Jelly moved away from the hole when Arcen and Elena made it clear they weren’t going to ignore her and jump in. Elena talked a bit more baby nonsense with Jelly to parse what exactly she was saying. Zuhara could’ve translated that way better than anyone else, but she wasn’t going to get here anytime soon. They got a clearer picture of the situation when Elena gathered more information from Jelly’s broken words and gestures.
Not only was someone/something dangerous down in the capillary shaft—someone with ‘big Aura’ that eats, but also they were moving. Climbing up at this very moment. Jelly also emphasized the speed as ‘big’ just like Aura. In conclusion, there was some sort of demon coming up the shaft at maximum speed.
After talking with Jelly, Elena wanted to rest and think after her exhausting chase. They couldn’t hang around the hole if something dangerous was going to pop out of it at some point. They retreated quite a distance—about a hundred meters—where they found cover behind some rock formations.
Elena sat down on a small dent in the rocks, peeking out just enough to see if something happened in the darkness ahead. Jelly snuggled up to her like before, demanding more head scratches this time after sitting down on Elena’s chest.
Arcen could see better than Elena could with his red vision. Nothing would pop out of the capillary hole without him seeing some Aura flames first.
“The shortcut, who else knows about it?” He asked, crouching in front of her.
Frozen while he spoke those words, she waited a few seconds longer to answer him.
“I have no idea now. I thought only you and Rika knew about it up here. But that fucker knew already.”
Arcen clicked his tongue, thinking about what she just said. There were two words there that he wanted to know more about.
“You said ‘up here’, does anyone else know it down there? maybe outside the tower?” He asked, not expecting a direct answer. She was still keeping a lot of secrets in true Elena fashion. He just wanted to let her know he caught something that she let slip.
She looked at him with a pensive expression and closed her eyes, rolling her upper lip. She was thinking too hard to answer a simple question.
SOMEONE ELSE KNOWS.
Whether she revealed or not, it was fairly obvious. She climbed the tower with four experienced climbers. Someone had to have organized it and convinced climbers like Norm Lorraine to run security for a risky expedition. Things like that wouldn’t be accessible for a child like her in the outside world.
Focusing on the more pressing issue at hand, there was someone dangerous down there in the tunnel tthat he mind hacker jumped into. There were a few things it could be. He tried to think from the escaping mind hacker’s perspective. They either knew someone dangerous was coming up and jumped anyway, or they didn’t know about it.
Based on what he’d seen, it had to be later than the first. Elena couldn’t sense anything wrong with the shaft and almost jumped in. Only Jelly could tell, and the mind hacker didn’t have a Jelly to tell them.
If he could remember what Zuhara said about Jelly, this still didn’t add up. She could only sense danger from one floor above, one floor below. If the dangerous monster was a floor beneath, they would’ve gotten here already.
“How can Jelly sense everything down there? I thought she could only do three floors at best?” He asked Elena as she ran her fingers on Jelly’s little head.
“Because she ate some capillary gel. She can see, smell, taste, and feel Aura everywhere.”
“Ah, I see. The gel has Aura in it.”
“Oh, wait, I forgot that you don’t know,” Elena said, arching her back to rest more comfortably. “That gel is all around us. It’s like the blood system thing for the tower. There’s a layer of that Gel inside all the walls, floors, and ceilings. It changes in different ways when it's exposed to Aura,” Elena went on like she was reading off from a textbook yet again. She always seemed to have a tower encyclopedia inside her head.
NOW THAT IS INTERESTING.
She continued, “Jelly here can just feel the changes in Gel without even touching for about three floors. She can do a lot more with her other senses.”
“So that mind hacker dude jumped in without knowing what's down there, right?”
“I think so. I could be wrong, they could be sending another friend of theirs for us to deal with.”
NOT ANOTHER BORING FIGHT WITH A MAW, NO THANK YOU.
That was indeed something Arcen hadn't considered. Maybe this was the mind hacker's way of plugging the hole behind him.
“Guess we'll see soon,” Arcen said with a sigh. He didn't have Aura to waste just so that King could have fun. This next one would have to be killed immediately with Red Court.
