The taxi arrived at destination, a small brownstone house in a quiet Brooklyn neighborhood. After paying the driver, we walked up the brick stairway to the front door of the family home. For the first time in my life, I was nervous about ringing the doorbell of the house I grew up in.

I rang the bell and my mother, Jenny, opened the door a moment after.

Before I had the chance to say anything, she grabbed me, hugging me like we hadn't seen each other in years. "Do you have any idea how worried we have been since your apartment was destroyed and no one has heard from you for the in over thirty hours? Why didn’t you call? If we didn't have enough to worry about with Seb! We thought we lost you, do you have any idea what we have been going through here?" She hugged me again but even harder, this time sobbing.

In the meantime, my dad and Ellie were at the door behind my mother encouraging her to let go of me.

"Mom, dad, Ellie," I said as soon as my mother released me, "I would like you to meet my friend Cara, she has been with me pretty much since the tower popped up and destroyed my apartment."

"I am very happy to meet you all." Cara said, bowing slightly. My family was a bit surprised by the bowing, but New York is very international so it wasn't too surprising to see a different form of greeting.

"We are very happy to meet you Cara, please come in, make yourself at home." My mother said. Everyone took a seat in the living room and my mom brought out a pitcher of lemonade and glasses on a large tray that she placed on the coffee table.

"So, what have you been doing for the last day and a half, and how did the two of you meet?" My father asked once we were installed around the dining room table.

"As to why I haven't been able to get in touch with you, that was because I was stuck on top of the tower, and I lost everything, even my phone. I was literally on top of the tower with only my shirt on my back.”

“Oh dear!” Jenny exclaimed, her hand going over her mouth.

“How did you get down? We didn’t hear anything on the news about anyone stuck on the tower. Everyone has been searching for you?” My father Hank asked, always the pragmatist.

“Well, I thought about waiting there until help would arrive, but then I saw there was a doorway, so I decided to enter the tower instead.”

“What?” they also said almost in perfect harmony

“You mean to say that you have been in the tower, the one no one has been allowed to enter.” Ellie began “And you came out as well? No one has been seen coming in or out of the tower since it appeared. The place is surrounded by the police and the military.”

“I know that it sounds incredible, but I think if I explain how I did it, you will find the story even more incredible. You probably won’t even believe me, at least at first. I guess that I should probably start from the beginning.”

“But before I start telling the story, I need you all to swear absolute secrecy; if the story gets out, our lives will become hell. Everything I say and the things that you will learn need to remain between us. Do you all promise?”

“Yes, we promise,” my mom replied for everyone, the others just nodded. “But you know that it will be hard keeping this secret. And the story could be worth a lot of money, money that we sorely need.”

“The money I’ve got covered, for everyone. I have done everything anonymously, and it needs to stay that way. Believe me, you will severely regret it if the truth gets out.”

“Now, where was I? Yes, the door. When I entered the tower through the trap door, I found a chest. The chest was full of gold and jewels but it also contained a number of magical items.” I began.

“I think you have read too many fantasy novels, why don’t you try telling us what really happened.” my sister Ellie interrupted.

“Matt, we all know you like to be dramatic at times, but even from you this seems a bit much.” My mom added.

“And do you think that a tower coming out of nowhere, destroying a whole neighborhood is something normal?” I asked. “After something like that I would expect you all to be more open to the possibility of magic. But it doesn’t really matter, because I can backup what I am saying, easily enough.”

“This is a dimensional storage ring,” I held up my ring finger for them to see. “what that means is that I can store things in this space without having to worry about the weight. This is where I store the items from the chest. I will take some items out of the storage, but try not to be too shocked.”

"You certainly won't be able to fit much in that ring." My mom interjected.

"It is not in the ring," I explained. "the ring activates a storage in another dimension, and it is quite large."

With that I thought about the gold and jewels in my storage, and had them land in a pile on the rug of the living room where they all could see it.”

“There was a synchronized intake of breath as they all were shocked to see a pile of gold and jewels suddenly appear out of thin air. Even Cara gave a gasp of shock, but I think in her case it was shock at the quantity of gold and jewels I had in my storage.”

“That’s worth an absolute fortune!” my father stammered. “You say that you got that from a chest in the tower? Wow!"

“Do you see the size of that diamond?” my mom said in shock. “Can that be real? I didn’t know diamonds could be that large.”

