Tom woke up slowly and stretched luxuriously after abandoning the lure of sleep. It was morning, and he had a job to do. Prepared for the day ahead, he slid out of bed… and was shocked to find only the night lights active. Even more surprisingly, they were still on their lowest setting. It was far earlier than he had expected. It was the type of wake up that presented a difficult choice. It encouraged you to attempt to try to force yourself back to sleep, but experience suggested that was futile. He couldn’t tell the precise time, but he guessed it was around four a.m. Given that the night light’s intensity slowly increased from around five, at the very least it was before then.
He wondered what was the best course of action. Should he get up? Should he attempt some extra shut-eye? How tired was he? He could feel the heaviness of his limbs, the subtle desire to roll over and try to sleep, but, offsetting that, his arm burned from the new series of cuts. He wasn’t sure he could get back to sleep with that distraction on top of his obvious wakefulness.
He was drowsy, he decided, but not sufficiently exhausted to go back to sleep.
With a sigh, he left the warmth of his bed and stood in the near darkness of the dorm. If he couldn’t sleep, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to do some exploring. If the worst happened and he was discovered, he would fall back on the truth and probably retreat into his pseudo-system room to allow that automatic acting to protect him.
The hallways were nowhere near as scary as Little Ta’s memories had implied. The past him had considered them to be haunted at night, filled with shifting darkness and foreboding presences. Tom had distinct memories of that terror, but as he navigated the corridors, his adult mind spotted nothing of the kind. Yes, it was dark, and the limited amount of light threw deep shadows around; but no creatures moved in them like his younger self remembered.
Tom had been harbouring some fantasies of getting access to the isolation rooms, but none of the doors were open. To get in, he would have to go through the scanning process, and he wasn’t about to leave evidence of his exploration of the place in the middle of the night.
The building creaked slightly, which added to the atmosphere, but, again, it was nothing like those memories.
Little Ta had been terrified of the corridors at night. To him, they had always had a supernatural presence, the type that was an icy claw in your gut, the absolute knowledge that something was out there, and it wanted to kill him. For his younger self, the impressions had been visceral. They had been real as stone was. As he started down the first hallway, Tom saw nothing to support the horror he could remember.
While he tried to hurry, he kept up his discipline. With each step, he attempted to carefully and slowly transition his body weight to avoid noise, and he paused every few metres to listen and make sure he was still alone. Thankfully, everything was silent each time he checked.
As he picked his way forward, he kept all of his senses alert, but there were no signs of security or wards anywhere. Everything was deserted. Eventually, his restless feet took him toward the gymnasium, which, unlike elsewhere, had significantly more light, courtesy of the globule generators in the fort. Shining through the hide gaps, it created occasional patches of illumination – or, at least, patches that weren’t as dark as everywhere else.
He paused in the shadowed recess of the door and wondered whether proceeding further was worthwhile. It was not like the gymnasium would have any secrets. His eyes scanned it anyway, mainly to see if there were any adults keeping watch.
Then he froze.
The metal door, the one that was not in Little Ta’s memories, was open. All of his previous desire to stay away vanished. Tom licked his lips and then ran his mind over what he knew. Curiosity killed the cat, or at least that was what they said, so Tom resisted the impulse to run straight across to it. A large part of him acknowledged that he should be retreating. That was the prudent, sensible reaction. However, the door was open, and this might be his only chance to see what was being hidden. It didn’t help that forty-years in the solo tutorial had taught him that failing to take advantage of opportunities like these would cost him in the long run.
He licked his lips. His heart was beating so loudly he was surprised he couldn’t hear it echoing off the far wall. Every other time, the door had been shut. What did it being open now imply? Was it an issue or an opportunity?
Yes, the answer was yes. It was both those things, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t retreat with his tail between his legs.
It was clear that human society had set up and invested in this orphanage to protect reincarnators. They wouldn’t allow such an obvious trap to exist in the facility, and, despite little Ta having failed to notice it, the door’s existence was an open secret. The older children studiously ignored it, but were aware of its being there. He had seen a pair of teenagers openly refer to it in conversation complete with a subtle head nod. They knew about it, so he wasn’t looking at a huge secret.
But a secret it was, and right now he wanted to discover what was hidden. In Little Ta’s memories, the two times he had been caught outside the dorms at night the caretakers had found him quickly, though that might have been because he was screaming, but the point was they hadn’t noticed him and he had explored further than Little Ta ever did.
This week was an opportunity, and that door was something the older children used. If it was a training resource, he needed to know about it in order to incorporate it into his master plan.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
But the danger, that insidious thought kept repeating inside his head along with the word prudence. He knew he should walk back to his bed and pretend to sleep, but no one had achieved greatness by being meek and mild, and there were still hours until he was supposed to be awake. The nightlights hadn’t even started to grow brighter yet.
On the balance of risks, it was probably worthwhile to check it out. He focused on a singular mental image. It was a simple one. None of his enemies would discover him directly or indirectly because of his actions today.
That was all he wanted, and he maintained that unwavering desire.
