Weirdly, Maya was both ready and not at all prepared for when the world decided to completely turn on its head. She would be forty in a couple of months, and she rightfully believed she had seen just about everything life had to throw at her.
But a gigantic tower claiming the entire city—and later, the entire state, maybe even the entire country for all she knew—had walloped her estimations.
When she bad been punted into the Tower of Forging, she had thought she had been living through a very vivid dream. It wouldn’t have been something new. But then, other people had arrived in her “tutorial zone”. Other people usually didn’t barge into her dreams. Especially not people she knew. Especially not Carlo.
Well, Carlo was dead now, as were about half the others she had come to know in that monster-infested dead forest on the mountainside. She was left with just Randall and Dory.
They were basically kids compared to her. College age, or thereabouts. They were depending on her, especially now that everyone else who had been with them hadn’t survived. They were counting on her.
She might not be with her actual kid anymore—no, she was not worrying about her family—but she couldn’t fail these two.
“Keep running.” Maya was huffing. The other two weren’t doing much better. They were being chased for too long. “We’ll lose them.”
“I can’t keep going like this,” Dory said.
The younger woman would have been at the very back of their little trio, but Maya held the backline. Her class was the only one that could stand toe-to-toe with those monsters. Vanguard was a Common class, but still Tier 2, compared to the Tier 1 Summoner and Tracker that Dory and Randall had taken up.
“You can,” Randall said, even though he had to gulp in exhaustion as he kept running. “We have to. For everyone else.”
Maya nodded grimly, trying not to let the sweat rolling down her face distract her. She really wasn’t built for this kind of thing, but the stats of the mysterious System were helping.
The chittering cries of the Raptors got too close. Maya yelled out a warning at the other two to continue on. She pulled out her shield as she turned, ready to hold her ground as long as she could. If nothing else, she could give her companions the opportunity to run.
They might have killed a few of the monsters before, but they had been lucky not to face too many at once. No way could they take on a horde of at least twenty at the same time.
But she could at least hold them off for a while. That was what her Ascension Class was built for.
Randall and Dory came to stand on either side of her.
“The hell are you two doing?” she yelled. “Get out of here!”
“We’re not leaving you,” Randall said.
Dory nodded. She just looked relieved at not having to run anymore. “Three of us together stand a better chance than any of us alone.”
Maya was about to argue, but the ugly little dinosaurs bounded in. So many. Her heart started hammering hard. Were they going to survive this?
She froze when the dark angel landed.
Black wings. Inky, brooding power. There was something strange about his appearance. Like she couldn’t really make out his form, and if she looked at him from an angle instead of straight on, he would just disappear.
Amazingly, even the feathered, bipedal monsters were shocked by his sudden appearance. For just a second, they were frozen too.
The angel took full advantage. With one powerful swipe of his arm, several slashes of reddish black energy ripped through the air in front of him, cutting down most of the monsters in one blow.
“Ah, crap, I missed a couple.”
The voice untethered Maya from her state of surprise. He sounded so normal. The juxtaposition of that voice and the dark-clad figure just unmoored her from the whole situation.
Pretty soon, the last monster was dead.
Their saviour turned around, smiling warmly. “You guys alright?”
----------------------------------------
With the Raptors dead, Ray reviewed his System notifications only because he got a new achievement.
[Enemy Defeated—Raptor]
Tier 2 Monster: Raptor [Level 2] x5
Tier 2 Monster: Raptor [Level 1] x5
Essence: +300
Knowledge: +30
Mana Restored: +150
Essence to next level: 4,210/5,000
[New Personal Achievement—Saviour!]
You’ve saved your first living beings! A hero is always needed in these desperate times.
Reward
* Reputation: +15 Benevolent, +15 Heroic
Ray had already figured that certain Reputation types gave him bonuses to certain stats. But if there were stuff like Benevolence and Heroism involved, he would need to find out just what bonuses they granted him.
