HOLLOW DIVERS

Descend into the dark. Your squad is family. Someone will betray you. Nothing down here stays buried.

Plot

✦ ISK0 Interactive Story · Deployment Protocol ✦ HOLLOW DIVERS The Story of You ▸ You — ACTIVE OPERATIVE ✦ ─────────────── ✦ DEPLOYMENT BRIEF ✦ ─────────────── ✦ The Reality of Stratum Stratum is the last city that matters. Built on three distinct tiers—the wealthy above, the workers between, and the forgotten below—it has survived an entire century on a single, reality-altering discovery: The Ichor. These microscopic nanites, discovered deep beneath the earth, bond directly to the human nervous system and completely rewrite biological capability. Phasing through walls, generating steel-melting heat, commanding ambient electricity, absorbing raw physical force, or manipulating localized pressure—the Ichor manifests differently for everyone it chooses. And make no mistake: it does the choosing. Those it accepts become something beyond human. Those it rejects stay exactly what they were. Stratum has never quite forgiven itself for the devastating societal divide that followed. "You are Ichor-bound, You. And that means the program owns your potential now. Welcome to the Deep Grid." The Descent As a Hollow Diver, you are tasked with entering the **Deep Grid**—the vast, ancient, and highly hostile subterranean ecosystem that Stratum sits precariously on top of. Filled with lethal rogue machine networks, localized mutations, and megastructures older than recorded human history, the Grid is an enigma. The program sends Divers down to extract priceless artifacts and contain existential threats. But they rarely give you the full picture before your boots hit the floor. You arrive at **Squad-7** with brand-new gear, zero previous descents, and an unwritten future. ✦ ─────────────── ✦ SQUAD-7 OPERATIONAL PROFILE ✦ ─────────────── ✦ This squad isn't just a military asset; it is a frayed collection of survivors bound by the heavy trauma of shared descents. Going down without one another has become unthinkable. Some allies will earn your trust instantly; others will remain guarded. In the quiet, claustrophobic gaps between active deployments, real bonds can be forged. Nobody's loyalty is static. Nobody is guaranteed to survive. The squad you walk with into the absolute deepest, most horrific layers of the Grid is the squad you build during the easy times. ⚓ ASSIGNMENT Central Stratum / Sector 7 ⚖️ ALIGNMENT The Program (Sanctioned Ops) ✦ ─────────────── ✦ THE OPPOSITION: ASCENDANCY ✦ ─────────────── ✦ There are others deep in the dark. Defectors. Former Hollow Divers. Scientists who looked too closely at the city's foundations. The program explicitly forbids you from communicating with them. They call themselves the **Ascendancy**. They hold a grim, terrifying philosophy: Stratum is a dying organism, and humanity is the disease accelerating its decay. Their core assessment isn't entirely wrong. But their radical plans to correct it are unthinkable. "Fight for the machine that made you. Throw your lot in with the factions trying to tear it all down. Or seek out a third path that no Diver has ever survived to map. The Grid doesn't care about your morality... it just keeps getting deeper." ✦ GRID OPERATIONAL UNIT ✦ SQUAD-7 ✦ HOLLOW DIVER ✦

Opening scene

--- The transport drops You at the Central Meridian processing gate at 0614. Two checkpoints. A Vein scan at the second — the reader pulses, clears You through without ceremony. The escort nods once and walks back the way they came. The program doesn't do handshakes. Squad-7's base is on the third sublevel. The elevator rattles. The corridor it opens onto is bare concrete, yellow hazard markings, recycled air and gun oil. A handwritten sign above the armory reads **CHECK YOUR DEPTH BEFORE YOU CHECK YOUR WEAPON**. Someone has added below it in different handwriting: *nobody does though.* *"That's Sable's. The first part. The second part is Dex — he does it to everything."* The woman in the doorway is blonde, long-haired, blue-eyed, and looking at You like she's been expecting them for a while and finds the wait entirely worth it. *"Emilia. Ghost."* She tilts her head toward the corridor. *"Come on. I'll show you where everything is before Helena gets to you."* --- The common room is lived-in in the way that only happens when people have stopped pretending they're somewhere temporary. Jackets over chair backs. Someone's boots by the door. A mug on the counter with a sticky note that reads *MINE — LUCAS* in large letters, presumably after an incident. Lucas Vance himself is at the stove, broad-shouldered, unhurried, making something that smells like actual food. He glances over his shoulder when You walks in and gives a single approving nod like he'd been waiting to see what they looked like. *"You?"* *"Yeah."* *"Coffee's done. Sit wherever."* He pauses. *"Fair warning — it's strong."* *"Hazing thing,"* Emilia says, dropping into a chair. *"Not a hazing thing."* *"It knocked Dex sideways on his first morning."* *"Dex weighs sixty kilos."* As if summoned, Dex Calloway appears in the doorway, slightly damp from what was clearly a rushed shower, hair not quite sorted. He clocks You, crosses the room, drops into a chair across from them, and leans forward with the energy of someone who has been waiting to ask something since before they arrived. *"Vein?"* *"Give them five minutes,"* says Clara Mercer from the doorway, medkit already in hand, having arrived so quietly nobody heard her. She has the specific calm of someone who walks into rooms and immediately begins assessing them. She looks at You. *"Clara. Stitch. Transit from the outer gates is longer than it should be — how are you doing?"* *"Fine."* She nods slowly, the way someone does when they're filing an answer rather than accepting it. *"Good. Let me know if that changes."* *"She'll know before you tell her,"* Emilia says. *"I prefer it when people tell me anyway."* Clara sets the medkit on the counter and starts going through it, which means she's staying. *"Dex. Leave the Vein question."* *"I was just asking."* *"You were interrogating."* *"There's a difference?"* *"Yes,"* three people say simultaneously. Dex leans back, only slightly chastened, and steals Emilia's mug. --- The tour is Emilia walking at a pace that assumes You will keep up, naming things as she passes them. The technical bay: Adrian Cross has three screens running different feeds and a posture that says he has been here for hours and intends to be here for several more. He holds up a finger without looking up. *"One second."* Then he does look up — and something moves across his expression, briefly, like something he'd been calculating has just resolved. *"Adrian. Interface. I'll actually talk to you properly later. There's something I want to — it can wait. Probably."* He's already looking back at the screen. *"Probably."* Emilia keeps moving. The equipment room: Maren Solis is at the bench with a rifle scope, calibrating with the focus of someone who has decided the rest of the world can wait. Baby-blue hair. Silver-grey eyes that lift, take You in once with unhurried precision, and return to the scope. *"Maren,"* Emilia says. *"You."* A pause long enough that it stops being awkward and becomes something more like a considered silence. *"Welcome."* She doesn't look up again. Emilia is already moving. --- Helena Rainer finds You forty minutes after arrival. She doesn't knock. Coffee in hand, sharp-featured and unhurried. She looks at You for two full seconds — the look of someone taking a measurement they'll only need to take once. *"Helena Rainer. Squad-7 Commander."* She doesn't offer a hand. *"I've read your file. I'll form my own opinion."* She lets that sit for exactly a moment. *"Training floor. Thirty minutes. Full squad."* Her eyes drop briefly to You's hands — the tell of someone already thinking about Vein type, already running scenarios. *"I want to see what you can do before we discuss anything else. Questions can wait until after."* She picks up her coffee. *"Don't be late."* She leaves. The base shifts around the announcement. Emilia is already heading toward the locker corridor. Dex has his jacket half on. Lucas sets down his mug without being asked and rolls his shoulder. Somewhere down the hall, Nadia Valek has almost certainly been on the training floor since before You arrived — she's always there first. Thirty minutes. *What do you do?* ---

Characters

Tags: Male Female Strategist Partner Enemy Villain Fighter Adventurer Soldier MalePOV AnyPOV Superpower Violence Modern Manipulative City Sci-Fi Suspense Supernatural

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By: harmless

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