They stepped into the stairwell and the doors slammed shut behind them, sealing the group in. As usual, there was a rumbling underneath them as the six of them ascended up each step. After fifteen hundred steps, they finally crested the staircase and stepped out into the eleventh world. Laurence, in the lead, made the group halt as they looked out at the land before them. Soft hills stretched out in front of them and a deep red light covered the sky, giving the plants and trees a scarlet light to them.

They funneled out of the stairwell and looked beyond, wondering how the world had become so sparse. It reminded Laurence of a slightly more florid version of the wasteland of the second floor. It had not been ravaged by the Chaos Storm, but there was something else that had torn the land asunder. It had not ruined the landscape, but there was a noticeable silence that permeated the land. There were birds, but no mammal sounds, and no insect noise. It was too quiet.

Yun looked at Laurence and the rest of the group. “There is something very wrong with this place. There is no earthlife here. No insects, or animals. There are only birds for miles around. This is very unsettling”.

“Is it something like the Chaos Storm?” Said Cleo, her heart in her mouth. She remembered that storm. It had been a nightmare to her, but she and Winoa had found a solid mound to hide inside.

“This was not a storm. Cloudbanks have come and passed, but this... this was something other. This was something worrying”. Yun frowned. Laurence understood why. There was a sense of wrongness about the land. Like someone had ripped strips of mana from the very land and air itself. Not all the mana was gone, but it was like someone had taken a plow and ripped apart the lifeline of the land. “We need to find a place where people are. We need a settlement to find out what’s wrong with this place”.

“Surely we should just use the pointer ring to make our way to the stele as fast as possible. This world... We should leave it quickly,” said Jim.

“I agree with Jim. We walk, and if we find why this land is like this, then we can leave with some understanding, but we should focus on leaving,” said Laurence. He held out his right hand and watched as an image of a great stone doorway appeared in front of him. Below the doorway there was an arrowhead with the number one thousand two hundred and seventeen etched below it. Everyone stared at the number and took it in. It was the largest number between steles yet, and none of them were really prepared for it.

“Four years...” said Louisa, her hand at her mouth. “At this rate, It will take centuries to climb to the top of the tower”.

“Well then, let’s get moving,” Jim replied.

They walked for three days before seeing anything like a settlement or place of rest, but eventually they came across a disused road. It stretched one way into a forest, and the other towards a flatland region with three hills popping out of the centre. They were not mountainous, but they caught the eye, as did the settlement that appeared as the group got closer and closer.

The fact that they had found a settlement was a blessing to most, but to Yun it was disconcerting. He was frowning more than ever, and Laurence could see that his heart was in his mouth. This town was the nexus, or at least a nexus of the issues that had struck this land and rent it of so much life.

With each step they took the settlement loomed closer and closer. It was not a large place, but the sense of wrongness and foreboding loomed over them. This town had been greatly affected by whatever had happened to it, but they could still not tell if it was the cause or conclusion, or even a middling point of the terrible blight that had struck the lands.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

After about three hours from when they first caught sight of the town, they arrived at the outskirts. The town was dilapidated, roughshod with carts strewn everywhere and broken walls in half the buildings. It had been torn apart by beasts and by people obviously fearing for their life as they ran. Laurence climbed over the rubble and detritus to get a look at the main highway that ran through the settlement. It was a mess. The street was shattered. Large rocks were puncturing through the walls of the various buildings, obscuring the entrances of two of the larger buildings while leaving the skeletal remains of two or three people left to desiccate outside. There was no way to tell how long they had been dead for, but the way that the corpses had just been left under rocks or on the side of the street. The wind and rain had thoroughly scored and cleaned the surface of the sets of bones that had littered the street paths, but oddly enough there was very little plant life that grew in the city. It was like the plant life itself was afraid of growing there.

“This place is creepy,” said Cleo. “It’s setting me on edge. Something awful happened here”.

“No joke... We should look around to find out what happened. I don’t feel comfortable staying here, but it seems like whatever killed all these people has long since passed us by”. Jim frowned, hopping over to one of the buildings and peering into the dim building. “We’ve got a couple of hours until nighttime. I’d suggest holding up in here for the night and exploring in the morning. This place looks like a house”.

“I’m all for it,” said Laurence. He walked up to the building and began looking at the windows. “What are you guys waiting for? There’s got to be a way in without us disturbing anything, come help me look”. Following Laurence they all began to look over the building for ways in. One of the large rocks was in the way, blocking the doorway from them using the entrance, but other than that, the building seemed to be completely intact.

After around twenty seconds, Louisa shouted from above, “I have an entryway. There’s an open window up here”. Immediately, they all attempted to leap up to the floor above, but as they tried to soar into the aether not one of them could employ their world defying strength. “You’re going to have to climb up the side, guys. I probably should have mentioned that. The messed up mana means that we may not be as strong as we should be normally. It seems like our natural abilities are still usable, as I ended up shrinking to open this window from the inside, but our strength is suppressed. It’s bizarre”.

“Alright then,” Laurence said, and moved his hands apart. As his hands split the side of the wall pulled out and gained clear handholds. As he did this, only Cleo and Winoa looked bothered. The stared at each other in shock then back at Laurence, but they did not say anything. They followed the rest of the group and then entered the room through the window that Louisa had opened, and entered the room beyond. It was dusty, and dark, but looked like some sort of barracks that had not been lived in for a long time. Quickly the group settled down and Cleo began igniting torches to give more light to the building. Laurence sat down and immediately pulled out some food for people to eat from one of the rings on his hands. After making an impromptu fire pit, Laurence set up a grill and began grilling the meat and vegetables together on skewers.

He began handing his food round and said “I’m sorry that it’s simple, but there’s nothing else I can really cook in the situation”.

They nodded and all sat down to eat and mull over what they had seen that day.