Comfortable with the mental image, he expelled all but five of his fate points, aiming them at achieving the outcome. Between the orphanage and the invisible but powerful defences he had just overlaid directly, he should be well and truly protected from any assassins out there.
Then he stood and observed.
There was no way to approach the door safely. The direct route was mostly through the shadows, but there was a five-metre stretch that was illuminated more than most. If he tried to cross that, it would only take a single person looking in the right direction to spot him. He guessed fate might turn their eyes, but it felt too risky to rely on chance for something fundamental like that. It was best to depend on his own skills. Luck was best when it was earned by hard work.
Going by the fort was tempting. If he did that, he could stay in darkness the entire time – or, at least, remain invisible to any outside eyes. He could loop through the internals, exit opposite the door, and have a direct run through shadows to reach it. But that path would take longer, not to mention that it would be more dangerous in other ways. Those spears could creak and reveal his position; even something mundane like his footsteps could do the same, causing vibrations in the hide walls. If that happened it would be problematic if anything was watching.
The lit-up area preventing the direct route was abruptly cast into shadow.
Tom froze and turned to the fort. His mind was racing as he searched for what was blocking the light. A patch of soft light on the other side of the room was moving slowly. It spotlighted a chair, then a table. He traced it back, fearful of deliberate manipulation, and discovered it was coming from within the fort.
Variable light? Moving light? He asked, his thoughts zooming. What did that mean?
Realisation rushed through him. The floating globules that lit up the inside of the fort must be responsible. Those things moved randomly and did not last forever, which is why that area was now shadowed. One of the light globes must have run out of energy and dissipated.
Before he realised that he had reached a decision, he was already moving. Cautiously, he crept forward, sticking close to the wall and the deepest shadows. He knew he was being reckless, but that did not stop his approach - it just reminded him to crouch into the shadows more and take care with each step. Self-doubt now was nonsensical. He had already invested fate, and that light winking out was a sign that his fate was active and supporting him. It could have easily generated a different sign to warn him off. Extra light across this route would have done it. The fact that hadn’t occurred meant it was safe to proceed.
The metal door, once he got closer, had blocked off a staircase that went downwards. Tom snuck through the doorway and started down the steps. After taking six of them, he paused and ran his fingers over the wall, studying everything in the dim light. It was a magical construction, as there were no seams anywhere, and each stone was deliberately roughed to provide a tread. The workmanship was impressive, and based on the classical spiral design and the size of the steps, the entire thing had to have been created by humans.
Tom hurriedly went down and stuck close to the inner wall, both to take advantage of his small feet and because it was faster.
He descended almost three flights before exiting into a massive cavern - at least, it was massive in width rather than height. The room had a slight oval shape and the shortest line across was longer than an Olympic swimming pool even if the roof was less than two metres above his head. Tom was reasonably confident that this too was man-made, but with active GODs he wouldn’t be able to say for certain, unless he spoke to someone who had seen the construction first hand.
The room was empty, but he could see dark patches every few metres along the walls. He moved to the closest and peered in, knowing what he was going to find. Sure enough, another staircase greeted him. This one, while still heading downwards, was mostly horizontal. It might have been on a twenty-degree angle, like you would see on a car park ramp. His eyes weren’t good enough to observe further, but it went in a perfectly straight line for at least forty metres, and, he suspected, a lot further after that.
This was not quite what he had expected. He kept moving forward. The next shadowed alcove contained a descending tunnel, and the one after that even more stairs. That one practically went straight downward. He couldn’t smell anything, but he suspected the passages were connected to monster lairs rather than trials like he had been guessing.
Tom stopped and looked around the cavern and counted. If every shadowed area was a tunnel, there were almost three dozen of them.
He sniffed deeply at the five nearest openings, but couldn’t catch any scent that revealed where they led. He wondered what he should do. Finally, he decided to explore the lightly sloping passage, which was the second-closest to the exit to the gymnasium. The lack of stairs was a strong draw for him.
The tunnel he had chosen had no artificial lighting. Rather, there were the occasional seams of moss that glowed just enough that he could always see the shadow of his hands when he waved them in front of his face. The walls were also always visible, based on the moss’s slight sheen. Tom supplemented his movement by running his hand along the wall. He would not rely exclusively on sight when it was compromised. For over ten minutes, he walked steadily down the passage, and then felt it when the stone texture changed. Instantly, he knew he had transitioned from a manmade environment to a wholly natural one.
His instincts screamed that he was in danger. It was also likely that he had also stepped past the wards that separated the lair from the common areas. If they were advanced, Tom knew his sensing skill would not have been able to pick them up.
He froze and listened with everything he could and then slowly sniffed. The musty air was thick with ammonia, and almost made him cough.
Fuck, he thought to himself. His nose wrinkled, he retreated carefully. There was something living ahead and, weapon less, he didn’t want to run into it.
While the full details were unclear, this was some clearly some form of training ground to train children before they reached maturity. He was confident that it was a curated lair for them to fight against weak monsters.
Carefully, he retraced his steps with his fingers immediately starting to track along the smoother man-made stone. After three metres, he turned and started hurrying away as quickly as he could.
From behind him, he could perceive a high-pitched noise right on the edge of his hearing.