Within a matter of hours, the Sixer high command decided to deploy a new strategy. It had quickly become obvious that they wouldn’t be able to maintain over five hundred different blockades or fend off the massive influx of gunters. So they regrouped all of their forces around ten adjacent instances of the Zork playing field near the planet’s south pole. They installed powerful force shields over each of them and stationed armored battalions outside the shield walls.
This scaled-down strategy worked, and the Sixers’ forces proved sufficient to hold those ten locations and prevent any other gunters from getting inside (and there wasn’t much reason for other gunters to try, since over five hundred other instances of Zork now stood wide open and unprotected). Now that the Sixers could operate undisturbed, they basically formed ten lines of avatars outside each white house and began to run them through the process of obtaining the Jade Key, one after another. Everyone could plainly see what they were doing, because the digits beside each IOI employee number on the Scoreboard began to increase by 15,000 points.
At the same time, hundreds of gunter scores were increasing as well. Now that the location of the Jade Key was public knowledge, deciphering the Quatrain and figuring out how to obtain the key was relatively easy. It was there for the taking to anyone who had already cleared the First Gate.
As the Battle of Frobozz drew to a close, the rankings on the Scoreboard stood like this:
HIGH SCORES:
1. Art3mis 129,000
2. Parzival 128,000
3. Aech 127,000
4. IOI-655321 122,000
5. Shoto 122,000
6. IOI-643187 120,000
7. IOI-621671 120,000
8. IOI-678324 120,000
9. IOI-637330 120,000
10. IOI-699423 120,000
Even though Shoto had matched Sorrento’s score of 122,000 points, Sorrento had achieved that score first, which must be the reason he’d remained in the higher slot. The relatively small point bonuses Art3mis, Aech, Shoto, and I had received for being the first to reach the Copper and Jade keys were what kept our names in the hallowed “High Five” slots. Sorrento had now earned one of these bonuses too. Seeing his IOI employee number above Shoto’s name made me cringe.
Scrolling down, I saw that the Scoreboard was now over five thousand names long, with more being added every hour as new avatars finally managed to defeat Acererak at Joust and collect their own instance of the Copper Key.
No one on the message boards seemed to know what had happened to Daito, but the common assumption was that he’d been killed by the Sixers during the first few minutes of the Battle of Frobozz. Rumors about exactly how he had died were running rampant, but no one had actually been witness to his demise. Except for maybe Shoto, and he’d vanished. I sent him a few chat requests, but got no reply. Like me, I assumed he was focusing all of his energy on finding the Second Gate before the Sixers did.
I sat in my stronghold, staring at the Jade Key and reciting the words etched into its spine, over and over, like a maddening mantra:
Continue your quest by taking the test
Continue your quest by taking the test
Continue your quest by taking the test
Yes, but what test? What test was I supposed to take? The Kobayashi Maru? The Pepsi Challenge? Could the clue have been any more vague?
I reached under my visor and rubbed my eyes in frustration. I decided I needed to take a break and get some sleep. I pulled up my avatar’s inventory and placed the Jade Key back inside. As I did, I noticed the silver foil wrapper in the inventory slot beside it—the wrapper that had covered the Jade Key when it first appeared in my hand.
I knew the secret to deciphering the riddle must involve the wrapper in some way, but I still couldn’t sort out how. I wondered if it might be a reference to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but then decided against it. There hadn’t been any golden ticket inside the wrapper. It must have some other purpose or meaning.
I stared at the wrapper and pondered this until I could no longer keep my eyes open. Then I logged out and went to sleep.
A few hours later, at 6:12 a.m. OST, I was jolted awake by the gut-wrenching sound of my Scoreboard alarm alerting me that one of the top rankings had changed again.
Filled with a growing sense of dread, I logged in and pulled up the Scoreboard, unsure of what to expect. Maybe Art3mis had finally cleared Gate Two? Or perhaps Aech or Shoto had achieved that honor.
But all of their scores remained unchanged. To my horror, I saw that it was Sorrento’s score that had increased, by 200,000 points. And two gate icons now appeared beside it.
Sorrento had just become the first person to find and clear the Second Gate. As a result, his avatar now stood in first place, at the top of the Scoreboard.
I sat there frozen, staring at Sorrento’s employee number, silently weighing the repercussions of what had just happened.