MidReal Story
Infinite Realms: The Crystal Quest
Scenario: Portal gun infinite death glitch IRL
Create my version of this story
I stared at the massive convention center.
The place was huge.
A giant banner for the convention was draped from the side of the building, showcasing a few of the biggest games and companies that would be on display.
I’d been looking forward to this for months.
This was my chance to see all the newest games and technology in one place and get my hands on some of it before it was released.
Sure, I could download the demos from the internet, but it wasn’t the same as trying them in person.
Besides, there were usually games and gadgets here that never saw the light of day, and I wanted to get a look at everything I could.
“I can’t wait to see what they have in there,” Sarah said, drawing my attention away from the building.
She was a few inches shorter than me, but our height difference wasn’t that noticeable since I was tall.
She had a pretty face with big, brown eyes and long, dark hair that was pulled back into a ponytail.
Her glasses were thick, but somehow they only made her more attractive.
She was smart too—probably one of the smartest people I’d ever met.
She’d been messing with computers since she was five and could pretty much hack her way into anything.
Compared to Sarah, I felt like a genius savant, because while I was good with computers, she was great.
I had to admit, her enthusiasm was infectious.
“Me too,” I said with a grin.
“How about you, Mark?Are you ready?”
Mark glanced back at us over his shoulder.
He was a little shorter than me—maybe around five-nine or so—but he was bulkier too.
He played football for our high school and had been lifting weights since he was twelve, so he was one of the strongest guys on the team.
He kept his brown hair buzzed short and always looked like he needed a shave, even when he didn’t.
His eyes were set deep beneath his brow and were almost always hidden in shadow because of it.
They were also dark, so unless you looked at him closely, you might not even know they were there.
He wore a white t-shirt with red writing that read “Game Over” across the chest.
“Yeah, I’m ready,” he said with a grin as he turned back around.
“I can’t wait to get inside.”
Mark had known me since I was a kid, and even though we were in different grades at school, we’d been friends for as long as I could remember.
I’d known Sarah for just as long because she and Mark had grown up together and lived just down the street from each other.
We were all good friends and had hung out together since we were little, and while I’d shared some of my interests with Mark over the years, it was Sarah who had helped to shape my love of computers and gaming more than anyone else.
She’d been the one to show me how to build my first computer when I was twelve, and it had been my first introduction to the world of online gaming shortly after that where I’d met most of the friends I played with on a regular basis today.
I’d even gotten my first job working in the computer lab at the college with her help, which was why we were both here now checking out the latest games and gadgets at the convention along with Mark.
“Look at that,” Sarah said as she pointed toward a booth near the corner of the building.
Mark and I both followed her finger and saw a small booth that sat by itself away from the other displays.
It wasn’t very big either—maybe ten feet by ten feet or so—and it didn’t have any flashy signs or lights on it like the other booths did either.
In fact, there was only a single sign on it made out of plain white paper that read “Portal Gun: Test Your Reality” in simple black letters.
“Portal Gun?”
I asked as I stared at it.
“Yeah,” Sarah said with a nod.
“I think so.” She glanced up at me and I could see the excitement in her expression.
“It’s not listed on the website though.” “Why not?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a frown as she looked back at the sign.
She glanced down at the brochure in her hand, flipped through a few pages, then looked back at the sign again as if to compare what she was seeing to what she had in her hand.
“It’s not listed in here either.” “It’s probably nothing,” Mark said as he headed toward the booth.
He stopped next to the sign and peered around it to look at the booth itself, then glanced over to the side where we saw a guy sitting in a folding chair under an umbrella next to a cooler filled with bottled water.
He was wearing a black cloak that looked like it belonged in a movie about wizards or something, which was probably why it seemed so strange to see him sitting there among all the video game displays, even if it was just a small booth like this one was.
Mark stepped away from the sign and headed toward the booth again, giving us a nod over his shoulder as he went.
“Let’s go check it out.”
We followed him over to the booth, which was made up of a table covered in black cloth that had two items sitting on top of it: a large map of some kind of game world and a silver gun with a handle made of what appeared to be leather.
“Hello,” the man said as we approached, giving us each a nod of his head in greeting.
“How can I help you?”
“I’m Guardian,” he said as he headed over to the cooler to grab another water bottle for himself, then sat back down in his chair under the umbrella again.
“What is this thing?”
“It’s a portal gun,” he replied, giving the gun in my hand a nod of his head.
“It lets you travel between game worlds,” he replied, using his fingers to make quotation marks in the air when he said “game worlds” like he didn’t really believe that was the right term to use but couldn’t think of anything better to say right now.
“You’re welcome to try it out if you want.” I stared at him, not sure if I believed him or not, and even Sarah and Mark looked a little skeptical when they heard what he said, but I think I wanted to believe him, so I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt for now since this sounded awesome and I didn’t want to discover that it was all a big joke just yet.
“How does it work?”
Mark asked from behind me.
“We’ve installed portals throughout the Gameverse on designated platforms,” Guardian replied, pointing over to a square piece of metal sitting about ten feet away from us with a red target painted in the center of it and a bunch of wires leading from its edges over to a large generator sitting in the corner of the booth, which I hadn’t noticed until now because I’d been so focused on everything else in here instead.
“When you pull the trigger on your gun, a new portal will be created in front of you and linked with an existing one.” He gave us a nod, as if to say that answered our questions and there was nothing more he needed to say about this right now.
I glanced down at my gun again and noticed a small button on its side that looked like a trigger, only this one was round instead of oblong like a real gun would have.
“Can I try it out?”
I asked, glancing back up at Guardian again.
“Sure,” he replied with a nod as he held out his hand for me to give him my gun.
I did as he asked, then watched as he put it back down on the table and reached over to grab another one to hand to me instead.
“Stand on that platform over there,” he said as he pointed over to the square piece of metal sitting just behind me.
I did as he asked, then stood there holding the gun in my hands and staring down at its handle as I tried to figure out how this thing worked.
“Point it at that target over there,” he said as he pointed to the red target painted in the center of my platform.
I did as he asked and pulled the trigger.
A swirling blue vortex formed in front of me and floated there for a moment, making a strange sound like a vacuum cleaner sucking up some dirt before it disappeared completely.
Guardian nodded his head again.
“This gun creates portals with two distinct colors: blue and orange.There are two portals for each pair.The first portal is created when you pull the trigger, while the second one is always linked with it.You can travel between two portals in a pair with no problem.” He pointed to another target painted over by his booth where a yellow portal had appeared next to his feet while we had been talking.
We all stared at it for a moment before Sarah finally spoke up again.
“How do we do that?”
“We did create some basic tutorial levels for new players who want to test this game out,” Guardian replied with a nod as he reached over to grab a familiar-looking gun from under his table and pointed it at a target about ten feet away from us on the wall.