Lucian snapped his eyes open. He was no longer in his container. He stood upon a vast, infinite black platform beneath a foreign sky. Above his head, instead of the familiar smog of the Lower City, an abyss had unfurled—studded with stars that looked like the eyes of indifferent Gods.
Around him, dozens of people were coalescing out of the void. Scavengers in tatters, bureaucrats in rumpled suits, terrified mothers clutching their children. In the distance, piercing through a thick gray fog, a pillar of blindingly white light erupted. The Lighthouse. The path to it led through a labyrinth.
Then, Lucian felt a weight in his right hand. The old lantern he had hauled from the scrap heap had somehow followed him here. But the moment Lucian focused his gaze on it, reality flickered before his eyes, yielding lines of system text.
[OBJECT: UNKNOWN]
[STATUS: POWER REQUIRED]
[NOTE: THIS ITEM IS NOT REGISTERED IN THE GENERAL DATABASE]
Lucian swallowed hard. This wasn't a hunger-induced hallucination. The interface was reading the lantern as something real, albeit unidentified. In a world where Skills and Incarnations cost lives, this hunk of metal might be his only chance to keep from croaking in the very first minute.
Suddenly, a man in a business suit roared, lunging toward the edge of the platform. He looked frantic.
"This is a joke! Let me out! Do you have any idea who my father is? I'm from the Third Sector of the Upper World! I'm not participating in your rat race!"
An old scavenger snapped back.
"Shut up, you idiot! The Gods don't give a damn about your father."
The crowd exploded into shouts. Women wept, and men shoved one another, trying to find logic in the unfolding madness. The protests swelled until they turned into a senseless wall of noise.
Soon, a man emerged from the fog. He was old, yet he looked stronger than anyone else present. His shoulders were broad, and his arms were as thick as logs. His physique recalled the woodcutters of ancient fairy tales, and in his right hand, he gripped a massive axe.
"Listen up, you cattle!"
The old man's voice cut through the din like a hammer striking an anvil.
"The Scenario has already begun. See that fog? It'll start shrinking in five minutes. Anyone left on the platform will become part of it."
He pointed his axe toward the labyrinth.
"I'm putting a group together. I want those ready to tear throats, not blow snot. We're going to the Lighthouse together. It's easier to survive the labyrinth in a pack."
The crowd began to scramble. Several sturdy youths immediately flanked the old man. Others, wealthier or more cunning, started huddling into their own teams, eyeing their neighbors with suspicion. In the Games of the Gods, an ally could turn into sacrificial meat in a split second.
Lucian remained standing apart. In the Lower City, solitude was like armor—the only thing that allowed one to keep both their loot and their life. While his thoughts drifted toward the Lighthouse and his own lantern, he became so lost in himself that he didn't notice the presence of another.
The old woodcutter was standing right in front of him. Up close, he seemed even more massive, and his eyes held an unexpected sharpness.
"Hey, kid."
The old man gestured toward the lantern in Lucian's hands.
"You look like a beaten dog, but that's an interesting thing you've got there. It's going to be darker than a demon's backside in that labyrinth. Does your lamp work?"
Lucian hesitated, tightening his grip on the handle.
"It... requires power. It isn't lit yet."
"Then we'll find something to feed it. Come with me. Loners are the first to die in the first Scenario, and I could use someone who watches his feet as carefully as you do. What's your name?"
"Lucian."
The old man gave a short chuckle, scanning his thin frame and worn jacket.
"Lucian? 'Light-bringer,' then. Strange name for someone living in a gutter. Were your parents some of those... old intellectuals?"
"I don't know. I found the name on a scrap of a book in a trash bin. I liked the way it sounded."
The old man nodded knowingly, and a flicker of something resembling respect crossed his stern gaze. In the Lower City, names were often given based on a sector number or a nickname earned in a brawl. To choose one's own name—and a name like that—was an act of quiet pride.
"Well then, Lucian-Who-Found-His-Name-In-The-Trash, I'm Bjorn. Let's move. Time's wasting."
They headed toward the main group gathered around Bjorn. It now numbered about ten people. Most looked like typical fodder—terrified and unarmed, ready to cling to any leader for a sense of safety.
Lucian's eyes slid over their faces, trying to memorize those who held any actual value.
First was a guy with a twitching eye, whom Bjorn introduced as Kai. Despite the nervous tic, he held a short shank made of rebar. Kai kept glancing back as if he expected a knife in the spine from his own teammates rather than monsters.
Next to him stood a silent woman in a grimy mechanic's jumpsuit—Mira. Her fingers, stained with grease, firmly gripped a heavy pipe wrench. In the Lower City, mechanics were worth more than gold; the fact that she was here in the first Scenario was either a divine error or a twisted joke.
A bit further off, maintaining his distance, stood a man in a rumpled but clearly expensive gray overcoat. Elias. His hands were shaking, but his eyes shone with the calculating mind of a man used to disposing of others' lives. He wasn't a fighter, but he was clearly the type to survive by stepping over his neighbor's corpse.
The remaining five or six people were just background noise to Lucian. He didn't bother learning their names or faces. In Sector Twelve, they always said you shouldn't get attached to those who likely wouldn't live to see dawn. Excess emotion only made the burden heavier, and Lucian already had enough weight to carry with the rusted lantern.
"Listen close," Bjorn's voice made the group jump. "Kai, you keep both eyes on our flanks. Mira, stay in the center in case something jams or we need to break a path. Elias... just stay out from underfoot and use your head if you spot a trap."
Then, the old man turned to Lucian.
"And you, kid, don't fall behind."
To everyone else, the lantern remained a useless piece of metal that Lucian lugged around out of some strange habit. Every one of them knew that in the Lower City, many went mad, clinging to sentimental trinkets before they died.
"Why are you hauling that junk?"
Kai muttered as they walked, his shoulder jerking as he gripped his shank.
"You're just wasting a hand. You'll need both to scramble over the rubble in the labyrinth."
"Habit," Lucian said shortly, without looking at him.
Elias, the official in the rumpled coat, merely grimaced in disgust, trying to keep his distance from the "filthy scavenger," but said nothing.
Meanwhile, the gray fog at the edge of the platform began to stir. It started to crawl onto the black surface, literally eating the space behind them. Squelching sounds followed, as if the mist were grinding stone to pulp.
"Move! Into the labyrinth!"
Bjorn commanded, and his squad marched toward the first passageway.
The moment they stepped over the invisible line, the world around them distorted.