Everything hurt.
That was the first coherent thought to surface through the grey fog. Not specific pain, just... everything. Like his entire body had decided to go on strike.
Sounds came next, muffled and distant, as if his ears were stuffed with cotton. His own breathing, echoing strangely.
He tried opening his eyes, immediately regretted it, and settled for cataloging what he could without moving. Cold stone pressed against his back. The air felt... old. Stale. His mouth tasted like he'd been licking a copper pot.
Who... was he?
The thought drifted lazily through his mind. He should probably know that. Important detail, really. Name. He had one of those.
Adom. Right. He was Adom.
Good start. Progress.
What else?
Mage. That felt right. Something about... research? Books? His head throbbed when he pushed too hard at the memories.
The copper taste in his mouth was getting worse. He tried swallowing, which led to coughing, which led to his body remembering it could move, which led to every muscle screaming in protest.
"Ow," he managed, his voice raspy and strange in his ears. "Ow, ow, ow."
He forced his eyes open again, blinking at the dim... ceiling? Stone. Definitely stone. Carved with some kind of pattern he couldn't quite focus on.
Pattern. Stone...s... snake?
The memory hit him like a bucket of ice water. The treasure chamber. The gold. The giant stone snake that had-
Adom bolted upright with a strangled gasp, heart hammering. "It ate me!" he wheezed. "The door ate me!"
His vision swam from the sudden movement, and he braced himself against the floor, trying not to be sick as the memory of stone jaws and white light played behind his eyes.
Memory entanglement. A common consequence of bad dimensional travel. Another reason to hate portals. Because that snake was definitely one.
"Right. Right." Adom pressed his palms against his eyes, forcing himself to breathe slowly. "Assessment. I'm alive. That's... that's definitely step one covered. Good job, me."
He lowered his hands, taking proper stock of his surroundings. The chamber was roughly circular, maybe thirty feet across. Natural cave formation, but with signs of deliberate shaping - the floor had been smoothed, and there were what looked like drainage channels cut into the stone.
Phosphorescent moss provided a soft blue-green light, clustering around several crystalline formations that jutted from the walls. The air was cool but not cold, with a slight mineral taste.
"No immediate threats," he muttered, continuing his inventory. "Two passages leading out. One with a sort of spiral rune, one with none. Some kind of ventilation system - there's airflow. Plant growth, so there's enough moisture and..." He squinted at a patch of what looked like miniature silver ferns. "...nutrients? Those shouldn't be able to grow underground unless..."
Adom's eyes tracked across the chamber. Moss, crystals, unusual flora, small pile of broken machinery, grumpy leprechaun, two other paths, more crystals-
Wait.
Grumpy what?
His head snapped back so fast his neck cracked.
On his right, sitting cross-legged on a crystal outcropping, a leprechaun was watching Adom with mild interest.
His clothes might have once been the traditional greens and golds, but years of apparent wear had reduced them to a uniform grey.
His hair and beard were a wild mass that would have made any self-respecting bird reject it as too chaotic for nesting material. There was what looked like a small gear being used as a hair tie, a worn out hat and a small bag at his waist. From the looks of it, a very old dimensional bag, since it had a rune on the exterior.
"How're you doing, lad?" The Leprechaun said.
"..."
Adom's brain briefly considered shutting down again, or at least reassess. Illusions were not a symptom of bad dimensional travel.
The leprechaun's bushy eyebrows furrowed. "Well, that's just rude, that is. If you're going to be one of me hallucinations, least you could do is answer when spoken to. Basic courtesy, even for a figment."
"I'm not-" Adom started, then paused. "Wait. Your hallucination? You're clearly my hallucination. I'm the one who just got eaten by a stone snake."
"Oh, this one's got some spirit!" The leprechaun brightened, adjusting the gear in his hair. Two more gears dropped from that somehow. "Been ages since me mind conjured up something with actual personality. Usually just get the quiet ones who stand there looking confused. Boring, the lot of them."
"I'm not a hallucination," Adom said firmly. "I'm a real person who just had a very bad day involving magical security systems and questionable life choices."
"That's exactly what a hallucination would say," the leprechaun countered, wagging a finger. "Besides, no real person could get past the snake. I've been here..." He squinted at nothing in particular. "...a fair while."
"The snake ate me. I did not come here willingly."
"Likely story. Next you'll be telling me you're not just a manifestation of me loneliness and deteriorating sanity."
"I am absolutely not a-" Adom stopped. "Hang on. How long have you been down here?"
"Time's a bit fuzzy," the leprechaun admitted, scratching his beard. Several small cogs fell out. "Lost count after the first few centuries. Or was it decades? The moss has grown seventeen times, or maybe seventy. Hard to tell when you're going mad."
"You're not real," Adom declared. It was likely just another effect of the dimensional travel messing with his head. "You're just my brain trying to process trauma through increasingly bizarre imagery. I mean, look at your hair."
"Me hair?" The leprechaun looked offended. "Says the one dressed like..." He gestured vaguely at Adom's robes, clearly struggling to find the right words. "...whatever you're supposed to be."
"These are standard Academy robes."
"Well, they look ridiculous. Like something a confused rainbow would wear."
"This is ridiculous. I'm arguing with a hallucination about fashion."
"No, I'm arguing with a hallucination about fashion."
They glared at each other across the chamber.
"Right," the leprechaun announced, hopping down from his crystal. "Only one way to settle this."
Before Adom could react, the ancient fae darted forward with surprising speed and pinched his arm. Hard.
"Ow!" Adom yelped, jumping back. "That hurt!"
They stared at each other in mutual surprise.
"Huh," the leprechaun said finally. "You're real."
"Of course I'm real. I've been saying that for- wait." Adom reached out and poked the leprechaun's shoulder. His finger met solid resistance. "You're real too."
"Well," the leprechaun said after a long moment. "This is awkward."
"...So," Adom said slowly, rubbing his pinched arm. "You've been trapped here since... whenever. And I just got swallowed by a stone snake. Any chance you know the way out?"
This was probably a stupid question. Since the Fae was still there. But it just came out of his mouth, for reasons unknown. Probably panic.
The leprechaun snorted, settling back onto his crystal perch. "If I knew that, lad, do you think I'd be using gears for hair accessories?" He tugged at the makeshift hair tie. "Though I've grown rather fond of this one."
"Fair point." Adom glanced between the two passages. "Those tunnels lead somewhere, though."
"Oh aye, they do." The leprechaun's eyes glinted with what might have been amusement. "One leads to a room full of riddles. The other..." He shrugged. "Well, let's just say there's a reason I stopped exploring after the first few decades. Or centuries. Whatever it's been."
"Wonderful," Adom muttered. "Just wonderful. I don't suppose you have a name? Since we're apparently sharing this delightful prison?"
The leprechaun stroked his chaotic beard thoughtfully, dislodging another small cog. "Had one once. These days I mostly go by..." He made a series of sounds that seemed to involve at least three consonants that shouldn't be able to exist simultaneously.
Adom blinked. "I... can't pronounce that."
"Neither can I, most days. Just been talking to meself too long." He waved a hand dismissively. "Call me whatever you like. Been called worse by better hallucinations."
"You do realize I'm still not a hallucination?"
"That's exactly what all me hallucinations say. Right before they start singing. You're not going to start singing, are you?"
Adom exhaled wearily, removing his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose before readjusting them. "No, I'm not going to sing."
