It was early in the morning, way earlier than the time Lionel usually wakes up. He heard a knock on his door and Lionel forces himself off the bed to wobble his way over to the door. He unlocks it, pulling it open to meet a pair of guards.
Mr. Thorn and another one he doesn’t recognize.
“Lionel Wesholm, Dungeon of Knowledge.”
“...”
Is this what Jane also had to go through? Escorted by the guards so there was no way of escaping? Lionel didn’t bother to change out of his previous clothes last night, and he doesn’t plan on changing into another uniform now. What was the point of changing for the dungeon?
Lionel leaves his room and follows the guards. They enter the school building, turning corners and moving through the long halls before finally arriving at the correct area.
This is the hall across the Janitor’s office.
It’s a very long dark hall.
Mr. Thorn raises his hand and flames flickered into life. They traverse through the dark hall and they finally stop in front of a large, iron gate.
THWACK!
Without warning, Lionel fell unconscious as the other guard struck the back of his neck.
…
…
…
…
…
And so darkness swaddles the child, wrapped in silk threads in recognition of faithfulness. Thou shall be born anew, So long as thy belief in her name and words remains steadfast, this journey of murky hazes and the translucent strings clinging deep within the flesh and canal, will yield life at its conclusion.
What is this?
Lionel questions.
He was in front of the chapel.
“Chapter one, lines twenty-four to twenty-five.”
Though separated by the door, the female’s voice is clear and loud.
“Place your faith in her arms.”
Lionel froze in place, gripped by the sensation of multiple arms coiled around his body. The arms of flesh, patches of raw skin with parts stripped and torn. There was a slow, gentle pressure that felt soothing yet unsettling, sending shivers across his skin like sparks of electricity.
It crawls all over his body, it slithers until one hand climbs up to his face. Lionel lays his eyes on the sharp nails, some fractured, some chipped, teetering on the edge of detachment. It’s filthy and smeared with dry blood. He feels tears pooling in the corners of his eyes as the hand inches toward his mouth, its fingers prying his lips apart and slipping inside; the sharp edge of the nail grazes his tongue—
“AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!”
Lionel’s eyes snap wide open, a scream bursts from his very core. He subconsciously rolls over as he coughs dryly yet roughly. He reached for his neck, trying to soothe whatever irritation formed within.
“Fuck! What the fuck!” Lionel cries out. “Oh fuck, this is…I can’t…I want to leave…please…oh God…please…”
He doesn’t grasp the meaning of his words; all he wants is to scream, sob, and release his inner turmoil. He just wanted everything to end. All these strange dreams of entities trying to murder him…and both felt so real.
Lionel absentmindedly massages his neck, and as time drifts by, a sense of clarity washes over him, leading his thoughts to sharpen to a point where he senses something was different. Lionel’s other hand darts up to join the first, both gently wrapping his neck while he breathes heavily in anticipation.
The collar is gone.
Lionel withdrew his hand from his neck and looked at it with watery eyes.
A blaze flickered to life in his hand, glowing fiercely with the familiar warmth that Lionel thought he had lost for years. He feels like crying, but he bites his lower lip harshly, feeling the sharpness of the small discomfort.
But this was too good to be true.
The collar may be gone but he was in no way free and he knew that.
“I’ve got to get out of here, fuck this school.”
Lionel finds himself in a dark room. If it weren’t for testing out whether he could use magic or not, he’d be in the dark for much longer than this. He raises his hand and walks around the dark slowly and carefully.
The ground was made of stone and there were rocks everywhere that he had to be careful not to trip. He continues to walk forward until his fire reveals that he had reached a wall. There was an unlit torch attached to the mossy stone wall.
With his other hand, another flame came to life. He flings a fireball at the dormant torch, bringing it to a vivid brightness. It was bright enough that he noticed that the corner of that wall was just nearby. He follows along the wall and reaches another, finding another unlit torch.
Lionel does the same as the first and hurls another ball of fire at it.
“Hm, each wall must have a torch.” And right he was. He managed to ignite a total of five torches in the chamber he was in. He extinguishes his own flame now that all the torches are illuminating the room. He can clearly see a stone table with a reasonably sized wooden chest on top, and a stone statue of a strange creature in the middle of the room.
