As Colin split off from his partner Leah and their new friend Valerie, he couldn’t help but gnce back, a flicker of worry gnawing at him. They’ll be okay... right?
He exhaled slowly, forcing the thought away.Mallory—and Elliot Voss, for that matter—wouldn't put anyone through more than they could handle. They had to trust the process. Plus that message from The System said they couldn’t die in here, so there’s that.
He pressed forward, following the pulsing dot on his interface map.
The path led him through winding woods until he reached a clearing where ancient ruins y ahead. The pulsing light guided him straight toward them, before slowly fading out—marking his arrival.
Colin paused, taking in the scene.The ruins resembled something Roman: an aging stone ptform, worn pilrs, and a faded bronze door set into a crumbling wall at the far end—obviously his ultimate target. Thirty feet out from the wall, a polished stone ptform stretched in a half-circle, bordered by the skeletal remains of standing columns. Time had clearly taken its toll here.
He scanned the area, peering for other ways around, but the wall and the door were the only path forward. Everything else was blocked by rubble and colpsed stone.
“Well,” Colin muttered, cracking his neck, “let’s see what twenty-six Strength can do.”
He approached the bronze door—and the three massive pilrs that had fallen to block the way.But as he studied them more carefully, he realized brute force wouldn't cut it.
The pilrs leaned precariously against each other. Roll one away recklessly, and the others would cascade down on top of him.
I guess this is more of a puzzle than a test of strength.
He slowed down, scrutinizing the rubble for anything useful. A glint of metal caught his eye—something tucked among the colpsed stones. Carefully, he dug it out, prying a heavy iron bar free without disturbing the delicate bance of the fallen columns.
Leverage... good. But how to apply it?
As he inspected the wall, he noticed two tiny footholds near the door—barely more than indentations worn by time.
A pn began to form.
Clutching the bar, he climbed up cautiously, steadying himself against the wall.He found the second foothold, then hoisted himself into a precarious position above the doorframe.
From there, he could see it clearly:The topmost pilr was the keystone. Dislodge it properly, and the others would colpse safely out of the way.
He braced the metal bar between the beams, wedging it into the sweet spot, and pushed hard.The second pilr wobbled, shifted—then fell.
Just as the top beam dislodged, Colin's footing slipped.
He tumbled down with the colpsing stone, nding awkwardly atop the falling pilrs.
For a long moment, he y still.
Then, with a grimace, he pulled himself up, checking for injuries. His leg ached sharply—but even as he inspected it, he watched the torn skin knit itself back together.The pain faded away in under a minute.
Colin grinned, shaking his head.“That could’ve gone better... but it wasn’t so bad in the end.”
He turned back to the now-exposed bronze door.
No visible traps. No runes.Just a heavy, ancient door—and an ornate handle.
He reached out, grabbed the knob, turned it, and pushed.
Colin Mercer stepped through the bronze door—and immediately froze.
Ahead of him stretched a ptform no more than ten feet deep, before it dropped away into a yawning ravine.Far below, water shimmered in the dim light, but from this height, Colin had no intention of testing its depth the hard way.
He looked up.
Above him, a series of iron bars spanned the gap from his side of the ravine to the other—like a set of oversized monkey bars suspended high over the abyss.
Strength test, he thought grimly. Or endurance? Maybe both.
Seeing no other way forward, he crouched, sprang up, and caught the first bar overhead.The bars were just high enough that his legs dangled two feet above the ptform. He swung himself slightly, testing the structure.It held.
No turning back now.
Gripping tightly, he began making his way hand-over-hand across the open void.
Halfway across, his fingers were burning.
He paused, briefly considering whether he could hoist himself atop the bars and crawl the rest of the way.A quick gnce downward—to the long fall and cold water below—made him think better of it.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed on, moving one rung at a time.
Two-thirds of the way across, the fire in his arms and shoulders became nearly unbearable.Colin had been a bodybuilder for over twenty years, pushing himself through countless brutal sessions in the gym.And yet, he thought, this... this is something else.
His entire body screamed in protest as he neared the far ptform.
With one final, excruciating effort, he swung forward and dropped heavily onto solid stone.
He y there, panting, sweat dripping into his eyes, his linen tunic pstered to his body.The stone beneath him was warm from the morning sun, but it felt blessedly solid and unmoving.
