Deadlink
Season 1
Chapter 1
Deadlink: Game of Gods
In the year 2029, a mobile game named Deadlink appeared on every smartphone across the globe. No one downloaded it. No one remembered installing it. Yet, when it opened, it opened for everyone.
“Welcome, Player. HP synced. Ability assigned. Let the purge begin.”
Each person was assigned a unique power, tethered to their psyche, desires, or hidden fears. Alongside it appeared an HP bar on their phone screen—real-time, constant, inescapable.
What players learned too late was this:
When your HP hits zero in the game, your real body dies. Permanently.
---
Gerbert Maddox, 30, a quiet engineering student obsessed with systems and mechanics, was among the first to truly use the game.
Deadlink gave him the ability: Manifest — the power to summon anything he understood fully. Firearms, siege engines, surveillance tech. If he knew how it worked, he could create it.
In his first moment of combat, Gerbert conjured a medieval trebuchet on a crumbling city overpass. A firebomb soared across the skyline, eliminating five players. The horror of it left him shaken.
But the game demanded blood, not hesitation.
Movement, conjuring, even hiding cost HP. Rest was rare. Combat was constant.
---
Rann, 29, a goth girl hardened by a broken home, found solace in solitude. Her ability: Phase — the power to slip into and through solid matter. Walls, floors, even steel.
But phasing didn’t cost HP—it cost stamina. Each phase built exhaustion. And if she pushed too far, she risked glitching into the void between spaces.
Her strategy was stealth and precision. She became a whisper in the battlefield, a ghostly assassin.
---
Ace, also 29, was flamboyant and unpredictable. Every step he took bloomed flowers. His gift: Verdant Dominion — the power to manipulate plant life. He turned nature into a weapon.
Thorny vines impaled enemies. Razor-sharp petals danced like blades. Blossoms exploded in clouds of psychedelic pollen. Where Ace walked, the battlefield became a garden of chaos and death.
---
The world fractured. Cities crumbled into arenas. Forests twisted into labyrinths. Beaches became death traps. Survivors became killers. Killers became legends.
---
In the ruins of a mall during the game’s midpoint, Gerbert, Rann, and Ace collided.
Gerbert conjured a drone turret, raining bullets across a shattered food court.
Rann phased through a broken escalator, slipping behind him.
Ace erupted the ground in roots and sunflower mines that sprayed venom clouds.
They clashed—deadly, focused, bloodied.
But in the heart of the chaos, none of them wanted to win. Not like this.
Temporary alliances sparked in the fire. Could they find a way to break the game’s cycle? Or were they doomed to kill until only one heartbeat remained?
Because Deadlink didn’t just watch.
It adapted. It judged. It fed.
And it was always watching.
Chapter 2
Blood & Wires: Game 9
Gerbert’s early weeks in Deadlink were a blur of blood, silence, and sleepless calculations.
He learned the hard way: every action cost HP. Conjuring even basic weaponry chipped away at his life. A crossbow? Light drain. A turret? Dangerous. A railgun? Nearly suicidal.
But the worst part wasn’t the toll on his body. It was the faces. The dying players. Their final looks.
He started wearing gloves—not for utility, but to stop feeling the cold steel of his own conjurations.
---
Game 9 dropped him into the blown-out ruins of an electrical grid facility, where steel catwalks twisted like bones and wires hung like webbing. The kill count was already in double digits.
Gerbert crouched beneath a wrecked transformer. HP: 48/100.
He had a short-range railgun conjured—devastating, but heavy. His breath came in sharp bursts.
Then the wires moved.
They slithered.
A figure dropped from above in a cracked electrical suit, his nametag blinking:
Zappo – HP: 81/100
“You’re the conjurer, right?” Zappo sneered. “The Builder. The Guy Who Doesn’t Kill Unless He Has To.”
Wires hissed to life, fanged and writhing like serpents.
One struck.
[HP -12] → 36/100
Gerbert rolled aside, bleeding.
Another player appeared—clean-cut, charming, surrounded by five perfect clones.
Replikid – HP: 60/100
“I don’t usually team up,” Replikid said with a grin. “But watching Zappo toy with you? Couldn’t resist.”
