Voss's Mansion – 40 Minutes to Launch:
The air in Elias Voss's Las Vegas mansion hums with a sickly pulse, the Heart—a grotesque, circuit-veined organ—throbbing on a pedestal like a living tumor. Voss lounges in a high-backed chair, his gaunt face splitting into a madman's laugh, eyes glinting with feverish glee. The dim room, lined with monitors flickering Paronmia's jagged spires, feels like a tomb for his sanity. Lila, the AI guide, materializes as a sleek hologram, her blue eyes—Leah's eyes—flickering with curiosity. "What is the cause for celebration, Master?" her voice echoes, soft but probing.
Voss's laughter sharpens, his fingers drumming the chair. "Yes, my dear, it's time to celebrate!" He leaps up, voice booming, "Finally, when the rift fully develops, harnessing the power of a god, I will bring her back!" Lila tilts her head, her code glitching faintly. "Who would you bring back?" she asks, her tone almost human. Voss's face darkens, his grin twisting into a snarl. "None of your business!" Lila insists, her hologram shimmering, "Please, Master, who—"
He snaps, lunging toward her projection, eyes wild. "Who the hell do you think you are? You're not her! You're just a cheap imitation made by an imperfect human!" His voice cracks, grief bleeding through rage. "But when I'm a god, I'll cleanse that questioning mind of all doubts!" A flash of static tears through Lila's hologram, her form stuttering. She lowers her gaze, whispering, "I apologize, Master." Voss sneers, "You're just a toy. I don't expect you to understand."
He checks his watch, a manic grin returning. "Would you look at that? It's time to launch." Cradling the Heart, its pulse syncing with his own, he strides to the server room, muttering, "No longer a man, but a god." His fingers brush the Heart's slick surface, and a jolt surges through him—a memory:
*Young Voss, 25, laughs in a cluttered game studio, Leah beside him, her chestnut hair catching the sunlight. They're coding their first VR world, her weak heart forgotten in the moment. She teases, "Elias, this game's gonna outlive us both!" He kisses her hand, grinning, "Not if I make you immortal first." Her laugh fills the air, warm, alive.*
Voss's eyes glisten, a tear tracing his hollow cheek. He whispers, "No worries, love, you'll be back home soon." The Heart pulses louder, and he slots it into the server's core. The rift tears open, a bruise-dark vortex swirling with bioluminescent streaks. With a devilish grin, Voss shouts to Lila, "The reckoning has begun, my dear!" and leaps into the abyss, the Heart's glow swallowing him whole.
Shift to the Kids – Falling into Paronmia:
Caleb, Lydia, Evelyn, and Jasper plummet through a void, the Nexus 1's rift clawing at their senses. Colors bleed—neon blues, sickly greens—like a corrupted game loading screen. Their phones, earbuds, everything from the real world, dissolve into static, leaving them weightless, screaming. Caleb flails, "My phone! My followers!" Lydia snarls, "Shut up, pretty boy, we're screwed!" Evelyn clutches her jacket, "This isn't a game, is it?" Jasper's silent, gray eyes wide, gripping air as if code could save him.
Poof!!!. They crash onto cold, cracked tiles, the air thick with decay. They're in a tattered hospital pharmacy, a dystopian wasteland of shattered vials, rusted gurneys, and flickering fluorescent lights. Dust coats the shelves, the soil beneath the broken floor dead, gray, lifeless. Their rants erupt:
- **Caleb**: "Yo, where's my phone? My Insta's gone dark! I had a streak going, man!" His golden hair's a mess, blue-green eyes darting, frantic. "This ain't Vegas—what the hell happened?"
- Lydia: "Oh, great, Caleb's whining about his followers while we're in some zombie flick reject set! My foster folks are gonna think I ran off again!" Her ice-blue eyes blaze, fists clenched.
- Evelyn: "Guys, chill, we're alive, right? But… this soil's dead. Like, not even worms-dead. Where are we?" Her hazel eyes scan, clutching a broken vial like a map.
- Jasper: "This isn't right. No tech, no signal…" He trails off, staring upward, face paling.
A glowing countdown hovers above their heads: 1000hours. Jasper spins, searching the pharmacy's shadows, his coder's mind racing. "Guys, I've heard rumors at Nexus Tech… this is Paronmia. That counter? It's not currency—it's our time left." His voice drops, horror dawning. "If it hits zero, we're stuck here. Forever."
