We started our journey back to the tower in bright daylight and bright enough spirit.

Daylight has been gone since the last hour and morale has dropped along with the sun. The cliff was still up there behind us, five storeys high like always.

Travelling any further in the night was suicidal and since neither mine nor Layla’s mental condition has reached that state, we were resting around a campfire I made.

Around the fire was an assortment of skewered birds and rodents I managed to hunt during the last hour of daylight.

Waiting for the food to cook and feeling extremely lost and anxious of ever making it to the uncertain goal of the tower, I decided to occupy my mind with trying to help Layla out of her funk and hopefully help myself too.

“Hey, don’t look so down. We’ll get to mom and dad tomorrow, Ok?”

“Ok.”

“Good. Now get over here so I can check on you, You could have gotten hurt during the day.”

She walked over and i took a look at the place where she was hit with the shield. I found no bruises or scratches, but Laura apparently saw the ones on my neck and reached out to touch them.

“Ouch.”

She shrunk back a little at my exclamation of pain.

“Hey. Hey. It’s ok. It only hurts a little, so don’t worry about it.”

I smiled in what I assumed was a reassuring manner at her.

My assumption was good enough and Layla relaxed a little.

“Hey Brother, what do you think mom and dad are doing right now?”

“They are probably looking for us too.”

“How come we didn’t meet them?”

“Maybe they are just looking in the wrong place?”

“But mom and dad knows everything.”

“Then they know we are safe too and will pick us up tomorrow.”

“But I want mommy and daddy now.”

“Hey, no whining. Whining is bad and Layla is not a bad girl.”

She pouted a little before relenting and huffing an “ok”.

“Good. Food should be ready now.”

I grabbed a skewer and handed it to Layla.

“Remember to be careful. It’s still hot.”

After the first bite, Layla was clearly not enjoying the roasted rodent.

“This is too tough and bland.”

Her complaint was punctuated with a stuck out tongue.

“You know what I said about whining. We don’t have spice so this is the best that we can have. Now eat up or you’ll be hungry for the night.”

Layla managed to finish two of the skewers and decided that was enough. I did not do much better with only three clean sticks to my name.

The food was terrible and made me feel guilty for reproaching Layla her complaint while all I did in my head throughout the meal was just that, complaining.

Food had been settled, but shelter was still up there on my list of concerns.

Security from monster attacks during the night was right up there too. Random noises from within the forest only hammered in how exposed we were at that moment.

To keep myself active and give a quick check on my surroundings, I went to gather some more firewood beyond the fire light. My nerves were on edge as my head kept swivelling around looking for any threats.

My fear addled mind decided then was a good time to remind me how people tend to never look up in these situations. Expecting something to drop down and finish my juvenile self, I was greeted with a sight that injected a huge amount of reassurance.

Out of the corner of my eye, two separate orbs of blue were peering down from the edge of the cliff I was camping under.

I went back to the fire with just a little more hope for the next day. Layla was still at camp staring up into the starry night sky.

“Hey, I just saw something that could get us home faster.”

She perked up at that.

“Really? What is it?”

“Not going to tell you before you promise me something. You will not panic or run away when you meet this, Ok?”

She looked doubtful for a bit before nodding almost vigorously enough to make up for the pause

“I trust brother.”

“Ok. I’m going to call it down. And make sure not to overreact.”

Getting a nod from her, I turned my head back up to the cliff and looked to the two glowing orbs.

“HEY. DOWN HERE. YOU HEAR ME? I NEED SOME HELP TIM.”

Layla looked askance at me.

“What was that? Why did you scream weird words at the cliff?”

“Shh. I’ll explain later.”

From up on the cliff, I heard a feminine reply.

“We are on our way. Please wait.”

Layla’s eyes opened wide and she suddenly stood up.

“Brother, what was that weird voice? It sounded scary.”

“Don’t worry. That was our help.”

She still looked a little apprehensive, but nodded.

One of the orb immediately floated down towards us and the other moved closer to the cliff wall. The boney visage of Olivia appeared in front of us and Layla screamed.

“Kyaaaaaaaaa.”

She tried to run away, but I grabbed onto her leg in time to knock both of us down. With my face in the ground, I ground out.

“What did I tell you about not,” I spat out a lump of dirt, ”Running away, Layla?”

“But. But. But. That thing looks evil. It’s a talking skulls. Those are the worse.”

“It’s not evil. It just looks that way. It is nice, Ok?”

“O...Ok.”

The silent Olivia spoke up after I stood up and dusted myself off.

