Only the Tower.
Only the next floor.
Only the way down.
Velen stepped through the door in the wall, leaving the white room and its blinding silence behind. Darkness surrounded him, cool and dry. A narrow hallway guided him forward, the stone underfoot faintly pulsing with that same silver-blue color as the Core.
The door behind him sealed shut with a whisper. No turning back.
He knew what waited at the end.
The room.
The first one.
He had died here before. Many times actually. Velen remembered the ache of starving to death. The snap of a neck beneath a boot. The blade that pierced his heart.
He had searched like they did. Erratically. Blind.
The ceiling stretched high above him, its edges lost in gloom. The chamber was huge, lined with endless rows of heavy bricks, as if the room itself had been built from the bones of a forgotten civilization.
Carved into the floor was an inscription:
"What you seek hides in the pattern you never break."
He remembered the words. The pattern. The mistake.
His mistake.
All around him, the familiar madness had already begun. Dozens of players, all recently reborn, scrambled through the space like rats in a maze. Some tore at the bricks with bare hands, others screamed at the ceiling or threw stones around in frustration. Fights broke out in corners. A girl sobbed beside a body slumped against a wall, rocking back and forth.
It was a slaughterhouse disguised as a puzzle. The Tower didn't need to lift a finger.
It just needed time.
A whisper came out of Velens mouth.
"Damned Tower"
He didn't know how many years he has been trapped in the Tower. Nobody knew. He remembered the day he came to this Tower. Blood and bodies everywhere. He barfed at the sight. Then, he was tackled, and died. Sometimes he would rebirth quickly and be killed by the same person.
He was murdered over and over again, until he started killing people himself. By doing this he found a way to escape this cursed place, or so he thought.
Velen grimaced.
He still remembered the suffering he had to go through during this room.
"I'll get our of this place and kill the demons who made it.. I swear." He muttered.
——————————
Velen moved silently.
He didn't shout. Didn't test the bricks. Didn't waste time repeating the same loop everyone else did.
He let his body blend into the shadows, walking quietly, unheard to almost everyone. No footsteps. No breath. Just stillness and observation.
Dust covered everything. Every wall. Every corner. Every brick,
Except one.
His eyes locked onto it, a brick on the far wall, cleaner than the rest. No cracks. Slightly misaligned. A very subtle difference than the rest. Placed where most people would overlook it, or never make it that far.
He remembered finding it once, right before someone stabbed him in the back.
This time, he made it there first.
Velen crouched beside the brick and placed his hand on it. The surface was cold and dry, but smooth. Wrong, somehow, in this dead place.
He pressed.
Click.
The stone shivered. A soft rumble echoed through the wall. A door opened in the stonework, revealing a narrow passage lit with a sterile blue glow.
No fanfare. No reward screen. No applause.
Just progress.
He stepped through without hesitation.
The wall sealed behind him, muffling the chaos.
A voice came into his mind, sounding as if it was an artificial voice. The voice told him what he had earned for completing his first room.
[Room 1: Puzzle – Hidden Path Unlocked]
→ Contribution Score: High
→ Passive Awakening Earned: Echo Step (Short-range silent movement)
→ Wills Earned: 12
→ Temporary Buff: Focus—Perception slightly increased for 10 minutes
The corridor sloped downward, the air growing colder with every step. The light here didn't come from torches or light bulbs. It just existed into the very stone.
Velen flexed his fingers. His new Echo Step had activated cleanly this time, not as a glitch, not as a sympathy gift. It was his. Earned. Retained.
Each floor would demand more. Seven rooms now stood between him and Floor Two. But he had something most others didn't.
A pattern he had finally broken.
A step they couldn't hear.
A future they couldn't see.
And this time, he would not die screaming in the dark.