Chapter 14. First floor

In a couple of minutes, I had nearly reached the tower. I surprisingly got the whole flying thing down fairly quickly. My armor provided intuitive readings like altitude and flight speed along with an attitude indicator to allow me to orient myself with the horizon, which was helpful in the white expanse of space where the Coeus collective resided.

I didn’t try anything fancy as I flew, just orienting myself with basic straight-line flight, but I did punch the accelerator a bit as I reached speeds over 300 miles per hour while still having plenty left in the tank. I would see what the limits of the flight capabilities were another time, I decided since I was now approaching the massive tower.

I landed near what I guessed was the front of the giant circular tower. The only indication of this being the front was a set of large black doors framed in black wrought iron that also acted as a seam between ancient looking wooden timbers that ran vertically from top to bottom. It was hard to determine the actual height of the doors but based on my now 6 foot 8-inch frame, I guessed they were somewhere in the vicinity of 20 feet from top to bottom.

I took a second to take the tower in now that I stood at its base. It reached hundreds of feet into the air and was breathtakingly large at the base, measuring what I guessed to be nearly the size of a large professional American football stadium. The tower starkly contrasted the spotless white of the rest of the expanse as I took it in.

I approached the door slowly, not sure what to do next. There were to large metal hoops hanging from each door that I assumed to be knockers or handles for opening and closing the massive doors, though I wondered what being was large enough to casually stroll in and out of the massive structure.

I reached for the hoop on the left door and realized it was just a little too high to reach. I jumped lightly, my fingertips just barely grazing the rough black metal. Although I still had my armor activated, the suit had become very intuitive, even allowing me to sense slight imperfections in surfaces as I touched them. I had no doubt that this was due to the increased levels since I first received the armor and the intrinsic nature of the suit being tied to me genetically. The more powerful I became, the more the suit and I became one.

I tried a couple of more jumps before I stopped, backed up, and chuckled, “CJ would get a kick out of watching this,” I thought as I stood there looking at the massive doors one more time.

I took a second to consider where I stood. The tower was ancient and stood like a relic of a long-past civilization. It was intimidating and held an air of malice. It was meant to be avoided, not rushed into without a second thought, still yet, here I stood, ready to do just that.

I considered again just what I was looking at. A tower meant to be cleared and conquered. The tower likely held monsters of a sort and other challenges meant to test the being that dared trespass into the unknown dangers. There were myths, legends, and, even more recently, video games and movies that illustrated exactly this type of adventure, which couldn’t be entirely coincidental. The more I considered, the surer I became that seeds had been planted over the course of Earth’s history. These seeds must have been meant to prepare the inhabitants of Earth for a day when new beings and technology would appear. I had already learned that aliens had visited Earth throughout its history, leading to various myths and legends, from werewolves to demons and angels. So, was it so farfetched to consider that the Coeus had covertly placed hints into the human subconscious to prepare them for the day when the norm of their existence was gone, replaced by the stuff of myth, legend, and wild imaginations? No, I was starting to understand more and more that the Coeus collective, while aiding the Universal Council, was also doing its part to prepare the uninitiated planets for what might come.

“But still, does it have to be so….cliche?” I muttered to myself, sighing heavily. I kept coming back to that word, but it fit. I had been drafted into a dungeon crawl, given armor and abilities, and been made to fight for the survival of my people. It's not a new idea, true, but it made sense at the time.

Now though? Now, I was literally standing in front of a massive stone tower that held dangers, nightmares, and the promise of reward if I could tap into the potential of power that I surely had within me.

“Hah!” I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help it, “haaahaha,” I had both hands on my knees now, literally laughing out loud.

I looked up at the sky in the white expanse, “I get that you guys are, like, an all-powerful, super advanced artificial intelligence, but you need to set aside some of that massive intellect and focus on PR and marketing,” I raised a hand toward the tower moving my hand up in down to reference its entirety, “The whole “clear the tower” thing,” I said using air quotes to emphasize the words, “ is a little trite in my opinion.”

I didn’t get a response, but I didn’t expect to. I knew they could hear me, but I wasn’t sure they understood sarcasm, so I just let it go.

“Okay… I’ll see you when I’m done, I guess,” I said with a shrug as I stepped toward the doors once again.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I added a little more strength to my jump this time and grasped the hoop in my hand. I lifted my body and pressed my feet against the right door as I pushed against it. The door creaked open slowly as dust fell from its hinges.

Hmm, weird. Where did the dust come from? I thought to myself. Maybe that wasn’t the most pressing thing to worry myself with, but there wasn’t a speck of dust in the white expanse, so I just thought it was odd.

Once I had managed to open the door enough to let me slide through, I entered. I was nervous; despite my bravado, my heart was nearly beating out of my chest. Despite all I had been through in the last several months, I had nearly always had the support of my crew.

