Chapter 27 – Floor 3: Part 1

Standing wedged between two of his fellow ‘Players’ in the Tower of Avarice, a man wearing chainmail armour and holding a sword and shield, and a woman wearing a sweater and jeans who was holding a deck of cards gripped tightly in her hand, Mathew had his first close look at a Goblin.

The creatures stood around three or four feet tall, ranging in colour from greyish-green to orangish-pink. They screamed and yelled in a language Mathew didn’t understand and fought with a ferocity that he could only compare to savage beasts with no regard for their own well-being.

They hurled themselves at the defending humans, ignoring wounds that would kill a person in order to take down their enemies with them. They used a variety of weapons, including bows and magic, and Mathew estimated that the creatures were as strong as the Players they were fighting.

He was being pushed and shoved to the front. The Goblins' madness was shared by the ‘Players’ who were incensed by the Aether they were collecting from the monsters. From the snatches of conversation and the shouts of his fellow humans, Mathew gathered that the Goblins were giving large sums of Aether when they fell.

He could understand the appetite for Aether, the need to grow stronger and better with every level and new Blessing. Still, he didn’t want to throw his life away in pursuit of it.

The ground around them was covered in human and Goblin bodies, and reinforcements were streaming in from both sides. It seemed there was a continuous flow of new arrivals from the lower floors to this one, all joining the battle.

“Christ, Emily! Is she here?!” Mathew hissed to himself, looking around for a moment for a familiar face. But there was too much chaos, too many people fighting, shouting and dying all around him to find a single person.

Averatha was a meat grinder, and humans and goblins were fed into it.

A final shove from behind sent Mathew sprawling onto the ground. The paving stones were wet with water and blood, soaking into his clothes and making him shiver with the cold. As he pushed himself upright, bare greyish-green feet stepped into his view.

The Goblin towered over him, holding a long knife that was practically a sword to its small frame. Covered in blood, it looked sinister and terrifying in the light of the fires around them. Not hesitating, it leapt toward him, slashing downwards with its weapon.

Mathew had never been in a fight before, not a proper one anyway. He had burned undead from the safety of the walls or behind a cluster of his companions blocking them from approaching, but he had never been in a close-quarter brawl with an opponent.

The Goblin, although short and wiry, was all muscle and sinew. Its strength belied its size, and it could stand toe to toe with its larger opponents.

Time seemed to slow to him, and the descending blade was in stark detail to his eyes. It caught the light on its edge, revealing how terribly sharp it was. On instinct, Mathew threw up his arm to stop the knife.

It easily slashed through the material of his jacket and the long-sleeved shirt beneath. When it touched his flesh, Mathew felt the Coward’s Brand on his chest burn with mana. The knife sliced through the skin, but rather than easily part tissue to reach the bone, Mathew’s skin slowed the blade like it was cutting leather.

Mathew had thought the knife would go so far as to sever his arm from the force the Goblin exerted. Instead, it stopped once it struck bone. Surprised by the resistance, the Goblin was a second slow to react.

Time sped up once more, and as blood began to well from the wound in his arm, Mathew threw his right hand forward, summoning his mana.

A bonfire erupted in front of him, reaching nearly ten feet in height with red-hot intensity. The Goblin shrieked as it let go of the knife and stumbled backwards, flailing its limbs. Mathew watched its skin char and blackened before it fell to the ground and scrambled away.

Snatching the knife before it could fall, Mathew regained his feet and let the fire block him from more attackers.

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With the bloody knife in hand, Mathew let the others fighting around him to move ahead of him. With another snap of his fingers, the fire he had summoned died.

“Damn it.” Mathew muttered. Now that he was safe for a moment, he ripped off a piece of his shirt. Wrapping the white cloth around his arm, it died red in seconds but stopped the bleeding.

He had to thank the god who had given him the ‘Coward’ Discipline. It had just saved his life. He didn’t think he could have survived that by just relying on his ‘Body’ stat.

With his arm bandaged, Mathew clutched the bloody knife that had almost killed him and moved forward once more.

It was time to earn his keep. He would need every bit of Aether to survive this floor if an entire army of Goblins were waiting for him.