Behind the statue was the wall of the fifth torch, beside it was a passageway he dared not traverse through yet.
Lionel approaches the table and statue.
“Shit…” Lionel curses as he inspects the statue.
A massive bull towers over Lionel on its hind legs, its upper body strikingly human, exhibiting powerful, robust and well-defined muscles, and in its human hands, it holds a whip with several flowing pieces of knotted cords.
The bull stands on a stone platform with an open slot in front. It’s small, but it’s long and small enough for paper to go through.
Lionel places his focus on the wooden chest next.
There’s a note on top of it and sheets of paper below it. There’s also a single pencil and pocketwatch beside the box.
He reads the note on top first.
----------------------------------------
Objective: Get a perfect score within 12 hours. Submit the papers inside the slot to be graded. You will not be pardoned until you get a perfect score of 100%.
Failure to complete the task within 12 hours will result in moving to the Dungeon of Treasure.
----------------------------------------
Lionel takes the note and puts it aside. He lifts the box and sees a familiar set of papers. Placing the box down in favor of holding the papers, he flips through it and finds eight pages.
Isn’t this the test I took with Jonathan?
Lionel scans through the questions and realizes that everything was the same as the test he took with Jonathan.
So this is what the instructions meant and why there was a pencil too…
Lionel places the papers down and investigates the box next. There’s a note that is affixed on the lid.
[DROP OUT OPTION]
“...” What?
Lionel pops the chest’s lock open with a flick and raises the lid.
“...”
And for the first time, Lionel finally vomits. He hunches over and vomits all over the floor. He begins to cough violently, then breathes erratically as his body stumbles and lands on the ground. Every bit of exhaustion, confusion, disgust and fear bursts out of his pent-up box. His heart beats rapidly and his body shakes.
There’s a gun in the box.
A fucking flintlock.
Why? Why is this happening to me? He mentally questions.
A few days ago, he was just living a normal life. He passed a magic trial and attended a good school because of it, then he got an opportunity to enroll in an even better school to achieve his dreams. He remembers how he hugged his parents tightly and left with a huge smile on his face.
He couldn’t take it, for his life to suddenly thrust into something as terrifying and rotten as this. He couldn’t describe it with any other word but hell.
And he had to get out of this hell.
Lionel lifts himself off the floor and stares at the flintlock. It’s typically designed to fire only one bullet and he was right. There was a note below the gun reminding the students that it can only fire one shot and they had no way of reloading it.
Drop out.
With one bullet.
You can be free.
He’d rather kill himself with his own magic than use whatever the school gives him. Even if he had to suffer to death, it was better than giving into their system.
Everything was beginning to clear up.
Lionel sits down on the ground and takes a long, steady breath. Over the last few days, his thoughts were in a disarray, he struggled to maintain a clear head with his emotions on high. With so much happening all at once, clarity seemed out of reach.
He understands his mistakes now. Why Kaius said what he said about not being impulsive and not accepting any challenges…Well, Lionel scoffs. He did worse than accept a challenge, he challenged someone else.
Lionel flicks his own forehead for that. Still, the thought of stopping Jonathan Astor hasn’t changed. He doesn’t regret taking action against Jonathan Astor, but the choice of action and his way about it was an entirely different story.
I need to keep my emotions in check. Lionel tells himself. Now, to piece everything together.
First off, the school’s system.
Eva had explained most of it.
Every student has a rank and depending what your final ranking is by the end of the week will affect how you are rewarded and treated. A to B is rewarded, C is ignored, D to F is punished.
You change and raise your ranking by participating in class, submitting assignments, answering tests and doing well in demonstrations, and challenging other students in either tests or magic duels.
In the case of the challenges, the winner can ask anything of the loser and punish them, and their punishment is doubled due to losing in the first place.
Lionel couldn’t pin a thing on it, but it sounded familiar…The ranking, the system, the treatment…Doesn’t this sound like…
The PMOD experiment!
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“You dumb fuck, why didn’t that click first?!” Lionel smacks himself in the head.
This is exactly the PMOD experiment but it’s more extreme!
