Unconquered Tower

FORTY

The man who called himself Bao stood at the top of a rusted, dilapidated hotel. Once it had been the undisputed king of the desert, rising high above the flat lands to dominate the space, drawing every eye towards its glittering lights and false promises. Now it huddled upon itself, mortal steel failing as age and disrepair took their toll. In the shadow of the Thirteenth Tower, nothing truly stood tall.

Bao wasn’t looking at the massive tower that rose through the everpresent cloud cover, sparks of mana infused lightning leaping from the clouds and into the onyx metal. No, his eyes were locked on the desert and the group of idiots who were interrupting his hunt.

“They’re going to get killed,” Bao said, his voice deep but soft as he spoke to his lifelong companion. The dragon spirit bobbed in the air, its long whiskers twitching as its glowing orange eyes turned to look at him. A single long eyebrow twitched as the small dragon snorted, a blast of air that sent a plume of air into the sky.

“I know, but they’re interrupting my hunt,” Bao said as he felt the young spirit’s apathy about Bao’s fellow humans. With a sigh Bao closed his eyes and focused inward. For nearly a century now he had known the mana channels and core of his body like the back of his hand. Better even for he had painstakingly sculpted it. Changing it over time and reinforcing it as he grew older and stronger.

Where once rivers of power had coursed through him he was forced to stare at the crystallized channels. His core was frozen in time, held in place by seven seals, each formed of seven locks. It was the only way to truly move across this cursed land without drawing unwanted attention. Like the idiots in the desert.

They were out “hunting” a mana beast. Natural fauna that had mutated over time by the coursing ley lines that coursed through the planet. Bao knew what it was that this tower should be doing. Gathering that wild mana and redirecting it in a constructive way, rebuilding the world into something more robust.

The Unconquered Tower wasn’t doing that. No, it just drank the mana of the world. Bao opened one lock of seven that held one seal of seven. His core twitched, hardly more than a tremor, but it was enough. Mana rotated through him in a surge that shattered the frozen crystal veins. Bao felt his body begin to heal, the ravages of time reversed in a moment.

His back straightened as muscle firmed and grew strong, his wide belly shrunk and his balding head sprouted a path of white hair that fell to his jowls. Energy burst through him as a manic smile spread across his craggy face as he sighed in relief. He stood straight and felt his back pop. Already his mana channels were growing lethargic, refreezing as he locked the seal again.

“Have to be quick,” Bao told the dragon spirit as he reached into one of the many rings on his hand and drew forth the seven foot long spear. It glittered as if he’d caught the stars and wove them into the black metal itself. With a dozen tendrils of will he snagged all the ingredients he needed to finish the weapon, enchantments blazing to life as he armed the spear.

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“There they are,” Bao said, turning to look across the dead city. Five different mana signatures had just blazed to life. He’d smelled them of course, their stench too hard to ignore as they tried to hide in his city. They smelled like the Fourth Tower. The Cairo tower was known for shadow, light, and deceit, focused on illusions, traps, and poisons. Ranked at fourth, it was one of the least deadly towers as they were rated by lethality, the Thirteenth being the most deadly. Cairo wasn't as dangerous, but it produced excellent spies and assassins.

Only one of them was noteworthy but all of them were conquerors. Bao had spotted the leader arriving from the desert weeks ago, dressed like one of the grad students who studied the desert. It had been a decent disguise but the man lacked the self-control to truly suppress his ability. The five of them had been spread out at the four cardinal points and the center of the city. They’d get here in moments, but that was too slow.

Bao took a deep breath as he squinted into the distance, his vision suddenly clear as he looked down upon the desert. The idiots had managed to lure one of the mana creatures out of the warmth of the ley line, it was tunneling up fast through the soft soil. With his mana vision it glowed like a thermal bloom as it pushed through the dead soil, heading directly toward them.

That wasn’t what Old Bao was hunting though. As the massive sand flea burst free of the ground and landed in front of the group of laughing tower climbers, Bao saw it. An aberration. One of the mutations that the towers were supposed to be preparing them to stop. It had once been a condor of some sort, but there were little signs of the bird left as it descended from the clouds on leathery wings.

Where the sand flea had grown to the size of a large dog, the condor was like a hollow elephant as it fell like a rocket toward the group with razor talons outstretched. Growths emerged from its body in wiggling tentacles, eel-like protrusions that were covered in teeth and hooks. Its long beak opened in a silent shriek as a dozen eyes locked onto the mana rich signatures that it had been slowly tracking for hours.

Bao pushed off of the roof and threw the spear with a grunt of effort. The old roof cracked under the effort he applied as the enchanted spear rocketed forward and toward the mana-devourer. Light flared off of it as it started to glow, a reverse falling star. The aberration saw it coming and tried to react, its four wings flaring as it tried to arrest its descent. Bao had been hunting its kind for a long time and knew its tricks. The spear altered course and struck the aberration in the chest.

A nova appeared turning the desert dusk to mid day, light streaming in lances across the deserted city. The entire creature was gone, blasted from existence as a small fortune in ingredients were expended to kill the small predator. Bao hadn’t been watching the explosion, his senses firmly locked on the creature. He felt as the void in the world snapped close and he couldn’t help his smile as he fell to the ground.

With his core sealed there was nothing for the hunters to find. He landed on the dusty pavement in a crouch, bounding away a second later. In two fast leaps he had relocated across half the city and watched as the hunters converged on the hotel. He could feel their frustration and puzzlement, their masters carefully hidden anger at being made the fool.

“It isn’t my fault they’re so sloppy. Cairo hasn’t been the same since I broke its master,” Bao said conversationally to the dragon spirit. A sense of annoyance radiated off of the dragon as it remembered its old master.

“Have you been able to connect to your splinter?” Bao asked, looking toward the Thirteenth Tower and its elusive master. Bao received a negative feeling from the dragon and sighed.

“I’ll like it when you can speak again and I don’t sound like a buffoon talking to myself,” he said as he rubbed at his eyes and looked at his own quest he’d received from the Twelfth Tower.

CONTACT THE THIRTEENTH TOWER MASTER AND RESTORE THE TOWER TO ITS PROPER PURPOSE.

REWARD: THE FOURTH TOWER