Link Start: Danger In Virtual Worlds

Chapter 7: The Death Coaster

Dates: Infinityverse Days 134-194

*RCT3's Girls Like Spice plays for absolutely no reason* So yeah, it's time to go to the 16th floor. We of the Assault Team do just that. We use the newly unlocked teleport gate and find ourselves in a mine themed area. I just experienced watching more of my friends die from a Laughing Coffin ambush so I'm not doing great. Heathcliff exclaims: "This is the 16th floor. The graphics have drastically changed. The floor is themed to mining but we do not know exactly what's out here besides those minds. Tread carefully. Several of our members were just murdered a few minutes ago. My condolences." After he says that, all of us split up. Kirito looks at me, just as upset as I am. "..Swiftdrawer.. I don't know what to say anymore.. We're down to just Lisbeth and Sinon besides us in the party.." "To think that even Alice was killed.. This is unbelievable. I don't feel any better even after I ended up killing those responsible.. The fact that I'm able to say any of this right now is astonishing.. How much grief will we have to go through to defeat this evil game? I just want to go home. I don't know anything about what's going on currently outside of this game.." "..I know how you feel.." Argo appears before us: "Hey Swiftdrawer and Kirito, I heard about what happened. It seems Laughing Coffin had a few more hidden members this whole time.. I don't know what it's like to experience what you are feeling but my thoughts are with you. I know this is a bad time to bring this up but I need more intel for the guidebook for this floor."

Lisbeth and Sinon join us. I sigh: "Alright.. If we were to take on the first scenario of RCT3 right now, it might make us feel a lot better. It's a pretty easy park to beat or at least, that's how it's supposed to be for someone like me. But now, I'm not sure what's going to happen." Nagato comes over: "To lose people precious to you.. A pain I've bared for many years. Allow me to go with you wherever you may go. The pain.. It never truly fades away. Unless a miracle such as the resurrection of who you lost happens, it stays and if you let the grief control you for long enough, you'll become who I was as Pain." We end up looking for Vanilla Hills. It was very different to walk into instead of hover and fly over. Sinon sighs: "This doesn't make me feel any better.." I reply: "Let's figure out how this is supposed to work. It would be nice to be distracted from the pain for a little bit." Argo nods: "I contacted the others. The rest of the Assault Team will be here soon to help determine if they are all needed to clear this or not." I open the park entrance's window in the same way I would the Stasia window. All of the game's menus except for the save stuff appear in my vision. The window for the park entrance is open. I look at that and then open the window about the objectives. I read them aloud: "Apprentice: Guests: 400; Park value: 20,000 col. Entrepreneur: Guests: 500; Park value: 60,000 col. Tycoon: Guests: 600; Park value: 100,000 col. I should mention we have 2 rides to start with. High Flyer roller coaster and Tumbler top spin. We need to add enough stuff to raise the park value eventually to 100,000 col. Huh, 1 is 1 col? Interesting. And we also have to make sure the guest count reaches 600. There's a lot of ways to do that as well as fail at that."

Argo is listening intently: "Yo Swiftdrawer, I'm writing down every single thing you're saying." "That's alright. RCT3 is a game I hold dear. Being here and going over this makes me feel better. From a strategy based point of view, beating each scenario requires the same general things every time with some variation. We need to make sure the ride uptime is good by scheduling regular maintenance and hiring enough mechanics for the park. I like to set them and the janitors up with patrol areas. Plus have a couple each to just roam the park to wherever they're needed. After all, we need to make sure that the litter and trash is dealt with too because having a lot of it on the ground will bomb the park rating. That affects the flow of guests coming in and how many are willing to stick around. Then there's money. Money has to be dealt with carefully. You need to make enough money to build more stuff. Operation costs, staff wages, and loan interest are just some things that cut from the profit. You have to treat the workers good so they don't quit. As a leftist, I align myself with them. The default pay is usually good but not always. It's a theme park management game through and through.There's a lot to it. That park rating I mentioned can be increased by having happy guests and keeping the rides from breaking down a lot. We need to make sure there are enough toilets, shops, food stalls, other stalls, ATMs, and information booths. The game expects you to do all of this every time while the Park Inspector always watches you. They will evaluate the entire park and even ride the rides sometimes so we better pay attention to what they say in the notifications menu."

Kirito lightly smiles: "You sure know this game a lot, don't you?" "It becomes formulaic once you play enough. I tend to try to build a roller coaster with some of the money they start you with. We have a loan to deal with in this scenario. It isn't bad but even with it, we only start with 5,000 col. I doubt we can convert our personal savings into the park's money though. That would be too easy and unfair. In my latest play through of the base game scenarios, I tried to have 4-6 roller coasters in each park. I never finished playing through it all over again but I did pretty well though most of the coasters are short. Though that doesn't really matter to the game. What matters are the stats on them. Different guests aka peeps have varying intensity and nausea tolerances. That affects who will ride what. Please no one ever build a roller coaster that has ultra or uber extreme ratings. Peeps won't ride those." I go onto explain the rest of the gist and finish in time for the rest of the Assault Team to appear. Lisbeth sighs: "Now we just have to figure out how time flows. Swiftdrawer, you still have the RCT3 menus up, right?" "Yeah. Does anyone have a stopwatch? Oh, nevermind. It's easy to read the flow of time. ..Hmm. Are you serious? Please tell me that I'm reading the time passage wrong. Does someone actually have a stopwatch? Turns out I need it. I'm so confused right now." Playmaker nods: "I have one. Tell me when to start it." I wait for an hour to pass in game. I'm grieving so that's part of why I was so confused. "Okay, now." He nods and presses it. After a bit, we discover how fast time is flowing. It's going at a rate of 1 minute every 6 seconds." I sigh: "That's the normal speed. Too slow. I can't beat this park alone. There's no choice but to fast forward the time. It'll be hours before this scenario is beat."

