Sherlock and Dave spoke in hushed tones, conversing in rapid English to the frustration of Remicra who did not understand a single word.
The group slowly ascended the stairwell to the next level due to the fact that Dave kept stumbling over steps, confused by the difference in his weight and age.
Svenn pushed the next door open. It was another wide, stone room with gothic ceilings. A large magic circle glittered on the floor. Dave let his eyes adjust to the large, dim interior noting a group of old corpses dressed in decaying armour sitting within the hexagram.
“Previous heroes?” He asked.
“Previous heroes,” Cedez nodded.
“Natalie really sucked at picking her friends, hrrm?” Remicra growled.
“Yeah,” Cedez nodded.
The dragoness sent her a glare, magisteel-wrapped glove creaking as she squeezed her large broadsword.
“Don’t chop me in half please,” Cedez said. “I…”
“You what?!” Remicra snarled.
“I didn’t make these tests,” Cedez cowered as the angry dragoness advanced towards her. “They were designed by Empress Nox and her committee of Archmagi that built the Tower Arcane! I only remember bits and pieces of them as Natalie!”
“I don’t give a shit about Natalie! You’re screwing with Dave’s mind!” Remicra snarled.
“I’m not, I swear,” Cedez said. “I don’t control what the Ward shows the heroes! Cross my heart and…”
“Two headbands!” Remicra growled, red and orange waves dancing across her scales. “Svenn and I could have put them on and…”
“And never come out,” Cedez shook her head. “The Crown Tower isn’t completely stupid, it’s not like Svenn opening these dumb doors using a bit of my Shadowmancy, Remy.”
“Hell, even Svenn and Dave could have gone under! Dave understands the Ward!” Remicra snarled.
“Not taking a chance. The Crown Tower could have realised that we’re fucking with it and killed someone. I'm not repeating what Natalie did!"
“Oh yeah, instead you chose to screw with his head for almost eight decades!” The dragoness snarled, waving an armored hand at Dave. “He can’t even walk straight, look at him!”
“He’s perfectly fine, just a bit confused,” Cedez shook her head. “The memory will fade away in time and then he’ll be back to normal and giving you all the attention you deserve, promise!”
“A bit confused? I’ll show you a bit of confusion when I knock your ass into tomorrow!”
Dave grabbed Remicra before she could smack the foxgirl.
“Stop it,” he said. “We are not fighting each other, like these morons!”
Dave waved his hand at the dusty corpses.
“You could have gone under with Svenn… with me even!” Remicra lamented. “It didn’t have to be Dave! Hell, me and Dave could have done it!”
“No. It had to be Dave and I,” Cedez said firmly. “He needed experience, needed to get stronger! He already trusts you, but he needed to learn to trust me.”
The dragoness glared at the foxgirl, violet-gold eyes filled with wrath.
“Dave’s Phantomancy is absolutely incredible, but he’s weaker than all of us, easily broken. You’re already strong and unbendable and so is Sven,” Cedez explained, “I’m practically invincible at night thanks to her Shadow… but Dave, he really needed this to grow up! Seventy seven years of experience as a Gravity mage will boost his ability here! It's experience!"
"It's... a lifetime," Dave murmured as he reactivated Phantomancy, peering at his own soul. "And I'm going to do something about it."
The blacksmith’s fists opened and closed as Remicra processed the words of the foxgirl trying really hard not to murder her then and there.
“We are facing an insurmountable challenge in the looming threat of the Dragon God Emperor,” Cedez insisted. “His armada will roll over Shandria. Only Dave’s skill can stand up to him.”
“WHY?” Remicra demanded.
“I don’t think you understand how incredibly unique Dave’s Phantomancy is, Remy,” Cedez said. “It doesn’t have debilitating drawbacks like a lot of other magics do. We cannot afford to lose to the Dragon God-Emperor. If that madman gets hold of just one of us, everyone on Arx is absolutely boned.”
“How?” Remicra asked.
