Inside wasn't money or power. It was a simple room: a poorly lit arcade, the smell of stale pizza. And there he was—James Halliday's digital ghost, sitting at a Tempest cabinet.
The tomb of horrors was a retro arcade. Halliday had hidden the First Key inside a perfect simulation of the Dungeons of Daggorath —a text-based maze from 1982. Thousands of gunters (egg hunters) had died there, torn apart by pixelated demons. ready-player-one
I got it. Third line, third word—"shoulder," not "shoulders." Halliday would have known. Inside wasn't money or power