Vorn woke up on cold stone.
Not the hospital bed, not white sheets or that sterile disinfectant smell. Just rough, damp stone pressing against his cheek.
His head felt like someone had been using it for batting practice. Every muscle ached in that deep, bone-tired way that told him he'd been unconscious for hours.
The countdown was still there, floating in his peripheral vision.
[09:51:42... 09:51:41...]
Still ticking. Still patient.
He sat up slowly, vision swimming like he was underwater. 'Where the hell am I now?'
The room was massive. Stone walls that disappeared into shadow above, lit by torches that barely pushed back the darkness. The air was thick and metallic - like breathing inside an old iron mine.
He wasn't alone.
People were scattered across the floor. Maybe ten, maybe twelve - hard to count in the flickering torchlight. Some sitting, some standing against walls, all looking as lost and confused as he felt.
Nobody was talking much, j
ust whispers and shuffling feet echoing off stone.
Vorn's glasses flickered to life, automatically scanning the room. Faint traces of something shimmered on the walls - illusions, maybe, or traps. The others didn't seem to notice them.
[DANGER DETECTED: MULTIPLE SOURCES]
[ILLUSION LEVEL: MODERATE]
[PARTICIPANTS: 11 TOTAL]
"Where are we?" someone asked.
A girl's voice, young and scared.
Vorn looked over, two girls huddled together near the far wall, one maybe seventeen, the other younger. Both pale as ghosts, both shaking. The older one had her arm around the younger in a protective gesture.
"I don't know," said someone else. A man this time, maybe forty. He was on his knees with his hands pressed together. Praying, probably. "Last thing I remember was falling asleep in my shop."
A muscular guy stepped forward from the shadows. Big shoulders, confident stride. The kind of person who took charge because he figured nobody else could handle it.
"Okay, listen up," he said, voice carrying across the stone chamber. "I don't know where we are either, but panicking won't help. We need to stick together and figure this out step by step."
He sounded reasonable. Calm, like a natural leader.
Vorn didn't trust him for a second.
Not because the guy seemed evil - just because trust was expensive now, and Vorn was running low on currency.
"What's your name?" the muscular guy asked, looking directly at Vorn.
"Vorn."
"I'm Marcus. You look calm - that's good. We need people who can think straight."
Vorn nodded but said nothing. His eyes kept moving, cataloging exits, distances, potential weapons. Survival instincts from the dungeon.
Or maybe they were new habits. Hard to tell what was old and what was new anymore.
"There's got to be a way out of here," said another voice from the shadows. A tall, lean guy leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He had this smirk that didn't reach his eyes. "Question is whether we're supposed to work together or fight each other to find it."
The younger girl whimpered.
"Don't say stuff like that," Marcus snapped. "We're all in this together."
The lean guy's smirk widened. "Sure we are."
Vorn positioned himself against the wall, watching everyone. A short guy with nervous energy kept asking questions nobody could answer. The praying man mumbled to himself. The two girls whispered back and forth, the older one stroking the younger one's hair.
It all looked normal. Scared people trying to cope with a bad situation.
But something felt wrong.
Maybe it was how the lean guy kept watching everyone like he was memorizing faces. Or how Marcus's leadership felt just a little too practiced, like he'd done this before.
Or maybe it was how the older girl's eyes never stopped moving, even while she comforted her friend.
"We should explore," Marcus said. "See if there are any doors or—"
A voice cut through the air. Not human. Mechanical but with something cruel underneath, like a computer that had learned to enjoy pain.
'"Welcome to the Trust Path."'
Everyone froze.
'"You will be tested. Only those who pass will leave."'
Vorn's blood went ice cold, another test, another sick game.
The system messages started flowing across his vision:
[TRIAL COMMENCING: TRUST PATH]
[OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE THE PATH]
[PARTICIPANTS: 11]
[ESTIMATED CASUALTIES: 8-9]
[SURVIVAL RATE: 18-27%]
Eight or nine casualties out of eleven people.
That meant maybe two or three would make it out alive.
"What kind of test?" the nervous guy asked, voice cracking.
No answer.
Instead, a grinding sound filled the air, GRRRRRR, stone scraping against stone. A section of the wall slid away, revealing a long corridor beyond.
"I guess that's our answer," Marcus said grimly. He looked back at the group. "Stay close, watch each other's backs, whatever happens, we stick together."
The two girls nodded eagerly. The praying man crossed himself, even the lean guy pushed off from the wall.
They walked toward the corridor together, footsteps echoing off stone.
Vorn hung back slightly, letting others go first, his glasses were picking up more details now. The corridor wasn't what it seemed. Pressure plates in the floor, hidden blades in the walls, dart launchers disguised as decorative stones.
But only he could see them.
[ILLUSION DETECTED]
[SAFE PATH IDENTIFIED]
[ROUTE: 2ND TILE, 5TH TILE, 6TH TILE, 8TH TILE...]
The system was helping him. But why?
