Prelude: The Memory That Never Was
Venessa sat alone in the secret cellar under Qezarp Tower.
Her fingers danced inches above a cube of bendy glass—the Mnemosyne Vault, Vinray's most intimate invention. It could hold a soul's emotion memories, not only visual or audio memories. And it could seal them away forever.
One of the Twenty had employed it. Without authorization. Without procedure.
The memory was marked only as: "For Vinray. From the Boy Who Disappeared."
Venessa paused. Then observed.
It was a boy—just six years old—with scars on his wrists and a voice too serene for his age.
"If you're seeing this, it means I couldn't remain. Not with the others. Not in your shadow. But I recall what you forgot, Vinray: We weren't meant to win. We were meant to survive."
Venessa closed the vault. Her heart ached. The boy on the recording was Ashwire.
But younger.
And deadlier.
Scene I: The Lost Archive
Jinno Marquez came to Marrakesh under moonless skies. He had tracked a ghost trail—not Drenic's, not Ashwire's—but someone older.
Ilios.
The first to betray Qezarp Wantas. The one deleted from all systems.
Ilios had once ruled over the mythos division—the department in charge of disinformation, legend seeding, and symbolic warfare. And he had buried a copy of the Mythos Codex under the oldest library in the desert. A manual on how to control collective memory.
Now Jinno needed it.
Because the Sarpanch were using mythic manipulation to reorder global narratives. They had begun replacing real events in the minds of the people with symbolic fictions. Entire wars remembered differently. Political assassinations rewritten as natural deaths. Suicide bombings reshaped as martyrdom epics.
He found the vault.
But it wasn't alone.
Someone else had just arrived.
Kael Ronex.
Both men froze.
Kael: "You followed me."
Jinno: "No. I was already here."
Kael: "Then we are both being followed."
The walls shimmered. Mirrors. Traps.
They drew weapons.
And from the dark came a laugh neither had heard in six years.
Ilios.
Not dead.
Worse.
Changed.
He stepped forward, now calling himself Mythcarver.
And he said, "You think you've built an empire. You've built a story. Let me rewrite the ending."
Scene II: The Veil Protocol
Vinray met with the last person he ever wanted to see: Professor Aldrien Sorne, master of psychological collapse engineering.
They met inside a memory simulation of Vinray's childhood kitchen.
Sorne poured tea.
Vinray didn't sip.
Sorne: "The Veil Protocol requires three triggers. Emotional dissonance. Loyalty inversion. Existential recursion. You're missing the third."
Vinray: "Not anymore."
Sorne raised a brow.
Vinray: "Ashwire defected. But he didn't betray me. He reminded me. The thunder follows silence. It doesn't replace it."
Sorne smiled.
Vinray handed over the new codebase.
The Veil Protocol would now enable specially chosen agents to overwrite false memories—those that had been planted by the Sarpanch.
But at what price.
With every application of the protocol, one authentic memory would be removed from the agent's own history.
A memory of happiness.
Of love.
Of trust.
Vinray signed off on it anyway.
Scene III: The Ghost Tournament Opens
In a casino constructed below the ice lakes of Novaya Zemlya, the Sarpanch initiated the initial phase of what they termed The Deathless Game.
Fifty players. All strangers to one another. All legendary in alternative worlds—money, crime, war, entertainment, politics, biotech.
All wore a mask. All had a nickname.
The prize would not bring money.
It would bring story control.
Control over rewriting headlines, editing recollections, deleting facts.
Vinray's proxy was not one of the Five Brothers.
It was Wraith.
Freshly wounded from his mission, yet keener than ever.
He went in under the alias of Shadewalker.
And the first assignment:
Reveal the player who was out of place.
Just one.
A plant.
From the governments of the old world.
Wraith glared across the table.
And smiled.
He already had a clue.
Because that player had been using a code phrase exclusive to use by the Twenty when trained:
"The candle flickers twice before it dies."
Only Ashwire would be familiar with that.
But Ashwire was in the Sarpanch's camp.
So who was this?
Wraith scribbled one name.
Pushed it across the table.
The table moderator read it out loud: "Venessa."
Silence.
Shock.
But not denial.
Because the woman across the table removed her mask.
And it wasn't Venessa.
It was her twin sister.
One Vinray had never mentioned.
The others looked at Wraith.
He simply said: "He'll understand. He always does."
Scene IV: The Brothers Divide
Back at Qezarp, Dorik and Nevan confronted Vinray.
They had found the Veil Protocol.
Dorik: "You're asking us to lose real memories for fake wars."
Nevan: "You promised transparency."
Vinray: "I promised survival."
Dorik: "At what cost?"
Vinray: "At any cost."
Silence.
Then Nevan posed the question that broke the floor:
"What happens when the cost is us?"
Vinray said nothing.
Because out in the hall, Wraith had fallen over.
The Deathless Game was catching up to him.
And in his mind.
Ashwire's voice once more:
"You're chasing shadows. But I live in them now."
Final Scene: The Map Expands
In the Arctic Circle, in a secret observatory turned war-room, the Sarpanch studied the memory-dust Wraith had spilled during the Obsidian Monk mission.
They charted the order of Qezarp Wantas.
They found something odd:
There were Thirty-One cores of power.
Not thirty.
Someone had hidden their existence from even Vinray.
Someone inside.
Codename: Mirrorthorn.
The Sarpanch leader—The Eye—smiled.
"The fracture is here. And it bleeds truth."
Auroras swirled.
The Deathless Game entered Phase Two.