by Deck Davis
“He’s made a choice, Etta. He’s decided to put us all in danger. I have a choice of my own to make, and it doesn’t involve dying after getting through one room.”
Rolley reached his friend. Barnard seemed frozen in place now, his face shot with fear. Tripp couldn’t believe the effect it was having on him. Then again, one Soulboxe's features was that it was so realistic that it provoked very real feelings.
Rolley tried to pull Barnard away from the alcove but he couldn’t even grip his robe properly.
And then the monks reached him.
Etta shot forward. She was too big to run without breaking cover. Arrows glided toward her, some hitting her leather armor, others whizzing overhead.
As one of the monks seized Barnard, Etta grabbed Rolley and dragged him away.
Tripp scanned the ruins for the archers. It was only after a few seconds watch that he saw them. Two figures hunched at the far end, crouching beside a nearly collapsed outhouse.
Player tags floated over their heads, though Tripp was too far away to read them.
“Tripp, help me with him!”
Tripp turned to see Etta trying to drag Rolley away from the oncoming monks. The rogue struggled and shouted Barnard’s name. Tripp felt a flicker of guilt, but what else could he have done? Risked himself to save the mage who hadn’t helped them so far?
He helped Etta drag Rolley to the wall again. The monks advanced one slow step at a time.
“We need to get forward a little. See the corner over there? Two players. Archers.”
Etta quickly equipped her looted bracers, fastening them over her shoulders. Although leather they were a much lighter hue than her chest piece, giving her a mismatched look.
“These beauties deflect arrows. I’ll lead the charge, and if you stay behind me you’ll be fine,” she said.
“Barny!” said Rolley.
“You’ll see him when you leave the tower, which will be soon if we don’t move now. Come on.”
Etta charged first, leaving Tripp and Rolley to follow. They headed over the ruins as arrows flew their way. They looked like they were going to hit them, but they swerved away as Etta’s bracers repelled them.
“What the hell?” cried a voice from the shadows.
Closer, Tripp saw that their two archer friends were a couple of level 13 and 14 hunters. It was three versus two, and Tripp and his newly depleted party had the level advantage.
It was over before it had barely begun. Realizing their ambush had failed, the hunters fled toward the oval doors, looking for the sanctuary of another room.
Etta reached the first archer, slicing her hooked blade across his throat. Tripp hit himself with his flail to store damage and then unleashed it on the second hunter.
Wounded, bleeding, the hunters were slowed, and Tripp and Etta killed them.
This left the party standing in front of the doors to room two. The monks advanced on them, their steady pace taking them halfway across the ruins.
“No EXP for killing players,” said Etta. “Shame.”
“Can’t loot them, either,” said Tripp.
And then words formed just above his head.
500 EXP received!
“Anyone else get that?”
Rolley nodded. “Might not have lifted a finger, but we’re in a party. I get a share of EXP.”
“This is different. Even in PVP areas, you can’t level up from killing players.”
“Looks like the tower actively encourages us to kill each other.”
“If that’s the case, then let me just check something.”
Tripp rolled one hunter onto his back and searched his pockets. Normally when you killed someone, you’d find their inventory bag and pockets wouldn’t open.
Now, he sank his hand into one hunter’s shirt pocket.
“Grab their bags.”
“We’ll have to divide it with a loot auction,” said Etta.
“No time. I’ll forfeit. Rolley, you forfeit too. Etta, grab all the loot and we’ll divide it up later.”
“Wait,” said Rolley. “I’m getting something else. Are you seeing the same thing?”
The purpose of the tower has been updated!
By killing fellow tower-divers, you have stolen the letters they have gained.
_E_T_ _ _ T H E H E _ _ T
“Anyone else get that?”
“You bet!” said Etta. “Looks like it’s kill or be killed here. If we beat another player, we learn whatever letters they already know.”
While Etta grabbed the hunters’ bags, Tripp opened the door to room two. The handle resisted at first, but then gave way with a whine, and he pushed it open.
He stepped inside, followed by Etta. Rolley stood outside, staring across the ruins at the three monks who made their way toward them. The fourth monk was gone, having dragged Barnard away.
“Rolley?” said Tripp. “Are you coming?”
The rogue thought about it. Maybe he was considering just joining his friend.
After a few seconds, he turned, stared at Tripp with fury, and then joined them in room two. The door slammed shut behind them.
CHAPTER 24
Barnard
The monk didn’t hurt him, and instead just grabbed him by the collar and dragged him along the floor. No matter how much Barnard hit him or tried to get a grip on the ground or walls the monk didn’t stop. Finally, Barnard surrendered and let himself be taken away.
It was during this brief spell that he thought about what had happened back there.
He hadn’t frozen. He wasn’t scared. This was a game, after all. It was realistic as hell and sometimes shot adrenaline through him, but he wasn’t fearful.
This was something much worse.
Watching the others figuring out what to do, hearing the monks behind him, he had come to an epiphany. He’d decided that he’d rather die now than go into another room and be useless again.
It was better than having the others solve puzzles, decapitate corpses, and fight scourges, while he just stood there. Afraid to cast a spell in case he cast something that killed them instantly. Letting everyone, even Rolley, down.
