“Kenji no moving.” I let out a sigh. The problem with the tri-pronged foot was that I had accidentally made a hole in the floor. While that would normally not be a cause for concern we were drifting hundreds of feet up in the air.

“Yeah, got it Tor.” I replied.

“At least we have a cool breeze.” One said.

“Next piece is ready.” Two held up a chunk of charred old man meat and Tor took it, tossing it from hand to hand.

“Best infinite food source ever.” Three said with a bloody grin.

“Just because you keep consuming that thing raw, doesn’t mean we want to.” Tor said.

“Anyone see anything?” I asked.

“Nope, like always. You sure there is a tower out here?” One asked.

“Well there should be according to this map.”

“Where are we then?” One asked. I pointed at the desert.

“Somewhere over this desert.”

“It is over a fourth of the map!” One shouted. We settled back down as we continued to drift along. We had been coasting back and forth over the desert for three weeks. At least we were in the shade most of the time and above the shimmering heat below. While mountains bordered most of the desert, it was big and we just coasted along searching for a tower in the middle of it all.

“What happens if the tower is buried?” Tor asked.

“Well there should be something, so keep looking.” I replied.

“My eyes feel like they are going to burn out of my skull the way the sun keeps reflecting.” One complained.

“Alright, no more complaining. We are stuck in this tiny basket, so suck it up.”

“Mmmm.” Hanark mumbled through his gag. Currently I was using him as a seat.

“Maybe we could land for a bit?” Two asked.

“Down there, no. Also if we land this basket on the rocks, it is liable to break apart. We won’t be setting down gently.” I replied. “Do you really want to walk over the entire desert?”

“This could all be made up by the Mystery Man.” Tor said.

“Yes it could be, but this map looks fairly old. So while he could have been trying to get us out of the way, I honestly think that there is something out here.”

“Well all I see is sand, oh look, more sand and-“ I punched One in the groin. He collapsed with a groan while clutching himself.

“No complaining.”

“Next piece of meat is ready.” I took it from Two while I tossed it from hand to hand. My ripples of flames that occasionally appeared weren’t helping the cooling process.

“I see something.” No one moved. After the first time of almost tipping the basket, we each had our own position and had to stay there. “Looks like people or some sort of animal, hard to say.”

“I am moving to look.” Everyone else readjusted themselves. I went next to Tor and took a look out. There were small figures moving in a single file across the desert.

“Heading back to my seat. Adjust course to keep them in sight and don’t get too low.”

“Aye, aye captain. Adjusting course of the Blimpy by something, something degrees. Steady as she goes yar!” Two was clearly becoming a bit unhinged. Maybe sky sickness was a thing. It also didn’t help that I auctioned off the name to the balloon and someone called GODHAXLOL bought the naming rights for three hundred dollars. Now we had to call the thing Blimpy as part of the agreement. Tor still hadn’t forgiven me.

My mind wandered to my ratings. They had taken off after the Burning of Goratat. I had not received any special status, the growing legion of followers was more than enough. Unfortunately I had used up half the available time for my mother. There was only seven VR weeks left, but at this rate there was no chance of raising enough money.

I had gotten some interest in the cube, but the offers were all low ball for a mysterious powerful artifact with powers not yet tapped. At best I could get fifty thousand, and that was if I delivered it personally. It would be more profitable just to kill myself and not waste the time since my bounty had gone up to thirty thousand.

“We have some spare canvas right?” I asked.

“Yeah some, why?” Two asked.

“Let’s hang it up so it covers the bottom of our basket. If someone looks up hopefully they think we are a cloud.” It took about ten minutes to figure out how to get the canvas under the basket and tie it off. We continued to drift making sure to adjust our height to catch different air currents to stay in view of the people below us.

“They disappeared!” One shouted. I sighed.

“Moving over.” Everyone adjusted positions and I went next to One.

“Right there you can kind of make out their tracks and they just vanished.”

“Alright mark that spot, let’s try and hover right over it.”

“Aye aye captain. Flame on and steady as she goes.” I continued to stare at the spot but the tracks really did seem to just vanish. A number of startled yells went up as the basket and people began to disappear. Moments later we were through and I saw a massive tower perched on top of a small mountain.

