Level ONE

Ada fidgeted with her sleeve. She had changed into a pair of brown leggings and a comfortable-to-move-in camo shirt that Aisha had given her. After letting Aisha give her a tour of the bunker (and marveling at the Cauliflower Cabinet for a good half hour) Ada had a chance to leaf through her manual. Ada's manual said that she was a world-famous doctor that was looking for a cure for a deathly illness and her research led her here. Apparently, there was a fruit that was a sort of cure-all. Finding the fruit would be an alternative way to complete the game, and if she found it the reward would be 100,000 eCoin$ plus any profit she made off selling it. At first, that sounded great to Ada, but more reward meant more difficulty, which meant more time. She only had five days left and would be cutting it close as it was. Ada didn't want to set herself up for complete failure. She would simply get the key. If Ada found a way to get the fruit in the meantime, cool. If not, she would still have enough money to give Leyla the extension she needed. She could even come back for the fruit if she really wanted to.

The manual, however, didn't give any actual clues on where the key or the fruit was. I only gave a weird little rhyme thing;

The key to health is at the place,

The place in which you dwell.

Finding it is the only case

that'll let you say farewell.

TRUST NO ONE

but try to have fun!

Ada didn't know whether the "key to health" was a literal key or whether the poem talked about the cure-fruit or both. The second line was obviously about the bunker. Aisha said that Ada should look for the key to health in the bunker after dark. They needed to do whatever they could outside, while it was still light out. After dark, they would need to go inside anyway, so that would be the perfect time for Ada to scrutinize the place. The last line made Ada feel a bit anxious, but Liz assured her that it wrote "trust no one" somewhere in everyone's manual and it was more of a mantra than an actual warning.

Once they were done trying to decipher Ada's instructions, everyone gave her a rundown of their own backstories.

Feng was a researcher who had been looking for this very island for years. When he finally found a way to arrive, he somehow misplaced his crew and equipment. His goal was to find at least three members of his missing crew and convince them that they should leave the island. He had already found two, but they weren't very keen on leaving just yet. They promised that they'd leave if Feng provided them a "priceless treasure with value beyond measure." Feng suspected that this had something to do with Aisha's treasure chest.

Byron was a homeless person that accidentally fell asleep on Feng's ship. To complete the game, he needed to find the ship's steering wheel and engine. He also needed to find the Captain of the ship and help him fix it. Feng and By had found the Captain but they still needed the parts of the ship.

When Liz was asked about her backstory, she was very vague. Answering with a joking, "I'll get to leave the island once I finish all the ketchup in the Cabinet."

The group ate lunch and seeing Liz aggressively squeeze ketchup on her pizza, Ada began to genuinely wonder if Liz's mission was really to finish all the ketchup. Ada felt bad for the condiment. It had no chance against Elizabeth Reeves. Once finished with her own pizza, Ada threw her plate into the maj-can, a magical trash can that made any trash thrown into it disappear.

"One time, By tried escaping from the island by jumping into the trash! He got ejected and hit the ceiling," Liz shared enthusiastically.

"At least he made some sort of effort to escape, which is what we need to do if we want to help Ada get home in a week," Aisha countered. Ada had confided in Aisha about her sister, and Aisha promised that she would do everything in her power to help.

Aisha was amazing.

Now, Ada, along with Liz and Aisha, was at the base of the ladder that led to the exit/entrance of the bunker, fidgeting with her sleeve (a nervous habit of hers). Aisha explained that they were going to see if there was anything significant about a small x on the map she had. It was so small that By had deemed it a tear, but Aisha wanted to check it out anyway, especially since it was by a shore called "Keys Cove." Byron and Feng, on the other hand, were going to a cave on the other side of the island to speak to the Captain and crewmate and try to pry information on the priceless treasure

Ada, despite Aisha and Liz's reassurance, stared up at the ladder in horror. It seemed so tall in the daylight. Last night, She had been full of adrenaline and fear. Ada hadn't been thinking right. With a rational mind, she did not think that climbing the looming ladder was a good idea. At all. But after a long string of coaxing on Liz and Aisha's part, Ada finally agreed. Hands shaking every time she reached for the next rung, Ada couldn't think of anything other than how bad it would hurt if she were to slip. She couldn't imagine how Aisha and Liz were going to convince her to climb back down. After a couple of minutes (that felt like a couple of hours) of excruciating torture, Ada, Aisha, and Liz made it to the exit.