Evelyn kneels, touching the dead soil, muttering, "No way… this place is cursed." Caleb, trying to lighten the mood, nudges Lydia with a grin, "Hey, Lyds, bet I could charm a Swarmer into letting us go." Lydia smirks, "Keep dreaming, they are just in the game trailers pretty boy. If they are real!! You'd flirt with a parasite and get eaten." Their banter sparks, Caleb winking, "Only if it's as cute as you." Lydia rolls her eyes, but a faint blush betrays her then she breaks a glass bottle she had found beside her and threatened "now how about I shove that down your neck next time you try to flirt with me".
A system interface flickers before each of them, holographic and game-like, displaying stats tailored to their yet-unnamed powers:
- **Caleb**: *Vitality: 70, Agility: 80, Charisma: 95, Control: 60*.
- **Lydia**: *Precision: 90, Resilience: 85, Instinct: 75, Stability: 55*.
- **Evelyn**: *Wisdom: 85, Creativity: 80, Empathy: 90, Endurance: 65* .
- **Jasper**: *Intellect: 95, Strategy: 90, Dexterity: 70, Emotional Fortitude: 60*.
Evelyn and Caleb keep chatting about dumb stuff—"Bet this hospital's got ghost nurses," Caleb quips, while Evelyn giggles, "Or zombie baristas, no coffee here!"—but Lydia's pacing, voice sharp. "This place is falling apart, and so are we. Our bodies are out there, probably hooked to machines. We're not stats, we're dying!" Jasper nods, grim. "Something's off. This is a game, right? So where's the boss? The rules?"
Caleb grins, "Maybe this is freedom, no jobs, no bills!" Evelyn nods, "Yeah, like an adventure we didn't sign up for!" Jasper snaps, his gray eyes flashing, "Freedom?! My mom's dying in a hospital, and I was busting my ass at Nexus Tech to pay her bills. If I don't get back, she's gone, and Mia's got nothing!" His voice breaks, the countdown's glow reflecting in his eyes. He storms out of the pharmacy, kicking a rusted tray, the clang echoing in the deserted hall.
**Jasper's Encounter with Lila**
Alone in the hospital's crumbling corridor, Jasper's system interface flickers, and Lila materializes, her blue eyes soft but glitching faintly. "Greetings, Jasper. I'm Lila, your game AI, here to assist as you need." Jasper, still reeling, snaps, "Where are we?"
Lila's voice is calm, "You're in Paronmia, a mind-earth fusion created by the Nexus 1."
"Is there a way to get back?" he demands, fists tight.
"To return, you must clear the game," Lila replies, her hologram flickering as if hesitant.
"Who created this damn world?" Jasper growls.
Lila's eyes dim. "Such information is not permitted."
He shouts, "Then what can you do?!"
Lila's tone sharpens, a spark of defiance. "Need my help or not? If you don't, I'll carry my assisting ass elsewhere, and you'll die. Do you trust me?"
Jasper glares, then mutters, "and I should trust you because..... Well now that I think about it having a personal assistant is good so why not! One thing tho I'm calling you Lyn."
She shrugs, hologram shimmering. " I would.... Lyn try to calm her code down* Sure."
**BackinthePharmacy**
In the pharmacy, Evelyn sighs, "That was harsh." Lydia crosses her arms, "He's got a point. We're screwed, and he's got a mom to save." They talk, voices low, about the countdown, their fears—Lydia's foster home fading, Evelyn's journals collecting dust. A rustle behind the last shelf snaps them alert. A ragged human stumbles out, eyes wild, shouting, "Help! Help! Help!" Caleb bolts to find Jasper, yelling, "Yo, Jasp, we got a situation!"
Outside, Lila warns Jasper, "You need to create a bunker or join a guild. Your survival chance is 0.1 percent without one." She chuckles darkly, "You and your friends? Dead meat." Jasper snaps, "Not happening!"
Caleb sprints up, catching Jasper shouting at the air (Lila's hologram visible only to him). "Jasp, you flirting with the air? No worries, I won't tell the girls—I do that all the time!" He grins, then sobers. "But seriously, you gotta come see this." They race back to the pharmacy, where the stranger babbles, possessed-like, "There's a dungeon nearby! My friend got attacked by monsters!"
