Unconquered Tower

FIFTY-SIX

Roan scraped away chunks of the film from his skin as the hot water blazed. The little cubicle he was in quickly filled with the gunk, but Roan’s eyes were locked on the empty stall a few feet away. A similar pile of goo sat there, slowly draining away through the floor.

“Someone else got the ability. Wonder if they bought the skill or the manual?” Roan couldn’t help but wonder what the difference in the two were and if his learn skill was truly helping him. He’d gambled hard on the skill being his ace up his sleeve, but if it wasn’t working out well he’d need to find some way to pivot.

“Still have to look over the unique skills for this level,” Roan said as he finished scrubbing himself down. The constant press of needing to move, to make use of his limited time was a pressure on him he couldn’t escape. But it wasn’t suffocating anymore.

Roan stepped out of the showers and a wave of hot air cascaded down from the ceiling, drying his hair and body in a few moments. It felt good, the pressure of the air on his skin like a warm blanket. Roan slipped his new clothes on and admired the sensitivity he felt now as his skin felt raw and clean.

He winced at the slime on the backpack, but he had nothing to do but slide it on. Both spatial rings were on his fingers, his new sword strapped to his waist, and warhammer on his shoulder. The sun was still high in the sky, it hadn’t moved an inch in all the time they’d been on the level.

More and more people were now in the village, packed tight as they walked around. The majority of them were covered in blood or dirt, looking around with exhausted eyes. So tired they couldn’t move properly, sliding their feet across the cobblestones.

LEVEL QUEST

FIND THE NEXT PASSAGE

TIME REMAINING: 4 DAYS 13 HOURS

Eleven hours so far on this level and the sun hadn’t moved an inch. Roan groaned as he walked to the restaurant. His stomach was growling, louder and louder, a hunger that he coudln’t quite compare to the past. It was an ache in his veins, an emptiness in his stomach that didn’t feel right.

A mob looked up at him as he walked into the restaurant and pointed toward a table on the patio right along the road. He looked over the empty room inside of the building but followed the mob’s instruction, sitting down on a wrought-iron chair. The table was small and circular with a checkered tablecloth across it. The mob walked up to him and leaned down.

“We currently have one meal. Grass-Lion steak. One hundred credits.” The mob didn’t have the best customer service ability, but Roan’s growing hunger didn’t mind. He just nodded and saw the money come out of his account as the mob walked out.

Forced to wait for his food he opened up the market and started to look at the market and the unique skills available for the floor. There hadn’t been time to really sit back and analyze, but waiting on a steak was the perfect time.

MAP MAKER

TIER 1 SKILL

POTENTIAL: TIER 5

15,000 CREDITS

USES MANA TO MAP YOUR SURROUNDINGS

FLOOR 1.02 UNIQUE SKILL: 1,000/1,000

LEARNING MANUAL: 1,500 CREDITS

MANUALS REMAINING: 5,000/5,000

Roan liked the skill. He was tempted to buy the manual then and there, but he still owed money to the association and wanted to see what type of gear he could buy. Running around in just robes was getting dangerous.

“Seems the skills so far have themes to them. Or at least some of them do. Map maker to find the stairs to the next level. Skeletal hand for the skeletons,” Roan mused as he looked toward the next skill.

ARBOREALIST’S TOUCH

TIER 1 SKILL

POTENTIAL: TIER 6

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20,000 CREDITS

USE MANA TO SAFELY HARVEST FLORA

FLOOR 1.02 UNIQUE SKILL: 800/800

LEARNING MANUAL: 2,000 CREDITS

MANUALS REMAINING: 3,864/4,000

Roan bought the manual without hesitation. He’d lost thirty percent of his last harvest’s potential because of poor harvesting. That was worth the manual by itself. With a pop the manual appeared on the table and Roan sputtered as the massive tome nearly knocked over the table. It was nearly a foot thick and weighed even heavier than that, the papers wafer thin as he carefully peeled it open.

The vast majority of the manual was blank. He found the intro to the first level and realized there were other flowers he’d missed. Flipping the pages brought him to this level’s flora and he grimaced as he saw it was pages and pages and pages of plants. With each of them having a unique way of harvesting.