Come to think of it, who was the stranger by the fence? Why did he suddenly disappear? Was he talking to a ghost or something? There was no way he was hallucinating.
This whole school is conducting an extremer version of the PMOD experiment. That must mean they have access or copies to Dr. Gault’s papers…But why would they be conducting an experiment again? And to a larger group at that…Well, thinking about this now without any material won’t get me anywhere. I have to get out of this dungeon first and pass this test.
Lionel stands back up and looks at the papers.
“So this is what the kids from the negation group felt…”
His eyes drift to the flintlock.
I took this too lightly. Because there was still a part of me that couldn't accept the new reality, I was careless with my words. If I had known this is what I would face, I would’ve thought it through more properly…I let my emotions drive me to this…
I won’t let this school get into my head.
That’s exactly what they want.
For me to be a part of this sick experiment and cooperate.
Well guess what…
I don’t want to cooperate.
Lionel takes the flintlock and throws it on the ground.
I won’t lose this time.
He grabs the pencil and begins to answer the test paper. The lead presses roughly against the paper, and Lionel had to calm himself before he could break the pencil. There was only one after all.
He checked the pocket watch and twenty minutes had passed.
He didn’t stop for a break, not once. He continued to answer, rechecking his work over and over, then answered another page.
A few minutes later, he finishes and quickly goes to the slot, inserting his papers.
“...”
RUMBLE
Written in magic text, his results appeared from the slot.
[Lionel Wesholm - 87/100]
Just one point?! How—
The bull statue’s eyes ignited with a vivid purple glow, sending it into a fierce shaking that sent dust all over. Lionel, understanding the imminent threat, took a step back, horrified as the bull’s hands lifted the whip.
With a defensive stance, Lionel raised his hands and cast a spell, calling forth the element of earth to shield himself with a stone barrier. A gasp escaped his lips as the stone whip crushed his defense with ease. Using the element of wind, he propelled himself away swiftly.
How on earth was he supposed to fight this?!
In a desperate move, Lionel tries to obliterate the statue by summoning the element of earth in a fierce assault. A large stone appears and Lionel moves his hand forward, hoping to crush the statue.
Debris and dust scattered in all directions, causing Lionel to raise his arms in defense.
Once the dust settles…
And Lionel’s heart drops at the sight.
Not a single scratch had marred the statue.
It stands perfectly whole, glaring at him.
I’m going to die.
He couldn’t think of anything else but death and the need to escape.
He had to run but where?
Lionel is suddenly reminded of the passageway. Quickly, he moves swiftly and uses the wind to leap across the room, maneuvering around his foe while keeping a safe distance. He skillfully slips past the bull and dives towards the passageway when suddenly, he feels something strike and lash his back.
The harsh whip ripped through the back of his clothes, scarring and wounding his back with a clean slice.
Lionel lets out a loud, broken cry as he falls to his knees.
The pain is agonizing, a relentless burn tearing through his back. Shreds of skin were nearly torn away, dangling loosely by threads from his body. He could sense a warm liquid streaming down his back, drenching the fabric of his uniform.
He sobbed unbearably, glancing over his shoulder at the statue that lay in wait.
“AARGHH!!” His back throbbed, it felt as if it were on the verge of snapping.
With loud thunderous steps, Lionel grinds his teeth as he watches the statue return to its platform.
With a shaky hand, he tries to reach his back and cast a healing spell with what energy he can muster. Sparks of vibrant green struggle to stay alight, flickering with uncertainty. The overwhelming pain prevents him from concentrating and maintaining the spell.
Lionel pants heavily as his body falls, mind and body growing exhausted from the blood loss. Still, he tries. The green light continues to struggle and as a result of its perseverance, a number of smaller wounds start to heal and close.
Though it couldn’t heal all that was broken, Lionel felt that it was enough for now. He allows his arm to drop as he attempts to regain his composure. He can’t think, he didn’t want to. He just wanted to close his eyes and sleep through the burning feeling but he knew he couldn't.
His body is awake.
A part of him is screaming.
