Chapter 16: Is It A Trap?

  A few days slipped by, the hours bleeding into one another in muted tones of gray.

  Sym fell into a rhythm, as his actions were mostly repetitive.

  Every morning, he trained with Evin.

  The sessions were brutal, tedious, and ced with mockery, but Sym endured them without outward compint.

  Each swing of his greatsword carved new muscle into his frame, every corrected stance honed a deeper instinct for violence.

  After Evin dismissed him with the usual sneer, Sym would remain behind in the HQ’s gym, grinding through another hour of self-imposed regimen: resistance drills and stamina circuits.

  Then he'd return to his rented room above Richie’s bar, where he would shed the armor of movement and slip into meditation and yoga, quiet rituals of breathing, bance, and mental steel.

  It became his constant.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.

  He rarely spoke to anyone beyond curt greetings and tactical replies. All the other Faux lived their own different lives in other parts of Zone 9, apart from Trey and Caleb, who would greet him here and there but remained to themselves otherwise; the others were much more reclusive. It seems that with the rise of these so-called "Jitters" throughout the settlement, people are afraid of it being contagious.

  Only Sage filled the silence of his days, the AI's calm voice threading through his mind like a wire anchored to sanity. It felt difficult to remain positive and have the same easy-going lifestyle and mindset, enjoying life and wondering which pnt he would fly to next.

  Here, he felt pressured to improve, toppled with the misery surrounding him; only Sage could keep him from going crazy.

  But even as the routine solidified around him, Sym noticed the cracks in the fa?ade.

  Small things.

  Men in the settlement whose shadows twitched in the wrong direction. Women who spoke in two voices when they thought no one was listening.

  Children drawing symbols in the dust, patterns Sym couldn't recognize, but Sage fgged as non-random.

  He walked through the alleys as the red mist above the slums grew heavier. He noticed that it was becoming thicker each night.

  At first, Sym thought it was his imagination, just the usual heaviness of mist and smoke rolling over the slums.

  But Sage noticed it, too.

  "Spectral analysis confirms the presence of anomalous particute matter," the AI whispered in his mind one night. "Composition unknown. Energy signature matches previous corruption attempts."

  Sym stared upward from the cracked streets, hidden beneath the hood of his coat.

  The mist above wasn’t natural.

  It was faint, like a yer of red ash brushed thinly across the heavens, barely visible unless you knew to look for it.

  But it was there, and every night it grew a little heavier, a little darker, bleeding into the corners of the settlement’s walls like an infection.

  On the same nights the mist thickened, Sym noticed something else.

  The walls of the buildings outside changed too.

  Spray paint, crudely done but full of desperate precision, bloomed across the cracked concrete.

  Symbols. Words. Warnings.

  Ragged slogans scrawled across the edges of alleys and abandoned homes:

  The Obelisk Blinds You.

  The Order Chains Your Soul.

  This Settlement Is A Cage.

  Awaken Without Permission, Be The Hand Of Humanity.

  Freedom Lies Beyond The Walls.

  No names. Only the heresies, painted fast and raw, like a scream muffled beneath a pillow.

  Sage cataloged every instance.

  "Message patterns indicate organized resistance. No consistent tagging style. Probability suggests decentralized cells or unaligned individuals."

  Sym would walk past the fresh graffiti at night, pretending not to notice.

  But he noticed.

  Everyone did.

  Most people averted their eyes, pretending it wasn’t there.

  No one talked about it openly.

  But Sym couldn’t stop wondering: Who was behind it? Why now? And what exactly were they trying to do?

  The more questions raised, the more he learned.

  Today, Sym had other pns.

  He tightened the bck coat he’d purchased during his downtime, a simple thing, functional, low-profile. No fshy pieces. No high colrs. Nothing that would draw eyes.

  Sage whispered in his mind, her tone cautious.

  “Probability analysis: 32% chance of trap. 68% chance of unknown discovery. Tactical recommendation: proceed with maximum caution.”

  Sym smirked faintly.

  “Always do.”

  He slipped the stone compass from his pocket.

  The bck needle twitched in its housing, tugging in a clear direction.

  No time like the present.

  Sym moved quietly through the broken streets, his hand brushing the stone compass, its bck needle twitching faintly as he advanced.

  Zone 9 had been a hellhole, but Zone 10 was something worse.

  Dumpster fires smoldered between the leaning skeletons of buildings. Street mps flickered and died one by one, casting the alleys into a gloom thick enough to drown in.

  The smell of burnt oil, rotting food, and human waste clung to every cracked stone and broken window.

  Bodies y in the corners of alleys, skeletal and still.

  Sym couldn’t even tell if some of them were breathing.

  He slowed his steps, boots crunching through debris, and let his eyes scan the shadows.

  “Sage.”

  “Active.”

  “Scan the area. Life signs?”

  There was a pause, then a hollow response.

  “Minimal. Many are on the edge of systemic failure. Starvation, disease, and possible neural degradation.”

  Sym grimaced, though he kept walking.

  He wasn’t a hero. There was nothing he could do for these people. Their rot was built into the bones of the settlement.

  Still, the question nagged at him.

  “Sage,” he murmured, eyes flicking to a group of figures huddled against a rusted pipeline, “can you detect if the corruption’s affecting them?”

  Another pause.