"Good," the leprechaun nodded sagely. "You don't look like you'd be any good at it anyway."
Adom let out a long-suffering sigh, looking around the chamber again. "Listen, I need to find a way back. So..." He hesitated, "since you don't have a name... Bob?"
"Hmph." The leprechaun neither agreed nor disagreed, just continued watching him with that same mild interest.
"Right," Adom pressed on, trying to ignore the feeling that he was being silently judged. "Could you at least tell me what you've learned about this place? In all your time here?"
The leprechaun shifted on his crystal perch. "It's a test."
"A test?"
"Stop repeating everything I say, hallucination."
"Adom. That's my name. And I just repeated it once."
"Humans," the leprechaun grumbled, shaking his head and dislodging another small gear. "Always so impolite. Of all the things me mind could conjure up, it had to be a human. Couldn't be a nice, curvy leananshí with those perfect..."
He made several increasingly lewd gestures. "And that thing they do with their tongues when they're about to steal your soul. Oooh. Now that's what I call a way to go mad. At least I'd die happy."
At this point, Adom was certain the leprechaun was calling him 'hallucination' purely out of spite. Also, gross. "Can we focus on the test part?"
The leprechaun blinked, snapping out of his reminiscing. "Eh? Oh, right. The test." He straightened up, some semblance of seriousness returning to his weathered face. "Some high-and-mighty mages built this place. All very mysterious and important, they were. Set up these trials and puzzles, they did. You want out?" He pointed upward with a crooked finger. "You've got to pass their test."
"And you've been stuck here because you couldn't solve it?" Adom asked, his academic curiosity finally overriding his irritation.
The leprechaun's bushy eyebrows drew together. "Couldn't solve it? Listen here, hallucination."
"Adom."
"I solved three of their precious riddles before I realized something wasn't right. The whole thing's rigged, it is. Changes every time you think you're getting somewhere." He paused, scratching his beard thoughtfully. "Course, might've just been going in circles. Hard to tell when you're underground for a few centuries."
"So what kind of riddles were they?"
"Oh, nasty ones. Not your usual 'what walks on four legs' nonsense." He leaned forward, lowering his voice. "First one was about sacrifice - had to figure out what to give up. Thought I was clever, offering a lock of me hair." He tugged at his wild mane. "Didn't work. Then tried me shoes. Then me gold..." His voice trailed off, and for a moment, real pain flashed across his face.
"They took your gold?" Adom asked softly, understanding dawning. For a leprechaun to lose their gold...
"Aye. And that was just the first riddle." He straightened up, his voice hardening. "Second one was worse. All about choices and consequences. Third one..." He shuddered. "Well, let's just say I decided to make this chamber me permanent residence after that. At least the moss is good company. Doesn't ask riddles or steal anything."
The ancient fae glanced at one of the passages and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "better than the singing statues, anyway."
"Singing statues?" Adom asked, then quickly shook his head. "No, wait - the riddle path. You said it took your gold as a sacrifice?" His eyes narrowed in thought, fingers absently tracing one of his sleeve. "And it kept demanding more sacrifices with each riddle..."
The leprechaun nodded glumly.
"That's not a test," Adom said slowly. "It's a terminal recursion trap. We studied these in Historical Magical Architecture. They were popular about eight centuries ago, inspired by high-level dungeons."
He started pacing. "The victim thinks they're making progress, but each sacrifice just triggers the next loop. It's designed to drain everything from the prisoner - possessions, hope, eventually life force itself."
Bob was silent.
"And now that it's mentioned..." Adom gestured at the passage. "The architecture does gives it away - see how the stonework has that subtle spiral pattern? Classic Eighth Dynasty prisoner containment. They'd use these on the worst criminals, give them the illusion of possible escape while..." He trailed off, noticing the leprechaun's increasingly red face.
"You mean to tell me," the ancient fae said very carefully, "that you figured this out just by looking at some stones? While I've been here for centuries trying to solve impossible riddles?"
"Well, it's pretty standard knowledge now," Adom said apologetically. "They actually banned these types of traps about three hundred years ago. Too cruel, even for death row prisoners. The psychological torture of false hope combined with the slow drain of life force..." He winced. "The records say most victims went mad before they died."
The leprechaun's face had progressed from red to an interesting shade of purple. Several gears fell from his beard as his jaw worked soundlessly.
What was it with those gears and why did he have that many and why did they keep dropping from his hair and beard?
Anyway.
"Though," Adom added quickly, ignoring his other questions for now, "you obviously figured out something was wrong. You stopped playing their game. Most victims didn't."
"Figured it out," the leprechaun muttered. "Figured it out, he says. Like I meant to camp in this moss-covered hole for half a millennium." He glared at Adom. "Any other obvious observations you'd like to share, oh wise one?"
Adom studied the other passage, the one the leprechaun had briefly mentioned before changing the subject. "So... what about that other path? The one that made you decide the riddle route was preferable? You talked about singing statues.."
The leprechaun's irritation faded into something more guarded. "Ah. That one." He tugged at his beard nervously. "It's... direct. Very direct. No riddles, no tricks, just..." He made a vague gesture with his hand. "Pure chaos. Raw magic. The kind that makes your teeth taste purple and your eyes hear colors."
"That actually sounds promising," Adom said, earning a look of disbelief from his companion. "No, really. Think about it - the riddle path was designed to trap people by seeming logical and ordered. So the opposite path..."
"...might be the real way out," the leprechaun finished slowly. "Or it might be what finally drives me properly mad instead of just mostly mad." He hopped down from his crystal perch again, straightening his clothes. "Though I suppose if you're not actually a hallucination, and I'm not actually a hallucination..."
"Then we might as well face whatever's down there together?"
"I was going to say 'then at least I'll have someone else to blame when it all goes horribly wrong,' but your version sounds better."
Adom approached the other passage, his footsteps echoing strangely in the chamber. Unlike the riddle path with its ornate spiral stonework, this entrance was... plain. Almost crude. No runes, no markings, just rough-hewn stone that seemed to swallow the light.
He adjusted his increasingly battered glasses. "What exactly did you see in there?"
The leprechaun's usual manic energy dimmed. "Everything. Nothing. Things that couldn't exist but did anyway." His voice grew distant. "Felt like thousands of years in there, each second longer than the last. Saw meself losing everything, over and over. Saw things that..." He shuddered, several gears falling from his clothes. "Let's just say the riddles seemed friendlier."
Adom frowned. "That doesn't make sense." He gestured at the architecture. "This is something else. The construction is too old, too... purposeful."
He edged closer to the entrance, running his fingers along the stone frame, searching for hidden runes. The darkness beyond was absolute - not the darkness of absence of light, but something deeper.
When he called out a tentative "Hello," the sound didn't echo or fade - it simply ceased to exist, as if the void had swallowed it whole.
"Mad, isn't it?" The leprechaun's laugh was sharp and brittle. "Makes those nice, orderly riddles seem downright welcoming."
As Adom's fingers traced the rough stone, he felt subtle indentations beneath his touch. Furrowing his brow, he weaved a [Light Sphere], causing Bob to stumble back.
"You're really a mage?" the leprechaun gasped.
