One by one, people stepped into the glowing passage. A stooped old man shuffled forward, bent but steady, and when he touched the threshold he dissolved into light. No body, no shadow, only a ripple spreading across the storming surface.
A group of three went together. They vanished in a single flare, like sparks dropped into water.
The line kept moving. No hesitation. Mothers with children. Workers still in uniform. Faces unreadable, as though stepping into an alien vortex was no stranger than boarding the morning lift.
Rem’s chest tightened. His mind clawed at explanations. But the storm kept swallowing them whole, and no one ever came back.
A hand settled heavy on his shoulder. His father. Solid, warm, grounding. “You can do it,” he said, voice low, the same tone he used when a child’s fever spiked or when storms shook the canal walls. “Remember the plan. Stick to it. We’re counting on you.”
Encouragement. And weight. Always weight.
The line thinned. People filed through until only he remained.
Rem rose from the chair. His knees felt rusted, palms slick, throat locked. The arch loomed taller than the Peperbus spire, glyphs sliding across its stone in restless patterns, too quick to hold in memory. Inside, the vortex shifted endlessly, blues and purples folding like ink dropped in water.
He stepped forward. The cold light seized him, closed around him like a clenched fist.
A flare. Pressure through his chest, his bones.
The square was gone.
No dizziness. No falling. No sound.
Only quiet.
From the way his family described it, induction would be a warm room and a friendly admin—a neat interface where he’d be shown a menu of classes, skills, and stats derived from his assessment. He’d scroll, pick, and begin. That was the promise.
Instead he found himself on a raised stone platform. Light pooled from somewhere impossibly high, haloing the floor in a pale disc. Across the dark expanse another platform glowed. On that platform something enormous was waking.
Brass towers rose like ribs. Glass cylinders simmered and bubbled with colored liquid. Painted wooden panels showed blocky heroes—square jaws, impossible smiles—charging through stylized starbursts. At the machine’s crown a brass rocket wheeled around a sapphire globe that pulsed from within, the chrome letters stamped along its equator reading: STAR CORPS.
Rem turned back once to the glyph wall, as if looking for proof he hadn’t misread the room. The wall stared back in cold script. Then he crossed the shadowed floor toward the contraption.
Up close the details pulled him in. Copper pipes coiled like veins into glass bulbs. Rows of tiny bulbs winked in jagged rhythms. Gears ratcheted beneath smoked glass. Painted panels, in broad, angular strokes, depicted heroes striking impossible poses, rocketships arcing past suns frozen mid-flare. The whole thing felt both ancient and engineered to overawe, like a cathedral built for propaganda.
As he closed the distance, the cabinet stirred. Gears clicked. A mechanical arm fetched a golden disc and set it on a rotating stage. Wheels of thick glass engaged with a heavy clatter. A small speaker in the lattice of brass cleared its throat and then launched into a clipped, theatrical call:
“Attention, citizens of the Union! Across the vastness of space, brave men and women take their stand at the edge of the known. They are the Star Corps—heroes of every world, guardians of the eternal frontier! Enlist today. Defend your people. Claim your destiny!”
The voice was thin and bright, like a town-crier bumped through old phonograph horns. Bulbs flashed in uneven rows. The painted murals caught the light and threw it back in hard, uncompromising colors. At the center of all this motion a brass palm plate waited; its grooves shone as if polished by a thousand palms. The metal gave off a faint, steady warmth.
The herald’s lines kept unfurling on a painted scroll, rolled up in step with the fanfare:
Some are born strong. Some are chosen for greatness.
But the Star Corps knows: the truest heroes are forged from the overlooked, the underestimated, the ones no one believed could stand…
Take your place among the stars. Prove your mettle.
Each line pulsed with brass fanfare until the script scrolled away, replaced by the chrome Star Corps logo and the slight, expectant glow along the palm plate. The grooves seemed to breathe.
Rem felt the pull of the ritual. He told himself he was being ridiculous—this was theater, not verdict. Still, his hand rose before he understood why. Heat rose from the metal like a held breath.
He set his palm down.
