Tower of Souls

The Second Floor was nothing like Cam had expected. In a word, it was... beautiful.

Peaking out from the safe room, which lacked a door but had a jagged triangular opening, narrow at the top but widened as it neared the dark brown soil just outside- and, outside was the right word, even if it was a Floor inside the Tower...

Brown earth and vibrant green grass stretched out, interspersed with towering brown behemoths that sprouted hundreds of arms- trees, Cam silently told himself as he remembered the words from his lessons in school, and branches-, each branch bearing thousands of... leaves, it took him a moment to find the word.

He had never seen anything like it in his life... though he had heard rumors that there were places in the city that grew trees- like some of the Family's estates; it was something he had hoped to see during his late night trek to the Tower, but the looming darkness, and his unwillingness to get too close to the guarded estates, made it impossible to see more than odd, shifting shapes in the distance...

But now... He stared in wonder at dozens of trees, taking in their beauty, and their differences. With some, their tough exterior- bark, the word popped into his head- was a deep brown, rough filled with cracks and ridges, while others had smoother, pale bark...

And the leaves! Some were vibrant green, and thin like string- or needles, he remembered, as that form was commonly called-, while others were darker green and broad, or with many pointed edges... And some trees were filled with leaves of a riot of colors: red, orange, yellow, green...

With the bright blue sky behind them, it was like the most beautiful painting he had ever seen... Not that Cam had seen very many paintings. Still, it was breathtaking.

"I've never seen anything so... so..."

"Yeah." He responded slowly to his clone, neither of them able to find the words to express what they were seeing- or what they were feeling at the moment; For all the threats and dangers climbing the Tower held, seeing something like this... He knew he would never forget it.

"Do you think a place like this actually existed? Like, before the Wastes..."

Cam nodded slowly, as it made sense; The history books regularly reference the many things that once surrounded Foundation City... Forests- another word he remembered from the books- filled with trees and grass, miles and miles of farms to feed everyone, streams and rivers- more things he had read and heard about, but only really new from the images in those books...

History said those things existed... before the Wastes overtook it all. Destroyed it all.

Cam's mood soured instantly at that thought; A forest like this was something he could have seen- should have seen- if Classers were just willing to actually Climb. To do their job, contribute to the War Chest and push back the Wastes. Instead, they squabbled for power, jockeying for position within a dying city, while ignoring the looming threat that threatened to consume their very homes.

"Maybe those Innies don't take the Wastes seriously because of how far it is from them..." He muttered softly as he considered the possibility; Based off what he read in history books, it took hundreds of years for the previous outer ring to fall- though, technically, only half of it had been overtaken by the Wastes before it was evacuated... And the new Outer Ring became even more crowded.

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And even that was hundreds of years ago; At this rate, it would be hundreds more before the current Outer Ring fell... Why would any of them stress too much over something that wouldn't even happen until long after their grandchildren had died? So what if people in the Outer Ring sometimes mysteriously disappeared- or died? Maybe they wouldn't even notice until it finally threatened the Outer Rings ability to produce food...

Though, Cam had to admit, it was possible that at least some of them saw the problem; Not all of them could be blind to what was happening... He hoped.

Shaking off his own dark thoughts, Cam waved towards the trees looming ahead. "It doesn't matter; This is a Floor in the Tower- Floor 2, at that. No matter how pretty it is, we still need to find the monsters and deal with them so we can move on..."

Though, silently, Cam could admit to himself that he wouldn't mind spending a week waiting for his cooldown here; It really was the most incredible place he had ever seen.

"Same plan as always: Go scout ahead, Eron! Try not to die, Eron!" His clone chuckled, already creeping out of the safe room. Glancing back over his shoulder, Eron's cheeky grin faded into surprise and wonder as his eyes darted up... and up, and up... "Damn! The safe room is inside a tree!"

Before Cam could respond, Eron had already shaken off his surprise and started moving... The he did peak out to take a look at the absolutely massive tree that had enough space to hold the safe room inside it- and, based off how much of it he could see, the twenty foot wide safe room was little more than a small hole carved out of it!

Shaking his head slowly at the extraordinary sight, he settled in to wait for his clone to return... Only to be startled by the sudden notifications on the Combat Log.

Clone(Eron) stabbed Bunnicorn for 4 damage.

Rusty Iron Dagger of Bleeding inflicted Bleed condition on Bunnicorn.

Bunnicorn took 1 damage(Physical) from Bleed effect.

Clone(Eron) stabbed Bunnicorn for 6 damage(critical).

Clone(Eron) stabbed Bunnicorn for 4 damage.

Bunnicorn(Lvl. 1) has been slain. +3 Xp

Cam released the breath he had been holding as he received the kill notification; Clearly, something had ambushed his clone... and, just as clearly based off the facts that it was only Level 1, had less than 15 HP, and only granted 3 XP... it was only a trash mob. Thankfully.

Trash mobs were another unusual aspect of Tower Floors; Always a Level below the Floor they were found on- and they were never found on the First Floor-, with low Hp, low damage... basically not a threat, unless you were attacked by a whole mob of them at once. Of course, that also meant they weren't worth much XP, had low chances of dropping loot, and anything they dropped was at their level rather than that of the Floor.

Basically the opposite of Bosses in almost every way... And most Classers absolutely treasured the little bastards, as it basically meant free, safe XP.

But... Cam had never heard of Bunnicorns, and that worried him; After getting what is usually the hardest First Floor monsters, seeing something completely unknown on the Second Floor was... troubling. Sure, it was possible that others had seen the Bunnicorns before and just didn't bother to mention them- who would worry about reporting a trash mob or including it in their lessons, after all?

With how many times they had been warned about the dangers of Anomalous Floors, encountering something he hadn't heard of was enough to worry Cam. Even if Anomalous Floors are supposed to be incredibly rare and completely unheard of at low levels... Mythic Classes were thought to just be stories...

Cam had one. So anything was possible.

Even if he very much hoped this was just a weird, but regular, Floor.

Thankfully, he didn't have to wait long for Eron to return... even if his first words were alarming.

"This Floor is... different. And the monsters are weird."