After a while, Lionel gets up with a hiss. He tried to heal himself again but it was fruitless, he was too tired and his mana was fluctuating. Lionel still had enough mana to cast as many spells as he wanted, but if he wanted to cast another spell properly, he needed to rest.
Lionel glares at the back of the statue, clicking his tongue.
The mage looks at the wall and moves himself slowly on the ground, leaning his head against the wall, groaning at his back making contact. He closes his eyes to rest but his mind is still wide awake.
I only got one right. How was I wrong in the other items? Was there something wrong with the calculations? The usage?
Time passes and the pocketwatch Lionel retrieves after resting revealed that two hours had passed.
Ten hours left.
The slot spits out another set of test papers. Still the same, but blank now.
He decides to leave the papers for now and investigate the passageway, yelling at himself for not checking the passage in the first place. He enters with a small flame and reaches a deadend.
“Could this be the entryway blocked?” It must be…Lionel attempts to break the wall but as expected, like the stone statue, it was unbreakable. Reluctantly, Lionel returns to the test area and answers the test all over again.
He moves back to the stone table, kneeling on the floor and looks through every question.
He analyzes everything, biting his lip to focus that it causes him to bleed.
He tries different answers to the questions he finds confusing or difficult. He was confident in his answers this time, but there was obviously something wrong. He reads everything again, hoping to find any hint from the questions or illustrations.
He rises again and inserts the papers into the slot.
[Lionel Wesholm - 87/100]
Nothing changed. However, Lionel decided to fight more aggressively this time, but he was whipped even before his test score was revealed. He screams, his voice growing raspy and his throat growing sore. He falls over, the number of cuts on his back increasing as the skin finally peeled off.
“AAARRHGG!!!”
Am I going to die like this?
I can’t! I can’t!
After a few deep breaths, Lionel gets back up again, heals whatever he could manage and moves to the desk after getting his test papers back. He doesn’t bother answering on the desk, but on the floor instead.
Think! Think Lionel! Come on! Remember the notes! The answers!
I’ll test this if I have to!
Most of the questions Lionel got wrong involved using mana.
Checking over the questions once more, Lionel casts different elemental spells, movement spells, healing spells and every spell that the test involves.
Fuck! I was off by a few seconds!
The concentration of a natural water spell is actually less!
The principles of biological balance parallels that of forces of mana!
Epiphanies and discoveries arrived one after another, and each one he writes on his paper.
But with each spell comes the cost of depleting his mana. If he fails the next one, would he have enough to heal himself? There’s absorbing mana from his environment, but the space was too closed and there was barely any life, the moss isn’t enough either. He could rest and naturally regain his mana, but that would take time and time wasn’t exactly on his side as of the moment.
He goes back to the slot, inserting the papers. Quickly, he moves out the way just in case—
[Lionel Wesholm - 89/100]
“AARRGH!!!”
Lionel could barely even let out his voice. Tears and snot fall all over, saliva dripping out of his mouth.
“...”
He stares at the wall in a haze.
It worked…as long as I continue to test and confirm my answers, I’ll eventually get a hundred…
He hears the papers fall onto the ground and forces his way over by crawling. He whimpers as he presses the pencil against the paper.
He takes his time with this one, to rest especially. However, instead of feeling like he was resting, he felt like he was about to lose consciousness any minute. He healed whatever he could, but he had to conserve as much mana as he could to confirm his answers.
He bit his tongue to focus on the pain, forcing his head and hand to write down and fill the blank spaces in the paper.
A total of four hours had passed at this point.
Eight hours left.
After rechecking, he slides the test paper into the slot.
[Lionel Wesholm - 90/100]
“ARGH!!” He screams as the whip digs into his back, digging into his already made wounds. It was like multiple blades inserting themselves into his larger cuts.
Fifteen minutes passed before he could gain a hold of himself and heal what he could. The green light is dim and his body grows unbelievably tired. It was like his very soul had been drained. The light grew dimmer and dimmer until it was no longer.
Lionel inhales deeply, groaning at the burn and stretch of his lungs.
Just a little more…just keep testing…
Lionel takes the pencil, answering the new sheets of paper—
SNAP
“...” No…No…No…
The clear fluid wouldn’t stop running down his cheeks as he realized what had happened. His pencil finally broke, the lead snapping off.
