Jay blinked the water out of his eyes and cursed the sea as he coughed salt water out of his lungs. He looked down at the waves that had previously tormented him, gently lapping against the base of the tower. Somehow even quieter than before he’d started swimming. The wind too had stopped howling and hounding him, and the first creeps of sunlight began to make their way through the dissipating rain clouds.
“Really! Now you fucking calm down!” He shouted. A blue text box didn’t appear, but Jay knew there was a stupid poet somewhere laughing at him.
Half-naked, drenched, and clinging to a rock in the middle of the ocean. Jay somewhat understood.
Shit, he probably would have laughed too.
Jay swept his soaking hair out of his eyes and looked up the tower. The stone ladder was worn smooth, and damp from the sea’s assault. Jay shook his arms and legs, hoping the stretching would delay the onset of cramp for as long as possible. Pausing to rest seemed like a great idea but it could wait for the top of the tower. He caught his breath, massaged his tired arms, then went back to old faithful.
Left, right, left, right, breathe. Left, right, left, right, letsclimbthisstupidfuckingtower.
----------------------------------------
Vigorous voyager, you've vanquished the void, but this vertex vibrates with another's verse. Venture to a different vista!
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
It means Vigorous voyager, you've vanquished the void, but this vertex vibrates with another's verse. Venture to a different vista!
…
Kids these days. Absolutely no appreciation for the fine arts. It means climb up a different tower!
Jay looked around, trying to spot someone watching him. No luck. He was alone atop the stone column. No storm sage in sight.
“That’s a load of shit. This is a perfectly good tower, why do I need to climb another one?”
Because I said so that’s why, now do you want to beat that stupid gorilla or not? Because if you do, then do as you’re told!
Jay sighed. He had come here for help after all. But how did whoever was writing the text boxes know about that? Jay felt around the edge where he'd climbed up, trying to find the rungs again. All he felt was cold, smooth stone. His heart sank.
JUMP
Jay kept searching, hoping to find some sort of handhold. He found nothing. He tried to close the blue screen, but it remained in the middle of his view, refusing to leave. Giving up on the normal way down, Jay stood up. Trying not to look down off the edge. Jay located the nearest pillar, it was around ten metres southeast of him. Then he leapt.
Once he was underwater, Jay opened his eyes and immediately looked for any sourceless black tendrils. He seemed safe, but that didn’t mean he could relax.
Jay floated to the surface, got his bearings, and started swimming.
----------------------------------------
Persevering pilgrim, you've peaked the pinnacle, yet this place pulses with another's plot. Pursue a parallel precipice!
“Well how am I supposed to find the bloody right one then?”
If a floating rectangle could have shrugged, this one would have.
Instead, it vanished. Jay sat with his legs dangling off the edge, he looked at the rest of the stone towers jutting out of the water. This was the fifth pillar he'd climbed since jumping off the first. Each one just greeted him with a more annoying message than the last.
How was he supposed to find his? Maybe he had to think like a sailor? Hopefully he didn’t have to think like a poet.
Jay tried to find a way to locate his tower. Looking out to the ocean horizon, he began to brainstorm. If it was the storm sage making the text boxes, he was the one telling Jay he was wrong. So maybe he had to think like the storm sage to find one.
“Oh Tower-o, Tower-o where art thou?”
…
The awkward silence cut deeper than any rain could have. Jay imagined the storm sage standing behind one of the text boxes, laughing at his incompetence.
Jay switched gears, if he really dialled in, he might forget what he’d just said. The storm sage was a sailor, or he certainly seemed like one. Maybe that was a better way to look at it? He wracked his brain, trying to remember how sailors navigated. The only lighthouse in sight was a no-go. What else? The overcast sky above him meant navigating by starlight was hardly possible, and stars weren’t particularly useful over this short a range. Just what was he supposed to do?
Jay watched a storm front advance on the westerly horizon. The torrential rain fell on the beach and moved closer towards the island proper.
Lightning struck. Bright light stained Jay's vision for a few seconds before the trailing thunderclap jolted his mind awake.
Wait a sec! Why am I trying to think like the storm sage?
