A cube floated out of the drawer and hovered over her hand. It glowed with a soft green light.

“This cube is your test. If you can solve this puzzle then you will receive Magic.”

The cube flew out and circled Corn. He held out his hand and the cube hovered over his hand. Each side of the cube had a different colour including black, white, red, blue, brown and green. And each side was split into nine smaller squares.

All of a sudden an entire side of the tube twisted. More sides twisted and turned until the whole cube changed colour. In the beginning the cube had six uniform colours on each side, now the nine smaller squares of each side was a mess of the original six colours.

The green glow from the cube faded and it dropped into his hand.

“Do you remember how the cube originally was, with all six sides having the same colour? Try changing it back. That’s the puzzle.”

Corn stared at the cube flummoxed.

“Are you sure you are up it?”

“Alright, I’ll show you how it’s done,” he boasted.

She smiled.

He wasn’t just going to finish it one by one, he would finish it immediately. No one was going to stop him now. He took two intersecting sides and began to turn them. They refused to budge. He gripped harder and began to turn again. Muscles strained and veins popped but the two sides wouldn’t turn.

‘Okay, he thought, ‘maybe one side at a time.’ He managed to turn one side. Whew!

“Impressive,” purred the Priestess.

He ignored her and focused on the cube. He began to twist and turn the cube just like she did with her powers. A pattern emerged: two or three squares had the same color. Happily he kept turning but the pattern didn’t grow instead it was destroyed. No matter how he twisted and turned he couldn’t maintain any pattern.

The Priestess looked innocently at him. “How is the progress?”

He ignored her again. That’s when he discovered he had to focus on the pattern not just do it randomly. And so he continued on oblivious to time. But his epiphany wasn’t enough. Once he finished one entire side and tried the next the first side would come undone. No matter how much he tried any pattern he established would break apart.

He was pulling his hair in frustration when the Priestess cleared her throat. She coughed louder this time and announced, “Time’s up.”

“No, no I’m not done yet!” looking anguished.

“The Temple has to close, so the test is over,” she said and held her hand out for the cube.

She sighed loudly. “Look technically you can come back whenever the Temple is open and the test would continue, ok?”

“It would? Yes!” he said, fist pumping. After which he ran down the staircase. The ground floor was practically empty except for isolated small groups. The silence was deafening.

He found his travel mates next to one of the columns, they were in deep discussion about something. When Line saw him he pulled him and headed to a corner.

“The old man is way too old to train in any Stats. It’s simply impossible at his age. And if he can’t train any Stat to 20 then…”

“He’ll be kicked out of the city?” asked Corn.

“Well… he won’t be a citizen anymore. He’d go back to being a slave. All of us will, if we don’t have a Stat at 20.”

Corn gulped. He wondered how much time it wold take to solve the cube.

“But there might be another way,” continued Line. “If we test his potential for every single Stat, maybe we’ll find a Stat where he naturally has 20. Yeah it’s rare but it’s worth a shot. We’d need about 5,000 credits”

“That’s not much.”

“Yeah that’s the spirit. Wait, what did you say?” asked Line confused.

“5,000 credits isn’t worth much?”

Line opened his mouth in shock, “You idiot I thought I’d have to convince you to split the money, what do you mean 5,000 credits isn’t much? For 2 credits you can get an entire meal.”

Corn eyes turned wide as saucers. “They give you food for credits? I could live for 7 years with 5,000 credits?”

“So you can read and do math but you don’t know what money is? That makes no sense.”

Corn wasn’t listening, he pulled on Line’s shirt screaming, “How do you get credits? Who’s giving them away?”

People began to stare. Embarrassed, Line dragged Corn behind a column. “You need a job to get credit, after that we split the credits to pay for the old man’s test and you get to keep the rest for food. So shall we go for a job?”

“Let’s go. Now,” replied Corn.

So they headed out of the Temple and, after hopping on two buses and the subway, reached the office. It was a smoggy, dusty road. The buildings were scrunched into a haphazard mess with no way of telling them apart. There were stumpy flats squashed on to factories and other half built complexes. Line lead them through the only entrance they found.

It was cramped and the ceiling almost hit Corn’s head. They were greeted by a spectre in an oversized suit by the receptionist’s desk. He sat there yawning, his entire jaw stretched wide enough to see the maggots past his throat. He was completely bald with flaky skin and the pointy ears of an elf.

“Workers?” he asked.

When they assented he handed them a screen to scan their bracelets against. One by one they all complied.

“Welcome to your new life at Vampire and Sons. You do what we tell you to do, when we tell you to do it and for doing it we pay you 5 credits per hour. Your dorms are in the fifth floor, sixth room. The screen booths and mess can be found in the lower floors. Any questions?”

The elf opened his mouth but was cut off by the receptionist staring into a smaller screen, “Oh, an additional crew has been requested. Guess you begin work now.”

This was met by loud murmurs and grunts of disapproval.

“You’re free to leave the guild whenever you choose but we have a strict no return policy,” said the receptionist.

Silence ensued.