“Hidden in plain sight it appears.” Tor said. The mountain went up about two thousand feet if I had to guess. The tower was massive, I guessed at least ten stories tall and wide also. It seemed to almost be an extension of the mountain itself. Like a giant middle finger perched on a fist.

“Boost us now.” I said. “We go in from the top, skip all the nonsense and traps in the middle and get the book. No more shouting. Three conserve your MP in case we need to make a quick getaway.” The balloon began to rise and curve around the tower.

“We are curving out of alignment.”

“No control remember, we just need a better air current.” Two said. We continued to drift around the tower in a circle. Once we got higher we began to drift away. For the next day we played with the elevation but the balloon refused to move over the tower since there was a constant breeze coming off of it.

“We will need to set down.” I said.

“Why not shoot an arrow and reel us in?” One asked.

“That tower is stone, an arrow would never punch through. We could try the flame sword, but it is just as likely to melt the rope and then we would have lost our best weapon and our lifting power.” I replied.

“We can set down at the base of the mountain over there by that cliff on the sand. That should give us cover.” Tor pointed out.

“Alright Two, bring the Blimpy down.” I cringed at the name, I should have charged three thousand bucks. We removed the piece of canvas we had hung as the balloon slowly descended. We skidded across the sand. All of us lined up in the back so the front wouldn’t jackknife. We bounced, skidded, and then bounced again. Then we came to a stop. Everyone piled out to stretch and move about.

“Freedom, sweet freedom.” One said. Two jumped up and down while Three just lay spread eagle out on the ground. I began going through my standard stretches. The balloon began to lift off again. We all raced over and grabbed the basket pulling it back down.

“Note to self, don’t all jump out of the balloon at the same time.” My comment brought a few chuckles. “Let’s rest up. We will move up to the tower during the night and attack at dawn.”

“We need a way to make an escape. I can easily see us getting trapped on top.” Tor said.

“How much rope do we have?” I asked.

“If we use it all, about three hundred feet. Why?” Two replied.

“We need two lengths of a hundred and twenty feet and enough for hand grips for all of us. Once we reach the top we will escape over the side. The balloon should only half deflate if we are gone for a day. So about four hours to recharge.”

“There is a better way. We inflate the balloon to just hover off the ground and then bring it to the base of the tower. From there we just go straight up.” Tor said.

“If the wind is coming off the tower, it will be pushed away. Also the air bag would push us too far away to grip onto the rock. If we got a rope that was tied to the top then we could pull the balloon in.”

“That tower is what, fifty feet wide. So the circumference is about a hundred fifty seven feet. Let’s say two hundred feet of rope. We wrap a rope around it and ascend while using the rope to keep us close to the tower.”

“The friction would be too much, for a tower that big and the rope might catch on something and then we would be stuck. But we could use two long lengths of rope to tie the balloon off to opposite sides of the tower and then ascend.”

“It could work, but the ropes would have to be tied to something really heavy, like a massive boulder.” I replied.

“You really don’t want to go in the tower?” Two asked.

“That thing is going to be filled with traps of all kinds. Better to sneak in from the top, also the balloon will make a convenient get away.” I replied.

“Alright then, let’s do this.” I said. Two remained in the basket and managed how much lift the balloon was getting. Three and Tor each held a rope to manage the balloon while I took the front and One took the back. We slowly began to make our way up the mountain as the sky grew darker and darker.

It was a long climb in the dark. Thankfully the balloon didn’t reflect light and most of the light from Nus’ Awakening was blocked by the canvas. We finally reached the plateau the tower rested on without incident. The team kept the balloon back while I rushed forward with a length of rope. I tied it off to large rocky outcropping that jutted out. I double checked my knots confirming they were good and returned.

I got to work on the next rope. I had to return to get the flame sword in order to melt in a couple of deep angled notches to make sure the rope didn’t slip off. Once the rock cooled I tied off the rope and we all piled into the basket.

I could feel a slight breeze coming from the tower no matter which way I went around it. We began to rise and One and I managed the tied off ropes as we ascended. Everything else as piled up on the far side of the basket from where the ropes looped around the frame to stop us from tipping. As we ascended we let the ropes out slowly.