Adom chuckled. "Yeah." He moved the light closer to the wall, illuminating ancient text carved into the stone. The writing seemed to shift and move under his gaze, but he could make out the words:
"Orynth's Labyrinth," he read aloud. "Test of Courage - Face what lies within the void." His finger traced the final line. "And... 'Progress can only be made forward. Retreat will reset the trial.'"
Bob seemed to shift uncomfortably.
"Bob... did you know someone named Orynth?"
The leprechaun's laughter filled the chamber, but it wasn't his usual manic cackle. This was bitter, sharp. "Know him? That red-eyed bastard's the one who trapped me here."
"The creator of the labyrinth?"
"Oh aye. One of them. Very proud of his work, he was." Bob's fingers tightened around a gear until his knuckles went white. "Wouldn't shut up about it."
Adom perked up. "That could be useful. Usually, a labyrinth's design reflects its creator's personality. If you knew him—"
"Been a while," Bob cut him off, his voice clipped. Several gears clinked against the floor as he shifted uncomfortably. "Don't remember much about him that way."
"But why would he trap you here if—"
"By the void, you ask too many questions!" Bob snapped, throwing the gear he'd been clutching. It bounced off the wall with a metallic ping that echoed far longer than it should have. "Instead of interrogating me about ancient history, maybe use that scholarly brain of yours to figure out how this actually works!"
"That's... what I was trying to do," Adom muttered, turning back to the entrance.
[Identify].
The darkness rippled. For a moment, something gleamed in the stone - a rune, hidden beneath layers of magic, pulsing with a faint, sickly light.
Adom reached out, fingers brushing against the faint outline in the stone. Blue text shimmered:
[Ancient runic array (purpose: concealment), estimated age: unknown]
The rune was complex - interwoven lines forming a pattern that seemed to shift under his gaze. Seven points, connected by curves that reminded him of water flowing through invisible channels.
"What are you doing now?" Bob asked, peering over his shoulder.
"Shh."
The leprechaun made an indignant sound. "Did you just 'shh' me? In my own..." He continued muttering about "presumptuous little humans" and "no respect for their elders."
Adom ignored him, focusing on the pattern.
The rune's design was familiar - a Septennial Concealment Array, though far more archaic than the streamlined versions used today.
Where modern arrays used efficient three-point formations, this one maintained the traditional seven points, complete with the redundant stabilization curves that hadn't been necessary since the Third Age's breakthroughs in runic optimization.
He pressed his palm flat against the stone, sending a careful pulse of mana into the first point.
The rune flickered.
Another pulse, slightly stronger. The second point lit up.
Third pulse. Fourth. Fifth. Each point illuminating in sequence, the curved lines between them beginning to glow with a pale blue light.
Sixth pulse - the pattern was almost complete.
Seventh -
The entire array blazed to life, lines of power spreading outward across the stone like frost across a window.
"How in the nine hells did you do that?" Bob demanded, his beard-gears spinning rapidly. "I've been staring at these walls for centuries and never saw any runes!"
"Because I'm smart," Adom said flatly, still studying the spreading patterns of light.
"Are you implying I'm not smart?"
"I never said that."
"But you thought about it."
Adom turned to him with the faintest smile, but before he could respond, the wall before them shifted. Stone ground against stone as a new surface emerged, covered in flowing script.
"What's that then?" Bob squinted at the text. "More of your clever runes?"
"No, this is..." Adom leaned closer, adjusting his glasses. "Ancient Imperial. Fairly late period, actually. The grammatical structure is almost modern." He traced the characters with his finger. The script was elegant but practical - none of the flourishes that marked the early Imperial period's obsession with calligraphic beauty.
"Well? What's it say?" Bob hopped from foot to foot, gears jingling with each movement.
"Test of Courage," Adom read, his finger moving across the characters. "The first trial of Orynth's Labyrinth demands that you face what lies within your own heart. Enter the void, confront your deepest fears, and emerge victorious." He paused, frowning at the next section. "Interesting..."
"What's interesting?" Bob peered at the incomprehensible script.
"It says the test can be taken alone or with companions. If multiple people enter together, they share the trial - and if one succeeds, all succeed." Adom glanced at the leprechaun. "That's unusually generous for an ancient trial."
"Oh?" Bob leaned closer to read.
"'Participants begin with 200 life force. Should it be depleted, you may retry the trial or surrender. Surrendering means starting from the very beginning of the Labyrinth.'" Adom's fingers traced the warning runes. "No mention of permanent death, at least."
"Generous indeed," Bob snorted. "You didn't see what's in there. Though..." He tugged at his beard thoughtfully, several gears spinning slower. "Might explain why it didn't work when I tried. Was alone then, wasn't I?"
"The text doesn't say it has to be done together," Adom clarified, still reading. "Just that it's an option. Though considering what you've told me about your experience..."
"You're not seriously suggesting we go in there together?"
"You said it yourself - the riddle path is a trap. This is the real way forward."
"Yes, but..." Bob's gears clinked anxiously. "There's facing your fears, and then there's whatever that void does to your mind."
"It's either that or—" Adom stopped mid-sentence as another gear clinked to the floor. "Actually, I've been meaning to ask. What's with all the gears? And why do they seem endless?"
"Oh, these?" Bob picked up the fallen gear, which immediately split into two in his hand. "Found them right here in this chamber, actually. Quite the neat trick - touch one, and it makes another."
Adom's eyes widened. "That's not just a neat trick. That's a Multiplicity Artifact. There are only three known to exist in the entire..." He shook his head. "And you've just been using them as clothing decorations?"
"Well, what else was I supposed to do with them? Count them? Already tried that - got to several million before I lost track." Bob attached both gears to his sleeve. "Besides, they make a lovely sound, don't you think? Almost like gold."
Adom turned back to the void, ignoring Bob's impromptu gear orchestra. "So. The rune was just for instructions. We either go in together, or we stay here."
"Technically, you could go alone."
"And leave you here for another few centuries?"
"I've grown rather attached to the place," Bob said, though his gears clinked a distinctly nervous rhythm. How was that even possible?
"Right."
They both stared into the absolute darkness.
"Together then?" Bob asked quietly.
"Together."
"We're going to regret this, aren't we?"
"Probably."
They stepped into the void.
[Time of Entry: 19:23:07]
*****
Adom wove a [Flame] spell, the familiar warmth spreading from his palm. The darkness remained absolute, but at least he could see his own hand now. And Bob, standing uncomfortably close.
The void felt... wrong. Not empty, but somehow negative - as if the space itself was actively hostile to their presence. Their footsteps made no sound, and the air had no temperature. It was a unique sensation.
"Maybe we should..." Bob coughed, gears turning awkwardly. "Hold hands?"
"No."
"I'm being practical! You're the one making it weird."
"Still no."
"Fine, but when you get lost in this nightmare void, don't come crying to—"
The sentence cut off mid-word.
Adom turned. Bob had been right beside him, close enough to touch. Now there was only darkness. He reached out, finding nothing but that same hostile emptiness.
"Bob?"
The void swallowed his voice.
"Right. Of course." Adom adjusted his glasses, more out of habit than necessity. The gesture felt absurdly normal in this abnormal space. He continued forward, his flame spell creating a small bubble of visibility that somehow made the surrounding darkness feel even darker.
The silence was absolute. No echoes, no ambient noise, not even the sound of his own breathing. Just the steady rhythm of his footsteps that he felt but couldn't hear.
He kept walking.
More walking.
And more.
