The elevator hummed as it carried the group upwards towards a mesh of lights strung out against a moonlit sky, all shades of yellow and black. Corvayne felt the cold sea wind and wrapped his desert cloak tighter around himself. Almost everyone else seemed fine with the chill as the platform hummed and lifted them up the base of the huge lines of faint lights that must have been the train-mall grid.
Lady Blood Claw had a tight grip on his arm, eyes shut rather than looking down at the distant waters. Corvayne guessed she tended to latch onto him because her grip would break a normal person's arm.
He caught Mosh's eye and for some reason the goblin raised and lowered his eyebrows. Likely having to do with June wearing her devil horns, her item-granted tail swishing as she sat against the chain link caging for the platform and looked lovingly at her goblin. Varia stood on the other side of them, placid expression sometimes twisting at annoyance, especially when she saw Corvayne was looking at her. He smiled to be friendly which made her even madder. Every time he thought he was getting better at understanding people it felt like someone would crash through his understanding of people. Well, that someone was usually Wick.
The elevator platform stopped and the wire cage door opened to a platform outside and under the mall. The huge pillar that supported the structure, which Horton had spent the first five minutes of the ride telling the group was as impossible, went right up into the mall, while the area they were in seemed to be something like a parking lot for little carts. There were train tracks that ran through this space, but Corvayne assumed it was something like a dream of a real building, and the underground parking was part of it even if it made no sense for a mall in the sky to have car parking.
They followed bright yellow painted lines that lead them to an entrance to the elevator up and some automatic stairs, and Corvayne had them walk up rather than possibly get stuck ferrying the group up in parts on a crowded elevator.
The dim light of the stairwell brightened as they went up three floors, the stairs ending in a glass vaulted entrance into the mall proper. Given the dim exterior, Corvane had assumed it would be poorly lit, but instead it was bright, marble tiled and full of plants in a walkway, with stores primed with bright colors. Corvayne and Brines actually took a step towards the athletic gear store across the way before Lady Blood Claw cleared her throat.
She folded her arms, skin shifting from green to gray. “You wanted to try to power level the group, correct? We can browse after we find our enemy.”
Curtis pointed. “LB, You mean like those dumb-ass kid painting the bench there?”
Corvayne saw a lone shade in flashy clothes shaking a can of spray paint. They didn't look that dangerous, but if they blinded someone it could be set up for a more dangerous monster.
“We need eye protection. I'll go in, I can fight blind.”
As he spoke the lone shade became a trio became five as more teen shades vaulted over a plant bed or dropped from a stairway leading to the second floor walkway. Corvayne tried taunting them by motioning for them to bring it on, but they kept their deliberate pace until they got close, suddenly skating forward. Corvayne used [Flow-Like-Water] through their formation and a moment later there was clattering as pairs of skates and cans of paint fell to the ground.
Corvayne shook his spear and strolled through the mall, stopping at a store selling sunglasses. There was a ghostly hint of a smokey figure behind the counter, and the glasses had price tags on them. He picked a few cheap ones and paid for them, the hint of a shopkeeper flickering as the credits he put down sank as if the counter was liquid, then change pushed itself up, bits of counter dripping off like mercury.
“Uh, thanks, have a nice day.”
Brines clapped. “Oh, I bet you get the mob of guards will go aggro if you shoplift and get caught!”
Ayame winced. “Pack. Mob is one monster, pack is a group. You might aggro a pack by stealing.”
Mosh picked up then set down a pair of shades. “A society that makes you pay for this crap is so quaint! Let's wait till Boss says he's ready though...”
Corvayne nodded. “We're close to the stairs out of here, so no better place to try. But, uh, can we do it at a different store? We might need more glasses later.”
Lady Blood Claw rolled her eyes at him and grabbed a handful of shades and walked out, then dumped most of them into her pack save one pair she slipped on. Her skin turned to a gold-paint color which was probably pride given how her chin was lifted and she had shifted to striding rather than just walking.
Corvayne stepped next to her and readied his whip as a pack of shades came around the corner ahead, moving in unison over objects in the way. When they got close, Corvayne used [Cross Skill: Thresh] and drew a line of black across the tile in front of him. Corvayne didn't think his lines of shadowy hands would work as well on the shades, but the arms seemed to trip the monsters up the same as any other. The first line of charging shadows fell to the ground, and the second line stumbled on them, but the third just walked on them and came at Corvayne and Lady Blood Claw, batons held high. Lady Blood Claws sword began humming and glowing then with two hands she swept it across the incoming group, blasting shades into burning chunks of shadow as they fell apart.
