The crowd thinned as Silas climbed.
Level 3 had been a crush of bodies. Level 4, still busy but navigable. By Level 5, the corridor held maybe a dozen people, all of them moving with purpose, none of them browsing. The architecture shifted too. Narrower passages. Fewer stalls. More closed doors with symbols he didn't recognize.
Fewer people. Either the prices up here are too high, or the customers don't browse.
The Arena's distant roar filtered through the walls. Muffled cheering, or screaming. Hard to tell the difference from here. The air was cooler, less saturated with the press of bodies. His footsteps echoed on the stone.
He pulled the card from his pocket. The address was a string of numbers. The symbol looked like a stylized eye, or maybe a coin with a crack through it. Hard to say.
R5-2247. Should be close.
The doors along this stretch were unmarked. No signs advertising services. No hawkers calling out prices. Either the businesses up here didn't need customers, or they didn't want the wrong kind.
He found 2247 wedged between a shuttered storefront and what looked like a private residence. The symbol on the door matched the card exactly. No other indication of what waited inside.
No advertisement. No welcome sign.
Either she's got enough clients, or she prefers it this way.
He pushed through.
The room was small. A counter divided the space in half. Behind it, shelves crammed with scrolls, tablets, maps covered in annotations. Papers stacked in piles that looked chaotic but probably weren't. The whole place smelled faintly of old paper and something metallic, like ink mixed with copper.
A woman sat behind the counter. Lean build. Practical gray clothes, no jewelry. Her left hand rested on the counter's surface, and even from the doorway Silas could see the burn scar, old and faded, crossing the back of it. Her eyes flicked to him once, catalogued him in a heartbeat, then returned to the tablet she was reading.
"I know who you are. Sit."
Her voice was flat. Not hostile. Not welcoming. Just efficient.
How does she know who I am?
She's an information broker. Knowing who walks through her door is probably the bare minimum.
A single stool waited on his side of the counter. He sat. The wood was worn smooth, the kind of wear that came from years of use.
"Lyra sent you." Not a question. Sera still hadn't looked up. "Fresh. Tense. Scanning every exit. You're new. First mission, maybe second. She gives you the card, you show up within a day."
She reads rookies the way I read threat levels. Practice.
"Something like that."
Sera set the tablet aside. Her eyes met his for the first time. They were pale, the color of fog, and they didn't blink. She studied him the way someone might study a weapon—looking for cracks.
"Comprehensive orientation. Mortality statistics. Faction dynamics. World selection patterns. Fifty coins."
No pitch. No promises. Just a price tag.
Fifty. Lyra's info was free. This is different.
"What makes your information worth fifty?"
"I don't embellish." Her voice stayed flat. "I don't guess. What I tell you is accurate." She tilted her head slightly. "What's that worth to you?"
Three days in the Hub. Can't afford to learn everything the hard way.
Lyra gave me gossip. This is intel.
"Fine."
The System prompt materialized at the edge of his vision.
[Incoming Trade Request]
[From: Hub Staff #30912]
[Offering: Comprehensive Hub Orientation]
[Requesting: 50 Void Coins]
[Accept / Reject]
He accepted.
[Transaction complete. Balance: 2,595 Void Coins.]
Sera began immediately. No buildup. No thank you.
"Mortality first. Sixty percent of rookies don't survive their third mission." Her delivery was clipped, rapid. "The ones who make it either get smart or get lucky. You made it through one. Congratulations. You're still in the dying bracket."
Sixty percent. Jesus.
I knew it was bad. I didn't know it was that bad.
"Factions. The Arena draws the biggest crowds. Every guild wants a piece of it. Territory disputes, betting pools, recruitment scouting. Stay out of faction politics until you understand who hates who."
Factions. Arena. Politics.
Keep my head down. Learn the landscape first.
"World selection. Multiple worlds open at once when the Citadel sends you out. Veterans know which to avoid. You won't. Not yet. Learn fast or learn dead."
She paused. Her eyes tracked the door. Automatic. Even here.
"One more thing." Her voice dropped half a register. "Some things move between worlds in the void that shouldn't. The space between isn't empty. Don't ask me what. Just know."
Transit anomalies?
The extraction. Something in the void, between worlds. A presence.
I thought that was the extraction process. What if it wasn't?
The question must have shown on his face because she shook her head once. "That's not part of the package. Ask again another time. Bring more coins."
Something to revisit. When I have more coins.
"Why do you do this?"
The question came out before he could stop it. Sera's expression didn't change, but her left hand moved, fingers rubbing the burn scar absently.
"Information brokering." She said it like it tasted sour. "Because it's what I have."
"That's not what I meant."
Silence stretched between them.
"Failed Contractor." Her voice stayed flat, no trace of self-pity. "Demon world. Second mission. I didn't complete it."
She held up her scarred hand. The burn caught the light.
"Now I'm staff. Hub employee. Three days a month on Earth. The rest of my time in here." She lowered the hand. "This is what failure looks like."
Demon world. Second mission.
I've done one. She failed her second.
Three days a month on Earth. I get three days in the Hub.
She's the inverse. The mirror.
"Anything else costs extra." Her voice had returned to business. Whatever door had cracked open was closed again. "Come back when you have questions. Bring coins."
Silas stood. The stool didn't scrape. The floor absorbed the sound.
Sera was already reaching for her tablet, dismissing him as efficiently as she'd greeted him.
He pushed through the door. The corridor was cool. The Arena's distant roar was louder out here, filtering through the walls like a heartbeat.
Fifty coins. Worth it?
Ask me after my third mission. If I'm still alive.
The image stayed with him as he walked. The burn scar. The eyes that never stopped checking exits. The flat voice that had once belonged to someone who thought she'd make it.
