Uriel woke with a start.
His head throbbed with a dull, persistent pain, as if he had slept too much… or too little. It took him a few seconds to remember where he was. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he found was darkness.
A heavy, damp, and cold darkness that seemed to pulse around him.
He blinked several times, forcing his mind to clear. Slowly, his vision adjusted, and he began to make out the shapes around him.
He was in a narrow cell, built of stone blocks blackened by moisture and time. The air was icy and smelled of rust, sour sweat, and a despair so thick it was almost palpable.
He tried to move.
Clink.
The metallic sound echoed, sharp and solitary, in the oppressive silence. He looked down and saw thick, forged iron shackles encircling his wrists and ankles, connected by a short, heavy chain that barely allowed him to change position. The skin beneath was already raw.
"Great…" he muttered in a hoarse voice, the dry echo lost against the stone.
He lifted his head and peered through the rusty bars.
He wasn't alone.
Along the corridor, identical cells were lined up, all occupied. Inside were young people like him: men and women, some barely teenagers.
All of them shackled. All marked by hunger in their sunken cheeks, exhaustion in their glassy eyes, or poorly treated wounds adorning their arms and legs like grotesque reminders.
'Slaves,' thought Uriel, a disturbing clarity forming in his mind. The word settled with unsettling and definitive clarity.
Uriel observed methodically, analyzing the place, the prisoners, possible escape routes—any detail that might serve him later. His gaze, still clouded by the residue of forced sleep, moved with calculation.
One of the prisoners noticed his scrutinizing look.
It was a middle-aged man in the adjacent cell.
His hair was a tangled, dirty gray, and an unkempt beard covered much of his weathered face. His eyes, sunken in their sockets, lacked the haze of madness that possessed others. Instead, they shone with an exhausted and attentive lucidity. Those eyes fixed on Uriel.
"Relax, kid," he said in a voice rough as grinding stones. "Staring won't save you. It'll just wear you out sooner."
Uriel slowly turned his head toward him, the chains softly tinkling.
"Save me from what?"
The man let out a dry laugh, a joyless sound that cracked at the end.
"From the inevitable. From your fate. Everyone here… we're prisoners meant to die. Some soon. Others, after much suffering. But the end is the same."
The silence that followed was more oppressive than before. Uriel frowned.
"What is this place?" he asked, keeping his voice low. "What are they going to do to us?"
The prisoner sighed, a sound that seemed to drag the weight of years of despair. "We're lab rats," he finally answered. "That's all. Cannon fodder with a pulse. A disposable resource."
"Lab rats…?" Uriel repeated, though deep down, a part of him already knew.
"For those warmongers, those lords of war," the man continued, and a flash of bitterness ignited his dull eyes. "They use us for their experiments. They test new weapons, poisons, arcane rituals… they release vile creatures among us to see how many they kill and how. Anything that helps them kill better. When we're no longer useful, they discard us. Like trash."
Uriel clenched his teeth. A classic Nightmare of the Spell: cruel, direct, unadorned and without false hope. A scenario of pure survival.
He looked at the other prisoners again. Some avoided eye contact, burying their heads. Others seemed completely broken. No one spoke of escape.
"Has no one ever tried to get out?" he asked.
"Some leave," the man replied, his gaze becoming distant. "But not as people. They come back… changed. Or they don't come back at all."
That was enough. Uriel slowly closed his eyes.
This is a test, he reminded himself. The Spell is both cruel and fair. There is a way to overcome it. I have to find it.
As he focused his will inward, he felt something respond deep within his being. A cold, distant, ancient presence. It was as if the very fabric of reality around him was watching, evaluating.
Then, in front of him, the air trembled.
It wasn't a physical tremor, but a distortion in perception. The space at eye level rippled gently. From that ripple emerged translucent runes, as if made of smoky crystal and condensed moonlight. They floated silently, glowing with a faint, unnatural light. They were impossible symbols, but their meaning imprinted directly onto his consciousness. Only he could see them. Only he could read them.
