Shaking him awake, the driver pointed at the side door just as Thomel rubbed at his eyes.

“Good luck, squid.”

“Thanks.” Thomel earnestly replied, stepping out of the car and taking a quick look around.

He was inside a small parking lot, surrounded on all sides by tall, concrete walls, which were painted white.

It looked like it was a pain to maintain since he spotted what looked like two separate duos working on re-applying a fresh coat of paint to the walls.

There was quite a variety of vehicles around, from trucks to small cars and even what looked like a few hover cars.

What really caught his attention was the large square-shaped building that was plopped in the middle of this compound.

Before he could survey his surroundings further, a woman wearing a white robe approached him, he hadn’t even noticed her standing by the door because of how still she was.

“Follow me.” She told him curtly.

He obliged gladly. It was still morning but, without any clouds to block some of the sun's hateful rays, he could feel the back of his neck burning up.

He felt bad for the workers having to deal with this, but he had a feeling after today ended he was going to envy them.

Torn between asking questions and staying silent, he ended up choosing the second option.

The way she walked was just too formal and stiff; no one who had that type of stride would be willing to tell him anything unless ordered to.

He followed her through the overbearing foyer and deeper into the complex.

This whole place made him feel sick; it was all the same shade and texture of white.

Why would anyone do this? it would be more cost-efficient to just paint everything with some mundane colours like brown and red.

They paused before what he assumed was a normal wall, until she reached out and pressed a few buttons on a keypad he hadn't noticed until she was finished.

Opening with a slight rumble, the concealed elevator revealed itself. Striding into it, she turned around and eyed him with a beady gaze.

Stepping into the unblemished elevator he felt the temperature drop slightly, it was a pleasant relief, however, the blinding white interior made sure he didn’t get comfortable.

It was the same sort of white paint but it just felt harsher for some reason, perhaps it was enchanted? why were they so obsessed with coating everything in white?

It was when the evaluator had begun its descent that the obvious answer hit him.

He was being stupid. This wasn’t some farming corporation or investment corp. It was a debt collection one that had ties to military and freelance detective work.

Comfort was secondary to security. This assaultive colour was probably rather helpful in throwing intruders off. Or he could just be looking into it too much, and the colour scheme was chosen for no good reason.

He opened his mouth to ask his escort but closed it once he saw how transfixed she was by the elevator door.

He almost wanted to wave his hand in front of her face to see how she would react, but he quickly threw that intrusive thought away.

With a slight jolt, the elevator paused, and the white doors opened with a tiny burring sound.

She stepped forwards into a large, white hallway. In spite of his trepidation, he followed closely behind her

Her pace was a bit slow for his taste, but being in front could give the wrong idea to both her and this nasty corporation.

She was leading him around so many curved hallways and spotless, white rooms that he doubted he was ever going to find his way out alone.

Even the smudges from dirt and dust brought in by employees that were somewhat present on the floor of the first story was absent down here.

Just how much did they spend on cleaners?

He just couldn’t help but fixate on that; it was an easy subject to take his mind off everything and mildly amusing to him.

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“Here, go inside.” She stated, pointing at a nearby metallic door, painted white just like everything else in this corporate hellscape.

While she stared at him with those intense eyes of hers, he counted to three, then gathered up his courage and pulled on the handle.

What greeted him was a giant room filled with all manner of instruments; magical, mechanical, biological, and hybridizations of all three.

A giant, glimmering wall of air moved around near the front of the room, forming abstract symbols and patterns.

It hurt just to glance at. It was like he was seeing a fourth-dimensional structure but in his limited third-dimensional world.

The occupants of the room consisted of what looked to be twenty-four scientists wearing white lab coats, and then twelve people who Thomel couldn’t immediately figure out.

A few of them held assault rifles, so he assumed that they were guards, and one was covered in a red-stained robe with their hood drawn up over their face, so that person had to be a debtor.

Then the rest were maybe upper management.