  “Direct detection: Negative. However... Particute saturation in Zones 9 and 10 are at hazardous levels. Probability of long-term corruption exposure affects: High.”

  Sym tightened his jaw.

  Even inside the walls.

  Even under the "protection" of the Obelisk.

  They were dying anyway, rotting from the inside out.

  "Is it better in the other zones?" he asked quietly.

  Sage responded with unsettling calm.

  “Unknown. Fictional literature suggests marginally improved conditions in Zones 1 through 8. However, systemic corruption appears non-localized. Infection likely persists, merely better hidden.”

  Sym nodded to himself.

  Of course, it was.

  And the compass still pulled him forward.

  The compass led him to a crumbling house at the edge of Zone 10, a ruin barely standing, its windows shattered, its door hanging loose from one hinge.

  Sym stood in front of it for a moment, silent.

  The compass needle quivered, then locked, pointing straight inside.

  He moved carefully through the threshold, boots crunching over broken gss and old bones. He walked around rotten furniture frames that seemed to almost be unrecognizable, and strange puddles that released a sulfuric smell that made Sym's nose tingle.

  At the center of the ruined living space was an ancient well.

  The stones were worn smooth by time, and the air above it stale and cold.

  He gnced down.

  “Sage?”

  “Scanning.”

  A pause.

  “There’s a hidden access point. Roughly one meter down the well shaft, a metal dder is attached to the inner wall. Door below.”

  Sym slid down carefully, gripping the rungs, every muscle tense.

  The smell grew worse: old rot, stagnant water, rusted metal.

  When he reached the door, he pulled it open with effort, the hinges shrieking in protest.

  Beyond it stretched a narrow tunnel, dark and suffocating.

  The compass flickered once, then pointed steadily deeper into the bckness as its faint light intensified lightly as if reacting to the darkness.

  Sym exhaled slowly.

  No turning back now.

  He moved forward, each step echoing off unseen walls.

  The tunnel wound onward, then split into five passageways, mouths yawning open like broken teeth.

  Sym checked the compass. The needle veered slightly, pointing toward the fourth tunnel.

  Without hesitation, he entered.

  The air grew heavier with every step. The darkness thickened, pressing against his skin.

  The smell was worse now, a chemical rot undercut by something sweet and sour, like decayed flowers.

  When he reached the end, there was another door, half-rotted but still intact.

  He pushed it open.

  And what y beyond stole his breath.

  A lost world.

  A massive underground space stretched out before him, ancient, crumbling, abandoned.

  Broken shacks leaned against crumbling stone walls. Rusting machinery poked from piles of debris.

  Graffiti covered every surface. Some slogans Sym recognized from the surface; others were written in nguages and symbols he didn’t understand.

  Sage’s voice hummed in his mind, low and warning.

  “Environmental dating indicates this site is over a few centuries old. High levels of decay. Structural instability is probable. No immediate life signs... but caution advised.”

  Sym stepped cautiously into the forgotten hollow, the compass still pulsing faintly at his side.

  Why here? Why lead him to this pce?

  He tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword, senses fring open.

  Sym moved through the forgotten hollow with cautious steps, the compass held loosely at his side, its needle jittering now like a thing afraid.

  He swept his gaze across the ruins, eyes sharp, mind calcuting.

  There were signs of long-dead occupation everywhere.

  The compass pulled him toward one structure in particur.

  A small house, half-buried in rubble, its door sagging open on broken hinges.

  And around it were skeletons.

  Dozens of them.

  Some y in twisted heaps, others curled against the walls as if trying to flee.

  The air was colder here, somehow heavier.

  Sage murmured in his mind, her voice low and tense.

  “This might be a trap.”

  Sym nodded but proceeded forward.

  The house’s interior was a shattered skeleton of what it once was, with mold climbing the walls like a living thing.

  In the dim light, something caught his eye.

  A painting.

  It leaned crookedly against the far wall, half-broken, half-faded with age. Its surface was cracked like dry earth, its colors bleeding into a dull mess.

  But the image still held.

  A creature. Unlike anything Sym had ever seen.

  It had the body of a shriveled monkey, but where its eyes should be were spiraled, snail-like stalks, twitching slightly even within the painting. Its mouth was split into a grotesque grin, fnked by jagged saber teeth.

  Its arms were long and sickly, ending in hooked cws, and a bony tail writhed behind it like a whip.

  Sym stared, unease coiling in his gut.

  “Sage?”

  “Scanning.”

  A pause.

  Then Sage’s voice sharpened:

  “Cursed artifact detected. System traces present. This object triggers an activation protocol when exposed to living energy.”

  …

  [Item: Skurul Creation Painting]

  Grade: None

  Description: A painting created by a twisted mind wishing to unleash his nightmare into the world.

  …

  Sym’s mouth dried.

  The painting shuddered violently.

  Cracks split across the canvas like lightning bolts. Dust sprayed into the air as the frame trembled.

  And then, something crawled out.

  The creature peeled itself from the painting with an awful wet sound, its snail-eyes twitching independently and more frantic now, its hooks scraping against the cracked floor.

  It let out a hiss, a sound like steam escaping a dying machine.

  Sym stepped back, sword half-drawn in instinct.

  “So this was a trap?” he hissed.

  Sage’s voice cut through the rising terror:

  “Combat protocols advised. Prepare for engagement.”

  Sym tightened his grip on the hilt.

  The ruins around him felt suddenly smaller.