Climbing down carefully, I reached ground level and gave Sun a thankful nod. “That was genius thinking.”

“Not really. The fall from the tower hurt it badly. I guessed a slightly bigger fall would do slightly more damage.”

“Yeah, falling off a mountain will have that effect,” I replied.

I chanced a look over the edge of the bluff and aside from some dust drifting away on the valley’s currents, there was no sign of the golem pieces. Moving to the mound of grey powder that had been my mortal foe only moments ago, I looted the body.

Item – Golem Heart (Legendary)

Type – Craftable (Combination)

Description – The diamond heart of a magical construct. Khad, the first golem ever created, was a towering monster of glittering diamonds. After millennia of war spanning galaxies, the being developed a heart, and with it, emotions. Centuries passed and Khad grew tired of ending worlds, the ever-present loneliness eating it alive. With eternity stretching out before it, Khad chose instead to enter a black hole and end the torment. Within that timeless, lightless place, its body was fragmented into a trillion shards which carried its lifeforce to the furthest corners of the multiverse. Anyone with enough magical skill can fashion a weak simulacrum of Khad to control.

Requirements – Int 14 (Crafting Level 12)

Effect – ???

Misc - ???

As cool as that was, it’s use was out of my reach for quite some time, if not completely. The intelligence requirement would heavily gimp my combat stats.

Item – Ring of Buhn (Legendary)

Type – Jewellery

Description – Buhn, the elder god of elemental constructs, imbued this ring with the essence of a stone golem for his faithful worshipper; Alzar Notan. Carried on his person during the sand wars of Zed, the ability conferred total immunity from the arrows and swords of the Verrin army. This protection, however, did not extend to the quicksand in which the legendary warrior met his untimely fate.

Requirements – Strength 8 Dexterity 8

Effect – Provides the wearer with ability – Golem Shell (Level 1)

Misc - None

I also had achievements from the attack.

Achievement Unlocked – The Bigger They Are, The Harder They fall

Description – You’ve used Newton’s Law to pancake a surly golem. I bet the dumb brute didn’t see that coming. Actually, he probably did, just before he smashed his face into the ground.

Reward – Ability - Superhero Landing (Level 1)

Achievement Unlocked – Slayer

Description – You’ve defeated an enemy more than 10 levels greater than you, a feat that is quite remarkable. Minions and bosses alike feel a very real quiver of doubt when they see you approach, no matter their supposed power.

Reward – Tattoo Expansion – “Fated” – AOE available on cast

I thrilled at the idea of sucking the life of my enemies like the Grim Reaper. The tooltip mentioned a fixed diameter of fifteen feet and no mention of the level increasing it, only the amount of life drained. I activated the tattoo and watched as the red ink curled up my arm, creating bold new patterns.

“Nice,” said my companion. “You too are earning your battle colours.”

“Yeah, but I can hide mine,” I replied, making them vanish.

“I can do that too,” she said.

“You can?” I asked.

“No. They’re tattoos, Mark.”

“Ok, very funny.” I replied, handing over the ring. “Can you wear this?”

“What does it do?” she asked, slipping it over her finger.

“According to the ability information, it allows you to make your skin into stone.”

Sun took it straight off and threw it at me. “Why would I want to do that? I’ve seen the statues in the marshal’s halls. What a horrible thing to try and trick me with.”

I picked it off the ground and held it out to her. “It doesn’t turn you into stone, it gives you protection. Like my armour, but it works on your skin.”

“Why would I need it?”

“I just figured you would never fight in armour, so this gives you some protection under the leather.”

She folded her arms and scowled at me. “You try it first.”

“Fine,” I replied, popping it on my ring finger.

I activated the ability and almost shit when my entire arm turned a mottled, light grey. Expecting to be solidified like a victim of Medusa, I could instead move completely freely. I clenched my fist without issue. My joints all bent as they normally did as I squatted and did a few star jumps.

Some of Sun’s reticence ebbed away. “How long does it last?”