For a heartbeat the plate was comforting—warm, steady—then white heat stabbed through his flesh and lanced up his arm into his skull. Pain shot through his head so severe he must have lost consciousness because when he recovered he was sprawled on the floor in front of the machine. Pain. He looked at his palm.
A mark seared bright in the center of it, a starburst etched in fire. He clenched his fist against it, breath ragged, watching as the glow guttered and dimmed. Within seconds it was little more than a faint scar, barely visible, but the ache lingered as though the brand still pulsed beneath the skin.
Inside the glass the brass gears spun the wheels. Rem stood and watched the commotion. Thick glass drums blurred into bands of color. The sound of them turning was a heavy, patient thing, like old clocks trying to outrun themselves. A brass plate flipped into view above the cabinet. In block letters across its face:
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
MIGHT
The three glass wheels clattered, then halted with a thud. One stopped on a planet. Another on a star. The third clacked to rest on a rocket.
The phonograph horn crackled: “Might. Not every hero triumphs with brawn! While some outmuscle their foes, you take a higher path. Clever hands, clever tools, clever allies—these will carry you further than muscle alone!”
A brass arm plucked a cream card from a stack and set it beneath a pen. The mechanical nib scratched in looping strokes—deliberate, practiced—inscribing the first line of his fate before the wheels lurched to life again.
“VIGOR.” The reels spun, symbols flashing: void, comet, void. The little horn chirped, “Vigor. The body may bend, but the spirit does not! Frailty is no weakness when courage burns bright. Every ember may yet blaze into flame!” A new scrawl on the card.
“SPEED.” The wheels clattered faster. Star. Void. Planet. “Speed. Quick feet are fine, but sharper minds run farther! Many a hero was lost chasing swiftness. The wise endure.”
“INSIGHT.” Symbols blurred—rocket, rocket, rocket—and the lights snapped brighter. A small siren warbled. “Insight. A mind attuned! The universe opens itself to those who watch, who learn. Knowledge is your blade, citizen. See what others cannot, and none may stand against you!”
As the brass arm inscribed that line, Rem watched the rocket symbols go dim across the three wheels, melt into nothing, as if some image was being retired.
“RESOLVE.” Click, clack—comet, void, star. “Resolve. Every flame flickers. But even a flicker can light the way! Doubt not, citizen—the Corps believes in you!”
“PRESENCE.” The reels rattled to a halt: planet, comet, void. “Presence. Not every hero leads with words. Some lead by deeds, quiet and sure. Others will follow, whether you call them or not.”
Each proclamation hammered at him with trumpets and drums, the painted heroes on the panels frozen as if mid-encouragement. The card filled with neat, looping script, the pen moving like a scribe’s hand guided by unseen judgment.
Rem tried to parse what he saw. He imagined copper conduits siphoning a glint of something from his palm into the brass brain. He pictured gears translating warmth and pulse into numbers and then into images. He wanted to believe it was a measurement: a mirror held up to what he truly was. But his chest stung at the other possibility—that the wheels were theater and the result was a role assigned, a line in a play he had not auditioned for.
The outer ring of the cabinet turned. Painted rockets circled, climbing a mechanical arc. The music swelled—brass and drums and a chorus of brittle chimes—so loud it pushed against the skin.
A nameplate dropped in with a heavy clang. In deep enamel blue, gilded letters read:
POTENTIAL
The wheels blurred into pure light. Inside the bubbling glass, sparks flared with frantic energy.
The first wheel slammed to a stop: a radiant star burned at its center, gemstone core glowing. The second wheel locked—another radiant star. The third tottered, teeth grinding, wobbling like a gear fighting for purchase, then at last fell into place: a third radiant star.
The cabinet convulsed into celebration. Bulbs flared, panels lit from within as if set ablaze. Brass horns sounded, drums pounded; the phonograph voice—now a towering roar—declared: “Citizen! Some heroes go far, but you—you eclipse them all! Potential without limit, destiny without end. You are chosen—you are Starbound!”
The word was a hot coal in Rem’s chest. Teachers had used that word like an ache. His father had used it with a sigh. Here, the universe itself seemed to applaud the label, and shame rose in him like bile.
