The Lantern Fund

A Celebrated Promise

  The Lantern Fund is one of Vikan Academy’s most celebrated charities, praised for “uplifting students in need.” It ensures that no hardship—financial, personal, or familial—will steal a student’s future, whether they arrive in luxury or on scholarship.
  Each year, as application season approaches, digital screens across campus flicker with warm, inviting advertisements encouraging students to “reach for help.” Yet it is word of mouth, whispered in dorm hallways and study groups, that sustains the Lantern Fund’s quiet power.
 

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The Syndicate’s Hidden Hand

  Behind the smiles and glossy banners, The Lantern Fund is a carefully controlled arm of the Myriad Syndicate. It preserves the Syndicate’s quiet dominance over Vikan’s layered community while maintaining a steady cash flow, all beneath the guise of charity. Funding for the Lantern Fund flows from Syndicate shell businesses and high-profile donors—many of whom owe debts so steep they amount to lifelong servitude or extortion in exchange for sparing their lives, or the lives of those they love.
 

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Desperation as the Key

  Students do not stumble upon the Lantern Fund by accident. Counselors will only suggest it if a student comes to them in genuine desperation; otherwise, they would steer the conversation away from the Fund. Applications are submitted through the charity’s public online website, framed as a straightforward, dignified process that promises confidentiality and care. But every recipient is chosen for a reason.
 

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A Favor Disguised as Charity

  The Lantern Fund grants what appears to be a monetary gift large enough to cover up to three full years at Vikan Academy, a lifeline disguised as charity. Once accepted, the student cannot apply again until the favor is “used.” For some, the money brings a breath of relief. For others, particularly those unaware of the Syndicate’s shadow, it becomes a trap. Non-Syndicate recipients, in particular, are discreetly manipulated to ensure they never fully use the funds, funneling the excess back into Syndicate pockets, often without realizing it.
 

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The Weight of the Favor

  Many recipients, grateful and unsuspecting, continue their studies unaware of the strings attached. Yet rumors persist that the Syndicate quietly manipulates circumstances—a failed business deal, a sudden legal entanglement, an academic “mistake” too severe to resolve alone—pressuring the student to burn their favor early. In those moments of crisis, calling in the favor feels like the only escape, pulling the student deeper into the Syndicate’s shadow without ever realizing it was orchestrated from the start.
  Some rise, using their favor to carve a place within the Syndicate, transforming their desperation into opportunity with minimal consequence. For most, however, The Lantern Fund becomes a single, desperate wish granted at the cost of freedom—an illusion of light that binds them more to the Syndicate for life.
 

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A Beacon in a World of Pressure

  Even EVE members can apply for the Lantern Fund, using it as a stepping stone in their Syndicate rise, while others burn through their favors in desperation, never seeing the true cost until it is too late.
  To the public, The Lantern Fund is a promise of hope in a world of pressure and privilege. To the Syndicate, it is a tool—one that turns the quiet desperation of Vikan Academy’s students into a currency of power, one flickering lantern at a time.