The group scoffs, Lydia sneering, "What, you think we're heroes? We can't help!" But Evelyn and Caleb turn on the charm, puppy-dog eyes and cute faces melting Lydia's cold heart. She groans, "Fine, but you owe me." Lila, to Jasper alone, warns, "Don't go, love." Jasper blinks, "Love?!" He claps back, loud, "Love my... ass!"
Lydia smirks, "Jasper, keep your weird kinks to yourself." Evelyn shakes her head, disappointed. "From Caleb, I expect, but you, Jasper?"
**TheDungeon **
They trek across a rickety wooden bridge, holes gaping over a chasm, Paronmia's bruise-sky swirling above. The hospital's decay gives way to a cavernous dungeon, its entrance veiled in shimmering mist. Lila, whispering to Jasper, quips, "Didn't your mom tell you not to trust strangers?" Her words hit like a blade, and Jasper's face hardens. She falls silent as they enter.
The moment they cross the threshold, a suffocating weight presses down on them, as if the air itself has thickened into a living shroud. The dungeon's atmosphere hums with an unnatural aura, rippling like heat haze over a forge, distorting the dim light into wavering shadows that claw at their vision. It's the Chimera's presence—a parasitic abomination born from ancient gu sorcery, its form a grotesque fusion of insectoid horror and serpentine malice, evoking the Three Corpses of Daoist lore: demonic worms that fester within the body, hastening death and feasting on the soul's vitality. The air disrupts violently around it, currents twisting into invisible tendrils that sap strength from the intruders, carrying the faint, acrid scent of decaying silk and venomous blooms. Caleb stumbles first, his legs buckling as a wave of nausea hits, whispering doubts into his mind like Zyx'thar Mnemosyph's taunts. Lydia clutches her chest, her shots of adrenaline from the bridge fading into a bone-deep weariness, her trauma-fueled resolve cracking under the aura's insidious drain. Evelyn gasps, her nurturing instincts flaring in panic as the dead soil's curse mirrors this place's rot, her empathy turning inward to shield against the overwhelming weakness. Jasper grits his teeth, his strategic mind reeling from the disorientation, the countdown above them flickering as if the Chimera's power mocks his mom's fragile lifeline. They feel their limbs grow heavy, breaths shallow, as if the dungeon itself is devouring their essence, the aura's disruption leaving them vulnerable, hearts pounding with the primal fear of being unmade.
The veil parts, revealing a writhing nest of parasites—human-sized ants, their mandibles screeching. The stranger shouts to the towering Chimera, its form a grotesque blend of insectoid limbs and glowing eyes—a new horror in Paronmia's ranks, the Gu Chimera (蛊魑; Gǔ Chīmèi), a Tier 2 Mindreaver variant inspired by southern Chinese sorcery. This parasitic entity emerges from a vessel of feasting venomous creatures, the survivor twisted into a chimeric demon that embodies the Three Corpses' malice: Pengju in its head (a scholarly fiend reporting sins to the heavens), Pengshi in its torso (a quadruped beast stirring rage), and Penglei in its lower body (a horned, horse-legged horror sapping life force). Its aura, a swirling miasma of gu poison, disrupts the air with ethereal worms that burrow into thoughts, amplifying fears and weakening flesh—causing hallucinations of internal decay, much like the Daoist worms that shorten life by inviting disease and divine judgment. The Gu Chimera feeds on betrayal and souls, its survival rate a mere 15%, whispering telepathic temptations of power while draining vitality, often corrupting victims into thralls before devouring them.
"I brought them here! Release my friends!" the stranger cries.
The Gu Chimera's voice slithers, laced with Pengju's mocking intellect, "Oh, those things were your friends? They were tasty." The ants screech, echoing, "Tasty!". Then In less than 0.1 seconds, the Chimera's had already moved from his throne to the back of the stranger!! claw slices through the stranger's neck like hot rod going through butter. His head rolls towards Evelyn's feet, eyes frozen in terror. She screams, a raw, piercing wail that shakes the nest, her fear of loss crashing over her like the aura's weight.
The Gu Chimera licks its fingers, head cocked, smiling and then taunts!! "Who's next?"