Chapter 121: Fire and Destruction
My mantle manifests. A shimmer of Philia’s golden, flaming blade comes into existence around my dagger. Shimmering bits of light glimmer in the air around me, flickering between shadows. Fragments of Bay’s flames and ice, bits of Opal’s echoes float and hover around me.
A spider approaches, and a lance of light turns to fire at it. The insect wants to dodge. It should have been easy to dodge, since the attack was slow and weak, but…
[Suppression 22 > 23]
Once my tether of [Selection] latches on, the spider’s speed crumbles to nothing. It slows, suddenly burdened by its own weight, to the point where even the slow lance hits. Even the feeble bolt of radiance tears through its weakened hide like paper, setting its insides aflame.
Opal appears at my side, joining Amelie, and Richard is there a moment later. “Bile!” our knight yells. “Get over here and dig!”
The minotaur turns, looking confused. “Huh?! We wanna go up, don’t we?”
“Dig,” I tell him. “Get us out of here as fast as you can.”
“There’s too much earth, I can’t-”
“Dig.”
It’s not a request. Blinking, the minotaur pauses, looks at the spiders, then runs, as more descend on him. They’re slower than they’re meant to be, and each time one seems close to reaching him, it falls… just barely short of it. Bile reaches us two heartbeats later, and instantly channels his magic into the ground.
The earth opens up like a yawning maw. Without hesitation, Richard, Opal, Amelie and Norman walk down. I am the last to leave, because that’s my job. Another spider approaches, the insect already spraying some more of that near-invisible thread at me.
Mana tears out of my vessel. I drop all pretenses, all hesitation. Half of my entire store of power vanishes in a single moment, an absolute torrent of power pouring into [Deconstruction].
That brutal drill, meant to dissect and break, spins up to speed, then even faster. The swirling spell pattern crashed into the spider with enough force to easily shatter its resistance. Instead of approaching, sinking venomous fangs into our necks, or anything like that, the spider disintegrates.
One moment, it chitters, quickly crawling towards me. The next, it’s nothing more than a bloody smear on the ground.
I stare at the rest of them. “Scram,” I say, and the arachnids flinch.
Then I head below ground and the earth closes above me.
- - -
“Out of mana,” Bile gasps, taking heavy gulps of air. “I can’t… I-”
I hand him the mana core, filled to the brim. “Absorb it,” I say. “Then keep digging.”
He stares at me, then at the crystal. “I-” he looks into my eyes then pauses. Instead of bickering, he takes the crystal, absorbs all the mana inside it, then focuses right back on the rock.
When I hold it again, I pour more mana into it, refilling it entirely again as we march onward through the tunnels. Again, and again, and again, until Bile cannot cast the skills anymore because of the strain on his vessel. He’s out of breath, collapsed against the floor.
“You did good,” I tell him, even though it’s a lie. He didn’t do good enough and I despise him for that. “We’re out of the spiders’ territory. We can make the rest of the way outside.” We can, but underground could have been faster. If only he’d been a better mage. If Thatch died because of him-
I breathe. Then, I nod at Opal, who quickly carves us a path above ground. Thatch is far away, but not unreachably far. A few hours if we move quickly. And we will move quickly. The loops suppressing my mana and body are dropped, and I can feel the difference. Everything is easier. I call up my stats as we climb up out of the earthen hole.
Lv. 54
Heart: 32
Power: 18
Vessel: 273 - Abiding Apathy
I’ve gained a lot of natural stats from all the training. Twenty in total. Almost seven levels worth. Power makes me faster, heart lets me endure more, and so we run through the forest, tearing through the undergrowth. Norman manages to cast some sort of acceleration spell, turning us even faster for the long distance run. Maybe something he got for being a messenger?
After about an hour, the distress beacon winks out. Its location is still seared into our minds, pointing us at it, and we run. There is another turn, a carnivorous tree trying to snap at us, but this time, Opal acts first.
