“Are you fucking with us?” No2 said as they all stared at a empty wall and the end of a tunnel.

Captain Joysich and Ms Price had taken the three of them down into the restricted underground tunnel that housed the anomaly.

“No one one is fucking with you kid. At the end that tunnel is the anomaly. It is always in a state of quantum flux since we learned how to unlock it. Simply walk forward and if your potential is right you will pass through into the beanstalk. If its not you will just walk into a wall.” Joysich said.

Wolf hung off to the side as he wrinkled his face in uncertainty. The whole situation was too bizarre and it seemed like some clever trap.

“Hahaha in that case see you fuckers on the other side!” No1 yelled as he began to sprint down the tunnel at full speed.

“Whoop” He screamed as he leapt into the blank wall only to disappear completely.

“Yeeeeaaaahhhhh.” No2 two screamed as he copied No1 and sprinted full pelt down the tunnel before hurling himself headfirst in the wall and disappearing.

“These kids are fucking crazy.” Joysich said as eyes widened at the sight. He turned to look at Wolf who he expected to be more dignified only to see he was gone.

“MUAHAHAHAHA!” Wolf screamed as he sprinted down the tunnel and leapt through the wall.

“Well……..shit.” Joysich said.

“Good luck with that.” Price laughed as she left. Her work was done for now.

Joysich sighed as he walked down the tunnel. He looked back at the bunker momentarily as closed his eyes. He knew he wouldn’t be back for some time. Slowly he stepped through and entered the beanstalk.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

When Wolf appeared in the beanstalk he looked around in amazement. They were standing in a huge chimney that extended so far above them they couldn’t see where it ended. The walls were a craggy rock face that were covered with thousands of layered engravings.

“What are they?” Wolf whispered as he passed his hand over the images.

“Look at this thing baldy. It’s some kind of demon with four heads and fangs.” No2 said as he pointed to an engraving mid way up the wall.

Wolf stared at it for a moment and then it felt as if his soul was beginning to get sucked into the engraving and his knees went weak. A deep sense of terror washed over him as if his life was slipping away.

“Mr Wolf are you alright?” No1 asked as he grabbed Wolf’s arm. As soon as No1 made contact with Wolf’s arm the spell broke and Wolf backed away from the engraving with a look of horror on his face.

“Wha……there’s something moving inside those engravings!” Wolf hissed. For once No1 and No2 didn’t make any smarts comments as they slowly began to look around at the engravings around them. They too could feel the strange power that permeated the beanstalk and made the hairs on their arms stand on end.

They all quickly realised that every engraving was a different version on the same theme.

Monsters.

Big fucking monsters.

Joysich suddenly materialised in the middle of the room.

“Welcome to the Beanstalk.”He said smiling.

“Ok thanks for the tour Captain!” Wolf said as tried to pass through the space Joysich had just materialised from. He jumped back and forth through it but he remained inside the beanstalk.

A look of panic began bloom on Wolf’s face until he surpressed it. His years of mental discipline came into play as he controlled his fear and put the pieces together.

“Ok Joystick. Why don’t you tell us what this really about.” Wolf said in an unfriendly tone.

“It’s Joysich.”

“No I’m with the kids on this one, it’s definitely Joystick.”

“You fucked us didn’t you Joystick.” No1 swore.

“My name is JOYSICH!” Joysich yelled. This was of course the worse thing he could have done. No1 and No2 winked at each other and smiled. Now they knew the name bothered him Joysich was never going to be able to escape it.

Wolf smiled a little too. He remembered how much he had fought against being called baldy and and Old man by the little fuckers when he first started.

Never show these little cunts your weakness.

“I didn’t ‘fuck you’ as you put it. What I told you was the truth. I just left some parts out. Basically, everything is as I said except each world up the beanstalk has a species placed on it whose sole purpose is to kill us and prevent us from entering the next world.” Joysich said.

“So we are at war?” Wolf asked.

“Exactly. Also I forgot to mention a couple of other things. The portal back to earth is now sealed until we unlock the next world. Only new candidates will be pushed through, but no one will be going back. There is also a time dilation effect between the worlds, basically 1 day on earth is worth 2 up above.”

“Anything else?” Wolf asked.

“Oh yeah….we are at war with a species of undead that are dramatically more powerful than us and the war is not going very well.”

“Bloody hell mate this is fucked.” No1 said. “What happened to the super powers and shit?”

“Oh they are quite real, that is what these engravings are. But first follow the story from here on the floor. If you move in a clockwise direction you will see the story unfold.”

Joysich pointed to an area on the floor  and they all moved over to where it started.

“There are 26 known entry points to the Beanstalk from earth and they all lead to different parts of the beanstalk. Think of the Beanstalk as an enormous tree, we are all climbing the same tree at around the same level  just on different vines. What we know is that the engravings on the beanstalk are different and never repeated for each different entry point. The only thing that is the same is the floor engravings that tell the story of the ancient humans.”

Wolf started walking as he followed the engravings that were like tiny pictographs depicting ancient humans riding chariots of fire. As Wolf stared they began to move and slowly came to life in his mind as his consciousness was absorbed into a whirlpool of memories and moving shapes.

