Rian opened his eyes and was greeted by an endless expanse of black; an oppressive, all-consuming void without a single source of light.
He instinctively reached his arm forward, trying to feel something, anything, but he couldn't even see his own body.
There was no floor beneath him, no air around him. Just the sensation of weightlessness, as if he were suspended in a place beyond reality.
A cold stillness pressed against him from all sides, and for a moment, he wondered if this was what death felt like.
Just as Rian was beginning to settle into the eerie quiet, a sudden, flat voice echoed inside his head. Clear, emotionless, and mechanical.
[ Welcome, Seeker, to your Awakening Trial. ]
Rian's eyes widened.
A trial?
"Of course." said Rian with a slap to his face.
The Awakening Trial, the first test all aspiring Ingressors had to face.
Those who had never entered a Door before were granted a personalized trial meant to evaluate their potential.
But even Rian could tell, the place he was in wasn't normal.
A faint chime echoed through Rian's head followed by a screen being displayed in his head.
Everyone knew that once you entered a door, you gained access to a system, a strange interface that granted skills, tracked stats and more.
But no one truly knew what the system was or where it truly came from.
Some said it was technology from another world. Others believed it was tied to the Doors themselves.
Rian gulped.
"So all I have to do is pass, huh… how hard can it be?"
The voice returned, colder than before.
[ Seeker, your Arcane Trial will begin shortly. Please stand by. ]
Rian froze. His heart stopped for a beat.
"Arcane?!?!"
He shouted into the void. "That has to be a mistake! I didn't even think they fully existed????"
But the system didn't respond.
He grit his teeth, panic starting to crawl into his voice. "No, no, no... This isn't right. I'm not ready for this."
His thoughts raced, trying to recall the rankings of the Doors.
Basic. Cleansed. Pure. Enchanted. Mythic. Arcane.
That was the order. Six tiers. Each one deadlier than the last.
Most Seekers, those attempting to become ingressors, face doors within Basic and Enchanted. There were only a few Mythic ranked ingressors in history, and Arcane?
None.
No ingressor had ever defeated an Arcane ranked Seeker trial.
"Why me?" Rian whispered, voice trembling.
The screen in front of him shimmered once again.
[Beginning Arcane Trial]
[...]
[Good luck Seeker]
Before Rian could even complain the black expanse around him rippled, subtly at first then violently, like someone disturbing the surface of a lake. Cracks of pale violet light spread all around him splintering across the void.
And then, without warning the weightlessness disappeared and Rian began to fall.
***
Rian stood up, his knees shaking from the fall, his head still slightly disoriented from the experience. After blinking a few times Rian started to take in his surroundings.
He was in a hallway.
The hallway was a masterpiece of architectural overkill, soaring vaulted ceilings, intricate crown molding, and heavy velvet curtains that seemed to swallow light itself.
At first glance everything seemed normal enough but…the proportions were off.
The ceiling was a few feet too high, making him feel like an ant in a giant's corridor. The gold statues tucked into the alcoves weren't just decorative; they were too lifelike, their eyes carved with a precision that made them feel like they were tracking his movement through their peripheral vision.
The air was filled with a stagnant feeling along with the smell of old perfume.
Rian reached out a hand to steady himself against the wall, but he pulled back before making contact.
The wallpaper wasn't a pattern of flowers. On closer inspection, the swirling gold vines were actually tiny, interlocking limbs, thousands of miniature, gilded arms reaching out, frozen in a desperate struggle.
'Where the hell am I..'
Rian began to slowly step forward rubbing his forehead in an attempt to calm his head down.
He looked down the long stretch of the hall while slowly walking. The perspective seemed to warp. The further his eyes traveled, the more the hallway seemed to pinch and twist, the straight lines of the floorboards beginning to curve like the ribs of a massive carcass.
Then, he noticed the candles.
Thousands of them sat in silver candelabras along the walls. They were lit, but the flames didn't flicker. They were perfectly still, frozen in orange peaks of fire that gave off no heat. And instead of melting downward, the wax was dripping upward, thin white threads of it rising toward the ceiling like gravity had lost its mind.
As Rian continued walking he realized that the floorboards were creaking while bubbling splotches of ink bubbled up from beneath his shoes.
Rian quickly raced through his thoughts trying to grasp at what the trials usually entail, but he came up mostly blank.
'All I remember is that seeker trials are always fair, it's never impossible but… who knows what's going to happen here'
'If this is a Seeker Trial, there's supposed to be a weapon, right? A rusty sword? A wooden staff? A rock?'
Rian looked down at his hands.
Nothing.
Rian sighed.
He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, avoiding the gaze of the golden statues. He could feel them. Even without looking, he felt the weight of dozens of metallic eyes boring into the back of his neck.
As he progressed, the hallway began to change. The "luxury" was rotting. The velvet curtains started to tatter, revealing brickwork behind them that looked suspiciously like teeth. The golden limbs on the wallpaper were no longer frozen; they were twitching, a slow, rhythmic spasm.
Thump-thump. Twitch-twitch.
"Don't look at the walls, Rian. Don't look at the floor. Just look for the exit."
He continued to walk with beads of sweat slowly travelling down his back.
The hallway finally ended, but not in a door. It opened up into a wide, circular landing that overlooked a central pit. In the middle of this void sat a grand, spiraling staircase made of dark, translucent obsidian.
It descended.
It wound down into a throat of pure shadow, the steps appearing to float in mid-air without any visible support. As Rian approached the edge, he realized the staircase wasn't just sitting there. It was slowly rotating, just adding to the absurdity.
'Down? Really? We're going down?'
He peered over the railing, staring into the abyss. He couldn't see the bottom. All he could see were the flickering lights of frozen candles lining the walls of the pit, thousands of feet below, looking like a constellation of dying stars.
'Hmm, it seems the trial wants me to go down this. But I don't wanna go down that shit,' Rian thought, his survival instincts screaming that "down" usually led to "six feet under."
The stairwell gave off a low, rhythmic hum, vibrating against his palms like a purr, trying to entice him into the dark.
'Yup, hell no. I ain't doing that.'
Rian pivoted 180 degrees, intent on heading right back toward the hallway.
He froze.
The black ink that bubbled up slowly pooled together and rose up into a shape resembling a tsunami.
And unfortunately it didn't just sit there.
Whoosh
The ink hissed, a sound like a thousand snakes moving over dry leaves, as it surged toward him. The gilded arms from the wallpaper had detached themselves, floating within the black mass, reaching out with grasping, desperate fingers.
"Okay! Okay! I get the hint!" Rian yelped, stumbling backward.
Rian scrambled back, his heels skidding on the marble. The ink struck the floor where he'd been standing, and the stone didn't just get wet, it vanished. The floorboards dissolved into nothingness, erased by the touch of the dark.
The hands reached for his throat, dozens of them, black and cold.
"Okay! Okay! I get it! Stairs it is!"
With adrenaline pumping throughout his whole body Rian quickly lunged over the railing diving into the stairwell below.