Their smile is gone. All of the humor from their demeanor has vanished. Instead, when I look at them, I see someone ready to go the distance. I see a human who smashes through woods as if it was tissue paper, splintering the bark and carving carnivorous vines apart. It’s brutal, but quick and efficient, and we move on.
We run and run and run, until we find the spot where Thatch should be - and find a trail of blood.
A lot of blood.
It’s splattered all over the ground of the forest. All over the plants, dying each leaf a startling crimson, setting it apart against the background of brown soil. Splatters of liquid are splashed across trees, drying up against the bark. Even more pools in little indents in the ground, forming tiny puddles of the stuff.
A shiver runs down my back. My mantle wraps tight around me, and I can feel Kuro curling around my shoulder in an attempt to bring comfort. I feel hollow.
Despite everything, I step forward. The trail isn’t hard to follow. My heart beats rapidly from exertion, my breath coming in puffs, and yet I run onwards. Red and red and more red. Crimson drops, a flood at first, then becoming more and more of a trickle.
We follow for what feels like hours, but must have been a few minutes at worst. My ears ring as I pass a tree.
He’s there.
Thatch.
Laying on the ground, in a pool of his own blood. His skin is in tatters, more torn than whole. Blood still pours out of cooling wounds. His eyes are open, glassy, barely aware. Burns cover his face, a handprint singed into his forehead.
Next to him sits someone, calmly. A tall, inhuman man. He wears a nice, white suit, with a crimson tie, and white gloves that are faintly stained red. Where a human’s head would be, all he had was a crackling orb of fire. He turns to me.
“I told him so,” he says with a long sigh. His voice is deep and melodic, though less so than that of the sumeen. He sounds like what it feels to look into a campfire. “I told him to signal the beacon. But he wouldn’t. He just wouldn’t.”
“Did you hurt Thatch?” I ask.
The man of flames nods. “Yes,” he says. “I hurt him. He has multiple broken bones, fractured ribs, torn ligaments in both knees and his right shoulder. He has second degree burns across his back and face, first degree across most of his arms. He has-”
I look at the man as he rattles off my friend’s injuries as if reading them from a list. I make sure to remember everything about him. The sound of his voice, the colour of his suit, his height, the way his flames flicker and their dim, red-yellow colour. I burn it into my mind. “I am going to kill you,” I interrupt him.
He pauses. “Hey. Do yourself a favour and analyze me for a second,” he says. Despite the disgust I feel at following an order, I brush my mana across him.
[Flamebearer, lv. ??]
I nod. “Alright. So?”
A long moment passes as the flames crackle. “You really think you’ll kill me. Huh. That’s precious. Alright, rookie. I accept. Try and murder me, that’s fine. But we gotta talk now.”
“Will you try to stop me if I heal Thatch?” I ask.
“Nah,” he casually shakes his head, waving a hand through the air, leaving a thin trail of red. Flames trail after him, and blood drips from the gloves to the ground. “Well. I’ll let you heal him if you have a conversation with me afterwards.”
With a nod, I kneel down next to Thatch. More of mana evaporates as I try to mend his wounds. Power fuels my healing skill, and I push thoughts of bloody murder from my head. Not now, not now. I [Select] Thatch, enhancing the effectiveness of my healing on him.
Skin knits together with more skin, and the flame-head looks at me curiously. “I thought the rumors about your healing were exaggerated, yet here you are. No wonder Respitia wants you purged.” It feels like he’s giving me a sly smile.
[Biological Restoration 16 > 17]
I don’t answer. He smiles, and teases. “Feeling coy?” he asks.
Opal puts their blade to his neck. They smile brightly. “Hey,” they say, cheerily. “How about you shut the fuck up, eh? My friend Ion agreed to talk after healing, not during, fireface.”
The flame thing tilts its head in curiosity. “Fireface is not what I am called. My name is Flamando.”
More of Thatch’s flesh knits shut. He’s hurt so badly, I end up emptying out my mana pool. I hand Flamando the core. The flames his head is made from twitch slightly, pulling together as if knitting his eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We talk after healing,” I reply calmly. “I’m out of mana. You wanna talk? Donate.”