As his breathing slowed—faster than he expected, actually, thanks to The System's enhancements—Colin stared up at the clear sky, letting the trembling in his muscles fade.
Then a troubling thought surfaced:
Am I going to have to come back the same way?
He grimaced, closing his eyes against the thought.
I really don’t want to do that again...
Finally, Colin roused himself, wiped the st of the sweat from his forehead, and opened the next bronze door—identical to the one he'd entered before.
Beyond it, he found a rge, open room.
The floor stretched out before him, paved with two-foot marble squares in alternating shades of white and gray—like an oversized chessboard, though the palette was muted, softer.
Next to the doorway, sitting on a stone pedestal, rested a shield.
It was bronze in color, matching the doors, and mostly circur—except for a deliberate, rounded indentation carved into the top left edge.
Colin grinned.
“This is interesting,” he muttered aloud. “Reminds me of the old Roman shields—the kind that let you thrust a spear while still blocking. And even better—" he flipped it easily in his hand, "—The System must know I’m left-handed. The shield’s made for the right arm.”
He picked it up and hefted it into position.
The weight was substantial enough to trust in combat, but not so heavy it would tire him from carrying it.
As he marveled at the bance, a System Notification fshed across his vision:
---
System Message
A shield in the right hands can protect as well as attack.
---
“What?”
Across the room, Colin heard a mechanism whir into motion.The bronze exit door—his apparent goal—was now covered by a heavy stone wall.
Great.Guess we're doing this the hard way.
Focusing forward, Colin stepped carefully onto a white marble square.
Immediately, a faint hissing sound came from his right.
He turned instinctively, shield raised—and thwip!—deflected a dart that had been speeding toward him.
Oddly, the dart disappeared the moment it struck the shield.Even odder—Colin felt something: a jolt of pressure absorbed by the shield, as if it had swallowed the attack.
He froze, thinking hard.
Okay. Step triggers dart. Shield absorbs dart... somehow. Probably not coincidence.
Maybe if I step only on the gray squares...
He shifted onto the nearest gray tile—and another hiss sounded, this time from behind.He spun, keeping his bance carefully, and blocked a second dart with practiced speed. Again, the dart vanished on impact—and again, he felt a faint pulse through the shield.
Maybe... two whites, two grays?
Step by step, Colin worked his way across the board.
Each wrong step—another dart.Each impact—another pulse stored inside the shield.
By the time he reached the far side, he'd deflected ten darts.(Of course he’d counted. This was some badass shit—and he couldn't wait to tell Leah about it ter.)
Just beyond the edge of the marble board, a single bck square stood isoted.
Past it, Colin now saw it clearly: the stone wall blocking the door had a bronze circle—small, one inch across—at its center.
Not a button. Not a target. Just a mark.
Alright, he thought, gncing around.Time to see if I guessed right.
He stepped onto the bck square.
Instantly, the shield vibrated faintly in his hand—an unmistakable reaction.
Colin turned the shield toward the wall—and without consciously willing it, a beam of pure kinetic energy nced out, striking the bronze dot dead center.
The mechanism whirred to life.The heavy stone wall retracted back into the floor, revealing the bronze door once more.
Colin whistled low.
“Neat. This shield is pretty handy.”
He stepped forward—and as he reached the threshold, another chime sounded in his mind.
---
System Message
Well done, Colin Mercer.
Your reflexes serve you well.
+5 DEX
Continue to discover more of your path.
---
The next room had a simir pedestal—but this time, a spear waited for him.
I knew it. A spear. I hope I’m not just turning into some Roman legionnaire or something...
Colin grinned despite himself, stepping forward, spear in hand, shield at the ready.
He now stood in a circur chamber roughly a hundred feet in diameter.Across the room, two bronze statues stood silently, each holding a rge shield braced in front of their torsos.No visible weapons. No obvious path forward.
Of course, behind them—another door. His target.
Dropping into a low combat stance, Colin rested the spear across the top of his shield and advanced cautiously.
A hissing sound snapped from his left.
He spun, shield raised—just in time to intercept a bst of pure kinetic force, simir to the beam he’d fired in the previous room.
Ok, so I can collect the energy again.
As he steadied himself, he noticed something new:When the shield absorbed the attack, a small light flickered to life along the shield’s edge.
