Meta Wars / Season One /

Open the Box / Let Me Talk to Mason! / Green River

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#EPISODE 16 - Open the Box / Let Me Talk to Mason! / Green River

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[Wherever](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JF-GBd0Y68) they went they couldn't find her. Wherever she walked she couldn't find them. It was a better time, but it was quickly becoming a worse time. His bounty was causing quite a stir while they roamed the Starco Lands, Which were teaming with wild beasts and mercenaries, shitposters and bounty hunters trying to cash in on a high reward. V0id and Sub made quick work of most that impeded their adventure, but still, Lurker_Archon was nowhere to be found.

They met with the RHC informant at the gates of Statera. Nothing. They met at the far reaches of the empty Jarco Valley. Nothing. They climbed to meet the Oracles who spoke to them in riddles warning of seas, greens, kings, and fickle flames of The Meta, but still, it led to nothing.

They were headed back to Tomar, where they heard that the newest leading official had taken office. They went to meet Drumpf, who was gone. EagleHeart explained the situation. They went to talk to Juan, who had no idea the whereabouts of Sora, which worried him greatly. They headed south and saw a mighty battle taking place, that of purple and red, and left in haste. All the while V0id still toiled with the puzzle that teased him with every new step; with every new idea that it presented, proving himself great, but at the same time inept.

They came to the Retcon Highway which they had raced on months ago, and V0id began to plead with him to give up hope.

"Dude, it's been a blast, but it's time to stop, Sub," V0id said, opening up a compartment of the cube he had yet to see move. "Ha! Got you this time, you bastard!"

Sub held anger that had been inside him for quite some time now. "No! This is what we do! You promised!" He walked over to V0id, who had stopped along the road. "This is a mission and I would rather die than see it pass through our hands." Sub noticed V0id's emotionless expression as the puzzle moved about in his hands. "Are you listening!?"

"Not really, I almost got this."

Subzero slapped the puzzle out of V0id's hand. It slipped and fell with a click on the ground. "Hey!" He said now enraged by the gesture.

"You don't have that! It's a lotus trap, V0id! That thing you've been messing with the entire time is nothing more than a false puzzle! You don't understand...you don't understand what we need to do..."

"We need to stop walking around in circles," he said. The puzzle was retrieved and it began to tremble on its own.

"We haven't been walking in circles! These steps are necessary. It's quite obvious that The Meta wishes us to do what it wishes us to do." He witnesses the puzzle begin to shift on its own. V0id was not alarmed by the magic, but Subzero was subtly nervous of its sudden and unwarranted movements. "Sure, we've lost Sora and Drumpf, but they're out there trying to find us. Sure, we still don't know the locations of either Lurker_archon or McSlayer979, but if we can just find the other two, that won't matter." The cube came to an unnerving halt and opened up to reveal the center.

"Yes! Yes! Oh, Daron, thank you." V0id almost sounded as if he was going to weep by the gesture the puzzle had presented to him. "What are you hiding?" He looked in the face that had opened and pulled out an object.

It was another cube, but a quarter the size of the original. As V0id grabbed the cube from the center, he lifted from the larger cube, shocked and appalled. The cube suddenly trembled and grew to the size of the original.

"No! No! No, no, no, no! Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh! *NO!*" Sub had never seen V0id this angered, his face turning red, his hands now trembling. V0id knelt down and punched the ground until his fist bled.