[Floor B86: The Quiet Mercy]
Rule: All suffering is suspended. No danger. No lies.
Exit Condition: Sacrifice one memory you treasure.
They expected pain.
They expected blood.
Instead, they awoke in soft light.
In silence.
On grass.
Real grass.
A sky above them, golden clouds drifting.
The sound of wind through trees.
And laughter—soft, human, real.
Lucien sat up first.
He was in a chair.
On a porch.
Wearing clothes he didn't own.
A steaming mug in his hand.
No interface.
No system prompts.
Naia emerged from a cottage.
Wearing a sundress.
Smiling.
Calen was chopping wood nearby.
Laughing with a child.
A child that didn't exist.
But somehow felt right.
"This can't be real," Lucien whispered.
A voice answered, not mechanical but warm:
"It isn't. But it could be, if you stop climbing."
Lucien turned.
A woman sat next to him.
Eyes calm.
Older. Gentle.
"Who are you?"
"A mercy the Tower rarely gives. A floor that offers rest."
"What's the cost?"
"To leave, you must give something up. Not blood. Not power. A memory. The one that anchors you. The one that hurts."
Lucien looked out across the field.
Naia was talking to Cassandra.
Alive. Free.
Calen held hands with someone who had once killed him.
Lucien whispered, "They're all... healed."
"They're whole," the woman corrected. "Because here, nothing hunts them. Here, the Tower is just a dream."
Naia's Dilemma:
She walked by a river.
With her sister.
No pain.
No fire.
"Stay," the sister said. "You've fought enough."
"I want to," Naia admitted. "But if I stay... I forget you died."
"Isn't forgetting pain a kind of healing?"
"No," Naia said softly. "It's betrayal. If I forget you, then I don't deserve peace."
Her sister wept.
And vanished.
Naia woke alone beside the river.
And remembered.
Calen's Dilemma:
He sat beside his mentor.
On a hill.
Watching stars fall.
"This is what we dreamed of," his mentor said. "You became more than all of us."
"Then why does it feel like failure?" Calen asked.
"Because your guilt is your anchor. Let it go."
"And forget I ever doubted myself?"
The mentor smiled.
Faded.
Calen stood, breathing hard.
But lighter.
Lucien's Dilemma:
He walked into the cottage.
The child waited.
Same smirk.
Same eyes.
"You buried me to climb."
"I had to."
"But here, I forgive you. Stay. Be the version of you who didn't lie."
Lucien knelt.
Took the boy's face in his hands.
"I love you. But I'll never be that version."
"Then forget me."
Lucien kissed his forehead.
And as the boy faded, Lucien felt it:
The pain tearing loose.
The memory being taken.
He screamed.
And did not remember why.
The three woke again.
Back in their Tower clothes.
Grass replaced by stone.
Sky by ceiling.
But something was missing.
Each of them had a hollow.
And none of them asked about it.
[Floor B86 Cleared.]
Memory sacrifice confirmed. You may proceed.
The elevator appeared.
Its doors open.
Its floor lit in blood-red.
Lucien stepped in first.
Not smiling.
Not broken.
Just... less.
The Tower whispered:
"Peace always costs more than war."
And the doors closed.