(Strive 10:9)
The spell-moon flickered as Artem, El, and I walked through the quiet streets of Shinar, and I stumbled in the momentary darkness.
“Why does it keep doing that?” I asked.
“City-wide signaling system.” Artem looked straight ahead, and I couldn’t tell if he was angry with me. “It’s similar to your people’s Morse code.” A few seconds later, the ground trembled briefly with the double thud of another towerquake.
Though the skies were clear (and maybe they always were, here), Artem was wearing a thick black raincoat. I wondered with a pang of guilt if I’d ruined the only other clothes he owned. To make matters worse, we passed someone from the party who drunkenly cheered my name, then quieted and dipped his head when he saw Artem next to me.
“I’m sorry,” I said after a brief pause. “I didn’t mean to throw you off the roof like that.”
“It’s alright. You two don’t know your strength yet.”
El’s claws tightened on my shoulder as I did my best to stare straight forward, but Artem didn’t seem to care that we’d cheated. “And…” he paused, “I apologize for going a bit overboard. That was unnecessary, in retrospect.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” I said, rubbing my nose.
“Word of advice, though.” Artem raised his left hand, the one with the ruby-tinted bracelet. “You should wear your bracelet on the other wrist. I can tell you’re right-handed, but you’ll want to have access to your spellcasting even when you’re wielding a weapon. Imagine you have a sword in your kada hand and you’re juggling it mid-combat to get a spell off. Not ideal.”
“I wish I had a sword.” I thought about my weapon, a plunger named Purgator. “But I get your point. It might take a while to get used to left-handed signing, though.”
“At least practice.”
“Nice of you,” said El. “I thought you’d be more mad about losing.”
Artem ignored the bait. “Prestidigitation is quite a rare Aspect. I must confess I’m unfamiliar with the techniques along its paths. My assumption is that the magic branch may lead to interesting skills, though.”
Listening to his advice, I felt a slight pang of guilt for how we’d spent the last few hours dancing on his grave, so to speak. This version of Artem didn’t seem like such a terrible guy after all.
As for what he’d said about Aspects, the implication was similar to what I’d pieced together, which was that increasing an attribute was like advancing along a certain line of a skill tree. That gave rise to another thought.
“You used Harden in the fight,” I said, “which means you have the same Aspect as I do, Corpus. You must know what spells are up ahead on that path.”
Artem nodded. “At least along the strength line. The next one after Harden on the strength line is Power Strike. On the agility line, I’m not sure. Although, to be honest, the passive enhancement of your body is a great boon in and of itself.” Artem performed a perfect muscle-up onto a scaffolding, and El and I followed. It was clear he knew the city like the back of his hand, and before long, we found ourselves back at Uomo Universale. This time, we stepped inside.
My memories of the guildhouse were mostly of the dungeon and Master Shaw’s office, so I hadn’t gotten a strong impression of the other areas. The lobby was surprisingly humble for a place named Uomo Universale, reminiscent of an off-season ski lodge. It was mostly deserted, except for a cleaner who bowed deeply to Artem. Light and muffled voices spilled from Master Shaw’s office doorway.
“—spare translators, high-grade,” he was saying, “and the usual supplies for a two-week long expedition for four. Now, ideally, it wouldn’t drag that long, but better safe than sorry.”
“Yes, Master Shaw.” A woman’s voice now, and she pushed open the door to see us standing there. She startled for a moment, looking back and forth between the Artem and me, then gave us a nod and hurried off.
“Come in,” called Master Shaw.
As we entered, I saw that he looked more tired than ever behind his grand oak desk. The familiar tapestries and fireplace decorated the walls of the room. Across from Master Shaw, Selene sat with perfect posture, her hands folded in her lap. I stole a glance at her as we sat down. Her eyes were clear and dry, one tinted violet as usual, and her robes were simple clean white. All in all, she looked remarkably composed for someone whose husband had just been brutally murdered. I realized I was staring, and averted my gaze. El eschewed the chairs to clamber up to a high shelf and curled up there as if asleep, but I knew she was watching closely.
“I don’t know if you two have met,” said Master Shaw, pouring tea into four cups.
“More or less,” I answered, when it became clear Selene wouldn’t answer.
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“Good.” Master Shaw steepled his fingers. “Well, it goes without saying that you passed the test. Both of you.” He nodded to El as well, and I felt embarrassed we’d ever thought our trickery had gone unnoticed. “We’ve had to bump up the schedule, unfortunately, so the operation will commence at noon tomorrow. That’s five with four zeros after it on your Epoch timer. The plaza at Hilltop will be the meeting point, and our commissary will outfit you with supplies there—those of you who choose to come. Ostensibly, this will be a research expedition to investigate the towerquakes of Eramai.”
“Hold on,” I said. “The towerquakes are caused by Eramai?”
“More accurately, they’re caused by our new proximity to the other tower.” Master Shaw sipped his tea. “No one knows why, but a month and a half ago, a bridge manifested itself on the fifteenth floor of Strive, linking the two towers. Since then, the towerquakes have been a semi-regular occurrence. The closer to the bridge, the more violent. It’s been a real damper on exploration.”