Aisha rummaged through her drawstring pack, "Oh no, I forgot the map! Looks like we need to go back down there..."

Ada's mouth dropped open and her eyes bugged, "I am NOT-"

Liz broke into laughter and pulled out a piece of paper from her pocket, "That was... Your... face!.. Priceless!" She managed between guffaws.

Ada wondered if punching Liz in the face would be worth hurting her knuckles. Before she could decide, Aisha took the map from Liz.

"Liz, stop laughing," she said exasperatedly, "and Ada, stop glaring at her as if if you're plotting a murder. We're on the same team here."

Ada shrugged, "Whatever," and Liz muffled her laugh down to a smug smirk.

The trio managed to begin their hike without breaking out into a full-on fistfight (much to Aisha's pleasure) but Ada did get to "accidentally" step on Liz's foot (much to Ada's pleasure) and Liz reacted by "accidentally" letting a branch flick Ada in the arm (much to Liz's pleasure). After a couple more rounds of "accidents," Aisha lost it.

"Okay, that's enough! Liz, what you did back there was awful. You saw how scared Ada was and you made fun of her for it. That's not cool. Just own up to it, and apologize! Ada, get over it! It was a harmless joke, there's no need to start a mini-war over it."

"Mini-war?" Liz feigned innocent.

"I'm not blind. I can see you stomping on each other's shoes and flinging stuff at each other."

"That was an accident!" Liz protested.

"Yeah, just like Smaug 'accidentally' took over the mountain. Like Moldywarts 'accidentally' killed Parry Hotter, or whatever his name was. And like By 'accidentally' did the whole thing with that weird-looking banana... thing. And... yeah. I ran out of examples... but you get the idea," Aisha said in her signature sarcasm.

"What are you talking about?" Liz asked, looking at Aisha as if she had just suggested the makers of chess were going to omit the queen piece from the game.

"They're references to a bunch of books from the 21st century. Well, all of them except for the last one with By and the banana. That was really messed up- nevermind , that's beside the point. The point is you two should stop your petty argument!"

"Okay. Sorry, Lizzy," Ada said, holding back a laugh at the examples Aisha chose to give.

"Sorry, Ada," Liz apologized, it sounded phony, but Ada and Aisha let it slide.

"Alright, now that you two made up, we can have a conversation that's actually productive. For example, what do you think the 'trust no one' means? It has to mean something, it's in everyone's manual. The Makers wouldn't stress something so much if it were unimportant. Would they?"

"Like I told Ada, it's probably just a cool-sounding slogan. 'Trust no one, but try to have fun!'" Liz said offhandedly.

"Still-" Aisha argued.

"I bet, they just said it to sound rhyme-y and mysterious," Liz continued.

"But, what if-"

"Oh, look, we're here!" Liz pointed to the direction that the sound of crashing waves came from.

Aisha's and Ada's heads turned at an alarming speed.

"Finally! I don't have to walk with you idiots anymore!" Ada began running towards the cove, excited to start looking for the key.

"I wouldn't be so happy if I were you. You still have to walk with us idiots on the way back, y'know," Aisha said, but couldn't keep the smile out of her voice.

"Sorry, Aisha. I didn't mean you. I was talking about," Ada lowered her voice into a loud whisper, "Elizabeth."

It wasn't in an unkind way, it was more teasing than anything else.

"I'll have you know, I am a pleasure to walk with," Liz sniffed, theatrically.

"My neighbor's dog is also a pleasure to walk with, and he poops for half the walk. The bar isn't that high."

"I thought both of you apologized, why are you still making digs at each other?" Aisha rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time that day. But, she wasn't being stern this time, it was more laid back. She noticed the jokiness in their voices.

"Liz doesn't exactly make it hard."

"Har har," Liz did an obviously fake laugh thing before changing the subject, "Are we going to start looking for the chest and key-fruit-thing?"

"Yeah, let's go," Ada said, and the trio settled into a comfortable silence as they looked under rocks, dug in suspicious-looking places, and inspected the trees. Bored from the hours of fruitless (literally) searching, Ada called a meeting in order.

