Gerbert’s early weeks in Deadlink were a blur of blood, silence, and sleepless calculations.
He learned the hard way: every action cost HP. Conjuring even basic weaponry chipped away at his life. A crossbow? Light drain. A turret? Dangerous. A railgun? Nearly suicidal.
But the worst part wasn’t the toll on his body. It was the faces. The dying players. Their final looks.
He started wearing gloves—not for utility, but to stop feeling the cold steel of his own conjurations.
Game 9 dropped him into the blown-out ruins of an electrical grid facility, where steel catwalks twisted like bones and wires hung like webbing. The kill count was already in double digits.
Gerbert crouched beneath a wrecked transformer. HP: 48/100.
He had a short-range railgun conjured—devastating, but heavy. His breath came in sharp bursts.
Then the wires moved.
They slithered.
A figure dropped from above in a cracked electrical suit, his nametag blinking:
Zappo – HP: 81/100
“You’re the conjurer, right?” Zappo sneered. “The Builder. The Guy Who Doesn’t Kill Unless He Has To.”
Wires hissed to life, fanged and writhing like serpents.
One struck.
[HP -12] → 36/100
Gerbert rolled aside, bleeding.
Another player appeared—clean-cut, charming, surrounded by five perfect clones.
Replikid – HP: 60/100
“I don’t usually team up,” Replikid said with a grin. “But watching Zappo toy with you? Couldn’t resist.”
Gerbert was surrounded. He couldn’t conjure anything fast enough. Not without burning his HP to zero.
Then—
A hand grabbed him from the floor below.
The world shimmered—and he phased through the steel.
He landed hard. Darkness, then light.
Standing over him: black ponytail, smudged eyeliner, combat boots.
Rann. Her breath was ragged. She looked half-dead, but unbroken.
“Get up, Engineer Boy.”
Wires phased through the floor above, hissing. Rann grabbed a pipe, melted into a wall, and exploded outward—impaling one of Replikid’s clones.
“Three seconds. Conjure something.”
Gerbert’s mind kicked into overdrive:
Threat Type: Multi-angle. Solution: Auto-turret. 360° tracking. Facial lockout.
Turret deployed.
Bullets flew.
Clones dropped.
Zappo screamed—Rann struck again, kicking him into the turret's line of fire.
[Zappo – HP: 0/100]
[Replikid – HP: 0/100]
Silence.
Gerbert collapsed, HP now 17. Rann knelt beside him, just as winded.
“Why... help me?” he asked.
She didn’t meet his eyes. “You build things. Useful things. Maybe you’ll figure out how to kill this f***ing game.”
She leaned against the wall, head tilted back.
“Until then… I’m not letting good pieces go to waste.”
Not a friendship.