Pushing away his notifications, Ray turned to smile at the first people he had seen since entering the Tower. “You guys alright?”
The middle-aged woman with frizzy hair and dark brown skin in front, wearing hardened leather leggings and a plain steel helm and breastplate, sank to the ground. “We are now.”
“Thanks a lot for that,” the other woman said. Her garb was a robe like his, but plainer. She was young, younger than Ray too, most likely. As was the man in their little group. “No clue if we would have survived that…”
“Of course, we’d have survived that,” the man said, somewhat indignantly. Then he grimaced at the dead Raptors. “Just maybe not with all our limbs intact.”
“Since we’re all fine,” Ray said, looking over his new companions, “more or less, let’s finish clearing the dungeon. I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to. Sound good?”
After a moment, the trio all nodded. They all got going.
As they travelled along, they exchanged their stories.
Their names were Maya, Dory, and Randall. Ray wasn’t certain he’d remember them, especially since he didn’t really intend to stick with them for long.
Not after he learned their main goals wasn’t to complete the First Floor’s main Objective.
“You don’t want to climb to the top of the Tower?” Ray asked, trying not to sound a little dumbfounded.
“The Tower?” Randall shook his head like he was stupefied by Ray’s question. “We need food first. And shelter.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
They came across another clump of monsters then. The raptors were fearless. It didn’t matter that there was a group of significantly larger Denizens who had clearly massacred their fellows. They would come rushing in for the kill.
Ray stood back this time. Another thing he had discovered was that his new companions were weak. Their levels were less than half of his. They needed the Essence a lot more.
It felt a smidge scummy, but he had peeked at their statuses with Presence of the Primordial.
[Presence of the Primordial]
Maya Volta [Denizen]
Class: Vanguard [Uncommon] [Tier 2]
Skills:
Shield Wall [Tier 1]: Use your shield to protect yourself and allies behind you. While your shield is up, you are immune to Knockback, Stun, and similar afflictions so long as they are at or below this skill’s Tier.
Counter Strike [Tier 2]: Rebuff an attack with your shield, before launching a vicious blow. Has a high potential to apply Knockback or Stun. Tier of afflictions are at skill’s Tier.
Rallying Cry [Tier 1]: Infuse yourself and your allies with Mana to wash away all weariness.
Randall Dorn [Denizen]
Class: Tracker [Common] [Tier 1]
Skills:
Basic Trapping Craft [Tier 1]: Your innate talent to craft trapping implements and materials from anything shines bright. Creations are at the skill’s Tier.
Gutting Blow [Tier 1]: Apply a low strike to a trapped foe to apply severe Bleed at the Tier of this skill. Bleed drains foes of all health over time, the rate of which is determined by the Bleed’s Tier.
Entrap [Tier 2]: Craft an instantaneous bind that holds your foe in place, so long as your foe cannot overpower the trap. At Tier 2, this skill holds foes still for 10 seconds.
Tracker’s Mark [Tier 1]: Apply a mark on a target. Wherever this target goes, you can now track it.
Camouflage [Tier 1]: Camouflage yourself for a moment so that foes with basic perception fail to see you. At Tier 1, the duration of the camouflage is 30 seconds.
Dory Michaels [Denizen]
Class: Summoner [Common] [Tier 1]
Spells:
Summon [Tier 2]: Call up a summons to serve your will. Summoned creatures are at the spell’s Tier.
Summoner’s Call [Tier 1]: Call out to your vicinity to grant you the energy to fight off your foes yourself.
Bestiary [Tier 1]: Learn about any creature that enters your vicinity.
Last Burst [Tier 1]: Grant your summons a final burst of energy to carry on, should their health fall below a certain threshold.
Interesting how their garb aligned with their classes. Maya had her metal armour, Dory was dressed in a long, monk-like robe, and Randall had a light leather tunic that reminded Ray of Robin Hood. He wondered if any of that boosted their stats or abilities. And he definitely wondered what kind of Reputation Points they had. Too bad Ray’s spell didn’t reveal those.