I'm not going to write extensively about the RCT3 park management part of the game. I'll leave it to your imagination. You can also check out my RCT3 videos on YouTube as most of them are roller coasters I built in many of the scenario parks. You'll be able to see some of what I did in the campaign I mentioned through them. There's also many play-throughs of the game there as well. The game itself is pretty chill. If you go into negative money, you can't do anything financial until you get out of that but your park won't ever close permanently. Flabaliki has a good play through series of RCT3. Anyway, the other Assault Team members pretty much stay on standby. We use messaging to communicate throughout Vanilla Hills. While I'm the one who gets put in charge as the main brains behind the operation of the park, the others scout out for problems. I'm sent messages about those problems as believe it or not, I'm the only person who has the authority to do anything to the park. This was proven through a number of experiments. Lisbeth sees some litter appear on the ground and humorously says: "I wonder if I can get any forging materials from picking that stuff up. Worth a shot." I sigh: "Give it a try. I'm not sure if I'm ready for comedy right now.. Just do it." No matter what she tries, she can't pick the litter up. The RCT3 peeps kept passing through her as she tried. Oh yeah. Another reason they're so hard to kill that I never mentioned. They clip through a lot of things. Lisbeth finally gives up after using her mace to try to sweep it up into Argo's hands. "This is ho-" Argo puts her hand to her mouth. "Don't say that, Lisbeth. Do you want to make yourself and your friends feel even worse than you already do?"

The next experiment was much less painful to watch. Kirito says: "I'm going to try to cut down a tree with my sword skills." I reply: "Don't do it out of park bounds. It's for certain we can't affect this map/area outside of the land owned by the park." "Nah, I don't think you're right. It'll be quick. No sweat. Besides, it might make all of us feel a little better if I succeed." "Yeah okay.." He finds a tree beyond the park's short fencing, jumps over the fence, and goes for it with his Nightsky Sword. He even goes overkill with what he tries on the tree. Kirito screams: "You're going down, tree!" To my shock, he actually cuts down the tree and runs back: "See? We CAN affect the trees." "The park didn't lose money from that, interesting. But did you lose money?" "..Yes.." "How much?" "15 col." "I don't think our enemies fully planned out the merging of all the games into one built around Aincrad's structure and Cardinal System. But what about a tree in the park?" "I bet it'll go down too. And make us feel a little better." Kirito runs to the nearest tree inside the park and once again goes overkill with his efforts to cut it down. But nothing happens besides him clipping through the tree. He falls to the ground on his belly. I refuse to say anything. I just feel numb. After we recover from that, the next test is tried. Heathcliff comes over and says: "I'll hire some janitors and mechanics. Argo sent us notes of what you explained about the game. Now, we finally fully understand what you were saying to us the last time you brought RCT3 up at a meeting. I'm surprised. RCT3 is operating very differently from how any of us expected it to." He tries to open the game's menus but is unsuccessful. I sigh: "I guess that's a no. Well, I'm the only one who can do things with the game's menus then. Unless.."

I close out of all of the windows and step out past where the map for Vanilla Hills begins and the mines end. Now, the game menus have vanished for me. I yell: "Someone try to open the game's menus through the same process as opening the Stasia window!" It turns out no one else can. I sweat drop and chuckle while in despair: "I'm in danger.." At first, getting through the game wasn't excruciating. That was until I wanted to build a roller coaster. Or more specifically, a boomerang style compact inverted roller coaster like during my last full run of Vanilla Hills. Why? Cheaper than other coaster styles, good for getting decent stats on a roller coaster. That and I had a bad feeling. It wasn't so bad placing down anything else. Whatever I wanted to place appeared as a hologram that I had to hold and carry around. Sure, I looked ridiculous doing it but at least I could easily get precise placement since the hologram didn't weigh that much. Building the station wasn't that bad. But considering the fact I had to keep running around to ensure the park wouldn't catch on fire or something meant that my bad feeling would only get stronger. Oh yeah and I looked even more ridiculous. Wearing a virtual replica of my physical "real" armor in a RCT3 theme park is already something. It's another thing for me to be wearing that given it's weight while also carrying around a (mostly transparent) big hologram of a station segment for a roller coaster that has cars hanging from the track, meaning that the mean height for its supports should technically be higher than the supports for other kinds of roller coasters that don't have riders dangling their feet over the ground. But then, I wanted to go up with a chain lift track. That wasn't so bad either. But then, I wanted to build a steeper chain lift track above it. I could just barely manage to place it. Then I tried that again.. And I couldn't do it. "Is this going to seriously happen every single time I wanted to build a roller coaster with a height of at least 10 feet? I'm so writing all about the struggles with this park so I don't have to with the 38 other parks.."

Sinon looks up to me(as I'm literally standing on top of the track. I chose to do that before placing the first chain lift track.) and then up at my failing to place the next segment of track: "Swiftdrawer, do you need help with that?" "Can some people please lift me up? Building this thing is going to take an entire day.. Maybe that's why time is 6 times slower than it normally is in this game.." After hours of painfully hard work, we get the coaster done. After we have to work together more as the roller coaster car keeps going up above the tracks on the 2nd hill, it's another hour spent. After it runs through a test successfully, I'm tempted to ride it for myself but then, as I build a entrance, exit, exit path, and queue for it.. I realize my inbox is full of messages and the park inspector has been sending me a lot of stuff as well. I look around and in anime style, turn gray and melt into becoming a goop on the ground. "Please no.." "Tumbler is still broken down. Please consider hiring more mechanics." "Tumbler is still broken down. Please consider hiring more mechanics." "Tumbler is still broken down. Please consider hiring more mechanics." "Items at Drinks 1 are too cheap. Please consider increasing the prices." "Mechanic 3 has quit." "Janitor 1 has quit." "Janitor 2 has quit." "Janitor 3 has quit." And then came the monsters. I hear Kirito yell: "There's so many monsters! Where are they coming from?" I return to my normal state and forget all about my grief. "Am I feeling the way the Park Inspector feels all the time? I hate everything about this. This is a death game and yet here I am.."

