Seeing the tower up close again filled me with some anxiety. I had spent the better part of twenty-seven years inside a tower, and it was no picnic, with their dark twisting paths of rock, caverns, occasional ruins, and the endless creatures coming from shadows, side holes, in front and behind. I was in the tower for so long I almost forgot what being under an open sky felt like.
As much as I didn’t want to step back into a tower, I needed levels, and for that I needed experience, and the best place to earn experience was from slaying creatures inside. I’ll get these kids to the tenth floor, reach level ten, and then spend some time exploring this world. It would be nice to camp under a star filled sky without some world ending bad guy to worry about.
Leaving the carriage behind us we walked into the main waiting area. Inside was the familiar sight of adventurers sitting around tables and lining up.
“Miko, can you get us a number? I’ll take Reigner to registration.” Yui slipped her arm around mine and tugged me towards the service desk that had a sign hanging above it with the words ‘Registration & Induction’.
“Why do I need to register to enter the tower?”
“A few reasons, the main one is to acquire your TKS, uh tower key storage. The rest you can hear from them.”
Behind the desk was a gnome sitting on a high chair. The gnome had neat brown hair tied back in a ponytail with wide rimmed glasses resting on her face. She looked up at us and shuffled some papers around on the desk. “Name?”
I glanced towards Yui who just shrugged.
“Reigner.”
The gnome sighed, loudly “Full name?”
“Reigner” I have no plan on adding my previous title of Silent Sword. I did have a last name on earth but never used it since dying. My last name is something I want to keep for myself.
“Just Reigner.”
The gnome fixed me with a glare, her bushy eyebrows joining together to form a frown.
“Fine” She sighed again. “Wait here a moment.”
She Climbed down the little ladder that was built into the chair and walked into a back room.
“I’ll leave you to it. We will find somewhere to sit. Find us when you are finished.”
Yui walked away leaving me alone at the service counter.
A while later the gnome came out of the room and climbed back up the chair and sat down. She did not say anything to me and was reading some document.
I gave a little wave. “Hi, welcome back…”
She let out a breath. “Someone will be here shortly to assist in your tower induction. Please wait at the side. I am quite busy.”
Finding the nearest wall, I leaned against it and watched the comings and goings of adventurers. Numbers were being displayed on top of a large entranceway at the back of the hall. In front was a wooden lectern with an orc tower knight standing behind it. On the lectern sat a crystal ball and groups of adventurers would go to him and show their ticket before moving through the entrance.
“Reigner, how was your first night in Aruni?” The familiar voice of Mac greeted me from behind the service counter.
Smiling I walked over and shook his outstretched hand.
“Nice to see a friendly face. It’s been an… interesting experience so far. Hiro has been very accommodating.”
“Good to hear. Come with me.” Mac lifted a hinged section of the counter and guided me to the back room.”
“Normally anyone can do the induction here but since you have special circumstances Elder Knight Torak left a notice at the counter for one of us to be notified. Since the Elder has matters to attend to in the tower, I will be assisting you once again.”
“Cheers, I’ll try to keep my clothes on this time.”
Mac pressed a hand against the wall steadying himself and made a gaging noise. After a moment he recovered and continued walking.
“Please don’t mention that. I can still… taste…”
“Yeah…” An image of Mac, covered in Reigner gunk passed through my mind. “Don’t worry about it.”
The backroom was similar to the room Mac took me to last time. A sitting area that had two couches facing each other with a small table between them, and one door on the side of the room. On the table was a crystal ball sitting in a wooden device.
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Mac gestured for me to sit and took a place on the opposite side of table.
“Since you have been in a tower before, this should be fairly straight forward. First, I’ll get you to register yourself by pushing some mana into this crystal ball. This will update your mana signature with our database and allow us to keep track of your comings and goings in the tower.”
“Why would you want to keep track of something like that?”
“Two main reasons. We have registration camps around most floor entrances. If we don’t hear from an adventurer within five days of entering a floor, a search party will be sent out. Mostly it’s to help people that are lost or stuck but more commonly it’s body recovery.”
“The other reason is this.” Mac held up a diamond shaped amulet attached to a thin chain. “This is a Tower Key Storage Device or otherwise called TKS. We use this to identify people in the field. The TKS stores floor gems, or keys as we call them and cannot be forcibly removed from its living owner.”
Mac placed the amulet into a small hole on the wooden device under the crystal. “If you find any in the tower, please bring them back to us, and you will be given a small monetary reward. Keep in mind that these keep track of the last mana signatures it encounters before the owner’s death. If it’s discovered that an adventurer killed someone for the TKS bounty, they will be exiled from the city and banned from entering the tower.”
“Is it common for adventurers to murder each other inside the tower?”
