----------------------------------------
The party to Calaf’s left was hit by a pillar of wind that thrust them upward into the sky. These hapless and surprised Plains Junction soldiers took surprisingly little damage from the initial vortex, but when they landed… Calaf and Karol shuddered as their fellow soldiers hit the ground, bones rattling about in full armor like they were jumbled in a metallic sack.
Still, the army pressed forward. The higher-level flanks moved faster courtesy of higher Agility stats. With armor and proper weaponry, they easily cut through some equally-Agility focused Cultivators trying to harry them.
The primary threat, as always, came from the magical artillery up in the tower itself. On Jedd’s orders Calaf held his shield up high and rushed beside his senior Paladin. Karol and Gael fell in behind them, as did Mikail coming in from the van.
The Battletower loomed, with only a paltry group of hit-and run Scout-types on the ground trying to slow them down. Cannon fodder was of no consequence, and the five-man band kept on rushing. True to reports, the ground floor was not at all meant as a fort. It was wide open, with dozens or hundreds of entrances underneath stone archways.
“Either go through the main gate or go through one of the arches with a blood-red keystone!” Gael said, huffing along as fast as he could.
“Huh?” Calaf said.
Ahead, many parties were already passing through archways of all kinds. Those that went through a red-marked arch typically had a Battlemage or equivalent in their ranks.
“Red arches!” Gael said.
“What if we get the wrong one?”
“Nothing good!” Gael said again as they approached the outer wall.
----------------------------------------
A crimson keystone loomed overhead. They party charged inside and emerged in a grand annex.
“We made it!” Karol said. “Hello, Battletower. Let’s mop up this rabble of up-jumped level tens so we can raid the dungeon proper.”
The massive army outside was reduced considerably. Those who entered through the front gate or a red-highlighted arch before Calaf’s group had already rushed ahead and were running off to secure various wings. Though an entire army was rushing in at their backs, only a few dozen walked through the wide entranceway.
“Where does everyone who walks through one of the wrong archways go?” Calaf asked again.
“I said nowhere good.” Gael coughed up some bile and spat. “Now follow me. These early floors are a proper college for mages. But these Cultivators have almost certainly reappropriated some traps from higher up. Set them against us. It’s what I’d do, laddie.”
Surely they could have told the army that. Most parties had a Battlemage of some kind, but not all of them survived the rush to the tower.
The entrance/exit behind them was shrouded in darkness. A Vanguard attempted to exit but was just spat right back out. With no way of communicating with the army outside, the party would have to advance forward.
“Gael, you’ve been here before,” Jedd said, hoping for him to take point.
“Right. Follow me, and match my steps,” said the old vet.
----------------------------------------
“So, the ancient mages of this tower used to work mostly in theory,” Gael explained nonchalantly as they slunk through an abandoned scholarly lecture hall.
“Aye, so the Battlemages were just an order of monster slayers. Predate the Brands and even most forms of practical magic. They adapted well to the Interface just as soon as they took to the Brand, and used it to complement their sword skills with fierce magic. Finally, all these theoretical calculations they used to determine how our world’s magic system worked could be applied in the field.”
“Everyone stay frosty!” Jedd ordered.
Jedd and Mikail remained peerless. Karol, in contrast, hung on to the Battlemage’s every word. Calaf tried staying frosty but found the old magic knight’s impromptu stories distracting.
The party found themselves in a scientific hall. Calculations sat scribbled on pieces of parchment and great chalk-crusted whiteboards.
“Don’t read too much into these formulas,” Gael warned. “There’s at least one that just sets your eyes on fire! What was it called? Something about plants, oddly enough. Ah, ‘Equation of Life Unbridled’, I think.”
“Spooky,” Karol whispered. “Where’d the enemy run off to?”
Mikail kept a constant eye on every possible entrance. “Probably up the tower. It’s where I would go.”
“Every Battlemage in the Church has already climbed the tower before their class change,” Jedd said. “There are hundreds in just the Firefield brigades. No matter how many traps the tower has, we’ll break through eventually.”
