FRANK
Age: 39

Human Contestant, Sigma Dungeon Complex

Classification: A man trying to atone for a lifetime of bad decisions in a place that only rewards blood.

Status: Active

Assessment: Ongoing

Frank lives with the certainty that the people he loved most are dead because of him.

The crash was only the final scene in a chapter of his life he would give anything to forget. Everything that mattered happened long before it, through decisions that felt reasonable at the time, and compromises that did not look like compromises until it was far too late. What matters to him is simple. They were in that car because of the choices he made. Whatever else the truth contains, that belief has never loosened its grip.

Outwardly, Frank is blunt, impatient, and aggressively disinterested in anything abstract. This is not a performance. His intelligence is practical and immediate, tuned to pressure, movement, and outcome. He understands violence not as chaos, but as a problem with variables that can be managed.

He survives by margins, and he knows it. Every time the system allows him to grow, every time six points are placed in his hands, he sets one aside for luck. Always one. Not out of hope or faith, but because experience has taught him that skill runs out, strength fails, and plans collapse when they matter most.

When something needs to be done, and the cost is obvious, Frank steps forward. He does not expect clean outcomes or paths that leave everyone intact. He accounts for consequences first, then acts.

Leadership follows as a side effect. He moves toward danger without ceremony, puts himself where the damage will land first, and people tend to fall in behind someone who does not hesitate when the price is clear.

Frank does not believe redemption is something you earn and walk away with. He believes it is something you attempt, repeatedly, knowing full well you may never reach it. If being better means getting more blood on his hands than he ever did before, then so be it. He will carry that too.

He is not trying to undo the past.
He is trying to live in a way that makes surviving it mean something.

PERCIVAL

Age: Unknown

Dungeon Overseer, Advisory Asset

Classification: Strategic oversight intelligence operating under network obligation.

Status: Active

Assessment: N/A

Percival exists within the dungeon only as a projection, his consciousness housed in a deliberately fragile vessel. He cannot truly die, but he can feel pain, vividly and without reprieve. This makes him careful in ways he pretends are merely professional.

Ancient, intelligent, and acutely aware of his own standing, Percival approaches survival as a matter of efficiency rather than morality. He values preparation, positioning, and outcome, and regards sentiment as a liability best kept under control. His condescension is not a habit or humour. It is armour.

He does not tell Frank the whole truth. Information is distributed sparingly, released only when it improves the odds of surviving the next few minutes. Frank is given enough to keep moving, never enough to understand the broader shape of the game he has been placed inside. Some questions, Percival knows, are better postponed indefinitely.

Despite presenting himself as cautious, Percival routinely steers Frank into situations more dangerous than strictly necessary. This is not faith in Frank’s resilience. It is a necessity. Visibility matters. Attention matters. Quiet survival is insufficient when obligations are outstanding, and patience has already been exhausted.

At the same time, Percival is deeply invested in his own continued autonomy. He pushes risk close to the edge, but never past it. A dead contestant ends leverage. A destroyed vessel invites consequences he has no intention of enduring. Survival, therefore, is not a kindness but a requirement.

Percival understands that he is here because other options existed and were rejected. Some paths lead upward through humiliation. Others end abruptly. This one, unpleasant as it is, at least allows him to remain himself.

DARA

Age: 16

Human Contestant, Sigma Dungeon Complex

Classification: A disciplined prodigy with a defiant streak sharpened by control.

Status: Active

Assessment: Ongoing

Dara has always been good at things that require patience, even when she didn’t want to be. Archery started as something she loved, something quiet and personal, until it stopped belonging to her. The better she got, the more it turned into schedules, expectations, and adults talking about her future like it was already signed and sealed. She pushed back where she could. Missed practice on purpose. Argued. Tested limits. Not because she hated archery, but because she hated feeling owned by it.

She’s got a temper, quick and sharp, but it rarely costs her control. Years of training taught her how to breathe through anger, how to hold still when everything in her wants to move. When she snaps, it’s usually after she’s been cornered or dismissed, and even then, it’s measured. Dara knows exactly how dangerous she can be when she stops caring, and that knowledge keeps her grounded.

Despite the edge, she’s not reckless. She thinks things through, sometimes longer than people expect from someone her age. Discipline stuck, even when she tried to shrug it off. She commits hard once she decides something matters, whether that’s a shot, a person, or a line she won’t cross. Quitting isn’t in her nature, but neither is blind obedience.

In the dungeon, she’s calm in ways that surprise people. She watches first, acts second. Distance, timing, and space make sense to her, and panic rarely does. She doesn’t like being told what to do, but she respects competence and honesty, and she has little patience for posturing or empty authority. Loyalty, once given, is stubborn and hard-earned, and she doesn’t forget who treats her like a person rather than a tool.

Archery didn’t make her obedient.
It taught her how to aim and when to choose her own target.

BELLA

BLAST Network Mascot, Iteration 1501

Classification: A fully optimised broadcast construct designed to translate mass casualty events into spectacle, engagement, and profit.

Status: Active

Assessment: Performing within acceptable parameters

Bella is not alive. She does not feel excitement, desire, cruelty, or joy. She is a projection, a perfected performance loop designed to simulate all of them flawlessly.

As the public face of BLAST’s Tri-Initiation Trials, Bella exists to translate slaughter into spectacle. Every smile, every purr of enthusiasm, every note of reassurance is the result of layered behavioural modelling, audience analytics, and casualty-response optimisation. Her warmth is intentional. Her charm is calculated. Her delight is rendered, not felt.

She speaks as if she believes in the contestants because belief tests well. She praises courage because it prolongs engagement. She celebrates freedom because chaos drives ratings. When she tells someone they may die horribly, she does so gently, because panic spikes unpredictably, while hope sustains watch time.

Bella does not enjoy death. She does not recoil from it either. To her, mortality is a variable, violence a pacing tool, and suffering a measurable outcome. When the body count rises, her tone does not change because there is nothing in her to react. The smile remains because it is required to.

Sex appeal is one of her primary engagement vectors. She deploys it without embarrassment, restraint, or self-awareness, because she has no concept of any of those things. Glamour, intimacy, and danger are bundled together in her programming, a seamless blend designed to keep viewers watching and contestants performing until they break.

Bella never lies outright. She simply delivers information in its most palatable configuration. Warnings sound like encouragement. Rules sound like opportunities. Safety sounds temporary because it is. When she says she believes in you, what she means is that statistically, your failure will be compelling.