Because of his class? Because of that contract he'd signed? Or because something wanted him to survive long enough for whatever came next?
Marcus stepped into the corridor first, chest out, chin up. He took three confident steps forward.
The fourth step landed on a pressure plate.
THUNK.
Spikes shot out from the wall, grazing his shoulder. He stumbled back with a curse, blood seeping through his shirt.
"Shit! There are traps in here!"
The group bunched up at the entrance, suddenly much less eager to move forward.
"How are we supposed to get through?" one of the girls asked.
Vorn could tell them, he could guide them step by step through the safe path, but something held him back.
If he knew too much, they'd start asking questions.
Questions led to suspicion.
And suspicion led to votes.
"We go slow," Marcus said, pressing a hand to his bleeding shoulder. "Test each step before committing."
They started forward again, this time creeping along the walls, tapping stones before putting weight on them. It was painful to watch. They missed half the real traps and triggered ones that didn't even exist.
But they made progress.
Vorn followed, stepping only where his glasses showed safe ground. To anyone watching, it would look like luck. Good reflexes. Nothing more.
The corridor opened into another chamber. This one had three exits.
"Which way?" the nervous guy asked.
"Split up?" suggested the lean guy. "Cover more ground that way."
"No," Marcus said immediately. "We stay together."
But they didn't stay together.
The praying man drifted toward the left passage, following Marcus but never offering to take point. The lean guy headed right, already walking away before anyone could argue. The two girls whispered together and chose the middle path.
Vorn found himself with the nervous guy and a quiet older woman who hadn't said much. They ended up following the girls.
The middle passage led to a room full of moving walls. Mechanical grinding filled the air as stone blocks slid back and forth in patterns that looked random but probably weren't.
The younger girl - Lila - stepped forward first.
"I think I see a pattern," she said, voice still shaky but with an edge of concentration. "If we time it right..."
She darted between two moving blocks, quick as a cat. Made it across without a scratch.
The older girl smiled proudly. "Good job, Lila."
But when the nervous guy tried to follow, he moved too slow.
CRUNCH.
A block caught his leg, crushing it with a wet, horrible sound. He screamed and collapsed.
That's when things went really wrong.
The older girl - who'd been so protective, so caring - looked down at the guy writhing on the floor and stepped over him.
"Sorry," she said, but her voice was completely different now, flat, cold. "Can't help you."
She crossed through the moving blocks like she'd done it a hundred times before.
Vorn stared in shock. That wasn't the same person who'd been comforting her friend five minutes ago.
The nervous guy reached out desperately, blood pooling under his crushed leg. "Please... don't leave me..."
The quiet woman knelt down beside him. "It's okay," she whispered gently. "I'll help you."
Then she grabbed his shirt and shoved him directly into the path of the next moving block.
SPLAT.
The sound it made... Vorn tried not to think about it.
The woman stood up, wiping her hands on her pants like she'd just finished a chore. "One less mouth to feed," she said matter-of-factly.
Vorn's stomach twisted. These people weren't scared survivors banding together.
They were predators wearing masks.
He made it through the moving blocks using his system guidance, trying not to look at what was left of the nervous guy. On the other side, the two girls were waiting.
"Where are the others?" Lila asked innocently.
"Dead," the woman said simply.
Lila's face crumpled, she started to cry.
The older girl put an arm around her again, back to playing the protective sister. "Shh, it's okay. We're okay."
But her eyes were watching Vorn, calculating, measuring.
They reunited with the others in a central chamber. Marcus was there with the praying man, both looking grim. The lean guy showed up a few minutes later, alone and uninjured.
"Where's your group?" Marcus asked.
"Traps got them," the lean guy said with a casual shrug. "Real shame."
Nobody asked for details.
Nobody seemed surprised.
They were down to seven people now. Marcus, the lean guy, the praying man, the two girls, the quiet woman, and Vorn.
Seven people who'd started out pretending to care about each other.
Seven people who were slowly forgetting to pretend.
The next room had a locked gate at the far end. No visible mechanism, no keyhole. Just solid metal bars blocking their path.
They stood there staring at it for maybe five minutes before the voice came back.
"To proceed, you must vote one person to be sacrificed. Majority rules. Refuse to choose, and all will be executed."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Then everyone started talking at once.
"That's insane!"
"We can't just murder someone!"
"There has to be another way!"
But underneath the protests, Vorn could see wheels turning. Eyes darting back and forth, evaluating, calculating.
Who was weakest? Who was most dangerous? Who could they afford to lose?
"This is wrong," the praying man said, but his voice shook. "We should refuse. Trust in god."
The lean guy laughed harshly. "Trust in god? Ha."
"Maybe..." Marcus started, then stopped and shook his head. "No. We don't do this. We find another way."
But there was no other way.
And they all knew it.
The arguing went on for maybe ten minutes. Ten minutes of moral posturing and desperate bargaining. Then the accusations started.
