Wyn leaned his head against the wall in the base of Alistair. The day was young, and there were plenty of Climbers that wanted to get a solid start climbing.
It made sense for the beginning of the month. Climbers were eager people, curious about the new environment, monsters, and overall challenge. Part of the appeal of their dangerous profession was having something new every month. Wyn didn’t feel the exact same, preferring some kind of normalcy and consistency. But he couldn’t argue that it was exciting. Just a bit.
Some people on the wall near him shifted and shuffled, moving to get people’s attention. They held large packs on their back or satchels of papers with quills and inks.
Mappers and Packers. Wyn recognized them immediately. Non-Climbers hired to help groups carry items and map out the environment for more efficient climbing or research. Wyn knew that Mappers tended to work on the floors that are harder to navigate but recently learned that they were also hired by some groups to research the tower’s floors and bring notes back to interested parties. Guilds hired them often, too, which was were Wyn learned about their extended use.
Seeing them made him wonder about Cal. He left more abruptly than Wyn would have liked, but he was a kind and strong man both inside and out. He was likely fine. Wyn just hoped he was alright, both physically and mentally.
“Excuse me,” a voice said.
Wyn looked over to see a young woman looking at him, confusion on her face. She was likely around Arabelle’s age, somewhere in her late teens or early twenties. Instead of armor she wore Magician’s robes and carried a wooden staff that was gnarled at the end. The weapon reminded Wyn of Tasha’s first staff and it made him smile.
“Yes?” Wyn asked. He knew what she wanted. Unfortunately he’d been in the same situation before. “I’m not a Mapper or Packer, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Oh no, I know that,” the woman said, nervously chuckling. “You’re the Ruby Magician, aren’t you?”
“Well, he’s the second tier version of it,” a man said behind her. He looked to be part of her group as he stood with four others, all dressed in climbing gear. “Or at least I think he is.”
Wyn smiled. “Yes, that’s me. And my class upgrade is Ruby Strategist.”
The Climber’s all reacted in various degrees of surprise, with those in the back murmuring to themselves, the man looking proud as he guessed correctly, and the woman in front looking like Wyn just said he was the king of Jahnin.
“It’s great to meet you in person,” the proud man said, pushing through his teammates and extending a hand. “I’m Deacon, and we’re Climbers trying to push into the second tier.”
Wyn shook his hand and just smiled along.
The man nudged his teammate and the woman Magician shook her head. “I’m so sorry,” she said, giving a small bow. “We all saw your performance in the guild trials, and we just… wanted to officially say hello and that your performance was really special!”
“Thank you,” Wyn said. “But I’m far better with my team. It doesn’t do much to climb alone, does it?”
The group laughed, and Wyn suddenly felt uncomfortable. What he said wasn’t very funny, but they were treating him far different than he was used to. It was… strange.
“Wyn!” A voice said behind the Climbers. John waved his hand in the air, grabbing Wyn’s attention.
Wyn breathed a sigh of relief. He was not prepared to handle Climbers like that so early in the morning. Or ever, really.
The rest of his group walked with John, all prepared to climb. They looked far more ready than the group talking to Wyn. But they were only first tier Climbers, and Wyn had a goal to get their group to the third floor today.
The Climbers scurried away quickly when the others approached, and Wyn couldn’t help but watch them leave in fascination.
“What was that?” Marcy asked.
“Some Climbers who recognized me,” Wyn said. “I didn’t expect them to be so… friendly?”
John laughed while Tasha snickered.
“Do you want to go talk to your fans some more or climb?” Lucy asked.
Wyn adjusted his pack’s straps and walked further into Alistair’s base without another word. He wanted to influence other Climbers but having them recognize and admire him to that extent was definitely unintended.
The portal room was filling quickly as dozens of Climbers were being sucked into the magical environment. The group found a lone portal further into the room and paused, waiting for Wyn.
“Okay,” Wyn said, addressing them. “Our goal is to complete the first two floors. If we need to break, we can reassess after the first floor depending on what we find.”
“I say we clear both floors this morning and the third this afternoon,” Lucy said. “What else are we going to do, anyway? Go twiddle our thumbs?”
The others looked confused but agreeable. Wyn thought the same thing. She… wasn't actually wrong. It likely wouldn’t take too long to clear the earlier floors with six of them, and they could start into the second tier in half the time Wyn planned. He’d been cautious before, but now they could afford some degree of boldness.
It was time to push themselves.
“Huh,” Wyn said. “You have a point.”
“No shit,” Lucy said. “Let’s just run it already.”
“If we find something interesting we can always rerun it,” Cedric said, twirling his scepter.