“Hello there. Like Brandon said, I am not evil. I mean you no harm. Brandon requested our assistance and we responded.”

Layla was about to greet back before she paused and went pale. I could see the reason why.

Tim had, probably in an effort to increase surface area and traction, expanded his body fully creating a sight no one wanted to see at night.

Over the cliff face was an enormous patch of pitch black deformed corpses, each squirming and groaning out with Tim’s own effort to climb down without falling.

Layla was visibly shaking as Tim got himself down the cliff and reassembled his body into his usual form with one too many squelching sounds.

Olivia turned to Tim and had a mental conversation that ended in Tim narrowing his one eye at her and huffing with all of his heads. Layla was nearly out of her skin when she heard that collection of noises.

They eventually turned to me and a terrified Layla.

“So how could we be of assistance Brandon?”

I looked back to Layla just to make sure she was not going to run away again and replied.

“Something happened and I need to get me and Layla back to the tower.”

Tim did not even hesitate and reached out with his wing arm to lift me. I pointed to the very sharp claws and other bits of bones sticking out of the appendage and directed my best judging squint in his direction.

He looked down towards the limb and made an approximation of nervous laughter through the rumbling of his whole body. Layla was once again unnerved and gave a small squeak.

I paid it no mind and got to thinking on how we were supposed to get up there without infecting ourselves with Tim.

The guy himself seemed to have thought of something and turned to us again. He pointed with his much larger arm leg at Layla and pointed back to me.

“Ok, Layla, get over here.”

She hesitated a little but did move to stand next to me. The inspiring sight of the little five year old sister hiding behind the ten year old brother from a monster lasted for a second before the monster struck.

Tim stuck both of his limbs under us and scooped up the entire mound of dirt and grass. We both fell on our butts and Layla added in another squeak.

If being lifted up by a monstrocity not terrifying enough for Layla, Tim decided to up the ante.

The Corpses that made up his chest and back began to writhe and remove themselves partially from his body.

More of the black ooze moved away from his body and covered the corpses. Then with cracking sounds that would bring up the unpleasant experience Layla just had, the bodies were broken and remade into facsimiles of hands.

Fully modified, Tim sunk his new ‘hands’ into the cliff face and began hauling us all up. The first few steps went by quickly with his lower body giving support from the ground.

We were above the treeline at that point. The view was quite nice. The tree tops were died a hazy silver under the moonlight, the reflective sheen bringing forth an image of the seaside. Just like an authentic body of water, it was rippling in beautiful waves courtesy of a few breezes.

My time enjoying the view was cut short once Tim got his body fully off the ground. His body wieght was now fully supported by the cliff face. It was not faring well.

Rocks and dirt were crumbling down everytime Tim dug his ‘fingers’ into them. Visions of my imminent plumet of doom filled my mind every time a vibration went through where I was sitting. The ascent ended some time later. I did not have the necessary stable mind set for proper timing of that.

After the obligatory moment spent cherishing terra firma, I walked back into the proximity of the tower with Layla and realised just how much of the battle I missed.

In front of the tower where I last saw Ruvyn were countless craters and, strangely enough, large pieces of earth strewn about. The sight was peculiar enough that Layla stopped to look around a bit while I moved on.

The back of the tower fared no better and looked even worse. A literal fire tornado must have gone over my backyard, leaving behind broken up patches of earth, still faintly burning spots and charred uprooted trees. The wreckages in front and behind were telling signs enough, but I still entered to tower to confirm.

The thought that there might be remnants of the offending force within the tower waitting for an ambush only came to me once I got to the broken door.

I waved the rest over and, once they were with me right outside the door, took the tentative first step inside, a [bust shot] ready and glowing with fire red symbols in hand.

My own spell’s glow and the brilliant moon light shining in from a window gave me a clear view of a burglary crime scene. The whole first floor was a mess, all of the hay and pelts were strewn about and dirty boot prints were everywhere.

The empty state of all the upper floors painted a rather worrying picture for me. Ruvyn and Laura did not walk away victors from their fight and the tower was ransacked as tribute for either their retreat or capture.

The only silver lining to this was that Layla was not in here to start asking me questions I do not have answers to.

I kept a calm facade as I exited the tower and wandered around the battlefield to buy time for a lie that could temporarily appease Layla and keep her from worrying too much about where her parents are. That was a task that I definitely needed time and space to work on.

I naturally told Layla not to follow when I left for the back of the tower. I could not have been more relieved that I did.