“Yep, it is all real, and it is all ours. Although selling it may not be so easy, but I am working on that as well.” I explained. “I managed to sell some of the gold coins and I got a really good price, much higher than the value of the gold because I told them that it was gold from the tower. I am actually expecting the story to appear on the news soon, so maybe we can turn on the news in the background while I finish my story.” With that, I returned the treasure to my dimension storage.

“So, I am going through the chest and examining the items, when I hear this voice talking to me. I look around and there is no one to be seen. In the end, it turns out that the voice was coming from the tower itself. I talked for a while with the tower, his name is Will by the way, and he seemed almost too nice to be true. Will basically told me, that if I could survive through the levels of the tower, that I could become the tower champion.”

"Survive?" my mom asked "Is the tower dangerous?"

"Yes, the tower can be very dangerous. It is full of monsters and beasts. I was starting the my entry into the tower from the most advanced level so, yes, it was very dangerous. I will get more into that later."

The whole family was now listening in rapt attention, hanging on my every word.

“There were some very helpful items in the chest, things that would definitely help me to survive. Armor, a sword, knowledge stones, beast cores and the dimensional storage ring and some other magical bits and bobs.” I explained, brushing over the contents of the chest.

“After emptying the chest, I spent some time learning to use everything I had received. During this time, unbeknownst to me, Will modified my body making me much stronger and more resistant and improved me internally so I could use magic."

“You are a magician now?” Ellie asked, shock showing on her face.

“I am actually what you would call a battle-mage, and apparently a pretty decent one at that.” I replied.

“He is a very powerful battle-mage” Cara interjected. “I have never seen anyone even remotely as powerful as he is. He saved me and he saved all my people on his first day in the tower.”

“None of the credit goes to me actually, it is all Will’s doing. I just used what he gave me.”

“Let me get this straight,” Hank said. “You enter the tower, with nothing more than the clothes on your back, you receive a chest full of gifts and then you are made into a powerful battle-mage and then you go on to save a village in the tower? This is really a lot to take in. I think I am going to need something stronger than lemonade.”

“Breaking news! Two stories have just come to our attention related to the tower which appeared in the New York suburbs a couple of days ago.”

“Turn up the volume” I told my dad.

“Earlier today, two people, supposedly coming from the tower, entered a gold exchange shop not far from the tower, to sell gold coins and a ‘beast-core’ which came from inside tower. In fantasy terminology, a beast-core is an object coming from a magical creature, and is their reservoir of mana, or the energy used for magic.

“According to the shopkeeper, at least one of the persons that entered his shop could perform magic and the shop keeper managed to capture images of the tower magician performing magic on his security camera.”

“The shop keeper said that he sold the gold and the beast-core for an undisclosed sum to a person who wishes to remain anonymous, but we have been able to procure a copy of the security camera footage.”

The video images were in black and white with a decent image quality. Fortunately, the mask also worked on video images because neither Cara nor I were recognizable in the video.

“That doesn’t look like either of you” my mom said looking from the video and back to me and Cara.

“We were wearing magical disguises”, I explained and she seemed to accept it. She was already adapting well to magic apparently.

My whole family watched in awe as I performed my mana manipulation for the shopkeeper.

“A second breaking story comes from the Mount-Sinai hospital in New York.”

“Brace yourselves,” I warned everyone. “this story is about Seb. I was going to planning telling you about it soon.”

“Around 2:30 p.m., the same two persons who entered the gold exchange, entered the oncology department of the Mount Sinai hospital, visiting a room of four terminally ill cancer patients. The two people filmed the whole event and gave a copy of the video to one of the patients before leaving. What you are about to watch is hard to believe to say the least.”

The video played, and the whole time everyone in the family had their mouths open, and their hands over their mouths. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room as we all watched Seb and the other persons in the room, miraculously healed.

My mom and dad hugged each other crying. “Seb is cured! He is going to be alright! Our boy is going to be alright! Ellie ran over to me and gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek and then she grabbed Cara and all of us were hugging and crying.

“You maybe could have begun your story with Seb.” My mom sobbed with a little reproach in her voice.

“Would you have believed me?" I replied. “I was going to get to Seb very soon."

“… police are looking to identify who these people are, so please call your local police department if you have any information regarding these two persons claiming to come from the tower.”

“We will probably be getting a lot of calls from the press.” I said once the initial shock had subsided. “Whatever you do, you must not mention anything I told you about the tower. I think that you should now understand why.”

“Seb should be arriving home soon,” I informed them. “what do you say we wait for him before continuing the story?"