“A valid target, just not one in range. So you deliberately miss. But how-” Othai wasn’t getting it. Mrs. Hungry was looking with deep interest at her hooks, but she wasn’t making a move either.

“Because there is a limit to how fast you can move normally, and a limit to how often a ranged unit can shoot, but the main limit on how fast you can swing your weapons seems to be largely in your head. So if you imagine that stake over there is a monster, and you try and stab it from here, you will miss, obviously. And as part of stabbing, you have to take a step forward in a lunge. And you just… keep lunging. Faster and faster. Until you hit like a pointy cannonball.” I tried to explain.

Versai was lousy at explaining. She was trying. I could see she really was trying. It’s just that she didn’t have the language to explain something she learned intuitively.

“So you hit harder too?”

Versai shook her head. “No, same strength, just faster.”

Othai shook her head. “That doesn’t make a single bit of sense.”

Versai and I nodded. “It does not, no.”

“Because if I swing my halberd with the same amount of force, but one time I’m swinging it really fast-”

“It’s not the same amount of force in practice, but I take your point.” I nodded. “Yeah, it’s completely irrational. And yet.”

“But you haven’t found something similar for spellcasters?” Carousel asked.

“No, though the spell synthesis thing is interesting. Always unwise.”

“How so? I can imagine many powerful spell combinations. We certainly used them in the Mage Corps.” Her voice had a warm timber to it. I imagine it’s what people meant by calling a voice ‘throaty.’ It was like Versai’s pretty person halo- I was adjusting.

“Oh, it’s potentially great for us, I meant for the…” Don’t say developers, don’t say developers, “Gods… of this world?”

“Oh, that makes sense.” Carousel nodded.

“It does?”

“No, but I can see you really want to move on.”

God damn you.

I coughed and pretended Carousel hadn’t said anything.

“Spell combination means self designed spells. Self designed spells mean pushing a mechanic, that is, a system of the world, to its logical extreme.”

“For example?” Carousel arched an eyebrow at me.

“I don’t know yet. But remember at Gradden March when you cast Final Revel and the Spell Tower shot through it and it turned into this huge cloud of hallucinatory magic that just ate up everything in it?”

“Not… really. My memories of that battle are a bit vague.” She suddenly looked uncomfortable. I wanted to smack my forehead. That was Madam’s last hurrah. Carousel is what she turned into afterward.

“Well, it happened. Or the Toads- Ice plus acid equals exploding shrapnel? I didn’t see that one coming. It suggests to me that there may be a wide range of spell combinations we can explore.” Carousel half nodded and shrugged. “I suppose, but I don’t know how we can make use of that now.”

“Start by testing and eliminating things. For example, can you use Glass Arrow on a puddle of acid?”

There were a ton of them. The Blue Toads were getting killed a lot faster than they could take advantage of the available acid.

“I… can?” She jerked back a little. “I can target the puddles, at least.”

“Fire glass arrow at a puddle. One far away, please.”

She did, aiming with her tall magic staff. A transparent bolt of magic raced out and hit the acid. Then nothing.

“Don’t worry, the ice took a few seconds to-”

There was a sound like tearing metal and a bright flash of light. The puddle exploded, though it didn’t send shrapnel flying.

“It occurs to me that acid is pretty reactive, generally speaking. Magical acid seems to be very reactive to other magic. Maybe something there.” I was half talking to myself, but Carousel was nodding along anyhow.

“I think I can see what you are getting at. That’s not a controlled spell reaction, by any stretch of the imagination. But it does provide opportunities.”

“Right. We just need to get more pieces to work with. More magical elements to test interactions with. Find loops we can exploit.”

Mrs. Hungry was making little hooking motions across the battlement and hopping forward. Not really sure what’s going on there.

“Mrs. Hungry?”

“I can target the puddles, my Lord.”

“Pardon?”