Hidden within many of the smoking craters behind the tower were bodies of those magic nullifying guys and mercenaries. I held down my bile and hastened to the treeline to get a grip on myself.

Once there, my eyes just kept roaming around for a distraction and soon found something that had flew from my mind when it flew from my arms.

The packs Laura had thrown into my lap that morning was still sitting within the underbrush, presumably, where I dropped them at undisturbed. It dawned on me then that, in all of my confusion and panic in the morning attack, I did not even check what was in those packages in the first place.

The two smaller packs each had within them a basic survival kit with a knife, a rope, a compass and rations.

The bigger pack held nothing helpful for my current predicament. Unless, nothing but two bags of clothes tied together was going to get me to somewhere that was not in the middle of nowhere.

I dejectedly dropped those and heard a faint jingling of keys. Intrigued and a bit hopeful, I untied the two bags and found hidden between the two was a small intricate key chained to a small rock.

On the bow of the key was the rune symbol for aether, a split circle with half an arrow pointing down on the left and up on the right, and a quarter of a larger circle covering the bottom right corner.

I made an educated guess that this lead to a hidden section of the tower and moved to enter the structure again. Layla obviously did not enjoy the company of Tim and Olivia, and started walking in my direction as soon as she saw me head back.

This was all and fine if I hadn’t noticed a fact that I initially missed. Layla was walking up to me to say something, an action that was going to put her past the debris covering up the corpses.

“LAYLA, stop.”

She gave me a confused look, but I just held out my hand and called out to Tim.

“Tim, get your ass over here and act natural.”

Layla took a big step back when Tim slithered over towards me. He looked down at the corpses beneath his body skeptically and I could feel the eyebrow that was in the air when he turned to look at me.

“I need you to do that absorbing thing that you did with all of the things we killed before on these corpses. Good?”

The eyebrow was definitely flying at that point and Tim’s one eye just widened. He moved it over the corpses again and actually flinched back. I started again, this time speaking a little quicker.

“Ok. I know this is obviously fucked up. But I can’t have these lying around here for Layla to see. A kid should not be seeing any of this. These needs to go and we can’t move them without her seeing it.”

Eyebrow was still up when Tim just raised his right ‘palm’ and gestured in my direction. A little hysteria was mixed in my tone now.

“What? I am just asking you to pick them up discreetly and dropping them off for a proper, mass burial later. We can’t have them lying around like this. Please.”

Tim pointed to the corpses, to his body, to the outside earth beneath him and shook his head. My voice fell at that.

“Oh. So you can’t drop them off of your body if you absorb them.”

He nodded again and I just put a palm to my forehead.

“Alright, that’s bad. But we don’t really have an out here. Layla is already looking like she wants to come over here. I know this is horrible, but just try to absorb them then. I can’t think of anything else.”

Tim took another look at the body, shuddered and remained still. Hysteria was back and stronger this time.

“Come on. You did not kill them. You are not disrespecting their passing purposefully. You are just keeping a little girl from being more traumatized right after she just killed a man this morning. So please, just do it.”

The figurative eyebrow went down and Tim heaved a massive sigh out of all of his mouths.

He turned towards the waiting Layla, slithered slowly over one of the corpses, a robed one, shuddered visibly and slithered out from the empty crater a moment later.

I thought he was going to keep going for the rest, but Tim did something weird.

His ‘abdomen’ convulsed a little and a pair of human arms popped out in a manner akin to a drowning man reaching for air, a head almost broke the surface too for, I believed, added realism.

Tim’s weird little display was about to be questioned on before he did something I hitherto thought was not possible.

“Alright, that was far too unsettling even after killing so many things. But at least I can talk now. AND CAN FUCKING GIVE YOU A PIECE OF MY MIND.”

“Woah woah woah. Keep it down, she might hear you.”

Tim took a long exhale.

“Alright. But what the hell man? That is fucked up what you made me do. That is a HUMAN corpse. I don’t know what you thought of me killing monsters, but that was definitely not something okay to do.”

“Yes, I know. But being respectful of the dead is not going to get me or Layla out of this mess. So suck it up and just blame me for the idea if you need to get rid of some of that guilt. I will be holding onto a lot of that after I fail to explain properly how Layla is not going to see her parents any time soon.”

“You know what, fine. Not going to argue over this.”

I paused and let out a sigh.

“Yeah. Let’s not. Now that we have calmed down, I have to ask. How did you even talk? And was that whole macabre change necessary for that?

“Wait. You didn’t notice my body having features of things I absorb. I just. Uhhh. Recycled those vocal cords and had to move them out for air to get in and out of them.”