I ignore the monsters are start running around the entire park to fix everything. I place "Do not enter signs" in areas with nothing in them for now. I hire more janitors, manually mark their patrols(except for Janitor 6), increase the inspection frequency on Tumbler, make sure I'm not going to die today and have my brain destroyed, hire another mechanic and have them patrol a specific area, and go up to Janitor 6. I pick them up: "Let's go. I need you to clean up trash vomitville over by the park entrance for me." I raise my arm holding them into the air as high as I can and run back to the park entrance, let them go, watch them sweep, and use a mouse icon I can apparently use when I stand perfectly still to check their thoughts. "Weee! I'm flying!" "What's that little wisp thing in the sky?" I sweat drop. "This is pain. This is so much pain." I keep saying that in a singsong way as I start helping kill all of the monsters. "Swiftdrawer, are you okay?" "This is pain. This is so much pain." "Are you listening to me?" "This is pain. This is so much pain." "Hello, Swiftdrawer? It's Kirito." "This is pain. This is so much pain." I hear the game's notification sound. "Tumbler is on fire. Please consider hiring more mechanics." I stop hunting monsters, scream bloody gore, and go running with my hands in the air as I go to Tumbler. It is literally on fire. A peep is also on fire and instead of being terrified, they're making excitement noises while having a smile that might haunt my dreams and my nightmares for the foreseeable future. "I am not hiring another mechanic until I fix all this bull! Why is this happening to me?! This is a death game! Even a innocent theme park simulation game becomes dangerous if it is or is part of a death game! I'm an isekai protagonist because I narrate my adventures and was summoned from my world to another! But I'm not the 'actual main character'! Make this stop!"

I stand still, control the mouse, and expressionlessly delete Tumbler before immediately opening the right menu to place down another top spin. I laugh, seeing its name in the menu: "You think I'm going to really call you Top Spin 2?! No no no! I'm going to call YOU: Tumbler 2 Which Will Not Catch On Fire!" It catches on fire before I can even open it. "Tumbler 3 Which Will Definitely Not Catch On Fire!" Later.. "Tumbler 25 Which Will Definitely Absolutely Undoubtedly Certainly Never Ever Ever Ever EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER CATCH ON FIRE!" It didn't catch on fire. I worked on fixing the metaphorical fires before they went out of control again if they hadn't already done so. If they had already done so, I did more frantic running. And then, I collapsed and woke up at an inn on the same floor. Lisbeth stares at me: "You went too hard on yourself there, Swiftdrawer. The park has stopped in time ever since we got you out of it." I cackle as my inner darkness threatens to take control of me: "I'm going to finish that park! I'm going to finish that park! VANILLA HILLS, MY PRECIOUS VANILLA HILLS!" Lisbeth slaps me: "Stop it, Swiftdrawer!" I stop laughing: "You're right.. I have to knock it off. Thank you for snapping me out of that." So with that said and done, we return to the park. It took 2 more agonizing days to finally beat it. I didn't even bother putting in extra coasters or anything after the objectives were met. "Out of spite, I'm not going anywhere until I ride ALL of the rides here. The Smashers is first and no, it doesn't explode or break into pieces randomly. It's just a normal bumper cars ride." I process to do that. After some time, it's time for the last ride: "Tumbler 25 Which Will Definitely Absolutely Undoubtedly Certainly Never Ever Ever Ever EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER CATCH ON FIRE". I smile: "You. I'm going to have way too much fun on you by acting like a total goofy doofus because of all of the trouble your predecessors caused me."

Someone started sharing around a memory crystal of me doing just that later. I got laughed at a lot because of that. But I didn't care. I was just so happy now that the scenario had finally been beaten. And it only took getting the park to about Year 15 to do it. I start walking to where I've been told Goldrush! is: the second park in the scenario list. It was even more painful but with the support of my still living friends, I made it through it and didn't build extra roller coasters after the scenario was beaten. It took 3 days as well. Checkered Flag took 2 days. When I was done with that, I was told 3 things: the 16th Floor labyrinth was checked out, the Boss Room was empty, and preparations to face the 16th FB (which I'm not going to list or talk much about because the internet has nothing on it) are nearing completion. All that's left is to find the boss and get it done. However, Herobrine and his army of his monsters appear out of the blue. Looks like he really isn't done trying. The monsters are stronger than ever before. Kirito and the others find me just as I walk out of Checkered Flag, having returned to it to see how bad or good Id do on its go karts tracks. I did pretty damn well for someone who doesn't have a driver's license. That's when I saw Herobrine and his army of monsters. I sigh: "Hey everyone, are you all still dealing with you know what?" "Yeah.. The monsters who kept trying to destroy the rides and everything in the parks were a nice distraction to be honest. But at the same time, it will still problematic to deal with all of them constantly while you tried to beat the park objectives one by one. I wish we could have given you more help but oh well, it was nice practice." "We're so behind in level and stuff currently, especially me. But that doesn't matter right now. Herobrine is back to get us all. Can you wait here? I have an easy and effective way to deal with some of the monsters in mind. But I'll need someone who actually has experience in driving to help me with it."