Maybe there was no true way to master the dice mage class. Maybe people who picked it were crazy or idiots.
Better for the others that Barnard died now. It’d mean he wouldn’t have to feel like a useless cog with broken gears, stopping the machine working.
The monks stopped suddenly, making Barnard bang his head on the ground. After a sharp flare of pain settled to numbness, he sat up.
The monk had dragged him for perhaps a minute, but he wasn’t back in the oval resting room with all the plants. He seemed to be in a completely different part of the tower.
It looked like a king or queen’s court, with a long run of carpet leading to a set of marble steps at the end of the room. At the top of the steps was a throne made from glass. A man sat in it, a man with glorious curly hair and a thick beard, with the mustache waxed into straight tips.
All around him were framed self-portraits showing the mustached man in different poses. The man sitting on his throne. The man looking down solemnly as another being, who was sitting in a cloud like a god, kissed his hand. The man standing with a crown on his head, a golden cape flowing from him, with his sword drawn, ready to fight the sun.
It was possible this man thought a lot of himself.
On either side of the room were galleries filled with all manner of royal subjects staring down on him. He saw goblins, trolls, ogres, and scourges of the fire, ice, and arcane variety. Seeing the scourges fired his instincts and made him grip his staff tighter, but they didn’t look hostile.
“Welcome, dice mage!” shouted the man, his voice easily filling the atrium.
He stood up. He leaped over the marble stairs and vaulted twenty feet across the room until he was in front of Barnard. He held out his fist. His fingers were adorned with so many rings that he looked tacky.
He gave Barnard a solemn nod. “You may impa
rt thy lips upon my knuckles, dice mage.”
“I'm not kissing your hand,” said Barnard.
The king was obviously not used to being told no. A flicker of embarrassment crossed his face before he recovered and said, “I meant a… fist bump.”
“What is this place? Why am I still alive?”
The king nodded to the sides of the room, to the shadows cast by the viewing galleries. There were footsteps, and then a monk stepped out. The same that had dragged Barnard here.
Pale face, red lips, teeth sharpened and stained crimson. He smelled of bone, of books left to gather dust, of ancestral country manors, boarded up and allowed to rot.
The king put his arm around the monk, who suffered the contact without showing any emotion.
“I’m Bo,” said the man. “King Bo. And this gentleman is one of my protectors.”
“Does he have a name?”
“He did once, but it’s been a while since they cut out his tongue, so he’s never been able to tell me it. Stubborn bugger won’t write it down, either. None of them will. All I know is the four of them are brothers. As long as I let them stay in the tower, they’ll do what I need. Since they wouldn’t tell me their names, I had to name them myself. This one is Gary.”
“Gary??”
“I was told that the name Gary is dying out. As is Ian, Barry, and Larry. I am just doing my part to conserve such noble names.”
“Is this your tower?”
“Built by my great, great, great times a hundred grandfather. The Tower, no matter where we have set it over the years, has always had one of the Xe dynasty in it.”
“Why am I here?” asked Barnard.
“Ah, a question scholars have pondered for centuries,” said Bo.
He ran up his stairs, sprang up them one by one, before spinning in a circle and striding to his throne like a ballerina.
Sitting on his throne of glass, surrounded by giant portraits of himself, Bo looked at ease. He took an apple and a gem-studded letter knife from one of the pockets on his shirt and peeled chunks for himself. “Would you like some?” he offered.
“I'm fine, thank you.”
“Come, let’s not talk across the room. Come closer.”
Barnard went up the stairs to get nearer to Bo. The monk followed close behind, and his proximity made Barnard’s hair stand on end.
“Let’s talk simply, Jim. Can I call you Jim?”
“My name is Barnard.”
“It’s simple, Jim. I can offer you something you desire greatly. In return, you must do something I desire greatly.”
“Which is?”
“First, I can offer you that which every dice mage craves; complete control of your powers.”
This didn’t just get his attention; it grabbed it by the private parts and squeezed.
“Control? I can cast any of my spells willingly?”
Bo grinned while twirling the tips of his mustache to make them sharp. “I thought that might please you. A dice mage can learn a hundred times more spells than a regular mage. He learns them on the first attempt. He sometimes learns them at mastery level without any practice whatsoever. There’s a reason such mages cannot have free reign over their powers. All power comes with responsibility and a price. I, my dear friend, will remove both the price and the responsibility.”
“You can do that?”
“This is my tower. I can do anything. With limits.”
“And what would you need from me?”
“I want you to become one of my monks.”
He hadn’t been expecting that.
He looked at the monk standing beside Bo. Gary the monk with his bone-white face, eyes devoid of emotion, lips stained with blood. He stank of age and evil.
Not that all old people were evil.
“You seem concerned,” said Bo. “Let me explain. You see, I am almost omnipotent in my tower, save for the Commandments. When my forebearers built this tower, they used it for rather unpleasant reasons.”
“Like devising puzzles designed to kill people?”