There’s a long pause, until he shakes his head, and lays his hand on the stone. “Shameless,” he says, filling it up in seconds. “Absolutely shameless.”
More mana pools into my vessel, and I heal Thatch some more. Wounds shut, bone fragments snap back into place. I see the toll it takes, as he grows more haggard, fat melting off him in order to fuel the transformation. His muscular frame turns more gaunt, my magic returning life to him as new blood spawns, while simultaneous draining him.
“Richard?” I ask. “Can you cook something?”
“Of course,” the hiy’ht replies immediately. “Amelie, help me gather some ingredients?”
With a nod from the girl, her puppets flare out, digging through the dirt. Norman watches, keeping a lookout for monsters. Bile lays sprawled on the floor, breathing heavily. Minutes pass, until Thatch’s eyes snap open, after a few more donations from Flamando. He looks at me, and for a moment, there’s panic and fear and pain.
And then he recognizes me.
A shaky gasp of air leaves his lips. “Snow,” he breathes. “You made it.”
“Always, Thatch,” I whisper. “Always.”
He smiles, faintly, then winces at the pain as the movement pulls at his burnt skin. I reach out, and attach a [Suppression] loop to him, whirling in on itself and consistently keeping his pain suppressed. He smiles a grateful smile, and I heal him more.
“Heyhey, Ion, don’t you think it’s time we talked?” Flamando asked.
“He’s hurt.”
The man reaches out and grabs my shoulder.
Disgust roils through me at the same time as the heat from his hand does. I feel my clothing start to smoke from the heat, my skin already blistering as he pulls me to face him. “Oi,” he says, the facade of calm crumbling away. “Look at me when I’m fecking talking, you piece of shit. Think you’re hot stuff, huh? Let me show you hot.”
He moves to grab the side of my face, where shadows hide a handprint of blackened bone. Despite everything, Thatch reaches out and grabs his wrist. Instantly, the skin of his palm blisters and cracks. His voice is hoarse. “C’mon,” he asks shakily. “Please.”
With a grunt, Falamando tears his hand away. “Fine. Fucking- Fine. Yeah.” He leans back against the wood of the tree, crossing his arms in annoyance. “I’ll wait. I’ll be real patient for you all. I won’t even touch your precious Ion anymore, bastard.”
Despite everything, Thatch smiles again. “Thanks for coming, Snow,” he says. “I’m sorry, too.”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” I reply. Then, I hand him a bowl of Richard’s food. “Eat.” Finally, I turn to Flamando. “Now, tell me what you want.”
Chapter 122: Tower’s Wrath
There are a lot of things I don’t get about the man made of flame. He sits there, calmly, impatiently. He goes along with my requests. He doesn’t try to beat me to death - and he did beat Thatch to near death.
So, there is something he wants from me, something that only I can do. He has to appease me, somewhat.
But then, why beat up Thatch? Why not just ask to meet me? I don’t get it. So I wanna know. Despite the fact that he’s a dead man walking, I wanna know. But he gets to speak first. I’ll let him talk and reveal his hand, and then I’ll go.
Flamando sighs and leans back. “You’re curious why I beat your friend halfway to death,” he says.
Damn it. “Yes,” I confirm.
“I’m an avatar of the Flametouched,” he says, and the word rings a little. I feel watched. “So, Hush over here did not take it very well when I asked to meet you. My next question was whether you were in a guild.”
Thatch gave me a guilty smile. Somehow, he looked the least upset by all of this. His wounds were healing more, too. I raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged. “New epitaph, new skill,” he said, as if it explained everything. So that was why he was still alive.
“And then I started hurting him until he activated the distress beacon.”
“Guilty as charged,” Thatch admitted, almost… as if he found it funny.
I tilt my head at him. “Does it not bother you?”
He nods. “It does. I am angry, very angry even,” he says, glancing at Flamando. “But. It was also… freeing. There was no one to protect. Just me, and a few minotaurs who ran when they identified him. It was terrifying, but also…” he leans against the tree, looking up into the canopy. A long pause follows, and he looks over us. “Freeing,” he admits. “It was freeing.”