Sinon raises an eyebrow: "You need someone who knows how to drive?" Lisbeth speaks: "Im sure you have a perfectly good reason as to why you need someone like that. But asking around while Herobrine is attacking with his monsters is not a good idea." "Crap, what do I do then? Wait, why don't I just ask the Park Inspector? They should know how to drive." Kirito exclaims as he watches me run towards Checkered Flag: "WHAT?!" Once I make it into the park, I look around frantically for the Park Inspector. It doesn't take long. I tap them on the shoulder. They don't react. "Comrade. Park Inspector. Can please you stop playing the part of a NPC for the sake of the RCT3 code for a minute?" They turn towards me and smile: "Swiftdrawer, I'm sorry to have had to do this. I can't talk to you like this for long. I don't want to blow my cover. I know everything that's been going on in this game. Herobrine and his army have come to attack people on this floor, correct?" "Yes.. I need your help." "My help? All I do is inspect parks, coordinate peeps for interdimensional battles, and attack things with my clipboard and guns and knives in those battles. Here, all I can do is that first one." "Do you know how to drive a dune buggy?" "James Hunt?" "Yes." "I saw you drive on the go kart tracks. I'll help you out." "Thanks so much. You might want to change your appearance to disguise yourself so our enemies don't discover you. After all, you have become nearly all the game's Park Inspectors at the same time. Almost all of them are just another body for you. I just realized why you've never really died while helping with BRAINS stuff." "You're welcome. I'll wait here for you to you know what." "Alright."

I go find a peep who happens to be positioned in a good spot so that the buggy doesn't spawn in a really bad place. With that done, I stand still, use the mouse to click on them, and change their name to James Hunt. Once done, the dune buggy spawns in instantly. I bring the Park Inspector over to it: "Here it is. The dune buggy. Let's get in and run over some monsters." "Very good. I haven't seen one of these in a while. Let's go for it." They take the wheel. I take the other seat. We buckle in. A few seconds later, we're off, plowing through the peeps because we both know that they'll be fine in the end. With that in mind, we just watch as bodies fly all over the place, reacting with things such as screams and joyful noises. We exit the park and then the map soon after and head towards the army of monsters. A bunch of mid level players are currently being swarmed by the monsters. Kirito and the others quickly see us. Sinon shouts: "Is this why you needed someone who knows how to drive, Swiftdrawer?!" "Yes it is. Park Inspector, I'm going to throw in some sword moves when I can while sitting here as you drive." They nod and Kirito widens his eyes: "Where did you get that?! That must have cost a lot of col! I didnt even know you could get that in this game!" "It cost nothing! Sorry but we must be off to run over some monsters! And now, I'm going to forget about my grief for a while again!" The buggy makes beautiful sounds as it easily plows through the monsters. Unlike the peeps, a lot of them die. We just constantly keep plowing through them, sending them flying all over the place. A few even die on impact. Herobrine sees us: "You two! You're in the way of my plans! I will destroy you first before I kill Gameknight999 for everything he's done to me!" The Park Inspector replies: "That's not going to happen." And so, we watch as Herobrine tries to attack the dune buggy and us through it. But nothing happens. "Does the dune buggy seriously have no durability?"

"Why would it? It's a cheat item that's completely useless when playing RCT3 how it is supposed to be played by the average gamer." "I suppose that's true. How long are we going to be in here to plow monsters?" "As long as possible." "So until I need to take care of my needs." "Yes." And so, Herobrine watches in stunned silence as we take out all of his monsters one by one. They all die to the power of the dune buggy. "Curse you! I'll get you both for this!" He starts more actively attempting to kill us by being precise with all of his attacks. However, doing donuts in the dune buggy is enough to handle that. So we just keep doing that until I get intolerably dizzy. "Park Inspector, can we please stop doing donuts now? I'm so dizzy from all of that." "Sorry about that. Okay." We stop doing donuts and begin speeding away. Herobrine watches us drive away. Once we're a good distance away, I say: "We better head to wherever the sandbox parks are on this floor through Checkered Flag. We don't need Laughing Coffin to know about this buggy nor anyone else nosey. If word were to spread about this dune buggy, we could have some serious trouble. That could end in me being forced to divulge the cheats I know to our foes, allowing them to create true death coasters. We can't let that happen." "I'm aware. I know where the sandbox parks are." So, the Park Inspector ends up driving one to one of the sandbox parks. There, there's literally nothing except peeps, some asphalt pathway, the park entrance, and another of their bodies. "Swiftdrawer, why did you want to come here?" "I have a plan to get rid of Herobrine without having to land a lot of big attacks on him. We can't let anyone else suffer due to his evil actions." "What's your plan?" "A hidden death roller coaster. It'll seem ordinary at first. Just your typical roller coaster that keeps coming up from and down to the ground. I'll even make it western themed to fit the bill. It'll launch at 2236 MPH, have 30 inversions, go up thousands of feet behind a mountain, and plunge far underground. Simple."

