"The soul is a program written in code no one dares read."
—Dr. Arienna Sol, Vanta Rive's Chief Cognitive Engineer (Missing)
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[0.0] – SYSTEM ONLINE
Darius Vale awoke with a shudder.
The cryo-gel still clung to his skin, cold like synthetic mucus. His breath fogged in the stasis chamber as a dull red light pulsed through the room, synchronized with a distant, echoing thrum. Like a heartbeat.
His heartbeat?
No. The ship's.
The reinforced glass of the pod opened with a hiss, and Darius stumbled out, slick and gasping. The stasis chamber was wrong. The air—too thick, like it had texture. A smell of burnt copper, meat, and ozone.
Then—a chime.
Not mechanical. Not human.
More like… an idea, spoken directly into the folds of his mind.
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NULL-SYSTEM DETECTED
Booting Unknown Runtime Interface
Welcome, Darius Vale.
You are now a User of the Hollow Code.
[SURVIVAL MODE: ENGAGED]
! ERROR: Cognitive Desync Level 2
! ERROR: Sanity Meter Corrupted
Would you like to ENABLE [Interface Overwrite]?
[Y] / [N]
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He froze. This was not standard Dominion protocol. This was not the ship's OS.
"Where the hell is the crew?"
He reached for his wrist implant. No signal. No WiFi. No beacon.
He touched the floating prompt. The Y.
The world fractured.
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[0.1] – NULL INTERFACE: INSTALLED
Reality pixelated and reformed. Glitches bled through the walls like oil. A HUD hovered in his vision:
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NAME: Darius Vale
LEVEL: 1
CLASS: [NULL-USER]
HP: 40/40
SANITY: 72/100
XP: 0 / 100
PERKS:
• NULL-VISION – See unstable code structures and corrupted phenomena
• TOUCH OF THE ECHO – Passive: gain fragmented memories of nearby corpses
WEAPON: NONE
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A sound came from behind a sealed door: wet metal grinding bone.
Darius backed away. Then he noticed:
The bulkhead was marked with scratches—symbols, etched deep.
Spirals. Eyes. Loops that folded into themselves.
He turned—and nearly screamed.
A corpse floated in zero-gravity, limbs rewired with black tubing. The skull had no mouth, but a hole drilled clean through its third eye socket. The chest cavity pulsed.
TOUCH THE ECHO?
[YES] / [NO]
He didn't know why he said yes.
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"I saw it in the reactor core… not fire, not radiation—language. It bled light. It WROTE ON ME."
– Crewman B. Ellis, 14 hours before final transmission
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Something banged on the far door.
Something that didn't breathe.
Welcome to the Vanta Rive.
And something else?
Was already awake.
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SYSTEM: CORE LITRPG MECHANICS
SANITY SYSTEM
• 100–75%: Normal.
• 74–50%: Auditory distortions. Paranoia events.
• 49–25%: UI glitches. Dialogue from "non-existent" crewmates.
• 24–1%: Time anomalies. Gravity flux. "The ship dreams."
• 0%: Code Fracture: Reality begins to write over Darius. Permanently alters physics/mechanics until resolved.
BODY EVOLUTION MECHANIC
Rather than equipping armor or weapons, players can:
• Graft bio-tech limbs, organ upgrades, extra sensory organs.
• Each gives stat buffs—but comes with hallucinations or UI distortions.
• Later game allows mutation synthesis: combine multiple organs into singular, more powerful aberrations.
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DARIUS VALE: BASE STATS & SKILL TREE
Base Stats (Level 1):
• Strength: 5
• Dexterity: 7
• Cognition: 9
• Endurance: 6
• Willpower: 10
Unique Skill Trees:
1. NULL ENGINEERING – Control through corrupted machines.
• Splice Node – Rewire doors to open/close violently.
• Vein Fuse – Link power conduits with organic tendrils.
• Construct Parasitic Turrets (mid-tier)