Day 32

The rumblings beneath me woke me up; the Northeast Deed was sinking. Sure enough…

“Something MUST be going wrong! Another Deed is sinking!! This time the Northeast Deed? Wow, that’s surely some bad luck for the people who are there.”

Sighing, I sat up. My brief reign as owner of the Deed had passed, and I was back to being property on another Deed. Then I hesitated, frowning.

-Would I have had to obey a command from Toddie while I owned my own Deed…?

-Possibly?

-That’s an unhelpful answer.

I joined Whipman and the others as we hurried off the sinking land mass. Because the East Deed had already fallen, we just headed towards the central Deed. I suspect that it would soon be the only one remaining, and we would be forced to confront that mage with infinite mana in order to not die at nightfall.

Jester was waiting at the edge of the sinking landmass, looking down at me. “Are you ready?”

“What for?”

Jester hopped down next to me. “To see what’s at the bottom of the rabbit hole.”

Slapping me on the back, Jinka laughed heartily. “Well well, an adventure? I shall come as well.”

“Nope, you cannot.” Jester shook his head. “As Predator previously pointed out to me, if you are not on a Deed at nightfall, you will die. We are currently on a Deed, are you?”

Jinka’s face fell.

*****

“You planned this. This is why you so desperately wanted a second Deed.” After the layer with the land had fallen low enough, the speed of our descent rapidly increased. Within two hours, the area above was completely out of sight. Just the rushing of air continued as we fell into darkness. I shifted through the cadences of Earth and Water.

Jester was doing handstands, and just shrugged while upside down. “I suppose. I had other ideas, but this one seemed the most direct. I’m honestly a bit disappointed that it was your Deed that fell. I would have preferred to have accompanied Toddie down here. She just…”

Jester flourished his hand a theatrical manner. “She just gets me.”

“And why was this necessary at all? What do you hope to find down here?” I pressed Jester, hoping to find some answers.

He was as capable at misdirect as ever. “Do you see that?"

Arms spread wide, he seemed to indicate the entire area in front of us. Narrowing my eyes, I brought my increased perception to bear. My pupils dilated, letting in as much light as was present in this huge area. It really seemed like we had descended deep under the ground; I checked as we detached from the land above, but there was nothing connecting to the bottom of the still functioning Deeds. Just darkness below. It seemed that a huge piece of the crust that we were on was just falling into nothing.

I walked to the edge and peered over. Deep, far, far below where we were, I thought I saw a glimmer of light, but as I watched, it seemed to fade, and reappear slowly in some place farther from my gaze. I stared after it for a while before shaking my head and returning to Jester.

“No, I don’t see anything.”

“Right? Thank god.” Jester shook his masked face. “Imagine how hard it would be if you did.”

My eye began to twitch, but I ignored it, walking a bit away from him to practice Air Affinity. Another strange effect of us falling away is that most of the land we were on was… disappearing. The fact that the trees slowly broken down and fluttered away as dust wasn’t so bad, but the real concern was that the Deed itself was shrinking. The Deed was originally about 20 km across, but it had shrunk to a little less than 10 km. And it was continuing to shrink.

Putting the dangers out of my mind, I sat on the ground, wanting to try out a theory that I had.

***POV Change***

In a darkened hall slipped in between the 49th and 50th floors of The Great Tower, 7 chairs sat. The huge marbled doors of the hall swung soundlessly open. Several cloaked figures walked in, some tall, some short and squat, others seemingly floating off the ground, the bottom of their cloak fluttering as they proceeded forward. In a similarly soundless manner, the 6 figures sat in 6 of the chairs.

The figure in the central chair sighed. “Where is Sven?”

A giggled emerged from one of the middle chairs. “Aren’t you the one who sent him on assignment, Oct? Oh dear, I’ll have to submit a claim that my supervisor is going senile~.