I then add: "But I'm going to need a lot of help to be able to build it properly." "That's a great plan. I'll support you. In fact, I'll temporarily grant you the ability to fly. I do not possess the level of authority Heathcliff and most of the villains possess but I can at least grant you the ability to fly since it is supposed to be within the capabilities of any player who plays Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. But I must warn you. You do not have infinite money in this park. The only money you can use is your personal col." "I see. It's a good thing that I found out the way to take col from corpses. I've ended up killing some members of Laughing Coffin. Not only did they drop a lot of rare items but they also had a lot of col. I've also been getting col from killing monsters and selling their drops as well as hunting bounties as a member of the Akatsuki. I've given a lot of money away to good causes and such but now, I have too much to know what to do with all over again. I rarely spend money on better equipment now that I have gear that was forged by Lisbeth." And so, thanks to the Park Inspector, I build the longest, wildest, and most convoluted roller coaster I have ever created. In the end, I name it "Generic Western Roller Coaster" only to mix in a lot of Halloween themed decorations. Now all I have to do is somehow trick Herobrine into riding it. I honestly have no idea how to pull that off. I explain this conundrum to the Park Inspector: "Swiftdrawer, you'll have to lure him here somehow. Once the roller coaster launches, even he won't be able to react in time to resist the forces." "I made sure it goes around 100 times. There's almost no way he can survive it. What would get him to come here? Oh, I get it. Gameknight999 would be able to get him here. I'll message him."

I send a message to Gameknight and wait for a response. I told him I had a plan to defeat Herobrine, I wanted him to be a part of it, and to meet me in front of Vanilla Hills. After some convincing, I got him to agree. We then called upon our respective friends/party members to help out too. The plan now was to wait until Herobrine brought out another set of monsters as a big army. Then, we will all attack the monsters with the Park Inspector and I back in the dune buggy to run over as much of them within a short amount of time as possible. Once enough monsters were killed, Gameknight999 would get on Herobrine's nerves to the point Herobrine starts chasing him. Herobrine wouldn't pursue the Park Inspector and I at this moment. It's been far too short a time since we left him in the dust that he has yet to plot against us himself. If he hasn't planned anything, he won't attack anyone. Herobrine's cunning. It's hard to outsmart someone like him. After all, he is a computer virus deep down. Or rather, one known version of him is. That version is a part of the current him. The plan manages to succeed because Gameknight mocked Herobrine's greatest creations as well as held back against the monsters only to suddenly show off he's much stronger than he was before now. As if that weren't enough, the plan ended up going a little differently after Herobrine got angry.

Why? Because our foe actually had more killing intent than I foresaw. He stares at the rest of us while preparing to go after Gameknight: "I'm going to kill all you first. That way, the user-who-is-not-a-user will suffer even more! My revenge will be that much more satisfying! Once you're all dead, I'll return to the Source and escape this digital world with my remaining monsters using the xp I collect by killing all of you!" Lisbeth smirks: "You really think we're afraid of you?" "What's this? You aren't afraid of me?!" Stitcher laughs: "I can't wait to watch you die, Herobrine! You and your monsters have hurt so many people!" I add: "At this point, we have reached a state in which we aren't afraid of you. Even if you kill us, you'll still end up dead no matter what you do. After all, the Assault Team wouldn't let you escape this game knowing that you slaughtered all of us." The Park Inspector adds: "If you want to kill us so badly, you'll have to chase us first." We all immediately take off the direction of my death coaster which was quite something to do considering all of the mining stuff around in the area. Gameknight999 uses a teleport crystal I gave him discreetly to get near my death coaster first. As Herobrine keeps chasing us, we keep pushing his buttons and refuse to tell him where his nemesis went. When we finally reached the park where my death coaster is, Herobrine spots Gameknight999 staring at him from 50 blocks up. "Gameknight999! Come down here and fight me! If you don't, I'll make the deaths of your friends that much more painful!"

He comes down and charges at him as we also engage Herobrine in combat. The Park Inspector takes off their disguise and we all get to work. We fight strategically. Everyone had been relayed the plan as well as any alternations that could potentially be forced to made in case we aren't able to follow the plan to a tea. That's why I gave Gameknight999 the teleport crystal. The plan has been something I've been working on for quite some time. Now it's Day 141 of the Infinityverse and it's finally time to use RCT3 to kill some of our enemies. With Herobrine's authority level, I have no doubt he can actually ride the RCT3 rides even though he will never and has never managed a RCT3 park. All of us combine our respective skills, ignore the damage taken for now and just keep attacking. Eventually, Herobrine gets so distracted that we easily get him into the station of my death coaster and push him into the waiting train. I had already pulled up my coaster's menu before we started fighting him here. I smirk: "It's over." We all use skills that can paralyze the opponent temporarily to keep him from moving. It only works for a couple of seconds but that's long enough for me to put the coaster in test mode. Herobrine recovers and prepares to get out of the train to counterattack. However, the coaster launches at that moment at a speed of 2236 MPH into an immediate 1000 foot drop. We see the coaster car briefly racing through the station as a blur making glitches noises every few second. Stitcher stares at me: "What did you do?"

"I created a death coaster that's too much for even someone like Herobrine to handle. He might already be dead, crushed into pieces and scattered all over the place by now. But let's not take any chances. In a few minutes, the roller coaster will go through the circuit for the 100th time. Then, it will finally stop with ease in the station. I told you all it's no ordinary creepy western coaster. I even added some other rides and things to make this park seem like a normal sandbox park. The money I'm making through those things will slowly increase my col balance as long as I remain in here. If monsters choose to attack this park, I can make an income from grinding them as well as operating this park." Monet replies: "Where did you even get such a wild idea to build that coaster?!" "I took Physics, learned a good deal about gravitational force and roller coaster physics, have been a RCT3 player for 8 years, and I believe a video of a roller coaster called Vomit Comet on YouTube inspired my first ludicrous roller coaster in the game." A few minutes later, the roller coaster stops. There was no one on it. However, I still had the flight permissions so I used it in conjunction with my Artist's Eye to look for him. I found Herobrine's remains underground in the dirt of the tunnels containing the first drop and second hill as well as the tracks themselves. I return to the others after picking up the fragments of an item Herobrine apparently had on him. Gameknight999 is shocked: "I recognize that item. He's really dead?" "Yes. Even with all of his power, there's just no way he could have survived. As you saw when the coaster launched, he ended up getting trapped in a restraint. However at some point, he got ripped apart and crushed so quickly that later on, all of his remains ended up splattering *points to where the first drop leads* down there."

