Instead of falling into the icy depths of a frozen lake, I found myself crashing through tree branches.

All too soon the fall was over, and I slammed down into a foul swamp.

The fall would have killed a normal human, but not me. Not anymore. My Copper body was more durable than that.

Though, with how injured I already was from my fight with the giant, I wasn’t in good shape.

All I could do for the moment was lay there in the muck I’d landed in and try to catch my breath.

The air was hot and humid, and a thick mist hung low over the murky water, partially obscuring the view of the canopy of the black-barked trees above, a broken mess where we’d fallen through; a tunnel up to the surface.

Such was the distance I’d fallen that it narrowed to a point that, from my perspective, was the width of a finger.

As I lay there, wondering how deep this rabbit hole—or tower—went, a message bloomed in my vision, floating a few feet in front of me.

Welcome to event: Chaos, the Lost

Registered team: Koren Al-Sagoyn, Vyrania Trel, and Noah Whitehall

Another message appeared, this one directed only to me.

Your team members Koren Al-Sagoyn and Vyrania Trel have been added to your map.

“—event,” Koren said from nearby.

I lifted my head. He and Vyrania looked like they’d managed to land on their feet.

“I don’t like this,” Vyrania said.

“This all but confirms the tower is at least Colossus-class to have an event on the first floor,” Koren said happily.

“Opinion still stands,” she replied.

I sat up with a groan.

“Ah, good,” Koren said. “You’re alive.”

“Barely.”

Vyrania waded over through the murky water and helped me to my feet as Koren studied the area.

“What is an event exactly?” I asked Vyrania. “Koren’s explanation earlier was somewhat lacking.”

“But only somewhat,” he chimed in.

I glared at him. He didn’t notice. He was studying the trees around us, looking for more runes.

“If you’re so eager for knowledge,” he continued, not looking my way, leaning in close to a tree and running his finger down it as though checking for dust, “you should have chosen Loreist.”

“An event,” Vyrania explained, “is a sort of guided experience that the system creates. There will be drones that are smarter and stronger than usual, and likely avatars. We need to be careful.”

“I thought I owned this tower,” I complained. “System sure seems to have a lot of control over it. It can let people control monsters remotely, but I can’t even leave.”

“Vyrania’s right,” Koren said, wading over to us. “We need to be careful. There’s no telling what we’ll find down here.”

Koren advising caution? That got me worried.

“How deep does this thing go? Are we in a different dimension or something?”

“You said the tower sprouted from your store, yes?”

I nodded.

He looked up through the broken canopy that stretched several hundred feet in the air above us.

“So, we’re below your store.” He considered this. “I suppose we might have been already, since the entrance portal was in the town on the mountain, and we were in the valley.”

“Wait, this dug a hole into the ground? I’m pretty sure it’s just ocean under where I was.”

“There is a lot of ice and water here,” Vyrania observed.

I shook my head. “I’m getting less and less optimistic about what I’m going to find when I finally get out of here.”

“At least you’re optimistic about getting out,” Koren said, slapping my shoulder.

He grimaced, pulling his hand away and looking at it. “You are very dirty.” He tried shaking the gunk from his hand.

“Can you jump out?”

He sighed, wiped his hand on his pants. “Not that high.”

“But at Steel? Rilen jumped pretty high.”

“He has a card that gives him that ability,” Koren countered.

“So do you,” Vyrania pointed out.

“Not quite the same. But yes, maybe at Steel,” he allowed. “But I am not Steel. Not yet.” He looked up at the hole. “And that would be quite the leap.”

“What do we do then?” I asked.

“We proceed.” He looked at me. “You looted something from that giant.”

“Multiple things actually. Fragments, an arcana, a—”

“You got an arcana?” Vyrania interrupted.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I pulled it out.

Arcana

Affinity: Alteration

Aspect: Flame

Attributes: Retributive

Empty Circuits: 1

“Another flame-aspect.” Vyrania said after studying it. “And an empty circuit. You have enough mana, you should go ahead and use it now.”

I grimaced. I really didn’t want to go through the process of absorbing another card.

“The more you do it the easier it gets,” she assured me, seeing my reluctance.

“That’s not really true,” Koren said.

“The more used to it you get,” she corrected. “And it’s another flame-aspect, which will make it easier still.”

“I don’t have any sigils to fill the empty circuit. Shouldn’t I wait?”

“You don’t need to,” she answered. “You’ll fill the empty circuit when you integrate it. It should actually make it synergize better. And you can get attributes that aren’t possible from sigils.”

“Still not sure flame is what I want to go with.”

“It did a number on that giant,” she pointed out.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “That was pretty satisfying. And flame feels natural for some reason; easy to grasp.”

“Concepts with obvious physical representations can often be easier to understand the mana of, though the more intangible can often be more rewarding. Once you get close to Iron, that’s when you should begin focusing on what you want your deck to be. You don’t have to choose now though. As I said, changing your aspect isn’t much effort at this point.”

“His mana is more powerful than usual,” Koren said skeptically. “Don’t rush, but do decide as soon as possible.”

“How am I supposed to try out anything else?”

“Oh, you’ll get plenty of chances,” Koren said. “We’ve found two arcana already.” He frowned. “Though that would eat into our profits since we wouldn’t be able to sell them if you used them.”

