As the group returned to the Urban world, they planned to finish the questline Fluffles had started, so they could begin building their guild. To help accomplish this, the group planned to use an in-game feature called quest sharing that allows players from other worlds to help their friends on quests as long as they meet the level requirement.
"Mission, head to the human-controlled settlement, go into the specified building's basement, use the code to open the door and check in on the project since the scientists have stopped responding," Detrix read. "Sounds easy enough. Walk-in, everyone dead, and fight off an ambush or something."
"Are we walking to the settlement? They're not going to drive us, or else they would check it out themselves." Ashfire pointed out.
"Maybe we'll get vehicles to drive?" Doctor0 asked, wondering if NPCs have collision physics when hit by a vehicle.
"We use a subway for fast travel," Fluffles answered, almost hearing the combined disappointment of everyone.
"So what's the settlement called?" Ashfire asked once everyone entered the subway.
"Fort Lotor," Fluffles responded as her head lay on Detrix's lap. "It was the first city the humans retook, and they made it into a fort." Fluffles started to purr as Detrix pet her.
The subway travelled faster than any real subway could. It had to reach its destination quickly to keep players invested. The inside felt normal, as no one could tell how fast the subway was moving.
Once off the subway, the group headed up from the station only to find the town deserted, not an NPC insight.
"This is certainly odd," Detrix pointed out.
"Want to see if there are any NPCs hiding in their houses?" Doctor0 asked.
"Better not, since we don't need to, we shouldn't waste our time on it," Detrix responded.
Entering into the designated building, the group felt a bit apprehensive. It was deserted, just like the rest of the fort, and not a person or monster to be seen. The power and other utilities still worked without issue, allowing the party to use the elevator.
"I thought we would head to the power station to turn on the electricity," Detrix admitted as she hit the button for the basement.
"They can't pad it out that much, right?" Fluffles joked.
"You'd be surprised how badly some games have padded out the story," Ashfire shuddered as if trying to suppress a horrible memory.
"Actually, I'm more worried that electricity still runs," Cynthes admitted as she stood in the corner, not wanting her tentacle hair to rub up against anyone.
"Are we not gonna explore the other floors?" Fluffles asked, looking at the ten other floor buttons.
"No reason to the faster we finish the mission, the quicker we can move onto the next," Detrix stated.
"I'm with Fluffles. Checking the other floors would be better. I don't think vampires or werewolves could cause these disappearances," Doctor0 stated.
The elevator came to a halt, opening to a pure white room with a sealed door and a keypad on the side. "nine nine eight nine, what a weird password." Doctor0 thought.
"Probably to prevent someone from brute-forcing it. After all, how many people brute force a password starting with nine instead of one?" Detrix explained.
"When I learned that, I began brute-forcing passwords in reverse. It's amazing how often that works," Ashfire joked.
The door hissed open once the password was imputed. A room filled with computers lay beyond the door as a cylinder-looking containment capsule lay in the center of the room with multiple cords connecting to the computers, and along the walls were doors with small hatches on them.
"What an odd room," Fluffles stated as she was the first to walk in, as the capsule was the first thing she noticed and proceeded towards it.
"So what's the quest say?" Cynthes asked as she looked around the room.
"Nothing different, just check in on the project," Detrix shugged.
"Oh," Ashfire maneuvered over to a nearby computer, attempting to access the information. Unfortunately, a notice asking for a password appeared, "I guess being from steampunk, I don't know how to use Urban machines that well."
Detrix walked along the edge of the room, trying to piece together her thoughts. "I want to confirm something. We needed a password to enter, but do we need one to leave?"
Cynthes walked over, and with a simple push of a button, the door opened, "Apparently, we don't."
"Hmm," Detrix continued to think before looking over to Fluffles, her eyes going wide once she realized what the cat was doing. "Don't use that as a scratching post!"
Fluffles' body was up against the capsule, her nails scratching along the surface as she could feel each nick and scratch with her claws. When Detrix called to her, Fluffles' body jerked, causing her to let out a howl of pain as her claw got caught on the metal.
"It's stuck!" Fluffles started to flail around, desperately trying to yank out the claw, placing a foot on the cylinder and pulling hard. "Free me!"
"Just relax; I'll help get your claw out," Detrix offered.
"Wait, I have a better idea; this is the perfect opportunity for a needle, hehe," Doctor0 smirked, walking behind the flailing Fluffles.
"Ah, not another shot, stay away," Fluffles cried as Doctor0 stabbed a needle into her shoulder. A sudden burst of strength flowed through her, and with another pull, freed her nail, tearing a small metal plate loose.
A green light shows from behind the loose plate, drawing everyone's attention to the capsule. "I guess brute force is an option," Detrix mumbled.
"Come on, let's open it," everyone grabbed at the loose plate, pushing one of Ashfire's tools to try and pry it open.
When the metal plate was ripped off the green light filled the room. It was bright enough for everyone to squint as Ashfire lowered her goggles, "I can't believe it."
"You know what it is?" Detrix asked Ashfire.
"It's an early prototype energy converter used in the Steampunk world. There was a quest I did a while ago where I saw this thing. It's harmful to people when exposed to the energy for too long. It seems that once we were able to travel between worlds, the quests start taking advantage of this as well," Ashfire explained, mesmerized by the object.
"What happened to the converter in your quest?" Cynthes asked.
"During a fight with some monsters guarding it, the device was destroyed when a monster tried to run with it and tripped. I thought that was the last I would see of it," Ashfire looked at the object, slowly reaching for it.
Detrix smacked Ashfire's hand and shook her head. "It's too suspicious. We still haven't seen the scientists or anyone else."
"What do you propose? Doing something with this is obviously the answer." Doctor0 replied she wasn't too fond of open-ended situations when all answers probably lead to the same result.
Fluffles looked at the object and went to reach for it, causing Detrix to slap her hand away as well. "What do you think you're doing, Fluffles?" Detrix asked.
"I'm advancing the plot. Discussing stuff won't get us anywhere. Let's spring the trap go," Fluffles announced as she pushed past Detrix and grabbed the prototype.
As the prototype was from the containment capsule, the power for the entire building shut down.
"Look what you did," Detrix whined.
"At least I did something," Fluffles shot back.
A few moments later, an emergency generator kicked in as the lights came back on. "Anyone remember what floor the elevator came from?" Detrix spoke as she sighed, having realized what the situation was.
"What does the elevator's floor have to do with anything?" Ashfire asked.
"If everyone was gone, why would the elevator come from a higher floor instead of the basement," Fluffles answered as she put the prototype into her bag.
"Then you know we're in a lot of trouble," Detrix grumbled.
"Oh well," Fluffles shrugged.
The multitude of locked doors surrounding the room suddenly hissed open, showing only dark rooms the group couldn't see into as groans came from within. "The monsters you fought, Ashfire, they didn't happen to be zombies, right?" Cynthes asked.
"They weren't dead, but anorexic creatures that seemed to of lost their sanity in exchange for increased strength and speed," Ashfire stated as she pondered on the creatures.
"Oh, that's good," Cynthes joked as hands slowly reached out from the darkness.
"But if you killed one and it was still moving, there wouldn't be much of a difference," Ashfire added as multiple pale creatures rushed from the darkness.