“Quin, you know that solicitors don’t age.” Oct shook his head. “And yes I remember him being dispatched, but he’s headed to a floor before 20, for Ilium’s sake. He’s not a Solicitor working as a caseworker anymore; he’s on the council of Recruitment. You’d think he would be a bit more efficient.”

The individual in the far right chair spoke in a hiss. “...Isss hisss lack of presencssssse a problem?”

“Only if we want to put the prisoner to death,” Oct said grimly, then gestured to a previously hidden figure by the door. “Bring in the prisoner for his mandatory Attestation.”

***POV Change***

Whipman idly practiced his form, wondering where Predator had gone.

More than that though, Whipman imagined himself, flawlessly executing the various forms of the Tellite people, and Ashni would wander by. His spear strokes would flow like water, his form would be balanced and powerful. The air would shudder with his blows.

At the moment, Whipman was deciding whether she would secretly watch for a while, her feelings for him slowly growing within her, or whether she would be so stunned that she would gasp allowed, alerting him to her presence.

Of course, his senses were so sharp that he already knew that she was there, but that would give him the perfect opportunity to pause mid strike, stopping a momentous blow with barely a hint of effort. Then he would turn to Ashni, and she would wonder where all his strength had gone-

‘No, no, no,’ Whipman thought to himself, shaking his head. ‘That’s not quite right.’

Whipman would have stopped suddenly, in a supreme display of mastery. Then Ashni would look at him, marveling at the quiet aura of power that seemed to suffuse the air in his immediate vicinity. Then abruptly overcome with emotion, she would say-

“Why are you posing like that?”

Whipman did his best to collect his jaw, which had dropped to the floor, and nonchalantly turned to face Ashni, who was giving him an extremely confused look.

‘Why am I doing these things..?’ Whipman wondered, just standing silently and staring at Ashni. The silence stretched for a minute. Whipman’s brain produced no answers. All his life, Whipman had admired the strength of the opposite sex’s hips as they shifted from form to form with perfect balance, but most of it had been in a jealous sort of way, as those Tellite women paid more attention to those individuals who got accepted into schools affiliated with the 4 stances. Never had he really had any one on one contact, aside from sparing.

She coughed lightly. “...is something on your mind?”

“Ah, yes, um, well.” Whipman scrambled around for a topic, then greedily seized on the first thing that came to mind. “I am just concerned for Predator. I wonder where the Deeds drop towards.”

“Indeed.” Ashni nodded. “I, too, feel somewhat responsible for him, now that I could be considered to have given him some pointers on the Thunder Stance. Although his form is rough, his body is incredibly strong. He is a human, is he not? I did not know that their bodies could contain such strength. It makes one eager, does it not? Imagining a body with that sort of power, reaching the pinnacle of The Great Tower using the perfect of the martial arts of Tellus?”

Whipman nodded rather dumbly. After all, that had been his original idea. He glared at the ground, his eyes abruptly very itchy. ‘A legacy left by my teacher. A promise to reach the summit.’

“So what is your relationship with Predator?” Ashni asked.

“Oh, he’s my disciple-” Whipman froze. He peeked at her out of the corner of his eyes. Ashni was giving him a cold look.

“...you are the imbecile that left him so woefully under equipped in regards to Thunder Stance?!?!”

“Well, I have only been training him for a brief amount of time, so-”

“Excuses are the retreats of the weak.”

“-and I assure you that my own Thunder Stance is at a much higher level-” Again, Whipman’s own words made him wince.

“...Oh?” The air had cooled by an incredible amount. Fighting spirit and blood lust were rolling off of Ashni in waves. She pointed to his spear. “Well then, you will have no problem demonstrating. I will judge at what level your form is.”

Whipman’s hands grew abruptly sweaty. Ashni folded her arms.

“What is it!?!? I’m waiting.”

***POV Change***

I closed the notification, inwardly quite pleased with myself. If it worked how I hoped it would...

