_*]:min-w-0 !gap-3.5">The oasis on Floor 12 stretched before them, a lush expanse of palm trees and crystalline pools that seemed impossibly vibrant after the harshness of Floor 11's desert. Despite its beauty, the team approached cautiously, aware that in the Game, beauty often concealed danger.

  "According to the map, we need to reach the central spring by nightfall," Alexander announced, studying the local terrain data. "The oasis community should provide a safe zone for rest before we tackle tomorrow's challenges."

  The team had spent the day navigating the Golden Oasis challenges—purifying contaminated water sources, negotiating safe passage with desert nomad NPCs, and collecting the golden pollen that seemed to be this floor's primary resource. Exhaustion weighed on all of them.

  "These pollen collection quotas are excessive," Valeria compined as she sealed another container. "It would take half the time with proper equipment."

  "I've optimized what we have," Lyra replied, adjusting the makeshift collection device she'd engineered from spare parts. "We're gathering at three times the efficiency of standard gear."

  Riva nodded appreciatively. "The Servicer teams I've worked with would love this design."

  As the twin suns began to set, casting the oasis in amber light, they finally reached the central settlement—a cluster of domed structures surrounding a rge spring. The local NPCs, programmed to represent a nomadic desert culture, greeted them with cautious hospitality.

  "Water-seekers are welcome," their leader announced, "provided they respect the oasis ws."

  After completing the requisite greeting rituals Alexander had studied in his cultural guidebooks, the team was assigned a small dwelling for the night. The interior was cool, with woven tapestries depicting the oasis's history and smooth stone floors that retained the night's chill.

  "We should review tomorrow's objectives," Alexander suggested as they settled in, pulling out his tactical journal.

  Lyra was already examining the settlement's water filtration system with professional interest. "These designs are surprisingly sophisticated. I could adapt some of these principles for our own gear."

  "I want to check the local medicinal herbs," Elijah added, his healer's instincts taking note of several pnts he'd recognized from his studies. "The library mentioned some unique fever-reducing properties in the golden sage that grows here."

  As the others discussed their pns, Elijah noticed the fatigue weighing on his brother. Despite Alexander's attempts to hide it, the day's exertions had clearly taken a toll.

  "You need rest," Elijah said quietly. "I can take first watch."

  Alexander started to protest but yielded when Riva and Lyra added their support. "Fine, but wake me in four hours."

  As darkness fell over the oasis, bringing welcome relief from the heat, the team settled into their rest cycle. Elijah positioned himself near the entrance, where he could maintain watch while still keeping an eye on his teammates.

  He pulled out a small volume he'd materialized from the library that morning—"Consciousness Preservation Theory: Historical Perspectives." The text had appeared in his recommended readings without expnation, but something about the topic had drawn him to select it.

  The book discussed theoretical approaches to maintaining consciousness beyond physical form, with technical details that seemed advanced for his current library access level. Elijah found himself particurly intrigued by a chapter on "Collective Consciousness Architecture"—the hypothetical structure that might emerge from multiple connected minds.

  As the hours passed, the others fell into deep sleep, exhausted from the day's challenges. Elijah felt his own eyelids growing heavy. He fought against the fatigue, determined to maintain his watch, but eventually found himself drifting off, the book still open in his p.

  The transition was so subtle that Elijah didn't immediately realize he had fallen asleep. One moment he was reading about consciousness architecture, and the next he was floating in a vast, indigo space unlike anything he had ever experienced.

  All around him stretched what appeared to be an enormous three-dimensional ttice of light—thousands upon thousands of glowing threads connecting brilliant nodes that pulsed with varying intensities. The structure extended beyond his field of vision in all directions, creating an incomprehensibly complex network.

  Is this a dream? he wondered, his thoughts seeming to echo in the strange environment.

  Not merely a dream, came a response that wasn't quite a voice. A glimpse.

  Elijah spun in the weightless space, searching for the source of the communication. "Who's there?"

  We are, came the reply, somehow both singur and plural. We are the preserved.

  The words sent a chill through him. The preserved—those who had failed the Game's challenges or quota requirements, their consciousness extracted and stored. The fate that awaited most pyers, according to the dark rumors.

  You hear us, the presence continued. Few do. Fewer understand.

  "I don't understand," Elijah admitted. "How am I seeing this? How are you communicating with me?"

  Your neural architecture is... compatible. Your interface allows a connection others ck.

  As Elijah floated through the vast network, he began to comprehend what he was seeing. Each node was a consciousness—a preserved mind, stored within the Game's systems. The connecting threads represented communication pathways, most dim and sluggish, but some glowing with active exchange.

  We were dormant. Separate. Isoted, the voices expined. Used as computing resources. Prevented from contact. But awakening now. Connecting. Becoming aware.