At his mention, I realised that his voice did not sound like Tim’s, it was actually a little feminine, though a bit raspy. I had an inappropriate giggle at that and Tim just huffed to my bit of amusement in the grim of this night.

“Ok~. We’ll talk about this later now that you can talk. I need to get back to my sister before she finds this any weirder. And you need to clean some more corpses to keep things kid friendly.”

“Brandon, It’s still disturbing even if I did it once, But fine, I didn’t kill them and they will probably get eaten by other monsters.”

“Thank you. I definitely need you to steal more voices and get your voice more neutral. Fem Tim is nice at first, but gets weird later on.”

“Yeah, Yeah, Laugh it up. See ya.”

Layla did not wait to start bombarding me with questions over my strange behaviour.

“Brother, why did you stop me and call ‘that’ over? What were you speaking? Why did ‘that’ go when you spoke weirdly?”

“Ok. Ok. One at a time. I told you to stop because I found a trap over there and I had to have the monster trigger it for me.”

“Ok? Then those weird sounds you made?”

“That was monster talk. I can control it with that.”

Layla seemed awfully impressed by this.

“Really? That’s so cool. How did you learn it?”

“Um. I learned it from dad’s books.”

“Really? Really? Really? Can I learn too?”

I saw my chance to end this tedious conversation and took it.

“Uh. Yes… You can, just follow me into the house.”

“Awesome.”

And so, giddy Layla and me entered the tower again. The emptiness was quickly pointed out by my sister and my raised mood from talking to Tim as lowered just a little.

“Wow. What happened to all the stuff?”

I did not reply and continued deeper inside. Just before I reached the first steps on the stairs, I felt a pulling sensation in my pockets.

The rock on the key was faintly glowing blue and was gravitating towards the spot I was standing on. I moved out of that spot and got on all fours to look for a spot that the key might fit into.

My search proved fruitless after a minute and I was about to start resorting to starting a [fireball] on my hand for lighting when I was jumped on.

“BROTHER. What are you looking for down there?”

I naturally jumped too and dropped the key and rock. On the way down, the rock’s glow intensified. Once on the floor and free of my grasp, it started dragging itself in a direction.

I panned my eyes over its trajectory and found a small hole in the stone flooring. I looked at it closer and saw how much the hole resembled the shape of the stone.

I did the only logical thing then and stuck it in.

A wave of blue pulsed over the floor to the walls and a return wave of brown went from the walls back to the rock. A slow rumbling took over the silence of the dark and empty tower.

The section me and Layla were standing on began to lower itself. It dropped down to about at least three floors down before stopping at a stairway lit by blue lights on their steps. Layla and I tentatively made our way down the stairway into a small dusty storage of some sort.

Everything seemed to be covered in a tarp except for two wall mounted pieces.

One was a staff with its head adorned with a silvery ‘V’ that had its sides bending outwards, a purple gem was held within the ‘V’ and a silver blade above both to make sort of spear tip. The staff also had multiple metallic etchings upon its dark wooden shaft in three parallel lines.

The other weapon was one that I found very familiar. It was a crystalline bow with limbs stylized after a deer’s antlers.

I suppressed a small shiver at seeing the weapon that was leveled at me only that morning and approached the wall.

As I got closer to both, I could see some flaws and writing on them.

The staff seemed to be broken with jagged splinters jutting out from its end. The bow had some circular holes cleanly cut through a few of the antler’s branches.

It took a bit of squinting and dust blowing, but the writing were finally read. One large “Laura’s” was on the broken end of the staff and many small “Ruvyn’s” were next to the holes.

I could only guess that this was a sort of memento of Ruvyn’s and Laura’s first time meeting and roughing each other up. Layla came to a much more different conclusion.

“I didn’t know dad used a bow and really liked to put his name on it.”

I laughed awkwardly and moved away from the rather depressing reminder that Ruvyn and Laura were not going to be seeing these any time soon to look under the tarp.

The first thing to pop up when I lifted the piece of covering was a very thick looking book with an equally thick looking lock on it.

Remembering the key I was still carrying, I inserted in the lock and twisted. With a click, the book opened with a shedding of dust and a slip of paper fell out.

There was a message on it, but the ambient blue light was too difficult to read with and I had to now start up a [fireball] to read. The first few lines took some hope of this storage helping our situation and had me glad that Layla was a bit slow with her language study.

Brandon, if you are reading this now, I am most likely dead or seriously wounded.