But before I allowed my imagination to run further away with me, I stood up and walked closer to the center of the platform. Our 20 km Deed had shrunk to a single km. The edges broke off and dispersed, slowly reduced to nothing. The originally tightly packed earth had slowly worn away, leaving a platform of an unrecognizable metal.

-Not that we really know much about metal…

-But it’s hard enough to withstand my claws, so I don’t think it’s anything in the order of iron or steel.

Still, that gave me some assurance that we were just going to fall into oblivion. It was probably nearing nightfall above, and I wondered if there would be any indication if we violated some hidden rule, and were about to die without even knowing what was coming.

Yet I still breathed. I patted my arms contemplatively. I was really starting to like this body.

-Although we haven’t even had the chance to use it since it powered up…

-Hopefully soon.

I walked over to Jester, who was standing at the edge of the platform. Below him, a metal construct was emerging from the darkness, and we were rushing towards it. Almost glumly, he slumped to the side, rolling on the ground.

“You have no idea how much it annoys me to admit it, you were right. I was hoping the descent would be so fast that the being on a Deed at nightfall wouldn’t come into play, but…”

A huge force suddenly pressed down on us, driving me to my knees. It was strong, much stronger than the gravity imposed by the human in the first round, likely due to the rapid deceleration.

With a soft click, the platform below us shuddered as some sort of mechanism engaged. The platform rotated a small amount. Gears whizzed to life.

Looking around, it seemed that there were 8 places similar to ares, abutting against a larger, central platform. A huge green crystal pulsed slowly, producing light, on the far side of the central area, next to a large indentation. The metal gleamed ominously under its ebbing, alien light. Around the edge of the central platform where tall poles, affixed at the top with spheres.

-Likely some sort of deactivated light source… what is this place?

“So I must admit, that I wasn’t 100% honest with you,” Jester said, strolling forward off of our platform to the larger central one. The indentation in the center was a large hole from which arose a this cylinder covered in complicated gears and wires.

-I suppose that’s where the central Deed comes down.

“What do you mean?”

“Just that some people do pass the 3rd Floor. Just not fairly. The 3 rounds here are designed to take time, whittling people down to the best of the best, and all at once featuring powerful individuals. In the old days, administrators who were gamblers, or down on their luck, would come down here and watch, picking challengers and placing bribes in the right hands to get them out of here. In fact, I think one such individual was promoted directly to the 5th floor not 4 days ago.

“But.” Jester punctuated his words by raising his hand. “I didn’t lie about the spirit of what I said. All those who proceed to the 3rd round of this floor die. Because you are forced to fight against the floor controller for the ticket out of here. The last, tragic, game he is allowed to play with you.”

We reached the edge of the indentation where the central Deed would eventually descend. Jester, without missing a beat, hopped the 30 m down to land among tangled wires and pipes that constituted an underbelly beneath the huge platform, connecting it all. Seeing the materials support his weight, I hopped down after him.

He strolled calmly forward towards the column upon which the Central Deed would settle.

I frowned at him. “You are strong. We are all strong. And if the Central Deed descends, that mage with infinite mana-”

Jester just smiled at me.

“...we won’t keep the infinite mana. It will switch to the floor controller. That’s why you wanted to come down here earlier.”

“I would say that’s 35% of the reason.” Jester said cheerily. Around the column there was a empty space, even the underbelly didn't connect to it. As if by magic, Jester materialized a rope and tied it around some pipes. Then he slid down, quickly dropping almost the entire 100 m of rope. Darkness seemed to stretch infinitely below us, leading to an unfathomably deep abyss. After a bit of hesitation, I followed him.

“Mostly I just want to kill the floor controller. If the the floor controller wins, he returns to his resting state, and the floor itself resets, the mechanisms disconnecting. The mana doesn’t just stop here; it flows all the way to the bottom of the Tower. But if he isn’t defeated, the flow is immediately severed.”

Gathering my mana, I prepared at any moment to create a platform of air at a moment’s notice, in case foul play was involved here. “And why are we doing this? Coming down here?”