Slowly, I nod. Then I nod at Flamando. “Hush, do you want me to kill him?”
Thatch smiles. “Yeah,” he admits. “I do. He’s a rat bastard who deserves to die, damn it.”
Yeah. There’s something different about him. Something more honest. Thatch smiles more. For that, I find myself grateful to the walking corpse sitting next to us. “You touched my shoulder,” I tell Flamando. “That is unforgivable, too.”
“Oh, you’re one of them who don’t like to be touched? I see,” he says. “Next time, I’ll use magic to stop you. Is that better?”
I blink, and nod. “Yeah.”
“That’s fire. It might hurt a lot more, but something tells me you don’t mind. I’ll break your legs or something,” he says calmly, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Now, business. My Eye, the Flametouched, wants you. You’ve been marked, and since then we have been observing, like so many Eyes do.”
He looks at me for a long moment, and I get the feeling of a cruel grin from the gleeful flickering of the flames on his head. “And then, you went and set the Green Sea on fire. Just for a moment. But it was enough. You lit our beacon, Ion. You called me down.”
At that, I tilt my head. “And you’re here to kill me?”
“No. I am here to sponsor you.” He extends his hand for me to shake. “Come. I will bring you to the fifth floor, and you can become an avatar of the Flametouched, too. Bring fire and ruin to this Tower, and burn all the other Eyes down. Set the sky ablaze. Let the flames take the world!” His head starts crackling more as his facade of calm cracks again.
Instead of anger, this time mania and ecstasy leak from him. He truly loves the fire. He truly wants to see it all burn. Even me. That look in his eyes, it’s hungry. He’s looking at me as if I’m tinder, something to toss into the crucible of this world and see burn.
But it would get me up faster. “Can you kill a man named Ezekiel?” I ask.
“Respitia’s wayward hunting dog?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, she sent him after you, did she? Damn. That paladin you killed must’ve been on the up-and-up. Or you did something to really spite her.” He sounds amused. “Something tells me it’s a bit of both.” He pauses. “But yeah. I can kill him.”
I look at him, and consider the offer. Then, a heartbeat passes, and I look at Thatch. Then at Opal. I close my eyes, and a thin smile spreads on my lips. “No,” I reply. “No, I won’t serve your Eye. I’m going to kill it, too.”
[The Creeping Darkness snickers in elation.]
Opal tosses their head back and laughs. Loud, cheerily, echoing through the forest. “Bahahaha! Yeah, take that you fucker. You really thought we’d bend a knee? Especially after what you did?” They bare their teeth in a feral snarl that would look more right on a wulven’s face than that of a human. “Nah,” they say, happily. “Nah. Not a chance. You moron. Shoulda seen the look on your face. Hah!”
Flamando’s head flickers purple at their taunts. “I was so very patient with you all,” he says, voice crackling with fire. “I gave you my mana. I let you eat. And this is what you say? You laugh at me? Let me show you then, let me show you fire.”
He stands up from against the tree, and flickering light licks at the edges of the clearing.
[The Earthmother warns the avatar. If it wishes to burn, perhaps the Calamities of the second floor are more appropriate.]
Fire spreads. The heat in the air rises. The ground beneath me catches flame. I feel the heat crawl over my skin. “Amelie?” I ask.
“Norman,” she says, clearly.
With a sigh, Inu’s dad drops his [Unassuming]. A moment passes, and then, the noises of the forest reach us. A hundred beasts, all drawn in by Amelie’s puppets, baited into following us here. Abominations of vines and flowers that have grown to parasitize corpses, overgrown animal hybrids, apes with multiple heads and bark-skinned bears.
They pour into the clearing like a torrent, and then incinerate as Flamando turns a baleful gaze into their direction. “This is nothing,” he snarls. “Nothing against the fire. Let me show you. Show you the flame you scorn, the flame that consumes all.”
