System Start

'0/32 SYSTEMS COMPLETED'

Ever since Dorynor had awoken something had been off. Normally the effects of the stasis pods wore off after an hour or so. The rubber legs and churning stomach had passed, but he kept trying to clear his eyes until he finally realized what he was seeing, a message overlayed onto the bottom corner of his vision.

0/32 SYSTEMS COMPLETED'

"What in the hells?"

Hearing Dorynor's voice, the ships system began to respond by projecting a small figure on the round dias in the center of the room. The figure was vaguely feminine, with long red hair and a simple jumpsuit. The figure took a moment to brush the projected hair out of it's face and behind it's ear before speaking.

"Commander, is something wrong?"

"Yeah Amon, er.. maybe, I'm not sure. Can you prep the sensors in the med bay, I gotta check my eyesight I think."

He grumbled the last part of his sentence, then seeing the projected image before him he asked,

"You aren't projecting anything else in here are you?"

Amon's avatar cocked it's head in confusion before responding,

"No commander."

Dorynor muttered something under his breath and stomped off toward the medical suite on board.

....

After an hour of tests and retests Amon presented Dorynor with his final results.

"Commander, you are in an ideal state considering you were only brought out of stasis today. All tests came back showing you are in good health, and your eyesight tested just fine."

Dorynor didn't bother responding, he had ran out of excuses for the small text floating in his vision. Since there was no physical reason for what he was seeing it meant he was either losing his mind, or that there was something else happening that he didn't understand. In any case he didn't plan on rolling over just because of some floating words, he had a job to do so for now he put it out of his mind.

The medical suite, which Dorynor had taken to calling a bay ironically since it was the size of a small closet, was only a minute from his quarters. While walking that short span he called out to Amon and asked if there were any updates on the contracts they had come all this way for.

"Yes commander, the 3 contracts we originally sailed for have already been closed out. There are two new contracts close enough to not require stasis jumps, would you like to hear them?"

Dorynor's expression soured at hearing they'd lost their contracts, he had been in stasis for nearly a month and now it was for nothing.

'Hopefully the new contracts pay as well as the old ones' he thought, and grunted an affirmative to Amon.

"The first contract is bronze rank, it's located two days burn from here and is for a DoA collar, worth about five thousand alive, three thousand dead. Based on your previous performances and the information available it doesn't seem like this would be a challenge for you."

Dorynor almost wanted to return to his pod, that was far less money than they had come for originally.

"And the other?"

"The other contract was posted just as we exited FTL. There aren't many details, it's a Gold rank, located in our current system. There are no names, just a point on a topographic map of one of this systems planets."

"What's the payout for going?"

"20 thousand"

Dorynor grinned,

"Set a course Amon, I'll wake up the others."

...

Amon controlled the descent to the planet while Dorynor stood in the hall in front of the ramp to the ship with the rest of his team. Freya was in a simple jumpsuit that carried the stains of her mechanical work, her hair in a tight bun, and she only wore her sidearm despite being warned of the uncertainty of the mission ahead. Artemis however was carrying a heavy gun and had his long rifle slung over his padded jacket. Dorynor wondered whether there was anything Artemis hadn't found a way to squeeze into the utility space in that jacket.

Suddenly Amon spoke as the ship began to vibrate under their feet.

"We will reach the planets surface in one minute, brace yourselves."

.....

Stepping down the ramp Dorynor double checked his motion sensor and found it virtually unusable, everything was reading as movement, and looking around he could see why. The ship had set down in a small clearing surrounded by dense foliage, all of which was trembling and shaking in a heavy downpour of rain.

"Alright, lets move out, we're not far from the marker for the contract."

The two following Dorynor nodded and began to walk without complaint into the forest. They walked in a staggered line, with Dorynor in front and Artemis guarding the rear. It was difficult to hear anything over the background noise of the rain in the forest but they tried to stay diligent and stopped occasionally when one thought they had seen or heard something, but in the end they managed to approach the waypoint without incident.

As they neared the end of their trip the trees began to clear out around them and then they abruptly stopped. In a neat, almost manicured line all plant growth had stopped surrounding a building located just ahead of them. It has massive and made of rough hewn stone, it reminded Dorynor of an ancient temple but with a design he had never seen before.

Dorynor checked his map and nodded, this was where they were supposed to go.

They approached the structure cautiously, remaining wary for anything amiss. Nothing seemed to happen or notice their presence as they approached and within a few minutes they arrived at the structures entrance. The door was closed and didn't open when pushed, and there was a small data panel beside the door that seemed inoperable.

"Artemis, secure the perimeter while we try to access the entrance. Freya, get to work on that panel, see what you can do, I'll look around and see if there's any other access point."

Hearing Dorynor's words the other two began their assigned tasks without complaint. Dorynor meanwhile began to walk slowly around the perimeter of the building, checking for any type of access point hidden therein.

After an hour of this there had been no improvement other than the cease of the rainfall. Dorynor had searched every inch they could access of the exterior of the building twice and had been unable to find anything. He had resigned himself to sitting near Freya, watching as she tried to make the panel respond without any luck.

"Dor, I think we should consider calling it soon, it seems like this panel is fried or there is a piece missing, I've tried everything I know and still haven't been able to get it to turn on."

"You might be right, there's nothing else you can think of? Have you tried saying 'Power on' or 'Open door'?"

Dorynor chuckled but Freya responded,

"Dor, how did you do that?"

He turned to look and saw the panel had lit up and the door now stood opened, it had moved so silently that he hadn't even heard it activate. He looked back to Freya,

"You didn't try voice commands?"

She glared at him,

"Of course I did, I said the same things you did!"

Artemis had finished another path around the outer perimeter and was once again in view. Seeing that the door was opened he jogged over to them. Since they couldn't figure out why the door had opened they shrugged and waited for Artemis to join them.

"Alright, we have no idea what's in there so I'll take point again, Arty you're in the rear, Freya make sure you have your sidearm ready."

With that being said they walked into the temple and activated their handheld lights to guide them on their path. As they rounded the first corner none of them noticed the door slide closed silently behind them once more.

.....

At first Dorynor thought it was a maze, looking down a long hall with offshoots in either directions, however they quickly found that while the layout was maze-like, the path was simple due to all of the paths being walled off except for the one that they were walking down.

They walked for a long while in silence, no one saw anything nor heard anything except their own footsteps in the eerie silence of the structure. Finally they started to see a light that was not emanating from their own sources coming from up ahead, they hurriedly made their way down the hall and into the room they had seen, all were thankful that the room was substantially larger than the halls they had been walking down until now.

The room was circular and easily 10 meters tall with a domed ceiling. They looked around for a few minutes but the room was bare inside. While Artemis and Freya were still searching Dorynor noticed something, the words in his vision had changed! Instead of the vague message about 0 systems being complete it now said,

'SYSTEM 23 FOUND, ACTIVATE?'

Despite himself Dorynor whispered,

"Activate..?"

Once again the words in his vision shifted, they now spelled,

'SYSTEM CHALLENGE ACTIVATED, MODE: SURVIVAL, GOAL: SURVIVE FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE'

In addition to these words a countdown began in the center of his field of vision.

'...3.....2....1...START'

Suddenly a noise filled the air like stone shifting against stone, then it stopped. Dorynor heard Freya whisper at the same time he realized,

"the other paths..."

Then shouts and screams filled the air.