Vorn woke up on cold stone.
Not the hospital bed. Not white sheets or the smell of disinfectant. Just stone, rough and damp under his cheek.
His head felt like someone had been using it for hammer practice. Everything ached in that deep way that told him he'd been out for hours.
The countdown was still there,
Still ticking and patient.
He sat up slow, vision swimming. Where was he now?
The room was huge. Stone walls that disappeared into shadow above, lit by torches that barely pushed back the darkness. The air was thick, metallic, oike breathing in old room
He wasn't alone.
People scattered across the floor. Maybe ten, maybe twelve, hard to count in the flickering light. Some sitting, some standing against walls, all looking as lost as he felt.
Nobody was talking much. Just whispers and shuffling feet.
Vorn's glasses flickered to life, scanning the room automatically. Faint traces of something shimmered on the walls - illusions, maybe. Or traps. The others didn't seem to notice them.
"Where are we?" someone asked.
A girl's voice. Young, scared.
Vorn looked over. Two girls huddled together near the far wall. One maybe seventeen, the other younger. Both pale, both shaking. The older one had her arm around the younger, protective.
"I don't know," said someone else. A man this time, older, maybe forty. He was on his knees, 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 walk. The kind of person who took charge because he figured nobody else would.
"Okay, listen up," he said, voice carrying across the stone. "I don't know where we are either, but panicking won't help. We need to stick together, figure this out step by step."
He sounded reasonable. Calm. Like a leader should.
Vorn didn't trust him.
Not because the guy seemed evil or anything. Just because trust was expensive now, and Vorn was running low on currency.
"Hey four eyes, What's your name?" the muscular guy asked, looking 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. Old habits from the dungeons.
Or maybe new habits. Hard to tell what was old and what was new anymore.
"There's got to be a way out," said another voice. This one from the shadows - a tall, lean guy leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He had a 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 found himself standing next to 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.
But something felt wrong.
Maybe it was the way the lean guy kept watching everyone like he was memorizing their 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 laugh at pain.
"Welcome to the Trust Path."
Everyone froze.
"You will be tested. Only those who pass will leave."
Vorn's blood went cold. Another test. Another game.
The system messages started flowing across his vision:
[Trial Commencing]
[Objective: Survive the Path]
[Participants: 11]
[Estimated Casualties: 8-9]
Eight or nine casualties. Out of eleven people.
That meant maybe two or three would make it out.
"What kind of test?" the nervous guy asked, voice cracking.
No answer.
Instead, a grinding sound filled the air. Stone moving against stone. A section of the wall slid away, revealing a long corridor beyond.
"I guess that's our answer," Marcus said. 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 traces 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: 2nd tile, 5th tile, 6th tile, 8th tile...]
The system was helping him. 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.
The fourth step landed on a pressure plate.
Spikes shot out from the wall, grazing his shoulder. He stumbled back with a curse, blood seeping through his shirt.
"Shit! There are traps."
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.
And questions led to suspicion.
And suspicion led to votes.
"We go slow," Marcus said, pressing a hand to his shoulder. "Test each step."
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 traps and triggered ones that didn't even exist.
But they made progress.
Vorn followed, stepping only where his glasses showed him safe ground. To anyone watching, it would look like luck. Good reflexes. Nothing more.
The corridor opened into another room. This one had three exits.
"Which way?" the nervous guy asked.
"Split up?" suggested the lean guy. "Cover more ground."
"No," Marcus said immediately. "We stay together."
But they didn't stay together.
The praying man drifted toward the left passage, following close behind 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 an 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 stepped forward first.
"I think I see a pattern," she said, voice still shaky but with an edge of concentration that hadn't been there before. "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. "Good job, Lila."
But when the nervous guy tried to follow, he moved too slow. A block caught his leg, crushing it with a wet crunch. He screamed and fell.
That's when things went wrong.
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 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. That wasn't the same person who'd been comforting her friend five minutes ago.