Adom stopped, turning in a slow circle. He hadn't been afraid of the dark since he was five, when he'd finally understood that darkness was simply the absence of photons. He'd spent hours in the library reading about light particles and wave theory, finding comfort in the rational explanation that had chased away childish fears.
But this... this wasn't natural darkness. Obviously.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
This void defied scientific explanation. The magical architecture required to create such a space was staggering. Modern mages had centuries of magical theory and advancement at their disposal, their spells far more sophisticated than anything from the past. And yet... this construction shouldn't be possible for its time period. The complexity of the void's structure went against everything he knew about magical development. It was like finding advanced crystalline matrices in primitive ritual circles - it simply didn't align with any known progression of magical knowledge.
How had mages from that era managed something this complex?
He felt a pull – not physical, but an inexplicable certainty in his mind. Forward. He knew which way was forward, though he couldn't have explained how. The knowledge simply existed, as fundamental as gravity.
Turning back in that direction, Adom gasped. A door had materialized at the edge of his flame's light – simple, brown, wooden. Utterly ordinary, which made its presence here all the more unsettling. It stood unsupported in the void, as if someone had simply forgotten to build the wall around it.
His steps faltered for just a moment.
This door...
"What the hell is this?" said Adom. That damned door...
That scratched corner where he'd kicked it in frustration. The brass handle, slightly tarnished on the right side where thousands of nervous hands had gripped it. Even that peculiar whorl in the wood grain that his young eyes had traced over and over while waiting.
Room 347. Doctor Kane's office.
"So this is where we're going, huh? Memory?" Adom muttered. His voice still made no sound, but he felt the words in his throat.
He stood before the door, studying it with the same detached curiosity he now used for analyzing magical phenomena. Funny how such an unremarkable piece of wood could mark the boundary between before and after. Between health and decay. Between childhood and... whatever came after.
Forward.
His hand reached for the handle.
Light flooded his vision, and suddenly the world had weight again.
*****
"—dom? Adom? Can you hear me, young man?"
His mother's arms were around him, warm and real. The scent of her sweet apple and cinnamon perfume mixed with the sharp antiseptic hospital smell. He'd forgotten that detail - how the two scents had clashed yet somehow merged in his memory.
Her tears were soaking into his shirt. His father stood by the window, shoulders rigid, staring at nothing. The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the sterile white floor.
This felt more substantial than memory. The scratch of his cotton shirt against his skin. The slight tremor in his mother's embrace. The weight of the air itself.
It all felt real. Undeniably real.
Where was he again? Ah, yes. Room 347. Doctor Kane had just finished explaining Lifedrain Syndrome. Three to five years, he'd said. Maybe less.
He'd lived sixty-seven more, just to spite the diagnosis.
"Orynth, you bastard," Adom muttered.
Making him relive this moment, the exact second his life began to crumble. Of all the trials the ancient mage could have designed...
His mother's arms tightened around him, misinterpreting his words as confusion or denial. So he could interact with them here, huh?
If only she knew.
"I missed you both," Adom said softly, looking between them. "So much."
His mother pulled back, brow furrowing. "What are you talking about, my little one?"
"Doctor," his father's voice was tight, controlled. "Are there cognitive symptoms we should know about?"
"Arthur." His mother whirled on him. "Our son just got the worst news of his life and you're suggesting he's losing his mind?"
"I'm trying to understand all the—"
"Understand? Understand what? That you're already giving up on him?"
The doctor raised his hands. "Please, Sir and Lady Syll—"
Adom watched them argue, a familiar heaviness settling in his chest that had nothing to do with his illness.
These fights. They'd had so many after his diagnosis - voices rising, blame flying, love turning bitter with fear and helplessness. He'd forgotten how early they'd started. How bad they'd ended.
Then it came.
That familiar tickle in his throat. Adom almost laughed - he knew this script by heart. First the tickle, then the burning sensation spreading through his chest like hot wire. The tightness that made each breath shorter than the last. The metallic taste at the back of his throat.
He coughed.
His mother stopped mid-sentence. His father took a half-step forward.
Another cough. Harder this time. Then another. And another. A rhythm he'd lived with for sixty-seven years, now playing out in its opening performance.
He raised his hand to his mouth, going through motions that felt like muscle memory even though this body hadn't learned them yet. When he pulled it away, black blood coated his palm, thick and glistening in the afternoon light.
"Heh." The chuckle came out wet and dark.
"Adom!" His mother's scream.
"Son!" His father's shout.
The world tilted sideways, the floor rushing up to meet him. Right on schedule.
As consciousness faded, he wondered what Orynth had in store for him next.
1st attempt successful.
Would you like to continue? [Y/N]
Forward. Always. It was the only way out.
"...Yes. Yes you asshole."
*****
Adom opened his eyes, and squinted immediately due to the light.
A warm breeze ruffled his fur. Not his - a dog. The Service Companion sat beside his chair, tongue lolling in a perpetual smile. An old Moonspire Shepherd, with its characteristic white coat that seemed to catch and hold sunlight.
"...Fido?" Adom's voice caught. His first dog. His last dog. The one his father got him for his eighteenth birthday. He'd forgotten. How had he forgotten?
The dog's tail thumped against the cobblestones, ears perking at his name. That same goofy expression Adom remembered from that time.
He reached down, fingers sinking into thick fur. Fido smelled like pear and summer storms - the enchanted shampoo his mother used to buy from the markets. The memory hit harder than any spell.
The café terrace buzzed with afternoon life. Children chased each other between tables while their parents sipped spiced tea. A street performer juggled balls of light, each one singing a different note as it arced through the air. Two old men argued over a game of stones, their laughter carrying across the square.
Adom's tea had gone cold, forgotten beside a half-eaten plate of honey cakes. The sun hung lazy and golden in the cloudless sky, casting long shadows across the festival banners.
Festival banners.
His eyes caught on the flowing script: "1457th Festival of Kati."
His cup clattered against the saucer. "No."
This wasn't just any festival day in Kati. By then, his hometown had transformed into one of the Sundar Empire's most formidable fortress cities. Its walls, reinforced with defensive enchantments, stood as a beacon of hope for refugees fleeing the endless border wars. The city where he'd grown up had become a sanctuary for millions of souls.
Millions.
"No," he repeated, softer this time.
Fido whined, pressing against his leg. The old dog always knew when something was wrong.
"Papa, what's that?"
A child's voice, from the next table. Small finger pointing up.
Adom's hands began to shake. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the pleasant temperature. He knew what he'd see before he looked, but he looked anyway.
Could he do anything about it? Probably not.
The sky was darkening. Not with clouds - with absence. A void spreading across the blue, like ink in water. People were noticing now, conversations falling quiet, faces turning upward.
The juggler's light-balls winked out.
"Just weather magic," someone said, uncertain. "For the festival?"
But Adom remembered this day. Remembered what came next.
A low hum began, felt more than heard. The stones beneath his feet trembled. Cups rattled on tables. The old men's game pieces scattered.
Fido growled, hackles rising.
"Oh gods," a woman whispered. "Look."
Through the spreading darkness, a point of light. Growing larger. Brighter. A falling star in reverse colors, wrong in ways that hurt to look at.
It had many names.
Life's bane. God's wrath. World-ender. The Final Word. A hundred names in a dozen languages, each attempting to describe the indescribable. But in that moment, as it fell toward Kati, only one name mattered.