“Worse than that, Jim. You see, the tower can travel through light. It can visit different lands and worlds with the ease of a butterfly fluttering from petal to petal. I use it to see everything I can. To nourish myself by visiting far-flung cultures, places I never dreamed existed. But, power has a price, does it not? The tower’s magic is fueled by death. Not just any old death, either. By death given willingly.”
“Which is why you make people solve a riddle to get in.”
“Exactly! Solving a riddle shows willingness to enter. It means that there is no grey area about whether a person wanted to visit the tower or not. But it also makes certain only the richest souls can enter.”
“Fine, but why would you need me to become a monk?”
“I have a problem, Barnard. An ugly, green problem lumbering around my tower that might cause more pain than I expected.”
“Ugly and green. Do you mean Tripp?”
“The restrictions set on my tower by a finicky set of developers, I mean mages, mean I cannot personally harm anyone who enters. Nor can my monks, save for when they are attacked.”
“Gary and his brothers don’t actually kill people? They just look menacing enough that people move on by themselves?”
“Exactly. It works rather efficiently. However, it means I must rely on the tower to entrap souls and feed itself if I am to use it to travel the world. I must devise rooms in the tower and hope they are clever enough to devour those who enter.”
“It seems like you’ve done a good enough job so far.”
“And yet, there is more risk than I would like with this orc. Trust me; I know him.”
“You know Tripp?”
“I know his kind, I mean. Not in a racist way, I have nothing against orcs. Crafty crafters, I mean. Not to be trusted at all, oh no. There is a risk with this fellow, and I have to manage that risk. So, Jim the Dice Mage, I need you.”
“Need me to do what?”
“You are not towerborn like me, or Gary and his brothers. You are not bound by tower commandments. If you become a dice monk, Barnard, and take an oath to serve me in one specific way, I will grant you control of your powers. A control that extends beyond the tower.”
Control of his spells. That had been his dream all along, because it’d make him one of the most special mages in the game. Barnard knew over 200 spells, which was way more than any standard mage. It was a perk of the dice mage class. If he could control them all, if he could cast spells deliberately…
“What would I need to do?”
“Nothing too difficult. Just kill your friends and every other player before any can learn the true purpose of the tower.”
“Kill Rolley, even?”
Bo looked at Gary while pulling a strange expression. “Rolley?” he silently mouthed to the monk.
The monk said nothing in reply.
“Rolley is my rogue friend. I can’t kill him.”
“Jim, Jim, Jim,” said Bo. “You’re thinking of loyalty, yet the brand of loyalty that shackles you is short-sighted. You are part of the regenerative race, no? Those born outside of the tower. I know about you; those who can die yet be reborn. Not in the tower, sure, but elsewhere. Is that not true?”
He must have meant respawning. “That’s right.”
“Then what’s the matter? Just one death amongst a lifetime of them for each of your friends. In exchange, you’ll learn control that will extend beyond the reach of this tower. What do you say?”
“If I accept, and I learn control, will you also tell me the purpose of the tower? For the people entering it, I mean?”
“I will, Jim, but you will not be able to communicate this to your friends. Know that, in case your devious little mind is straying down those alleyways.”
Hmm. That must mean that Barnard wouldn’t be able to message the others if he accepted this.
He thought about it. Tripp and Etta were easy; he owed them nothing. He barely knew
them. He liked them, sure, but there was no loyalty.
But killing Rolley? Would he understand?
He would. When he saw what Barnard could do, he’d get it.
Barnard looked at Bo, who was absent-mindedly twiddling his mustache while staring at his own portrait.
“Bo,” he said, “Let’s discuss the fine print.”
CHAPTER 25
The second tower room smelled of dust. Sized at just twenty-five square feet and with damp air, it made for a cloying atmosphere. The walls were made from compacted mud which was more of an accident of nature than by design. Weeds grow out from the mud, and the longer Tripp stared, the more worms he saw writhing in it.
The first thing he looked for was the door, and he spotted it across from them. It was made from solid oak varnished a rich brown, completely out of keeping with the rest of the room.
Four torches gave off the only light, glowing over a sandstone floor with no markings and no sign of traps.
Rolley and Etta joined him. Etta caught her breath from fleeing the monks, making her nose hoop rattle with every intake. Rolley stared at the room door that had closed and locked shut behind them.
“I can’t believe Barnard froze like that.”
“Soulboxe can be a scary place. We’ve all had that split second where things seem so real that you forget where you are,” said Tripp.
Etta put a furry hand on Rolley’s shoulder. “You’ll see Barnard when we leave the tower. Until then, don’t waste your chance. Plenty of people outside would kill to get a try at completing it.”
“Damn it, Barnard!” said Rolley. He ran a blackened hand through his hair. “Fine.”
“Do you sense any traps?”
“My trap skill has been like an itch that I can’t satisfy ever since we got in here. This whole place is one big trap. We’re in a swimming pool and you’re asking me if I'm wet.”
“I hate this,” said Etta. “It stinks, and it’s altogether too simple. There’s nothing in here except a door!”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Rolley. “If there’s more to it, I’ll find it.”
Rolley kneeled and spread his charred palms on the floor. Soft wafts of manus seeped from his fingertips as he used his trap skill. It took a minute for him to cover the room.