They waited for what felt like a lot longer than it should’ve been. Arcen found out that he’d had the wrong idea about what ‘fast’ meant inside the capillary shaft. He’d lost track of time when he came through it. Elena told him it took something close to sixteen hours to get through.
The word ‘fast’ in that context meant something less than that many hours. Likely half, or less. They’d have to stay for a lot longer than they planned. King found this rather appalling and simply let himself fall asleep.
WAKE ME UP WHEN IT IS FUN AGAIN.
He said in a disappointed voice before retracting all the Meronolith enhancements from Arcen’s body. The armor plates dissipated, sinking back into his flesh. Red vision turned back to his normal two eyes. His muscles shrank, leaving him in tattered, loose clothes—ripped pants barely holding onto his waist. He felt a lot more naked without the armor plates.
It didn’t matter in a chamber as dark as it was, but he warned Elena just in case there was a wardrobe malfunction. She laughed at him for a good few minutes before taking her long coat off and handing it to him. It fit him a bit tighter than he felt comfortable wearing, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
His body felt like it was on fire from the moment King vanished. Every joint and muscle hurt in some way, and he felt more exhausted than he’d ever felt before.
“Feels like I got beaten…” He said, still trying to get used to having his normal voice back.
“You can use some Restore if anything’s broken,” Elena suggested, looking at him with a concerned expression on her face.
“I got level one….rank one or whatever. Skin deep…” He sighed, stretching an arm. Something popped, and he gasped loud enough for it to echo in the chamber.
“Wait, I’ll fix it. I got up to rank four.”
“When do I get bigger ranks on my stuff?” Arcen asked with a groan, flexing his arm as he sat back down next to her.
“It’s strange that you haven’t…” She said, extending her hand towards his shoulder. White threads burst from her skin, reaching like roots into his. He felt the stiff joint relax and the pain reduced almost immediately. “Wait, I forgot all about your not-dying thing!” Elena gasped, tapping her forehead. “Is that still a thing?”
What kind of a fucking question was that?
“Hopefully, but I don’t want to find out,” Arcen said with a nervous chuckle.
“Well, you get stat points now and then based on the things that you do,” Elena said, aiming her palm at his elbow.
“I’ve noticed those.”
“It doesn’t happen very…efficiently, though. It’s kind of slow. You get more points when you do things the tower wants. Which is where quests come in. But your quest thing is broken for some reason, isn’t it?”
Arcen felt his heart rising as he realized where this conversation was going. Elena still couldn’t be allowed to know about his Osiryn quest. He tried really hard to remember the lie he told to Rika when she brought it up.
“Yeah, I can’t see any quests.”
“Usually, you get quests that reward points for doing something. Only one at a time, by the way. So if you can’t see quests…” Elena paused after healing his elbow. “That means you can’t even accept quests, or you already have a quest that’s just stuck there.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Arcen stole a cautious side glance at her. She had put her thinking cap on, and she was terrifyingly close to his secret. He felt like a little rat trying to hide it again. He couldn’t do it too eagerly, or she would catch on immediately. He had to let her think and reach her own conclusion, even if it was the right one.
“So that’s why my skills suck…” He said, trying to divert her attention away from the topic of the quest. “Every stat above ten has a rank one Skill. I’m guessing I need twenty on each stat to get a higher rank?”
“Yes. It’s one rank every ten for the first ten ranks of any skill. You should have some stuff close to that, would be ridiculous if you don’t.”
Thinking about his attributes brought it up in his eyes.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ ATTRIBUTES ╰︶
????
LOVE [11]
??
HATE [12]
??
ORDER [7]
??
CHAOS [10]
??
TRUTH [10]
??
DECEPTION [8]
??
HOPE [5]
??
DESPAIR [13]
??
CREATION [6]
??
DESTRUCTION [15]
??
LIGHT [11]
??
DARKNESS [8]
??
LIFE [10]
??
DEATH [15]
??
FUTURE [16]
??
PAST [4]
??
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
“Despair, thirteen-”
“You shouldn’t tell other people what your stats are…” Elena said like she was a teacher talking to an elementary school student.
“I mean, my Skills aren't even rank two; everyone up here has more than me,” Arcen said dismissively. “Besides, I'm not worried about telling you. We're cousins,” He said the last part in a mocking tone.