The smell of burnt chemicals filled the air as Lady Blood Claw's backswing took out the rest of the group. She rested the tip on the ground as both Corvayne's shadows and the security guards faded, leaving only bits of soot behind.
“Nice work Lady. That new weapon reminds me of your old katana.”
She was a vibrant happy pink as she huffed and swept a hand through her silver hair. “Forget whatever I said, this detour is worth it to just do that and not feel guilty.” She turned and snapped at the rest of the group. “Quickly! Steal some more stuff!”
The second group she did what looked like a new weapon skill, whirling with one slash then twisting into an overhead slam that knocked the shade formation apart like bowling pins.
Corvayne took his normal two handed sword back and from lady blood claw and just used [Circle of Death] to cleave through most of the shades in the third set, parrying the two surviving guard that had survived by being in the back corner of the five by five by catching their clubs with his blade, then pushing up to throw them off balance as stepped forward to a stumbling shadow and bashed it with his shoulder into the other, where they fell in a tangle of limbs hard enough to pop them both.
Mosh called out “A Seven ten split! Nice work Boss!”
There was no fourth group, the guards in the mall seemed spent with only one showing up, then none the fifth time they stole from a store. The group took this as permission to loot whatever they wanted, though Corvayne quietly paid for anything he took. It seemed the stores were mostly mundane objects, and Horton informed them based on a game store that they were a mish-mash of randomly chosen years, with 'nothing that would really make money like future games or movies'.
Corvayne consulted with Brines about where they might upgrade from shades to goggles to better deal with the scattered punk shadows with spray paint. This prompted a detour into the back rooms of the mall where they encountered 'hand crabs' which were shelled things with fingers, LOTS of fingers, acting as legs.
In the aftermath of trying to kill ten of them with part of the team, Corvayne decided once they had goggles and some paint thinner to clean them, he would stick to the main paths of the mall and the much less creepy shades. Every other door had a few behind them, and with their shells it was hard to kill them before they got onto somebody's leg, trying to grab or scratch them ineffectively. Corvayne thought of them as the furry slug of the floor, but FAR less cute.
Ears-of-Steel curled her lip as she kicked fingernails loose from her boot. “It's fucking GROSS as hell those things try to... tickle us to death.”
Ayame tugged Corvayne's sleeve and pointed at the still twitching forms of the finger-crabs. “Who's idea was this? Why are they like that?”
Corvayne thought it was the sort of question better addressed to someone like Wick, but he gave answering a shot. “Perhaps The Tower pulls ideas from things people think of, it might be unintentionally scary?”
June looked at the bodies, confused. “Are these scary?” She asked, looking over to Mosh, who was panting in the corner of the hall.
The goblin was still catching his breath as he said, “I... hate... being... tickled.”
Reaper chuckled. “Maybe they wouldn't do it if you didn't laugh, man!”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Ayame responded to June's question, sounding incredulous, “Dear just look at them, doesn't the thought of all those fingers on you make you feel gross?”
“Well, no? I've had lots of fingers on me.” June looked at her own hands. “Am I gross? Are my hands gross?”
Corvayne shook his head. “They are fine. If you spend time looking at what people think is beautiful, it's things that are natural.”
June looked back at her hands, then at the finger-crab. “But its fingers... are not natural?”
Ears looked between her and Mosh. “It's really like dealing with a kid...”
“It's not a natural creature, because it has human nails that are suited to fine manipulations of tools when it's an animal intelligence that just skitters like a spider. Harder limbs would suit it better.” Corvayne said while pushing one of the crabs out of the way of a door, it's blood reeking of vinegar. He suspected the thing tasted like pickles, but would never test it.
He found a tin container of paint thinner and a tool box with a few blue metal tools. Even if they were not magical, Mosh had said the material was great. Corvayne added it the pile accumulating in his ring.
They set out for the next mall soon after, moving through second floor double doors to a harshly lit deck with stairs and ramps that lead down to the long lit spindle between this mall and the next titanic building suspended in the dark world. Above, the moon shone but didn't seem to bath the landscape in any light. The train cars looked like some of the older models Corvayne had seen rusting in the depot yard.