“Don’t suppose there’s anything in here that would let them warp away? Retreat somewhere else?” Karol asked.
“Unlikely.” Gael grumbled. “Judging by yesterday’s retreat, any warp points were likely set up here.”
The crew reached their first trap in short order: a broken tripwire, a set of blades from the ceiling, and a dead cleric:
Name:
Roberto the Clueless Cleric
Rank:
Cleric
Level
51
Status:
-3/168 (Dead, Nearsighted)
“Well, that’s another party without a healer,” Mikail said through gritted teeth. “I’ll take the front row. Should be able to dodge any traps I fail to detect. Hopefully.”
Calaf looked upon the robe-obscured visage of the dead Cleric. Such damage from a single trap.
Ahead, Mikail nimbly defused a second tripwire. They were shadowing another party at least, with no signs of battle.
“Eyes up,” Gael cautioned. “Stay alert. That’s how they get ya. What Jedd said, stay frosty, aye?”
“Aye.” Calaf echoed and pressed forward with his shield up.
----------------------------------------
Another lecture hall, a laboratory, all manner of scholarly rooms sat abandoned. This was what the contemporary Battletower was these days: a mage’s college with a dungeon attached to test the aspiring spell-swords mettle, metal, and magic all at once.
Calaf peered at a strange object behind glass:
Item: Basic Flintlock
Description: Ordinary Flintlock Firearm Developed by Battlemages of the Battletower in Relatively Recent Times. Still Experimental. (Req: Agility: 20. Additional Agility Required for Accuracy Multipliers)
“This is…” Calaf mused.
The same type of weapon had cut down Pryor Yordan, his foster father. Anger flared, followed by a sense of resignation. Calaf sighed. Should he still feel angry? Should he have vowed at Japella never to stop until Jelena was in chains or shipped off to a convent for a lifetime of repentance? She had not been the cackling villain he’d expected when he heard someone had shot the Pryor. But why had she done it?
No, no, now wasn’t the time to be soft. He just had more immediate threats to worry about. Still, Jelena had been here at one point, probably raided the tower for these “Firearms.”
“Aye, that,” Gael said. “Cuts right through all but the highest level armor. Nasty work. Unsporting.”
Refocusing, Calaf looked through some jars full of preservatives and found some strange squid-looking creatures, still squirming around in there. A be-suckered tentacle flopped up against the side of the glass.
“I think he likes you,” Karol said with a sly smirk.
“Now the basement. That’s where all the real items of scholarly import lie!” Gael said. “If they found any of these level up bauble whatsits, that’s where they’d be.”
The party reached a hallway that ended in a bare sheet of rock wall.
“A trap.” Mikail correctly identified.
The wall moved back to the left, revealing the remainder of the hallway curving out of sight, and four corpses, squashed, cake to the wall. Mismatched so thoroughly there was no real identification left via the Menu.
“Leave it to me.” Mikail took point, taking off down the hallway at a running start.
With an acrobatic backflip, he dodged just as the false wall slammed shut with a mechanized crunching sound of stone on stone.
Karol gasped.
“He made it,” Gael said confidently.
Precious seconds passed. Then, the wall reset.
“Found the lever.” Mikail said. “Shouldn’t trip again.”
Just as he said this, a shadow upon the wall stirred. A slender figure formed right behind Mikail, an obsidian knife dripping with poison in hand.
Name:
Alphonse, Agility Cultivator
Rank:
Defthands
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
Level
19
Status:
23/23 (Silent Steps)
With Agility enough that his default resting state was practically invisible, Alphonse the Agility Cultivator sliced Mikail’s neck. That the Vanguard survived was only because he moved his hands up to block his throat at the last minute.
Name:
Mikail of Firefield
Rank:
Vanguard
Level
48
Status:
7/76 (Bleeding Out, Poisoned)
Weapons:
Twin Redstone Twirling Knives (x2)
Hit Points under ten and dropping fast! Two more shadows with levels in the mid-teens came out of resting position and began stabbing at Mikail as he lay prone on the floor.