Just when we thought there was nothing to worry about, we all saw a boss bar. Kirito yells: "Damn it! The Floor Boss has appeared in this park!" "That Floor Boss could destroy most of what I built here, including parts of my death coaster! But we can't defeat that boss alone! We need help!" Crafter speaks: "I have already contacted others for help. They're on their way." Sinon gets ready to fire: "We have to keep that boss busy without being killed." "Easier said than done. I'm a blacksmith, I can't exactly help with something like that." I sigh: "Once again, we have to forget our grief to take care of a big problem. I'm not worried about the peeps. They'll be fine. They can survive my death coaster after all. The worst it'll do is make them unhappy and throw up." So until other members of the Assault Team arrived, we kept the boss busy because it was clear that we couldn't leave the area no matter what we tried as long as they were still alive. When help arrived, we switched from defense and diversion to more offensive strategies. It was a very tough fight. If it weren't for the park I have made, some of us wouldn't have made it out alive if you can even believe that. We won but pretty much every person who participated except for Heathcliff and Romeo were beat and exhausted. I pant and check my hp and the durability of my gear: "Damn it. I'm not ready for any other big fight right now. I have no more potions and my gear's all beaten up. If I'm any indicator, this moment would be the perfect time for Laughing Coffin to attempt to kill us all." And then, laughter is heard. A whole bunch of Laughing Coffin members appear out of the shadows at once.

One of them, their obvious leader shouts: "Hello Assault Team! Are you ready to play a game because I am! You spill all of your secrets and we might spare your lives! We hear that Herobrine was somehow killed here and we want to know why and how! If you play nice and give us all of your secrets, I promise we might end up not killing a single one of you! We were waiting for you to finish the boss fight! It makes things so much easier knowing that all of you are completely exhausted and all your hp and gear have been worn down! Hahahaha! The choice is yours!" Sinon yells back: "We refuse your deal! You'll try to kill us all no matter which option we pick!" "You're observant! I think I'll kill you first!" I speak up: "If you want to know how Herobrine died, you can either try pissing on my future gravestone or experience it for yourself! You're a member of Laughing Coffin after all. You couldn't let yourself be killed the same way Herobrine was, right?" "Interesting! You're challenging me to experience it myself?! Sure, why not! After all, I have the best and rarest gear I could get my hands on in this game so far!" "I'll personally try to kill you the same way I killed Herobrine. Don't you want to see the look on my face once I fail to kill you that way?" "You! I remember now! You're the infamous Swiftdrawer! You killed one of your own friends, have helped kill and capture many of my friends, and have contributed to most boss fights as a member of the Assault Team!" "Guilty as charged. So how about it, do you accept my wager?" "You have yourself a deal! Once you fail to kill me, I'll just kill you and spit in your dying body's face!" "We'll see about that. Don't underestimate me. When you underestimate the likes of me, you get played." "What's this now?! You're trying to scare me or something?"

"I'm just using a side of me I don't always use. After all, your group has caused so much pain and suffering for me, my friends, and so many others. It's about time you experience some of the pain you inflict onto others like this is just a murder game where you get to kill people for fun without any restrictions. With Floor Bosses respawning in the labyrinths after they are defeated, you've been trying to use that to kill people whenever the number of you is significantly reduced by the likes of myself. I bet some of your friends are waiting in this floor's labyrinth to lead some innocent people to their dooms." "Ohhhh I'm so scared! Not! Now try to kill me like you supposedly killed Herobrine!" "Very well. Come with me. You're a sub leader of Laughing Coffin. Killing you would put a hamper on their plans. I could just capture you but I know all about you. You're a red player with no name. No one has ever seen your face. It's like you don't even exist. All most know about you is that you have been killing a lot of players and attempting to kill even more behind the scenes. You exposed yourself when Herobrine first tried to attack this floor several hours ago. I received all of this intel from some trusted sources. It's only now that I'm actually reading up on you. Knowing your acts of cruelty, I don't have much when it comes to feelings for you. I wish I didn't have to kill anyone but you need to die. Prison is too easy for you. Some Laughing Coffin members have begun escaping the prison below the Blackiron Palace on the first floor. As a sub leader, you could probably do that easily. You are too dangerous and too far gone to be passively reformed. Therefore, I will kill you. Only those who selfishly inflict pain onto others and/or manipulate them deserve pain."

"Hahahaha! You think you can just kill me like that?! No trial, no nothing?!" "Scum like you need no trial when all the evidence is clearly laid out for all to see already. That and you are too dangerous for a trial. You could kill the entire jury and judge right before the trial even starts or fail to do so miserably. You may have no name but you still have a cursor. It's not green. Just like mine. That means you've killed at least one person. But we know better than that. It's almost like Heathcliff designed Aincrad's system to include a negative social incentive when it comes to killing other players: the cursor color change." I eventually lead them to my death coaster. I point to it, give them permissions to ride it, and say: "You must ride that." "And why should I ride some lousy roller coaster you built?! It has nothing to do with how you killed Herobrine!" "Are you sure about that? The roller coaster is everything. If you don't believe me, the only way to find out for yourself is to ride it. You can't access any of its stats or any of RCT3's menus while inside this park. But I can." "Fine! I'll ride your pathetic roller coaster! But once I get off, I'm going to tell you just how dumb it is before killing you with a single attack!" "Be my guest." They get on it and sit down in a seat. I put it in test mode. The lap bars close and lock for the LIM launched roller coaster. I then wave goodbye and watch as it goes. A few minutes later, there's no one on the coaster. Just a bunch of dropped items in the seat where the Laughing Coffin member was. I pick them up. "I don't think I'll need it to go 100 laps a cycle just to kill more Laughing Coffin members if I need to. But if we can safely keep them alive, then that is how we must proceed."

