Trials of the Jötunn [Dark Fantasy | LitRPG | Anti-Hero] [Book 1 Complete]

In a place that used to be called Montana, Wyatt Ewing rode beneath a sky that was almost right.

Almost, being the operative word, because if you'd grown up beneath the real thing the way he had, spending the better part of your childhood and the whole of your adult life before the Tower teleported everyone within it, and more.

Despite its subtle attempts with the alignment of the stars being just about right, and the way the air smelled like Montana’s clean and beautiful air, but off by just enough to remind you that you were in fact not in Montana whenever you breathed in.

Non-subtly, the differences were glaring.

The Missouri River was gone entirely and replaced by seven hundred miles of pale sand. No traces of its beautiful, clear, blue water, where he’d learned how to fish with his father by his side.

In eastern Montana, the valleys he’d spent years riding through, sometimes calling it a night and making a bed beneath the trees after a long day’s work, were destroyed and remolded into becoming massive chunks of earth that rose miles into the sky and floated there. Each was connected to the others by chains so enormous that a truck could have driven across the flat of their links without difficulty.

Wyatt Ewing, known by almost everyone who had dealings with him in the Tower by the considerably simpler name of Cowboy, sat atop his horse on the riverbed of sand with his eyes tracking the six-legged bison he'd been herding for the better part of the afternoon, while they feasted on the sand and its critters hiding within it.

His attention was quickly taken off his cattle as a loud bellowing could be heard up above him. Straightening himself in his saddle while patting his horse, his eyes went towards the sky where a school of Sky Whales were swimming, feeding on the Cloud Algae and the flock of birds unfortunate enough to have wandered into their feeding grounds.

The Sky Whales were close enough in color to the sky itself, and their skin's constant shifting camouflage made them difficult to pick out if they did not bellow, but the Cowboy knew that their bellowing wasn't what getting his cattle worked up.

The cattle were bellowing at the man standing a few feet away from him.

The man was draped in robes of deep violet trimmed in gold, with the physical appearance of a man somewhere in his early thirties. However, oddly enough, not a single weapon was visible on his person.

"I thought we agreed," Cowboy said, not looking directly at him as he got up from his horse and onto the sand, letting out a shrill whistle that cut through the bellowing and brought the six-legged bison back to heel, "that the next time we saw each other it would end with one of us dead."

"I remember," the robed man smirked. "But I have a proposition for you."

"Interesting," Cowboy said flatly, finally turning his gaze from his cattle to look at the man beside him, and his right hand dropped to rest on the holstered revolver at his hip. "I don't give a rat's ass about it. So why don’t you fuck right off?"

"The end result involves you back in Montana." The robed man retorted.

There was a pause before Cowboy's next word came out that hadn't been there a moment ago, and with that pause, a cheshire grin spread slowly across the robed man's face.

Cowboy schooled his expression back to something neutral and kept walking until he was face-to-face with the robbed man, barely a foot in between them.

"Now what could possibly be so important," he said, his voice carrying the flat, unhurried quality of a man who had decided he wasn't going to give an inch more than had already been taken, "that you would be willing to tear up the contract you made me sign specifically to prevent me from ever leaving this shithole?"

"I've learned how I can keep everything I own while leaving the Tower," the robed man answered calmly. “And with your assistance, I would be willing to end our contract early.”

Cowboy simply stared at the robbed man for a long moment, scrutinizing his face to search for any deception – or anything at all that would give him a reason to just up and leave.

"I know the type of man you are," he said slowly, working it through as he spoke, "and while you could take everything you own inside Spatial Storages tied to your person and carry your entire vast fortune out through the exit the same way anyone else would carry their belongings, you would never abandon..."

He stopped.

His head pulled back a fraction, and his eye widened by just enough to be visible, the involuntary tell of a man who has just landed on a realization he wasn't quite prepared to reach yet.

"No," he muttered, more to himself than to the robed man beside him. “That’s impossible… You can’t possibly be able to–There are rules in place…”

"Yes," the robed man confirmed, and the grin that had been building on his face since the conversation began reached its full expression. “And with those very rules in place, I learned just what needs to be done to win.”

“Wouldn’t you like to win as well?” the robbed man offered, watching as Cowboy’s gaze tightened ever so slightly.

"And unless," the robed man continued, "you wish to spend the rest of your time in this Tower looking up at that beautiful fake Montana sky and riding beneath that fake Montana sun, inevitably aging out while remaining under my thumb as my lapdog," he said, raising one open-palmed hand and gesturing toward the area surrounding them, "then by all means. Continue your cowboying."