Lionel screams no matter how much his throat hurts in frustration.
Restoration Spell!
He wrapped his palms around the pencil, A burst of green light emerged from his hands until it flickered out…
Please restore! Please restore!
Lionel opens his hands to reveal that it had not worked.
“...”
He had no mana left.
“...”
“...”
“...”
Lionel inhales and exhales, closing his eyes as he pressed his fists holding the pencil against his forehead. A minute passes before he pulls his fists away and stares at the pencil.
“...”
He slid the pencil towards his teeth and began to bite, slice and nibble. Anything to sharpen it, anything to get the lead back. At this point, he didn’t care that his gums were bleeding, that blood trailed down his chin and neck, that he had to spit over and over again to prevent himself from choking.
Before he knew it, an hour passed.
“Yes…yes…” He managed to present a small smile even in a situation like this. He managed to sharpen his pencil but coughed in the process as the dust had gotten to his tongue. He could suffocate from the pencil’s fragments and bits at this point, but he didn’t have a choice. He coughed out, threw up, spit out, and did as much as he could. His throat burns and his stomach twists in unimaginable pain.
But he couldn’t stop.
Lionel then decided.
If he was going to die, at least he tried to do everything in power to win. That he never let the school get into his head. Deep down, he knew he couldn’t survive this. He didn’t have any mana left, he’s tired and on the verge of collapse and he wasn’t even sure if he was emotionally in check anymore.
He doesn’t know what to feel anymore.
But he couldn’t stop questioning himself and screaming in his head.
To check, to find hints, everything. To do anything to get to a hundred.
And so he answers.
And so he throws it in the slot of the stone bull mocking him with its glowing eyes.
[Lionel Wesholm - 92/100]
He expected this.
And he suspects that one more whip could end his life.
He’s on the floor, lying in crimson sheets. The ground was soaked and he could see pieces of his skin floating. He hears the paper out the slot and catches it before it falls into the red lake. He crawls out to the cleaner space, placing his papers down.
No…I’m losing consciousness.
He was surprised at himself that he was able to last this long. He answers slowly, thinks slowly and lets his mind wander to test it with imagination. He looks at his hand and flames flicker.
I should rest…but if I pass out now, I’ll die.
He had to calm down, to regain as much mana as he could.
Five more hours of agony passed.
He had two more hours to go.
The taste of blood is metallic, he spits it out, not wanting it to run down his throat. With what energy he had left both physically and mentally, he casts another spell to confirm his answer.
Think…Think…What is the answer for this? I don’t get it…I don’t know what this is…I can’t remember…
“...” The gun was dangerously close to his side. This is where it landed when he threw it.
Drop out…Just one bullet and everything will end.
Lionel looks at his test paper and the tears drop, making small puddles. Lionel sniffled and answered, casted another spell and answered again until he had no more mana left.
He forces his head to think as he finds himself in a daze, he pounds it against the floor to reopen old wounds from Jonathan’s punishment. He looks over the questions again, to get hints or anything that could help him. He thinks back to Eva’s notes, thinking of trigger words or keywords.
He had answered every calculation correctly.
He had illustrated everything correctly.
He had tested everything, used up all his mana just to answer all of these things.
I read everything…I just have to remember…I just have to test it again.
A total of eleven hours has passed at this point.
Lionel remembers a few terms, but wasn’t confident this time around. Were they exactly what the paper wanted? Lionel doesn’t know, but at this point…He doesn’t know if he can really continue on. He was close to losing consciousness, possibly dying.
“...” He smiles quietly to himself, accepting whatever the future may bring him. He wonders what he could’ve done to deserve this. Perhaps it was the events that took place in his former school…
Or maybe Kaius was right, maybe he just made a mistake and it had nothing to do with karma or anything of the sort.
Maybe…he really just made the wrong choice and that single choice costs his life.
And hey, Lionel thinks, That’s what life is like for some people…and that includes me.
Lionel slid the test papers into the slot and laid his head on the ground. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
The magic texts burst forth once more…
…
…
…
…
…
...
...
...
...
...
[Lionel Wesholm - 100/100]