“I can target the puddles, my Lord.” She helpfully repeated. I scratched my head, but it soon clicked. If Carousel could target it, then the game considered the acid a ‘valid target.’ Which was… interesting.

“Hey, Versai? You ever start “attacking” one monster but shift to another before you reach your target?”

“Yes.” She shrugged, not seeing the big picture.

“Mobility. What an absolute gift.” I breathed out. “We just need to figure out how to set our own ‘valid targets.’”

Everybody looked at me after that. “Think about it- let’s say you want to get on the monster’s flank. You attack at a puddle to their right, zip over, and then turn ninety degrees and start flaying monsters. Now, we can take advantage of monsters being in the field already, but that doesn’t make sense to me. Not a lot of use having you zip around through artillery fire and risking getting surrounded. There also isn’t a good way for you to retreat back to the Tower. We’d have to cripple a monster and leave them pinned somewhere convenient.”

“Unless we have a way to set our own ‘valid targets,’ wherever we want them.” Versai smiled.

“Do monsters need to have a ‘valid target’ when they attack?” Carousel tapped her staff against the stone floor.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“I don’t know. They always seem to be aiming for me generally, or one of you if they are nearby.”

“Which we exploit.” Othai rejoined the conversation.

“Yep. We can’t do it so much now, but it was really easy to exploit in the first few waves. Once they started coming from every direction, things got a lot more complicated.” I clapped my hands. “Alright! Now that we know you can target acid, we can practice the speed hack. I’m not ordering you to do it, but wouldn’t it be a nice way to pass some not-passing time?”

I wandered around the Tower, wondering if something new had popped up. Somewhere there was some clue as to what was going on with those coins. Nothing in my quarters. No new shops appeared. No new floors spontaneously emerged. No basement. No strange packages or messages in the Throne Room.

The loot from the Twelfth Wave was better than it had any right to be- thirty resonance crystals, a thousand runed bones and a half dozen common resource packs. That feels like a lot. Like… way too much for what we actually dealt with. Either the devs were getting sloppier with their rewards, or they had some exciting new way to make me spend these things.

The Perfect Clear bonus was pretty nice too- a 3% boost to ranged units range and firing rate. It was starting to snowball. I could see it. The artillery was noticeably faster now, and the Mikas had become absolute menaces. Nobody was lighting quick just yet, but it was building. I wonder how strong we will be in twelve more levels.

Nothing I wanted to immediately purchase in the Gnome Market. Nothing that popped out in the relationship store. Nothing new in my Sky Realm, at least that I could see from the monitor. Nothing in the Hall of Records.

I doubled back to the Map Room. I had passed through before, on my way to my quarters. This time I stared at the map. My tower was about ninety five percent at one end of the map. The bottom end, east end, whatever. It looked like mostly forest and rivers with a few big lakes, rising through to hills then towering mountains.

We had only explored a small bit of the map, mostly the area close around the Tower. As we explored, the land unblurred and came into focus. Resource sites emerged, and to my quiet shock, roads were marked out. We were making visible progress. Small progress, based on the scale of everything. But progress.

The map table had obscure pictures and symbols inlaid in the wood around the edge of the table. I knew that if I pressed them in the correct combinations things would happen, but since they were all things about manipulating the map, I didn’t care. The fact that they were also completely unintuitive didn’t help. But now, having eliminated all saner options, I had a hunch.

First I checked under the table for any obvious possibilities. Nothing. Then I started checking the symbols. There was a small pile of coins which looked initially promising, but did nothing when I pressed it. Pressing the cubes of what looked like stone did highlight my quarry, so that was something. Not much, but something. I kept looking.

The answer was suitably cryptic. There was a single coin button on all four sides of the table. When I pressed two of them in sequence, there was a thunk sound and a panel slid open on the side of the table.

There were two shallow spots sitting empty, and another two blocked off by shimmering red stones with a one-eyed crow’s head on them. The voids happened to be the exact dimensions of the coins I picked up.