Dragon's Breath.
Not fire, not destruction, but erasure. Complete. Absolute. The kind of death that didn't just kill - it rewrote existence itself, leaving nothing behind. Not even ashes. Not even memories. Humanity's crowning achievement in the art of warfare. The weapon that made elves pause their eternal dances, that hushed the singing forests, that gave even the deathless ones reason to fear. The ultimate expression of human ingenuity turned toward a single purpose: unmaking.
And he was watching it descend on his home. Again.
Adom lunged for Fido's collar. "We need to move!"
The dog planted his paws, one hundred and forty pounds of muscle refusing to budge. It wasn't Fido's fault. He was trained like that. To not let Adom do simple things like running. In his condition at that time, he would have had a heart attack for that.
"Fido, please," he begged the dog. "Please move!"
People still sat at their tables, pointing up at the darkening sky. A child started crying.
"RUN!" It was pointless. "Everyone needs to run! NOW!"
A few heads turned. A mother grabbed her children, hurrying them away. Others just stared at him, the crazy young man screaming in the square.
The sky shifted from steel-gray to a darker one. The air felt wrong - too thick, too heavy.
Then he saw it.
A star falling in daylight, but wrong. No star should move that fast. No star should pulse with that twisted light. The horizon where it fell began to glow, a false dawn in the wrong direction.
Someone whispered, "Saints preserve us."
The ground shook. Tea cups danced off tables. A woman screamed.
Fido finally moved, but in the wrong direction - trying to herd Adom toward shelter. The dog's training fighting Adom's desperate pulls.
"I order you to-"
The horizon ignited, far beyond the city walls where the Empire's Third Legion made camp. Ten miles distant, but it didn't matter.
A pinprick of light bloomed into an impossible sun - white-hot, reality-bending brilliance that turned day into negative space. The festival crowd fell silent, necks craned upward. Some still stood transfixed, shielding their eyes, murmuring about new festival magic. They didn't understand. Couldn't understand.
The ground shook first. Not the gentle tremor of earlier, but a deep, primal vibration that rattled teeth and toppled glasses. In the distance, a sound no human throat could make - part thunder, part scream, part the universe tearing. The very air seemed to hold its breath.
Then it rose. A pillar of destruction climbing into the sky, burning white at its heart, crowned by a blooming mushroom of blacks and grays that devoured the clouds. Even at this distance, the world lost its colors, reduced to stark shadows and searing light. Those still watching saw their own bones through closed eyelids. Time stretched like taffy, each second an eternity of waiting.
The shockwave came visible across the plains - a wall of pure force that flattened the grasslands, rolled through the army camp like it was paper. Even from here, they could see the massive siege engines tossed like children's toys. It raced toward the city, a ripple in reality that turned stone to dust and flesh to vapor. The roar of its approach drowned out even the screams.
People ran. Really ran now, a stampede of bodies crushing together in the narrow streets. Adom lost his grip on Fido's collar in the surge. The dog vanished in the panicked crowd.
"FIDO!"
A mountain of a man slammed into him, sending them both sprawling. "Sorry lad, sorry!" The stranger hauled Adom to his feet with one meaty hand.
The second wave hit.
This one wasn't light or sound - it was force. Pure, unstoppable force that picked up carts and people like toys. The air itself seemed to catch fire.
Adom saw the building coming. A small house, lifted whole from its foundations, tumbling end over end through the burning air.
His last thought before impact was of Fido's goofy smile.
Then world exploded into sound and fire.
*****
His ears rang with a high-pitched whine that drowned out everything else. The world spun lazily, even with his eyes closed. Consciousness came back in fragments - the taste of copper in his mouth, dust coating his tongue, the weight of... something pressing down.
Where...?
The ringing slowly faded, replaced by muffled sounds of destruction. Reality pieced itself together through the fog in his mind. The festival. Fido. The light in the sky.
Ah. Yes.
Orynth's test.
Pain screamed through every nerve as tons of concrete pinned him down. His legs - he couldn't feel his right leg anymore, but his left was a symphony of agony, bone fragments grinding against each other with each breath.
Hot wetness pooled beneath him, and he wasn't sure if it was blood or the broken heating pipes. His chest felt like it was being crushed in a vice, each shallow breath sending jolts of electricity through his ribs. Dust filled his lungs, making him cough, each spasm multiplying the pain exponentially.
Even knowing this was Orynth's test didn't dull the sensations. The body remembers, and Adom's remembered this moment with perfect clarity - the precise way his pelvis had shattered, the burning as debris scraped against exposed bone, the peculiar numbness creeping up from his toes that would never quite go away.
This was the sequence burned into his nightmares. Dragon's Breath to shatter their defenses, to erase their strongest warriors and mightiest walls. Then, while the survivors still reeled from the horror, the Aslan Empire would descend like wolves upon the helpless. A perfect strategy, tested and proven across a dozen conquered nations.
The concussive force of spells shattering shields vibrated through the rubble crushing his legs, each tremor sending fresh waves of torment through his broken body.
Through a gap in the concrete, Adom watched the sky turn colors that shouldn't exist as battle mages tore reality apart above.
A knight crashed through a wall, his armor molten, screaming.
A child stumbled past, cradling something gray and wet in blood-stained hands, calling "Mama, mama, your head fell off..." Adom would never forget that face - hollow-eyed, tear-streaked, yet focused with terrible determination as small fingers tried to push pulpy matter back into a shattered skull. "Stay still, Mama. I'll make it better. I promise I'll make it better."
"Hey..." Adom's voice cracked.
The child looked up. Couldn't have been more than six. A face that should have been worrying about lost toys or scraped knees, not... this. "Mister, can you help me? My mama's not answering. I'm trying to put her thoughts back, but they keep slipping."
Adom's throat closed. He reached out, tried to form words to pull the child away from the corpse, to run, to live-
The light spell cracked across the street like lightning. A single shot, precise, professional. The child's body jerked, a puppet with cut strings. Those empty eyes locked onto Adom's face in the final moment, filled not with fear or pain, but simple confusion.
Adom's scream died in his throat. How? How could anyone...? What threat could a child possibly...?
But this was war. This was the moment when the world stopped making sense, when humanity shed its skin and revealed the monster beneath.
The air tasted like copper and ozone. Someone was singing - a lullaby mixed with sobs, coming from beneath a collapsed building. The singing stopped abruptly as another explosion sent bodies flying.
His father's voice cut through the chaos: "Hold the line! Protect the civilians!"
Through the smoke and debris, Adom saw him. Commander Arthur Sylla. Two star knight. Leading the defense, his sword glowing with fluid as he cut through enemy soldiers. Each swing precise, each step calculated. A warrior doing his duty.
It was about to happen.
In exactly four minutes, his father would spot him in the rubble. In four minutes and thirty seconds, he would turn his back on an enemy to reach his son. In four minutes and forty-five seconds...
A mage's corpse landed nearby, still crackling with residual energy. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing, mouth frozen in a half-cast spell.
The singing had started again, from somewhere else now. A different voice, a different lullaby. The same abrupt end.
The rubble pressed against his chest.
Four minutes.
He could already see his father scanning the battlefield, that moment of recognition about to dawn on his face. The enemy mage was positioning himself, spell already forming in the air.
The same choreography of death he'd carried for decades.
A child screamed somewhere - not in pain, but in that hollow way that meant they'd seen something their mind couldn't process.
