Ready Player One

Wade sees that the OASIS Tomb of Horrors matches the Dungeons and Dragons module almost exactly. He gains coins, experience points, and new equipment as he moves through the Tomb. The first curveball Wade encounters is the Demi-Lich Acererak (a creature of the undead) sitting in the throne room when “he was supposed to be waiting in a burial chamber much deeper in the dungeon” (78). Wade approaches Acererak, who asks him what he seeks; Wade replies that he seeks the Copper Key. Acererak challenges Wade to best out of three of an arcade game called Joust. Coincidentally, this is one of Aech’s favorite games, and in the past, Wade and Aech used games of Joust to settle arguments.

Wade loses the first game, struggling to recall the necessary skills. For the second, Wade requests to switch sides with Acererak because he is accustomed to playing on the left. Imagining that he is playing against Aech, Wade slowly regains his skill. By the end of the second game, Wade has “spotted a pattern to the lich’s playing technique,” (83) and wins by a hair. Wade wins the third game in another close match at which point Acererak morphs into Halliday’s avatar Anorak. Wade receives the Copper Key, which contains a message about where to find the First Gate. He believes the gate is in a replica of Halliday’s boyhood home on the planet Middletown. On his way to go to Middletown, Wade encounters another avatar.  

The avatar turns out to be Art3mis. Wade says nothing at first, then realizes that Art3mis discovered the Tomb before he did but had failed to beat Acererak at Joust. He does not want to reveal that he won, and he lies, saying: “I got creamed. Joust isn’t really my game” (89). Talking to Art3mis, Wade learns that if a player loses at Joust, they must then fight Acererak. Art3mis admits that she has been coming to the Tomb twice a day for five weeks in order to play against Acererak. Wade admits that he has been a fan of Art3mis and her blog for a long time, and they exchange contact cards.

Art3mis realizes that Wade has been lying, showing him the Scoreboard that now has his avatar’s name at the top. Wade realizes that because the Scoreboard is public that he “had just become famous” (95). Enraged, Art3mis demands to know how Wade beat Acererak on the first try. She casts a barrier spell to prevent Wade from getting too much of a head start on the First Gate. As Wade waits to leave, he and Art3mis discuss what they will do with the money if they win the contest. Wade expresses a desire to have his own off-world paradise, while Art3mis says that she would try to save humanity. On his way out, Wade tells Art3mis to try playing on the left.   

Exiting the Tomb, Wade receives hundreds of messages, including dozens just from Aech. Wade teleports to Middletown. While Wade makes his way to one of the replicas of Halliday’s house, Art3mis succeeds in getting a Copper Key. Wade realizes that the Scoreboard “would not only allow gunters to keep track of each other’s progress, it would also show the entire world who the current frontrunners were, creating instant celebrities (and targets) in the process” (102). Inside Halliday’s childhood bedroom, Wade boots up a TRS-80 computer with a cartridge of the game Dungeons of Daggorath. Wade already knows the game well. When he beats it, he receives a message: “Congratulations! You have opened the First Gate!” (106). He opens the gate with the Copper Key and jumps inside. 

Wade finds himself inside a simulation of the movie WarGames, a 1983 movie starring Matthew Broderick as a teenager who accidentally gains access to a military supercomputer that controls a nuclear arsenal. Wade figures out that his task is to complete the movie by performing “all the actions that Broderick’s character performed in the film, in the correct way and at the correct moment” (111). He is unable to access his OASIS files for help. He also realizes that he “could earn bonus points by delivering a line in the exact tone and with the same inflection as in the film” (112). Wade completes the task, clears the First Gate, and receives a clue for the Jade Key.

Wade teleports back to Ludus, then logs off the OASIS, finding himself back in reality at his hideout. As he sleeps, he dreams of being murdered for possessing Halliday’s egg.