The man walking beside him looked like a stranger draped in the remnants of someone Siege once called Father. Though not old by any proper assessment, the weight of years and sorrow etched deep lines across his face.
The dim fluorescent lights of the corridor caught the glint of moisture in his eyes, but he didn't let them fall. He walked with heavy feet, dragging each step like it might be his last. It made Siege's stomach twist in quiet shame.
The silence was unbearable, broken only by the hollow thud of boots against cold, sterile floors. Their escort, a young security officer clad in armor more ceremonial than useful, offered no words. He only glanced back at Siege now and again—those pitying eyes like nails tapping against a closed coffin.
They were heading toward Vault 17.
The walk was, paradoxically, both too short and far too long. Siege felt every footstep echo in his bones. Excitement gnawed at the edge of his fear, but beneath it all was a cold, creeping dread—a quiet certainty that this path ended not in triumph, but in silence.
His father's brown eyes, which Siege had inherited, brimmed with words unspoken. To him, this vault was no trial—it was a tomb. The reinforced concrete and steel walls surrounding them may as well have been a coffin, and the door they approached a gravestone.
What parent could endure such a thing?
There were no third options in this world. You either emerged reborn—deified, touched by the remnants of a god—or you were consumed by the eldritch rot. The price of failure was not just death, but a fate far crueler.
---
Over a century had passed since the Veil tore open and the world remembered the gods—not as divine shepherds, but as soldiers locked in a cosmic siege.
No one knew where the Eldritch came from, only that they arrived like parasites from the outer dark—foreign to comprehension and hostile to all life. They were not demons, not spirits, not invaders in any traditional sense. They were wrongness given form, a corruption that unraveled minds and rotted the world itself.
The war had no victors. Most of the gods died in madness and agony, leaving behind only fragmented echoes and blood-stained legacies. Earth itself was warped by the conflict; continents shifted, skies cracked, and the natural order was shattered.
To prevent total annihilation, the surviving pantheons established a final covenant: the Oracle System.
A vast, sentient relic of divine architecture, the Oracle operated independent of any living god, scanning the ruined planet for potential vessels—mortals worthy of inheritance. But where worth was uncertain, the system tested. Where the test was failed, the Oracle recycled.
Those consumed by failure became the Hollowed—wretched husks twisted by the eldritch remnants between realms. Mindless yet living, these things roamed the earth as vessels of rage and hunger, ever yearning to be whole again.
The Cataclysm, known now as Ragnarok, was not merely an event—it was a wound that still bled.
---
Siege had never dreamed of becoming a god.
He had no noble lineage, no celestial blood, no pedigree. He was the son of a trashman and the street.
At fourteen, he'd left school to work whatever jobs the slums offered, trading education for sustenance. His father had raged against this decision with a fury born of love, screaming through tears that Siege had never seen. At least not then.
Now, they stood at the edge of the Oracle, and his father was silent.
The signs had come just days earlier. The blackouts. The slipping away. The waking up somewhere unfamiliar, mouth dry, time lost. Symptoms of being chosen. Rare an fatal, yet life changing.
To be chosen was to lay your essence as a person bare. You either rose—or you broke.
---
Soon they stood within the steel-clad vault, the atmosphere felt like standing at the edge of the world.
Guards—silent and expressionless—secured Siege to a gurney with metal clasps that clicked like locks on a cell. Though the bed resembled that of a hospital, its frame was forged from high-density combat steel, designed not to restrain a person, but to hold back whatever might emerge.
Even the walls were armor. Reinforced inch by inch, they bore no windows, no softness. Only rivets, bolts, and ancient wards scorched into the surface.
They were not here to protect Siege.
They were here to protect the world from him.
The vault door creaked open, letting in a man whose very presence reeked of attrition. Mid-forties, clad in black, with a badge that looked heavy on his chest. His hair was streaked with silver, his eyes dull with familiarity—he had seen many enter this room. Few had ever left.
"How old are you, kid?" he asked without preamble.
"Seventeen."
"Name?"
"Siegfried."
"Good name," the man said. "I'm James."
Siege tried to smile, adjusting on the bed, but the chains pulled taut. "Where I'm from, we name kids after heroes. Hoping some of it sticks. You can call me Siege."
James gave a tired smile. "Well, Siege, let's talk about what's ahead. What do you know of the Oracle?"
"Not much. Trial starts. Monsters appear. Either I win or I die."
James nodded. "Almost right. But there's more. The Oracle assigns you a legacy—a fragment of divine memory. A god's shadow, a myth, even a forgotten hero. That legacy will shape your trial."
Siege's heart beat faster. "What if it's… not a warrior?"
James's voice lowered, solemn. "Then you adapt. Quickly. Trials come in two forms—mythic and unique. Mythic quests mimic the stories of old. Complete the myth, and you're done. Unique quests? They're... custom. No clear goals. The Oracle decides when you're finished."
Siege blinked, his vision swimming. It was getting harder to focus.
"Listen," James continued, stepping closer, "if your trial starts and you don't check your legacy, you'll die. Not just physically—existentially. You'll lose yourself to something that wears your skin. That's what the Oracle leaves behind."
Siege's thoughts scattered, and the officer's voice grew faint.
"If you fall... we kill you. Fast. It's a mercy."
The darkness pressed in. The restraints felt miles away. The voice that spoke next was not James's, nor his father's.
It was older. Hungrier. Sadder.
It sounded like a scream underwater. A chorus echoing across ruined temples and blood-stained altars. A whisper in the roots of the earth.
[Prepare thy soul for the Awakening.]
[Legacy selected…]
[Trial Initiation: *The Nameless Pilgrimage*]
And then Siege fell into the darkness.