“Because you shouldn’t see what I’m about to show you, and I enjoy doing naughty things~ There, this is the barrier. See it?” Jester put his hand down, and it disappeared. Nothing but darkness. Then he pulled his hand back and it reappeared.

He flexed his fingers.

“See? Harmless. Just poke your head through. Get a glimpse at the inner workings of the tower.”

***POV Change***

A man walked through the huge marble doors to stand in front of the 6 filled chairs of the Solicitor’s Recruitment Counsel. He had short blonde hair and an easy smile. He walked confidently, with no binds on his person. Just two shadows following behind him.

But what was most noticeable about the man was his weapon. A huge pick was casually leaning against his shoulders, easily as tall as he was. The pick itself was a brutal thing, seemingly just a tooth of a monstrous beast tied to a wooden club. But the base of the tooth had been filed down to a sharpened axe head. As for the tip of the tooth…

As the man walked, a small drop of liquid fell off the tip, hitting the floor and immediately melting through several feet of the ground beneath him. With a wave of its arms, a shadow restored the floor, but stayed far away from the tip of the tooth.

The man stopped in front of the group, poking at the two braziers that illuminated him for the counsel.

“His crimes?” Oct asked in an official tone.

A shadow stepped forward. “Violating an unknown number of the tower’s rules.”

Oct’s frown affected the very air around his chair; it wasn’t even necessary to see his facial features. “An….unknown number of rules?”

The shadow hesitated. “Well… he does possess two of the Ilium’s warning marks, which was enough for an investigation. But the Investigating Head determined that the speed of his ascent could be explained by nothing but rule violations-”

Oct waved a hand, and the shadow bowed and retreated. “You. What is your name, level, and race.”

The pick wielder chuckled. “My name is Thomas Karman. I’m level 176.”

Karman’s eyes twinkled in the darkness. “I’m currently the strongest human in the Tower.”

***POV Change***

I looked at Jester for a long time, but I couldn’t get any indication of what he was thinking from his mask. So, after hopping off the rope and stepping onto a platform of air a few meters away, I descended through the barrier.

Beneath the barrier was machinery. Strange metal drones rushed back and forth. It almost seemed to be a mine, with support structures lining the entire area. A huge, infinite mine. It descended downward, lit by the drone’s lights and, to my disbelief, lava waterfalls. But through the center of this strange mining area was a pillar. A pillar that seemed to be sealed, a rich crimson liquid frothing within. As I watched, the liquid seemed to fight to get towards me, spinning and smashing into the walls of the cylinder. After a few seconds, I broke my gaze away; the crimson liquid settled.

I floated back upwards, beyond the barrier, into the darkness lit only by the pulsing light of the crystal. “...was that blood?”

Jester chuckled, shimmying up the rope like a monkey. “Something like that.”

A brief burst of mana catapulted me back up to the underbelly, and then I followed Jester back to the main part of the central platform. He walked over towards the crystal. “Are you ready?”

“For what? What are we even-”

“To begin.” He punched the crystal. He struck with enough force to cause a long crack to form. The light began to glow brighter.

***POV Change***

Whipman practiced in the darkness, his teeth gritted. That woman. That rude woman…!

Ashni had torn his pride to pieces. Everything he did lacked execution, she claimed. He was too wishy-washy about his stances, so he knew none of them better than an average Tellite toddler. He had no hope or talent. Effort was simply a waste of time, and not a worthwhile endeavor.

“I’ll show her…!” Whipman’s spear shot forward, stabbing into the ground.

The ground rumbled.

“Uh…” Blinking, Whipman looked at his spear, surprised at his strength. Perhaps he wasn’t so-

The ground shuddered again, and then all of the Deeds began to fall, dropping into the darkness.

***Author's Note***

Now that I've started my job, its down to 1 chapter a day. I will have Mon/Tues off after this week, so I'll see if I can squeeze some extra ones out then.