image [https://i.imgur.com/bRrq0Yp.png]

“Preserve your sanity. Reinforce your heart. Harden your mind. Temper your aspirations. Only then can you temper theirs.” – The Abyssal Mother, Beholder of ImpulseWorks.

“Temper Aspirations.”

The company’s motto was engraved into every soul of their employees. From sanguine beginnings to arduous menial tasks, to the mandated breaks while the alarms blare, and to one’s inevitable self-destruction; the belief remained with them until their last lights were snuffed away by the company’s demands.

When high fives in the morning become desperate banging against a metal door in the late afternoon.

When smiles turn to maniacal grins as a Corrupted methodically broke a friend’s mind until all they could do was laugh to face their despair.

Or when the strongest willed panics and ascends through the floors of the facility without decompressing, painting the walls of the elevator in chunky red.

“I, the Navigator, can only observe and analyze the situation from the safety of our Administrative Floor.” A girl thought to herself, staring at quivering walls as an elevator took her down to a secluded facility, hidden away from the face of their world.

She continued her internal monologue, clutching a thick handout with dozens of ‘classified’ words stamped all over it. Her large, round glasses shook with the groans of the elevator shaft. The fluorescent lights above were stained yellow and emitted an eerie buzz.

They flickered. In the occasional darkness all one could see was her pale laboratory coat, which ran past her knees like a dress, and a pocket watch hung from a chain by her breast coat, ticking slightly off beat. Her hair was black, tied into twintailed braids.

Tidy best described her. She wore an innocent aura that knew little of bloodshed, and soft hands that seldom understood the meaning of hard labor. Regardless, she wore a determined face as the elevator’s descent accelerated, throwing her stomach into her chest.

The ticking became slightly faster.

In the eyes of her Atelier – her company – the more one suffered, the more favorable things were. Emotions were a product of their facilities. An energy source used by the other Ateliers of the Nexus and their precious Beholders. A vital resource syphoned from the hearts, minds, and spirits of the living and abstract; condensed into a liquid form called Liquid Nex.

InflowDirect was one of 9 known Ateliers, possessing a technology beyond the wildest dreams of countless millions. The basis of their technology was ambiguous at best, but aspects of it allowed for aspirations and emotions to become forged into various weapons or items.

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But the purpose of their Sites was first and foremost to extract Liquid Nex from the entities known as the Corrupted. The Site she descended into was a previously abandoned facility, having been supposedly destroyed by its Site Core collapsing into itself. Or in short, a gravitational collapse had devoured it due to unforeseen circumstances.

Unfortunately, no records prior to the disaster were recovered.

So, it was strange as to why they’d send in a newbie like her to such a Site.

It raised certain alarms, but regardless, it did not change that she had a duty to uphold.

“Navigator approaching the Site.”

A monotone voice spoke in her mind. At every one of ImpulseWork’s 26 Sites, there was an autonomous voice said to belong to the Site Core that only the Navigators could hear. Communication was strictly limited however, and of all the Sites she had trained at to finally become a Navigator, none seemed to be what she’d call ‘intelligent’.

That being said, becoming a Navigator was an endeavor only very few could accomplish. But it was one thing to become one, and another to remain as one. Particularly as one with an intact mind.

The ticking was twice as fast now.

The elevator shaft screeched as she buckled under its frantic movements. After decades of disservice, this was perhaps the first time the elevator was used. Even with the gravitational technology of Caldera Industries – an Atelier with a technology capable of creating black holes and altering the course of gravity – their products required maintenance from their engineers.

Regardless of how frightening the elevator was, the girl wore a determined face, her dark brown eyes carrying a strangely kind flame as she recalled the horrors of the other Sites.

Employees had limbs peeled like the skin of a banana, heads popping like crushed melons, and ribs snapping like mere twigs by entities of nightmarish birth. Plants that represented the state of mind of a bullied victim. Machines that sung with hoarse moans, simply wishing to be listened to. Dogs that meowed. Cups that drank people.

Or, like in the recent disaster 10 years ago in A-L7 which caused a 30 meter heart to devastate its city. The hearts of its victims paraded the streets, infecting all those within its vicinity with a disease that caused their hearts to burst from their chests.

That Site had become O-L0, for it had been obliterated by a self-destructive black hole.

She clutched her manual and several stacks of notebooks tightly, silently vowing to never allow herself to lose sight of her mission, less she wished to doom this facility and her employees.

The ticking became erratic.

Yet the hands of her pocket watch moved slowly.

Or rather, they ticked backwards.

The elevator screamed one last shriek as it came to a gradual stop.

A single ding marked the end of her eventless trip as the steel, 10-inch doors pried themselves open with a horrific groan. She gulped, watching light seep into her compartment as she took the very first step into her budding facility.

“Welcome to Site (General) G-Z7 dear Navigator/Overseer.”

She was confused by the addition of the ‘Overseer’ part since she was only a Navigator. She paid it of little mind, just like the oddities of her pocket watch.

< Entering G-Z7 for the first time >

< Welcome to G-Z7 >

Now, she needed to investigate her facility before her workers would arrive.

And then, it would be time to receive her Site’s very first Corrupted, manage them, and extract them of their resources. She tapped the left side of her head where a surgically implanted black box was located.

“… Testing. This is Papilia. Day minus one of Site G-Z7. I’m a little excited to finally stretch my wings, but also a creeped out by how clean the lobby room is. It doesn’t look like it’s aged a day. I half expected everything to be rotten. Did someone clean this place up before us?”

The diligent Navigator immediately picked up a discrepancy and became cautious before finally, the ticking of her watch stopped.

It was time to get to work.