With a mighty war cry, Jedd twisted his Exquisite Shield of Fireproofing sideways giving it a horizontal spread that filled the hall. He rushed forward.
“Heal him!” Jedd bellowed as he surged down the hall.
The shield’s momentum proved enough to fell the two lowest-level shadows. The Paladin grappled with this Agility-Cultivator while Calaf rushed up from behind.
Two Basic Heals kept Mikail in the green and stopped the blood from flowing. A quick recitation from that scroll of Purification dispelled the poison from Mikail’s body and kept his HP from ticking down again.
Alphonse the Agility Cultivator disappeared from where he was grappling with Jedd. He reappeared in a column of shadow at the Paladin’s back…
“Watch out!”
Calaf leapt and inflicted a critical hit that only a spear-blow through the back of the neck could deliver.
Name:
Alphonse, Agility Cultivator
Rank:
Defthands
Level
19
Status:
-7/23 (Dead)
“Rest unconsecrated.” Jedd took the rather uncouth action of spitting on Alph’s corpse. “Vile heretical filth.”
The Paladin and Scout took turns casting Intermediate Heal on Mikail. In time his HP was back up, with only a faint and rapidly healing scar on his neck that would be gone within a fortnight.
“Ah. I can still fight,” the Vanguard declared, gasping for air.
Just like that, he was in ship-shape. Another miracle of the System and its glorious Interface. An Unbranded was not going to be getting up from a similar blow for days, if ever.
“Keep pressing. We’re getting close,” Jedd said.
----------------------------------------
The group stepped carefully, seeing not another soul or any signs of battle, until they reached a regal library.
“All the compiled works of the Battlemages through the ages,” Gael said. “Secular equivalent of those etched teachings at Deepwood. A treasure trove of knowledge. Hope the scholars are still safe…”
Gael said this last sentence in the kind of grimacing tone that indicated the Cultivators had likely disposed of them.
They passed one wing of books that had been thoroughly rifled through. Most tomes sat on the floor. A few pages had been ripped or burnt out.
“What do we have here?” Karol asked. “Hmmm. An index of items. The sections that have been removed are… all about extra-combat level up techniques.”
Their leader looked around. There were three entrances to this room, including the way they came. But when Mikail and Gael tried one, they wound up traveling right back through the hallway they came to get here.
“Some sort of magical loop,” Jedd said.
Gael nodded like he’d been expecting this. “True. Though these aren’t supposed to appear until floor eighteen!”
They had plenty of time on their hands. Karol and Calaf explored the books, while Mikail tried every possible combination of routes through the three hallways to no avail. Gael hmmmed and hawed and tried to puzzle out the intricacies of this trap they found themselves in. Jedd remained characteristically alert.
----------------------------------------
More time passed.
“Hmm. Yes. I see,” Gael said. “This is a door to the basement. Like a security vault mechanism, see? There simply must be a fourth exit we haven’t found yet.”
The party looked around the floor searching for some kind of trap door. Before they could tear out the carpets and throw over the desks and bookshelves, however, Jedd and Mikail suddenly turned all attention towards the hall they’d come in through.
“Oh, what’s this?” Came a sly, snakelike voice. “Seems others have pierced through this far. Well, that just makes it more imperative to retreat.”
A familiar figure entered the room with four other Cultivators of middling rank.
Name:
Honest John, Humble Cult Leader
Rank:
Trailblazer
Level
15
Status:
35/35 (No Longer Smiling)
Weapons:
- Merchant’s Ordinary Stabbing Knife +5 (x1) (Str: 2, Agl: 20)
- Poisoned Pristine Gunknife(x1) (Agl: 68, Arcane: 14)
“Gained a few more levels under your belt,” Jedd said, sword and shield ready.
A few more levels, and greater than average HP gains.