A battlemage's shield shattered, raining crystalline shards that cut through three soldiers below. The singing had started again, from beneath another pile of rubble.
Adom's hands found purchase on broken concrete. First try - muscles screamed, bones ground against metal rebar piercing his abdomen. The pain whited out his vision. He collapsed.
[Life force: 38/200]
His father turned.
Second try - he pushed harder. Blood bubbled up his throat, spilling black over his chin. The rebar twisted inside him, tearing new paths through flesh. The edges of his vision darkened. By all rights, he should have passed out. He refused.
[Life force: 23/200]
His father took another step.
Third try - Adom roared. His flesh tore around the metal, blood streaming hot down his side. Concrete shifted, crushing his left leg further. Every nerve ending blazed with agony. His body begged him to stop.
[Life force: 19/200]
He told his body to shut up.
"Fuck that."
The words came out as a growl. The rubble shifted as Adom pushed his torso up on trembling arms, metal sliding wet and raw through his abdomen. His crushed legs remained pinned, useless, but his upper body rose like a wounded beast.
[Life force: 09/200]
"Illusion or not—" Energy crackled around his hands, blue-white and savage. Each movement sent fresh waves of agony through his shredded flesh. He didn't care.
[Life force: 03/200]
"I. Am. Not. Reliving. This."
His father's eyes widened in recognition. The enemy mage raised his hands, death-spell forming—
"NOT THIS TIME!"
The energy beam erupted from Adom's palms with decades of rage behind it. Clean. Precise. A perfect circle through the mage's chest where his heart should have been. The spell dissipated as its caster fell, surprise frozen on his face.
The battlefield seemed to stutter, like reality hiccuping. His father stood frozen mid-step, sword half-raised, expression caught between shock and confusion.
Around them, the war raged on. A knight's enhancement gear backfired, turning him inside out. A young mage apprentice tried to hold his intestines in while still weaving shields. The singing had stopped again.
"Son?" his father's voice wavered. "How did you—"
Time stopped.
206th attempt successful.
Would you like to continue? [Y/N]
[Warning: Progress can only be made forward. Retreat will reset the trial]
Right. Two hundred and six times he'd felt the rebar tear through his organs. Two hundred and six times he'd tasted his own blood, felt his bones splinter. Two hundred and six times he'd watched that child try to piece their mother's brains back together. Then die for no reason.
But this time - this one time - his father was still standing.
The battlefield continued its apocalyptic dance around them, but for just a moment, Adom allowed himself to look at his father's time stopped face. Alive. Confused, but alive.
Blood bubbled up his throat again, darker than before. His vision swam.
[Life Force: 01/200]
[Warning: Terminal threshold approaching]
He needed to choose. Quickly. Forward into whatever fresh hell Orynth had prepared, or reset and lose this victory he'd paid for two hundred and six times over.
The choice was obvious.
*****
The world shifted. Memory flooded in - another moment, burned into his soul. The camp of New Harbor, Year 853.
The cough tore through his chest like barbed wire, each spasm threatening to split him in two. Adom gripped the metal rails of his wheelchair, knuckles white, waiting for his lungs to remember how to work. Blood flooded his mouth.
The fluorescent lights of the refugee camp's medical wing buzzed overhead, casting harsh shadows across equipment that looked ancient even by pre-war standards. His reflection in the cracked mirror told its own story of decay: hair white as fresh snow, skin like old parchment stretched too thin across hollow cheeks.
He was twenty-two at that time. Twenty-two going on eighty.
He dabbed at his mouth with a handkerchief. Red, of course. Always red these days.
The Life Drain Syndrome had carved lines into his face that belonged on men thrice his age. Each wrinkle mapped a different spell, a different experiment, a different desperate attempt to protect what remained of humanity. The mage suit hung loose on his frame now - he'd lost weight again. The crystalline nodes embedded in the fabric pulsed with a weak blue light, monitoring his failing vital signs.
"PLEASE! NO, IT STILL WORKS! I CAN FEEL MY TOES!"
The screams from the next chamber cut through the thin walls. Adom knew that voice - Gregory, one of the scouts. Yesterday's patrol had gone wrong.
"Hold him down!" The healer's voice, sharp with urgency. "The rot's reaching his knee. It's this or death."
"I'LL DIE WITH MY LEG! PLEASE! I CAN STILL-" The words dissolved into unintelligible sobbing.
The wet sound of saw meeting flesh. Gregory's screams pitched higher, became something animal, primal. The rhythmic scraping continued, inexorable.
The door burst open. "My Lord Mage!" A soldier stood there, blood-splattered and breathing hard. Her armor bore fresh dents. "We've got incoming. Orc warband, at least two hundred strong. They've got dwarven siege engines with them."
A particularly agonized shriek from next door. The saw hit bone.
"GODS, PLEASE, JUST KILL ME!"
The soldier flinched at Gregory's plea but kept her eyes on Adom. "Sir, we need to move. Now."
"Where is my mother?"
The soldier hesitated, just for a moment. "Lady Sylla was last seen at the outer perimeter, my lord. Healing survivors from the first wave."
No.
"Get her back." His voice cracked. "Get her back inside NOW."
But he knew. He already knew. The memory was already playing out - his gentle mother, who'd sing healing hymns while tending gardens, who'd cradle injured birds and weep over withered flowers. Who never turned away anyone in need.
"Sir, we need to evacuate. The orcs are-"
He remembered how it played out: The sounds came first. The splintering of bones. The wet, meaty sounds. Then someone screaming "Lady Sylla!" And finally, finally, the sight of her through the medical tent's window - her small form caught between massive, armored bodies. Crushed like a flower under boots.
His heart stuttered, skipped, seized. Not from the Life Drain this time, but from seeing something so pure, so kind, reduced to... to...
They'd had to peel her off the ground. His mother, who'd spent her life putting broken things back together, couldn't even be buried whole.
Adom slumped in his wheelchair, chest constricting. The seventh heart attack in his life wasn't from pushing too hard. It was from remembering this moment, remembering how they'd brought him her remnants, remembering how someone who'd dedicated her life to healing had died with such violence.
"My lord!" The soldier's voice seemed distant now. "We need to move!"
But Adom could only see his mother's last smile that morning, could only hear her last words: "Remember to eat something, dear. You're working too hard again."
The war horns bellowed closer, but they couldn't drown out the truth - this was the day his mother died, and something in him died with her. Not just his health, not just his heart, but his belief that anything good could survive this world.
This needed correction.
Adom wheeled himself forward, each turn of the wheels sending sparks of pain through his arms.
[Life Force: 189/200]
This was attempt ninety-eight. He'd memorized every death, every failure, every moment he wasn't fast enough, strong enough, clever enough to save her. Not this time.
"My lord, you can't possibly-" The soldier's protest died as Adom raised his hand.
"Watch me."
The first wave hit the outer barriers. Adom's fingers traced complex patterns, weaving spells that made his blood burn. He was already a circle mage by then. A sick, wounded one, but a circle mage nonetheless.
A dwarven siege engine exploded, showering the advancing horde with burning debris. His heart stumbled, protesting the strain.
[Life Force: 156/200]
"FORM RANKS!" His voice carried across the battlefield, stronger than his body had any right to be. Soldiers rallied, finding formation around his wheelchair. "ARCHERS, TARGET THE SHAMANS!"
