“How goes the excavation?” Declan said as he looked across the great gorge. The sandstone walls dipped in thousands of metres, but they were finally beginning to reveal something. They had been searching the fifteenth floor for months and finally it was paying off. He would be so happy once the master saw his work, and the restoration of his master’s full power would propel the Lupe clan to much greater heights. Almost a thousand years, the pain and torment of a member of the beast clans climbing the tower without a book, and the harshness of the hunt for his master, but it would all be worth it if they could propel the Lupe above the Book clans.

“The pit is amazingly deep, sir, but we’ve finally reached the strange black rock that you mentioned. There’s a lot more to reveal, but it should only take a few more weeks to reveal what was here. May I ask what we are looking at?” The Lupe clansman managing the digging said. It had been a lot of work, so Declan had pulled in as many of the clan as he could. Thousands of people were toiling below, clearing away dirt and stone, digging out large swathes of land, and dumping rocks either side of the gorge. There were two mountains that had clansmen nearby, to make sure there were no rockslides or collapses as the spike-like protrusions stabbed out of the earth and framed the hole. Slivers of black could be seen in the ground over seven separate spots of land, making a very loose circle that could only be seen from high above. The stage was clear, it was time to make the Lupe ascend from the second rate clan they were treated as and let them finally reach the peak.

Declan turned around and began walking away from the edge of the gorge without answering the question, back towards the campsite that he had set up in. It was a sparse affair, but Declan was unwilling to let anything distract him from his cause. He had left his trappings and special items back in his room in his testing floor. He would not need them, and the Immortal who he had coerced into taking his place would never be able to go in there. He was the monarch of that little floor; his control there far outstripped even the influence he had within the Lupe. He walked through the camp, ignoring the workers who were lamenting about the back breaking work they were having to partake in. Even with bodies hardened and strengthened by mana the work was still backbreaking. There were so many men and women who had given their lives to the project, but Declan gave no heed to them. This was for the greatness of the clan; they would understand. They had to.

Walking into his tent, Declan moved to a relatively unadorned sheet of metal and sat down on the plain oak chair next to it. The chair creaked under his weight as he stared at the metal, despite his short and thin frame. He looked into the dull surface of the sheet and finally spoke.

“Tony,” he said simply and the metal gained a sheen. It rippled until it looked as clear as a window, but rather than the other side of the tent, it showed a canine humanoid much like Declan. His ears were low, and his eyes betrayed his tiredness as he stared at the man who had called him.

“Brother,” Declan continued. “We are almost complete with phase three of the plan. Once I have helped my master out he will raise our clan to greatness. We will walk amongst the stars like gods of old. We will see the space outside the tower, laugh in the faces of the old fools who run the Book clans”. His eyes lit up as he spoke, the fervour bubbling off his face and his strength easily causing rents in the arms of his chair.

“Calm down, Dec. I don’t know what’s gotten into you since you met this master of yours, but I’m not a fan. Sure, you’ve worked harder at whatever phase three has become, but I don’t see how getting some ancient cultivator their powers back will get you any closer to harnessing the power of the fallen morning. We need that weapon to corral the Book clans into obeying us if we want any chance of actually getting power. You know this far better than I do, don’t get distracted by your strange errand for this man, Luke”. Tony sighed, a strange look on his face as he watched Declan bubble away. The two of them had been working together for so long, but now they were drifting apart. It seemed to pain Tony, but Declan was so consumed with the idea of helping his master that he could not see the wood from the trees.

“Don’t you understand, Tony? My master is far greater than anything we could have done with the fallen morning, but once he has his powers back to full strength he will direct it to me anyway. We will be rulers beyond anything the tower has seen in hundreds of cycles. I’m doing this for us,” he stopped, a bitter look replacing his fervour. “End conversation”. The image shifted back to the matte grey metal that it had been before he had spoken to Tony.

Sitting in the dark of his tent, Declan fumed. There was a splintering sound as the arms of his chair shattered into hundreds of little shards. The wood could not pierce his flesh, but Declan was still annoyed by the fact that his chair could not stand up to his strength. He growled in frustration, and then heard a shuffling sound at the entrance flap. Turning round, the outline of the aide he had ignored before was visible, head bent in supplication. “What?” he said, spittle flying from his mouth as his anger built once more.

“Sir, you never answered me, or dismissed me so I followed you back to your tent, then I heard you shouting and I heard wood shattering and was worried something might have happened...” the man stammered.

Declan snarled. A mere Heaven ranker worried about him, he had not fallen that far yet. “You fool. Get back to work! If the altar to my master is not revealed by the end of the month I will have your head”. His eyes wide, and deep red, full of blood. “When I leave, you will go back to work. If I want to see your face, I will summon you, do you understand?”

“Yessir!” The man barked, before trying to scurry away, bowing as often as possible out of fear.

“Halt. I did not say leave. You act without thinking once more and I will begin acting without thinking myself. I will just crush your skull, like I have been holding back from for the last few seconds. You are to find me Saints. One of every Book. No excuses. When you have all six, I want them delivered here. If you fail me I will cut your line from the tree of our great clan, now go!” Declan pushed past the worker, back into the light of day. It was time to begin collecting the keys to open his master’s true prison.