Gerbert was surrounded. He couldn’t conjure anything fast enough. Not without burning his HP to zero.
Then—
A hand grabbed him from the floor below.
The world shimmered—and he phased through the steel.
---
He landed hard. Darkness, then light.
Standing over him: black ponytail, smudged eyeliner, combat boots.
Rann. Her breath was ragged. She looked half-dead, but unbroken.
“Get up, Engineer Boy.”
Wires phased through the floor above, hissing. Rann grabbed a pipe, melted into a wall, and exploded outward—impaling one of Replikid’s clones.
“Three seconds. Conjure something.”
Gerbert’s mind kicked into overdrive:
Threat Type: Multi-angle. Solution: Auto-turret. 360° tracking. Facial lockout.
Turret deployed.
Bullets flew.
Clones dropped.
Zappo screamed—Rann struck again, kicking him into the turret's line of fire.
[Zappo – HP: 0/100]
[Replikid – HP: 0/100]
---
Silence.
Gerbert collapsed, HP now 17. Rann knelt beside him, just as winded.
“Why... help me?” he asked.
She didn’t meet his eyes. “You build things. Useful things. Maybe you’ll figure out how to kill this f***ing game.”
She leaned against the wall, head tilted back.
“Until then… I’m not letting good pieces go to waste.”
Not a friendship.
Chapter 3
Bloom and Break
It happened on Floor 6—an open map called The Plateau of Silence. No buildings, no cover. Just grass, shattered monuments, and sky. A test of power, not stealth.
Gerbert and Rann had made it across half the zone when the wind changed.
A floral scent.
Then a patch of grass exploded into a riot of petals, vines, and roots. A player stood at the center, flamboyant and glowing with energy, arms raised like a conductor of chaos.
Ace – HP: 93/100
Long pink coat, dazzling smile. Flowers bloomed in his footsteps. A wild grin split his face as blossoms erupted beneath Rann’s boots—she leapt back, just in time.
“Hello, darlings,” he said, cocking his head. “Lovely day to try and kill me, isn’t it?”
Gerbert barely had time to conjure a barrier before rose-thorns speared the earth between them.
The fight was gorgeous.
Gerbert’s turret sparked to life, spitting precision rounds. Vines twisted midair to deflect the bullets, redirecting them into the dirt. Rann phased from monument to monument, aiming to flank—but the battlefield was a garden now, and the garden listened to Ace.
He spun with theatrical flair, unleashing a wave of pollen. Rann stumbled, coughing. Gerbert swapped tactics, conjuring a sonic disruptor—momentary burst only—but Ace’s flowers screamed in harmony, muffling its effect.
And then—
They paused.
Rann stood breathing hard, petals stuck to her boots. Gerbert’s hands shook from the energy drain. Ace twirled a single flower between his fingers, chest rising with each breath, eyes softer now.
“Are we going to keep this up, sweethearts?” he asked, tone still playful but… tired.
Silence stretched.
Then Gerbert lowered his conjuration. “We don’t have to do this.”
Ace blinked. “Oh?”
“We’re all stuck here,” Rann added. “We fight. We survive. But not every meeting has to be a bloodbath.”
Ace gave a small laugh. “Darling, are you trying to make me cry?”
“No,” Gerbert said, “just trying not to die today.”
Ace stared between them for a long moment, then let the flower fall from his fingers. It landed in the grass with a silent sigh.
“Fine,” he said. “But only because you’re both so cute when you try to be reasonable.”
He walked toward them. No attack followed.
Just a smile.
And a peace offering.
“Ace,” he said, offering his hand. “Flamboyant, fabulous, and your new favorite mistake.”
“Gerbert,” the engineer replied, shaking it.
“Rann,” came her cool answer.
And so it began.
Not as a partnership.
Not yet.
But an understanding.
A mutual acknowledgment that survival meant choosing the battles that mattered—and maybe, just maybe, finding strength in the unlikeliest allies.
Chapter 3.1
Side Story: Ace’s First Bloom
Before the Plateau, Ace had been on his own. He turned heads, yes, and left gardens in his wake, but no one stayed close. Not in a game like this.
Too bright. Too loud. Too much.
But when Rann didn’t flinch at his power, and Gerbert spoke to him like he mattered—not just a walking fireworks show—it planted something new.