“Fine! but don’t tell anyone else! It’s not a good habit!” She said, healing yet another spot. “I thought like you in my first tower, and it didn’t end well for me. Even with low numbers, your stats tell people exactly who you are.”
“Despair is thirteen, like I said, what am I?”
“Sad boy with tentacles,” Elena said with a scoff.
Future is sixteen. What does that mean?
That wasn't as intuitive as 'Despair' or 'Love'. As far as he could piece together the logic based on his two highest stats, he was a sad boy with a future.
He made himself scoff with that one.
“I think it's really stupid that I can't get numbers without doing quests or whatever...” He said, turning around to let Elena heal his other shoulder.
“It's not stupid, this is just how towers work,” Elena said rather dryly.
She's going to give me a paragraph from a textbook again.
“This is pretty crazy stuff. There's a theory about attention.” she started.
“...what?”
“I saw it on a document I stole once,” she said with a little giggle. “You already know these towers are alive. Towers want us to climb them. When we do, they don't have infinite attention to pay. So you get stat points only when the tower is looking at you. It gives you a point because it witnessed you doing something interesting.”
“That's a bit ridiculous and unfair, don't you think?”
“Towers aren't fair,” Elana said, shrugging. “They just pay attention to what they find interesting. It gets better on higher floors because fewer people get that far. Attention is divided, and the highest climbers get the most. Because they're doing the most interesting things.”
Arcen jolted when she fixed his lower back. It hurt like daggers when the luminous threads sank into his flesh. She used a higher rank relief for the pain.
I’m not built to handle this King stuff…
He was a salaryman who lived an unhealthy lifestyle. That still hadn’t changed. Lying limp on a nice piece of rock after Elena fixed his joints, he thought about how insane everything had been up to this point.
His eyes closed without him even noticing.
Arcen woke up from his nap and found himself unable to tell up from down or where he was. He was still tired—it was one of those naps where he felt like he lived a different life. Something cold was on his forehead.
As the pieces of a distant dream faded, he blinked and raised himself. Jelly was lying on top of his head, cold as she always was.
“Tassi?” Jelly mumbled sleepily and found a hole between his tentacles to snuggle into.
He looked around for Elena, but he couldn’t find her anywhere.
His first reaction was to get up and run. Thinking about it for a few seconds, the scene didn’t add up. If this were someone hostile, Jelly wouldn’t be as relaxed as she was.
“Hello?” Arcen cleared his voice.
“Oh damn!” The man jumped where he was. “El told me to let you sleep. You’re awake now.”
The man wore several pieces of armor on his limbs and chest and had a dark green cape around his neck. He had some hybrid mutation that gave him a line of black scales on his jaws and furry forearms. This was a climber, likely from the ones that arrived for reinforcement earlier.
“Anything happened? Where is El?” He asked, standing up with a groan.
“She’s down that way at the shaft with Zuhara,” the man said, pointing in that direction.
Now, everyone knows about the shortcut.
Touching around his back, he could still feel the black egg fused with him right below the nape of his neck. He adjusted Elena’s long coat around himself, and he excused himself from the climber.
He walked back towards the capillary shaft. Jelly mumbled something sleepily and sat upright, still leaning on a tentacle. She had the same problem that he had—a very good nap she didn’t want to wake up from. Aside from Zuhara and the climber that he talked with, the chamber was devoid of any other reinforcements. Either they haven’t made this far down, or they were not coming at all.
Zuhara is enough anyway.
He found them standing a good distance away from the capillary shaft.
“When did you get here?” Arcen asked, joining them mid-conversation.
“About an hour ago,” Zuhara said, smiling at him. “Imagine my surprise when I found all three of you out cold as someone whacked you over the head with a bat.”
“Damn, for how long were we out?” He asked Elena, panic creeping in. “Don't tell me we missed whatever was coming?”
“No, I think we would’ve found out very soon if someone did come out, Jelly would’ve woken up right away,” Elena said with a shrug.
“Jelly had too much fun with you two. Now she’s too sleepy to keep her head up,” Zuhara moved closer, taking Jelly into her hands. They had a moment where they stared into each other’s eyes, communicating something nonverbally. Jelly yawned at the end of it and snuggled up on Zuhara’s chest.