SUCCESFULLY HARVEST FLORA: 0/80

Roan saw the alert appear and nodded at it, putting the heavy tome into his backpack. The minute he finished eating he was going to be grabbing a wave of bounties and replenishing his rapidly dwindling account.

UNIQUE ITEM

VERDANT CORE

COMMON

150,000 CREDITS

ASPECTED MANA CORE

NATURE ATTUNED

AVAILABLE 250/250

“That’s new,” Roan said as he looked over the core. Roan was tempted to earn it and buy it, but a verdant core didn’t appeal. Not when he had his own quest to complete for a mana core.

“Your food,” the mob came to a stop and threw a metal plate on the table with a loud clatter, the meat sliding half-way across the plate as it came to a stop. The thick slice of meat was a half-inch thick, seared and bleeding, releasing a scent that made his stomach rumble.

“That looks good,” Taoya said as he hopped over the railing and landed right next to Roan, pulling the second seat out as Roan cut a slice of the steak free.

“Free already?” Roan said as he bit into the steak. Rich flavor filled his mouth and he couldn’t help a groan of pleasure as the steak melted in his mouth.

“Five hours in. Got the mental resistance skill,” Taoya said.

“That’s it?” Roan asked as he swallowed. Heat filled his gut, it finally stopped rumbling as he started cutting the second slice of steak.

“Don’t need to rub your learn in my face,” Taoya said, sniffing at the steak before waving a hand at the mob and ordering his own steak.

“Saw that someone else took body tempering. Do you know who it was?” Roan asked.

“Moira took it. Bought the whole-ass skill, not the manual,” Taoya said as sat back with his fingers folded over his stomach.

“How’d it work with her? Did she tell you?” Roan asked.

“Said she took the skill and she knew what she needed to buy. Took a bunch of potions and the skill did the rest,” Taoya said with a shrug.

“Didn’t have to learn how to meditate, focus the flow of mana through the body?” Roan asked.

“Nope.”

“How long did it take?” Roan asked.

“She did it in the showers. Few minutes at best,” Taoya said.

“Shit.” Roan continued to eat while Taoya looked him over slowly, mostly at his rapidly diminishing steak.

“How many skills did you figure out in your time in the chamber? And what was your total cost?” Taoya asked.

“Ten hours in the chamber, got body tempering, mental resistance, and passive healing. You gave me two of them and I split the cost with body tempering so it was only four-hundred for me. Another ten-thousand for the ingredients for the body temper.”

“Twenty thousand five hundred then? Body Tempering was eight thousand by itself, and Moira had to buy potions. Don’t think it was ten thousand, but we can ask her later. The manuals I bought cost three hundred a pop, but you got them for free since you were being nice and social. Which I’m going to assume is how you got half off on the body tempering. Manuals cost a tenth of a skill, so if you’d bought the skills that’s another six grand. Puts you at fourteen thousand for everything. If you hadn’t bought the temporal chamber its cheaper by nearly half,” Taoya said with a shrug.

“But I bought the chamber,” Roan said as he took the last piece of steak and ate it.

“Yeah. And if you stopped being a standoffish prick you’d have had people paying for some of that. I spent five hours in there and only spent five-hundred credits on it.”

“I came into this tower to die,” Roan said as he leaned back. It felt good to say, the real truth, the truth that had been propelling him forward with suicidal intensity.

“Yeah. Figured that out quick enough. Nobody sane does what you do,” Taoya said slowly. The mob arrived and threw the steak down before running away.

“My entire family died in here. All of them. Don’t know why they all went in, but at some point it became a thing. Have kids young, enter the tower, leave orphans behind. I’m the last one. I was the end of the curse.” Taoya said nothing, just stared at him as Roan sat there, spilling his guts. It felt good, to let it out.

“Hana told me she knows members of my family. And they might be alive. I want to live, Taoya. I want to live and find them.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ll join your Pact. All the way in. We climb this tower, conquer it, and find my family. Afterward if you and your friends want to kickstart a revolution, then I’ll back you up on that too.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. We have to conquer the tower first, worry about changing the world later. But welcome to the Pact.”