I’m sorry, but this was supposed to be obvious and intuitive? I would naturally spot this even if I wasn’t looking for it? How? On what planet did that make sense? This wasn’t even Moon Logic. This was the same commitment to ergonomic design I would expect from Myst or The Room games. The game gave me a dagger and loyal minions, but not what I really needed- a horse whip and access to the Dev Team.

I don’t know what a horse whip is. Seems pretty messed up to whip a horse, and why would you need a specialized whip for that? I bet Indy’s whip would whip the hell out of whatever you whipped with it.

I raged for a couple of minutes, then slapped the coins in place. There were more mechanical chunks and clunks coming from inside the map table. A flash of gold raced across the map, then red lightning threads twisted through the map-haze. A knot of them gathered on one of the lower mountains, burning away the fog. A house, no, a manor appeared. Some big sprawling Victorian thing with manicured grounds.

I looked at the Tower on one end of the map, and the manor on the other. Just how was I supposed to get there?

There was a polite knock on the door. The door was sticking out of a sand dune, like the entrance to a tomb in the Valley of Kings. It hadn’t been there a second ago. The knock came again. It had the perfect patient rhythm of something not sentient enough to mind doing this forever.

“Who is it?”

No answer. Probably scammers of some variety. Maybe it was a break in. I put one hand on my dagger and answered the door anyway.

There was a butler, impeccably dressed, bowing and inviting me in. I don’t know why he had a crow’s head and a human body. I don’t know why he was missing an eye. I walked in.

“Welcome, dear Tower Master, to Alshom Hall. I’m the butler, Crowe.”

“You damn well aren’t!”

“Pardon?” He blinked his one good eye at me.

“A crow-headed butler named Crowe? Seriously? Are you seriously telling me your mom named you Crowe?”

“I wouldn’t know, never having met her.” There was a service ‘smile’ in the voice. “Do any of us truly know our creators? But my name is, indeed, Crowe.”

I’m going to riot.

“Incidentally, all acts of violence are impossible in the Hall, dear Tower Master. I only mention it because of the way you are clutching that knife.”

“Don’t mind that.”

“I surely do not mind. I just thought you might like to know before something embarrassing happened.”

I was tempted to say something snippy, but refrained. Butlers tend to win these little confrontations in manga. Instead, I breezily blew past his insolence and asked him to introduce the Hall to me.

“Alshom Hall is a unique place, and not simply explained. I would suggest that you carefully explore, dear Tower Master. The Hall has many secrets, and still more opportunities. You have only acquired two medallions, which gives you access to the Ground Floor and some of our events. As you discover more medallions and raise your membership level inside the Hall, more will be made available to you.”

The butler bowed again, encouraging me inward. “Many secrets here. Many things one might think our creators would want hidden forever. There is power, too. For those who can seize it.”

I spun to face him, but naturally he vanished after dropping a cryptic line. Bird-faced swine that he was.

The hall had black and white tiles on the floor, big rugs- oriental? Do we still call them oriental rugs? Old fashioned, faded reds and blues, stretching out wider than my first apartment. Lights coming out of the walls that I think was meant to look like gas jets, but the ‘flame’ held perfectly still. Sofas, little coffee tables, weapons on the wall next to trophies of horrible looking creatures.

Hmm. I got at least one of these from an animal den, and two more from mini-bosses. Potential new use unlocked? Further investigation required.

There was noise deeper in. I followed it. Happy laughter, clacking sounds, splashing. As I moved down the absurdly long hall, I came to a glass wall and a reception desk. The woman sitting behind the desk was quietly stylish in a fitted, but not vulgar, gray dress and small pearls.

She also, regrettably, had a crow head and only one eye.

“Dropping off or picking up?” she asked. She had a lovely voice. Direct, but polite.

“I’m new, sorry. I don’t know what this is?”

“Oh, I do apologize. This is the Rest Center and Recruitment Desk. I’m Raven-” I couldn’t help slapping my forehead loud enough to have the sound bounce off the walls. “Sorry, are you alright, Sir?”

