Chapter 18:

Chapter 18: The Offering

Betray

The Animus had given them a cruel bargain: finish 1,550 years of challenges inside and it would be only twenty‑five days in the real world. For them, that meant one desperate sprint through time and trial.

“About time you opened up,” Mateo murmured, pushing aside a curtain of living bark. The four of them Mateo, Luar, Ofurd, and Kamil stood inside the hollow of a towering tree. Sunlight braided through leaves; the air smelled of wet earth. Yet there was no sign of people, no village, nothing but grass into the horizon.

“So what are we waiting for, then?” Ofurd asked. “Elude has to offer something.”

“Where is the Elude?” Luar frowned. “I thought there’d be people. A gate. Something.”

Kamil shrugged. “Maybe we’re in the wrong place.” He started to turn away.

“Stop talking. Don’t move,” Ofurd snapped, but his warning came too late. Kamil reached for what looked like a door in the bark and the world answered.

A great hole yawned open beneath them. Time stretched; motion slowed. Luar screamed. Mateo grabbed Kamil, both struggling as gravity itself seemed to bend and slide them downward.

They tumbled into another clearing. Another massive tree rose from the ground, its trunk scored with strange symbols. Mateo pressed his palm to the wood. The message that bloomed under his fingers read, IF YOU ARE THE YOU CAN BE THE FIRST.

“Guys look.” Mateo pointed. “It’s a message. Help me figure it out.”

Luar and Kamil exchanged looks. Before they could puzzle it out, a voice like wind and circuits spoke: IF 41. A faceless glyph glowed in the bark.

“It means if you came last, you can come first,” IF 41 said. “Or perhaps: the last who tried may let another open. Try in order.”

Mateo shrugged. “I think Kamil was the last to touch it. Kamil your turn.”

Kamil’s face tightened. He stepped forward and gripped the handle. The wood shifted under his fingers and the door swung wide. When they stepped through, they found themselves in a wide plain of grass again. But this place pulsed differently, as if judging them.

“No people. Just more tests,” Ofurd muttered.

IF 41 hummed. “This place measures intent.”

Mateo read aloud, “We must bring an offering.” He swallowed. “An offering… someone?”

Ofurd’s smile was too quick. “Then we kill someone. That’s the offer.”

Luar’s face paled. “You mean… a person?”

“If you all work together,” IF 41 said, “destroy four villages together and you will gain favor. If you do not work together, each of you may take only four lives individually but killing civilians brings negative points. Negative points stack when the life taken is of a civilian.”

“I’m bored,” IF 41 added, then dimmed. “I'm sleeping now. Do not wake me.”

“Alright,” Mateo said, tense. “Luar, use your IF. While it’s awake, maybe it can guide us.”

Luar closed his eyes and reached inward. A soft shape answered: his IF manifested like a small constellation at his palm. “Where do we go?” Luar asked.

“Walk 2.1 kilometers,” the IF answered. “You will reach a village. It has been traversed.”

Mateo’s jaw set. “We should join the ones burning those villages. With them we can take at least four villages quickly.” He hesitated at the thought of betrayal. “There’s a quest to destroy your own friends, it says.”

“So we join the NPCs and reach the Elude?” Ofurd asked.

“That’s how it works,” IF 41 had said before fading. “Cooperation speeds passage. Choice defines cost.”

Kamil cracked his knuckles. “Then let’s go.”

Fifteen minutes later they marched. The walk dragged with an unnatural weight. Luar complained like a child: “Are we there yet?”

Ofurd’s patience snapped. “Why do we have a kid in our team? We all have bodies of twenty‑five than act like it.”

“Silence,” Mateo said sharply. “He’s my brother. Don’t pick on him.”

Kamil rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Just keep him out of trouble.”

Luar bowed his head. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

They kept walking. Behind them the grass whispered secrets. Ahead, a smoke plume darkened the sky, the first sign that choice had already begun.