Interesting.
A few cautious steps forward—and another hiss, another bst.Another successful block.Another light illuminated.
He had the sense that there were five such lights spaced around the shield’s circumference.
When the fourth light activated, Colin was much closer to the statues.
He paused, weighing his options.
Maybe one more charge... then bst the statue?
He held position, absorbing a fifth kinetic bst, the final light glowing into readiness.
Then he turned sharply toward the leftmost statue—and mentally triggered the release.
A sharp bst of stored force struck the statue’s shield, knocking it violently to the ground.
As the shield cttered away, Colin spotted a familiar mark—A small, one-inch bronze circle at the center of the statue’s chest.
No hesitation, he rushed forward and drove his spear into the target.
The statue disintegrated instantly—along with the discarded shield.
Simple enough once you figure it out, he thought.
Returning to the center of the chamber, he repeated the process:Five charges. Bst. Strike.
The second statue crumbled like the first.
And the door behind them swung open.
When Colin pushed through the final door, he froze.
Before him was his office at Craylock CyberDefense—perfectly reconstructed.
Except for one gring difference:
A red siren fshed above his desk, pulsing urgently.Breach detected.
Colin dropped his spear and shield without thinking and sprinted to the desk.
Diagnostics screens already flickered to life around him.
His hands flew across the keys, pulling up system logs, intrusion detection reports, packet histories.
Where’s the breach?What protocol failed?Where—
Suddenly, a line of code blinked at him—wrong.It didn’t belong. It wasn’t even trying to hide.
Colin isoted it, fingers poised to purge——and a soft click echoed behind him.
A hidden door slid open in the office wall.
And in walked Elliot Fucking Voss.
The red siren ceased its pulsing. Silence fell.
Colin stared in amazement as the old man casually pulled out the chair across from his desk and sat down, as if this were just another Monday meeting.
“Colin,” Voss said, smoothing his coat sleeves, “it’s good to see you again. I had Ronan embed this sequence into your personal Tutorial. There were... a few things I needed to tell you—and nowhere safe enough to do it before now.”
Curiosity overwhelmed Colin’s amazement.He leaned forward over the desk.
“It’s really great to see you too, Mr. Voss. I knew we were working on some incredible tech, but all this?” Colin gestured around at the surreal office. “Color me impressed.”
Voss chuckled, that same easy warmth Colin remembered.
“Truly. You can start to imagine now how many moving pieces we had to marshal together for all of this to fall into pce.
I’m sorry you couldn’t be part of the first wave. I wanted you there. But I needed someone I could trust to keep all systems—including The System itself—protected until the first cohort completed induction and the data arks came online.”
Colin ughed.
“Ronan mentioned that when we were prepping the uptime spikes. Said you wished I could’ve gone through first.
Honestly? I may be loving every minute of this now, but... I’m not compining about skipping that first ride.”
Voss grinned mischievously.
“Looking at you, I never took you for a coward, Colin.”
They ughed, easing some of the tension.
For a few minutes they traded stories—about Grimwatch, about the early system stabilization work—until Voss’s face turned serious again.
“Colin,” he said, voice low, “soon the Profession paths will open. And once the global rollout happens, the working world will change for everyone.”
He pointed directly at Colin.“Everyone except you.This recorded sequence unlocks a back channel into The System—one only you will be able to access. Ronan’s teams can make surface improvements, cosmetic patches... but the core code, the foundation buried deep in the data arks’ substructures?Only you can modify it.”
Colin leaned back, exhaling slowly.The weight of it settled on him like a physical thing.
“Why me?” he asked, incredulous.“What do you expect me to do with that kind of access?”
Voss chuckled again.“First? I certainly hope you won’t delete the whole thing.”
His face grew more serious.“But truly—you’re a guardian now.Eventually you’ll see: hackers on Earth won’t be our only threat.
Keeping The System not just running, but benevolent, will depend on fending off forces from... farther afield.”
Colin’s eyebrows shot up. He stood instinctively, knocking his chair back.
“Are you talking about aliens or something? Come on, Boss, I mean—”
Voss held up a hand.
“Colin. With everything you know...
Can you really still believe we’re the only intelligent life in the universe—or the multiverse?”
He let it hang, heavy in the air.
“Think about it. What would be the prize for taking over The System?