“I thought you could get fragments when you remove them.”

“Yes, but they sell for far more frags than they give.”

“So I should use it?”

“Should give you a better idea if you enjoy a flame-based powerset,” Vyrania said.

“I’m pretty beat from that fight. It’s not going to kill me, right?”

“Crazy sigil-combinations notwithstanding, it’s not actually dangerous to integrate an arcana.”

“Everyone was quite surprised when he exploded,” Koren agreed.

“All right. I am excited to see what it will give me.”

You have integrated [Arcana].

There was still that discomfort this time, that feeling of exertion that brought me to my knees, but the feeling that washed through me afterward felt pleasant and rejuvenating. There was no light or smell this time, only a strange distorted cloud of air like a heat haze which shimmered about me.

Your influence has added the Indomitable attribute.

[Arcana] has become [Blood of the Phoenix].

“The other items,” Koren said impatiently.

“Give me a minute,” I gasped from the ground. Once it finished integrating, the feeling of pleasant rejuvenation had vanished.

“We don’t have a minute. You shouldn’t have used it if it was going to incapacitate you.”

“You could have said that before I used it.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to be so weak still.”

I grunted and got to my feet. While the initial absorption was just as bad, the effect seemed to wear off much faster.

I showed them the card’s description. “Not sure how useful it will be here.”

Blood of the Phoenix

Level 1, alteration affinity

The flames that once burned now heal. Heat, fire; these are your salves. Fear no longer the inferno, because for you it is salvation.

Converts all damage from any source of heat into a small amount of healing.

“Healing’s good,” she assured me. “No matter the form it comes in.”

“I don’t see how retributive applies.”

“Some attributes don’t show up until later, when you level up or evolve the card.”

“Evolve? Does that mean it’ll get new abilities?”

“Sometimes. Other times it’s the ones already there growing more capable. When the attribute isn’t obvious in the effect, that makes it more likely it will evolve and gain a new effect to reflect it.”

“The other items,” Koren said impatiently.

I nodded. “I got a voucher. No storage ability though, not sure how to access it.” I showed them the description.

Creature Clash Voucher

Voucher good for one free Unique Creature for use in [Creature Clash] tournaments.

“That won’t help you here,” Vyrania said. “You need to be at a Creature Creator station to use it.”

“What does it do?”

“What it says. You get a free creature to use in Creature Clash.”

That sounded interesting, but I dismissed the message for now. There were more pressing matters. Like getting out of the swamp we were in.

“The last item’s weird, and I imagine it’s the one you’re actually interested in,” I told Koren. “This I did get another storage ability for.” I opened it and pulled the item out.

It was an egg. Like, a regular egg. Its shape was maybe a little odd, a little rounder than usual, but otherwise looked like a normal chicken egg.

Koren studied it as I held it out, leaning in close but making no move to take it. “Hmm.”

“What are we supposed to do with an egg?” Vyrania asked.

“Can you inspect it?” Koren asked me. “I appear unable to do so.”

I tried, and a message appeared for all three of us to see, a strange ominous-yet-excited voice reading it aloud.

A Very Peculiar Egg

Event Artifact

Gather your supplies and rally your spirits and ready yourselves for the journey ahead. You have The Egg, a sacred artifact you’ve been tasked with returning to its rightful place deep within The Swamp.

But be warned, The Swamp is filled with danger, it is a place of secrets and shadows, some of which yet live. There is no sun, and the water takes life rather than gives it. Every step is a potential threat. You must be vigilant and watchful, for even the slightest misstep could lead to disaster.

A shrine appeared in front of us, raising up through the soil of the shore several yards away.

“What the balls…” I said, trailing off. This was weird, even for my newly adjusted expectations.

The shrine was made of stone and wood wrapped together, reminding me of the chair back in Torath’s apartment in town. It looked a little like the shrine we’d come across earlier, but this one wasn’t empty.

“Maybe we should get out of this water,” Vyrania suggested.

We all looked down at the water we were standing in.

“Do you feel anything?” she asked. “Is it draining us?”

Koren shook his head. “Perhaps that’s only if you drink it.” He looked at me. “I hope you’re not thirsty.”

“I’m fine,” I lied. After my fight with the giant, I was actually quite parched.

We carefully made our way to the shore to get a better look at the shrine.

Like the previous shrine, this one also had a statue of a figure with nine arms, these ones outstretched as if in welcome. Or greed.

Above the statue, floating above its head with no apparent support, was a wooden sign. The words were hard to read at first, but after a moment came into focus. They read feed the egg.

There was a small pool of shimmering water at the base of the statue, from which a mysterious energy emanated. It wasn’t mana, I knew that much. But just what it was I couldn’t say.

In front of this pool was a round stone slab the diameter of a bicycle wheel, symbols etched around the rim, also just like the previous shrine. But instead of an empty indentation, there was, set perfectly in its center, a shimmering blue egg. Embedded in the egg was a single glowing crystal that radiated a sickly green mist.

“Feed the egg?” I asked. “Feed it to what? And which egg does it mean? The one there or the one I got from the giant?”

Koren pointed at the symbols. “You have the question backwards. It’s not what we’re supposed to feed the egg to, rather, what we’re supposed to feed to the egg.”

“We need to feed… an egg?”