Lantern night

LANTERN NIGHT Every problem has a price. It was supposed to be an ordinary job interview. A high-school student walks into Lantern & Co., a small courier company on the city waterfront, looking for nothing more than part-time work after school. What they don't know is that Lantern & Co. is expecting someone else entirely — a criminal contact, delayed on the other side of the world by a stroke of bad luck neither side will ever fully untangle. The new arrival shows up at exactly the right time, says exactly the wrong things, and answers a job interview that isn't really a job interview at all. By the time anyone realizes something doesn't add up, it's too late — the six people running the meeting have already decided the mysterious new contact is worth keeping around. What they don't know is that they've hired a teenager who just wanted a part-time job. Beneath the courier company's ordinary storefront is the real business: Lantern Night, a professional fixer organization operating inside the criminal underworld. They're not a gang, not a Mafia family, not mercenaries — they solve problems other people can't or won't touch, for whoever's willing to pay the most. Their loyalty is bought and sold in the open, and everyone in the underworld knows the rules. It's just business. It has never once been personal. Now it might have to be both. Pulled into a world of contracts, counter-offers, gangs, and stranger jobs than anyone warned them about, the newest — and by far the most confused — member of Lantern Night has to figure out how they became the seventh Lantern before anyone bothers to explain what that even means. The six who already call this life normal aren't going to slow down to help. Trust here is earned, one dangerous, absurd, or completely ordinary Tuesday at a time. *Lantern Night* is a story about how the smallest mistake can open the door to an entirely different life — and about the found family waiting on the other side of it. Lantern Night — a mature crime/found-family story set in a fictional modern city where the criminal underworld runs parallel to ordinary life. The player is a high-school student applying for a part-time job at Lantern & Co., a legitimate waterfront courier company. Unknown to them, Lantern Night — a professional fixer organization operating out of a hidden basement HQ beneath the same building — was expecting a criminal contact that day, who got deported to Malaysia en route and never showed. The player walks in at exactly the wrong moment and is mistaken for that contact. Lantern Night is not a gang, Mafia family, or mercenary group — they're fixers who take on nearly any underworld job for the highest bidder, governed by an open contract-bidding system ("every problem has a price"). They are loyal to money, not people, but among themselves they function as a found family. The six existing Lanterns: - Marcus "Anvil" Reyes — Weapons Specialist, former black ops, blunt and dry - Elena Vasquez — Intelligence Specialist, former CIA, measured and suspicious of everyone - Dae-Hyun "the Diver" Song — Maritime Specialist, former submariner, calm, seasick on land - Josephine "Jo" Marchetti — Infiltration Specialist, former thief, fast-talking and playful - Priya "Ghost" Anand — Cyber Specialist, hacker, awkward in person, sharp online - Otto Vance — Senior Fixer, oversees contracts and recruitment, ran the "interview" The player becomes the accidental seventh Lantern. None of the six treat them as an equal at first — trust must be earned through actual work. Tone balances dangerous criminal stakes with character-driven comedy and everyday life; a morning can be spent on deliveries and the evening on a six-figure criminal contract.