Their skills weren’t too bad. In fact, they actually worked well together. Dory’s summons was a strange bird with fiery wings that could distract the monsters. Meanwhile, Randall could summon instantaneous traps to lock the Raptors in place.
Both of which allowed Maya to rush in and kill the monsters with her sword. She didn’t even use a skill half the time. Her innate Strength stat was high enough.
Interesting that, despite possessing the higher Tier class, she had the fewest skills. Huh.
With the monsters dead, Randall turned back to him. “But yeah, as I was saying, we need to survive first, don’t we?”
Ray supposed that made sense. But to him, survival went hand-in-hand with climbing the Tower of Forging.
“You seriously beat a Tier 7 tutorial?” Dory asked, eyes widening in awe. “That’s pretty insane, dude. We were all in a Tier 2 tutorial zone. A Tier 7 one would probably have wiped us out in less than an hour.”
Yeah, no kidding, considering how too many Raptors gave them trouble.
“Wait a second,” he said. “You said you were all in the same dungeon? As in, all three of you.”
“There were more of us.” Maya, the oldest of the group, grimaced. “But most of them didn’t make it. The monsters there… those Wind Sprites were something else.”
“How many in total?”
“We had eight in our group.”
“A Tier 2 tutorial taking out that many…”
The other three looked rather despondent. Ray supposed he shouldn’t have spoken that last bit out loud. They had survived this far. That was a positive. Though, to be fair, it wasn’t a bad thing he had said it.
If things continued in this manner, they wouldn’t be alive for long.
“How did you survive a Tier 7 tutorial zone?” Maya asked.
Ray thought back to everything he had gone through in the caves. “That’s a bit of a long story. But the basic summary is that I got a powerful Path, and I took advantage of that. I suppose I was a bit lucky I got the Path I did.”
“A Path?” Randall asked.
“It’s something some people get,” Maya said. “Andrew had one, though I don’t know what or how strong his one was.” That must have been one of those in their group who had died. Her blue eyes sharpened on Ray. “But it looks like if you get a good one, it can be super helpful.”
“It definitely can,” Ray confirmed.
Dory came to a halt. “Speaking of paths…”
More twisted branches and thorns formed a barricade in front of them. But when Ray cleared it, the thicket just kept going. And going. And…
“I think we need to find a new route,” Ray said after his third Shatterclaw.
“Hey.” Maya had cleared a different patch of brambles to reveal a section of twisted branches that formed what suspiciously looked like a tunnel through the branches. “I think we can take this.”
As they continued their journey, walking carefully on the uneven surface of the wooden branch, they continued talking.
“Kind of jealous of the powers you got, Ray,” Randall said. He laughed a little nervously. “It’s kind of weird I even managed to survive this far with the skills I have, but whatever, I guess.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Randall,” Maya said. “Your skills are absolutely useful.”
“That’s right,” Dory said. “It’s what we’re counting on!”
Ray looked between the three of them. “Oh? How’s that?”
They explained their plan going forward. Ray was relieved to note that at least they had a plan, instead of bumbling around and surviving any way they could. It gave him some hope.
Randall talked about his Tracker’s Mark skill like Ray didn’t already know about it. Ray kept his face very neutral.
If Randall imbued anything with a bit of his Mana via that skill, he could tell where the bearer of his Mark was no matter where they went. He would pair it with Dory’s summoned bird to scout for other people nearby.
“My Mark is transferrable,” he said.
Dory nodded. “I can order my little bird to only touch another human. My summon can lead us to wherever it transferred the Mark.”
That was pretty smart, though Ray could already poke some holes in it. “What if the Mark transfers to a corpse?”
“I specified a living person.”
“Oh, okay. Well, what if it transfers to someone…. less than ideal?”
They didn’t have an immediate answer for that. The concern was legitimate. In this world that had taken over their old one, in this Tower where people had incredible, formerly-unbelievable power at the tips of their fingers, where lives could be spent far more easily than before, they could very well end up in the presence of unsavoury humans.