Line lead them deeper inside. The dim light revealed walls painted with green mould, some of which threatened to drop on them, and in between the mould snaked layers of copper pipes. After some time they reached a corridor with better lighting. All of a sudden, Line stopped.

The light was bright enough to see roaches running through the mould while centipedes and rats ran on the floor. Line stood rigidly while the elf shuddered.

When Corn finally reached them he couldn’t help but shout, “Free food!”

He ran ahead plucked the roaches from the mould and stuffed them in his mouth. He scooped a bunch of wriggling centipedes and bit their heads off. After which he moved to the rats slurping as he swallowed their bloody meat. It took one full minute for the vermin population to decrease. Corn turned his head to crowd and noticed they had moved back ten metres.

He swallowed. He sighed and said, “I’ve been very rude.”

He picked a bunch of centipedes and walked towards them, “Do you want some?”

“Nope, nope, nope. We’re all stuffed,” cried the old man walking backwards.

“No I insist. It’s very delicious.”

Someone vomited.

“We all just had an extremely filling dinner. Completely stuffed, couldn’t possibly eat any more. Take your time and enjoy,” replied the old man, slowly inching backwards.

The same person vomited again.

“Too bad I guess,” said Corn, disappointed. He went back to finish his meal. After a minute of wiping the floor clean he continued onwards and the rest of them followed at a safe distance.

Their dorm was a narrow room lined with two rows of triple layer bunk beds. They met their supervisor at the doorway. After a few heated words on the value of time and after baring his fangs at them the vampire lead them on to a bus. This time the bus was nowhere near as hospitable as the public buses and like everything else they had seen was scrunched into a double decker to save space.

After two hours, they alighted at a construction site. They were divided into two: those who had useful Stats and those who didn’t. Corn soon found out from the old man that useful Stats referred to the lower three (Endurance, Speed and Strength) and was surprised to find most of the crew on site didn’t have them.

He tried talking to them while lugging sacks of cement but most had dull, insipid eyes. They avoided him as much as they avoided each other and trudged on from task to task. Even his fellow travellers soon turned that way after fifteen hours of work and only a dwarf even bothered grunting at him for a reply. And that too only once, after which he promptly started ignoring him.

Corn had emptied his sack of cement into the mixer. When he turned he found a floating, glass marble staring at him. It was dark black and the size of his hand. Just before he thought it wold attack him, another floating sphere arrived. This one was metallic and the size of his torso.

At this point every single person in the site was staring at him. He heard the clang of pails and sacks hit the floor. People began to grab hammers, metal bars and anything that could be used as a weapon. Gone where the dull eyes and lethargic manner, they stared at Corn as monsters wold stare at prey. Despite that they stood their ground, watching and waiting.

The supervisor swore, “What are you waiting for? Scan your bracelet.”

Corn turned to see the old man shake his head. Don’t do it.

“Come on. Time is running out,” screamed the supervisor.

The two spheres stood there waiting for him. He tried walking away in the hopes that they wold follow him but they hovered at the same spot.

“If you’re not going to scan that bracelet, I’m going to fire you.”

He sighed and put his bracelet on the metal sphere. One of its sides retracted to reveal a wooden chest inside. He flicked the latch open to find five glowing red counters inside.

Life counters.

“Attack!” screamed someone from the crowd and all of them rushed towards him. He scooped up the counters and ran for the entrance. A shadow swooped over him and landed right in front of him. It was the supervisor. He bared his fangs and grabbed one of the counters. “I’ll be taking one of these,” he said and glided off.

By then some of the workers were blocking the entrance. Corn didn’t bother stopping. He grabbed one of his life counters and waved at the workers, “Is this what you want?” He threw it to a gaunt spectre in the corner. At once, someone screamed, “Get her!” A good chunk of the mob attacked the spectre.

Corn jumped over a dwarf and ducked underneath the orc guard. He slipped on to the streets and ran off without pause. He had to stop when he reached a square. The square was unbuilt. It was large enough that the din of people working on surrounding buildings, the pavement and other structures echoed across the empty square. He ran up to the nearest worker.

He shouted, “Where’s the nearest screen booth?”

“Just take that exit and turn right. What a minute are those li-,”but he was cut off when Corn sprinted off. Through the empty alleyways he ran, only to find an empty row of screen booths. A loitering orc stood nearby. When he saw the red glow, he grinned.

“Come on,” bargained the orc, “give me one life and we’ll call it a deal. Better to have two lives than none.”

Corn gripped one counter in each hand and stuffed one into his mouth and ran straight to the furthest booth. The orc ran ahead and lunged his spear into Corn. Corn blocked with his hand. The spear tore through his hand but couldn’t pierce the life counter. Instead the lunge shoved him into the booth.

He scrambled up to scan the bracelet and inserted the counters into the slot. The orc ran into the booth but it was too late. Corn grinned at him.

The orc swore, “Screw you!” He left the booth.

A spell circle lit up and wreathed the entire booth in dark red.

Life counter input. Position established: Life 3 Middle Aged