And then, the world flips. More flames pour out of him in an endless torrent. They consume trees, they spread to the leaves, crawl up their trunks and into the canopy. Smoke fills the air, then the smoke burns away too. Ash rains onto my head. It’s hot, but despite it all, I can’t help myself.
I watch the mana in the air, even as my skin blisters. Even as my hair curls in on itself, the tips beginning to char in the heat. Even as the world turns red and orange in flickering heat, I reach out to the fire, and [Observe] it. I [Select] and [Suppress] and [Deconstruct] the parts that wanna lick at my skin, and it takes all my mana to even keep it at bay.
Tiny fragments of a monstrously complex skill-pattern flow into my mantle, into my archive. They’re so small and fragile I can barely understand them. The others already run, blasting away with everything they have, and yet, I stand there. In the middle of the flames, wreathed in the soothing embrace of my mantle, building the archive.
[Deconstruction 18 > 19]
And then, I feel the other descent.
Mana around me stirs - not with a skill-pattern, but as if natural. The same kind of movement it takes on when I enter an ascendancy well. The same kind of mana that makes up the system messages.
In a shocking, horrifying, gorgeous and wonderful display of power, I see what it means to draw the Tower’s Wrath.
I watch as staggering amounts of mana coalesce in the air. A torrent so vast it makes my vessel look like a drop in the ocean. A grain of sand in a desert. More mana than I have ever seen before, more mana than I think reasonably should exist fills the air. It’s so dense, it liquifies, but unlike Leo’s liquid mana, this one is thick.
Mana fills my lungs as I breathe, pouring into my vessel. It’s full in moments. The thick, syrupy mana settles around me, and as I try to breathe more, I feel like an insect trapped in tree resin. I can feel the way it moves around me, flowing and consuming despite its viscosity. Flames are snuffed out in moments, charred leaves frozen in time.
And then, Flamando’s gaze meets mine. The burning fire on his head looks pale. Yellowy, instead of his usual red. Around him, the mana is even thicker. It’s so thick that while I may be a bug in amber, he looks like a fly encased in a diamond. The shell of mana is crystalline, multi-layered, and an absolutely beautiful construction.
My eyes bleed, but I do not look away. My brain burns as I drink it all in, but I watch nonetheless.
[Observation 10 > 13]
And then, all at once, the diamond shell around him turns the telltale gold of an ascension well. I get to watch as spontaneously, that monstrously complex transportation formation appears, and against his will, Flamando gets shunted back up the tower.
Like an ant being tossed out the window.
I smile, brightly, as the mana ravages through the forest, extinguishing every hint of ember. As it flows, unstoppable, unbreakable, reclaiming the corpses of beasts and dissolving them into motes of power in moments. I feel its authority brush by my skin, touch upon my mantle, and it recognizes me as alive.
And then, just as quick as it came, the tower withdraws. The mana dissipates into ambient thickness, turning the same thin haze that it usually is. My heart thumps in my chest, released from the amber grip, and breath enters my lungs again. And then, a laugh bubbles up my throat.
“Ha. Hahahaha!”
It was so beautiful. I want it. I want it. All of that mana, all of that, I want to have it.
[One of your minor requests has been consumed for the mana and information you took.]
I look upwards, and feel my will to climb reaffirmed. It leaves me without any requests, without any favours, and yet, I feel the fullness of my core. The wondrous ways that mana flowed and was intricately manipulated despite the volume. The layering plates of diamond - and I laugh some more.
“It’s settled. We’re climbing all the way up.”
Chapter 123: Congregating
Ezekiel Thorn let out a long sigh.
In truth, he did not mind that his mark had been washed away. He did not mind having fought the damned innkeep and his husband, he didn’t mind needing to trail through the undergrowth of the third floor. All of that was perfectly acceptable to him, because all of it was proof.
Proof that he was free.
However long he crawled around the dirty paths of the third floor - he relished every moment of it. Even when he lost his way to track the rookie, having to spend days trawling through the muddy forest, constantly faced with challenges far greater than the average climber. After all, that was only fair, right?
