We were herded into the maze at dawn, the air thick with the stench of machine oil and ozone. A siren blared, and somewhere in the darkness, a Mutant roared—its voice guttural, inhuman. Jax and I ducked behind a crate, watching as two inmates sprinted past, only to be tackled by a Mutant with bulging muscles and skin cracked like lava.
"See that?" I whispered, pointing to a stack of oil drums near a ventilation shaft. "Mutants are strong, but they're reckless. If we can trigger a fire, the smoke will blind them. The vents lead to the central tower—we can climb up and wait them out."
Jax nodded. "I'll distract the nearest one. You get the drums." He pulled a rusted pipe from his belt and charged, yelling. The Mutant turned, its eyes glowing orange, and chased him down a corridor. I sprinted to the drums, using a lighter I'd stolen from the shuttle to ignite a rag stuffed into one.
The explosion rocked the maze. Smoke billowed through the vents, and I heard the Mutant scream as flames licked its skin. Jax skidded back to me, coughing. "Nice move! But there are three more—"
A crash cut him off. A Mutant burst through the wall, its arm mutated into a claw. I grabbed Jax and dived into the ventilation shaft, the claw scraping the metal inches from my foot. We climbed upward, the shaft narrowing until we squeezed through a grate into the central tower.
From above, we could see the entire maze. Two Mutants had been caught in the fire; the third was tearing through crates, oblivious to the remaining inmates hiding in a storage closet. "We need to get those guys to safety," Jax said.
I spotted a control panel on the tower's wall. "Watch this." I hacked into it—old skills from my days as a data analyst—and triggered the maze's fire suppression system. Water rained down, dousing the flames and confusing the Mutant. "Now!"
We climbed back down, herding the five hiding inmates toward the exit. The Mutant roared and charged, but Jax swung his pipe at its knee, bringing it to the ground. We sprinted through the exit as the siren blared again.
Dr. Voss appeared on the hologram, clapping slowly. "Impressive, Kael Voss. 50 Shrouds each—well earned."
The crowd cheered. As we walked back to the barracks, an inmate with a shaved head and a tattoo of the OmniCorp logo blocked our path. "Nice trick, but that's my territory. You wanna survive here, you pay tribute—20 Shrouds a week."
Jax stepped forward, but I held him back. "Or what?" I said.
The man smiled, revealing a set of cybernetic teeth. "Or you end up as Feeder chow. Name's Rook—remember it."
As he walked away, Jax spat on the ground. "We need allies. Rook runs the West Barracks with his crew of cyberpunks. If we don't stand together, he'll pick us off one by one."
I nodded. That night, I called a meeting in the barracks' basement. Ten inmates showed up—all outcasts, all tired of Rook's tyranny. "We don't need to fight him head-on," I said. "We just need to prove we're stronger together. I call us the Spirit Guild—because even here, we keep our humanity."
A woman with a scar across her cheek—Lira, a former soldier—spoke up. "What's the plan?"
"Next Trial is Maze of Echoes," I said. "Rook's crew will try to cheat. We'll beat them fair—and earn enough Shrouds to buy better gear. Then, we take back the barracks."