Jay had come here to prove himself, to show what he could do. Why was he trying to emulate someone else? He had to think for himself. Come up with his own way.
But what was his own way? What could he do?
Punch fast? Not particularly useful for navigating. He could speak a ton of languages now, maybe the crystal gave him correct-pillar-sensing abilities too?
Jay knew these suggestions wouldn’t help him find his tower. But he felt he was on the right track.
The things Jay had done in the last ten minutes, he’d have thought were impossible just a week ago. He’d punched hard before, but never that hard. It seemed like reality itself crumpled after Jay's underwater punch, and what about the massive crater he’d made in the water moments later. That was far more force than a human had any right to create.
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Jay's mental ability astonished him too. He’d been in a flow state before, where everything came instinctually to him, and his mind and body aligned in perfect harmony. But nothing came close to the elevated state he entered while hurtling away from the explosion his fist had just created. It felt like his brain was overclocked. Running on a different plane of possibility, elevated from the world around it.
Was this Harmony?
Was this what he was now capable of?
Jay thought back to his conversation with Akira. He recalled what the man had said about Harmony. A harmoniser needed to look inward and outward to grow. Looking outward wasn’t helping Jay right now. Thinking like the storm sage might help him find the sage’s tower, but it certainly wouldn’t help him find his own. Maybe he needed to look inside?
Jay's thoughts whirled around his head. He wasn’t a poet, or a sailor. But neither was he purely a boxer, or a gladiator. He was just Jay.
Memories flashed through Jay’s mind, racing faster than he could keep track of. Moments from his past, his pro debut, his first loss, his death. Each moment felt somehow more vivid than the first time he’d experienced it.
----------------------------------------
“Wow. The energy in here is something else Jay! It’s electric!” Said Julian, ignoring Coach and staring at the crowd from inside the blue corner.
A young Jay watched his older brother intently from outside the ring. Five rounds into a fight and Jules had barely broken a sweat.
“It feels like it’s vibrating through my body, like the crowd is giving me their strength.”
Coach was trying to give Julian advice, but none went in.
All he heard was the sound of the crowd cheering, all he saw was the flashing lights above. All he felt was the moment.
Right here. Right now.
Electric.
----------------------------------------
The memory ended. Jay was back on the tower. But he couldn’t have felt more different.
The salty sea breeze, once a just a pleasant afterthought, now overwhelmed Jay's senses. He could feel the microscopic crystals slicing into his nose as they floated in the wind. Jay heard the rolling waves lap against the base of the tower. Now noticing the once imperceptible cyclic rhythms within them. He felt them push into the stone monolith. He felt the vibrations carry all the way to the top. Water vapour brushed against Jay's skin. This time it didn’t cut.
No salt. Must be from the rain.
Winds coming from the west, storm will probably blow over this way soon.
Jay cracked his eyes open, lifting his eyelids slowly, drip-feeding his brain information. Jay recognised this headspace; it was like what he felt mid-air before. But not the same. Before he felt detachment. His central nervous system isolated itself from the world. Maximising its ability. Now Jay wasn’t just connected to his senses, he was at one with them. If he fully opened his eyes and took in the sights of the world around him, he might pass out from sensory overload.
Perhaps now he could sense his tower.
Jay wondered why that specific memory of his brother stuck with him. It wasn’t a special fight, not a particularly memorable one either. So why did he remember it so vividly now.
Was it something he said?
“Electric.”
“There's nothing like it.”
Of course, the arena didn’t have any actual electricity in. There wasn’t anybody ringside tazing Julian in between rounds. But the feel, the sense, was there. Was that the essence of electricity? The sub-subconscious vibrations, from which the very building blocks of thought were built.
Not knowing if his enhanced senses would fade soon, Jay felt out for the correct pillar. His pillar. Jay opened his eyes. He tried to ignore the deluge of new information and narrow his focus, hunting for anything that stood out.
The rippling waves, the humming wind, even Jay's own rhythmic breathing faded into background static as his perception simultaneously broadened and focused.
THUD.
Finally. Something. A pulse. But Jay didn’t know where from.
THUD.
THUD.