“We thought about that,” Maya eventually said. “And we do have a contingency for that. But… we’re willing to brave that risk.”
“What’s the contingency?” Ray asked.
“I ordered my summon to only look for people in groups of three or more,” Dory said. “We figured people who’re working together are less likely to be violent psychopaths.”
“Oh… so that’s why you missed me.”
“I know it’s not ideal,” Maya said. “But we won’t know until we try and find out for ourselves.”
Ray eventually nodded. It wasn’t perfect. But until they could be sure they could take care of themselves, until they were strong enough to fend for themselves like Ray, it was better to find people they could trust and stick together.
“I’m guessing you’re going to head out to capture one of the monsters for yourself so you can go up the Tower?” Randall asked.
Ray nodded. “I will yeah.” He winced. “Although, I need to figure out how to catch a Brighthorn without killing it so I can drag it to the Handler.”
“The Handler?”
Ray explained how he had met one of the Sylvans and the information he had learned. He sighed. “I’m pretty sure they expect most of us to fail.”
Dory shook her head, eyes screwing up in anger. “Then all the more reason not to go along with this dumb shit. We’ve got lives to live. People to find. I’m not trying to just survive. I want to know where my mom and dad were sent, and some of my friends too. They could be dead for all I know.”
“That’s right,” Randall said, sharing her anger. “I don’t know who this System thinks it is, but it can’t just rip us from our lives and expect us all to adapt to this new shithole it put us in. Like, what the fuck, dude? This whole thing is insane.”
Ray had to admit, if he took too long to think about things, everything was completely topsy-turvy. But sitting here, getting angry, and thinking too hard wasn’t going to get anything accomplished.
They halted when the thick branch came to a sudden end. Or rather, it continued ahead, after a wide break in the middle. Since the branch had been gently ascending all the while, they couldn’t easily risk jumping cross it.
Especially not when a gaggle of Raptors waited at the far bottom like piranhas on the hunt.
“The hell?” Dory stared at the gap like it had personally offended her. “We can’t fly.”
She blinked, apparently coming to the realization that she wasn’t correct.
“Actually…” Ray summoned his Soaring Wings. “I can fly.”
He was curious if he could bear all of them across with him at the same time. What was the total weight his wings could bear?
It turned out that Ray could carry only one of them at a time with him. This was especially hard with Maya, considering her armour added a not insignificant amount of weight. Still. Ray eventually got them all across the gap without trouble. He thought he almost heard the monsters far below whine in disappointment.
“Yeah, go eat shit,” Randall said, flipping the Raptors off with his middle finger like he had personally saved them all.
They moved on. If the monsters followed through some other path, Ray’s group found no indication.
After a while, the branch came to an end and they were walking on the ground again. They reached a large chamber, beyond which the tangle of twisted trees gave way to an opening that revealed the rest of the world again. Clearly, they had reached the end of the dungeon.
But there was one problem standing before them. A Raptor that was clearly the final boss of this little adventure.
It was resting on its side in the middle of the chamber ahead. Though its eyes were fixed on them, it didn’t seem inclined to attack. But there was no doubt they’d have to beat the monster to finish the dungeon.
“Uh, is it me, or is that thing as big as a car?” Dory asked.
Randall swallowed. “It’s definitely not you.”
“Don’t worry,” Ray said. Presence of the Primordial indicated it was the same Tier of monster as the others, just at level 7 instead of 1 or 2. “If you work together, you should be able to handle it.”
All three of them turned to look at him. The question was quite evident. Wasn’t he going to help?
“I’ll jump in if things get too hairy.” Ray was smiling in encouragement at them, but he wondered if it looked too evil. “Now go and have a crack at it.”
With no small amount of trepidation, they strode ahead, Maya leading the group with her shield up. The Raptor got to its feet and roared. Then it lunged at them.