The second mall was similar to the first, with four well lit floors lined with shops and connected by walkways and stairs. Instead of normal trees, the fauna in this mall had the deep red and blue bark with teal leaves he associated with the first Tower instance he went into. The walls and planters had blue and dark blue tiles, and many of the stores had yellow branding and signs.
Corvayne lead the way in, walking through a three story arch of shaped pine trees to enter the food court, where a group of goblins in hoodies with bandanas over their mouths were lounging. The ten monsters armed with yellow spray paint cans stood up knocking over chairs and started rushing at him. He switched to his whip and snapped at them while dancing away from the paint, more worried about a mess than blindness given his eye protection. He saw another monster go down with an arrow in it's head, Lady Blood Claw staying back this time to take potshots with her bow. Curtis stepped up, slashing one goblin with his sparking club then slaying another but puncturing his can of paint with a pop, spraying paint everywhere. Ayame fended another off with her cleaver, while Mosh's girls protected him as he summoned glass spheres that shattered where the goblins were walking, knocking them over onto broken glass. It was a short fight given that one side had weapons and the other had spray paint.
Ears looked a little guilty as her face, hair, and horns were blasted with yellow paint except for the obvious outline of her goggles. “I hesitated... they look like Mosh!”
Mosh folded his arms. “I know, but I spent a week with a tribe and even when you work with them... they are at their core nasty little cannibals. Though, Corvayne found a thinking tribe out there which I wanna see, after I get tough enough to deal with porcupines Seru posted about.”
Corvayne thought it was odd that Mosh knew who Seru was so quickly. Did she try to get her hooks into him too? Or was she more important than he had thought? He shrugged to himself and resumed looking around the food court. The equipment behind the counter worked, but he didn't trust the few bits of freezer burned food he found in the back. A pair of Hand-Crabs were waiting for him in the kitchen of a pizza place, two spear strokes causing them to spasm and die in a puddle of blood that stank of vinegar. The crowded kitchen had an out of place chest that was covered in red plastic, and when he used his spear to open it a burst of heat came out, but instead of a sulfurous fireball he was instead hit with the smell of fresh pizza.
Now, Corvayne wasn't born yesterday. Dungeon, excuse him, Tower pizza sounded like a metaphor for something unsavory. On the other hand, the toppings looked fresh, the cheese was melting, and there were two large pizzas in the treasure chest, as well as a pair of oven mitts and a blue-metal pizza cutter.
Mosh helped sell everyone on the idea of eating pizza that had been waiting for them in a treasure chest that looked like a delivery bag by reminding them they ate strange monsters all the time. Curtis shrugged and took the first slice, even as Brines was urging everyone to consider all the reasons not to eat weird stuff out of the dungeon. After a minute he hadn't dropped dead, so Corvayne took his chances.
“Pretty good.”
Ayame wanted the cooking stuff, and because it was a short range weapon and gloves that made holding stuff harder, the group let her take them and they continued to move through the mall, finding more goblins. At a store that stocked sports equipment they triggered the guards a few times by looting chest protection for Horton and Ayame. Corvayne bought a few bats rather than just take them, as well as a bike he bought and stuffed in the ring so that he could invite more people with Grunt the next time they rode.
He and Lady Blood Claw destroyed the goblin swat packs that stealing seemed to summon, tearing down five waves before the mall had run out of guards.
Brines looked at Corvayne. “Do you want to go? I think these stores are mostly the same as what we've seen before.”
“I want to confirm something, you notice the trees are all oddly colored? It's like the dungeon I first explored with Wick.”
It took another hour of exploring, and slaying a few of the finger-crabs in dimly lit back halls before he found what he was looking for. A wood and vine covered door frame that lead down a hallway that seemed... vague in a way nothing else had been in this mall. Next to the door was a riddle or warning. 'Those who wander these woods a little might never get lost again – Sage of Skills.'
Corvayne took a picture, then let the group know he was going to test the door. He smelled the difference as the hint of cleaning chemicals and freon faded to the scent of pine. He stepped out onto a ridge overlooking a pastel colored pine forest, complete with red and blue trees. He couldn't help but melt into a big smile, knowing from the yellow sky he was on the third floor of the Cascadia forest. The peak he was on wasn't familiar, as it was near an edge he hadn't seen. He could look down in the gap that meandered between the plates like a river and spot another complete forest, shrouded in shadow from being under the layer he was on.