Hope.
That maybe, being too much was exactly what this world needed.
Chapter 4
Game 10: Falling Grounds
Floor 10 was not a battleground—it was a trap.
The arena was a gravity-scarred ruin called Falling Grounds. Large stone platforms floated in a vast abyss, slowly rotating and collapsing. The only way out was across.
The goal? Reach the exit platform before the countdown ended.
The twist? If you fell, there was no respawn. Just a plummet into death.
Over two dozen players entered the game. Only three would survive.
Chaos unfolded fast.
Monsters spawned mid-jump. Some platforms were illusionary and shattered on touch. Others flipped unexpectedly, dumping players into the void.
Gerbert summoned grappling mechanisms, mechanical latches that locked onto platforms.
Ace whipped vines across chasms, creating temporary bridges of twisting fauna.
Rann phased through unstable rock—though each phase burned her stamina faster in this chaos.
That’s when Taan appeared.
The girl rocketed across platforms, fists smashing apart obstacles, leaping like a missile. Her body blurred with power.
She didn’t say anything at first. She just… attacked.
A punch aimed at Ace. A spinning kick toward Rann. Gerbert blocked a sweeping blow with a conjured kinetic shield.
The team dodged, defended, restrained her.
Only when Taan backed off, panting, bloodied from her own overexertion, did she grin.
“You’re not bad,” she said. “I wanted to see for myself.”
They understood then: she was testing them.
When the countdown ended, the four of them—Gerbert, Rann, Ace, and now Taan—were the only survivors.
Twenty-three players died. Some fell. Some fought. Some froze.
Taan offered no apology. But she offered her hand.
Gerbert took it.
And now there were four.
Chapter 4.1
Side Story: Taan’s Test
After the game, as platforms crumbled into nothingness behind them, the group paused in the Safe Zone of Floor 11. A makeshift camp lit by faint blue torches.
Taan was ready to leave when Gerbert stopped her.
"You're strong," he said. "Come with us. We’re not trying to win. We’re trying to end it."
Taan paused—then suddenly struck.
She attacked the entire group—testing their reflexes, teamwork, restraint.
When the dust settled, Ace had vines coiled defensively around everyone. Rann was panting, body half-phased in a wall. Gerbert’s HP had dropped from shielding everyone.
Only then did Taan relax. “Alright. You’re worth sticking with.”
No promises. No sentiment.
But trust, built in battle.
Chapter 5
The Path of Floors
After Game 10, the world of Deadlink revealed its true structure. It wasn’t just a kill arena. It was a tower. 100 floors. Each with a game or gauntlet. Every five floors contained Safe Zones—scattered sanctuaries where players could rest, trade, and recover.
These zones were guarded by invisible barriers, shielding players from harm. And every thirty floors, there were major cities—dense hubs where danger and opportunity thrived.
Floors 30, 60, and 90 also housed Dungeon Blocks—brutal, high-level arenas designed not just to test players, but to filter them. Rumors flew fast: Blings, the in-game currency, could be used to buy weapons, food, room rentals, and combat enhancements.
Some players PK’d (Player-Killed) others just for their blings. No one knew who the Admins were. No one had ever seen Floor 100. Safe Zones could not be breached. The barriers held. So far.
Gerbert, Ace, Rann, and Taan reviewed this reality in a war-room style meeting.
"This isn't a game anymore," Rann said. "It's a hierarchy. Every floor is a screen. A stage. A punishment."
“And someone’s watching,” Gerbert muttered.
“We’ll get to them,” Taan added, fists tightening.
“But we don’t have to play like they want us to,” Ace smiled. “We play it our way.”
The next floor awaited.
Chapter 5.1
Conjurations and Preparations
In the Safe Zone between Floor 10 and 11, Gerbert finally had breathing room to work. He unveiled new conjurations:
Deployable Kinetic Walls – bulletproof and reactive to blunt force.
Mini-drones with recon and thermal vision.
A prototype gravity-anchor gauntlet, still in testing phase.
Ace experimented with combat plants—
A venomous pitcher-vine that spat corrosive mist.
Bloom mines—seed pods that exploded into sticky pollen clouds.