The nervous guy reached out, blood pooling under his crushed leg. "Please... don't leave me..."
The woman with Vorn - the quiet one - knelt down beside him. "It's okay," she whispered. "I'll help you."
Then she grabbed his shirt and shoved him directly into the path of the next moving block.
The sound it made when it hit him... 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?" the younger one - Lila - asked.
"Dead," the woman said simply.
Lila's face crumpled. 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. The lean guy showed up a few minutes later, alone.
"Where's your group?" Marcus asked.
"Traps got them," the lean guy said with a shrug. "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 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, and all will be executed."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Then everyone started talking at once.
"That's insane!"
"We can't just kill 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 was shaky. "We should refuse. Trust in god."
The lean guy laughed. "Trust in god? Look where that got us."
"Maybe..." Marcus started, then stopped. 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," added the woman. "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.
"I'm suggesting you know more than you're letting on," Marcus said. The reasonable leader was gone, replaced by someone harder. Someone who'd probably been there all along. "Maybe you're the one behind this."
"That's ridiculous."
"Is it?" The lean guy was smiling now, really smiling for the first time. "Guy shows up, barely talks, somehow makes it through everything without a scratch? Sounds suspicious to me."
The praying man nodded along. "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 joined them? Vorn tried to remember, but couldn't place when the guy had shown up.
"He's been following us this whole time," the woman continued. "Letting others take risks while he hangs back. 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 said. "I can help. I can be useful."
But it was too late.
Once the group had a target, they swarmed.
The vote was quick. 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.
The gate mechanism activated with a grinding sound. Metal tendrils emerged from the walls, wrapping around the young man like serpents. He screamed as they dragged him away, his cries echoing long after he disappeared into the darkness.
The gate swung open.
Nobody spoke as they walked through.
The next chamber was different. Brighter. A circular room with a pedestal in the center, and on that pedestal was a spinning wheel. Gold sections, red sections, black sections, all gleaming under lights that came from nowhere.
"Congratulations," the mechanical voice said. "You have survived. Claim your reward."
The wheel was huge, maybe eight feet across. Each section had symbols that shifted and changed as Vorn watched - weapons, potions, coins, things he didn't recognize.
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 the moment she touched them, presumably transferred to whatever inventory system 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 into a stream of color. Then it slowed.
Slower.
Slower.
It was going to stop on gold. Then red. Then...
Click.
Black.
A section he hadn't even seen before, so dark it seemed to absorb light. No symbol, no description. Just emptiness.
The wheel stopped completely.
Nothing materialized in his hands.
No coins, no weapons, no potions.
[Reward stored]
[Unlock condition undisclosed]
That was it.
The others were staring at him. Some with pity, some with suspicion.
"What did you get?" Marcus asked.
"Nothing," Vorn said.
The lean guy laughed. "Figures."
But the system messages were still flowing:
[Blood Mirror Trial Phase 1: Complete]
[Participants eliminated: 4]
[Trust Index: Critical Failure]
[Psychological Profile: Updated]
[Next Phase begins in: 09:47:33]
The room began to fade around them. Not all at once, but in pieces. The walls became translucent, then transparent, then gone.
One by one, people started disappearing. Transported back to wherever they'd come from, probably.
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.
The girls were whispering to each other, looking at him. Not scared anymore. Planning something.
The lean guy just smiled and gave a little wave. "Thanks for not voting for me," he said. "I won't forget that."
Then Vorn was alone in the empty chamber, staring at the spinning wheel as it gradually slowed to a stop.
The countdown in his vision had barely changed.
09:47:28.
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 the metal 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 thinking about it or not, the truth was simple:
He'd passed the test.
And that scared him more than failing would have.
The chamber finished dissolving around him, leaving nothing but darkness and the steady tick of time running out.
09:47:11.
09:47:10.
09:47:09.
The game was just beginning.
And Vorn was starting to realize he might be good at it.
Whether he wanted to be or not.