“We likely will anyway when Gregory has us repeating the floors for each of our turns as leader,” Tasha said. “I’m not particularly looking forward to that time.”
“You’ll do great,” Marcy said. “Let’s just see what’s inside first, shall we? One step at a time.”
With that, Wyn led them through the portal. And when the swirling sea of black and white sky stopped spinning around him, he settled on what was the most bizarre yet beautiful environment he’d ever seen.
“Holy shit,” Wyn said, ignoring the others as they popped into the space around and behind him.
The entire world around him was elegant, foreign, and magical. It was surreal.
His boot crunched on familiar feeling dirt but that was all that was familiar. The ground was a light pink with no sense of civilization anywhere around. Instead of typical plants, bushes or trees, the vegetation in the area looked more like the colored mushrooms in the caves during Wyn’s first climb. He walked over to what resembled a tall tree but was leafless, green, porous and hard, almost like hollow rock. Smaller plants around it were other shades of pink and blue, and looked more like bulbous mushrooms or single-leafed small trees.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
When he looked up, Wyn was further taken aback. The sky itself didn’t resemble the familiar blue of day or black of night speckled with stars, but instead was wavy and murky with reflections of light in various areas. It looked stunningly wonderful and clear on the other side, as though he was looking through a ripple of water where clouds and the sun should be.
In the air around them, ranging from ten feet above their heads all the way to high in the sky were various flying creatures. They didn’t seem hostile, at least not right away. But they almost flightless, floating in the air slowly while moving around with slow beats of their strange wings or undulations of their body. All the creatures were of similar bright colors to the rest of the world, and all had varying types of bodies from thin and several feet long to wide and round like balls.
“I think this is like an underwater world,” Tasha said. She was bent over poking a mushroom-like plant beside the pink dirt road that swayed gently from her touch.
“What makes you say that?” Wyn asked. A spike of rear rushed through him thinking that they were going to traverse a world made of water.
“It’s like the deep ocean I’ve read about in some history books. It’s very colorful with strange plants like these and fish that swim at different degrees of speed and height.”
“Like we’re on the ocean floor,” Cedric said. “I’ve read about it, too. And it was my exact thought.”
Wyn didn’t like the sound of being in a place that resembled water, but at least he could breath. If they really were underwater everyone would be drowning. But maybe it also meant the world didn’t have a traditional ocean or source of water, and they wouldn’t come across something like that while climbing?
There were far too many questions right away, and the only way to find potential answers was to climb.
Wyn started with taking out his parchment to see how the tower described the floor. He saw the others do the same while waiting to start.
First Floor
Group: 6/6
Quest: The floating islands of Isoterra are both wondrous and strange. The people keep to their own islands at the core of the world while the outer islands hold both mystery and danger. Can you find a way out? The way back is ruined. But the way forward may not be as easy as you hope. Mind the heights.
Wyn folded his parchment and placed it back into his coat. That was… not the most reassuring description.
Turning around, he almost gasped at what he saw. A large ship was crashed into the side of a tall pink rock with its ripped sails covering the area around it. The ship easily could have held a hundred people, and wood was splintered all over the area. Wyn didn’t dare approach. Even if this place was magically created he didn’t care to find dead people inside. Would they even look human?
“How could a ship even sail here?” John said. “There’s no water for it to use. It’s just… air.”
“Maybe that’s how,” Marcy said. “Like an airship.”
John laughed. “You’re funny, Marcy. Those don’t exist!”
Cedric chuckled. “You’re wearing magical equipment and can perform feats that most of the world would consider to be from the gods, and you think a ship that flies through the air isn’t able to exist? Look around. I don’t believe we’re in Jahnin anymore.”
John’s smile vanished while he thought about what Cedric said. Tasha just patted him on the back for comfort.
Wyn led the group along with Lucy and Marcy while the others lagged behind. They weren’t overly concerned about their formations in the first tier, and especially on the first floor, no less. They simply wanted to explore and take in the area while advancing. At least that’s how Wyn felt as he stretched his neck looking at all of his surroundings and noticed the others do the same. It wasn’t every month when a new tower environment was as unusual and strange as this one.
After some time traversing the pink path Wyn realized they weren’t going to go through as quickly as they thought. It wasn’t level and straightforward, but hilly, rocky, and curved. Even though he could tell they were moving in a straight direction along their massive island the path was not naturally straight. Large swaying green and orange leafless trees in the distance marked some kind of far off territory, and they were helpful to determine their path forward.
