Light tunnels round me, a cyclone of silver filament that bends thought and breath alike.
Then—snap—I'm ejected into night so large it steals perspective.
No staging lobby, no sister Ravel, no Chalk.
Just me, suspended half-kneeling on an ink-black dune under a paper-white sky patterned with impossible constellations.
The stars drift, rearranging themselves into brush-strokes, then scatter again as if embarrassed at being read too soon.
First inventory: body still mine.
The glowing brands along my forearms have cooled to cherry-coal warmth, but every pulse sends a prickle up the length of each line.
I rest two fingers on my neck—there it is, the mechanical tick nested beneath the human heartbeat.
Eighth beat, hitch, resync.
Feels like someone wound a pocket-watch around my spine and forgot to give me the key.
Second inventory: gear zero. Strokes zero. Companions zero. Odds—don't ask.
Wind—or something like wind—pushes ripples through the dune.
I stand, boots crunching on grains that aren't grains at all: minuscule squares of parchment, each printed with a single microscopic glyph.
They cling to leather, then scurry away when shaken, rearranging themselves into spirals that vanish beneath the uppermost layer.
The land is writing and rewriting itself one letter at a time.
I take a cautious step downhill.
Gravity feels normal until it doesn't: every fifth stride, weight doubles then halves, like an invisible conductor is testing tempos.
I adjust, leaning into the rhythm.
The tick in my chest syncs to the pulse of the sand; comforting in a horrid way.
A low croak echoes across the vale.
I drop to a crouch.
Thirty metres off, a bulbous silhouette squats atop a ridge—half toad, half calligraphy blot. Its skin is slick midnight, edges constantly bleeding into lank fronds that re-ink themselves before dripping away.
Two luminous eyes swivel, sweeping a cone of ghost-blue light over the terrain.
A living search beacon.
Good. Something native to observe. Better to watch predators before they watch you.
I flatten, palm against parchment sand.
The Null Scratch rises unbidden—a ghost of intent, no thicker than hair—ready to cut my outline from the world.
I strangle the instinct.
Not yet. Every scratch is a meal I don't have.
The creature grunts, satisfied the dune is empty, and lumbers onward.
Behind it, shallow pits remain where feet sank—pits that refill not with sand but with flowing text: jagged fonts spelling a single repeated word I can't read.
The letters soak in, leaving only smooth slope.
Ink remembers every lie.
The lobby's mantra echoes unhelpfully.
When blot-toad vanishes behind a ridge, I jog the opposite direction.
Better to move while it's distracted. After five minutes (judged by tick-count; no sun to track), the dunes flatten into a valley of spindly trees—or what pass for trees here.
Each trunk is a bundle of quills bound by black twine, quills sprouting barbed fronds instead of leaves.
They click against one another, producing a sound like knitting needles.
The "forest" smells of dust and ozone.
I snap off a frond. Ink beads at the wound, coalescing into perfect spheres that float upward until they pop, staining nothing.
The frond's cross-section is hollow, capillary channels feeding… something.
Weapon potential?
Maybe once I have the calories to spare.
⊹˚₊‧──────────────────── ＿〆(..)ˎˊ˗
Something crunches behind me. I whirl.
A figure stumbles between quill trunks: male, rail-thin, eyes saucer-wide.
Not Chalk—older. Bronze aspirant, according to the hovering sigil jittering above his head. Bronze? We hadn't met any yet.
He reeks of panic.
'Hey!' I call, hands visible. 'You alone?'
He opens his mouth.
Instead of words, a stream of liquid script spills from his lips—tiny letters pouring down chin, pooling at his collarbone.
He claws at his throat, horrified.
When he blinks, lids leave streaks of ink over eyeballs.
I step back. Reflex screams scratch it away, erase the danger.
Hunger counters: one more use and I'll faint.
Bronze gasps, voice finally materialising. 'Don't—' He points past me. I pivot.
The quill trees behind me sway though no wind blows. Their fronds uncurl, revealing rows of tiny hooks.
