A Chance at Freedom

We’d been stuck in the pixel dungeons for about a real life hour and Rose was already losing it. By extension, so was I, because she had me jumping around and punching the walls like it was going to do anything other than hurt my hand.

These walls 'looked' fake, but they didn’t feel like it in the slightest.

“Hon, just take it easy for now, okay?” I grunted as my knuckles stung.

-**** *** ***** **** **** **** * *****-

I didn’t know what she was saying, but that was some mighty scary work by the profanity filter.

“Rose, hon, you need to calm down. Nobody wants to sit here and scream swears more than me right now.”

-Actually, I’m just typing stars. But this does **** me off-

-Seriously? **** is censored too? Was this game made for babies?-

I needed to do something about that filter. I didn’t even like swearing and it was getting on my nerves.

“These stupid dummy guards are dumb and stupid!” Tensei shouted purposefully loud enough for the guard to hear. “I don’t like them anymore!” she stuck out her tongue and made childish noises.

Tensei was mercilessly striking that guard with childish slander. He’d given her several warnings to stop, but he couldn’t do much more than that. Now he was just pouting and taking the verbal abuse.

-Tell em, Teny-chan!-

“And another thing!” Tensei shouted with her arms folded in a sassy pose. “You’re all rusty bucket heads with stupid dumby brains!”

-You hear that, bucket head? Teny-chan’s got your number!-

Meanwhile, Zorro was just sitting there, staring off into space with that smile he always wore so passionately. Every so often as Rose paced me around the cell I’d pass by and see him sitting stiff and still, probably AFK if I had to guess.

I assumed most players would just go do something else while sitting out a sentencing. That was the last thing I wanted to happen, since it was time they weren’t engaging with the game, but the team really wanted to show that crime had consequences in this world.

-Ray, do you remember when we got locked in that gym closet after swim practice?-

Rose cooled off and sat me down on the hanging wooden bench.

“I think about it all the time.” The memory drew a chuckle out of me. “That old door was so terrible, so someone had to pry it open from the other side.”

-The teachers thought we were both being naughty in there, so they sent us to detention after-

“That was the day your mom found out we were dating, and had the worst reaction possible.”

For a little while, her mother took the word of the teachers and forbade Rose and I from seeing each other. But I fought hard to explain it was just a massive misunderstanding.

-The whole school found out too. I don’t know which reaction was worse.-

“Why bring that up?” I asked. “You think detention is a lot like being locked in a dungeon cell?” If that was the case, she wasn’t wrong.

-Well, remember how the teacher kept falling asleep, then we’d try to pick the classroom door lock to escape?-

She was the one doing that, not me. I kept telling her to stop or we’d get an even worse punishment. Which, we did. Every time she got caught, that was another hour we had to stay there.

“Are you saying you want to try and…” I kept quiet just in case the guard was listening. “You want to try and pick the lock?”

-Is that a thing that we can do here?-

It totally was. Lockpicking was a basic skill that any class could use. Some classes did it better. Zorro probably had a few bonuses, since he was a stealth build, but that wasn’t a guarantee.

-Zorro, do you know how to pick the lock?!-

He wasn’t back yet, presumably, so he didn't respond to Rose’s chat.

-Dang it! Where is that guy when you need him?-

If he wasn’t here, I could take a crack at the lock, but it was going to be a bit difficult for Rose to do right. There was also the issue of the guard too, since he was still awake. The game did have a mechanic around NPC boredom though. There was a chance they’d fall asleep if they didn’t have anything to do.

“Poopy head! Go rust in a lake!” Tensei continued her shouting.

With her constantly yelling at him, there was no way he’d nod off.

“Tensei, just give it ‘a rest’ for a little.” I tried to hint at us getting the guard to sleep.

“Arrest? We already were arrested.”

She got the wrong hint.

-Teny-chan, just trust Ray and stop shouting.-

Tensei was a little confused, but accepted that we needed a little peace and quiet for the time.

💻⚔️💻

Twenty minutes passed by and the guard finally looked like he was nodding off. He took a seat on the floor with his back to the wall and got to sawing those logs.

-Great! He’s asleep. So, how do we unlock the door?-

I instructed Rose to search around the cell for a pile of hay. When she found it, there were three lockpicks hidden within. Every cell had these in them just to give players a shot at escaping.

“Now just take me over to the door and you should get a prompt. Click it when you see it.”

-Okay, I see the prompt.-

-WTF! This looks really difficult!-

The lockpick minigame wasn’t easy. It required the player to move their cursor through a series of very thin tubes and try to set each pin to the right height. It got a lot easier if there were bonuses applied from class skills, like wider tubes, less pins and chances the pick wouldn’t break when being used. We had none of those skills, so she was playing it at the hardest difficulty.

“It’s giving you a tutorial, right? Read through that carefully.”

-Ray, do people actually read these tutorials? I’ve gotten a few now and they’re always so long and boring. I need an actual practice thing if you guys can add it.-

Great feedback, but not the right time for it.

“Can’t do anything about that now,” I said. “Do you think you can do this?”

-Of course I can. I’ll get you free for sure!-

💻⚔️💻

We were down to our last of three lockpicks. Rose was carefully brushing the pick inside the lock to adjust each of the pins properly. If it touched any part of the lock besides the pins, that thing was going to crack and our escape would be a failure.

She couldn’t do this with her controller, so she was forced to use a mouse and keyboard. Not exactly her strong suit. Everything was stacked against her, but she kept fighting to free us.