“They’re just earthquakes,” said Selene. I couldn’t read her expression at all, and she seemed bored, if anything. Still, it was odd for her to jump in on the conversation when she didn’t have to. “I don’t understand this superstitious fear of movements of the earth.”
“Not Earth,” Master Shaw pointed out. “Towers. And it’s not just the quakes. There’s also the incursions of Eramai’s residents into our tower. Monsters that operate on principles beyond our understanding.”
“Maybe one of them’s got Mia, then,” El said.
“Doubtful,” Artem jumped in. “We wouldn’t be here if that were the case.”
“Yes,” Master Shaw replied. “The Aspect of Insight does have some useful features.”
His fingers flashed, and a hologram, similar to the one that broadcasted my inventory’s contents, appeared. Two lights, one blue and one green, hovered in the air like mismatched eyes—Mia’s eyes, dancing in the center of the room.
When the spell winked off, I saw that although Selene’s face remained as impassive as ever, her hands gripped the skirt of her robes tightly.
“In any case,” said the master, “remember that the towerquake investigation is just a cover story. The true aim of the mission is the timely apprehension of the murderess.”
“Let’s talk payment.” El leaped from the shelf onto the large wooden table. “What’s in it for me, if I agree to come?”
“We’re talking about the greater good here,” Artem said in a low voice. “The safety of everyone in the city of Shinar is riding on this.”
“I’m all for safety,” yawned El, “but it seems there should be some kind of reward for all this trouble.”
“You’re right.” Master Shaw spread his hands out. “I can’t in good conscience ask this of you without giving something in return. And you should all know how dangerous it is. Rest assured that anything in my power, I’ll provide as a reward. And for your first taste…” A cascade of gold coins and stat-augmenting pills fell onto the desk, and El scrambled for them.
Although generous, the number of candies wasn’t overwhelmingly greater than the number we’d received merely from levels one to nine. I guessed it was true that exploration had been quite limited recently.
“And if we don’t go?” I asked.
Master Shaw sighed. “Then, we have to pull someone else into the fold, someone who probably hasn’t seen combat for all the years since they arrived at Shinar. We push back the start of the mission, and a known killer is on the loose for that much longer.” He gave me a tight smile. “So, you know, no big deal.”
----------------------------------------
There was no fanfare to send us off, no farewell parade. Master Shaw didn’t even show up. And yet, I couldn’t help but feel some kind of strange energy stirring in me. El sat on my shoulder, and though she didn’t say anything, I could feel her trembling with fear or excitement. It was like we were setting out on a quest.
We stood at the central plaza of Shinar’s Hilltop district, where the city fell away in every direction, shadows stretching away from us. I turned and waved up at the artificial sun, and the caster of the Lux spell waved back, then made a hand shadow puppet of a dog whose silhouette loomed over the plaza.
“Dammit, Paul,” muttered Artem. “And you, don’t encourage him.”
The commissary from Uomo Universale outfitted us with a whole army’s worth of necessities; food, waterskins, toiletries, sleeping bags, tents, ropes, stakes, etc. It would’ve been a ridiculous amount to carry if it weren’t for our dimensional inventory systems, which now spanned several pages. She was just finishing up when a youthful voice called out from somewhere above.
“Wait!” Scout landed with a cloud of dust next to us, panting. “You’re leaving already?”
“We’ll be back,” I assured him, aware of Artem’s eyes on me. “This is just a short trip, for research purposes.”
“It won’t be dangerous, will it?” His lip quivered a bit, and I was reminded again of his youth.
“Not at all,” I said. “Walk in the park.”
I remembered the people I’d met, the music I’d seen, and the kindness I’d been shown in my brief time in Shinar. Looking out on the well-lit city, I had the strong sense that, as Master Shaw had said, this was a place worth protecting.
We made our way to the building that held the next floor’s entrance, where the elevator thrummed gently, a low contrabass note. Fear and apprehension mingled with a hint of excitement as the guard read a list of our names aloud.
“Bandito, El.”
“That’s me.”
“Bykov, Artem.”
“Present.”
“Shaw, Xavier.”
“Here.”
“Wang, Mingyue.”
“...here.”
I felt a new kinship with the white-robed woman. Mingyue to Selene. Xia to Shaw. It wasn't so different.
“All set, then.” The guard looked up from his sheet. “Y’all been up before?”
“Yes,” said Artem, Selene, and El.
“No, you haven’t,” I said to El, “and neither have I.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
The guard turned to El and me. “Floor Eleven usually has a pretty cheerful beach theme. Don’t let your guard down though. Don’t get in the water unless you have a real good reason. Towerquakes make big waves, and here there be monsters, as they say. There are floor-specific tokens that can be redeemed at an arcade for equipment. Very handy. Also—”
“We don’t have time for the whole spiel,” Artem said curtly. “We’ll have to cover it as we go. Apologies.”
He strode into the elevator cabin, followed by Selene, neither of them looking back. I gave the guard an apologetic look, then El and I stepped forward as well. The doors closed, and with a wrenching sensation, we flew skyward, up toward the unknown.