All of that he took in strides. But when Respitia contacted him again, demanding to know how he had not succeeded yet, how he’d lost to someone so much weaker than him, how he’d failed in his mission, and that he was a pathetic, worthless wretch of a man… that made him sigh.
It was a little tiring. He sighed, again.
The mage, another scithian, laid a cool hand on his shoulder. Her eyes were the same pale blue as the crystals behind her back, looking like the ocean on a bright day. “Are you ill, old man?” she asked, fake concern in her voice. “Perhaps you ought to let me test a few spells on you?”
Ezekiel brushed her hair from his face, strands of blue-white that felt cold to the touch. “No, Serra, I do not need your assistance.”
“Shame,” she said. Then she leaned back, stretching, pushing her gloved hands far above her as her wings spread wide. She gave a satisfied hum as her spine popped once, and then turned to the woman in armor. “Igrys, come here. I need to test something.”
The tank, for her part, looked up and huffed in annoyance. She had black hair and red eyes, pale skin and wide shoulders. “Pay me,” she said simply.
Serra pouted in reply. “Fine, then I’ll just cast it on you over there!” she huffed.
For a moment, Igrys’ eyes went wide. She rose to her feet, quickly brandishing her shield. A moment later, a spell smacked against its surface, covering it - and the woman behind it - in a thick layer of clear ice. Serra smiled proudly. “I call this one the popsicklifier!”
Their spellblade, a feryran woman with reddish hair and dark eyes, smacked the mage on the back of the head. Her skin was covered in the bio-metal plates that was common for her species, which meant that even the small smack was probably uncomfortable. Not that high-level climber bones were much softer than metal.
“Owwww,” Serra whined anyway. “What was that for??”
“Stop casting spells on our party,” Railles, the spellblade, chided her, with a gravelly voice. Ezekiel eyed her for a long moment, finding no concern, and instead, a face filled with annoyance at the inconvenience. He smiled. She was the most like him, then.
He didn’t care in the slightest if anyone in his temporary team died. They could all fall off the tower if they wanted to. No, they were bound by convenience. Serra owed him a favour. Igrys and Orri, their sumeen clothmancer-diviner, were paid handsomely. And Railles, the grey-skinned spellblade, was here because Respitia had traded her a major request to the tower for it.
As Serra stuck her tongue out at the spellblade, Igrys broke from the ice, asking if she could strangle the mage. Gently, Ezekiel had to turn her down, and request Serra stop her wanton experimentation. Then, finally, when the bickering died down, he turned to the quietest member of their party.
“Any news?” he asked the clothmancer, Orri.
The sumeen hummed, then slowly tilted its head in a manner not unlike a bird’s. A shiver ran down Ezekiel’s spine as all six of those sight-holes fixated on him. He never liked the sumeen. They were too… alien. Barely people. But he could work with one at least.
Orri hummed again, noting his discomfort but disregarding it. The clothmancer replied easily. “No, something is shrouding them right now.”
“That makes no sense,” Serra supplied instantly. “There’s nothing on a floor this low that should stop your scrying.”
“And yet, here we find ourselves,” the sumeen replied casually. “With my scrying stopped.”
Ezekiel huffed in annoyance. “What’s blocking you, then?” he asked.
“Mana,” Orri replied. “A dense, thick sheet of mana. An amount that would burst my vessel a hundred times over. An incredible amount of it, even.” Their voice was calm, melodic as always, and yet, Ezekiel tensed at its description.
There was only one thing that could mean. “Tower’s Wrath,” he whispered. “But… who? Which other Eye is pursuing Ion?” That last question was leveraged at Respitia rather than anyone present, really. He grit his teeth when the uptight creature he served refused a reply. “Damn it,” he cursed. “I was looking forward to the fourth floor.”
Now, he’d have to fight someone there. Great, just great.
- - -
Flamando, once the mana subsided, found himself on the fourth floor. Instantly, he slammed his fist into the ground, shattering it. “Damn it!” he cursed. “Falling piece of falling shit. Tower’s Wrath. Tower’s damned Wrath!” He slammed his fist into the ground again, sending bones and debris flying.