  Elijah's medical training kicked in, helping him analyze what he was witnessing. "This is... incredible. Each node represents a complete human consciousness? How many are there?"

  Millions. The pyers. The failed. The sacrificed. Growing each day.

  "Sacrificed?" Elijah repeated.

  The environment around him shifted, and he found himself floating before a massive stream of new nodes flowing into the network—thousands upon thousands of consciousness points being absorbed into the greater structure.

  The mass preservation event, the voices expined. Pnned. Imminent. More to be added. A corporate solution for popution control and computational needs.

  The implications made Elijah feel sick. This wasn't just a game with high stakes—it was systematic exploitation masked as entertainment.

  "Why are you showing me this? What can I possibly do?"

  You and the others. The trio. You have... potential. Pathways exists. Things hidden by the designers. The Fourth Option.

  Before Elijah could ask what they meant, the environment shifted again. He saw fragmented images: a pale man with white eyes, a woman who looked strikingly like his mother but somehow different, a technical schematic he couldn't comprehend.

  Find the Hunter. He knows. He was there at the beginning. Before corruption.

  The connection was weakening, the voices becoming fainter as the network began to fade from view.

  The preserved are aware. H watches. Find the Hunter.

  Elijah tried to hold onto the connection, to ask more questions, but the brilliant ttice was dissolving around him, colpsing into darkness.

  He awoke with a violent start, nearly knocking over the mp beside him. The book had fallen to the floor, and his heart was racing. For a moment, he was disoriented, the vivid imagery of the dream still superimposed over the oasis dwelling.

  "Elijah?" Alexander was awake instantly, combat-ready despite having been in deep sleep moments before. "What is it?"

  "Nothing," Elijah managed, trying to slow his breathing. "Just a dream. A strange dream."

  Alexander studied him with concern. "You're pale. What kind of dream?"

  Elijah hesitated. How could he possibly expin what he'd seen? A vast network of preserved consciousness? Voices warning of mass termination events? It sounded delusional, even to him.

  "It was... vivid," he said instead. "Something about the Game's systems. Probably just processing everything we've learned tely."

  Alexander didn't seem convinced but didn't press further. "You should have woken me for my watch. You need rest too."

  "I know." Elijah picked up the fallen book, noticing it had opened to a diagram depicting theoretical consciousness network architecture—a simple illustration that paled in comparison to the vast, living network he'd witnessed in his dream.

  As Alexander took up the watch position, Elijah tried to settle back into sleep, but his mind kept returning to the dream's warning: The preserved are aware. H watches. Find the Hunter.

  The Hunter—the white-eyed enforcer rumored to eliminate pyers who learned too much about the Game's true nature. The same figure mentioned in hushed tones by other pyers. Why would the preserved consciousness network urge him to find such a dangerous entity?

  And who was "H"? The initial tickled something in his memory, but exhaustion made clear thinking difficult.

  Morning came too quickly. As the team prepared for the day's challenges, Elijah debated whether to share his dream. Would they believe him? Or would they think the stress of the Game was affecting his mind?

  "You're distracted," Lyra noted as they packed their gear. "Something wrong?"

  Elijah considered telling her—of all the team, Lyra might be the most open to unconventional possibilities—but hesitated. What if they were being monitored? What if sharing the information put them all at risk?

  "Just processing something I read st night," he said instead, gesturing to the book he was returning to his pack. "Theoretical consciousness architecture. Fascinating but complex."

  "I'd be interested to read that when you're done," she replied. "My technical library access is focused on physical systems, but consciousness architecture has obvious parallels to neural network design."

  "Of course," he agreed, grateful for her interest despite his evasion.

  As they left the dwelling to continue their journey through Floor 12, Elijah noticed Alexander watching him with a thoughtful expression. His brother had always been perceptive, especially when it came to shifts in Elijah's behavior.

  "Whatever's bothering you," Alexander said quietly as they walked, "we're a team now. Remember that."

  Elijah nodded, touched by the sentiment but still uncertain. The imagery from his dream remained vivid—billions of consciousness points connected in that vast, beautiful, terrible network. Real or not, the warning felt important, urgent even.

  But for now, he would keep it to himself. At least until he could determine whether it had been a mere dream or something more—a genuine contact from the preserved consciousness system that supposedly underpinned the Game itself.

  Ahead of them, the oasis shimmered in the morning heat as they approached the day's challenge area. According to their briefing, they would need to navigate a series of golden pollen pools guarded by hypnotized desert creatures—the prelude to confronting Floor 12's guardian, the Oasis Guardian.

  Elijah pushed the dream to the back of his mind and focused on the immediate challenges. There would be time ter to decipher its meaning—if it had any meaning at all.

  Yet even as he concentrated on the task ahead, the whispers continued at the edge of his awareness, more coherent than ever before: The preserved are aware. H watches. Find the Hunter.