All along the foreign road was various kinds of plant life that stumped Wyn, and even Tasha and Cedric. They only guessed that the vegetation was magical and otherworldly, and Cedric explained that sometimes that’s just how some seasons were in Alistair. He didn’t seem too bothered by the different flora, but Wyn felt uneasy watching them. Occasionally a small floating creature would wander too close to one and be snatched by hidden tentacles that looked like thin leaves or engulfed by the entire plant. One was yellow and cylindrical, and extended a couple of feet to catch a small brightly colored flying bird with four wings, no legs or arms, and a slender body.
Wyn stopped to watch the event, surprised. If that was something on the first floor, what did the upper floors hold?
Marcy slowed down and nocked an arrow she was holding. “We got enemies.”
The group stopped and readied their weapons. Cedric and Tasha waited to respond and Wyn kept his shield back but extended his weapon to a spear. The enemies likely weren’t going to be difficult at all.
A group of chittering creatures appeared around a bend from the pink dirt path, all a little bigger than a house cat. They had two arms and legs and stubby, wide tails with pointy heads settled on multicolored bodies. Despite their color, though, they blended into the background relatively easily, like natural camouflage.
Wyn thought they looked like fish mixed with frogs. Except they were more nimble and moved like a pack of rats.
Marcy immediately speared one with an arrow and it yelped as it died. So they were easy to kill, too. The only problem was that this group held a little over a dozen of them. Lucy and John stepped forward and cut through them like a farmer threshes wheat, Lucy with her axe and John with his sword boosted with a topaz in the hilt. It only took a few swings for all of the monsters to die.
There weren’t any drops from them, but at least they were easy monsters.
The six Climbers continued along the path and found two more groups of walking fish monsters. They varied a bit with their colors, physical size, and group size, but overall were easy opponents. Cedric asked to take the last group and cast one of his lightning spells that caused an electric charge to spread through enemies, curious to see if the element was strong against them. John hadn’t noticed a difference since each swing of a weapon killed them regardless, so the Lightning Wizard wanted more insight.
His spell coursed through them like flames over dry grass. They screamed briefly before disappearing back to the tower from only one spell attack.
“I think that’s pretty telling,” Tasha said.
“So water enemies, then,” John said.
“Maybe,” Cedric said. “I have a feeling we might encounter a few more elements here. There are plenty of flying creatures around to make me wonder it could be wind element, too.”
The next time they found a group of enemies it was slightly different. The group of fish monsters were scattering from another creature, this one larger, like the size of a wolf. It stood on its thick, hind legs and held one of the fish monsters with shorter arms while it tore into it with an elongated mouth of sharp teeth. Yellow fur ran along its neck, contrasting its bright blue body.
“What in the hells?” John asked.
The monster stopped eating it and roared at them, causing lightning to run along its neck and mouth as the hair on its neck stood on end, looking like an intimidating mane of hair.
Wyn cursed. It was likely the lightning element. And the fact that that kind of variety showed up completely on the first floor wasn’t a great sign for the higher floors he wanted them to climb.
Marcy hit it with an arrow in the neck and the creature jerked back with a pained yelp. It flailed on the ground for a moment, dropping its meal. Lucy rushed forward and axed it in the body, then again. It stopped flailing as blue blood poured from its wounds.
“So much for your theory,” Marcy said.
“Several elements at once is going to be a bit tougher for me,” Cedric said. “But I’ll manage.”
“And I will need to change Zoraquin to a different Calling,” Tasha said. “Maybe something neutral?”
“Something we can look at when we break,” Wyn said. “Let’s keep moving. We can deal with the enemies on this floor no matter their element.”
The rest of the floor was more consistent as they met mostly more of the small monster swarms and only two more of the larger lightning monsters. The second of the larger monsters dropped a talon, and their parchment called the monster a Ta-Yitz.
Nearing what they felt was the end of the floor after more turns of the dirt road, they spotted the final challenge. The red portal was nestled between larger plants on the other side of a small but wide open area of more pink dirt that was at least flat terrain. The boss, though, wasn’t what Wyn expected. A single Ta-Yitz was on the ground, flailing and tearing up the dirt with its talons as a small group of larger fish monsters stood over it. There were three of them, all the size of cows but identical to the smaller fish monsters they encountered throughout the floor. The fish were pounding on the lightning monster with strong stomps from large feet and snaps of their jaws from gnashing teeth.
Before the Ta-Yitz succumbed to the group, one of the fish opened its mouth and fired a blast of water that hit the creature square in the body. It flattened it against the ground, effectively silencing it.
So they had ranged attacks, too. And it was obviously somewhat strong as it was able to finish the monster despite the attack being at an elemental disadvantage. It was a close range hit, but likely still had an effective range similar to Cedric or Marcy at a minimum.
When the monster was killed, the three fish monsters looked to the group and roared in a strangely high-pitched screech.
Wyn stepped forward with John and Lucy and prepared to fight.