Cowboy's jaw tightened, and his eyes stayed fixed on the robed man's face with a scorn that he made absolutely no effort to conceal, his hand still resting on the grip of his revolver with his fingers curled loosely around it.

A pregnant silence stretched between them as Cowboy struggled with what his next move should be.

However, against the debate of taking out his anger onto the robbed man, reason won his internal struggle, causing him to nod at the robbed man begrudgingly as he let go of his hold on his revolver. "I'll do it."

"But after all of this is done, I never want to see your face again, and I want nothing further to do with you in any capacity.” Cowboy firmly stated. “Those are my terms."

"You have my word," the robed man agreed, with a grin. “My word is my bond, as you know.”

Cowboy held out his palm between them, and the robed man clasped it with his own without hesitation. The moment their hands met, deep violet chains erupted from the robed man's arm and wound themselves around both his own forearm and Cowboy's in thick, coiling loops as the agreement between them was created and signed.

Just as quickly as they appeared, the chains vanished, immediately causing Cowboy to yank his hand back as he felt a second chain link bind itself around his soul, sitting just beside an older one.

"What do I need to do?" he asked, his eyes back on the robed man's face and his gaze carrying the particular defiant steadiness of a man who has made his decision and intends to see it through regardless of how he feels about the company he'll be keeping while he does.

"Meet with your new coworker," the robed man began, and his palms came up immediately in a placating gesture before the next two words had even fully left his mouth, because he knew as well as Cowboy did exactly what was coming, " Lord Robert Heart."

"Now, now," the robed man said, amusement tinging his tone as he saw the look of disgust on Cowboy’s face. "This will only be a temporary arrangement, until the war begins in full.”

"So it is all but confirmed to happen then?" Cabel asked. “My informants are picking up more and more sightings of humans entering our cities and skittering about.”

"Yes, a great war will be erupting in full," Liam confirmed.

"Four months ago, I was first attacked by people operating under the El-Hindi House, and almost every few days since then I've had new assassins reaching for my throat with varying degrees of creativity."

He shifted his weight and rubbed at the back of his neck. "As a result, I've had no choice but to thin out my Party – a couple of them have begun to quote on quote leak me insider information on other teams that they somehow collected from sources I’ve never heard of before, or just outright trying to kill me during sparring bouts."

"Then why not leave and join another Party?" Cabel suggested, his wings shifting slightly against his back. "With people that are actually trustworthy instead of people actively trying to murder you."

He paused, recalling a group he'd worked with briefly some months back, a collection of rather likable humans and one particularly humorous skeleton whose names had been circulating through the rumor mill lately for less pleasant reasons.

"The Ravenlight Party, perhaps?" he offered. “From what I gathered, they still remain on Floor Ten and have yet to fill their Party from their original size of five.”

"You don't agree with the rumors then?" Liam probed. "That the Party Leader and the undead Alchemist killed their own Party Members?"

Liam tilted his head slightly. "It is a tale as old as time for upstart commoners with nothing to their name to become jealous upon learning the advantages we nobleborn have while climbing the Tower."

Cabel shook his head.

"From what little time I spent among them and what I could glean from their hearts, not a single iota of jealousy existed between any of them," he said firmly. "They regarded each other as family in the truest sense, not in the performative way people sometimes claim when trying to convince themselves of a bond that doesn't exist."

"Family turning against family is even more common than commoners lashing out against nobility," Liam retorted, though his serious expression broke by just a fraction into something that might have been a grin, prompted entirely by the visible scoff Cabel produced in response.

"Enough with your senseless attempts at drawing me into an argument about something you have no horse in," Cabel said, waving one hand dismissively. "You're simply being contrarian for entertainment, and we both know it."

"Excuse me for attempting to manufacture some entertainment for myself," Liam retorted without missing a beat. "I've been too busy dealing with assassins at all hours to find it anywhere else, so I take what I can get when the opportunity presents itself."

He reached into his jacket and produced a sealed envelope containing what looked like a Manapad, holding it out toward Cabel.

"But if you must insist on killing what little joy I'm able to scrape together these days," he said, "then so be it."

Cabel took the envelope and turned it over in his hands, his fingers running along the seal before he looked back up at Liam.

"All the information on everyone within our Generation and the past thirty-four Generations before us," Liam explained, "Containing their current and long-term political, social, and economic standings with every major player operating within the Tower.”

Cabel nodded and reached into his back pocket to produce an envelope of his own, holding it out toward Liam with the same deliberate care that Liam had shown him moments before.

"Signed approval from the Council of Angels that we will work in cooperation with House Ross to take down House El-Hindi as well as any other Houses and Guilds siding with them," he said, and just as Liam's fingers closed around the envelope, Cabel added one final word with particular emphasis. "Covertly."