Another spell. Lightning chained between orc warriors, their armor conducting death. The effort sent him into a coughing fit, spattering his lap with blood.
[Life Force: 134/200]
He could see her now - his mother, kneeling beside wounded refugees, her healing magic a soft green glow. So focused on saving others, she didn't see the berserkers breaking through.
[Life Force: 112/200]
"LEFT FLANK, BRACE!" The command tore from his throat as he channeled power through his failing body. A wall of force materialized, crushing the first berserker wave. His vision blurred. Too much. Too fast.
But he was closer now. Ninety-seven failures had taught him every move, every spell, every sacrifice needed. His wheelchair creaked as he pushed forward, soldiers forming a protective wedge around him.
[Life Force: 87/200]
A dwarven bolt thrower targeted his position. Adom's counter-spell caught the projectile, reversed its course. The machine exploded, taking its crew with it. Blood trickled from his nose.
[Life Force: 65/200]
"Mother!" His voice barely carried over the chaos. She looked up, eyes widening. The massive orc behind her raised its axe-
Time slowed. Not from magic, but from desperation. Adom saw every detail: the axe's arc, his mother's turning head, the distance between them. Numbers and calculations flooded his mind - trajectory, force, spell matrices.
[Life Force: 43/200]
The spell left his hands before he could consider the cost. Reality bent. Space folded. His mother vanished from the axe's path, reappearing beside his wheelchair. The effort sent him into cardiac arrest.
[Life Force: 21/200]
"Adom!" Her hands glowed green, pouring healing magic into his seizing heart. "My boy, what have you-"
"Not... done... yet." Each word was agony. But he had one more spell. One final gambit.
[Life Force: 9/200]
Power gathered around him, drawing from his very soul. The remaining orcs charged. The last siege engine aimed.
[Life Force: 4/200]
"I love you, mother. And I missed you." The words came clearly despite his failing body. "Now run. Please."
The spell released. A dome of pure force expanded outward, disintegrating everything in its path. Orc, dwarf, machine - all reduced to ash.
[Life Force: 2/200]
As darkness took him, Adom smiled. Ninety-eight tries, but he'd finally done it. His mother was saved. He knew this was not real. This was an illusion. But God, it felt right.
And this time, when his heart stopped, it was worth it.
A new wave charged.
[Life Force: 1/200]
"Come on then," Adom whispered, raising his hands one final time.
Time stopped.
[Congratulations. You've conquered this fear.]
[Would you like to proceed with the next memories?]
[Warning: Each attempt drains your spirit. Surrender is always an option.]
Continue? [Y/N]
"..."
[Y]
*****
The first hundred years nearly shattered Adom.
He lived through all the events of his past life. One by one. Each detail. Each experience.
Watching Sundar fall again and again, hearing children scream as they plummeted through clouds turned to fire. His mind started fracturing around the fifties - laughing as blood rained down, trying to catch it with his tongue. By the seventieth fall, he was singing nursery rhymes while deflecting arrows.
He almost gave up then. Almost.
[Life Force: 189/200]
[Status: Fragmenting]
The Plague Wars twisted everything. Black spores blooming under skin, turning friends to enemies. He tried saving everyone at first. Then some. Then just himself. His hands shook for weeks after watching a mother eat her children, spores bursting from their eyes like black tears.
"Just surrender," the voices whispered. "Start over."
The voices, ah, the voices. He did not know who they belonged to, many voices, male and female, intertwined, always tempting him, they appeared around the 30th year of this test.
He refused. Always refused. Always moved forward. Out of spite. Out of rage. Out of ardent desire to punch the hell out of whoever made him go through this.
Was this madness?
[Life Force: 167/200]
[Status: Reshaping]
Something changed during the Dead March. When the Necromancer rose from the north.
Fifty thousand corpses shambling across the plains, and amid the horror, he found... purpose. Not hope - hope had died somewhere between the hundredth child's death and the thousandth betrayal. Something harder. Colder.
The voice saying "give up" grew quieter.
The World Dungeon rose.
When every dungeon, in every part of the globe hit S-rank and above, simultaneously, the world held its breath. Then came the great outbreak - all dungeons breaching at once, their portals dissolving until the entire planet became one massive, living dungeon. Monsters pouring out endlessly.
Civilizations fell then.
No more safe zones. No more sanctuary cities. Just endless dungeon floors where continents used to be.
Nobody ever knew why and how it came to be.
He survived that. Lived through the Night of Long Knives by feeling blade-paths before they cut. Watched humanity turn savage as they realized there were no more rules, no more borders between 'inside' and 'outside.' Just an endless maze of monsters, traps, and people who'd learned to become worse than both.
[Life Force: 134/200]
[Status: Evolving]
Each failure taught him. Each success cost him pieces of who he was.
The Children's Crusade should have broken him. Watching infants manifest powers that turned reality inside out. Instead, he found himself understanding their babbled prophecies, seeing the logic in their madness.
His disease changed too. The black blood grew thicker, more alive. Sometimes he caught it spelling words in languages that shouldn't exist.
Yes. this was madness.
[Life Force: 98/200]
[Status: Awakening]
He lost count of the attempts somewhere during the wars and cataclysms. Time became fluid, meaning shifted like quicksand. He died so many times the concept of death became abstract - just another transition, another lesson.
The voices in his head still screamed for surrender, but now a deeper voice answered back:
"No."
[Life Force: 76/200]
[Status: Transcending]
During the Week of Burning Stars in the World Dungeon, he realized he wasn't going mad anymore. He realized he'd stopped counting attempts. Stopped fearing failure.
His broken mind had reassembled itself into something new.
The Day of Inverted Light almost felt beautiful. Reality fractured into twelve black suns, each showing him his deepest fears, his worst failures. He watched himself break in a thousand ways.
But he didn't break.
[Status: Emerging]
Through all the horror, all the death and rebirth and madness, something was taking shape. His will hadn't broken - it had crystallized.
The voice that had begged for surrender was silent now. In its place, something new had formed. Not fearlessness - fear would always exist. But something stronger than fear.
[Status: Becoming]
He kept walking. Kept moving forward.
Chains rattled with each step. Iron links bit into flesh, wrapped around limbs, throat, heart. Adom trudged forward, each movement a war against weight that shouldn't exist.
He turned. Turned to look at his burden.
The chains stretched endlessly behind him, each link screaming. Memories dangled from them like rotting fruit. Every failure. Every death. Every moment he wasn't strong enough, fast enough, smart enough to save them all.
How does one carry a world?
Adom stood still, the weight crushing his shoulders. He found himself drowning in the absurdity of his task.
A bitter laugh escaped his lips. "What rational mind would accept this?" he asked the darkness. There was no answer. "What sane person looks at the end of all things and says 'Yes, I'll carry this alone'?"
The memories shifted, showing him cities yet to burn, friends yet to die. Knowledge was his prison - knowing every horror that awaited, every moment where humanity would prove itself unworthy of salvation.
"They don't even want to be saved," he whispered, watching the chains of future-past wrap tighter. "They'll tear each other apart regardless. I've seen it - how they turn on each other when the dungeons break, how quickly they abandon their humanity."
The logical part of his mind - the part that had survived a hundred resets - laid out the facts with cruel clarity: One man cannot change the nature of billions. One soul cannot bear the weight of every possible tomorrow.
It was mathematically impossible, fundamentally irrational.