“She says they’re about half an hour away,” Zuhara said, translating what Jelly told her.
“Any idea who she's talking about?” Elena asked.
They still don't know? That means not even Zuhara can tell.
“Still sounds like she's talking about some sort of creature to me. Something to do with a lot of teeth. I'm pretty sure it's a Meronolith Maw all over again,” Zuhara said, looking at Arcen. “I hung around for a bit after you two left, portaled the ghosts and the corpse to the doctor's. He confirmed that it was Colin Fraser, and that he'd been dead for a while. Weeks at least.”
“Woah wait!” Arcen almost yelled. “You mean to say Colin Fraser wasn't alive this whole time?” He turned to Elena. “Not even when he was acting like Wells and shot me?”
“Seems that way. That 'n' guy was in there this whole time. Even when we talked with Colin at the bar.”
“What the fuck kinda power is that? He can just wear dead people like costumes that well?”
“It could be a main contract or a very specifically weird...domain,” Zuhara said. “Doesn't matter how. The fact that it happened at all is crazy enough.”
Continuing her stream of thought, Zuhara waved her hand at the capillary shaft. "That guy had some way to turn a corpse into a Meronolith thing. He was clearly planning his escape, based on what El told me. You two pressed him in the bar, and he knew the jig was up. He knew you were going to chase him, so he turned the corpse into a Maw to try to kill you.”
“Would’ve happened if it wasn’t for the egg!” Arcen said.
“More than that, it was because of Jelly,” Elena said, interrupting him. “She was sneaking out from the doctor’s camp when she found the Maw and started playing with it. The Maw got distracted,”
Zuhara laughed. “You’re lucky this cheeky little brat was walking around where she’s not supposed to be!” She said, giving Jelly a pat on the backside.
Arcen hadn’t thought about it that way. Elena was indeed right. If the Maw successfully ambushed them, they would’ve been in real trouble. He had King to save himself, but she could’ve easily died right there or severely wounded.
Jelly stirred as if she heard them talking about her, shook her head, yawned, and sat upright. She blinked at Arcen a couple of times and looked lazily at the capillary shaft.
Zuhara looked at her once, and her brow tightened. She grabbed the handle of her sword.
“Eek!” Jelly squeaked, pointing at the hole in the wall.
“They’re here!” Elena said as the air around them started to wobble, distortions quickly intensifying in fractions of a second.
“Oh shit!” Arcen turned, feeling the egg pulse on his back. His skin gradually turned black, Meronolith armor emerging from his muscles to the surface. He took off Elena’s long coat before it could get ripped.
“I’m using the domain if it’s a Maw, get ready!” He said as his voice deepened and a flash of red leaked from his lips. He closed his mouth.
THIS FEELS STRONGER. MAYBE I SHOULD HAVE SOME FUN FIRST.
Capillary gel burst from the hole like water from a fire hose. A figure dashed out from it faster than they could blink—even faster than Jelly. In Arcen’s red vision, it looked like an animation where middle frames were skipped entirely. He only saw massive white flames and two glimpses.
Elena activated a strong Radiate to illuminate the whole area around the shaft. Arcen parted his lips to command the Red Court.
Basking in that light, covered by a thick layer of capillary gel from head to toe, was a lone figure that was nothing like a Meronolith Maw.
“What?”
The figure spoke, taking something off their mouth. The voice was oddly familiar to Arcen’s ears.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ SKILL ╰︶
????
REVEAL
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
“Everyone hold!” Zuhara yelled as his Reveal activated.
╭ ╰︶?? ERITHERIA ?? ︶╯ ╮
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ NAME ╰︶
????
TYMON
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
?╭─ AURA ─╮?
╰ 306,337,666 ╯
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
I KNOW THIS GUY!
“What’s happening here? You fuckers throwing me a welcome party or something?” He asked, spitting gel from his shark-toothed mouth.
He tossed something that he was carrying. It fell on the ground with a wet slosh.
The top quarter of the escaped mind hacker—head and shoulders, with a long chunk of the spine still attached.
Tymon grinned, his eyes glowing red and orange. “Bring it on, I’m always ready to dance…”
Next chapter on Monday.
Regular reminder to rate/review if you’re enjoying the ride!
Advance chapters on
