The Golden King and the rest of his hero team had spent many hours searching for the villain Roudini after helping the hero Shaper not become Roudini's latest failed magic assistant. The search had come up with no results, as Roudini's escape magic had proven once again to be next to impossible to overcome, so Roudini remained at large.
So the Golden King, recognizing the futility of the search, called it off, and then he, on his golden chariot, as well as the rest of his team, went back to their base, the Great Light. The Gold King and the other six members of his team all put their vehicles within their base's garage and then went back to their earlier business before the call had gone out.
This meant the Golden King was back to stewing in his concerns over the new video game, the world of Allyssa, and the strange things going on with it, as well as what that could mean for the future. He sat at his desk for a long moment trying to figure out all the possible negative outcomes the game could have as the game loaded on his computer.
Though eventually the game finished downloading, and he found out that supposedly due to all the increased support and purchases, the game now had two expansions, which caused two free modes: hunting and exploring. For hunting, you went into a strange jungle filled with plant-lizard hybrids, and exploring seemed to be some form of adventuring into dungeons.
He had learned this from the pictures and written details the game's website had given him on the worlds of Allyssa's new expansions. "Hmmm, that can't be good." The Golden King said to himself as his natural thought process came to the conclusion that if the game he suspected of sinister purposes grew in size and scope, then things probably weren't looking good.
"So it looks like if I'm going to get to the bottom of this, I better start at the bottom, shouldn't I?" The Golden King said to himself, getting his game set to start the exploration, figuring out what better way to find out what's going on than exploring the game's dark depths. Though before he pressed play, he figured he should gather a couple of his teammates to go with him in case something went wrong.
Luckily for him, he knew three who would probably love to play a video game as interactive as this, not caring if there was a possible horrible fate in store for them if they played. So with his team already picked, all he had to do was grab the three of them, and luckily they shared interests so much they tended to always be hanging out with each other when not on the hero clock.
So the Golden King got out of his room and made his way to the central elevator and went down to the lower levels of the team's tower where his three teammates lived within the base. He waited patiently within the elevator listening to elevator music until he reached his desired floor and walked out of the elevator doors and down into the far less fancy floor than his own.
He walked down the hallway hearing the loud laughter and jiggering that told him exactly where he needed to go on the floor. So it was no surprise when he quickly found the three noise machines in question, though they were surprised to see him as he usually didn't come to their floor. They took a moment to straighten themselves up before speaking to him.
"What brings you here, sir?" George asked a bit nervously. Though to be fair, George was better known by his hero name, the Ashbringer, so called that because of his ability to burn off the impurities with magical flames and then control the magical ashes created from said flames. The golden king looked at him and then at his two usual accomplices, taking the three in for a moment.
The man to George's left was Nicolas, or as most knew him, the hero called the distiller for his ability to turn any solid matter into liquid, and to George's right, to finish off the roll call of this trio, was Roger, or as he was known, the Purifier, as his ability allowed him to mix different gas mixtures. Which was very handy when some psychotic had released a deadly gas, as Roger, aka the purifier, could pull the poisonous elements from the gas, leaving us with a green, completely safe cloud.
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The golden king was done looking them over for a few moments to make sure everything was in order and they hadn't caused any trouble as they had a tendency to do when they weren't on the clock. "As you've probably heard, a new game has come out in the world of Allyssa." The golden king stated simply, to which the three nodded simply in agreement. Seeing their confirmation of his statement, the golden king then spoke further.
"Well, I have seen several things about this game that have made me suspicious of it. So I wish to investigate it, starting with the new features it has just gained; to that end, I request you three join me on this quest." The Golden King said simply, causing the trio in front of him to look at him in surprise, not really sure what to make of their leader requesting them to join him in playing a video game.
"Sure, sir, I guess we'll meet you in the planning room." George said agreeing to their leader's request and figuring that the best place to play would be the planning room, where there were several computers for them to use together to play the game. The Golden King simply nodded his head at their suggestion and then proceeded towards the elevator to go to the level the planning room was on.
Once he was gone, the three looked at each other, none of them speaking for a moment. "While I guess we're playing video games with the boss?" George finally said, but also asked, as if not really sure what to make of the whole thing, his two friends merely shrugged back at him before they cleaned up their snacks, as they had been in the middle of a movie marathon when the golden king had interrupted.
Once they were done cleaning up after themselves, they all went into the elevator, and after it went up a few levels, they went at a fast walk to the planning room where the Golden King was waiting for them. They all took a quick seat at the round table in the center of the large room and quickly set up the planning room to play one of the expansions to the world of Allyssa, though they also had a dozen different programs set to monitor the game as they played to hopefully glean any more details of the game's inner workings for the Golden Kings investigation.
Soon enough the four heroes were set up and were ready to begin their adventures in the caverns below the Dragfly Mountains in the world of Allyssa. "We go in to the breach, my comrades, so watch yourselves; we don't know what could be waiting for us." The Golden King said to his teammates before they all pressed the play button and found their minds being sucked into the game.
"Hey Simon, do you think everyone likes Allyssa?" Robert said his tone of voice was a bit wary of the answer as he watched different news stations in the world of wonders and the mad covering the game world he had created.
"Of course, Robert, just look at our viewing figures and player count going up, up, up. Seriously, Robert, they're loving your game, so what brought this on? Simon asked, wondering what could have caused Robert to ask such a question.
"While I have been watching these reports, trying to get some real feedback and figure out what the people want." Robert said, explaining the beginning of what had caused his current line of thought.
"Okay, got it. It's always good to try and improve the goods, but why are you all of a sudden looking for haters?" Simon asked in a genuinely confused tone. As a host who had worked on several multidimensional shows over the years, he had to put up with a fair amount of criticism, and honestly, he had gotten sick of it years ago as it stopped being constructive at the fourth dimension and was just straight-up abusive by the sixth.
"Well, a few of the news stations have been implying that my game may be dangerous, which means if a few news stations could come to that conclusion, so could some heroes." Robert said, stating his concerns to Simon, who got where he was coming from.
"Don't worry, Robert, you gotta remember fear sells it. Sad, but it's true. None of the stations pushing the whole Allyssa's danger narrative believe half the stuff they say on TV." Simon told Robert, trying to calm his concerns.
"Well, that's fair." Robert said, remembering how in his old life, the news had flip-flopped on an issue sometimes all within the same hour. Remembering this caused Robert to calm down; noticing this, Simon spoke.
"See, Robert, you get it now. Come on, let's get off the news and get back to watching Allyssa." Simon said to Robert, who showed his agreement by making the hundreds of TVs that made up his workshop's wall change to Allyssa. "There we go. Now let's see what grand things are unfolding in Allyssa today." Simon said as both he and Robert looked to see what grand events were now going on in Allyssa with the lands they had gotten.