I actually found an intact cartridge on an expedition out into the desert with a small group.
Herbert, my DM and guide, bought a map drawn on the back of a TGIF table mat from a grizzled, rambling man who once worked in a Video Express, an ancient time when libraries of VHS and game cartridges could be bought or rented, known as "The 80's".
It took weeks to find, but we eventually deciphered the map's writings and faded words under potato skin grease stains and set to work excavating right away.
The ground on which we were digging gave way and I fell into a cavern made of concrete.
When I came to I heard the sounds of the digging team calling for help but I was alone in the dark, dusty tomb.
A crack sent a shaft of light on a single plastic case atop a pile of crumpled debris, and while I knew I shouldn't, I walked toward it... drawn to it.
Its texture was both soft and rough at the same time, with a label showing "E.T.". It was an impossibility, something that shouldn't exist, yet I held it in my hands.
I traveled back to the city, but I couldn't help be feel a sense of dread, like I shouldn't have ever set foot inside the old unsold games' tomb.
I played the game with few friends on their Atari consoles which they saved from their brothers or fathers, and the horrible things I saw on those screens could not be described. Was this made over a weekend? This was awful!
I soon found out days later that my friends were brutally murdered, skin shreded from their bodies, faces turned inside out... and the Atari consoles were melted into still warm puddles. I couldn't help but feel responsible for what happened to them. Something was following me.
To my horror, I found Herbert had been killed as well when I went to ask him about what was happening. His multi-sided dice and carefully painted figurines for his table top games were shoved down his throat an filled him until he split down the middle in a grusome display... Warhammer figures were tangled in his intestines.
A darkness was out there, killing anyone that came into contact with this damned game, and it was after me. The sounds of old Atari games and glitched screens haunted my nightmares. I was screaming for 8-bit visuals.
I e-mailed everyone on Herbert's contact list, hoping someone could tell me what might be going on, recieving replies that were of little help... and forwarded messages containing government conspiracy theories.
I did get a cryptic e-mail from someone telling me he knew what was after me, that I could hold back the darkness, the guardian of the cartridge, the universe itself would stop at nothing to kill me and reclaim the game.
He said he could help, but at a price....
Anyway, I'm now headed to meet some Prussian baron in his castle somewhere in the woods... seems legit.