“Fine, thank you, just fine. Please, continue. Raven.”

“Yes sir. I’m the receptionist- is there a problem with your forehead sir? I’m not sure what I could do to help, but if there is something you need…?”

“No, no. I’m really fine. There is a Butler named Crowe and a Receptionist named Raven. That’s fine. Easy to remember. All quite straightforward. Incidentally, you wouldn’t have a horsewhip, would you?”

“Well, yes, but strictly in a recreational capacity. It’s not for sale or let.”

“You beat horses?”

“No sir, that’s disgusting!”

I nodded. “I’m going for a lobotomy after this, so no need to elaborate. Rest Center?”

“Yes, for Awakened Souls. You can send any you don’t immediately require here for rest and relaxation. The minimum stay is one day, but if they are recruited, that day’s fee is waved.”

“Recruited? You did mention you were the Recruitment Desk. Raven the Recruiter.” Come, sweet oblivion. Come, Icepick of mercy. Make it all go away.

“Oh, I just process the paperwork sir, I don’t recruit. You see, sometimes a Tower Master will need a particular Awakened Soul for a battle. Often one with a high level, special equipment, that sort of thing. They can stop by here, and see if there is anyone in the Rest Center that fits the requirement.”

“And if that Awakened is hurt, dies, or somehow loses their equipment?”

She shook her bird head, beak whipping through the air. “Impossible, Sir. Even if they die, they reawaken here, quite unharmed. All goods intact.”

“Any memory loss?” There was a certain edge to my voice.

“Naturally not.” She sounded like she was smiling politely, but it didn’t show on her beak. Which is probably for the best. I looked past her, through the glass wall. There was a whole rec center there. I could see a swimming pool, lounge chairs, ping-pong tables, signs pointing to a library, more signs pointing towards a spa and a gym and a rock climbing wall and an equestrian ring and… the signs kept going and going and going, entire resorts worth of activities. It was… paradise, I think. It was every good thing an Awakened could hope for, all at once.

“Do they remember visiting the Rest Center when they come back to the Tower?”

“I believe so. The Six Stars certainly do, and they all receive considerable bonuses which last for the number of days they remain here and are not recruited.”

“And if they were recruited?” I asked.

“You receive a sum of Runed Bones, depending on the level, demand and equipment of the Awakened. For your convenience, we deduct the cost of the stay from that sum first, before charging you.”

“Is this one of those things that are impacted by my membership level?”

“Naturally!”

I watched an awakened I didn’t recognize dive into the pool and come up laughing. Did my Awakened ever laugh? If they did, they didn’t do it often.

It was a place to park your unused summons. There were so many, picking the “best” one would be a pain, and would probably change a lot. So you would be left with a six star (or whatever) that you spent a fortune pulling for and leveling up, not to mention getting them all kitted out, but now just didn’t work with your lineup.

I wasn’t there yet, but I could easily imagine sending Mrs. Hungry here. Her heal/buffs were stupid powerful and given my comparatively low pool of Awakened, she was still necessary. But let’s say I was right about that double Relic Site, and I could summon a lot of Genuda troops cheaply. If I had, say, fifty or a hundred Mikas, backed up by roughly as many Doras, with ample artillery, sniper, and buffing support…

I mean, I’d still need to get more Corporal Mika uniforms, and maybe Sargent and all that. They would cost a blinding fortune to upgrade, and it wouldn’t shock me to learn that they weren’t “mine,” they were just mercenaries I had to pay for every turn. But still. One hundred Mikas. Add in one or two more snipers, maybe another Radz, and I’d start doing everything I could to pull for workers. I could completely focus on economy, and let my beret-wearing waifus murder every monster that so much as glanced at us.

One Star units. But with enough of them, what couldn’t I kill?

For everyone else… would it be so bad to live here? Where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts?