Page 132 of Veiled

The training hall is dim, other than the illusion pillars that glow faintly when I enter Environmental Tactics.

Captain Varin stands just in front of the illusion and waits until everyone has made it inside.

“This will not be like previous simulations,” she says, not even bothering with a “Hello, recruits,” or anything, which is completely unlike her.

Every conversation in the room dies immediately.

Varin gestures to the row of pillars behind her. Their runes pulse like a heartbeat under the floor.

“Three weeks ago, West of Fairwick, a village was raided. A few families were taken across the border. Scouts tracked their captors through a marsh corridor. They used natural hazards combined with enchanted projection sounds and terrain illusions to confuse search and rescue teams.”

She begins to pace, slow and deliberate.

“This is a recreation of the area that was attacked. You will hear voices in the simulation. Some will sound like adults,” she pauses, and it feels like she’s preparing herself for what she has to tell us next. “Some will sound like children, and some may even sound like your friends or family crying for help.”

My breath catches. “Gods,” I mutter under my breath.

Varin hears me, giving a somber nod before continuing, “These enchanted projections were designed by Clowessian forces to draw our teams off the safe paths and into capture points.”

“Your objectives: identify decoys. Discern the enchanted projections from the ‘real’ voices. Recover the illusions of missing people by marking their location with a flare stone. Once they’ve been marked, their illusion will disintegrate. And finally, return without losing a teammate.”

She steps closer, the overhead lights catching the silver strands in her hair. “Listen to me carefully. You cannot follow every cry,” she says. “Every second you hesitate, someone dies. And in a real operation, you and your team will die. Or worse, you will doom the people you came to save.”

She gestures to the racks of gear.

“You have light loadouts: water, flare stones, rope, your daggers, and a single comm rune. Remember, this is a rescue simulation, not a hero fantasy.”

Renn scoffs quietly. “What if we get ambushed?”

Varin doesn’t turn, but her answer is sharp. “Then you failed to observe your surroundings. And you fail.”

She gestures to the far side of the hall where the entrance gateway shimmers to life, an arch of churning grey fog, thick and suffocating. “You will enter in teams of four. These teams have been put together based on the tracks you have narrowed down and who I’ve seen you work well with in the past. Team One, step forward.”

That’s us.

Me.

Rhyan Reed.

Mateo Conti.

Reyna Ashford.

“Your timer begins the moment you cross the threshold.”

Varin walks with us to the pillars, “Inside the corridor, your eyes will lie. Your ears will lie. Your footing will lie. The only thing that will not lie—” She taps her sternum. “—is what you already know.”

A chill needles through me, and Varin stops at the gateway as the marsh illusion flickers into clarity: twisted cypress roots, cloudy water, and dense fog clinging low to the ground.

“Team One,” Varin says. “Enter.”

Mateo swallows hard. “Well. No turning back.”

The stone floor becomes sinking mud, and I’m instantly reminded of my first simulation.

Rhyan lets out a low whistle. “Varin wasn’t kidding, this is insane.”

“It’s all so real,” Reyna says, sweeping her weapon’s hilt across a patch of reeds, watching them ripple.