Name: Uriel
True Name: —
Rank: Aspirant
Aspect: [Blank Canvas]
Description: You are a blank canvas, waiting to be painted to grow.
Memories: —
Attributes: [Unbreakable], [Darkness], [Spark of Darkness]
[Unbreakable]: You possess great mental defense and your determination is as firm as steel.
[Darkness]:You can see through shadows and darkness.
[Spark of Darkness]:Your soul carries the faint scent of darkness. As if you have inhabited it.
Uriel opened his eyes, his breathing barely altered.
Blank Canvas…
A slight, dangerous smile drew itself on his dry lips. It wasn't one of joy, but of recognition. Of possibilities. In a world where Aspects defined destinies, he had… nothing. And that "nothing" was, paradoxically, everything.
"So," he thought to himself, "I can still become anything. I can paint my own picture."
The runes faded slowly, as if they had never been there.
At that moment, a new sound cut through the heavy atmosphere. Firm, heavy footsteps echoing on stone, followed by the high-pitched screech of rusty hinges as a massive door opened. The groan of forced metal made almost all the prisoners flinch.
Uriel raised his gaze, his eyes glowing faintly in the gloom. The evaluation was over. The test was beginning.
He watched as several guards entered the cell area. They wore dark plate armor and wielded halberds. One stopped in front of his cell, opened the door with a key, and, without a word, grabbed the chain connecting his shackles and pulled with brutal force.
A sharp, searing pain exploded in his wrists. The iron, already resting on raw skin, shifted abruptly, tearing off more flesh. An involuntary hiss escaped his lips. He felt the warm wetness of his blood.
"Up!" the guard grunted, his voice muffled behind the helmet.
The pain clouded his vision, but something within him, a fierce refusal, spurred him on. He gritted his teeth and, using the guard's pull, clumsily got to his feet, his weak legs trembling.
He was dragged out and shoved into a line that was already forming. Other prisoners, all with fear or resignation in their eyes, completed the row. The old man from the adjacent cell watched him go.
The march began. They were led through a labyrinth of low corridors, illuminated by smoking torches. The shadows danced in a macabre fashion. But it wasn't the shadows that chilled Uriel's blood.
It was the sounds.
As they delved deeper, the corridors echoed with echoes. Echoes of screams. Sharp, tearing shrieks that cut off abruptly, long moans of agony, cries of pure terror. Nauseating smells mixed in the air: charred flesh, thick blood, something chemical and acidic.
The procession stopped at a fork. Without ceremony, the guards separated Uriel from the group. Two grabbed him by the arms, their grips like vices, and diverted him down a smaller, darker side corridor.
Uriel's heart beat fiercely, a frantic drum of foreboding. The certainty that something was wrong turned to ice in his stomach.
The door at the end was low, reinforced with metal. After a specific knock, it opened.
The room was circular. In the center, under a beam of grimy light, was a smooth stone platform with restraint rings. Around it, on steel tables, was a collection of objects that made Uriel's blood run cold: metal cylinders with dials and long, thin hypodermic needles, glass boxes with unnaturally colored liquids that bubbled on their own, plates engraved with inert and sinister runes.
A laboratory.
"No…" he managed to utter, his voice raspy.
He tried to resist. He dug his heels into the cold, viscous floor, twisting. It was futile. Like a puppy against wolves, his efforts only made the guards tighten their grip. One gave him a sharp blow to the stomach with the hilt of his halberd. The air left his lungs with a painful whoosh, bending him at the waist.
Dizzy and gasping, he was dragged toward the platform.
He was slammed onto the cold stone. His bloody wrists and ankles were forced into the slots, which closed with a mechanical clunk, holding him with relentless force.
Immobilized, on his back, Uriel looked up into the blinding beam of light.
He made out the silhouettes of the guards retreating and the figure of another person, dressed in a dark robe, approaching from the shadows. In their hands, something metallic and sharp reflected the light.
Fear, animal and primal, tried to take hold of him. His mind clung to observing every detail.