The trick was to keep it at a continual pass. If one of us started going faster the balloon would tip towards that corner. The higher up we went the stronger the wind became as if the very tower itself was emitting it. At fifty feet I could feel the ropes straining. “We won’t be able to pull ourselves over the tower. Tor tie off the basket, make sure it is solid. When we get in range of the roof you need to jump down onto it and tie us off.”

Tor got to work as we continued to ascend. We reached the top floor and the entire basket was groaning from the conflicting forces of wind and rope. The big problem was that we were ten feet away from the edge since as the ropes extended it became a battle of lift versus wind power. “One tie a rope off to an arrow and see if you can shoot a crack in the wall.”

He wasted three arrows, but the stone didn’t even chip. The roof had stone parapets but each time we tried to lasso one the wind would push the rope away. This was becoming very frustrating. “Let us go up a bit more, then we pull on the tied off ropes as hard as we can at the same time.”

We rose ten feet above the tower. Grabbing the tied off ropes we have a tug but that just lowered us and didn’t move us over the center of the tower. “I can-“

“Don’t even think it. That is a twelve foot gap and a ten foot drop. No way you can make that uninjured. What would we do if you fell?” Tor said.

“That’s it! Alright Hanark it is your time to shine. We will keep the gag in so don’t worry. So we are going to tie you off and thing swing you over.” He began to shake his head violently. “Either that or we toss you over the edge and see if the lost weight helps. Tor get a harness on him.” I worked to tie the other end of the rope to two corners of the basket. I was hearing groans coming from the wood from all the stress it was under

We lowered Hanark over the edge so as not to shock the basket from a sudden fall and then began swinging him back and forth. We held onto the rope while swinging it and at the peak of his arc we let rope out. He flew through the air and his leg smacked on of the stone blocks making the parapet at the top of the tower. Thankfully he went over the edge and onto the roof. The bad news was that he was unconscious.

We pulled on the rope and Hanark’s body was big enough to not squeeze through the gaps in the parapet and to hold together as we reeled ourselves in. I jumped off when we were in range and tried to melt a notch in one of the stone blocks that made up the parapet. The flame blade didn’t even mark the stone as a blue field deflected the heat and flames. Clearly this place was protected somehow like the domed building from the island.

We pulled the balloon to the center of the tower where the wind was going straight up and waited for it to deflate a bit. I did notice a trapdoor off to one side, but no one had come up here to investigate us. It was actually a bit eerie how all the people had disappeared. The sun was slowly coming up and we were treated to an amazing view, which we ignored since we had already seen enough sunrises floating above the desert.

“Alright, Hanark is our anchor since he is a corpse now. Three and Two will stay here. Tor and One with me. Two, keep the balloon prepped for a rapid departure.”

“We could always seal the trap door off.” He suggested.

“There may be a dragon guarding this thing for all we know and I don’t think it will use the stairs.”

“What about inside, there are no windows on this tower?” Two said.

“Let’s take a look first then. Weapons ready.” I said as we approached the trapdoor. “Two pull up the ring and then stand back. Two did that and thankfully nothing jumped out. There was a ladder and a small dark room filled with dusty boxes. I had One and Tor hold onto my feet as I was lowered in. It was a storage room it appeared.

“Ok, pull me back up.” They did and I looked around. “Three, let’s bring the old guy back. This place was protected like the temple he was at. Also if the door snaps shut, we won’t be able to break it.” To make the point I hit the trap door with my sword and a blue glow deflected it. Three tossed the heart off to the side and began licking his hand clean. I closed the trap door and we rested up.

Slowly but surely the old man reformed as we all waited around for the next hour. “Oh save me now, not again.” He groaned out.

“Hey old man, time to answer some questions again.”

“You got away….of course.”

“What do you mean, ‘of course’?” I asked.

“You escaped, unless it was the desired outcome it would not have happened.”

“There was a giant worm!”

“Which you escaped. I cannot explain more than that.”

“Alright, well we are on a tower in the middle of the desert. You know what is in this place.”

“I…I…might, but I am bound the same as before.”

“Can you guess what might be in here?”

“No.”

“Is a cube inside this tower?”

“….”

“What about a book?”

“…..”

“Is a purple elephant in the tower?”

“…..”

“Interesting. Should I call out again?”