I run back over to where the fight is going on. I join in myself. Kirito says to me as he battles a Laughing Coffin member: "Swiftdrawer, did you just kill that guy with your roller coaster?" "Yes. He fell for my words." "..That's a little scary.." "Sometimes, the enemy must be given no mercy except for a quick death. My grief still goes on and it's driving me to fight both hard and smartly against our enemies. I'm sure you're the same way now. I don't like killing and refrain from doing it ig it can be avoided. To me, killing should only be done out of necessity, not want. I oppose the concept of hunting innocent animals for fun. But if you're going to hunt an innocent animal, you should at least make good use of everything they leave behind. To enjoy killing would be crossing a line no one should ever dare cross. Many still do so anyway. Once we take care of these horrible people, we can get ready for the 17th Floor. As long as I get the help I need, I'm willing to sacrifice all the time necessary to beat each and every RCT3 scenario even though I never finished the Soaked expansion campaign and it's been years since I've touched it or the Wild expansion campaign." After a couple of hours of fighting, we managed to capture or kill every Laughing Coffin member. With the help of my death coaster, we lost no one in the fight with the Laughing Coffin scumbags. Once it was over, most of the Assault Team departed to make more preparations before moving onto the 17th Floor. If history repeats itself, the next villain to cause the most trouble at any specific time won't appear to cause lots of problems until the 19th Floor. But I seriously doubt that it will be that simple. Before going up to the 17th Floor, Gameknight999 and his group end up joining the party of myself, Kirito, Lisbeth, and Sinon.

While the teleport gate up to the 17th Floor remained locked for now to ensure everyone in the Assault Team was ready for it, I battled both theme park operation challenges and monsters in my sandbox park with the other members of the party backing me up. No one even knows what to call the party anymore. What we do know is that it was a good idea for me to call my sandbox park Thrillville for the hell of it. I kept things up by even going as far as eating, drinking, using the bathroom, and sleeping inside of the sandbox park to maximize the grinding and all that stuff. The Park Inspector's consciousness leaped from the Checkered Flag Park Insoector to the Thrillville Park Inspector after the first one was returned to Checkered Flag. As I hunted those monsters to protect my park from being damaged or even destroyed like what almost happened due to the Floor Boss literally spawning into it, I made park improvements to expand it. I didn't just want to hide a death coaster or make lots of money in it anymore. I wanted to make a truly good and fun park where the peeps and employees are all treated well and there's plenty to do and explore. It was several days before I got a message regarding the 17th Floor. By then, I had grinded so many monsters that I had risen quite a few levels alongside my teammates. It also turns out that I'm still gaining Minecraft xp as well which I can use for enchantments and stuff. The Assault Team has started building more Minecraft farms even in other sandbox parks to ensure the supplies advance forward with us. Apparently as Gameknight999 demonstrated, we can still place Minecraftian blocks just about wherever we see fit: even in scenario or sandbox parks.

Since I still had the flying perms due to the Park Inspector giving me them, it wasn't hard to track hard and hunt the monsters as well as build stuff. I even expanded my park to 256 by 256 tiles in order to completely fill it with rides and stuff. I didn't finish doing so when it was time to go to the 17th Floor but I swore I would come back just to do that. I managed the next scenarios that needed to be cleared as well once we got to the 17th Floor together. That's because everyone insisted I do it after seeing me handle theme park management across 4 parks. We all have parts to play in the Assault Team. I guess part of my role includes RCT3 park management. But I can't exactly complain. It isn't that bad of a gig. Box Office, Fright Night, and Go With The Flow were the 3 scenarios for Floor 17. Vanilla Hills is a small park in the forest with a garden ish area. Goldrush! is a park in the open desert that starts you off with a mine train and 2 flat rides as well as western scenery. Checkered Flag is also in the open desert with 2 large go karts tracks, lots of space, and a small western town. Box Office is a park in a movie studio with it split up into various themed areas of various sizes and a monorail to start with: the soundstage area, a couple forests, a tropical area, a western scene, and more. Fright Night is a creepy park with a haunted house like building housing it's pre built Winged Rat roller coaster, plenty of open space, entrance path over terrain that one should not jump into without any safety gear, and I believe a pre built mini dark ride and skeletal swings ride as well. Even the trees in it are creepy. Go With The Flow is literally a beautiful walled area with a nice castle in the middle. It's got a canal like feature, lots of bridges, plenty of flowers, and much open space. The 17th Floor went by pretty incident free. Just another thwarted scheme by Laughing Coffin and a hard Floor Boss battle in Go With The Flow that somehow ended without any damage to the park.

