The kid in front of me got a glowing sword branded on his hand, and the hall erupted in cheers. His shoulders straightened. He was somebody now. The line shuffled forward one body. Mine.
My turn.
The Inscription Pillar was cold, humming metal. I placed my left hand on the plate. A needle of light drilled into my skin. It didn't hurt. It felt like ice spreading under the flesh, tracing a shape I couldn't see.
The light died. On my hand, a mark glowed faintly, then settled. It was a quill. A simple, faded-looking quill.
The proctor at the terminal squinted at his screen. His voice, amplified, echoed across the suddenly quiet hall. "Liam Null. Clerk. F-rank. Non-combat."
Two observers in the Eastern Library's grey-trim coats stood by the rear wall, taking notes. They did not laugh. One of them circled something on her tablet before the laughter started.
A beat. Then the laughter started. It wasn't mean, not really. It was the sound of relief. *At least I'm not him.*
A heavy shoulder slammed into mine, shoving me off the platform. I stumbled, caught my balance. Rex Ironclaw, already with a gleaming broadsword emblem on his hand, didn't even look back. "Go file paperwork, quill-boy." His friends laughed with him, a pack moving toward the combat-class orientation doors.
I looked at my hand. The quill looked cheap. Washed out. I flexed my fingers. The mark didn't change. A clerk. The one job that guaranteed I'd never get past Floor 1. The one job that paid in scraps.
My sister's expedition log was last updated on Floor 7. Three years ago. The file was sealed. Clerk clearance couldn't even open the summary.
I needed to go down. The rules said I couldn't.
They processed me into the Records Division by noon. My contract was two pages. Salary: one-tenth the base combat stipend. Duties: organize, file, and log hunter reports from Floor 1 expeditions. Access: Library, First Floor, Records Wing only. Penalty for unauthorized floor entry: termination and permanent blacklisting.
My supervisor, a tired-looking D-rank Archivist, handed me a keycard. "Cubicle fourteen. Don't lose the card. It only works on the first floor. Don't try anything stupid."
I sat in cubicle fourteen. The report on my screen was from a party of E-ranks who'd killed six Ink Rabbits on Floor 1. They'd used a minor flame skill. The report was poorly spelled. I corrected the grammar, filed it under "Minor Vermin, Eastern Corridor."
The clock ticked to 5 PM. The division emptied out. Combat classes had night training. Clerks had lives to go home to.
I stayed.
The security checkpoint to Floor 2 was a simple scanner gate at the end of the Records Wing. A bored F-rank guard played on his phone. His card hung on a lanyard around his neck. The shift change was at 6. He'd leave his post to use the bathroom at 5:50. Every day. I'd watched for a week.
At 5:49, he stood, stretched, and walked down the hall.
I moved. Not running. A fast walk. Past his empty chair, through the unmanned scanner arch. A soft beep. A red light flashed once on the ceiling, then went dark. No alarm. The system logged it as a maintenance sweep. I'd read the protocols, too.
The air changed on the other side. Floor 1 smelled of dust and ozone. Floor 2 smelled damp. Metallic. Like old ink and wet stone.
The outer corridor was dim, emergency strips casting a blue glow on seamless black walls. This was just the access hall. The real floors, the dangerous ones, were through the bulkheads further down. But hunters left traces everywhere. Expedition logs sometimes got dropped. Maps. Notes.
I found nothing near the entrance. I went deeper. The corridor curved. The blue light strips became fewer. Shadows pooled.
A sound. Like wet paper tearing.
I froze. My Codex, which had been a silent, passive thing all day, flickered at the edge of my vision. No alert. Just a faint pulse.
From a side alcove, it flowed. A puddle of shifting, liquid black. It pulled itself up. Legs formed. A low, dog-sized shape. An Ink Hound. Basic. F-rank. Patrol type.
It had no eyes, but the front of its ink-blob head oriented toward me. It didn't growl. It just started moving. A smooth, silent lope.
I backed up. My heel hit a broken piece of shelving that had been shoved against the wall. A plank, about two feet long.
The Ink Hound's pace quickened. It wasn't running. It was flowing faster.
I grabbed the plank. It was cheap particle board. Splintered.
The beast lunged. A simple, ink-black pounce.
I swung. The plank connected with a wet *thwack*. The creature splattered against the wall like a dropped water balloon.
It didn't die. The black ink slid down the wall, pooled on the floor, and pulled itself together again. It was smaller now. Angrier. Its form vibrated.
It lunged again. I tried to sidestep, to swing once more. I was too slow. It wasn't.
Black jaws, cold and solid, clamped onto my left forearm.
The pain was instant. A deep, freezing burn that ate through the bone. My vision whited at the edges. The plank clattered to the floor. I was going to die in a forgotten hallway, and no one would look for me for weeks.
Then my Codex *exploded*.
Not literally. But text, sharp and bright, scrolled across the center of my sight, overlaying the pain and the dripping ink beast.
`[Hidden Talent Awakened: Death Transcript]`
`[Skill Detected — Target: Ink Hound (F-rank). Skill: Ink Bite (F-grade). Transcription available. Accept? Y/N]`
The pain was a spike in my brain. The words were a lifeline. I didn't understand. A talent? Clerks didn't get talents.
The Ink Hound shook its head, worrying my arm. The cold was spreading. My fingers were numb.
*Y.*
I thought it, screamed it in my mind.
The effect was immediate. The Ink Hound dissolved. Not into a corpse, but into a stream of swirling black particles. They tore away from my arm and streamed toward the quill mark on my left hand. The mark glowed, a hungry silver light, sucking the particles in.
The pain vanished. The bite wound sealed over, leaving only a faint silver sheen on the skin for a second before it faded.
My Codex stabilized, reforming into a new panel.
[[Codex Panel — First Transcription]
Rank: F-Rank Clerk
Permanent Slots: 0 / 3
─────────────────
Temporary: Ink Bite (F-grade)
─────────────────
[Timer: 23:59:58]]
I stared at the numbers. They ticked down. 23:59:57. 56. 55.
A skill. I had a skill. A temporary, stolen skill from the thing that just tried to kill me.
The empty corridor felt different. My arm was fine. I counted four breaths before I moved.
The timer kept ticking in the corner of my eye like a fuse.
I had a skill. I had twenty-four hours to use it before it disappeared. The transcription rules scrolled into view in my Codex as I focused. *Permanent: Use transcribed skill to kill a higher-rank target within duration.*
To keep it, I had to kill something stronger. With an F-rank bite.
I looked down the dark corridor. Further in. Toward the bulkheads that led to the real hunting grounds.
The plank lay where I dropped it. I left it there.
I started walking deeper, the blue light strips flickering above me. The timer in the corner of my eye read 23:58:12.
Something larger than an Ink Hound was going to die tonight. Or I was.