-I am sweating like crazy right now, you know that? It’s making my makeup all runny.-

If there was anything I could do to help her work through this, I wouldn’t have hesitated. The only saving grace was that I could at least see her screen and coach her through the process as best I could.

“Just stay calm,” I said. “Raise the pick a little bit.”

-Like this?-

She brought it up too high.

“No, lower it.”

*CLICK!*

Our first pin in place! Now we just had to do the same thing with five more.

-Look at how thin this hole is and how far away the last pin is! There’s no chance this is possible.-

My expertise on this was limited because it wasn’t my domain, but I knew that every possible lockpick mechanism had to be hand tested and completed at least a hundred times in a row before the team gave them the okay. It was possible, just not easy for someone who’d never done it, and certainly not with just 3 picks to our name.

Rose moved the pick forward slightly, ever so careful not to let it touch any edges or surface besides a pin. She reached the second one and I once more coached her to get it in place.

*CLICK!*

“Another one down,” Tensei cheered quietly.

-This is really tough, but I think I’m getting the hang of it-

Even though Rose was on the last lockpick, she was always the type to get more focused when things got down to the wire. Something about having extra chances or lives in a video game gave her a safety net to not give it her all, and she hated that.

“You’re doing great, Rose. Keep up the good work.”

*CLICK!*

...

*CLICK!*

...

*CLICK!*

Before I knew it, Rose was on a roll. Five pins down, actually up, with one more to go. We might have been able to get out of this after all.

“Uh… Guys?” Tensei said as she poked my back.

“Not now, Tensei. Let Rose focus.”

“Yeah, okay… But…”

-Teny-chan, hold that thought!-

“B-but…”

“Ten, hold on…” I used a quiet, but stern voice. “Just give us a second.”

Rose was on the furthest away pin in the set, which meant it required the most concentration. If even the slightest thing distracted her, it was game over.

She almost had it! The pin was just about to…

*CLNAG!*

*CHINK!*

The guard’s sticks struck the metal bars and startled us. Rose jerked the pick too high and broke it in the lock.

“Ha haa!” Laughed the guard as he went back over to his corner. “Just so yee know, I can see yer’ chats!” He wiggled his finger, tauntingly. “No no no escape!”

Tensei was hovering in place, shaking her head while holding her forehead. “I was trying to tell you that the guard was creeping up on you guys.

-I hate this game (⩺_⩹) That lockpick game sucks!-

“Tensei, how does he see our chat messages?” I asked her, more concerned about that part.

“If I had to guess, Lady Rose forgot to change the chat from ‘world’ to ‘party’ after we met Mr. Zorro.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” I lamented.

-You’ve gotta be kidding me! SO IT WAS MY FAULT!!!>????!?!?!? REEEEEE!!!-

To be fair, I didn’t even realize the NPC’s had enough sentience to react to a chat message. These guards weren’t just high-res. They were smart too.

Just when I felt things couldn’t get any worse, the heavy door at the end of the dungeon startled me as it opened up.

*Screeee!*

*FWOOSH!*

There was a sound like wind passing by, followed by a cool breeze. The guard perked up at the sudden graceful gale.

“What was tha…”

*CONK!*

A cloaked figure appeared behind him and smacked the back of his head. The guard went down from the sneak attack.

“Uh…” I uttered in shock as the cloaked figure approached the cell bars. “Are you on our side?”

-Who’s that? Is he trying to help us?! O.o-

It sure seemed like it, but we couldn’t be too careful.

Tensei was all smiles though, so clearly she didn’t have a problem with this guy.

The cloaked figure picked up the pair of dungeon keys dropped by the guard and unlocked our cell door. We were free!

-FREEDOM!!! ┏( ゜)ਊ゜)┛-

Rose happily got me out of there and started T-bagging the unconscious guard.

-Take that, idiot!-

“Rose, stop that!” I shouted. “It hurts my knees!”

Instead, she had me perform a little dance emote, which still kind of hurt, but not to the same extent. Tensei joined in on the fun and spun around like an ungraceful ballerina.

Even though we were free, I noticed that Zorro hadn’t left the cell. He was just sitting there staring at me. I called out to him a few times before he actually decided to stand and walk over to me.

The cloaked figure stood right next to him and both were awkwardly just facing me.

-The_Zorro: Sorry to keep you waiting! :D-

“What exactly are you getting at?” I asked. Rose had me do an emote that made me look like I was curiously thinking with my hand to my chin. Naturally, Tensei floated up close and mimicked that.

The cloaked figure removed his hood and revealed his identity. He had the exact same face as Zorro!

“Oooh…” I uttered, finally realizing what was happening. “You made a clone and had him free us!”

-The_Zorro: Si, Señor! I made it just before we were captured, so he was free to sneak in and save us.-

Using the clone to help him escape was genius thinking on his part. I was sure if we planned to be arrested there probably would have been more ways out too, but this wasn’t something any of us could have predicted.

-Nice work, Zorro! ;D-

“But, why didn’t you just unlock the door for us?” I asked. “Could have saved us a lot of time.”

-The_Zorro: We wouldn’t have been able to deal with all the guards outside the door. I had to take care of them first before freeing us.-

Fair enough. At least he managed to get us out. That was the first priority, after all.

“So, what’s the plan from here?” Tensei asked.

“We need to get to the access point,” I said. “From there, we should be able to reinstate the original mayor back in place, and get rid of this demon fortress too.”

“I know where it is!” Tensei said.  “The fortress didn't change its coordinates, so follow meee!” She zoomed off.