My crew? I thought again, when did I start referring to them as my crew in my own thoughts? It spoke to how much had changed in such a relatively short amount of time. I was the captain of a starship; I had a crew, even though I mostly considered them my friends.

As my thoughts continued to wander, mostly out of nervous energy, I took my first step into the tower. As I did, my vision warped; lights zipped around my vision and turned into nothing more than streaks of light. It felt like I was being ripped through space so fast that I honestly couldn’t perceive what was happening. In what felt like no more than a second, everything shifted back into place, and I felt stationary again.

“Well, shit,” I grumbled as I looked around, lifting my left foot to watch mud and dead leaves fall from it.

I was standing in brown, murky water up to my shins. There were twisting vines and vegetation snaking all around me and the most massive trees I had ever seen that created a suffocating canopy overhead. It was dark but not so dark that I couldn’t see. Thin streams of light peeked through here and there, indicating that wherever I was, it was day.

I immediately spun, trying to locate the door I had just entered through, but to my surprise, it was gone. There were no walls; there was no door, only swamp as far as I could see.

“Well, I guess there is no backing out then,” I muttered, shaking my head in frustration.

I stood there for a second, considering what I should do next, taking in the sights and sounds of the swamp as I thought. There were whistles and calls of animals that I had never heard before. The trees and other fauna didn’t look familiar either. I had been around swamps before growing up in Louisiana, and this didn’t look like any swamp I had seen before. The best way I could describe it is if you combined the giant redwoods of California with the swamps of Louisiana and then dropped It all in the Amazon.

“This can’t be Earth…” I muttered as I took it all in.

Then I noticed something. The various calls, whistles, and whoops that had filled the air only moments earlier were gone. The air was completely still and eerily silent, which wasn’t good. I wasn’t much of a hunter before the drop, preferring instead to do things like hang with friends in the city or stay inside and watch a movie or play video games. I was, however, raised by a father who tried his best to instill basic knowledge into his boys about basic survival and awareness if you are caught alone in the forest. I had also watched enough Discovery Channel to know that animals generally only go silent for one reason… a predator is nearby.

I immediately went on the defensive, crouching low to the ground and summoning my plasma rifle. I spun around, trying to catch sight of anything that might be a threat, but the low visibility wasn’t helping, and I was way out of my element here.

“I can't fucking see anything,” I muttered nervously through clenched teeth as I slowly spun.

“Would you like to activate the infrared display?” a voice said.

I flinched a bit at the unexpected words, “Oh, shit, I forgot about you,” I said, having completely forgotten that Elvis had programmed a localized AI into my suit after he took physical form.

“Yes, do that,” I said.

The screen on my helmet shifted to a dark blue immediately. As I looked around now, I could see subtle variations in temperature all around me. The air was slightly warmer than the water, so it was a slightly less dark shade of blue. Small insects flying around were more green than blue, and then, in the trees, I could see orange and red moving and shifting as animals of some sort were trying to hide or escape.

“Well, this is handy,” I said.

“I can adjust the display of your helmet to better serve your needs based on the circumstances,” the voice said.

“Uhh, thanks?” I said, finding it weird that I now had another AI to work with, even if this one wasn’t nearly as advanced as Elvis, Tiff, or Natasha.

“No thanks necessary, I will standby for further instruction,” the voice said.

With my new thermal imaging display, I continued to survey my surroundings, wary of the possibility of a predator in my midst. The water around me sloshed and churned as sediment, dead leaves, and branches spun around my feet.

Then, without warning, I heard it.

Hawwwggghhhhuh huh huh

I instinctively brought my hands to my ears and clenched my eyes shut as the sound threatened to burst my ear drums.

“What the fu….” I grunted, but the sound of my own words was drowned out as the sound of whatever was approaching blared throughout the swamp again. It was like the foghorn of a steam liner mixed with metal scraping metal alternating from low growl to high-pitched squeal, and all of a sudden, it was familiar.

HeeeeeeHaaaawwwghh

I spun to see the brush and smaller trees being crushed and pushed aside as a massive animal came crashing into view no more than 50 yards from me, glowing bright red in the display of my thermal imaging. My brain couldn’t quite understand what my eyes were showing me.

The beast stood approximately eight feet tall from hoof to back. It was a dirty greyish brown with a white patch covering its left eye. Its large, flat teeth, brown and yellow and the size of bricks, protruded from its muzzle, looking too large to fit in its mouth but somehow managing. The beast had a row of black spikes running down its back from its head where one brown horn sat. And a bright red mane running down the back of its neck.

I immediately identified the beast:

Horned Red Maned Marshland Eqinuus Asinus

Level 32 Beast.

The Beast bucked and set its black eyes directly on me as it snorted hot air in my direction, the hot air showing as red clouds on my thermal imaging.

“Holy shit,” I said, not fully believing the words as they left my mouth, “I have to fight a literal redneck Swamp Donkey.”