As much as he wanted to stay on the third floor, he decided that exploring an entirely new part of the forest wasn't his goal. He did spot that the door back to the mall looked like it had a roll up metal gate, as if it could be closed like a storefront. Next to it was scrawled in white chalk 'Those who drink the water every step of the way, may master it. - Sage of Skills.'
Corvayne took another picture, not sure what the Sage was on about but deciding that Wick might really like the puzzle. He rejoined the group and they extracted themselves from the back halls and went to the train station, Brines picking the largest mall of the three adjacent ones they hadn't been to.
Corvayne raised an eyebrow, as the exterior was brushed stainless steel, and the places where the exterior had details it was painted red. Stepping through the glass doors, Corvayne saw bright red pools of goop, flowing from the ceiling to pools between stores. The sugary smell hit him a moment later. He saw what looked like the junior version of the killer whip-trees planted in the beds along the stainless steel walkways and turned around and started walking out before Lady Blood Claw pushed him back in.
“Don't be a baby, they are a tenth of the size of the ones on the fifth floor.”
Corvayne frowned. “They will still kill someone if they can whip a steel wire like the big trees do and they hit someones face or neck.”
She folded her arms, a smug smile forming on her face. “Are you... afraid of trees?”
Corvayne looked at a shrub thirty feet ahead he was sure he saw move then freeze with a root out of the garnet colored dirt it was resting in. “When you put it like that, I feel a little stupid. Aside from nearly being decapitated a few times and nearly bleeding out fighting them...”
She gestured around. “Fight one tree, if it's dangerous we leave. Otherwise, odd terrain like this suggests doors to find or unusual treasure. I thought you knew that when you wanted to search the last spot.” A hint of orange filtered across her skin, suggesting mild annoyance.
“Lady, sometimes I feel like you over-estimate me.”
“It's because you under-estimate yourself. I wouldn't train with you if you were not exceptional.” She was charcoal colored as she spoke which made Corvayne believe she was being extra serious.
Corvayne felt his cheeks heat up a little and scratched them. “Aww shucks.”
They proceeded as usual, with the painting thugs replaced with tiny trees laden with yellow fruit that had the same chemical smell as paint once he skewered it. The stores were just as weird as the mall. Instead of normal shelves there were rows of jars with metal tops and bottoms hooked up into the walls, and each of the glass tubes had pink fluid suspending an object in it. No check out, just a thin strip with a digital price on it next to a slot for money.
The details Corvayne saw as decoration for the first store were also weird. The lights were all white with red dots taped over the bulbs, adding spots of red. The stainless steel had jam-soaked dirt pillars mixed in, covered in deep red vines. Jam falls coated some of the walls, chunks of strawberry slithering down to pools that ran under the floors under steel grates. All the lettering was a strawberry font that he thought said something boutique. Being able to read any language didn't apparently help when it was poorly written. He guessed it was a store for clothes, as in the fluid were floating garments, the colors of the clothes reduced to light and dark maroon shades by the goop.
Browsing the garmet tubes, he noted some of the prices were within the expected range of fifty to a hundred credits for high end clothes while others spiked into the thousands and tens of thousands, with no visible distinction. One tube had a price of 199,999 and contained what looked like strawberry pants.
Ayame was browsing as well, and looking between an apron that was 100 credits and one that was 2000. Shrugging, she pulled out cash she had gathered from looting other places and fed them into the more expensive machine, which clicked and drained of fluid before the glass at the front melted, letting her take the apron.
When she tried it on, a thin layer of what looked like oil covered her in a flash. Corvayne was reaching for the uncurse scroll when she laughed and breathed in, the film parting to let her breath. When she tapped her clothes, the oil hardened.
“Look! I bet the expensive ones are magical!” Ayame said, pointing at the jars.
Corvayne saw Ears look directly at the pants and rear her bat up. It felt slow motion as he just knew, somehow, that stealing what might be the most expensive thing in any mall they had visited was a bad idea.
“No wait! The-”
With a smash the case collapsed and Ears-of-Steel fished out the pair of slimy pants, holding them up with one hand and her bat in the other. “Heh. Louisville credit card, right?”
The lights in the store dimmed and turned an angry red. Somewhere in the mall an alarm started going off, and Corvayne rushed out of the store to see that the doors out of the mall had been blocked off with steel bars. He turned to face the other way, and could see a cluster of ten foot tall trees skittering their way towards the party, their steel wired vines swishing with lethal promise.