"We've practically searched every inch of this place! Forget inches, we've searched every centimeter! Millimeter even! We combed through every grain of sand, unearthed every stone, and examined every leaf. Whatever we are looking for is obviously not here!"

"Ada's right. There's nothing important here. We're just wasting our time," Liz agreed, surprising both Ada and Aisha.

"Okay. I still think that the name 'Key Cove,' has to mean something about the key Ada's looking for, but it's getting late. We can search again, some other time," Aisha decided.

The three exhausted girls turned to go back the way they came from, consulting with the map. They walked no longer than a minute before they saw a figure in a dark cloak approach them from behind. With a gun.

"Halt!"

*

The girls walked at gunpoint for what felt like forever. The cloaked person had taken their pack, which had the map in it, so the girls had no idea where they were being taken. Soon, they arrived at a cave. It was sandy, so Ada assumed that they arrived at another shore. This assumption was confirmed when she saw the ocean waves swashing on the beach. Their assailant led them to a secret entrance of a cave. It was in a secluded corner of the beach, and you wouldn't notice it unless you were specifically looking for it. Cloakey-that was what Ada had dubbed the attacker- grabbed Liz by the arm.

"Make a sound and your friend'll get a bullet," Cloakey threatened in the cliche scary villain voice.

Ada nodded wordlessly, not daring to even look at Liz or Aisha. It was completely silent, save for some birds chirping, waves crashing, Byron being his chatty annoying self by speaking a mile a minute, and crickets trilling- Wait... Byron?! Ada listened closer, leaning her head slightly towards the entrance of the cave, and heard that it was indeed Byron, who was talking his head off.

"...wouldn't it? It totally would. Now, if you would just come with us Mr.Captain Sir, we can talk about this more at the bunker. We have pizza there. Maybe that's the priceless treasure you want," Ada heard By say.

"I want to see a priceless treasure with value beyond measure!"

"Okay, okay, got it. You like rhymes? We have poems at the bunker. I myself am an amazing poemer."

"Poet," Feng corrected from inside the cave.

"I will not 'po' it!"

"No, I mean, you can't be a 'poemer'. It's poet."

"I can be a poemer!!! It's been my dream for... the last 30 seconds! I do not give up on my dreams. Well, with the exception of the whole banana thing... that was horrid."

"By, what I'm trying to say is, there's no such thing as a 'poemer'."

"What?! No such thing? What about zoos, Feng? What about physician zoos?!"

"I'm pretty sure his name is actually Doctor Duess. And, Doc wrote kids' books that rhymed. Not poems. Even if he had written poems he would be a poet, not a poemer. Poet is the correct term for a person who writes poems."

"Oh," By said in realization and gave a little nervous laugh, "Right. Back to our topic."- He began talking to "Mr. Captain Sir" again- "Will you pleeeease come with us? I'll show you some of the poems I wrote. There's this one about a banana, that I think you might like. After that, we can play chess! I am amazing at chess. I beat Liz all the time."

"That's not really an accomplishment. Liz sucks at chess."

Ada spared a glance at Liz. Ada was certain that if Cloakey hadn't been holding a gun at Liz, the latter would have stormed into the cave and given Feng a piece of her mind.

"I WANT TO SEE A PRICELESS TREASURE WITH VALUE BEYOND MEASURE!" The captain yelled suddenly.

"By, maybe we should come back later. It's starting to get dark. The girls will start worrying about us. Tomorrow we'll try our luck looking for the engine and steering wheel. Who knows, maybe that's the treasure he wants," Feng reasoned.

Byron must have nonverbally agreed since Ada heard receding footsteps that soon faded away. Byron and Feng had left. Ada felt a pang of panic as Cloakey shoved Aisha, Liz, and Ada into the cave once the boys were at a safe distance away. Ada considered her options. She could scream at the top of her lungs and hope Feng and By were close enough to hear her. Then what? Would five people be enough to disarm a gunned person? What if the boys didn't hear? What then? She disregarded this idea, convinced that it would only result in injuries and possibly death. Should she try to be sneaky and take the gun without Cloakey noticing? Would that even be possible? Maybe if she took him by surprise... No. That would only endanger Liz since the barrel was pressing on her back. If a shot were to be fired, Liz would get hurt. Ada wouldn't let that happen. That only left her with one choice: Wait and see how things play out. Ada didn't like the sound of that, but she really didn't have any choice but to go with the flow. As they walked into the cave, Ada caught Aisha's eyes, hoping that Aisha had a better plan than just leaving everything up to luck, but when she saw her own hopelessness reflected in Aisha's grim expression, she knew that they'd just have to wait for the right time to escape.