He saw great battles between humans and all kinds of monstrous beings. They fought across planets and stars, on land and in outerspace. Countless dimensions and galaxies unfolded as he saw the human Empire grow. As the humans defeated all kinds of species he saw them being converted into pure energy and absorbed into imprints that the humans merged with becoming a part of their power.

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Slowly the images began to change as time passed and saw the ancient humans beginning to lose. Countless species had united to attack them and their overwhelming power and numbers began to weaken and destroy the ancient human worlds.  They were chased across the universe as they desperately fought to survive. Finally in a great battle a pocket dimension was formed by their enemies and the beanstalk was created.

The energy of the universe was squeezed until it formed a world that had slightly less energy that the real universe. Then another was formed and another and another. Each world contained less and less universal energy until at last the thirteenth world was formed which was Earth and it was almost completely devoid of the universal power. As the humans were forced down the Beanstalk they fought grimly. They couldn’t alter the diminishing energy in these newly created words so they branded their legacies on the beanstalk itself.

As they were forced further and further down the beanstalk they continued to engrave different parts of their knowledges until finally they were expelled into earth and the doorways were locked. The anger and fury of the ancient humans washed over Wolf’s mind. They were once the Emperors of life and now they had been reduced to mere mortals at the hands of their former slaves.

Their bitter and arrogant bloodthirst began to permeate Wolf’s being and words in an archaic tongue slowly echoed out in Wolf’s mind.

CLIMB….THE…..BEANSTALK.

The words boomed into his mind like  explosion and when the sound faded away Wolf found a strange kind of knowledge had been left in his head.

[12 Chamber-Heart]

“Blaaaarrgghh.” Wolf’s eyes shot open as he vomited blood. Everything looked red as he realised blood vessels had burst in his eyes. No1 and No2 looked like they were in worse condition as they huddled on the floor in a puddle of blood and puke.

Wolf slowly raised his eyes as he looked up into the beanstalk and the thousands of engravings as he realised what they were. They were all former real life monsters that had been absorbed and converted into energy by the ancient humans. Legacies of power for their descendants to absorb and inherit as part of their desperate climb back to power.

“You see now don’t you Wolf?” Joysich said as his eyes filled with a deep wisdom. “All of us have begun just like you three today. The story on the floor and the task that lays before us. On these walls are the first layer of legacies. The system the ancients used to manipulate the energy of the universe should now be in your mind. We call this the 12 Chamber-Heart scripture. Open your mind to it and your journey will begin.”

“All you have to do is……..” A strange rumbling noise came from Joysich’s stomach.  “I mean all you have do is…..reach out and…..” Suddenly Joysich doubled over as he clutched his stomach.

“I….no…..oh god.” Joysich swore as he rushed over to the corner. His eyes bulged before he got their and a brown liquid began seeping out of his pant leg.

“Arghhhhh” he screamed as he used his immense strength to simply rip his pants and jocks off in one go and squatted in the corner as shit cascaded out of his arse like a waterfall.

Wolf smiled as he thought about the homebrew Joysich had sculled earlier.

Serves the cunt right for dragging me into this mess.

With the groans of Joysich in the background Wolf refocused on the imprint of the [12 Chamber-Heart] in his mind and knowledge unfolded like a flower seeking the sunlight.

The ancients described the energy of the universe as mana. Mana permeated every part of creation, even on earth it was present as it was necessary to sustain life, only it was in incredibly minute quantities. Every human had a mana-field that surrounded them that extended to around an inch outside their body. Wolf mused as this knowledge flitted through his mind. The concept was not dissimilar to the idea of an ‘aura’.

He focused his mind according to the scripture and began to sense the mana that surrounded him in the room. He had practiced meditation before so it was not a dissimilar process. As he felt the mana he began to slowly draw it into his mana-field. He felt the energy dance and drift across his skin and as it began to draw inside of his body into his blood. The [12 Chamber-Heart] scripture began to glow in his mind as the mana entered his blood stream and began circulate through his body before penetrating into his heart.

“Ungghhh.” Wolf grunted in pain as a sharp stabbing sensation pierced his chest. His body spasmed as his heart seized.

Fuuuuuucckkk. Wolf screamed in his mind as the most incredible pain he had ever felt threatened to overwhelm him. He could feel the [12 Chamber-Heart] scripture glowing madly in his mind as his mana-field suddenly sucked in energy like a tidal wave from outside his body. The mana crashed through his blood and exploded into his heart like a supernova.

Something wriggled in his heart like a worm boring into a tree as his hands spasmed uncontrollably. He tried to let out an unholy scream but no sound came out and he wept inwardly. Finally the pain started to subside and he could see in his mind’s eye that his heart had undergone an incredible change. It now looked crystalline and he could feel their were 12 chambers inside of it that were like empty pockets of space hungry to be filled. The mana began he was absorbing began to fill the first chamber until finally it subsided.

He opened his eyes as he panted. Even the memory of that pain was almost enough to send him into spasms and make his mind weak. He knew from the scripture what had just occurred. The crystalline heart was basically his nuclear power reactor. It was an organ that could store the mana that he drew in from his mana-field. This was how the ancient humans developed their incredible power.

But worse than the pain was the bone deep sense of hunger that filled him. The heart chambers felt like a bottomless pit that needed to filled.

Instinctively he knew that the next step was now upon him. He had find a Monster on the wall and seal the energy inside his first chamber. Only then would the first stage of the scripture be complete.