“Been looking forward to this.” Honest John pointed his newly-refined Stabbing Knife at Calaf. “Let us resume where we left off. But first…”
Honest John stashed his Gunknife and pulled forth Bauble after Bauble. He used each in an instant.
Item: Miniscule Honeydew Level Up Bauble of Intelligence (x99)
Description: Provides fifteen experience points to a single target when used. Weighs next level-up stat distribution heavily towards intelligence. Effect can stack.
Item: Medium Obsidian Level Up Bauble of Arcane (x50)
Description: Provides fifty experience points to a single target when used. Weighs next level up stat distribution stupendously towards Arcane. Effects can stack.
Item: Medium Silver Level Up Bauble of Charisma (x 4)
Description: Provides fifty experience points to a single target when used. Weighs next level-up stat distribution towards Charisma. Effect can stack.
Item: Considerable Honeydew Level Up Bauble of Intelligence (x1)
Description: Provides 200 experience points to a single target when used. Weighs next level-up stat distribution heavily towards intelligence. Effect can stack.
And lastly…
Item: Gargantuan Obsidian Level Up Bauble of Arcane (x6)
Description: Provides 5,000 experience points to a single target when used. Weighs next level up stat distribution stupendously towards Arcane. Effects can stack.
Level ups registered in the Menu rapidly. Until…
Honest John Leveled Up! 35!
Strength: 50 (+20)
Endurance: 55 (+38)
Agility: 99~ (+???)
Intelligence: 99~ (+???)
Charisma: 80 (+40)
Arcane: 99~ (+???)
Luck: 66 (+12)
The not-so-honest John must have been downing his entire stash of level up baubles in preparation for this moment. Some stats had increased so much in just a few levels that 99 was but a placeholder for a much higher stat. They weren’t supposed to rise that far, that fast! He pulled both knives out again, ready to fight:
Name:
Honest John, Humble Cult Leader
Rank:
Trailblazer
Level
35
Status:
85/85 (No Longer Smiling)
Weapons:
- Merchant’s Ordinary Stabbing Knife +5 (x1) (Str: 2, Agl: 20)
- Poisoned Pristine Gunknife(x1) (Agl: 68, Arcane: 14)
----------------------------------------
“Heretic!” Jedd pointed his sword at the ringleader. “What do you have to stand to gain from all this?”
“Profit, originally,” John answered honestly, with a shrug. “Found these things down in a forgotten storage space. But then, well, when people found out you didn’t have to go through the whole song and dance and combat of the church’s holy tourism circuit. Well, people kind of worshiped me as a god. Guess I went from pursuit of profit to just a regular prophet, eh?”
For the briefest of seconds, Honest John got his joyless smile back.
“Oh, it wasn’t supposed to become this whole movement. But we acquired a… benefactor.”
“Just put him in irons, brother!” Karol said, with gusto. “C’mon, we’ll be heroes. Get statues of ourselves at the Grand Cathedral at the Demon Lord’s Fall!”
“You want to arrest me?” John made a point of stashing his knives and offering his hands briefly. “Excommunicate me? Throw me down an oubliette, never to see the inside of the Church’s blessed crypts? I suspect your church will be gone before I am, if our benefactors have any say in things.”
“Fool. You defile the names of the old heroes! They didn’t use any shortcuts on their journey.”
Honest John tilted his head. “Don’t be so sure. It’s a period of reformation, brave knight. Perhaps you should reconsider the church tales of your youth, hmm?”
Some of the other Cultivators eyed a carpet conspicuously under a table near the corner. That must be their trap door.
The way out.
“Don’t let them through!” Jedd ordered.
Fierce combat ensued. Gael, Mikail, and Calaf started with the lesser Cultivators in the flanks while Jedd and his sister went toe to toe with Honest John Himself.
“Ah, I wanted to deal with the Riverglen brat,” John said. “Get over here…”
Before any spell incantation could be cast, Jedd threw him off balance with a shield bash.