“If we are captured by our biggest enemy, we will be forced into absolute obedience with slave collars or another type of binding magic,” Cedez said. “Phantomancy can be transferred from one person to another. If just one of us is taken and is forced to give the mad God-Emperor Phantomancy… he would be completely unstoppable. He would suck ALL souls in his way like a monstrous funnel, rip magic out of everyone… until there’s nobody, nothing left alive on Arx. That fat monster would likely keep sucking in souls until he turns into a planet-sized dungeon…”
“Into something like… Arxtruria?” Sherlock raised a metal eyebrow.
“R-right,” Cedez nodded with a shudder. “Something like Arx but, perhaps much, much worse.”
The dragoness gulped as she imagined the world-ending scenario Cedez was portraying. Dave stepped closer to her.
Remicra’s entire face flashed with violet-red shades. There were sparks of tears in her eyes.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“I don’t…” She muttered, trying to avoid looking at Dave.
“Yes?” He asked.
“I don’t know if you’re you anymore, if you’re still my Dave!” she said. “It's like your entire character was swapped away! Seventy seven Gods’ damned years?! That’s… such a long time!”
“I’m still me, Remy,” Dave insisted. “I just have… a lifetime of memories in me as a Gravity Magelord Argon Rim. I had a completely different body in that other Shandria, wasn’t exactly the same person.”
“Just some?! Do you… still remember me? Do you even like me anymore?” Remicra asked, her scales dancing with green and orange tones going through a wide palette of emotions.
“I love you, damn it!” Dave insisted.
“Why do I not believe you?” Remicra huffed.
His face twitched. "I got injured badly in the metal dungeon. Cedez helped nurse me back to health, sat by my side for a month, helping me drown out the pain with her Serenity field. I had no resistance whatsoever to her Charisma… became addicted to the painkiller field she learned to project," Dave muttered, focusing harder on the spark of memories swimming through his soul, his silver-blue threads isolating, binding it.
Remicra looked like she was ready to clobber Cedez.
“Remy, you’re my anchor here. You were my first genuine friend on Arx, someone who helped me out when I had absolutely nothing,” Dave said, stopping her from snapping once more.
“Except for a stone knife, a raggedy cloak and a pile of banged up metal bugs,” the blacksmith dragoness muttered, recalling how they've met. “Gods you smelled like death back then!”
“He did,” Cedez affirmed. “I wanted to give him a free latte, but then I could barely stop myself from gagging.”
“Hey!” Dave said. “It wasn’t my fault! I took a quick shower in a very cold waterfall, but I didn’t have soap on me. Sherlock, back me up!”
“Our journey from the God-Emperor’s killing fields was fraught with giant bats, corpses, metal bugs and other numerous challenges,” Sherlock nodded with a mechanical grin.
“Remy, you’ve made me this incredible ring that allows me to control Alaster’s Gravity and is also connected to the Arx Stat System!” Dave turned back to the blacksmith girl, waving his ringed hand. “How could I ever forget you?”
“Just give me a hug, idiot,” she grumbled.
Dave hugged his partner tightly.
Sherlock turned to Cedez. The foxgirl suddenly noticed that the golem had the two headbands clipped to his belt.
“Wait, did you take the headbands from the previous level of the tower?” She demanded. “You can’t just loot everything here, you know…”
“Dave and I are dismantling this place,” Sherlock said.
“You… are?” Cedez blinked, looking from the mechanical man to Dave.
“We are,” Dave affirmed.
“But,” Cedez muttered.
“No buts, starshine,” Dave looked at Cedez with the eyes of Archmage Argon Rim examining Terri Astra. Cedez wasn't Terri, had an aura of blinding starlight dancing around her, was weighted down by the power belonging to the Ward of Shandria woven from countless souls.
“Taking the golem from the copy of Empress Nox to give Sherlock a body takes care of the 1st floor," he said "Removing these artifacts gets rid of the 2nd floor. The Crown Tower Arcane was clearly designed by a mage in the throes of dungeon-madness at the end of her life. The statues and wall carvings here clearly told me so."
“Nox was pretty mad, I suppose,” Cedez admitted.
“You did mess with my mind in there,” Dave said.
“Just a little,” Cedez huffed. “Here and there. Are you saying that you didn’t enjoy your life with me?”
This earned the foxgirl another deadly glare from Remicra.
“I did,” Dave sighed, hugging the dragoness tightly before she could go on the offensive again. “But... it wasn’t exactly me. The Tower Arcane pull felt very different from the experience when I shook your hand. I didn’t have Phantomancy at all as Magelord Argon Rim, and I was injected into a completely different person.”
