Chapter 152 – Floor 14: Part 2

The ship lurched as it crashed into a giant wave. The sky was dark, and thick clouds stretched to the horizon and obscured the sun. Rain, whipped to extreme speed by the forceful winds, pelted the deck and the crew.

Even the experienced sailors found it difficult to keep their feet and had to run lengths of rope across the deck to grab along with loops around their waists in the likely event someone was washed overboard.

Mathew gripped a rope next to the captain and stared at the shadowy shape of the island in the distance. The Captain, a grizzled man who was darkly tanned and steady on his feet despite the ship’s best attempt at throwing him to the deck, leaned toward Mathew and yelled to be heard over the wind and rain.

“This is as close as we can get! We can’t stay here much longer; we’ll be back in a day to pick you up!” He said, his words almost entirely carried away by the wind. Mathew nodded, indicating his understanding rather than trying to speak.

Enalious and Daphne had been forced below deck by the crew, their presence a liability during a storm. They had wanted to accompany him to the island, but, with the storm, Mathew doubted the Wyvern could make it with the extra weight.

Mathew slowly made his way to the bow of the ship, his hands never leaving the ropes the crew had strung across the deck. Once he was in a clear space, he undid the knots of the rope around his waist and tossed it onto the deck.

Pulling out the Wyvern statue, Mathew forced his mana into the stone figure. It quickly expanded, coming to life and gaining the appearance of a living, breathing creature. It immediately huddled against the deck in the discomfort of the wind and freezing cold rain.

Not hesitating, Mathew pumped more mana into his ‘Enlarge’ Blessing, allowing the Wyvern to expand to triple its previous size. He felt his mana reserves plummet, and he estimated that he could only maintain them for a few minutes.

More than enough to fly to the island.

The Wyvern was equipped with a saddle, and Mathew leapt onto its back and secured himself. With a mental command, he forced the creature to run forward and jump off the side of the ship. Spreading its wings, the wind caught the leathery skin, and Mathew was pushed into his saddle as it shot into the sky.

The journey across the sea was rough. The wyvern dipped and turned as the winds shook it in each direction. It was forced downwards at one point, and Mathew felt weightless. The Wyvern righted itself just above the waves below and glided forward as the ship disappeared into the storm far behind them.

Mathew wiped the water from his face and eyes with his hands and squinted at the approaching island. A mountain dominated the landscape, while the shoreline was only a thin stretch of beach before it began to rise in rock and dirt.

He couldn’t see any life at all on the island, and as he got closer, he saw that the ground was covered in ash. The mountain spewed out smoke, and a faint glow of light could be seen on the summit. The entire island was burnt and dead.

However, there were signs of civilization. Ruined houses and the remains of roadways. There had been people here once, quite a few of them if the number of structures remaining was an indication. But a structure near the top of the mountain caught Mathew’s eye.

It was the remains of a half-finished tower. The surrounding land blocked it from his view, and only after the Wyvern had looped around the island did he see it. Made of black stone, it appeared to have been abandoned mid-construction.

But it was the feeling the tower gave him that made Mathew take note of it. He could sense Aether within, a pulsating power that he had only felt when he was travelling through the Floors of the Tower of Avarice.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Could this ruined tower be another version of the Tower of Avarice, left abandoned and destroyed for some reason?

Mathew would now gain answers to that question by flying in the sky around the island. The storm had abated now that he was above the land, and the clouds above swirled around the mountaintop as if they were the source of the violent wind and rain.

In the calmness of the center of the storm, the Wyvern landed on the beach, and Mathew shrunk it back to its statue size and placed it back in his inventory. The island was eerily silent; only the lapping of the waves on the beach could be heard.

There were no trees or plants, just a layer of ash that came up to his ankles and black stone and sand beneath. The air had the scent of Aether, the spicy smell that stung the nostrils and overpowered everything else.

Mathew could feel the power here; the Aether brushed against his skin and soaked into the ground. There was a blue haze, almost invisible until becoming denser at a distance, like fog. Mathew could feel a thrumming in the ground, a vibration that disturbed the ash layer slightly.

Although he wasn’t an expert, he had learned some things during his decades in the Tower. Powerful magic had been conducted here and was continuing to affect the island.

He trekked across the ‘dead island,’ passing through the ruins of a civilization wiped out by an unknown calamity. As Mathew came closer to the destroyed Tower, the amount of Aether around him grew stronger.

By the time he reached the ruins, the Aether in the air made it difficult to breathe. If a normal person had been exposed to this amount, they would no doubt suffocate or have an extreme reaction.

Mathew cycled the mana inside his body to filter the Aether and absorb it. If he were to check his status, he would no doubt see the Aether count rising rapidly. Still, it made him uncomfortable that this amount of Aether was polluting the ground and air of this island.

And he still had no indication of what was causing it. It wasn’t until he reached the Tower that he had hints of what happened. Aether Crystals protruded from the ground, reminding Mathew of the Floor with the World Tree.

He cracked them off and placed them in his inventory for later while admiring the Tower’s former glory. Amber decorated the elegant archways and toppled spires. They lay strewn across the ground, and even the layer of ash couldn’t dim their brilliance.

In the centre of the ruins, he found an entryway that led beneath the surface. Stairs had been carved from the rock, and Mathew could feel that the source of the Aether was below. There wasn’t any danger; the ‘Buzz’ hadn’t activated once since he had arrived, nor did he find anything alive to harm him.

Magic-infused Amber had been embedded into the smooth stone walls, lighting the way down. As he descended, the silence grew more oppressive as the weight of the ceiling above him grew. The ash was absent here, but he found the occasional human bones, the only remnants that people had once been here.

Aether wafted up from below, and Mathew had to work harder to overcome its effects.

Finally, after what felt like an hour of walking, Mathew came to a large, open chamber. An enormous piece of magical amber hung from the ceiling, lighting the chamber like a noon-day sun. The room was circular, with a flat stone floor and walls covered in glowing runes and symbols that continued down onto the ground and toward the middle.

More human remains littered the area, but time had left nothing but bones and scraps of clothing. Mathew’s attention was immediately drawn to the center of the room.

A man sat in a circle of glowing runes. A haze of blue aether surrounded him, but oddly, there was a space between his body and the Aether, as if an invisible wall was blocking it.

He was young, wearing Knightly armour similar to what Mathew had seen in Anglia. His hair was long and blond, and the tabard that covered his armour bore a gold griffin on the front. As soon as Mathew entered the area, the man leapt to his feet with a grin and shouted.

“Finally! The gods only know how long I’ve been waiting for someone to liberate me from this prison. I felt like Prometheus, chained to a rock for all eternity. Well!? Don’t just stand there; get me the hell out of here!” The man yelled at Mathew.

Mathew ignored what he was saying and studied the stranger carefully. He had an aura of mana about him, restrained behind some kind of barrier that was preventing him from leaving. There was something else as well, a vague connection between the man and some distance point.

A spiritual link that Mathew had seen before, several times, in fact. There was only a single reason why such a bond would exist.

“You’re an Apostle.” Mathew said, a tinge of disgust in his tone.

Apostles were powerful; there was no doubt about that. They received special attention from their Deity, allowing them to have Blessings and Disciplines beyond the norm. But it meant becoming a servant of a single god without the ability to say ‘no’ or refuse a task.

“Ahh, caught that did you? I thought you may have been a bit slow on the uptake; what with you just standing there looking at me like a deer in headlights. Yeah, I’m an Apostle of Righteous Subjugation. Name’s Arthur, perhaps you heard of me? You probably did if you spent time in Anglia.”

Arthur, the founding king of Anglia, gave Mathew a wink and chuckled.