“Face me, fiend!”
Karol, meanwhile, summoned forth buffs upon her brother’s sword and shield.
It was a series of one-on-ones to start. Mikail dispatched his target first, then went to help Gael. Calaf withstood the attack from his own foe, his defense holding steady.
----------------------------------------
Honest John’s guards went down without much of a reaction from their leader. His eye was still on the prize: That trapdoor under the carpet in the corner.
“Well, now that the pawns are out of the way…” John held his finger aloft.
Spell:
Bullet Lightning
Effect:
Deals Stupendous Lightning Damage At a Target Within Finger-Gun Range. (INT: 75, ARC: 99)
Description:
Short-Range Recommended.
With his finger pointing dead center at Karol, Honest John let loose. The thundercrack proved deafening in such close quarters. Karol was sent flying into a bookshelf. Even her interface was obscured by a rain of tomes.
Calaf at this point had run a Cultivator through with his spear. He kicked the hapless corpse off the spearhead and rushed to Karols’ side.
Name:
Karol of the Olde Capital
Rank:
Crimson Mage
Level
64
Status:
22/256 (Electro-shock)
Weapons:
- Quilfeather Rapier +3 (x1)
- Auxillary Quilfeather Dagger (x1)
“Are you okay!?” Calaf reached out and received a shock to his hand.
Her health ticked down as she involuntarily flinched. This electro-shock status… it could not be cleansed with Purification. Calaf tried an Intermediate Heal to no effect; healing was reduced. No doubt a cause of this status…
There had to be another way to get her out of these doldrums - another hit could cost Karol her life!
“How much experience do you need to level up?” Calaf asked.
Karol held out three fingers.
“Just three?” So close! “Wait. There has to be something we can do…”
What would a certain someone do in this situation? Fight dirty. Cheese things. Ah, that relic thief was rubbing off on him.
A corpse hit the bookshelf next to them. One of the Cultivators, dashed away by Gael’s mallet.
“One moment!” Calaf got to looting. He pulled out…
Item: Miniscule Colorless Level Up Bauble (x1)
Description: Provides fifteen experience points to a single target when used.
A trade menu opened up lightning fast. Karol took it and, still twitching from the shock, used the item.
Level up! With all the stat boosts that entailed.
The Interface displayed her health, newly healed. And her level, now 65!
Name:
Karol of the Olde Capital
Rank:
Crimson Mage
Level
65
Status:
262/262 (Second Wind!)
Weapons:
- Quilfeather Rapier +3 (x1)
- Auxillary Quilfeather Dagger (x1)
A tower-shield shaped shadow loomed over them.
“I’m alright,” Karol said. “Brother, I’m ready to go.”
But Jedd merely scowled.
Using a banned heretical bauble to save his sister… Calaf hadn’t thought about what the noble and forthright Paladin would think of such an act. A certain apostate really had rubbed off on the Squire!
“Behind you!” Honest John held another finger aloft.
Gael rushed to flank the merchant of questionable repute, only to receive a shot from John’s Poisoned Pristine Gunknife. The old soldier stumbled back, dropping his mallet near the trapdoor.
Again, Honest John pointed his finger at the Paladin, Squire, and Crimson Mage. That smile of his was back in an ear-to-ear toothy grimace that obliterated his cheekbones. For the first time since that chance encounter with Calaf back in Port Town, it had spread to Honest John’s eyes.
Spell:
Hellflare VIII
Effect:
Deals Unfathomable Molten Scorching Fire Damage To Everything in Sight. (INT: 99 ARC: 99)
Description:
WARNING: DO NOT USE IN CLOSE QUARTERS.
Jedd of the Olde Capital, Paladin, looked once more upon Calaf with an uneasy frown. Then he looked to a newly healed yet imperiled Karol and his grimace grew more resolute. He turned, Exquisite Shield of Fireproofing +2 planted firmly in the ground.
A miniature sun broiled at the tip of Honest John’s left pointer finger…