“I don’t recommend it.”

“Do you know anything about this tower?”

“Nothing I can say. I have been on that island for a long time.” I let out a sigh at that.

“Do you know a man called Durrunian?” Three asked.

“Yes, a great man.” I looked at Three and gave him a nod to take over the questioning.

“Who was he?”

“A great warrior and a leader of men. The last I heard was he forged a great kingdom to protect his people for all time.”

“Was there a tower built in this kingdom?”

“…..”

“Was there a fusion plant built in this kingdom?”

“…..”

“How did he die?”

“I do not know.”

“What was he known for?”

“Being a great warrior and leader of men.”

“Did you ever meet him?”

“Once, it was a privilege.”

“Anyone else?” Three asked, no one said anything. Three carved out the old man’s heart back out of his chest.

“Interesting, so this is the remnants of some great kingdom. I wonder what happened.” Two said.

“Got blasted by something, since all this is desert. Also whatever treasures this guy had was probably stored inside. I would also bet that those nomads are the kingdoms descendants.” I said.

“Tower time then?” One asked.

“Yes.” We made our way back to the trapdoor. “Alright in case we get locked in, stay up here and keep an eye out. Check in three hours if I leave a message in your atriums for additional information if we don’t report back. If we are separated inside, try to survive and leave the tower. Back of rendezvous point is our landing zone. Let’s do this.”

I went down into what appeared to be a storage room with Tor and One following. “Check the boxes.” We got to work inspecting the boxes and found gold coins. None of us recognized them, but there was jewelry, gems, and enough wealth piled in the room to make anyone jealous.

I went over to the door. It was flush with the stone floor. In fact the entire tower seemed like someone had taken chunks of rock and literally fused them together. The door itself was wood. I didn’t spot any obvious traps. “Okay, stand back. I am going to turn the handle. If you hear a click or anything get out of here understood?” I got two affirmatives.

I put my hand on the metal door handle and slowly pulled. I pulled again and the door still refused to budge. I gave it a hard tug and nothing. I tried pushing and still nothing happened. I brought out my sword and swung it at the door. A blue field blocked my attack. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“We can’t get in?” Tor asked.

“Probably bolted on the other side. Since this entire building is protected somehow we can’t break through. This is the exit room or an extra room for people who explore I bet, after they get to the end. All this gold just confirms it.”

“Oh….” Tor said.

“Yeah oh is right. The book is right behind this door, but we can’t get to it.”

“The hinges are on the inside, can we pop them?” One asked. I looked over and saw two large metal hinges holding the door in place.

“Let’s try.” I said. I ruined two of my seven remaining throwing knives and we managed to pop the hinges. For some reason the field didn’t apply if we were interacting with components that could be removed. Then we hit another snag.

We were able to shift the door two inches before whatever protects there were kicked in. That gave us a one inch crack to peer out into darkness. That absolute black was a bit unnerving. “Any way we can get that bolt?” I asked.

“Maybe, let me go grab some thread from the repair kit.” One left and a couple minutes later he returned. Making a small lasso he began trying to loop it over the bolt. After ten minutes I went, and then Tor. Then we rotated Two and Three to come help but each time we kept missing the stupid bolt. There was a tiny half inch metal nub pressed flushed against the door in a downwards direction. We needed to somehow lasso it.

While we waited I had the people not doing anything sort through all the jewels to pick out the best ones. Sure we had lots of gems already , but loot was loot. I also had them carry up a number of the smaller boxes and lay them on top of the trap door. Some heat from the fire sword melted the gold onto the trap door and the roof, which should keep it from closing.

“Ok time out.” I said after a hour of hopeless attempts. It finally came to me what we should be doing “Time to try a different approach.” I took the thread lasso and used a crate to help me reach the top of the door. I then moved the thread over until right before it was wedged. I then lowered the thread and began swinging it back and forth while lowering it.

I finally got the lasso under the bolt hook and pulled. The thread caught and I kept yanking. I was glad this was thick sail thread and not clothing thread. The bolt hook pushed off the doorway slightly. I pulled the thread back towards the corner above the hinges and moved it back and forth while pulling it. The bolt slowly lifted up. I moved to the side of the door and pulled.