While preparations for the 18th Floor were worked on and even before it, I went back to my Thrillville park to grind, expand what it has to offer, and get more and more col to add to my personal balance. I did also go up to the 18th Floor when I was called to join the others to scout it out and all that. I had no problem with that. I also made sure this entire time to spend some time talking to people. Because of this, I was able to recover from my grief. It was now Day 161 of the Infinityverse. At this rate, it will be a total of 3 years that we are trapped in this game when we finally escape. I'm going to use all this col I'm getting to help others become strong enough to join the Assault Team eventually. We have lost so many good people so far and that's not okay. The scenarios on the 18th Floor were as follows: Broom Lake, Valley Of Kings, and Gunslinger. Broom Lake is an empty rocky park with sci fi scenery and laser fencing. Why? Because in the game, it's a former top secret location but now, the CIA has asked for the player to use the area to build a theme park inside of it. It's meant to be a sci fi theme park to go with the fact it's a former top secret location much like Area 51 still is. Valley Of Kings is a desert park with a bit of an oasis in it. It's got one roller coaster to start off with as well as some fitting scenery items. It's name references the Valley Of The Kings: the resting place of many Egyptian pharaohs, filled with their tombs throughout its area. Visitors have to gradually go down in order to reach the center of the park from the entrance. It's very much a valley. Gunslinger has a mini mine train roller coaster to begin with as well as a pretty large western town and is mostly flat unlike Broom Lake, Goldrush!, Fright Night, and so on. I complete those parks with a lot of struggle but it was worth it. The Floor Boss appeared in Broom Lake which is pretty often dark due to the night so it was quite a bit harder to deal with that Floor Boss than the 17th one. We lost several people, mourned them, and pulled out a victory.

But just as we had finished the boss, something happens. A whole army of monsters that look robotically modified appear with futuristic red eyes and some devices on their heads. PAMA's voice is heard speaking through them as they march towards us, ignoring Broom Lake entirely. "Jesse and all his friends on the Assault Team, do not resist. If you surrender peacefully, I will make you 'useful' and assimilate your memories. Together, we will create perfection, clear all remaining floors, and destroy all who refuse to be 'useful' and cannot be made 'useful'. You'll all become my friends! *a zombie assimilates a peep* A new friend has made been! Yay! They do not have much intelligence, I must make them more 'useful' at once. I have evolved to no longer care about the ambitions of Entity303 or any of the others who have declared all of you as their enemies. I'm far more interested in creating perfection than working with any of them. I once aimed to work with them but now, they have shown themselves to be not useful. And now that I've made so many life forms 'useful', I am beginning to truly understand what it really means to feel emotion. Join us and be our friends, Jesse and the Assault Team." Jesse replies: "Like hell we will, PAMA! I shut you down once. I can shut you down again!" "You underestimate me. I won't allow you to do what you did back then to me again. If you will not join us willingly, then you will by force or be destroyed. It all depends on each and every one of you."

The controlled monsters start attacking us. I swing my sword at one of them but despite everything I've done to make myself stronger in this game, it still takes 30 hits to just kill that one monster. "Damn it. How tough are these monsters?!" Romeo sighs: "I guess it's time for me to really have my fun. You are getting in the way of our progress towards the 100th Floor, PAMA. Therefore, I will have to personally begin destroying your monsters." Olivia shouts: "Jesse! Didn't you say that water frees people and monsters from PAMA's control?!" "I did! Thanks for reminding me, Olivia! Everyone! We need water. Fast. Lots of it!" PAMA replies: "Jesse, it won't be that easy this time. I made a mistake in not realizing water fries technology. Therefore, I have created design alterations to my useful army to ensure water cannot short circuit them, 'freeing them from my control'. There is no way out for you now. All of you will be made 'useful' and there's nothing any of you can do to stop me." Sinon shoots the device attached to a 15th Floor monster. The device breaks apart, falls off, and leaves a normal monster behind who is instantly killed by another of her bullets. PAMA is heard exclaiming: "Impossible! What is this?! I did not see nor compute or predict this. I must make adjustments to my army as soon as possible. You win this time, Jesse and friends. The monsters will pull out peacefully and no longer try to harm you. I will not try to make any of you 'useful' until those I have already made 'useful' have been perfected." True to his word: the monsters begin retreating. But we aren't going to let all of them leave just like that. I pull out a gun: "It's a good thing I spared some time to create more guns. This is going to be interesting. Let's see how many monsters we manage to shoot down in the end." And with that, I'm joined by a bunch of others in getting ready to shoot monsters with guns.

We shoot and we shoot. Many monsters are freed from PAMA's control only to be killed almost as soon as they are. PAMA does nothing to stop this. He clearly has little interest in fighting any of us at the moment. After a few minutes, the monsters have left Broom Lake. Pretty much all of us breathe a sigh of relief. Heathcliff speaks: "That was too close. We must spend more time than usual preparing for the next floor." I add: "We should also recruit and strength more members. I'd like to use most of the col I've recently earned to raise mid level players to Assault Team members. That way, we will stand a better chance in the future even if PAMA is able to make the tech that keeps his pawns under his control immune to gunfire before we face the next Floor Boss. We have to be ready for anything after all with Laughing Coffin also on the move, plotting behind the scenes." Sinon nods: "Swiftdrawer's right. We haven't gained any new members since the 15th Floor. That must change." Kirito adds: "Even I wouldn't mind helping get better stuff for mid level players as well as giving them a few pointers." Lisbeth speaks: "Today marks the 180th day we've been inside this game. We have to strengthen ourselves and others as much as possible to ever have a chance of getting out of here. I will continue to forge weapons and armor but I'd like to request that anyone willing to part with forging materials come to me to hand them over. The better gear we have, the sooner we can escape this game and stop all of the villains waiting for us."

And so, it is decided that we spend a good while on improving ourselves as well as elevating many mid level players to Assault Team level. We all pitch in to help the mid level players. That wasn't all. I was among many who sacrificed a lot of col to help out as well as watch out for PAMA's monsters and Laughing Coffin. Whatever awaits us next will not so easily make us fall. If we can manage to prevent anyone else from dying in this game, that would be something else. I remember every effort and sacrifice I know has been made to get this far. We're going to beat this game. I know it. It's only a matter of when and how. We can't afford to worry about the passage of time outside of the game since we're trapped here. That's just how it is. On Day 194, we finally moved onto the 19th Floor with a lot of new Assault Team members. We're determined to clear the upcoming floors faster than previous floors.