I crossed the village and ducked into the filthy building and dropped the meals off at the table Marcus had indicated. I was relieved to find that they fulfilled his requirements; I’d been a little worried that the meals I’d made would be rejected because of just how low the quality was, or that there was some hidden requirement for the turn ins given how much renown the quest offered. But food was food, apparently.

I turned the quest in to Marcus the full ten times and received eight hundred and eighty renown, plus a bonus of two hundred and twenty for maxing the quest out, which was pretty cool. I brought up my bar:

Renown

Current Level: Unheralded

Progress to next level: 1150/3000

Ezzie said.

I said, as I headed out through one of the now-massive gatehouses, the drawbridge dropping to let me pass. I inspected the moat on the way across, which had been filled with wicked-looking, spear-tipped logs.

Ezzie said.

I said.

I trudged up the hill to the fast travel node for the ten-thousandth time and pulled up my destinations. I selected the mystery option—which was marked as related to my class change quest—and confirmed my choice, then was engulfed by the cloud.

But something was very, very different; the cloud started vibrating beneath my feet from the very moment it took off. And it just kept accelerating, moving so quickly that the roar of the wind against the cloud became so deafening that I could barely hear myself think.

It had to be almost an hour before the cloud lurched then, seeming to slow down.

An explosion sounded behind us, and I threw myself to the ground, wondering if something had gone wrong with whatever machinery the cloud depended upon.

Ezzie said.

I said, as I suppressed a grin.

The cloud touched down and opened up, and the brightness that flooded its interior caused me to flinch back and cover my eyes with both hands.

I blinked against the searing light and stumbled out of the cloud; it was like the whole world was on fire, like the sun was shining down on me from every conceivable angle at the same exact moment. Then I looked down.

Mirror-plating covered the ground for as far as I could see in every direction, but the panels curved up as I gazed out, rising to form a huge, glassy bowl. And at the very center stood a mirrored spire that had to be at least five hundred feet tall.

Ezzie said.

I said.

I rolled my eyes and headed for the spire. The tower was so bright that it was hard to look at for long, and as soon as I tore my gaze away, it left an afterimage burned into my vision. I found a door at the base, an arc of darkness that was particularly stark set against the brightness of the tower.

I stepped inside, and the interior of the tower was pitch-black, too; I couldn't see a foot in front of my face.

Ezzie said. But nothing happened.

That hesitation again, which was getting a little worrisome.

I said.

Ezzie shrugged through the link.

I took a few steps back until I bumped into the wall, then traced my way around it, sliding a hand across its smooth surface. I made it about halfway around the room before the path noticeably steepened.

Ezzie.

I said. I tapped a toe a little ways off from the wall and met solid ground, then tried again a little farther out to the same result. But the third toe tap met open air.

I kept climbing, testing my footing as I went, and eventually the path curved away from the wall and swung out into the center of the room. I dropped to my hands and knees, testing the path to either side but finding only a sharp drop off.

I swallowed and kept climbing, crawling higher up into the dark.

Ezzie said.

know what a metaphor is,> I said.

I shrugged and kept crawling, using my fingers to probe for the edges of the ramp as I inched myself along. Then the ramp just…ended.

I ran my fingers around it on three sides to make sure that was the case, then did it again. I reached out a little farther and bumped into another platform, the gap between it and mine being about two feet wide. not like this.>

Ezzie said.

I said. I scooted my knees up to the edge so I could get a better feel for the next platform. As far as I could tell, it didn’t end abruptly; it had to be at least two feet long.

I bent at the waist and reached over, gripping the edges of the next platform with both hands, then shimmied myself onto it, bringing one knee across, then the other. I crawled forward for another ten feet or so.

Then all of the lights flared at once. I cried out and dropped onto the platform, covering my eyes with both hands. But the light was so bright that it easily seeped between my fingers, turning the insides of my eyelids red.

I waited a few long moments until the shock of the illumination faded, then opened my eyes, still squinting.

And my stomach dropped out as I realized I was suspended in mid-air. No platforms, no ramps, nothing. Just an empty tower with a door on the bottom and an identical opening high, high above. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath.

Ezzie said, her voice calm and steady.

I said. Even though I could feel the platform beneath me, the thing was totally invisible, and I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that the platform was actually there. It felt like it was going to drop out from underneath me at any moment. A cold sweat swept over me and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block it all out.

Ezzie said.

Something glassy shattered against the floor far below.

Ezzie said. Another length of invisible platform smashed into the floor.

I swallowed, nodded. Tamped down the fear that had my stomach doing somersaults. I crawled forward as the platforms continued to drop. I said.

I picked up the pace, running my hands along the edge of the platform as I pushed forward. The platform ended, and though there was no platform straight ahead, I could feel a pair of them to either side, about six inches from where I was kneeling.

Then the platform beneath me began to quiver.

Ezzie said.

I leapt onto the platform to my right and dropped back down onto all fours, scampering up its length as quickly as I could. It rose and banked hard to the left, so hard that I had to shuffle across it with both hands on the left edge, my feet scuffing across the near-vertical panels. The platform quivered once, twice. Dropped.

The lights went out as I fell, and I kicked myself away from the platform in mid-air. I hit the ground hard on my back, maybe fifteen feet down, the breath rushing from my lungs. I tried to sit up but the pain in my back was blinding, like someone had stuck a knife between two of my vertabrae.

Ezzie said. Her voice sounded as though she were clenching her teeth.

I nodded, waited a few moments, then tried again. I managed to get to my feet, and though the pain was still intense, it wasn’t as blinding as it’d been before. I squinted, still trying to get used to the light. The entryway was maybe fifty feet below me. I said.

I shuffled around, keeping my weight back to prevent toppling over an edge. But I didn’t find an edge.

I shivered.

Ezzie said. do think that the lights were a sort of warning, though. Maybe you hit a time limit or something?>

I wandered back to the wall then moved alongside it, until I found a ramp leading down.

Ezzie said.

I skipped the decline and kept moving, until I came to an inclined ramp just like the first one I’d found. I moved up it quickly, running low enough to the ground that I could skim my fingers across the smooth surface in front of me.

More gaps, more dead ends. By the time the lights came back on and my vision cleared enough for me to squint around, I’d found the exit; the doorway was only twenty feet above me. I picked up the pace as the first panel shattered against the floor below.

The next few crashes happened much more quickly than they had the first time around, and it wasn’t long before the panels beneath me were trembling, getting ready to drop and send me plummeting down.

But this time, I was almost there. I jumped one last gap without checking if there was a panel beyond—and there was—and I landed on solid ground and I leapt again, the dark doorway only a few feet away.

And the lights cut out yet again. I smashed into the wall and my fingers caught the ledge, held, held. Released. I dropped as I had before but farther this time, twenty, maybe thirty feet down straight onto my side.

I just laid there, groaning in the dark, broken bones shifting and cracking back into position beneath my skin.