That could be me. One bad mission. One wrong choice.
Won't be.
I won't let it.
The weight of Sera's words stayed with him for three levels.
He descended toward the Marketplace Ring, and with each floor the crowd thickened. The quiet of Level 5 gave way to Level 4's steady traffic, then Level 3's press of bodies. By Level 2, he was swimming in a current of contractors, staff, and things that didn't fit either category.
Signs appeared in languages he didn't recognize. Some he could read anyway, the Citadel's translation working in the back of his skull. Others remained alien, script that curved in ways human hands wouldn't choose. Announcements blared from mounted speakers, advertising everything from weapon repairs to "performance enhancement consultations."
Sixty percent don't make it to mission three. And here they are, spending coins like they'll live forever.
The noise built. Haggling voices, metal on metal, something that sounded like singing but came from a throat that wasn't built for it. The smell shifted too. Less sterile. More organic. Food, sweat, burned incense, and underneath it all, the copper tang of blood from somewhere he couldn't see.
The corridor opened onto the Marketplace Ring, and Silas stopped walking.
It was chaos.
Stalls sprawled in every direction, some carved into the walls, others freestanding structures that looked like they'd been assembled from salvaged materials across a dozen worlds. Hawkers called out prices. Contractors browsed with the casual violence of predators at a watering hole. Weapons hung from racks. Armor stood on mannequins that might have been alive once. Glass vials glinted with liquids in colors that hurt to look at.
Everything has a price. Everything.
He stepped into the flow.
The outer ring was the widest path, moving in a slow circle around the central hub of permanent shops. He fell into step with the crowd, keeping his hands visible and his expression blank. Nobody looked at him twice. Here, he was just another face. Another mark. Another rookie figuring out what he could afford.
The weapons came first. A stall packed with blades, ranging from simple knives to swords that hummed with barely contained energy. The prices were posted in clean script.
Iron knife: 15 VC. Steel short sword: 50 VC. Reinforced blade: 120 VC.
The numbers climbed fast. By the time he reached the premium section, the prices had four digits. A single longsword with runes etched along the fuller sat behind glass, no price listed. Just a symbol that meant "inquire within."
I've got 2,595. I could buy a decent weapon. Maybe armor. Not both.
Armor stalls followed the same pattern. Basic protection started around 40 VC and scaled rapidly. A full set of plate that looked like it could stop a truck was listed at 3,200. He didn't bother asking about it.
Potions were cheaper. Small vials lined shelves in rainbow rows. Healing tinctures at 10 VC. Stamina restoratives at 15. Something labeled "Clarity" at 25. The more exotic options climbed past 100, with effects he'd need to ask about.
I can afford some of this. Nothing exceptional. Nothing that changes the game.
He kept walking, cataloguing. Mental notes stacked on mental notes. The marketplace was a lesson in economics, and the lesson was simple: coins were power, power was survival, and survival was expensive.
A stall caught his eye.
It was set apart from the main flow, tucked into an alcove where the lighting was dimmer. The other merchants gave it a wide berth. No crowds pressed against its counter. Just shadows and the faint smell of hot metal.
The sign above it read "Black Iron" in angular script.
The merchant behind the counter was clearly not human.
Reddish-gray skin. Fingers with too many joints, folded now against the counter's edge. Eyes like polished obsidian, reflecting the ambient light without revealing anything behind them. The figure wore something that might have been an apron, scorched and stained with substances Silas didn't want to identify.
Not human. The joints are wrong. The skin is wrong.
What the hell is that?
The creature noticed him looking. Those obsidian eyes tracked across the crowd and locked onto Silas with the precision of a predator spotting movement.
"Interested in off-system gear, Contractor?"
The voice was like gravel dragged across iron. Not hostile. Not friendly. Just transactional.
Silas approached. Up close, the stall's wares were different from anything else in the marketplace. Blades that seemed to drink the light. Vials filled with liquid that moved against gravity. A set of gauntlets that left dark smears on the air when the merchant shifted them.
"Off-system," Silas repeated. "Meaning what?"
"Meaning the Citadel doesn't regulate it." Those too-jointed fingers tapped the counter. "Vylkar steel. Vylkar potions. Forged in the deep void, not their sanitized workshops."
Vylkar. That's what it is.
"Higher quality than the mass-produced junk in the main ring. Higher risk too." Those obsidian eyes didn't blink. "The Pact allows free trade. But the Citadel prefers their contractors use approved vendors."
Unregulated gear. Better quality. But if the Citadel disapproves...
What? What do they do?
I don't know. And I'm not ready to find out.
"What kind of prices?"
"Depends on what you need." The Vylkar gestured toward the displayed weapons with one too-jointed hand. "Basic blades start at 80. Potions that actually work, 30 and up. Anything specialized..." A shrug that rippled through too many joints. "We negotiate."
He noted the location. The prices. The face he wouldn't forget.
"Not today."
"You know where to find us." The Vylkar's expression didn't change. Nothing that alien could be called a smile, but there was something in the voice that suggested satisfaction. "Most Contractors come back. Eventually."
Because the Citadel gear isn't enough. Because the missions get harder.
Because sixty percent don't make it to mission three.
He left the Black Iron stall and rejoined the flow of the marketplace.
The prices echoed in his head. 50 for a decent blade. 120 for something better. Armor in the hundreds. Potions that might save his life at 25 a pop. The Vylkar's off-system alternatives, tempting and dangerous.
2,595 coins. Enough to gear up moderately. Enough to burn through in an afternoon if I'm not careful.
Or I save it. Wait for something worth the investment.
The question is whether I live long enough to spend it.
He kept walking. The marketplace stretched on, endless and overwhelming, and somewhere in the noise and the chaos, his second mission awaited.