"We can't live in a sewer, Jax."
Sarah stopped walking. She pointed at a puddle of glowing green sludge that was bubbling ominously next to her boot. "I'm a Mage. I need a clean environment to regenerate Mana. This place? It smells like a goblin's armpit."
"She's right," Miller grunted, wiping slime off his shield. "And we can't go back to the surface. The Potato Hack bought us time, but The Warden isn't stupid. By now, he's probably realized that 'Target: Potato' is a glitch."
"We need a house," Dave sighed, dreaming of a soft mattress. "A penthouse. With a jacuzzi. And a vault."
"We can't buy a house," I said, checking the map on my [Debugger's Specs]. "We're wanted criminals. If we sign a lease, the System flags us instantly."
I stopped at a dead end. A concrete wall blocked the tunnel, spray-painted with old graffiti.
"But," I grinned, adjusting my glasses. "We don't need to buy a house. We just need to find a space that doesn't legally exist."
"Another fake wall?" Miller asked, tapping the concrete.
"Not just a fake wall," I said. "A memory dump."
I placed my hand on the graffiti.
[OBJECT: WALL_TEXTURE_09] [STATUS: CORRUPTED] [BEHIND TEXTURE: NULL_SPACE]
"When developers delete a level," I explained, "they don't always delete it. Sometimes they just... unplug the door. The room is still there, floating in the data void, taking up space. It's called 'Abandonware'."
I opened my console.
> [SELECT: WALL_SEGMENT] > [ACTION: NO_CLIP_TOGGLE]
The concrete wall flickered and turned transparent, revealing a swirling gray vortex behind it.
"After you," I bowed.
Dave hesitated. "Is it... safe? Will I fall forever?"
"Only if you look down," I said cheerfully.
We stepped through.
[LOCATION: UNKNOWN_ZONE_ID] [NAME: DEPRECATED_ASSET_HALL_04]
We weren't in a white room this time. We were in a... house?
Sort of.
It looked like a luxurious mansion, but everything was untextured. The floor was a gray grid. The walls were bright pink (the default "Missing Texture" color). There was a fireplace, but the fire was just the word "FIRE" written in orange letters floating in the air.
"What is this?" Sarah spun around, looking at the pink walls. "It hurts my eyes."
"This was probably going to be a VIP Player Housing instance," I said, walking over to the untextured fireplace. "But they cut it from the final game to save budget. Now, it's just junk data."
"It's huge," Dave ran into the empty dining room. "But it's empty! There's no furniture!"
"Give me a second," I sat down on the gray floor and opened my Dev Box. "I'm about to do some interior decorating."
I cracked my knuckles.
Base building was my favorite part of any game. But usually, I had to grind for wood and stone. Here? I just needed the Item ID codes.
"What do we need?" I asked.
"Beds," Miller said immediately. "Soft ones."
"Food," Dave shouted. "Pizza. Lots of it."
"A library," Sarah requested. "I need to research spells."
"On it," I typed.
> [SEARCH: ASSET_LIBRARY] > [CATEGORY: FURNITURE_LUXURY]
I found a file: BED_KING_SIZE_VELVET.
> [SPAWN_OBJECT] > [QUANTITY: 4]
POOF.
Four massive, red velvet beds fell from the ceiling. They landed with a soft thud on the gray grid floor.
"Whoa," Miller touched the velvet. "This is high-tier loot. This bed gives a [Rest] bonus!"
"Next," I typed.
> [SPAWN: SOFA_LEATHER_BLACK] > [SPAWN: FRIDGE_SMART_STOCKED] > [SPAWN: BOOKSHELF_ARCANE]
Objects popped into existence one by one. A leather couch. A humming refrigerator (I checked inside; it had infinite milk, somehow). A massive oak bookshelf filled with glowing tomes.
"It's beautiful," Dave wept, hugging the fridge. "I love being a hacker."
"We're not hackers," I corrected, spawning a massive flat-screen TV on the wall. "We're 'Creative Mode Enthusiasts'."
"Can we watch TV?" Sarah asked, looking at the black screen.
"No signal," I said. "But I can hook it up to the City Surveillance System. So we can watch The Warden hunting for us while we eat pizza."
I typed the final command.
> [SPAWN: PIZZA_PARTY_BOX_XL]
A stack of twenty pizza boxes appeared on the coffee table. The smell of pepperoni filled the untextured pink room.
We ate like kings. For the first time in days, we felt safe. We were outside the map. No bounty hunter could find us here because this room didn't have coordinates.
"So," Miller said, leaning back on the leather sofa with a slice of pizza. "We have a base. We have food. But we're still Level 5. And The Warden is Level 25."
"We need to grind," I nodded, taking a sip of soda. "But grinding is slow. Killing rats in the sewer gives like... 5 XP. We need thousands."
"So we hunt bigger monsters?" Sarah asked. "Go back to the Zoo?"
"Too dangerous," I shook my head. "If we die, we lose everything. We need a way to kill high-level monsters without actually fighting them."
I looked at the untextured wall of our new home. An idea formed in my brain. A terrible, game-breaking idea.
"Have you guys ever heard of an 'AFK Farm'?" I asked.
Miller frowned. "That's when you build a trap that kills monsters automatically while you stand there and do nothing, right?"
"Exactly," I grinned. "The System spawns monsters based on 'Darkness' and 'Volume.' If I can find a monster spawner node in the subway... I can move it."
"Move a spawner?" Dave asked. "You can pick them up?"
"I can't pick it up," I stood up, wiping crumbs from my hoodie. "But I can use the console to [SET_POSITION]."
I looked at the group.
"I'm going to teleport a Monster Spawner directly into a kill-box right outside our front door," I said. "We're going to level up while we sleep."
Miller looked at the velvet beds. He looked at the pizza. Then he looked at me.
"Jax," he said seriously. "If this works, I'm voting you for Mayor."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," I opened the door to the void. "First, we have to find a spawner that doesn't spawn something that can kill us."
I stepped out of the luxury void and back into the sewer.
"Time to build the meat grinder."
[QUEST UPDATE: BASE ESTABLISHED] [NEW SAFE HOUSE: "THE VOID BNB"] [COMFORT RATING: S-RANK]
[NEXT OBJECTIVE: BUILD THE XP FARM]