“Seriously?” One of the scientists muttered, glaring at Thomel incredulously.

All at once the room became abuzz with noise as they all started talking to each other with hushed voices.

He just stood awkwardly by the door while waiting for them to tell him what to do.

Striding up to him, the red-robed figure placed their gloved hand firmly on his shoulder.

He stared at what should have been their face, but he couldn’t see anything; no eyes, no nose, no mouth.

It was like he was staring at nothing, the hood held aloft by a misty orb of blackness that seemed to sap both the light out of the room and the confidence out of Thomel.

Somehow he just knew that he was locking eyes with this debtor, and he didn’t like that at all. He wanted to break eye contact and look away, yet this felt just like some of the hunting situations he’d been in, displaying vulnerability to a predator was almost always a mistake.

Seemingly satisfied with him, the debtor moved backwards and gestured towards one of the guards.

Releasing Thomel’s shoulder, the debtor shoved him roughly away from the door and further into the room.

He didn’t exactly want to walk into the centre of this heated discussion, but there was no way he was going against the debtor's demands.

The robes were red for a reason, and he didn’t want to become one of those reasons.

With no small amount of reluctance, he moved over towards the bickering scientists.

Noticing his approach, one of them quieted the others and most of them turned around to assess him. A couple of them were still tapping away at their devices and checking graphs on their computer screens.

But, for the most part, he had their attention, and he had only one thing he wanted to do with it.

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Have you heard of trolls before?” The scientist who had hushed the others asked him.

“Yes, they were one of the first sorts of creatures to break through the rift.”

It was a rather elementary-level question. Who didn’t know about those bullet sponges?

Then again, education wasn’t a priority in today’s profit-driven world, so the answer was probably at least half the populace.

“Well that’s good. No need to give you the specifics of what to look for then. So what we want you to do is kill one of them.”

“A troll. You want me to kill a troll? The things that wiped out entire squads of soldiers when the rifts first began? I’m not high-level enough to kill something like that!.”

“You’re being given a Noal rifle with enchanted bullets from the Casco corporation. Just shoot it a few times and then place the Maulen discs on it. Shouldn’t take you more than an hour or two.”

He felt quite a bit better now; Casco bullets were amongst the forefront in magically charged ammunition. Still, a rather large question remained.

“Where am I going to find a troll?”

“On the other side of our very own man-made rift of course.” The scientist said proudly, waving towards the front of the room where the glimmering air spiralled about.

A tap on his shoulder made Thomel turn around, just to have something heavy shoved into his chest.

It was a smooth, white gun. It also looked incredibly cheap. If he had to guess, the main material used in its construction was plastic.

The two magazines he was handed right after probably cost more than this gun.

“So, why do you need a troll?” He asked, turning back around to the scientist.

“It’s not your place to know, it’s your place to get it.” He replied to Thomel while fiddling with a nearby floating tablet.

Tapped on the shoulder once more, Thomel turned around again and got the gun and magazines yanked from his hands and replaced with a rather flimsy-looking piece of body armour.

“Wear this. It has some food and water in the lower pockets. Make sure the top right pocket is safe and put the two magazines into that satchel near the middle. Keep the camera located near your collarbone safe, and that’s about it. Best of luck.” The guard who handed it to him said with what sounded like regret in his tone.

“Yep, good, good, now get into that rift.” The scientist ordered Immediately after Thomel was done putting the vest on.

“Oh wait, do you know how to use Maulen discs?” He asked just as Thomel started to walk towards the nausea-inducing rift.

“Yes.” Thomel replied back, Maulen discs weren’t quite mainstream, but one of his acquaintances had ranted and raved to him for hours about their potential and how much the stocks were going to rise.

“Then get in.”

Stepping into the rift, he expected there to be some delay or weird pause. Instead, one moment he was in an underground facility and the next he was ankle-deep in what he desperately hoped was mud and not the other brown, sticky and smelly substance.