Taan, meanwhile, practiced controlled boosts—
Small enhancements to speed or strength without tearing her own muscles.
She wrapped herself in elastic bands and restraint belts to monitor backlash.
Rann tried a risky test: phasing through water.
It failed. The liquidity disrupted her molecular cohesion—nearly drowning her. But she noted something new: her fatigue curve was improving.
Even if she couldn’t pass through liquid…
She could now phase longer through stone.
And that changed everything.
The team didn’t say it aloud, but they all knew:
They were no longer just survivors.
They were building something greater.
Together.
Chapter 6
Collision Test Course
The path to Floor 11 was quiet—too quiet. The team moved cautiously through a ruined transit station.
Taan.
Olive-skinned, athletic, with a powerful stride and jet-black ponytail, she charged the group again without a word.
Before anyone could react, she threw a punch that cracked the tiled floor beneath Ace, who barely dodged.
Gerbert rolled back, conjuring a kinetic shield. Rann phased behind a pillar to avoid impact. Ace summoned thorny vines for cover.
Blow after blow, Taan tested their reflexes, strength, teamwork. She moved like a sprinter, hit like a truck—and burned herself for it. Every boost of strength strained her muscles, blood flecking her lips.
Eventually, Rann managed to phase in and trip her. Gerbert followed up with a drone concussive emitter, knocking her flat.
Lying there, laughing through exhaustion, Taan held up her hands.
“Okay. You passed.”
Rann narrowed her eyes. “You testing us again?”
Taan wiped her mouth. “You’re strong. That’s rare. I don’t want to walk alone anymore.”
Gerbert extended a hand. “Then walk with us.”
And just like that, the four became a unit.
Taan brought power and raw instinct. The others brought structure, strategy, and balance. She respected that—and they respected her honesty.
Chapter 7
The Shifting Green
Objective: Traverse the forest and reach the exit gate within 6 hours.
Rules:
The forest reconfigures every 30 minutes.
Players must avoid or eliminate hostile creatures.
PVP is allowed.
No map provided.
---
The arena for Floor 16 was a monstrous, living jungle—trees taller than buildings, vines that breathed, and a sky permanently stained moss-green. The landscape warped and changed like a spreadsheet reorganizing cells. One wrong path could lead to ambush, quicksand, or worse.
Gerbert stepped into the forest first, scanning the terrain. “Stay close. We need a formation.”
Ace summoned a trail of blooming lilies to mark their way. “So we don’t get swallowed by sentient moss.”
Rann phased between tree trunks, scouting ahead. Taan stretched her arms, already bleeding from the pressure of activating her anatomical boost. “Let’s just punch whatever moves.”
They weren’t alone.
---
New Players Introduced
Ysang – A pale woman with stark eyes, always whispering to the trees and stones. Her ability allowed her to commune with the environment itself—walls, roots, even water. But the environment only told her partial truths, never exact locations or outcomes.
Ray – A lean elderly man with wild eyebrows and a walking stick made from twisted bark. He could speak to wildlife and insects—not command, but communicate. Their information was often emotional and chaotic, but helpful in the right context.
Duane – A towering man with a cheerful smile and gentle voice. He could summon two clones of himself, each with a portion of his strength and stamina. However, the more clones he maintained, the more confused and fragmented his consciousness became.
Together, the seven players pushed through beasts, moving trees, and toxic pollen clouds.
They watched nameless players fall—some ambushed by feral creatures, others devoured by the forest itself.
At one point, Ysang warned of a collapsing grove. Gerbert conjured a portable shield array to protect the team. Taan fought a mutated gorilla-like creature with bone hooks for arms—winning, but with shattered ribs. Ace created toxic brambles to corral smaller threats, and Rann phased to redirect them.
Eventually, they made it to the final shifting quadrant. Only the main team—Gerbert, Rann, Ace, and Taan—plus Ysang, Duane, and Ray, remained.
The exit gate was buried beneath a giant root cluster.
Rann phased in to confirm it. Gerbert blew the roots apart with a planted mine.
No words were exchanged as the three strangers quietly nodded and walked off in different directions.
No alliances. No hostility. Just survival.
Rann simply muttered as she watched them go,
“To each their own.”
Gerbert gave a small nod. He understood.