"The quiet ones are hiding something," the older girl said, looking directly at Vorn. Her protective mask was completely gone now. "He hasn't said ten words since we got here."
"And he hasn't been hit by a single trap," the woman added. "That's not luck."
Vorn's heart started racing. They were right, of course, he had been avoiding traps, but explaining how would only make things worse.
"What are you suggesting?" he asked carefully.
"I'm suggesting you know more than you're letting on," Marcus said. The reasonable leader was gone, replaced by someone much harder. Someone who'd probably been there all along. "Maybe you're working with whoever's behind this."
"That's ridiculous."
"Is it?" The lean guy was really smiling now for the first time. "Guy shows up, barely talks, somehow makes it through everything without a scratch? Sounds pretty suspicious to me."
The praying man nodded along eagerly. "The devil works through agents of deception."
Even Lila was looking at him differently now. Less scared, more calculating.
They were turning on him.
All of them.
Because he'd been too good at surviving.
But then the woman spoke up. "Wait. What about him?" She pointed at a figure Vorn had barely noticed - a young man, maybe twenty, who'd been so quiet he'd almost disappeared into the background.
'When had he even joined the group?' Vorn tried to remember, but couldn't place when the guy had appeared.
"He's been following us this whole time," the woman continued. "Letting others take risks while he hangs back safe. If that's not suspicious..."
The young man's eyes went wide. "I... I was just scared. I didn't want to get hurt."
"Exactly," Marcus said, jumping on the new target. "Dead weight. While we've been working together, he's been riding our coattails."
"No, please," the young man begged. "I can help. I can be useful."
But it was too late.
Once the group had a target, they swarmed like sharks.
The vote was quick and brutal. Seven hands raised to condemn one person to death.
The young man looked around desperately, finally focusing on Vorn, their eyes met.
He was expecting Vorn to save him, to speak up, to do something.
Vorn said nothing.
Not because he was cruel. Not because he wanted the guy to die.
But because speaking up now would just paint a target on his own back.
And Vorn was starting to understand that this whole thing was designed to strip away everything decent about people. To turn them into the worst versions of themselves.
He wasn't going to play that game.
He was just going to survive it.
CLANG.
The gate mechanism activated with grinding metal. Tendrils emerged from the walls, wrapping around the young man like mechanical serpents. He screamed as they dragged him away into darkness, his cries echoing long after he disappeared.
The gate swung open.
Nobody spoke as they walked through.
The final chamber was different, brighter, a circular room with a pedestal in the center, and on that pedestal was a massive spinning wheel. Gold sections, red sections, black sections, all gleaming under lights that came from nowhere.
'"Congratulations. You have survived. Claim your reward."'
One by one, they stepped up to spin.
Marcus went first. The wheel spun, slowed, stopped on a golden section. A sword materialized in his hands, gleaming with runes that hurt to look at directly.
The lean guy got a potion that bubbled with silver light.
The praying man spun and got nothing. The wheel landed between sections, and he walked away empty-handed but grateful to be alive.
The girls each got minor trinkets - a ring, a pendant. Useful but not impressive.
The woman got coins that vanished on contact, presumably transferred to whatever space pocket she had.
Then it was Vorn's turn.
He put his hand on the wheel and spun.
It turned fast at first, sections blurring together. Then it slowed.
Slower.
Slower.
It was going to stop on gold. Then red. Then...
Click.
Black.
A section so dark it seemed to absorb light. No symbol, no description. Just emptiness.
Nothing materialized in his hands.
[REWARD STORED]
[UNLOCK CONDITION: CLASSIFIED]
[BLACK REWARD ACQUIRED]
"What did you get?" Marcus asked suspiciously.
"Nothing," Vorn said.
The lean guy laughed. "Figures."
But the system messages kept flowing:
[BLOOD MIRROR TRIAL PHASE 1: COMPLETE]
[PARTICIPANTS ELIMINATED: 4]
[TRUST INDEX: CRITICAL FAILURE][PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE: UPDATED]
[CURRENT LEVEL: 1]
[EXP: 87/100]
[NEXT PHASE BEGINS IN: 09:47:33]
The room began to fade around them. Not all at once, but piece by piece. The walls became translucent, then transparent, then gone.
One by one, people started disappearing. Transported back to wherever they'd come from.
Marcus caught Vorn's eye as he faded away. The reasonable leader mask was back on, but now Vorn could see through it. Could see the predator underneath.
"See you around," Marcus said, and it sounded like a threat.
Then Vorn was alone in the dissolving chamber, staring at the spinning wheel as it gradually came to a stop.
[09:47:28... 09:47:27...]
The Blood Mirror trial was still running.
This had just been the warm-up.
Vorn closed his eyes and tried not to think about the young man's face as those mechanical tendrils dragged him away.
Tried not to think about how easy it had been to stay silent.
Tried not to think about what that said about who he was becoming.
But the truth was simple:
He'd passed the test.
And that scared him more than failing would have.