THUD.
Again, it cried out. Over and over. Periodically repeating but sourceless. Jay knew there was something there, but he couldn’t discern any more than that. He knew the signal was screaming, crying out for him to reunite with it. But it was being muffled, something was blocking it from reaching him. Resisting the communication.
Jay's head shot up in realisation. A smile crept across his face, he now knew what he had to do. Not letting himself get cold feet, he shifted to the ledge.
He jumped.
Screams of joy, pain, fear, and longing coursed into Jay's ears the moment he submerged beneath the conductive water. Energy, rushing into him, flooded through his nervous system. The raw electricity coalesced into information, and Jay now saw his path.
An ever-shifting strand of light, flowing through the path of least resistance towards him.
Jay broke the water’s surface. He still saw the line, but it was harder to make out twisting and turning underneath the rolling waves. Jay couldn’t see where it ended, but he knew it lead to his tower.
Jay sliced through the water. He didn’t think the sudden storm or underwater tentacle would come back, but he didn’t want to assume. He followed the path of light to another stone tower.
He knew he'd found the right one as soon as he touched it. A silky warmth draped Jay like a blanket. This tower just felt right.
Jay's hands felt glued to the rungs of the tower, as if nothing could ever pull them apart. He glided up the ladder, as if gravity couldn’t grab a hold of him.
He crested the final lip, pulling himself onto the top. Jay wondered what would greet him at the towers peak. Would the storm sage greet him there? Shake his hand and offer congratulations?
----------------------------------------
Tenacious traveller, you've attained the appropriate altitude. Attune yourself, and as the storm's song starts to serenade. Stand ready.
Jay roared into the ocean expanse, unleashing pure noise. He didn’t want to say anything, he just wanted catharsis. Every language stored within his head couldn’t even come close to the pure joy that Jay released with a single syllable scream. Sweat and saltwater shook back into the ocean as he pumped his fists in victory.
When he finally cooled down, Jay stretched his limbs and tried to calm himself. The adrenaline coursing through Jay’s veins refused to obey. His muscles still twitched and spasmed, not yet ready to relax and reflect. Perhaps his body was telling him something.
There was bad news behind the pop-up at the top of the tower.
It meant the storm sage wasn’t finished with him.
Curiously, Jay's backpack was atop the tower with him. Jay took Akira’s advice and didn’t question it. Perhaps it was the storm sage throwing him a bone and telling him to prepare. An answer wouldn’t help Jay right now, so he put on his clothes and braced for the next message.
A rumble from below heralded Jay's next trial. The whole tower shuddered, and Jay dropped to all fours just to avoid falling. A second lip of rock arose from behind the one Jay climbed up on. It wasn’t that thick, less than ten centimetres, but it slowly rose above the outer edge of the tower until it loomed over Jay, at least three metres tall.
Most of the towers Jay climbed were vaguely circular, some had more rounded edges, some more angular. Some had six, seven, or eight sides.
His had four.
The oppressive weight of being in a ring again combined with the ominous stares of the walls surrounding him, entombing him. Jay knew what was coming next.
For the final trial, you must fight.
The rhymes were gone. Maybe the storm sage took battle more seriously?
Good.
Jay stood in a corner, head on a swivel, and awaited his opponent. Would it be a harmoniser, a swordsman, maybe the storm sage himself? There was no use deliberating, he had to fight them regardless. Jay began to shadow box, corralling his mind into a fighting state. He hadn’t thought to bring handwraps with him. An oversight, one he wouldn’t make again. It felt weird to punch without them, but he didn’t have a choice.
Jay's boots squeaked as he hopped back and forth. There was still nobody in the ring with him, but he had to stay vigilant. A flicker of light washed over Jay's tower. A thunderclap followed, two seconds after. The storm was closer now, but at least there was no rain falling into his stone walled ring.
The thunder heralded Jay's opponent’s arrival. A giant, two-metre-long eel floated into the ring, swimming through the air like it was nothing. Its eyes locked onto Jay. He didn’t see the docile disinterest of prey, nor the patient hunger of a predator. Jay saw pure malice.
He saw his opponent.