We stood before the entrance to the dark tunnel, the flickering green map from Glitch's staff still floating in the air. It showed a long, twisting path through the depths of the Undercroft. A path to the Oracle. A path through territory that was not safe.
"Things far worse than Ouroboros," Anya muttered, her hand resting on the grip of her P-19 pistol. Her legendary chainsword was useless, its power cell completely drained. The thought of facing unknown horrors with only a basic handgun was clearly weighing on her.
My own situation was not much better. I looked at my HUD. [SHOTGUN AMMO: 0/12]. I had used my last shells in the fight against Kain. My primary weapon was now just a heavy, useless tube of metal. All I had left was my Phantom sniper rifle, a weapon ill-suited for the tight corridors ahead, and my own P-19. We were both weakened, under-equipped, and walking into the dark.
"Do you have anything else we can trade?" Anya asked Glitch, her voice hopeful. "Ammo? A power cell?"
Glitch let out another of his grinding chuckles. "Your sniper round bought you a map and a warning. That was the deal. Information is my trade. Arming my competition is not." He turned and hobbled away, his metal staff clicking against the concrete floor. "Unless you have more system-minted toys to offer?"
We had nothing. Our inventories were bare, save for our damaged gear and Caden's data fragment.
Glitch stopped at the edge of the darkness and looked back at us over his shoulder. He offered one last piece of cryptic advice. "The things in the dark don't like clean code," he rasped. "They can smell it on players like you. It draws them. Try to be quiet. Try not to shine so bright."
With that, he disappeared into the shadows of the station, leaving us alone at the entrance to the tunnel.
"Well, this is a great start," Anya said, her voice laced with bitter sarcasm. She looked at me. "Still sure this is a good idea?"
"We don't have a choice," I replied, my own voice more confident than I felt. I had the mission. The Exile's Path. This was the only way forward.
We set off into the dark tunnel, leaving the relative safety of the hub behind. The air immediately became colder, damper. The only light came from the faint glow of the strange moss on the tracks and the pulsing red lights on my Ouroboros armor. Anya immediately tapped my chest piece. "Turn those off," she whispered. "Glitch's advice. Don't shine."
I found a command in my HUD to disable the cosmetic lighting. We were plunged into a deeper darkness, relying on our own vision and the soft green glow from the floor. The environment was eerie and oppressive. The constant, rhythmic drip of water from unseen pipes was the only sound, besides our own soft footsteps. My Ghost skill was more valuable now than ever.
We walked for what felt like an hour, following the simple path on our holographic map. The silence was unnerving. I kept checking my minimap, but it was completely empty. Nothing.
Then, it happened.
My Acoustic Sensor pinged.
But the dots on the minimap were not the clean, solid red circles of enemy players. These were different. They were small, numerous, and they skittered across the map in frantic, unnatural ways. They were not just on the floor. They were on the walls. They were on the ceiling. They were all around us.
"We've got company," I whispered to Anya.
We saw them a moment later. From the cracks in the walls and from the darkness ahead, they emerged. They were small, insect-like creatures, about the size of a large dog. Their bodies were a twisted mockery of life, made from sharp, jagged pieces of corrupted data and broken bits of metal. They moved on six spindly, blade-like legs, their movements fast and jerky like a corrupted animation. In the center of their metallic bodies, a single, baleful red eye glowed.
They were Code Scrappers. The scavengers of the system's backend. They fed on corrupted data, and Glitch was right. Our clean, player code smelled like a feast to them.
They let out a chorus of high-pitched screeches, a sound like dial-up modems screaming in agony. And then they charged.
It was a swarm. A tide of black metal and red eyes.
"Back to back!" Anya yelled, and we immediately moved into a defensive position.
This was a fight unlike any I had experienced. It was not a tactical duel against other players. It was a raw, desperate battle of horde survival.
The Scrappers were fast, but they were not particularly strong. I switched to my P-19, the fast-firing pistol more useful here than the slow sniper rifle. Pop. Pop. Pop. I took down three of them before they even got close. But for every one I killed, three more seemed to take its place.
Anya was a whirlwind of motion beside me. With her chainsword dead, she fought with a desperate ferocity. She used her empty rifle as a club, smashing the creatures that got too close, then finishing them with precise shots from her own pistol.
They swarmed over us. One leaped onto my back, its sharp legs digging into my armor. I cried out, throwing myself against a wall to crush it. Another one lunged for Anya. She kicked it away, then shot it in its single red eye.
We were being overwhelmed. There were too many of them.
"This isn't working!" I yelled over the screeching. "We have to fall back! Find a choke point!"
I saw a narrow service tunnel branching off from the main track. "There!"
We fought our way to it, a desperate, stumbling retreat. We squeezed into the narrow tunnel. It was barely wide enough for us to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. But it was perfect. The horde of Scrappers could now only come at us one or two at a time.
It was still a brutal fight. For every one we killed, another was there, crawling over the wreckage of its fallen brethren. The fight became a grueling battle of attrition. My pistol ammo vanished at an alarming rate. Anya's movements became slower, her breath coming in ragged gasps. We were both wounded, our health bars dipping into the yellow. We were exhausted.
Finally, the last of them fell. The screeching stopped. Silence returned to the tunnel, broken only by our own heavy breathing. The floor was littered with the twitching, sparking bodies of the Code Scrappers.
We had survived. But it had come at a steep price. My pistol was almost empty. Anya's was completely dry. We were out of ammo for our primary weapons and now our sidearms. We were effectively defenseless.
We pushed forward, limping now, following the map. The journey was tense and silent. Every shadow looked like another Scrapper. Every sound made us jump.
Finally, we saw it. The tunnel opened up into a massive, cavernous space. The air here was dry and warm. The cavern was filled with towering stacks of ancient, silent server racks. They rose up into the darkness like metal skyscrapers. This was the server farm. The heart of the Undercroft.
In the very center of the vast cavern, we saw a single, small point of light. A flickering campfire.
Sitting by the fire, her back to us, was a small, hunched figure. She was wrapped in a heavy cloak that seemed to be woven from a mesh of wires and old cables. This had to be her. The Oracle.
We approached cautiously, our empty weapons held ready out of pure habit. The cavern was silent except for the crackling of her fire. As we got closer, the old woman spoke, her voice echoing slightly in the huge space. It was old and cracked, like dry leaves, but it was surprisingly strong.
She did not turn around. She did not look at us. She just stared into the flames.
"I've been waiting for you, Marked Man," she said. "The system whispers. It's been a long time since a new song was sung. It whispers about your arrival."
She finally turned her head slightly, and I saw her face in the firelight. Her eyes were covered by a cracked, ancient-looking VR visor, the kind I had only seen in museums. "But whispers are cheap," she rasped. "Show me the data fragment. Show me if your journey is worth my time."