Chapter 1

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Round 41 - Start [You have been Selected – Welcome to the Trial] [Floor Progression: 0/100] [Choose your starting perk – Limit: 1] – [Note: all choices are final]

Perk:

Description:

Path of Patience

Choice to Reselect Higher Tier Perk on Sanctuary Floors

Path of Heroes

Gain 1 additional Attribute for each Floor

Path of Focus

+15 Attribute points to a single Attribute of your choosing

Path of All

+10 Attribute points – Allocate freely to any Attributes of your choosing

Skill Gambler

+1 Skill per Floor – Skill will be a random selection – Rewards improve per floor

Spell Gambler

+ 1 Spell per Floor– Spell will be a random selection – Rewards improve per floor

Weapon Gambler

+1 Soul-Bound Weapon per Floor – Weapon will be a random selection – Rewards improve per floor

Class Gambler

+1 Primary Class – Class will be a random selection – 1st Floor and Sanctuary Floors only

Domicile

Begin the Trial with your current place of residence intact – 1st Floor and Sanctuary Floors only

Path of Legends

Perks locked until 100th floor

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I opened my eyes, and the words slammed into me.

What felt like an endless stream of glowing letters, hammered into my mind, my brain, and perhaps my entire body for all the discomfort it was causing me. The dam of whatever feeble mental defenses I might have had, was quickly broken. The words carried on through, and with them, came knowledge.

Partly-formed, barely understood, but knowledge all the same.

I had been [Selected]

The [Trial] had [Selected] me.

Now, I needed to choose.

And I need to choose soon.

[You have been Selected – Welcome to the Trial]

Pressure built further, as the glowing letters seemed to get brighter as they squished in around me, urging me on. And I, to my credit, somehow didn’t panic.

Instead, I wracked my mind, reaching for one specific memory.

Because this was familiar.

I knew this, or at the very least, I knew something close to this.

My months of being a shut-in while the world ended had paid off as I scoured my memory for anything I could recall on that one, oddly specific internet post.

NOTDEADYET23.

That was the username.

Posted under one of the few resilient message boards that had yet to go offline, it was the strangest thing. Part fantasy-ravings, part escapism, part… I'm not really certain. Entertaining fiction? Memorable as one of the weirdest stories I’d come across. And there were a lot of those.

NOTDEADYET23 had claimed to be something known as a [Selected] and they went so far as to include several pages of information and personal experiences regarding their time as someone who had been “Selected for the Trial.” How they were one of a thousand people who were a part of the first "Wave."

If nothing else, reading it had been an interesting waste of time. Completely down-voted, it sounded crazy and all the writing had the feeling it was rushed. It was as if the poster had been fighting with a mobile phone and very little patience. Which, in some ways, added to the realism it was lacking.

Which, was probably why I read it anyways.

The post talked being summoned to a strange place, and how they had been given abilities. It talked about "Floors" and "Selected" who were trapped until they completed those "Floors." How a thousand people each week were entering the Trial and trying to survive. In summary, the poster had explained that they had completed the minimum requirements of the [Trial] and returned, coming back to Earth with super-human abilities.

So… yeah.

Far as posts went, it was pretty nutty.

An interesting story to pass the time, sure, but hardly believable.

It labeled to be lies and fabrication. Mad-ravings of someone facing the end of the world. Buried beneath hundreds of much more pressing posts of cell-phone footage or witness reports about regional monster attacks, and faltering supplies. In fact, a moderator saw fit to delete it within a day or two. Even in a world being overrun with dimensional rifts and monsters: internet moderators lurk. Those sorts… they’re a fickle breed.

I remember being angry about that, because I’d been going back through to reread, out of sheer desire for a distraction.

It ended as an honorable mention, compared to most things I'd documented, but I had gone so far as to jot down a few notes about it. The habit of adding to a notebook, that had come about due to constant electric and internet outages, in the very remote chance that something I found online might be useful.

It wasn't like anyone out there had answers.

No one in the entire world had a single clue.

Except, apparently, for this one stupid post, by this one user. Which I, perhaps by nothing more than sheer luck, happened to find and read.

Even if I hadn't really believed any of it, what I remembered was just enough to keep myself from dying in the stupidest way imaginable.

[Perk – Domicile: Begin the Trial with your current place of residence intact] – Selected Trial START