Page Break

Mathew sat on a chunk of rubble from a nearby collapsed building. Exhausted and hurting, his arm was in agony from where it had been cut, and his mana had utterly run dry. He doubted he could create a spark, let alone a fire.

The Goblins had retreated, leaving hundreds, if not thousands, of their dead behind. An equal amount of humans had died, their corpses a mixture of Players and locals.

It had been a massacre for both sides, and Mathew didn’t know how long either side could keep it up.

He didn’t know how many Goblins there were outside the gates. He hadn’t had the energy or desire to look beyond the wall or the shattered gates that were now blocked by debris the survivors had piled to keep the enemy out, but he knew there was still a sizable number.

More people were joining the fight, new players from the lower floors being tossed into the melee all night long until things stopped with the sun’s rise. Apparently, Goblins disliked the sun; they could still fight it in, unlike the undead, but it seemed they preferred night assaults.

Soon, Mathew would need to go to the Temple for healing. He didn’t know if anyone had a blessing that could do it, but the shop had potions that could seal wounds and heal injuries. They were expensive if what he had heard some of the other defenders say was correct, but he had earned quite a bit of Aether last night.

The Goblins didn’t die easily, but they were worth their weight in Aether.

Soon, he would heal and rest before searching the dead and the survivors for any sign of Emily. He couldn’t imagine her here, not in this hellscape. The undead had been evil enough, but there was still a separation from reality.

This battlefield was too real. The sounds, the smells of blood and death, there was no escaping it. It was right in your face all night long.

Damn it, he had just arrived and had already seen more death than the months spent on the other floors.

The worst part, Mathew thought, was that it was starting to not bother him as much. He didn’t know what to think about that anymore. A person should feel something when people were dying around him or when he was killing, but he just felt….numb.

Mathew leaned against the wall on his piece of rubble and let the sun warm him. The agony of his arm was the only thing keeping him awake; if it were absent, he could have fallen asleep instantly.

“Mathew, is that you?” A voice called out. Mathew’s eyes snapped open, focusing on the speaker.

“Greg? Good god, you’re still alive?” Mathew asked, half in disbelief.

His friend from the first floor looked as tired as Mathew felt. His camouflage hunting gear was replaced with leather armour and a giant crossbow on his back. He even had a large knife belted to his hip, giving Mathew the impression of a competent adventurer.

“Barely. I managed to scrape through the last few nights. I’ve taken to hiding on rooftops and picking off stragglers. I thought I saw someone lighting fires last night. I didn’t know it was you.” Greg said, flashing him a grin as he sat down beside him.

It had only been a month since they had seen each other last, but it felt like years.

“Where’s ‘what’s her name’? The one with the dog?” Mathew asked. The pair had entered the elevator together. He didn’t know if that meant you stuck together through the floors, but it was a possibility.

“Dead. Didn’t make it through the first night.” Greg from Vermont replied, and Mathew felt a twinge of emotion creep its way through the numbness.

“Oh.” Mathew replied, and that was all that there was to say. He didn’t know her well, but they had been on the same floor together. That counted for something. The silence lasted for a while after.

“Can I ask you a question?” Greg asked, his voice quiet.

“Shoot.”

“Do you regret coming in here? I can’t think of anything else.”

“Every minute. But I’ve got to find someone. Maybe you seen her? Her name’s Emily. She’s about this tall.” Mathew raised his hand to where he remembered her height had been. “Blond, blue eyes. She’s with her mother.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve seen a lot of people, but not many of them stick, you know? I can help you look if you want.” Greg replied, and Mathew let out a sigh as he leaned back against the wall.

“I don’t know if I would want to find her. Not here, in all this. Maybe there are different routes through the Tower? Maybe we don’t all end up in the same place. What was your second floor like?” Mathew asked, curious as to what he experienced.

“We had to escort a family from one city to the next. There's not much to it, really. Fought off a couple of groups of bandits, not really a challenge after August City.” Greg replied, and Mathew was relieved.

So they all didn’t experience the same thing each time. Maybe there were only a few communal floors, and there were probably limits on how many people could enter those as well. Maybe Emily wasn’t here and would never experience this.

“Let’s go get that arm looked at.” Greg said, and Mathew wearily nodded.

Time to get back to work.