickly manner. Dirk was given the option of three hallways to choose; two parallel from each other and one straight forward. Allope first chose to go left; to which Dirk stumbled to the right instead. All of a sudden, Dirk was facing the dark end of the hallway. He lowered his head to analyze what was beyond the shadows while maintaining a tight grip onto the handle of his sword. All of a sudden, something lunged towards him, yet the darkness didn't seem to reveal any sort of common enemy. Being dragged into the nothing, Dirk let out a yelp and made an attempt to pull his sword out of the sheath, yet accidentally threw it against the wall as the moving dark abyss pulled him into the unknown, leaving the lying sword to be the only trace of his presence.

The scene restarted, and she was more than sure that there appeared to be no flashing lights to tell her where to direct the equally confused protagonist. "Okay, then right-" so Allope pushed the joystick to the right; in which Dirk did the opposite and fell into the left corridor. Dirk pushed himself up against the wall and faced the darkness once again. Almost the same animation occurred in which Dirk was attacked by unknown causes, resetting the scene once more. Allope was down to one last try on her coin, so she used the last option she could think of and pushed the joystick forward to which Dirk turned back around. The doors allowing Dirk to enter the corridors slammed shut. Dirk frantically scratched, pulled, and shouted at it to let him out as the same unsettling darkness spread over the original color of the dungeon walls. That scene was not able to factor any sort of conclusion, as it was cut off by the title and promotional advertisement. "INSERT 25¢ TO CONTINUE" blinked beneath it. Allope was confused beyond belief, and a touch disturbed. "Go back. I guess that's the last option," she inserted one last coin.