Player 1

Chapter 32 Level 2(11)
Sector 21 has a planet called Lyrica.I'm heading there.

The Oasis Atlas describes Lydia as "a rock-covered desolation", with "Anonymous" listed in its "Creator" column.Although the Oasis Atlas doesn't mention it, I bet it must have been designed by Halliday since it's exactly as described in 2112.

"2112" was released in 1976, at a time when most albums were on twelve-inch vinyl.The discs come in cardboard sets with a track list printed on the cover.Some album packaging can also be opened like a book, including a lot of pictures, lyrics and band introduction.The red star on the outer packaging of the earliest released "2112" is impressive. In the painting, a naked man trembles in front of the red star, raising his hands in fear.

The lyrics of the seven parts of "2112" are printed on the back, and each part of the lyrics is preceded by a narrative prose. These short essays are written from the standpoint of the unknown rebels in 2112.

Here is the text before the first part of the lyrics:

I lay awake and watched the dim Majaden.[124]The gray color of the city and the sky gradually merged into an endless gray ocean.The twin moons across the icy sky also looked extremely pale.

When I arrived at Lydia, I saw the twin satellites outside the orbit of the planet. According to the manual, their names were taken from two other songs in the rush, called "Mountain Rock" and "Snow Dog".I entered the planet's atmosphere at cruising speed and flew towards one of the ruined cities - the destroyed city in the lyrics.The number of Destroyed Capitals here is twice as many as the Demon World on Flobalz, and the "Sixth Man" can't take them all for himself.

I turned on the cloaking device of the spaceship, landed near the nearest city, and carefully checked whether there were other spaceships parked in the next four weeks.

Majaden is like a ruin, standing on a rocky plateau, clinging to the edge of the cliff, the huge transparent dome on it is tattered and looks like it will collapse at any time.The only access to the city is through the breach in the lower part of the dome.

Majaden reminds me of a 50s sci-fi book cover painting of ruins belonging to a once very advanced civilization.Stepping into the center of the city, you can see the obelisk-shaped temple. Its walls on all sides have been faded to gray by wind erosion, and the red star logo of the Solar Federation is printed on the door.

I stand in front of the temple of the lyre.

It has neither a force field nor an army of "sixth men" around it.There isn't even a living thing here.

I drew my gun and went inside.

Several rows of supercomputers are neatly arranged inside the door, extending to every corner of the temple.I walked past them, listening to the humming of the machine all the way, and walked straight to the center of the temple.

There is a raised piece of the ground here, with red stars printed on it, it must be an altar.I walked up, and the humming disappeared instantly, and the room was silent.

Looks like I'll have to put something on the altar, some sort of offering to the Temple of the Lyre.But what should be offered as a sacrifice?
The twelve-inch model obtained in the second door seems to be the right size.I tried putting it up, but nothing happened.So I put the robot back in my inventory and thought about it.Thinking that there were other contents in the introduction of "2112", I took out my diary again and turned to the column of "Discovery" in the third part:
There's a cave behind my favorite waterfall, and it's hidden in a dark room in the cave.Brushing off the dust of the years, I held it tightly in my arms.I don't know what it's called, but it's breathtakingly beautiful.I learned how to finger its rims and twist its keys to make all kinds of beautiful sounds.I played my own music!

There is a waterfall on the southern edge of the city, next to the transparent dome.I activated the jet boots and flew that way, past the stream below the falls, and across the falls.The haptic suit does its best to simulate the feeling of water hitting my body, as if someone had dropped bundles of twigs on my head, shoulders, and back.After passing the waterfall, I entered the cave mentioned in the text.There is a long and narrow tunnel in the cave, and at the end of the tunnel is the dark room.

Going into the secret room, I searched for what I wanted, and soon found the secret door on the floor.

After confirming that there is no danger ahead with the trap detection staff, I jumped into the secret door and landed on the dusty floor of the dark room.This is a small square room with a huge rough-cut stone on the north wall. Something is embedded in the stone, and I recognized its shape immediately: When watching the "2112" concert video on the spaceship, It also came up repeatedly.This is a 1974 Gibson Guitar Company Les Paul model electric solidbody guitar, the one used by Alex Lifeson on the 2112 tour.

Looking at this guitar like a sword in the stone, I smiled.Like all hunters, I had seen John Bowman's The Dark Ages a number of times, so I knew exactly what to do next.I reached out with my right hand, grasped the handle of the guitar, and gave it a hard pull.The guitar was separated from the stone, and the trembling sound of metal echoed in the dark room for a long time.

I picked up the guitar, and the trembling sound of metal turned into heavy guitar chords, resounding through the dark room.I looked down at the six-string, ready to activate the jet boots again and get out of this cave.But a thought popped into my head and made me stand where I was.

James Halliday played guitar for a few years in high school, so I worked on that instrument as well.Although I have never touched a real guitar, Oasis World is very realistic.

I held the guitar pick in my left hand, opened the Holy Grail Diary with my right hand, and found the score of the song "Discovery" in the "2112" section.It is in the secret room behind the waterfall that the protagonist in this song finds the guitar.Controlling the strings with my left hand and strumming with my right, I played "Discovery". Even though the guitar was not plugged in or an amplifier was installed, the bell-like sound pierced through the walls and rushed out of the cave.

