THE MOMENT
"Now that we're all here, I'll get right to it," Bailey said. Britt was the fifth girl to enter the white room; she was several minutes later than the first four who arrived at around the same time. The door she entered through closed behind her and now the five teenage girls stood in a glowing white room with no doors or windows. "Last practice I mentioned the AlterNet Halloween event that starts on Sunday. I didn't have all the details then, and I still don't; but, I have more."
Bailey tapped her node a few times, and then five floating doors appeared in front of the group. Each door was a different color and had a Unique symbol on it. An Earth on the green door for El Mundo. A star on the red door for La Estrella. An hourglass on the orange door for La Muerte, a moon on the blue door for La Luna. And finally, a sun on the golden door for El Sol.
"Since Ms. Sharp expects us to do well, she's given us early access to start practicing. The event will be called: Court of Spiders: Ultimate Survival," she said. "During the event, one of these doors will appear at random times on any Earth. Going through it will take you to an instanced zone by yourself. At that point, the objective is to survive as long as you can. The monsters will continue to spawn nonstop until you die. They will drop seasonal rewards, special abilities, and equipment used only for the event. The challenges are solo; but, our ranking on the leaderboard will be based on team performance. We all need to participate...," Bailey made sure to meet Britt's eyes as she said it. "...and we need to participate often. When I say Ms. Sharp expects us to do well, our team in the top 10 is what we need to maintain. She obviously doesn't expect us to be #1, not with teams like the Magi-knights out there. Those are her expectations; I think we can make it to the top 5," Bailey said.
"Yeah, we can!" Jenny replied with a giggle and the other girls joined in.
"Think of them like stages with El Sol being the hardest difficulty and worth the most points," Bailey gestured at the golden door. "Then, counting down through La Luna, La Muerte, La Estrella, and El Mundo being the easiest. All Sharp Development and Chroma Corp. vendors will offer new goods in exchange for event currency during the month of October. Ranking will be determined by a combination of survival time and event currency spent. Obviously, these are just practice runs and we won't get anything carried over once the event starts. Any questions?" she asked.
"I'll take on El Sol," Jenny said.
"That's not a question," Bailey replied as she shook her head. "We will all try every door to find where we're each comfortable. Anything else?"
"Is there a time limit?" Dread asked.
"As long as you can survive," Bailey shrugged.
"Right; but, does it end after a certain amount of time?" Dread reframed the question. Bailey shrugged again.
"I'm not sure; it didn't come up," she said. Dread smiled and opened the easiest door.
"I'll go find out," she said as she disappeared into it.
"I wanted the easy one...," Britt whined as she hurried to the next door and vanished through it.
"I'll take this one," Dirge waved at the last two girls and walked into the orange door.
"You've already made your choice, right?" Bailey asked as she moved to the fourth door. She hesitated a bit just in case Jenny wanted to change her mind.
"Right," she nodded. "I want to see how hard it gets," she opened the golden door and stepped into it. She emerged onto a vast plain of golden wheat. The sky was a deep red color and a giant timer floating in the air started counting up from 00:00.
"Hey, where are the monsters?" Jenny asked herself as she spun around taking in the sight. Then, she noticed something in the corner of her eye as she passed it. She turned back and saw a cloud of white nanos coalescing into a large, horse-sized black-widow spider. It was still pretty far away but moving toward her. Then, she noticed several more coming into existence behind the first one.
"Aww, rad!"