“It’s just another kind of isekai,” Cedez shrugged. “From what I can recall the Tower takes only a small portion of your soul instead of sending the entire thing through the ward. It's a lot less dangerous that way and can be done more often."
“Exactly,” Dave nodded. “I examined myself with Phantomancy as we walked here and talked. The headband didn’t actually pull my soul inside the Ward, instead it carved out, stole a small, magically unskilled piece of my soul and created a completely different person… similar to me, but not exactly me. If it was me, I wouldn’t have kissed you, nor necessarily succumbed so quickly to your affection. I would have tried to find the limits of the simulation instead of staying in Shandria and having a family with Terri. The two people - Terri Astra and Argon Rim weren’t you and I in there. They were... just tiny fragments of us, like two snowflakes having a bit of a dance as they fell from the sky.”
Cedez stared at him.
"And I just caught mine," Dave said, closing his fist. "I'm not Archmage Argon Rim. I don't want to lament the family and friends he lost, not going to be carrying seventy seven years of love and pain. I'm not going to be manipulated by the Ward or by you."
Dave reached his hand out to touch Sherlock's chest and held it there for a minute as everyone stared at him in confusion. In another moment he lowered his hand and smiled at Remicra.
"What?" She asked.
"It's gone," Dave smirked, his movements no longer sluggish.
"What's gone?" Remicra blinked.
"The bit of my soul that the Ward modified with seventy seven years of additional memory," Dave said. "The life of Archmage Argon Rim. I just gave them to Sherlock. He believes that he can process the memory, can sort it out better without being mentally influenced by it. Once he's done we might give them to Alaster to enhance the Gravity ring's function."
"WHAT?!" Cedez choked. "You... you can't just..."
"None of it was real," Dave said. "It was a shard of my soul, modified by the Crown Tower."
“Fine, fine, none of it was real, it wasn’t exactly us, are you freaking happy?” Cedez crossed your arms. "It's still experience and knowledge..."
"That you can manage without even slowing down," Dave said looking at Cedez. "Because you're her Divine Shadow, an intelligence that persisted within these walls for two centuries passing from person to person, overwriting people. I'm not going to be manipulated by you, guided into loving you in seven hours of local time. I'm going to break your chains, going to free Cedez from you."
"I..." Cedez huffed, crossing her arms. "You know what. Fine! I tried to do what's best for you, but I digress. Trample our lifetime of happiness into the dirt, give it to Sherlock. Whatever. I'm going to win your heart eventually, hero."
Remicra relaxed ever so slightly. She felt marginally less betrayed by Dave now.
“What were the conditions of these artefacts?” Sherlock asked, pointing at the headbands on his belt.
“If the value of [Love for the Sovereign] is greater than [all other desires] by the end of the hero's lifetime, the headband doesn't deliver an electrical current to fry the hero's brain,” Cedez answered with a sigh.
Remicra squinted at Cedez.
“What? I knew that Dave liked me!” The foxgirl huffed. “He wouldn’t have gotten brain-zapped! I just had to gradually push him along… until everything was perfect!”
“Is the next test similar?” Dave asked. "If it's another lifetime, I'm not going to have us be mentally affected by it. I'll rip out the memories of the changed soul shards and give them to Sherlock."
“It is similar... but not a lifetime,” Cedez sighed. “The next test will take a small fraction from each of your souls and judge them along the same parameters, but in a... far shorter scenario. Twenty four hours."
Cedez looked at her companions. “If I have to save your life during the test, I will push you in the right direction with Charisma. I cannot afford to lose any of you to this Tower. No, I don’t want to lose any of you!” She insisted.
"I get that," Dave nodded. "Level 2 was a game at the end of which the hero either dies or falls in love with the Sovereign. I picked the third option, changed the narrative. I'm strong now. Strong enough to stand up to the living Shadow that stretches over this city and its people."
"Fine," Cedez exhaled.
“You haven't beaten me yet, fox,” the dragoness smirked at Cedez. She hugged Dave fiercely and nuzzled into his neck.
"Game's not over yet," Cedez crossed her arms.