The bolt slid back with a click and we all let out a sigh of relief. “Two and Three we are going in together. We need the flame sword to see, and I don’t want you stranded.” They gave me a nod. I passed Nus’ Awakening to Tor who lit it.

The rest of the team slowly moved the door to the side while I stood ready for an attack. In front of us was a weird stone structure rising out of the floor that was only a couple feet from the wall we were coming out of. We carefully moved around the stone object and saw a vast room. The light from the blade barely reached the far side.

There were torch scones lining the walls and six large braziers in the center of the room. The weird stone structure was a statue. There were two smaller statues at the either side of the room and an alter in the center with a book resting on it. “We take this slow, there could be traps.” I said. We advanced around the wall and I carefully checked the floor for any pressure plates or holes for gas or other things to emerge from. At the far side of the room was a stair case leading down, but we kept on going past it.

After making a circumference of the room back to our entry point I moved towards the smaller statue on left side of the chamber if we were facing the stairs. “No one touch anything, I mean it.” I circled the statue with a base of around nine by four feet. On it was a dragon that was roaring and rising up as if to take flight. I really hoped it didn’t come alive.

The statue on the other side from the dragon was a statue of a massive centipede that looked as if three of them and been glued back to back in a triangle formation. Where the head should have been there was nothing there just smooth stone. It coiled up as if it were about to start wriggling. “That is creepy.” Tor whispered.

“Yeah.” One added.

“No speaking, stay alert.” I said. We then turned our attention to the main statue we had come out from behind. On the left side stood a man in a set of armor and a sword that stretched out. His face was covered, and it was a he since the armor had a cod piece. This was all stone but the detail made it seem as if he was alive. Around his neck was a pendent that rested on top of his armor.

In his left hand held up above and to the side of his head was a cube. “The cube?” I whispered.

“Maybe, but it doesn’t have any symbols.” Two said. While everything else was etched with detail the box was perfectly blank. My gaze drifted back to the statue and opposing the man was someone I recognized immediately despite having only seen her twice.

“Is that-“

“Don’t say.” I hissed out interrupting One.

“But-“

“Don’t say anything or think anything. I do not want any surprises right now.”

“O-“

“Nothing.” He put his hands over his mouth.

I turned back to the massive statue that almost touched the ceiling. What was truly interesting was the look of anger and hatred upon the woman’s face. It was as if the sculptor had grabbed the stone and twisted it to make such a graceful figure appear so terrifying. She had a single hand pointed at the man so that it was almost touching the tip of his outstretched sword.

The last thing I turned towards was the alter. Upon it rested a book. “No one read anything off of it. This room gives me the creeps. For all we know this houses an eldritch horror. So don’t read it aloud. Don’t touch it. Don’t touch the alter. I may sound silly, but this is no time for bullshit.” No one replied.

I approached the alter carefully. Checking every step and surface. The alter was a silver with gold decorations emblazoned upon it. On a small pedestal sitting up right was the book.

H\E\T O\K\O\B F\O T\A\F\E

I couldn’t make sense of it. I pulled out a throwing knife and very carefully put it just under the edge of the cover and opened it.

Nerzhei iezls hzet cuanzotc fzo htze fzlla fo htze dosszged Atzef.

Bazkc nzi htze azwdn ozf eenezistxc hzte oszgd nzd...

The nonsense language continued down the page. I flipped page by page while the other’s looked on. “Let’s get out of here.” I flipped the book closed after the last page and we left. We set the door back over the door way to hide our entrance. “Alright, let’s have dinner before it gets dark.” We ate cooked meat which was becoming very old. I longed for the days of stale bread and jerky. I logged off when my watch was over and went to check and edit my recordings in my atrium.

When I finally came to the point with the book I paused. Surrounding the book was a black sphere. I went forward and back, but the black sphere was around the book blocking all attempts at recording the symbols. “Shit.”

***

Author’s Note: Well I kept trying to have them go up from the bottom, but the MC was determined to avoid the tower climb. Every time I threw up a challenge the MC found a way around. Wind from the tower, use ropes to leverage oneself. Can't reach, use a pendulum. Invulnerable door and stone, go after the hinges which need to move. I was all ready for a tower to hell climb, oh well. Now you guys get to have fun. Here is a floor print for those who want one.