“In the higher floors other climbers can be more dangerous than the creatures. There are also constant battles for land and floor ownership between guilds. Since we incorporated this feature into the TKS we have seen a significant decrease in climber deaths on the first ten floors.”
“Okay, sounds good enough to me.” I leaned over and placed my hand on the crystal. “How do I do this?”
“The same way you would any magical item. Push your mana into it.”
I focused and coaxed my mana into the crystal. I could see my mana travel into the crystal’s centre.
Mac turned the crystal around, so the amulet now faced towards me. “Just pick up the TKS and you are good to go.”
Lifting it out of the holder I felt a tingle in my fingers. My name appeared in the air in front of the amulet in glowing white letters.
“Perfect. That will disappear shortly. If you need to confirm your identification to the Tower Knights, just channel mana into the TKS and it will display your name like that.”
I placed the chain around my neck and moved the amulet under my robe. “Floor keys?”
“Floor keys are gems found in dungeons between each floor and are typically guarded by a strong creature.” Mac leaned over the side of the couch and picked up a bag. “They allow you to skip floors. So, if you have keys for floor two and three, you can pass the first two floors and enter directly to the third.”
That sounds very different to what I’m used to. The tower I know had no express way and you would have to stay in the tower for as long as it took to climb each floor.
Mac placed the bag on the table between us and started pulling out items. “This is our welcome package to new climbers. Inside you have some food supplies that will last you five days, one mana and health potion, a small leaflet that holds more tower information, and this.” He pulled out what looked to be a firework on a stick. “This is a signal flare, please use this if you are in danger, lost, or need urgent assistance. Typically, climbers and tower knights will see the flare and will provide assistance. However, I do not recommend using it above floor 10 as it may attract the wrong type of people.”
I moved all the items including the bag into the storage pouch on the side of my belt.
“More information on the tower can be read in the leaflet. The rest you can discover for yourself.” Mac stood and offered me his hand. “Welcome to GorikTar Tower.”
Grinning I stood up and shook hands. “Thank you. Can’t say I’m looking forward to spending hours in dark tunnels. Honestly, if I was not back to level one with no magic, I would be walking away from the tower, not into it.”
Mac laughed and guided me to the main waiting hall. “I think you are in for quite the surprise.” He pointed over to a group of tables, each sitting a team of adventurers. “I can see Yui and the rest of your group over there. Good hunting.”
I made my way over to the team. They were sitting around a table with a slip of paper resting in the middle. I pulled out an empty chair and sat down.
Richard looked up from the book he was reading. “Ah, welcome back Reigner. No issues with registration?”
“Simple enough. How long do we need to wait?”
Miko glanced at the large changing number above the entranceway. “Just a minute or so. Though it’s hard to tell. Sometimes you can get in right away other times it can take an hour or more.”
A female orc wearing an apron came and placed mugs on the table. She looked towards me and smiled “I was told today’s your first.” She winked at me and placed a glass of a golden liquid in front of me. “Welcome to the Tower!” nearby adventurers cheered out loud and I could hear others shouting out welcomes.
I picked up the glass and looked around to see smiling or grinning faces on adventurers faces, turning back to the server I say “cheers” and down the golden drink. The drink tasted incredible, a mixture of apple, grapes and a hint of something I could not identify. A second round of cheering came from the adventurers around us. The server placed a wooden mug in front of me, took the glass and walked away from the table.
“Evil” said Miko as she watched the server walk away “Your first day here they give you a drink you might never get to experience again.” Sighing, she continued “I can still remember my first day.”
Yui took a sip from her mug. “It’s crazy expensive anyway. They are auctioned off one bottle at a time on floor sixty.”
Richard put away his book. “I heard the reasoning is that no one below floor fifty has the funds to participate. It’s not just the taste that has people so interested. It also provides great fortune to whoever drinks it. Everyone that has sampled it end up experiencing something incredible. I gained a new spell on my first day in the tower, thanks to the elixir.”
Miko sighed “I met a handsome adventurer who gave me a tour of the first floor that lasted all day and some of the night. He. Smelled. Amazing.”
“I remember that. Jace went into the tower to find you when you did not return by evening.” Yui giggled “He mentioned finding you-“
Miko reached over and covered Yui’s mouth “Noo! That was a long time ago. No need to bring it up here.”
The paper on the table started flashing a dull light. Richard reached over and grabbed it. “Looks like our number is up!”. He placed his mug inside his storage bag and got to his feet, Yui and Miko followed suit. Doing the same, I took a quick sip from the mug before placing it into storage. Tasted like mead, and I wondered how it will hold up after a few hours in storage.
Following the others, we made our way to the large entrance at the back of the hall.