They're leaning towards the Bronze, not me—their shadows stretching like eager hands.
Tree predator?
Or are they drawn to the leaking text?
Bronze bolts.
Hooks shoot, threading the air like fishing lines. One snags his ankle. He face-plants, shrieking as fronds reel him in.
I sprint forward, yank a frond-spear free, and slash the vine.
The edge breaks through half the fibres before the weapon snaps—hollow wood too brittle.
Bronze drags a heel, scrabbling. His sigil flickers. I'm too slow—fronds loop his wrists, throat, crushing fresh letters from his mouth.
They hoist him upwards. In seconds, he's cocooned inside barbed foliage that begins to ink-wash, absorbing both script and flesh.
The screams cut out mid-syllable.
I retreat, throat dry.
Lesson[1]: fauna here doesn't obey food-chain logic; it obeys narrative hunger. If you bleed story, the Realm eats you.
Once I'm outside the tree line, I allow myself to breathe. My brands throb in sympathy—or maybe accusation.
I've witnessed my first death that matters.
Noted.
A ridge rises ahead, capped by a monolith: an obelisk formed of layered parchment slabs, each slab stuck mid-turn as if someone tried riffling through time and stopped halfway.
Glyphs crawl across the exposed pages, recomposing every heartbeat.
At its base floats a scroll tube the length of my arm, sealed with an embossed quill.
Orientation, round two?
I nudge the tube.
It unfurls into a parchment window, stringing itself between two invisible posts.
Text ignites.
—————◆—————
[ Field Notice—First-Phase Orientation: ]
[ Teleportation Scatter All aspirants emerge within a two-league radius of a Seed Narrative. Co-location is not guaranteed. ]
[ Seed Narrative Definition A biome reflecting unresolved truths shared by nearby aspirants. Flora/fauna derive sustenance from said truths. Expect predation. ]
[ Trial Initiation Trials do not begin on entry. They manifest when an aspirant's accumulated Weight of Ink surpasses a personal threshold.
Weight of Ink accrues via confrontation with or avoidance of thematic elements tied to the aspirant's core lie. ]
[ Survival Metrics Average survival to Trial: 13 hours. Survival post-Trial: 5 / 100. Proceed accordingly. ]
The final line blooms red, then drips off the page, each letter turning to smoke before hitting ground.
The scroll folds itself back into a tube and dematerialises with a polite ping.
So—no trial yet.
Good.
Bad: the world itself is loading ammo, and my lies are the magazine.
I sit on a parchment boulder, inventorying lies told today.
One stands out: bad breakfast.
The excuse I gave Chalk.
Surely the Realm can't hinge destiny on a cheap joke. But if it digs deeper—plenty of skeletons rattling in my gutter-born closet.
The tick in my chest speeds up. I press palm to sternum until rhythm steadies.
Movement on the ridge behind the obelisk.
I ease into a crouch, scooping parchment sand over fresh tracks.
Two figures crest the slope—humanoid, proportions off: arms too long, necks jointed wrong.
Faces blank, featureless parchment stretched taut. They wear imitation street gear, ink outlines where fabric should fold.
NPCs?
Or manifestations. Each carries a hooked staff dripping wet ink that never falls.
They haven't seen me. I flatten behind the boulder and weigh options. Scratch to erase them?
Hunger says no.
Sneak? Possible—terrain provides cover.
Or observe—learn behaviour before committing.
'Lost already?' a voice murmurs almost in my ear. I jerk.
Prism melts out of a tear in reality a stride away, as though stepping through a curtain only she can see.
She's thinner; violet eyes smudged with fatigue.
A new scratch runs across one cheek, bleeding ink that evaporates before dripping.
Her stroke count hovers at 11 / 100—she spent one since the lobby.
'Relax,' she whispers. 'They're Scribes. Kingdom's low-grade sentries.
Won't notice unless you speak a lie or touch their ink.' She squints.
'Saw a Bronze aspirant get eaten by quill woods a quarter-hour ago. That yours?'
