The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror: a Ready Player One story

Chapter 2

My father's death was about 3 months before Halliday's. And I remember sitting in my foster home's living room playing in the Oasis when the announcement came on. "James Halliday Dead" and "World renowned creator of Oasis dies." If I'm being honest I couldn't have cared less about it. I was still more caught up with my own personal loss. But my foster brother came in after they played the "Anorak's Invitation" video, boasting that he would be the one to find the egg. I chuckled at this remark, and he looked to me. "Oh do you think that's not true?" I raised my visor for a moment, and said, "No, anything's possible, but there's a lot of people saying the same exact thing right now." I lowered my visor and returned to walking around looking for things to hunt.

I had gotten a considerable amount of money, by my old standards at least, from our furniture and other things being sold, as well as a payout from my father'a insurance. I started going to planets with stronger enemies, and even taking on the occasional quest. I spent close to two years going back and forth between Incipio and planets where there were quest, only spending money on teleportation fees and ammo. And eventually I was just under what I needed to buy a small stronghold. It wasn't completely isolated, in fact it was a shared planet, but each stronghold was a few hundred miles apart from others, in every direction. I needed one more quest for it, whether or not I got an artifact or any magical items.

When I logged in, I appeared in front of the weapons shop, right where I had logged out the previous night. I had already stocked up on ammo and healing potions, so I left right away. I accessed the teleporter, and put in the planet that was the location of the quest I was going to attempt. The verify icon popped up on my screen, "Travel to Coruscant?" I selected yes and then found myself standing in at the exit point in the middle of a massive city. I opened my map and found the building I needed to head for. I approached the temple with caution. When I got close, I heard someone call out to me. I looked over, and it was an npc semi-hiding behind a wall nearby. I walked over to him, and he said, "Hey man you wanna get some credits?" I said yes, and then I got a notification saying asking if I was sure I wanted to accept the quest. I picked yes and then the man continued talking. "Go into the temple and speak to one of the knights. They'll tell you what to do."

I entered and found someone to talk to. "Greetings traveler. Do you need something?" He asked. "I was told to speak to someone in here about work." The man nodded and gestured for me to follow him. After a few moments he began to speak. "Do you know of the Mandalorians?" He looked to me and I nodded my head. "One of our knights was on a reconnaissance mission in a club across town. We lost contact with him, but we have multiple bystanders who say he was captured by 3 men wearing Mandalorian battle armor." He paused for a moment, either for dramatic effect or to await a response from me. I assumed the latter. "So what do you need me for?" I asked. "The Mandalorians and the Jedi have a history going back for as long as anyone can remember. It's strange but somehow they've been able to figure out who our Jedi are." I was beginning to understand. "So you need someone who isn't a Jedi to go find your knight and bring them back here?"
"That's correct. We've become aware of an outpost in the lower areas of the city that belongs to them. Go to it, find out knight, and get him out. And if you're not too busy on the way back, maybe find a way to destroy it on the way out. If you do you'll receive an added bonus to your reward for bringing our man back. Now if you're ready I can give you the coordinates of the outpost and you can head off."
"I'm ready." I received a notification sound and a waypoint appeared in my view, as well as on my map. "Be careful, and may the force be with you." I smiled at him and began moving towards the destination."

I found the outpost after about a half hour of travel. As I got close, I opened my inventory and selected my dual handguns. They were basic glocks that I had used for the past few months. When I selected the guns, two thigh holsters appeared on my avatar, and I drew the guns out. I started into the building with caution, moving as quietly as I could. After wandering around for a bit, I found two guards talking to each other. I decided to listen in before moving along, or killing them both. "Do you know where the prisoner is being kept?"
"Yeah across the hall from the reactor. Why do you wanna know?"
"A Jedi killed my uncle. Just call it good old fashioned revenge."
"Do you know what the Mandalore would do if you got caught?"
"No. And don't bother telling cause I won't get caught." He laughed. "Now if you'll excuse me I think I should check on the reactor." The man furthest from me walked away. The other moved slightly to watch the man go down the hall. I snuck up behind him and took him out silently. I stole his armor and blaster so I could wander around unnoticed. Plus it would work as a souvenir from the quest as well.