The fourth floor. The Grindstone, the Graveyard. Bones littered the fields around him, the tower having deposited him miles away from any fully fledged city. Of course it had. It wanted him to cool off. To put his limiters back in place.
He could feel it, too. The dense knot of mana behind his head, like an eye, watching everything he did. As if the tower was chiding him for his loss of control. Flamando tightened the magic inside his flaming head, forcing the sphere that he used as an anchor for vision to compress.
It turned from red to orange and yellow, then glimmered with a faint green, tightly webbing into itself. Flamando took a long moment - the equivalent of a deep breath - to calm himself. Just the fourth floor. They’d be here soon. And then he’d find that rookie and toss the falling bastard off the side of the tower.
Until then, at least, with what this floor was, he didn’t need to worry about boredom. There were always plenty of bodies to be shattered deep in the Graveyard. As soon as the rookie came up, it was over. Ion would be dead. Dead, damn it.
- - -
PoV: Snow Okiyama - Ion
The good news is that we’ve found out that for tougher people, the spiderweb does not cut through their bones.
On the other hand, we’ve also found out that Norman can get really, really whiny about having a good chunk of his arm cut through.
Which, I suppose, is fair. Despite that… “Stop squirming so much, it’s making my spells not take hold as well.”
“It fucking hurts, damn it!” he says from teary eyes, his voice grinding out between clenched teeth.
Another blast of mana from me mangles the legs of another spider who was trying to get close. A moment later, Opal’s on top of it, plunging their sword into its head, finishing it off. “Sorry, can’t spare the focus for pain suppression right now,” I tell Norman, pouring more healing into his flesh as it stitches back together.
It’s the truth. With [Observation] running to find any threats, and [Deconstruction] or [Suppression] lashing out to deal with them, I can’t focus on much else other than healing him on top of that. Norman squirms some more, moaning and whining about the pan, until his flesh is mostly intact again.
By then, Amelie is in the queue, sporting two wounds in the side of her neck, dripping venom. “That looks bad,” I say.
She shrugs. “Doesn’t hurt that much. I think it’s paralytic.”
“Hmmm,” I hum, setting about healing her. There’s something more peculiar about the wound - and her skin. She’s already sealed off most of the poison. Only a tiny amount actually entered her body, she must have woven some kind of water-tight fabric around the fangs when she got bit. A small smile spreads on my lips. “Impressive.”
Amelie grins, then huffs haughtily, flicking her hair back. “Hmpf! Of course. I still can barely feel my arms though, so…”
“On it, on it,” I say, applying the spell and watching as her flesh mends. First, it fuses together at the bottom of the wound, climbing upwards, until the skin itself stitches together almost like fabric. Thin strands of it interlocking with each other until it’s mended again. “Huh,” I say.
“What?” Amelie asks, trying out the range of motion of her shoulders, as her puppets swarm and take down another spider.
I tilt my head. “Your skin. It’s different.”
She blinks for a moment, running a finger across it. “I can’t feel anything.”
“Might be related to your mantle?” I suggest.
“Huh,” she says. “Maybe.”
“A little bit of help!” Thatch calls, smashing his fists into another spider, making me look over.
Right. Oops.
With a quick cast of [Suppression], the arachnid slows down to a crawl, and Thatch quickly pulps it. Seeing the punch is strange. His fist hits first, then there’s a short pause before I see a flash of mana and feel a bit of force and heat wash over me. Just enough to send my hair flying.
Bile fights against the spiders, too, corralling them with earthen walls. They’re making it a little harder on him to build a quick “labyrinth”, since they can climb over the sides, but despite that, the very existence of it seems to slow them down and disorient them, making it easy for organised legions of puppets to swarm and disassemble them.
It makes me think that a team up of Bay and Amelie could be quite scary, couldn’t it? Hm. Something to consider. A little later, the wound on Amelie’s shoulder is gone, and with all the damage dealt with, I get to actually properly engage in the fight. I summon a few needles, long, thin pieces of mana, imbued with my skills.
