The tunnel ended at a door that should not exist.
Dylan felt it first. The air turned thick, like syrup. The low hum in his ear became a single deep note. The torchlight could not reach this place. The darkness pressed against his skin, cold and wet. He lifted what was left of his lightning rod. One shot left. Enough to die loud if he had to.
The door was made of copper. Not the bright, clean copper you see in rich buildings. This was sewer-copper, green and black from years of filth and rot. No handle. No hinges. Just a big mouth carved into the metal, wide open, tongue flat like a coin slot. Words moved across the surface, then vanished:
Pay the toll, hear the secret, leave lighter.
Dylan saw his face in the tarnished copper. Taller. Sharper. Eyes full of voltage. He touched the Academy seal in his pocket, then the rat-king fang on his belt. Money was money.
He dropped the fang onto the copper tongue.
The mouth closed with a wet clang. Green light spread across the door like veins, all racing toward one point—an eye that had not been there before. It blinked. The pupil was a perfect slot.
[Copper Bargain started]
[Insert memory, core, or true name. Fail = lose all three.]
His throat went dry. Names had edges. Memories were already broken. He pulled out the last moldy core, the one the machine had not wanted, and pressed it to the pupil. The eye swallowed it whole.
Gears turned. The door opened without a sound—because sound had been taken at the threshold.
Inside was a small room lit by low amber light. Shelves made of old bone. Glass orbs floated in the air, each holding an item. Behind the counter stood a woman—or what used to be a woman. Her skin looked like parchment. Veins of ink moved under the surface like living equations. She smiled a polite smile.
"Welcome, customer. I am Ledger. Trade is eternal. Interest never sleeps."
Dylan stepped inside. The door shut behind him with a sigh. The air smelled of ink and ozone, the scent of exams he had never passed.
Ledger tapped the counter. A quill grew from her index finger like a claw. "You carry debt already—stolen seal, stolen power, stolen breath. Stolen goods fetch high prices. Buy, sell, or borrow?"
"Information," Dylan said, voice steady. "How deep does the sewer go before it stops being a sewer?"
"Ah." She wrote the question on thin air. The letters hung, then folded into a paper key. "Price: one secret of equal weight. Yours, not mine."
He thought of the copper badge in his inventory, the cracked A-rank emblem his mother had died believing in. He laid it on the counter. "It's not cracked. Someone filed the letter off on purpose."
Ledger's smile widened, showing teeth like tiny abacuses. "Accepted." She slid the paper key across the bone counter. It opened into a map—lines of light moving through brick and stone, down past magma, into a hollow labeled "Basement Level Zero: Origin Pipe." At the center pulsed a sigil he recognized from banned texts: the Resonance Well.
She went on. "Second offer: upgrade your weapon. One shot left invites early death." She lifted a glass orb. Inside floated a needle of red metal, forked at the tip like a snake's tongue. "Dragon-bronze alloy, aged in student blood. Holds five charges, turns recoil into speed. Price: the memory of your first thunderstorm."
Dylan hesitated. Thunderstorms were the only lullabies his mother could give him. But speed meant survival. He nodded.
Ledger's quill touched his temple. A soft pull, like silk through his skull, and the storm was gone—sky still gray, rain still falling, but the sound missing, a hole in his memory. She handed him the needle. It was warm.
[Copper Bargain complete]
[Weapon upgraded: Lightning Fork (5/5 charges)]
[Recoil → Speed conversion: 15 %]
He spun the fork. It hummed, tines glowing cranberry.
"Final item, on the house." She lifted another orb. Inside: a single sheet of paper, blank except for a header that read "Course Catalogue – Basement Level Zero." "Classes start at dawn. Prerequisites: survive the walk."
Dylan took the orb. It dissolved into his inventory as [Class Deferred (0/3 prerequisites)].
Ledger leaned closer, ink-veins pulsing. "One warning, customer. The Well measures want, not worth. Want too loudly and it answers in kind." She snapped her fingers. The copper mouth opened behind him, exhaling furnace heat. "Exit is left. Interest accrues hourly."
He walked out before his imagination could draw the rest. The mouth closed with a satisfied burp, copper already tarnishing back into anonymity.
The tunnel ahead had changed. Amber light from the shop bled through cracks, revealing stairs older than the sewer—spiral, downward, each step etched with student numbers worn smooth by desperate feet. He descended, Lightning Fork resting against his shoulder like a traveling salesman who knew the product worked.
Halfway, the after-ring in his ear shifted, matching the fork's hum. Status text scrolled.
[Prerequisite 1/3: Claim a seat at the Origin Pipe]
[Estimated distance: 1.3 km]
[Warning: other applicants en route]
Footsteps echoed below—boots, more than one pair, steel on stone. Voices rose, sharp with competition.
"…rat-bait stole the king core. Means he's loaded. Means we tax him."
Dylan slowed, pressed his back to the wall, and let the fork drink ambient mana. Five charges. Three voices. Simple math: five minus three left two for emergencies. He smiled the way lightning had taught him—quiet, crooked, inevitable—and descended into the amber dark.
Behind him, the copper door sighed, already forgetting his face.
Ahead, the stairs spiraled on, tuition rates rising with every step.