After searching for around 10 minutes I came across a room on the bottom floor, which said armory on the door. I entered and looked around. I picked up some ammo and a few bombs to plant on the reactor. I was getting those extra credits. Right before I left I spotted something that I thought would probably be best to grab. Shortly after I exited the armory to continue searching, I found the room I was looking for. I had almost passed it when I heard one of the Mandalorians, possibly the one I had seen earlier, telling the knight what he was going to do. As I poked my head into the room I heard the man saying, "You're gonna be in so much pain you'll wish you were dead. But we need you for the execution so we can't have you dying on us just yet. Now... shall we begi-" He didn't get to finish. I had moved behind him as he spoke, careful not to attract his attention, and then I took him out. "What the hell?" The knight asked me. I pulled off my helmet and spoke to him. "My name's Dallion. I'm here to rescue you." I dropped the helmet and began to untie him. "How did you know I was here. Did the temple send you?"
"Yep. Now we've gotta get you out of here and blow this pop stand. Literally. What's your name?"
"Tython." I stopped for a moment, and looked down at him. "Named after the planet to house one of the first Jedi temples?" He nodded. After I finished untying his bonds, I started out the door, but he stopped me. "We can't leave just yet. They still have something of mine." I smiled and turned back to him. "You mean this?" I held up the light saber I found in the armory. He took it and clipped it to his belt. "Now take this too," I handed him one of the bombs, "we're gonna rig this whole place up to blow." I led him to the reactor room, and we set it all up.

After we finished planting the bombs, we began to make our way back to the exit. For safety I put the helmet back on, and with good reason. Just as we were about to reach the exit we encountered another patrolling warrior. "You! What do you think you're doing?" He shouted at me. "Moving the prisoner for the execution preparations."
"The execution is in 2 days. Who gave you those orders?" He aimed his blaster at me. "Uhhhh..." As if we were thinking exactly the same thing, Tython and I both dove and drew our weapons. The Mandalorian, sensing the more dangerous target, fired at Tython. He deflected it easily, and I fired my blaster. A killing shot. I stood up and walked towards Tython. "Nice work." He said. "Yeah same to you. But come on we've gotta go now." We both ran towards the exit.
Once we made it out and got a bit of distance from the outpost, we stopped to catch our breath. "Thank you for freeing me." I nodded to him. "I couldn't let one of the protectors of our galaxy be killed." He smiled. "Well there's lots of us, and I think it'd take more than a few soldiers to kill us all." I told myself how ironic that was in my head. "Yeah well I get to do this too, so that's an added bonus." I held up the detonator and activated it. In the distance we could hear an explosion. After that we started towards the temple again.

"Thank you for bringing him to safety. And for destroying the outpost while you did it. As promised..." He made a gesture and my credit balance filled up. But only to the amount originally promised. "What about the bonus? This is only what I was originally told I would get."
"Ah right, well if you were expecting more credits, I apologize for misleading you. But I believe this may make up for it." He hands me a small box device. I took it and activated it. A pop up appeared on my screen. I saw a sort of prize wheel, which consisted of ships from the Star was series. As it started moving, I saw x wings, tie fighters, and clone transports. The millennium falcon even passed by. As it slowed I only saw common ships. But then it slowed to a stop on a ship that appeared on the screen at the last moment. It was the most feared ship, piloted by the best bounty hunter in the galaxy. The Slave 1, Boba Fett edition. The screen closed and I said, "Thank you so much." He simply smiled and nodded.

I teleported to one of the mall planets. This was where I had found the stronghold I wanted to buy. I made my way to the vendor npc who was selling it. "Hello Dallion, welcome back." I was in too much of a rush to respond. I went through his digital catalogue and found it. I hit purchase, and the npc said "Thank you for shopping here. If you would like to sell your stronghold at any time, simply return and you may put it back up for sale." I thanked him, and started moving towards the planets ship bay. I had enough to teleport to my stronghold, but I wanted to take the new ship for a spin first.