LOCATION: OFF-WORLD TRANSPORT STATION
AREA: ASHEN CITY, NOCTURNUS
STARDATE: 4205771x27 | TIME: MID-DAY
---
System Message:
The following events occurred outside the area observed by the System. This historical Record was reconstructed from a memory archive voluntarily released after the subject Trevor Gant’s return.
---
Three days in the stuffy room with nothing to do felt like an eternity for Trevor, but he stayed put and did not risk venturing out.
He would have plenty of time to gather intelligence once he was recognized officially as a citizen of this dark planet.
But for those three long days, he meditated. He would pause to eat and drink water, then go back to it, tracking the passing of time on his internal clock.
The food labeled simply “Protein Meal” was as he had expected: bland as hell. It was a small cut of unseasoned meat, three short stalks of a root vegetable, and three round slices of a potato-like tuber.
He tried traveling to Dawnhollow, but apparently being cut off from the System meant his way to travel to the other world was also unavailable.
On the third day, the morning bell woke him. Trevor ate one more of the meals and checked his status. The stats screen was limited, showing only the most basic information. But it was enough.
---
Character Status
LIMITED
Name: Trevor Gant
Class: Hollow Mantle
Level 100
Active Persona: Charismatic Paragon
Health: 6,000 / 6,000
Stamina: 4,000 / 4,000
Mana: 14,856 / 14,856
Extra Mana Pool: 12,000 / 12,000
Core Attributes (Stats):
Strength: 400
Dexterity: 400
Endurance: 400
Vitality: 400
Intelligence: 1,238
Wisdom: 1,238
Charisma: 1,895
Perception: 1,422
---
Trevor couldn’t help but smile.
At Level 100, his stats were supposed to be capped at 1,000 but somehow Varris’s powerful persona slot allowed them to expand beyond the allowable threshold.
Still, Trevor knew that with Varris having been thousands of years old, these were not the Mage’s true stats. They were merely a representation of his power.
He meditated a few more hours, until he heard people outside his room in the Station.
He edged the door open and peeked down the hallway, giving him a good view of what was happening out there.
At first it was only members of the Black Guard, but within a half hour there were more administrators. They took their places at desks and turned on tablets, preparing for the arrival of the next off-world transport.
The sound of a large ship landing let Trevor know it was finally time to make his move.
Hundreds of people exited the giant transport, and the Guard formed them into neat lines.
Nobody spoke as they patiently awaited their turn.
Trevor waited until the nearest Guard was distracted, and slipped into the line.
The woman he stood behind turned, but he pressed his finger to his lips and smiled. She bowed her head slightly and turned back toward the front.
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When Trevor arrived at the desk, a woman dressed in the customary black fabrics, but with a star pinned to her shoulder looked him up and down.
“Do you possess any illnesses?”
Trevor shook his head. “I do not.”
“What is your designation?”
Trevor wasn’t sure what that meant, so he said the first thing that came to mind.
“Varris.”
She typed something on a rudimentary tablet, and waited. Then she looked up at him.
“You’re not on the list, Varris. Why are you here?”
She was about to wave one of the Guards over, but Trevor used Insidious Charm again.
He felt a rush of power infuse his voice as he spoke in a low voice.
“I am here to apprentice under the Portal Mages. You will assign me to them and provide housing.”
She stared blankly. One of the Guards noticed something was amiss and began walking over. He withdrew his baton from his belt.
Then, she suddenly shook her head as if to clear it of something.
“Apologies. Yes, I see you here. Let me just assign you to the Portal Technology Group.”
She typed a few more commands just as the Guard arrived.
“What is going on here?” he asked.
The clerk blushed.
“Apologies, sir. This is Varris. He is a VIP sent directly from the Empire to apprentice with Portal Tech. Could you show him to his lodging?”
She held up the tablet, and the Guard stood straighter.
“Yes. I am sorry, Varris. I didn’t realize—”
Trevor smiled. “Think nothing of it. Take me to my new home.”
As Trevor followed the Guard through the dreary streets, he realized he would now have to become Varris. He noted the rush of excitement he felt at the notion, but it also concerned him.