After the song was over, I saw a text floating on the stone with the guitar embedded in it:
The first song is the sound of red gold
The second song is green stone
The third song is clear crystal
but it cannot be opened by itself
The moment I played the last note, the words dimmed and disappeared without a trace.I quickly intercepted the riddle just now, and my mind was spinning.This must be the mystery of the third door.But what does "cannot be opened by itself" mean?

Did the "Sixth Man" discover this passage?I highly doubt it.I'm guessing it's more likely they returned to the temple as soon as they got the guitar.

If so, they probably didn't know that another clue was needed to open the third door.This reduces their chances of winning.

Back at the temple, I put the guitar on the altar.At this moment, the towering computers around began to scream harshly, like a chaotic orchestra, and the sound became louder and deafening, and then suddenly stopped.Then a white light flashed, and the guitar became a crystal key.

I reached for the key, a bell rang, and Parsifal's points on the scoreboard increased by another 25000 points, plus the 200000 points I got through the second door before, and my total points are now 353000 pesos Rento was 1000 higher.King Parsifal returns.

But I didn't have time to celebrate. I just quickly flipped through the crystal key. This time, there was only a capital letter "A" on the crystal key.I recognized right away what it was.

This is the logo of Halliday's "Dungeons and Dragons" game character, and it is also the logo on the black robe of his wizard character in "Oasis".Moreover, I also know that this is the symbol he printed on the gate of the Oasis Anola Castle.

In the year when the competition started, countless hunters swept over every place in the oasis that seemed to hide keys like locusts, especially those planets whose codes were written by Halliday himself. Among them, the most popular one was Ketonia-the fantasy world created by Halliday High School DND running team-of course, is an exquisite replica.This place also has many other setting things in his earlier works.Cthonia is the Mecca of hunters.I am no less exempt than anyone else from the desire to make the pilgrimage to the Castle of Annora.But no player has been able to enter Anola Castle, and people can only get a glimpse of its majesty from the screenshots.

But now that I know, there must be some way to get in, because the third door is hidden inside.

I went back to the spaceship, started the engine, and set the course to Cthonia in the tenth sector, and then browsed the news again, hoping to see the media's enthusiasm for my return, but the headlines did not belong to me.In the afternoon, there was even more exciting news, and that was the final exposure of the hiding place of the easter eggs.The news anchor says this place is somewhere in Anorah Castle in Cthonia.It may be said that the "Sixth Man" leaked the news, for their entire army was now stationed on the outskirts of the castle.

I just went through the second door and there they were.

There must be a causal relationship between these two things. The "sixth person" was obviously afraid that I would make new progress, so they gave up secretly studying the method of passing through the third door, and instead blocked the location of the door with great fanfare, even if this would reveal the location of the third door, they I don't hesitate.

A few minutes later, I arrived in Ktonia, and first took a look over the castle in stealth mode, trying to find out what was going on below.It turned out to be worse than I imagined.

The "Sixth Man" has set up some kind of magical shield outside Anola Castle. This translucent dome completely isolates the castle and its surrounding areas.Inside the shield is an entire army of "sixth men": infantry, tanks, automatic weapons and vehicles that completely surround the castle.

Several hunter guilds have arrived on the scene, and they are conducting the first wave of attacks, trying to use tactical nuclear bombs to blow up the defensive shield.The light of each explosion dazzles the eyes, but when the sight is restored, the shield is still standing on the spot unscathed.

As the news spread, more and more hunters gathered, and the attacks on the shield did not stop for a moment.The guilds smashed every weapon they could think of onto the shield.But nuclear bombs are useless, fireballs are useless, and magic arrows are useless; a team of hunters even wanted to dig a tunnel directly behind the enemy, but found that the coverage of the shield reached 360 degrees, from the top of the head to the bottom of the foot, without any dead ends.

Later that day, several high-ranking mages among the hunters cast a series of divination[126] spells on the castle, and they said on the message board that the shield was released by a very powerful special item called "Arcane Swad's Ball", only a full-level mage can use it.According to the description information of this item, it can release a spherical shield with itself as the source point, with a circumference of half a kilometer.The shield is indestructible and impenetrable, and vaporizes anything it comes in contact with.As long as the mage who wields it remains motionless, with his hands resting on the sphere of Oswald, the shield will never disappear.

For the next few days, the hunters tried everything possible to blast the shield.Magic, technology, teleportation, counterspell, and special items were all tried, but all failed. The few meters separated by the shields seemed to be the furthest distance in the world.

An atmosphere of despair quickly spread within the hunter group.Many lone rangers and guild members have begun to consider raising the white flag to surrender. The "sixth man" was sitting on the crystal key and blocked others from the third door.Everyone felt that the game was about to end, and everyone believed that the game "will end with a cry."

Although the situation was very unfavorable, I tried my best to keep calm. The "Sixth Man" has not yet opened the third door, but now they have a lot of time to study methodically.One day, they will solve the riddle.

I will never give up, until the last moment, it will never be over.

Like those old video games, it's just a new, harder level.New levels often require new strategies.

A new plan, a wild adventure, a desperate gamble slowly took shape in my mind.I emailed Artemis, Edge, and Soto each.In the email, I detailed how to find the second door and get the crystal key.Once I was sure all three of them had received the email, I immediately started the next step in my plan.This is the part that really scares me, that if you make a mistake, you will end up in a situation where there is no redemption.But now, I have already put life and death aside.

I want to open the third door, if I don't succeed, I will succeed.

(End of this chapter)