The three captives and their captor stepped into the dimly lit cave. Ada didn't know what she expected to see. She figured that maybe there would be holding cells laced with chains and the dirty ground covered with scurrying rats and vermin. Or maybe she expected it to be a luxury evil villain lair. With a leather chair, and a huge billboard, covered in dastardly plans and calculations. And, of course, a cliche black cat, along with ugly henchmen. She did not predict, however, that the cave she walked into would be cozy-looking and warm. She didn't anticipate the makeshift fireplace, or the grandfatherly figure rocking back and forth in an old-fashioned rocking chair. Or the young man in a sailor suit sleeping, snuggled in blankets in a corner. Just as Ada's shoulders relaxed at the anti-climatic nature of everything. The grandfather-esque person looked straight into her eyes and purred in the creepiest voice imaginable.

"Priceless treasure."

*

After the whole spooky-crazy-old-dude-says-"priceless treasure" ordeal, everything sort of calmed down. The man in the rocking chair -Ada thought he was the Captain that Byron had been talking to- fell asleep. Liz was snoring a couple of minutes later. Ada didn't understand how she could possibly sleep with everything that was going on (Ada was nearly certain that getting abducted by a psycho with a gun wasn't a daily occurrence. Just her luck that the first time she stepped outside in a virtual world she got kidnapped). Although, soon, Ada found that her eyelids were having a hard time staying open. After all the commotion had died down, Ada's adrenaline began to run out. She struggled to stay awake despite her tired body's objections. Aisha saw this and leaned in to whisper while Cloakey was readjusting his cloak.

"Go ahead and sleep. I'll keep watch. It's not like we can escape anyway, with Liz asleep. If that guy wanted to kill us, he would have done so by now, but if anything happens, I'll wake you up."

Comforted by Aisha's words, Ada let herself dive into a blissful slumber.

Her nap didn't last long. A hand shook her shoulder, interrupting her rest.

"Ada, wake up," the hand said.

This situation seemed familiar, so Ada reluctantly complied, worried that she would get drenched if she didn't. Opening her eyes slowly, she noticed that the hand had a body. Aisha.

"Morning, Sleeping Beauty," Aisha said.

If this wasn't deja-vu, then what was?

Ada didn't respond. Her brain was too busy taking in her surroundings to come up with a witty comeback.

"We got kidnapped by some dude in a weird evil-looking cloak. He took us to a cave. Is it all coming back to you now?" A blonde girl informed urgently. Liz.

The events of the day all flooded back into Ada's memory.

"Where is he?" Ada asked, her tiredness evaporating.

"He thought that we were all asleep, and he went to the woods to find a tree, and you know..." Aisha explained in a hurried whisper as she pulled Ada up on her feet.

"What he didn't know was that my girl, Aish, was only pretending to sleep. When he left, she woke me and you up, and now, we're escaping. Boom, girl power!" Liz murmured. Her words slurred and her walking was a bit wobbly.

"Never call me 'Aish', again. Are you drunk on insomnia?" Aisha asked, concerned.

"Yeah. I need my beauty sleep. It takes a lot to be as naturally pretty as I am," Liz attempted to flip her hair but wound up smacking herself in the face.

"Don't worry, you'll get your 'beauty sleep' as soon as we make it to the bunker. It's only a minute's walk from here. You can sort of see the clearing that it's buried under," Aisha squinted into the dark, "You can when it's light out. Hurry. I don't want to be here in the dark any longer than necessary. We have no idea what kinds of nocturnal predators come out when it's late. Not to mention viruses. The game is still being tested."

And since Ada had the most horribly ironic luck, a large wolf to leap in front of the girls, effectively blocking their way to the bunker.

Oh, and the wolf was green.

Thanks, universe.