Control of eight billion souls on a resource-rich pnet.
The ability to ensve an entire species through a single captured interface.”
Colin swallowed, the enormity sinking in.
Voss’s voice hardened.
“We need you, Colin Mercer, to be the st bastion guarding the Gates of Hell.”
The room seemed to grow heavier, darker around them.
After a long moment, Voss continued more gently:
“The Round Table is entrusted with five critical tasks for humanity’s survival.But you, Mallory, and Graham—you’ll safeguard everything against forces external to humanity.”
He leaned forward, hands folded.“It may be a long time before it happens. I pray humanity is ready by then.”
Colin’s voice was quiet.“Are you talking like… Incursions?”
Voss nodded.“Yes.You’ll learn more. I left additional modules hidden inside your path.They’ll trigger automatically as you progress. No need to seek them out. Just keep moving forward.”
Colin nodded solemnly, the weight of his new role settling fully across his shoulders.
Voss’s expression softened slightly.“But there’s one more thing you need to understand.”
He leaned back, gesturing to the room itself.“The data arks are vital. But they’re centralized. Vulnerable.The long-term pn is this:First, we embed portions of The System’s load into the satellite network. Redundancy through orbit.Eventually, we’ll push a patch to every integrated individual—eight billion distributed processing nodes. Humanity itself will become the cloud housing The System.”
Colin’s eyes widened.“You’ll build the world's first true living distributed system.”
Voss smiled.“Exactly. Three yers: Arks. Satellites. Humanity itself.”
His voice grew grave once more.“This is your greatest task, Colin Mercer.Guard it. Grow it. Protect it—at all costs.”
And with that, Elliot Voss stood, shook Colin’s hand, and walked back through the door without another word.
Colin leaned forward at his desk, mind spinning—when suddenly, his body slumped.Darkness swallowed him.
When he woke, a glowing System Message hovered before his eyes.
---
System Message
Critical path alignment detected for:Colin Mercer
Css upgrade in progress…
…
…
Base Css: [Fighter]New Css: [Kinetic Paragon] (Rare)The Kinetic Paragon shields the vulnerable and strikes down threats with stored kinetic force. Absorption is not weakness—it is the Paragon’s most potent weapon.
Stand firm. Strike true. Be the unbroken line.
Stats per level:+3 END+3 VIT+2 STR+2 INT+5 Free Points
New skills unlocked:
Kinetic Bst (Active):Release stored kinetic energy as a force projectile from your shield. Two modes avaible:
Direct Bst: Concentrates all stored kinetic force into a focused strike against a single target. High damage output.Bst Wave: Releases stored kinetic force in an arc in front of the Paragon. Moderate damage output; affects multiple enemies.Paragon’s Spike Throw (Active):Your spear can be wielded as a kinetic projectile to strike at range.
Hurl your spear toward a designated enemy.Target must be at least ten feet away.Upon impact, Paragon’s Spike dematerializes and reforms instantly in your hand.Energy Absorption (Passive):The Kinetic Paragon can passively absorb energy to charge his armor.
Stored energy augments your first Kinetic Bst or may be used for short-range kinetic movement (rapid aerial dash, leap, or evasion).The armor continuously recharges its kinetic reservoir when not actively expending energy.Maximum energy storage capacity increases at Resonant Pte armor is enhanced.---
Colin sat back heavily, resting his head in his hands.
Still sitting at his desk—the comforting, familiar illusion of his Craylock office—he tried to process everything.The weight.The trust.The future.
Another System Message chimed softly.
---
System MessageCongratutions. You have successfully bound:
Resonant Pte (Echo Armor)Paragon’s Spike (Echo Weapon - Spear)Kinetic Ward (Echo Weapon - Shield)These items are yours. They cannot be disarmed or stolen.You will always know their location.
These are echo weapons—functional within the Tutorial.To wield them in the real world, you must forge them.
A quest will appear after your return.The journey will be long—but rewarding.
Good luck, Kinetic Paragon.
---
Finally, Colin rose to his feet, rolling the tension from his shoulders.He really hoped he wouldn’t have to run the gauntlet of puzzles again.
When he opened the bronze door behind his desk, sunlight and cool air washed over him—and he found himself once more outside, standing before the crumbled stone pilrs.
Phew. Time to head back.
I can’t wait to see how everyone else fared today.