He wondered how long he would need to keep this up. Staying in the same Persona too long had consequences, and Varris’s personality was absolutely intoxicating.
But he also knew that his mission was far too important.
Those with the Hollow Mantle class had to relinquish the persona slots regularly, or risk losing their own minds.
He resolved to do this every night in the privacy of his own residence.
It was a promise to himself that would become increasingly harder to keep as time wore on.
The Black Guard did not speak for most of the way, but when they entered a new residential district, it was like the floodgates opened.
“This is the Upper District,” he said. “You have been assigned to Home Sixteen. It’s right this way.”
The streets were laid out in a perfectly symmetrical grid, and it took another twenty minutes of walking to arrive at Trevor’s new residence.
The Guard never stopped talking during that time.
“So what’s it like at the Empire?”
Trevor mumbled something generic.
“You must have been a promising student to be assigned to the Nocturnus Portal group.”
Finally Trevor had enough. He stopped walking and turned toward the Guard.
“Of course I’m a promising student. Now quit your endless babbling and do your job. I could do without the endless commentary.”
The Guard flushed. Trevor wasn’t sure if it was anger or embarrassment, and he wondered for a moment if he had overstepped.
But then the Guard apologized.
“I am sorry. It’s just the members of Portal Tech are the highest ranked VIPs we have. I apologize for my overly familiar tone. It won’t happen again.”
He didn’t snap to be cruel. The more the Guard talked, the more likely it was, statistically, that Trevor would give something away. No, silence was a better alternative.
At last, they arrived at a house. The homes in this area weren’t fancy by any stretch, but they were decidedly less rickety than those back on Shale Street.
The Guard stepped onto the raised porch and turned the knob, pushing the door open.
“This is it, sir. Home Sixteen, Upper District. I’ll wait here while you check it out. I hope it’s up to your standards.”
Trevor nodded and entered, intentionally closing the door behind him. In the Guard’s face.
He chuckled quietly.
He spent a few minutes looking around. Everything was still black, of course, but there was actually a variety of food stocked in the pantry, and one critical improvement that made Trevor smile: Alcohol.
He turned and walked back out front.
“This will do,” Trevor said. “Please take me to Portal Tech.”
“Yes, sir.”
It was a short walk, but the building they approached was the largest one Trevor had seen yet in the Ashen City.
The Guard opened the door and allowed Trevor to enter first.
Another twenty minutes of bureaucratic nonsense, and Trevor finally stood in front of his new boss. Or teacher. Whatever.
“So you’re the promising new student they apparently didn’t feel the need to tell me about,” the man said.
He looked Trevor up and down, then held up a scanner to Trevor’s head. His eyes narrowed.
“How?” he asked. He pressed a button on the scanner and did it again.
“How do you possess almost 37,000 mana?”
Trevor shrugged, but dared not speak. He had no idea what the scanner was measuring, and didn’t want to give anything away.
The teacher ran the scan a third time, then he set it down and laughed.
“Relax. You’re more than a promising student, aren’t you? You’re a fucking prodigy.”
He leaned in, and Trevor wanted to recoil at the man’s putrid breath.
“And I’m going to shape you into the best Portal Mage the Empire has ever seen. I’m Magister Kallus.”
Trevor bowed slightly. “Varris.”
Kallus laughed again.
“And so you are. We begin now. The next three weeks will be grueling, but if you dedicate yourself, you will see quick improvement.”
He handed Trevor a tablet.
“Read all of the modules starting with the first one. You must understand the theory first before we get into the technology. You have three weeks, then we will begin the hands-on work.”
And Trevor did just that. They provided a surprisingly comfortable armchair where he sat reading the tablet day after day.
It started with a very high level introduction to the physics of portals. Then, things got even more interesting.
Because next up was history.
The history of the Obsidian Empire came first. Then, the reason behind their extreme push for portal technology.
Big shocker: it was about resources. About endless imperial expansion.
It was full of propaganda mixed in with historical facts.
Indoctrination.
The history of the Empire was a horrifying and eye-opening subject.
And it was so much worse than even Rin knew.