[LOCATION: THE VOID BNB - LIVING ROOM] [TIME: 07:00 PM]
The smell of burnt rat hair still clung to our clothes, but the mood in the Void BnB was electric.
We were Level 10. We had a pile of money. And we had pizza.
"Okay," I said, wiping grease off my console screen. "Let's spend this cash before the devs decide to patch the economy too."
"How much do we have?" Dave asked, his eyes practically vibrating.
"After selling the Cores to the system shop..." I checked the balance. "12,400 Gold."
"Twelve thousand," Miller whispered reverently. "A standard iron sword costs 50 gold. We can buy... everything."
"Not everything," I corrected. "We're not buying trash. We're buying Hero Tier gear."
I opened the [Dark Web Auction House].
It wasn't a standard menu. It was a jagged, glitchy interface that bypassed the Iron Vanguard's trade restrictions. This was where the high-level players—the solo grinders, the corrupt guards, and the lucky survivors—sold their best loot anonymously.
[AUCTION HOUSE: LIVE] [CURRENT LISTINGS: 842]
"Look at that," Sarah pointed to a staff glowing with green energy. "[Staff of the Forest Lord]. It summons vines! I want it!"
[CURRENT BID: 4,000 GOLD] [TIME LEFT: 2 MINUTES]
"Too expensive," I muttered. "The stats aren't worth the gold. The durability is low."
"But it summons vines!" Sarah whined.
"Trust me," I scrolled past it. "I'm looking for the broken stuff. The items people are selling because they don't know what they do."
I filtered the search.
> [FILTER: UNIDENTIFIED] > [FILTER: CURSED] > [FILTER: GLITCHED]
The list shrank from 800 items to 3.
"Here we go," I grinned.
[ITEM 1: THE SHIELD OF SCREAMING FACES] [BID: 500 GOLD] [DESCRIPTION: A shield made of black metal. It screams when hit. Effect unknown.]
[ITEM 2: RUSTY REVOLVER (NO AMMO)] [BID: 200 GOLD] [DESCRIPTION: An old gun. No bullets found in the world. Useless collector's item.]
[ITEM 3: THE BOOK OF ERRORS] [BID: 1,000 GOLD] [DESCRIPTION: A spellbook with blank pages. Attempts to read it cause migraines.]
"Garbage," Dave scoffed. "A screaming shield? A gun with no bullets? And a blank book? Jax, let's just buy the cool staff."
"Dave," I looked at him. "You're thinking like a player. Think like a Dev."
I clicked on the Rusty Revolver first.
[SOURCE VIEW: REVOLVER] [ID: WEAPON_GUN_ADMIN_TEST] [AMMO TYPE: MANA]
"It doesn't need bullets," I whispered. "It runs on Mana. The seller thinks it's useless because they never tried injecting magic into it. It's a Dev weapon used for testing range."
I placed a bid. 201 Gold.
[BID ACCEPTED.]
Next, the Shield of Screaming Faces.
[SOURCE VIEW: SHIELD] [HIDDEN EFFECT: DAMAGE REFLECTION 200%] [CURSE: USER CANNOT SPEAK WHILE EQUIPPED]
"Miller," I asked. "How much do you like talking?"
"I can be quiet," Miller shrugged. "If it keeps me alive."
"This shield reflects 200% of damage back at the attacker," I said. "If a dragon hits you, the dragon takes double damage. The downside is it screams for you."
I bid 501 Gold.
[BID ACCEPTED.]
Finally, the Book of Errors.
I looked at the code. It wasn't blank. The text was just written in a font color that matched the page color.
[SOURCE VIEW: BOOK] [CONTENTS: ANCIENT SPELLS (TIER 5)] [FONT_COLOR: #FFFFFF (WHITE)] [BACKGROUND: #FFFFFF (WHITE)]
"It's a rendering bug," I laughed. "The text is white on white. Sarah, if I change the font color, you get a Tier 5 Spellbook for the price of a sandwich."
I bid 1,001 Gold.
[BID ACCEPTED.]
"We got them all," I sat back. "Total cost: 1,703 Gold."
"We still have ten thousand left!" Dave cheered. "What do we buy next? A tank? A dragon egg?"
"We save it," I said, closing the console. "Because the moment these items arrive, our 'Net Worth' score is going to spike. And that might attract attention."
DING.
A small spatial rift opened in the living room. Three packages dropped onto the floor.
Miller grabbed the black shield. He strapped it on.
"How does it feel?" I asked.
Miller opened his mouth to answer.
SCREEEEEEE!
The shield let out a deafening, high-pitched shriek that sounded like a banshee stubbing its toe.
Miller closed his mouth. The screaming stopped.
He gave me a thumbs up.
Sarah picked up the book. I touched the cover with my console interface.
> [MODIFY: ITEM_TEXT_COLOR] > [SET: #000000 (BLACK)]
Instantly, glowing black runes appeared on the pages.
"[Chain Lightning]," Sarah whispered, reading the first page. "[Meteor Swarm]. Jax, these are... these are nukes. I can't cast these yet. I don't have enough Mana."
"You will," I promised.
Then, I picked up the revolver. It was heavy, cold, and rusted.
I held it out to Dave.
"Me?" Dave recoiled. "I'm a Merchant! I don't shoot things!"
"You're a Merchant with a 5 Million Gold bounty on your leader's head," I said. "You need protection. This gun uses your Mana. You have high Mana because you never use skills. Just point and click."
Dave gingerly took the gun. He aimed it at the untextured wall. He squeezed the trigger.
KA-BLAM.
A beam of pure blue energy shot out of the barrel. It blew a hole through the wall, through the void, and seemingly into another dimension.
"Whoa," Dave stared at the smoking barrel. "I... I like it. I'm keeping it."
"Good," I stood up. "Because we have gear. We have levels. Now we need to test them."
I looked at the map on the wall.
"The Warden thinks we're hiding," I said. "He thinks we're scared."
I pointed to a red marker on the map—a heavily guarded Iron Vanguard outpost near the Brooklyn Bridge.
"Let's show him that we're not just survivors," I grinned. "We're bug testers. And we're about to crash his game."
[QUEST STARTED: THE STRESS TEST] [OBJECTIVE: RAID OUTPOST 7] [REWARD: IRON VANGUARD SUPPLY CACHE]