Attrition

The sound of stone grinding on stone filled the air as the paths once again changed. Dorynor managed to slip through the gap in the stones just in time to escape the reach of his pursuers and slumped against the hard wall in relief. He was exhausted.

After the mysterious message and countdown had finished a seemingly endless horde of monstrous beings had began streaming toward him and his crew mates. As he sat there catching his breath with this brief reprieve he had a moment to feel the loss of his friends.

They had worked together well at first, clearing the first few waves without too much trouble. Artemis as always had brought way too much firepower, but this time it actually had been merited. Her was able to alternate fire with Dorynor and hold the monsters at bay. Meanwhile Freya was staying toward the rear and taking shots with her sidearm whenever she was able to with her side arm and trying to stay out of the way.

'If we'd just had to fight our way out this would have been easy,' Dorynor thought grimly, remembering the moment when the room around him had suddenly began to shift, walls sliding and spinning in place, and in a moment, he was alone. He wasn't even sure if the others were dead, with some luck Freya might have ended up with Artemis and the two of them could still be fighting... but it had been a while since he'd heard any gunshots other than his own.

But as the minutes turned to hours, the firefight had turned into a battle of attrition. For the last hour at least Dorynor had been carefully rationing his remaining ammunition, but with the firefight he'd just left he only had two shots left in his rifle and hit combat knife. He'd found that if he was quiet and moved carefully he could avoid the things chasing him, at least for a while. He'd also found that the building seemed to change ever 5 minutes.

He'd been sitting against the wall for at least a minute at this point, trying to be quiet. He'd been lucky, the hall he ended up in this time was small, only a few meters long, and with no entrances. Normally he'd feel trapped but for now he was only thankful that he could rest for a few minutes without having to be on high alert before moving forward.

Taking the rare moment to think he tried to get his bearings. When he first entered the last room he was in he thought his luck had turned, it had been a large opening with few places to hide and many openings to side halls, and in the middle of the room was a clump of at least 10 of the blind beasts. He'd managed to slide over into one of the small abandoned side halls without being noticed but after a few minutes the creatures seemed to get impatient and began walking around the edges of the room, presumably looking for openings or prey. At the 4 minute mark one finally approached the dark doorway where Dorynor was concealed. At 4:20 the beast was so close that Dor could hardly breathe for fear of being heard. At 4:35 it seemed to lose interest and began walking away, and at that moment Dor saw that the high domed ceiling was curving low, and at the edge of the far wall there seemed to be the entrance to hallway his team had entered through so long ago.

Seeing the space and number of creatures between him and freedom Dorynor knew he only had one chance. He estimated it would take at least 10 seconds to cross the room at a sprint, so as his countdown ticked past 4:45 he took off, pushing forward as hard as he could, and barreled directly at the four creatures between him and his goal. Hearing the noise the creatures all began to scream and wail while rushing toward him. Without slowing Dor released three quick bursts from his rifle. The first missed completely, the second hit one of it's targets in the leg, forcing it down, and the third found the center of mass on another monster, leaving it in a heap.

With two seconds left he bounded over the crumpled body and the crippled beast and touched the wall just as it began to shift. With just a moment separating him and these monsters he slipped through the shifting wall and landed safely in the small hall where he now found himself.

It had been three minutes now so he knew he was nearly out of time before moving into the unknown. A bit of motion caught his eye and for the first time since this death trap had began Dorynor looked down to the words in the corner of his vision. He remembered it had said nothing but survive after the countdown, but now the words had changed.

'EXITING SURVIVAL AREA'

'TABULATING RESULTS'

'TIME SURVIVED 3:25'

'SCORE.... C'

'INSUFFICIENT SCORE, SYSTEM REMAINS LOCKED'

'QUESTLOG UPDATED'

'LEVEL UP'

Dor stood there dumbstruck as the text rolled across his eyes, quietly reading what he saw in disbelief.

"Results... score... insufficient... This was all some kind of test!?" He was furious, his crew mates might be dead and all because of some sick exam.

"What in the hells is a questlog or a level up!?" He shouted, throwing his hands up, feeling completely out of his depth. However as soon as he said those words a rectangular semi-transparent window appeared in front of him with the word 'QUESTLOG' emblazoned across the top.

Within that window were two entries. The first said 'SYSTEM 23 - IN PROGRESS' Underneath this was a description; 'SURVIVAL - REMAIN IN THE TESTING AREA FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE' Beneath this was the score he had just seen, as well as his time. At the bottom it said 'REQUIREMENTS FOR SUCCESS -' but what was written after was grayed out and unreadable.

The second entry said 'IN NEED OF A PARTY.' Beneath the heading was a cryptic description. 'THERE IS POWER IN NUMBER.' And just under this was 'TO BEGIN, SET ACTIVE QUEST.'

Dorynor was taking this all in, understanding none of it. He mumbled through the dialog, hoping hearing it would unlock some meaning he was missing. As soon as he finished saying "... set active quest..." his heart sank. The windows disappeared and in the corner of his window he saw a familiar sight.

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