He watched the pen carve the last flourish and exhaled as if the ordeal were complete—but then the outer rim clicked again, and his stomach dropped. The rocket orbit accelerated. The painted stars on the wheels blinked… and then they were gone. Symbols were stripped out, replaced by blank squares; where brilliance had been, brass stared back.
A new plate swung into place, white with silver lettering:
POWER
The wheels spun, slower this time. They clacked, hesitated, and fell.
First: void. Empty brass stared up at him.
Second: void. Another blank.
Third: void. The last wheel spun longest—gears grinding, as if the mechanism resisted—then locked on empty.
The music hiccupped, horns coughing off-key. Sparks sputtered dim in their cylinders. For a moment, everything hung like a note cut off mid-chorus.
The phonograph returned, its voice brittle, trying to paper over the silence: “Not all heroes begin with glory! Some rise from the humblest sparks to burn the brightest of all. Citizen, remember: every role is vital, every gift has worth. Even the smallest tool, in faithful hands, may yet serve the Star Corps!”
Inside, the pen scratched the card with an ugly slowness, no flourish now, just blocky letters. With a final clack the cream card slid free.
Rem folded it between his fingers like a verdict.
Official Card of the Hero Union
He read the ink until the numbers blurred:
Might: 8
Vigor: 7
Speed: 8
Insight: 12
Resolve: 9
Presence: 7
Potential: S-tier
Powers:
Compensatory restrictions applied due to elevated potential.
Merge — Within your merge domain, combine two items. Results uncertain. (Rank: Trash)
Identify — Within your merge domain, perceive the primary qualities of any item. (Rank: Common)
He read it again. Ten was the adult baseline. He sat beneath the fanfare and felt, cruelly and precisely, average in almost everything. Insight alone nudged above the line, a small lighthouse in murky water. His potential soared, labeled S-tier—bright, unbearable—but his —the things that would let him do, to act—had been reduced, nerfed to “Trash.” Even the machine’s euphemism sounded like an insult.
A laugh broke out of him, thin and humorless. “There it is,” he said, hearing his father’s old voice in his head. “Official proof of what every teacher said—‘you have potential, Rem, if only you’d apply yourself.’” The words stung because they were true in the way truth can be cruel.
He shoved the card deep into his pocket. He could not imagine handing it to his parents and watching their faces stitch themselves into the worried masks he knew all too well. He could not carry any more of their pity.
He stepped back to the glyph wall and pressed his palm flat against the cold stone, trying to anchor himself. The glyphs flared and lines of clinical text unspooled in white:
[SYSTEM NOTICE — LOCALIZED — INDUCTION FAILURE REPORT: IF-001]
Procedure: invoked cross-check (Protocol 212).
Result: incompatibility confirmed across the following subsystems:
? Concentration (Ref: ESS-C/14)
? Filtering (Ref: ESS-F/19)
? Aggregation (Ref: ESS-A/22)
? Advancement (Ref: ESS-ADV/31)
? Suppression (Ref: ESS-SUP/47)
Compatibility retained in:
? Storage Subsystem (Ref: ESS-ST/03)
? Challenge Subsystem (Ref: ESS-CH/07)
? Rewards Subsystem (Ref: ESS-RW/11)
? Interface Subsystem (Ref: ESS-IF/15)
Action: anomaly logged (Anomaly Code: IF-001). Escalation ticket filed with planetary Administrator. Status: pending review.
This notice is informational. Further instructions will be provided pursuant to Oversight Queue OQ-212.
The carnival brass fell silent. What remained was flat and brutal, a clerk reading charges into record.
Rem’s throat tightened. The question that had been gnawing at him coiled back sharper: was this machine uncovering him—laying bare what his essence already was—or was it assigning him, fixing his fate because someone had written the rules long before he arrived?
He did not know. Both answers were poison. If it measured truth, then truth declared him small. If it assigned truth, then he was at the mercy of a broken engine stamping verdicts. Either way, the card burned in his pocket like a hot stone.
And yet—beneath the weight, a flicker. He could imagine other outcomes: his hands turning scraps into wonders, insight that saw this missed by others, a use for his wandering mind that didn't embarrass him. There was hope. Tiny, fragile, but real.
A minute passed. He was still alone in the dark chamber.
“...Hello?”