'He chose the wrong decoy.' My voice sounds hoarse. 'You alone?'
'For now. Group I landed with dissolved in record time.
One lad tried to ride a blot-toad.' She shrugs. 'Natural selection's efficient.'
We watch the Scribes march in stiff cadence, scanning dunes with staff-tips.
When they vanish into gloom, Prism gestures for me to follow her through the same curtain.
I hesitate, testing with a fingertip—air that looks solid but parts like warm water.
On the far side spreads a corridor of pale grass glittering with static, roofed by nothing. A safe lane, maybe.
'You trust that thing?' I whisper.
'Trust?
No.
But it's either shepherded path or hunt-zone. I pick path.'
She steps ahead. I trail four paces back, alert.
Grass whistles underfoot, scattering sparks of light. The air smells of pages left in sun—crisp, nostalgic.
'Orientation said Trials are personal.'
I keep voice low.
'Any clue what qualifies as starting the clock?'
Prism stops, turns, meets my eyes.
'Rumour older aspirants toss around: the Realm weighs contradiction. The bigger the gap between who you act like and who you are, the heavier the ink.
When it's too heavy to carry, the Trial drags you in.'
'Like gravity.'
'Like debt.'
She waves the idea away.
'Look, stay honest when you can, silent when you must.
And if the world starts echoing your childhood nightmares—run.'
⊹˚₊‧──────────────────── ＿〆(..)ˎˊ˗
We continue. After a kilometre, lane emerges onto a basin ringed by colossal rib bones, each rib carved with vendors' stalls and hanging lanterns.
Figures barter under string-lights: aspirants, yes, but also knot-haired women with inkwell eyes, and translucent silhouettes flickering between frames of existence.
A bazaar in purgatory.
'Neutral zone,' Prism says. 'No assault, no stealing. Step wrong and the Guardian inks you out.' She nods to the centre.
A statue sits there—at first glance.
Then it moves.
The Guardian is an androgynous giant of ivory parchment, joints bound by golden staples.
Every so often it lifts a quill the size of a spear and crosses a name from an invisible ledger. Each stroke leaves an echo-boom that ripples through rib-bone arches.
I shiver.
Prism peels away toward a stall where a hooded vendor hawks glowing flasks. I wander, eyes wide.
Fauna & Flore Display, a sign declares, propped beside a glass menagerie.
—————◆—————
[ Inside: miniature replicas of local creatures—blot-toads, quill trees, scribe sentries—each annotated by shimmering captions. ]
[ Quill Grove Seeded in realms where aspirants hoard unspoken stories. Fronds target living text. Countermeasure: silence or quick fire.]
[ Blot-Toad Absorbs ambient lies, expels as sonic croak. Stomach ink fatal on contact. ]
[ Scribe Husk Patrol construct. Triggered by contradiction between spoken word and emotional readout. Weak to self-negation paradox. ]
Educational—and bleak.
Across the aisle, a mirror taller than any entrant leans against bone.
Its surface ripples like oil.
Above, chalk letters: Tell a Truth, See a Truth. Price: one stroke.
Can't pay.
My reflection wavers anyhow. For a heartbeat my face erases, leaving a silhouette chewing around the edges—Inkless, literally.
Then image stabilises, sweaty and intact.
The mirror returns to dormancy.
A distant rumble. Lantern chains sway.
Shoppers glance upward, uneasy.
The Guardian freezes mid-scribble, quill tip lifted. Silence folds in half.
The sky—if void can be sky—cracks.
A hairline fissure of white spreads, dripping luminous fluid that evaporates before landing.
In the same instant, every hovering sigil above aspirant heads dims, then brightens. My tick stutters.
The Guardian speaks, voice like two mountains grinding: 'Narrative stress surge. All market functions suspended. Seek cover.'
Panic flutters. Vendors slam shutters, silhouettes vanish.
Prism reappears, two flasks slung at her belt.
'Time to go.'
We sprint for a tunnel of rib-bone spines.
Light overhead flashes negative; world swaps black for white, then back, as though camera shutters.