He sank to his knees, feeling the cold comfort of reason. Why struggle against inevitability? Why carry this burden when the outcome was statistically predetermined? The voices whispered calculations of failure, probabilities of doom, and each number felt like truth.
"Perhaps," he murmured, "this is simply the universe's way of teaching acceptance. Some equations have no solution. Some weights cannot be borne..."
The darkness crept closer, offering rest. Offering an end to the paradox of his existence. After all, what was more rational than accepting one's limitations? What was more logical than acknowledging the impossible?
His eyes grew heavy. The chains sang softly of release, of letting go, of embracing the statistical certainty of failure. His brilliant mind, his analytical soul, everything that made him who he was agreed - this was the reasonable choice.
The only choice.
His eyes began to close...
"Lad? Lad! Where are you?!"
"Huh?"
"LAD! WHERE IN THE BLAZES ARE YOU?"
That impossibly annoying voice cut through the darkness. Bob. The leprechaun's brash tones somehow pierced through the statistical fog of despair, and Adom found himself calculating a new probability.
The chains shifted as he laughed, not bitter this time. "Probability," he mused.
He remembered a story his mother once told him, about how life began on Earth. A precise dance of molecules, temperature, and timing. The odds against it were astronomical - trillions upon trillions to one. If the planet had been slightly closer to the sun, if one comet had struck differently, if any single variable had changed... and yet, here they were.
"ADOM! DON'T MAKE ME COME LOOKING FOR YOU, LAD!"
The voice was getting closer, and with it came clarity. Humans weren't equations to be solved. They were impossibilities that insisted on existing anyway. Every breath was a defiance of entropy, every heartbeat a rebellion against cosmic odds.
"We're all unlikely stories," he whispered to the chains. "Every one of us shouldn't exist, and yet we do. We persist. We fight."
The memories shifted again, but now he saw them differently. Yes, humanity would tear itself apart - but they would also rebuild. Yes, they would betray - but they would also sacrifice themselves for strangers. Every horror he'd witnessed had its mirror in acts of impossible courage, impossible love.
"LAD, I SWEAR TO THE OLD GODS, IF YOU'RE MOPING-"
The leprechaun's voice carried equal parts irritation and concern.
...Concern? Why? They barely knew each other.
Then Adom realized something else - in all his calculations of failure, he'd forgotten to factor in the variables he couldn't predict. The Bob-shaped variables. The moments of random kindness. The statistical impossibilities that kept happening anyway.
The chains still weighed heavy, but now they felt different. Not a burden to escape, but a proof to humanity's stubborn refusal to follow mathematical certainty. Every reset, every failure, every moment of darkness was just another impossible story waiting to be told.
"Who am I," he asked the void, "to decide which impossibilities are too impossible?"
The darkness retreated slightly, confused by this new calculation.
"FOUND YOU! What're you doing sitting in the dark like some brooding hero from those terrible stories?"
Bob's voice. Not memory, not probability, but present. Real. Annoying.
"Bob. A little help here?"
"You disappeared right in the middle of me rambling!" Bob huffed, extending his small hand. "Nearly gave me a heart attack, which would've been quite the feat considering we leprechauns do not suffer heart attacks."
As he helped Adom up, Bob's voice trailed off, his eyes fixing on something ahead. "Well, would you look at that."
A white door stood before them, pristine and impossible in the void.
"Fancy bit of carpentry, that," Bob mused, trying to mask his unease with humor. "Though the color scheme's a bit bland for my taste. Could use some gold trim, maybe a few rotating gears..."
Adom's hand hesitated over the handle. This time, though, another hand - small - reached out alongside his.
"Together then?" Bob asked, his voice unusually serious. "Since you seem to have a knack for doing the impossible, and I have a knack for being impossibly annoying."
Adom felt the ghost of a smile touch his lips. "Together."
They turned the handle.
Light embraced him, lifted them, carried him up through layers of gentle radiance until...
Adom gasped, falling to his knees in a cave. His lungs burned as if he'd been holding his breath for centuries.
His mind reeled, trying to process the weight of countless apocalypses, numberless deaths, infinite horrors - all compressed into memory like diamonds formed under impossible pressure.
Adom looked at his hands. Clean. Unmarked. No scars from the Dragon's Breath. No burns from catching starfire. The same hands he'd had when he first entered.
His thoughts, chaotic and frenzied, began to settle.
A soft chime echoed in his mind as text appeared before him:
[Time of Entry: 19:23:07]
[Current Time: 19:24:12]
One minute and five seconds...
One minute and...
[Congratulations! You have completed the Trial of Courage]
[Detecting changes...]
[New Skill Acquired: Indomitable Will (Transcendent Rank)]
[Indomitable Will - Passive - Level 1]
Your will has been tested against every conceivable horror and emerged unbroken. Fear becomes a tool rather than a master. Mental attacks and control effects are reduced by 90%. Resilience scales infinitely with your emotional state, turning overwhelming pressure into strength.
Special Effect: "That Which Does Not Yield" - When all hope seems lost, when survival seems impossible, your will crystalizes. Each consecutive action against impossible odds increases your chance of success.
"How're you doing, lad?"
Adom turned to see Bob stumbling out of another exit, gears flying everywhere as he steadied himself against the wall. The ancient fae looked shaken, his usual manic energy subdued.
"I... gave up," Bob admitted, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. "Same as always. But then..." He looked around, confused. "There was this light. Never saw that before when I failed. Usually just get sent right back to the start, don't I? But this time... And then i heard you mumbling nonsense. Then, I saw you."
"The trial rules," Adom said, understanding dawning. "If one person succeeds, everyone does."
"You mean..." Bob's eyes widened. "You actually did it? You faced whatever that..." He gestured vaguely at the void. "Whatever that was?"
Adom nodded, still processing the weight of what he'd experienced.
"Well," Bob said, a hint of his usual spirit returning as more gears clattered to the floor. "Suppose I owe you one then. Though don't expect me to stop calling you hallucination just because you got us through."
It was strange, really.
Just moments ago, Adom had lived through what he did. Yet now... now it was slipping away like morning dew, becoming hazy and distant, like trying to remember a dream you made last week.
He chuckled, shaking his head at the sheer audacity of it. Orynth hadn't just designed a trial to break people - he'd made sure they couldn't even properly remember what broke them.
The memories were there, somewhere, compressed into that crystalline core of newfound strength in his mind, but trying to recall the specifics was like grasping at smoke. Just vague impressions of terror and triumph, without the messy details that might drive someone mad in retrospect.
What a magnificently twisted piece of work. Really had to admire the craftsmanship, even while hating everything it represented.
"So... what now?" Bob asked, plucking a gear from his beard and watching it split into two. "Never actually made it to this part before. Suppose you're the expert here."
Suddenly, a laugh rolled through the chamber. Deep. Resonant. Each note lingering longer than it should.
Bob's gears clinked frantically as he shoved Adom behind him. "Get back, lad."
Metal clinked against stone as something massive descended from the darkness above. Golden fur caught the light, rippling over muscles that could tear a man in half. Wings of deepest black unfurled, each feather sharp as a blade. Its face bore a woman's features, but those eyes... cold, calculating, watching them like a cat watches mice.
"No one has walked these halls since their creation," it purred, tail swishing back and forth against the stone. "I wonder... who passed my master's first trial?"
A sphinx.