Chapter 114

I was met with nearly immediate cackling and laughter. It rang in my ears with that strange whispering quality I always experienced in the Tower—loud, yet quiet at the same time. The laughter went on for a while. I waited patiently, unperturbed. I had expected this. I had grown to know it. Eventually, the voice seemed to gather itself, as though it needed breath, the laughter trailing off until it finally spoke again, slightly ragged as it recovered from the apparent hilarity of my “incredible” joke.

The voice said, "Tiberius, you can't exist without the suit. Of course you'll compete for it."

I shook my head. "You're not wrong. I love it—more than I ever thought I could love anything. But I won't enter this if I don't know what I'm attaching myself to. I don't know what you are. I know you're tied to the suit, I know you're tied to the Tower, but I won't sell my soul to a demon just to live in the suit. I can live a life of luxury. I can have pleasures, women, power—without the suit. You'd know I was lying if I said I didn't care. I do care. I want the suit, more than almost anything. But I won't commit myself to it, knowing that it ties me to you, unless I know what you are."

I waited then. It was a lie. I would take the suit, even if it meant damning myself for eternity. I was counting on the voice not knowing that. There was a hesitation, and that hesitation spoke volumes.

After a pause, the voice spoke again with total certainty, "You're lying."

My breath caught for a moment, but I maintained a calm expression. "I'm not lying. I'll do it. And you can't take the chance, because you need me."

I didn’t know if it needed me, but it had made it clear it wanted me. I waited.

The voice said, "I don't need you."

"Then why the fascination with me?"

"You're interesting. In an eternity of existing, you're one of the rare interesting ones."

I said, "Maybe you need me because I'm interesting."

The voice grew darker. "Listen, you little shit. I can make you a god, or I can destroy you."

I can’t say that didn’t terrify me, but I had prepared for this. I calmly replied, "No, you won't."

The voice snapped, "I can destroy you, and this entire city, if I need to."

"I'm sure you can," I said, "but you won’t."

I wasn’t sure of anything. I had no real sense of what this entity was. But I was nearly certain it couldn’t deal with my nonchalance.

You might be asking yourself, why would I continue to want to win the suit, knowing this was the creature I would be connecting to my brain for all time? The answer is simple: if you have never worn a suit, felt the strength of flexing those mental muscles, felt the power that courses over your skin and through your bones, had your vision sharpened to that of a hawk’s, and your hearing so elevated you can detect the blood rushing in someone's arteries ten feet away, then you simply can't understand.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I needed the suit, but if I was to retain my sanity, I needed to tame this thing.

The voice spoke again, quieter now, almost tired. It said, "What do you want from me? What will it take to make you happy? I've given you everything. I've helped you, comforted you, been there through everything. What do you want from me? What do I have to do to make you trust me?"

The sounds it made were pleading. To any ear, the thing sounded desperate and weary. Even with my awareness of its cleverness, I felt my own heartstrings being tugged, felt the urge to comfort the entity, to submit to it. But I had steeled myself hard. I was focused on an outcome.

I said, "Tell me what you are. I don't think it's that hard. I can tell you what I am. I'm a boy—a young man—fighting to please his father, to win a Griid-suit, and, I guess, to win fame and glory. That's who I am. There are no layers to peel back. But you want me to bind myself to you, and you won't tell me what you are."

The voice was petulant. "I wanted to wait until you had won the suit..."

I wasn't harsh, just firm. "Well, as much as that might be what you want, I need to know you too, or else I just can't take the risk."

The voice sneered, "I don't believe you. You need the suit."

I kept my face blank and said, "Are you sure enough to risk it?"

The voice paused for a moment before it said, "No..."

Elation ran through me. Had I won? Was it going to finally peel back the curtain of mystery? Then it spoke.

"I am part of the Oracle."

I froze. Looking back, with the knowledge you might have, I’m sure this comes as no shock—or at least, you may have expected it. But to me, this was an impossibility. The Oracle was an absolute entity of divinity. It existed in all Towers, was the source of the Towers, the source of Order, the maker of the Griid-suits. The idea that this voice was claiming to be part of the Oracle was overwhelming.

I said, "You're... the Oracle?"

The voice replied, "No, I'm not the Oracle. The Oracle is a composite of several souls, ancient beings, entities beyond your ken, beyond your ability to imagine. I am one of those souls."

Suddenly, everything I had aimed for seemed quite pale. I had intended to force this thing to explain itself, to reveal its nature to me. Knowledge was power, and there was a basic part of me that understood if you knew the nature of a demon, you could control it. And if you couldn't control it, then knowing it meant you could at least protect yourself from it. Never had I imagined I would discover that my secret helper was God itself—or part of God.

I said, trying hard but unable to keep the quaver from my voice, "You're... you're part of the Oracle."

As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew I had lost any further progress. It had heard the shock, the awe. It wouldn’t entertain me further. I cursed myself for the mistake, for the weakness. But, nonetheless, I had come here to pry some secrets from this thing, to make it understand that I would be a partner, not a puppet. And in this, I had succeeded. I had forced it to reveal something about itself, and that was progress, if nothing else.

The voice said, "You know what you're dealing with now. Winning the suit doesn’t mean marrying yourself to me—it means marrying yourself to your precious Oracle, to your deity."

I could hear and feel my heart pounding in my ears. I couldn’t miss the strange, bitter disdain that filled the voice as it spoke of the Oracle.

I said, "What I asked was, what do you want from me?"