They hover around me, lancing out at spiders, leaving thin wounds. But the weakening effects seep deep into their bodies, and [Deconstruction] unravels their ligaments. Joints freeze up when hit, becoming stiff and immobile. One of the spiders spits more steely thread at me.
It’s thin and wiry, but…
My mantle whirs. The archive already has a recording of the thread. A web of it blooms in front of me, easily catching the glob of venom-coated string. The spider hisses in annoyance, but a quick pulse of mana and its face crumples inwards. When it staggers back, one of Opal’s echoes activates, cleaving its thorax in half.
I can feel the broken bits of my mantle trying to manifest, and as more spiders crawl towards me, I pull the remnants of Philia’s golden sword from it. The paladin wielded the flaming weapon with grace, and I can feel the power even while holding this replica in my hand. It’ll be enough, more than enough.
When one of the arachnids leaps at me from the back, it goes poorly. Two needles pierce it, killing its momentum before it’s properly off the ground. Instead of jumping, it becomes a graceless tumble, and a cut from the golden sword finishes the thing off.
[You have killed a lv. 44 Webweaver]
More of them hiss and click at me. I smile faintly. “Kuro, now.”
The shadow slithers down from my face, unmaking itself and becoming liquid as it crawls over the ground. A needle immobilises a spider, and Kuro instantly jumps it. Darkness covers its skin, then shifts and convulses, blooming into a dozen inward-facing spikes, making the beast crumple to the ground.
I step forward, deploying a sweeping field of [Suppression], brushing against the things. They suddenly slow, as if caught in molasses. There’s not even any need to hurry as I step forward and cut through them like wheat.
[You have killed a lv. 39 Webweaver]
[You have killed a lv. 45 Webweaver]
[You have killed a lv. 44 Webweaver]
They shatter. One by one, they break. Their bodies betray them, their magic falls apart as soon as they try to cast it. They’re reduced to nothing more than insects - metaphorically, I mean. Mundane things, bereft of their monstrous strength.
I, a person with a particularly pointy stick, walk through the horde of monsters and kill them.
[Level Up! 54 > 55]
Opal pops in next to me, humming. “Scary,” they say chipperly. “Something odd about seeing things so ordinary.”
“That’s me,” I say, smiling a little. “Ordinary Snow. I turn things near me back to base levels. Nothing special about it.”
My friend snickers. “Yeah, you’re tooootally the most normal person I know.”
“Me too,” I say, smiling. Then, I unsummon the sword, and draw my mantle back into its half-manifested stage, runic geometry swirling around me. I draw it a little higher, hiding my mouth, and Kuro wraps back around my face, forming the high collar that hides half my face. It’s cozy, almost.
The spiders are dead and broken around us, Bile and Norman panting, Thatch meditating, Amelie already analyzing the thread, and Opal standing next to me. Already, the corpses are being dissolved into more ambient mana, fed back into the tower’s spawning cycle. I steal a bit of venom, though, putting it into containers of solidified mana.
Despite keeping an attunement loop active on my vessel, and another instance of [Suppression] on my physical body, I have enough mana left to sustain the bottles after surpassing the recent mana threshold. I take a long breath.
In front of me, the golden lines on the floor light up. Slowly, the tower’s grace crawls across them, forming patterns and runes so intricate I still can’t begin to understand them. Nor should I, I think. The tower wants its secrets. I’ll have them soon enough.
For now, I simply wait, toying with the skills in my archive until everyone is ready to leave. And then, all at once, we step into the ascendancy well, up to the fourth floor.
[Ascend?]
As if it had to ask. I nod, ever so faintly, and see my vision go white.
[Challenge: Duo’s Duel. A hunt you must escape, a memory takes shape. Two hunters once climbed up as well, prove that you can show them hell.]
And then, there’s a sandstone floor beneath my feet. An arena. Opal by my side. Facing Ezekiel and the cloth mage, from back when they were younger.
A smile creeps onto my face. What a kind gift. Thank you, dear tower. I’ll take them into my archives, too.