A soundless shockwave knocks me sideways. I skid, shoulder bruising.
When vision clears, the fissure is gone.
In its place drifts a new star—ink-black, rimmed with rust-red corona.
It pulses, slow and hungry.
The Guardian relaxes posture, quill returning to ledger. Market resumes as though a cosmic glitch just got patched.
I push up, heart battering ribs. Prism offers a hand. 'You good?'
'Define good.'
'Vertical, breathing.' She smirks. 'Inkquake, that's all. Realm corrects itself when narrative threads knot.'
'Threads knot because…?'
'Because idiots keep lying to themselves.'
She eyes me pointedly.
'Speaking of: those brands lighting up whenever you twitch? That Mark's hungrier than most. Be careful.'
I glance at my arms—brands indeed glow brighter.
Exposure to inkquake juiced them.
Hunger stabs gut.
I need food—real or realm equivalent—or risk scratching myself into coma.
'There's a cookpot down the east ribs,'
Prism says, reading me.
'They trade story fragments for broth. Harmless if you give them shallow memories.'
Broth for memories. In the Waking Realm we sold bodies; here we pawn soul.
I mumble thanks, head that direction, weaving past chatter that already fills the air again—traders haggling over phantom ink, a minstrel stitching song from rumours.
Life refusing to halt even when the sky threatens rewrite.
Halfway, a laugh slices through the din—ragged, infectious.
I turn.
The old man from the mezzanine lounges atop a stack of crates, cloak patch-worked in fonts, grin unfaded.
His stroke meter hidden behind shadow. When our eyes meet, he tips an imaginary hat.
Recruiter? Slaver? Something older. Instinct says walk. I walk.
Steam wafts from the cookpot stall: an iron cauldron perched on parchment flames that burn cold.
A masked vendor—face obscured by swirling ink—gestures.
I sit on a crate opposite.
He offers a bowl; inside simmers liquid silver, smelling of sea-salt and woodsmoke.
Price appears in runes above the cauldron: One mundane anecdote, readable in my heart instead of eyes.
I close lids, choose a memory cheap yet mine—a night sneaking on factory roof, watching aerostats float over city, dreaming of owning the sky.
I whisper the memory.
Vapour rises from my tongue, curls into the cauldron.
The bowl warms.
I sip.
Flavour cascades: salt, smoke, starlight.
My veins buzz; brands cool slightly.
Hunger subsides.
Cost felt minimal—until I try recalling that rooftop night and find the edges smudged.
Worth it?
Probably.
Prism joins me, drains her own bowl.
'Rest while you can,' she says.
'Seed Narratives rarely hold more than a day before Trials anchor.'
'Orientation claims we trigger them ourselves.'
'Exactly. And humans excel at cornering themselves.'
She stands.
'I'm scouting shelter near the outer ribs come dark cycle. Tag along or brave the dunes solo.'
Invitation casual, eyes calculating.
Partnership?
She saw me scratch reality earlier; maybe a useful asset.
I shrug.
'Shelter sounds civilised.'
We head for the eastern exit when a parchment courier darts through the crowd, wings flapping like paper cranes.
It plastered a flyer onto a rib. Message ink blooms large enough for all:
—————◆—————
[ Notice of Looming Trials Weight calibration at 72 %. Anticipate a personalised threshold event within nine dark cycles. ]
Nine dark-cycles—roughly three Waking hours apiece, if Prism's pocket-chronometer is right.
Either way, countdown starts.
My tick echoes louder, as though clockmaker tightened the spring another notch.
We step beyond the bazaar into a canyon lit by phosphor moss.
The path forks: one branch climbs toward a ridge spitting blue sparks into cloudless void; the other winds into whispering grassland where silhouettes scuttle between tufts.
Prism cocks an eyebrow. 'Left's shorter. Right's safer.'
'Shorter to what?'
'No clue. That's half the fun.'
A choice then: risk versus caution, script versus improvisation.
Left or right—either path could be the lie that finally tips my ink.
[1] Smart boi...