The timer on the ability was almost finished. “About thirty seconds by the looks of it. It’s nearly done.”

“Good,” she replied, snatching one of her axes from her belt and slashing at my arm. The blade scraped off the stone with a shower of sparks about point zero one seconds before my pale skin reformed.

“Hey! What the hell was that?” I blurted, clutching at my undamaged limb.

“A test,” she said, bluntly. “I’ll take the ring.”

“Oh, now you’ll take it. I’m glad to have been your guinea pig.”

She held out her hand insistently. “I don’t know that type of pig. How is the bacon?”

“Sparse and stringy,” I replied, handing the jewellery over, which she immediately put on.

“What else did you get?”

“A new ability that I want to try, but I also don’t want to try.”

Sun frowned. “Did you take another blow to the head?”

“Several,” I replied, making for the tower. Climbing the steps, I felt my body begin to vibrate. I retreated back to Sun and the feeling faded.

“What is it?”

“I felt… funny. When I was walking up the steps.”

“Did it hurt?” she asked.

“Well, no.”

“Then get up there and see what happens.”

“We’re really going to have to talk about me always taking the risks,” I whined sourly.

“A good leader always leads from the front.”

“They also get peppered with the first arrows,” I countered.

“I didn’t say leadership was easy.” Sun grinned.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were starting to enjoy this.”

“I am enjoying myself. Now get up the steps.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said with a dainty curtsey.

Before she could ask the question about my little bow, I jogged up to the entrance. The vibration became almost unbearable as it shook throughout my body. It hadn’t happened when I’d stood there before, so what had changed?

“The golem?” I mused, withdrawing the fist-sized diamond. The discomfort ended instantaneously and the impenetrable stones shimmered as I held the heart closer. As soon as the two materials touched, the illusion was banished and blocks became wood. The twin doors were no less secure than the stone, however. That was until Sun joined me and started hacking at the timber.

“Hey! I can try and unlock it from inside.”

“I prefer this way,” she said, continuing to go all Jack Torrance on the poor wood.

“What if they need to lock it again?”

“That’s what carpenters are for,” she replied between swings.

While my companion whaled on the inanimate object with a mad gleam in her eyes that I liked not at all, I moved aside to the wall. There was no determination on how far I could fall, as each level increased on the ability. It also lacked a maximum linked to that same ability. I could fall from five feet or five hundred, there was just no way of knowing. Or was there…? For my first attempt I climbed about eight feet, turned, and jumped. I landed effortlessly, but without any dramatic flourish.

“What are you doing?” Sun asked, pausing her destruction to glare at me.

“Practicing,” I replied, climbing up to twelve feet this time. I jumped, sticking the landing with only a slight stumble forward.

“Stop it!” Sun snapped, tearing a hefty chunk of door from the frame.

“A few more tries,” I argued. This time I ascended to about thirty feet, giving my vertigo an open goal to shoot at. I didn’t give the fear a chance to take hold as I pushed away from the wall. My body took on a life of its own as the ground rushed towards me. I punched into the dirt, my knee driving deep into the rock below. One fist had cracked the stone, while my free arm was angled behind me.

“You look ridiculous.” Was all Sun had to say on the matter as I laughed like a madman and climbed a little higher to repeat the feat.

The levels ticked up as I edge further up the face of the tower each time. By the time Sun had smashed a barbarian sized hole in the door, I was at level 5 and felt like a real superhero.

“Stop that! We have work to do!”

I climbed out of the latest depression I’d created and looked around. The ground was like something out of a scaled down World War I battlefield, pocked with small impact craters which resembled tiny artillery strikes. I was the goddamned artillery! I strutted up the steps like an OG until Sun grabbed the back of my neck and thrust me through with a grunt of annoyance. I almost collided with Alwyn’s portrait which was once again animated with her apoplectic features.

“How did you beat my guardian?” she demanded.

“You should’ve taught it to be a little more cautious around unsafe balconies,” I replied. “I’m pretty sure you’re facing a health and safety breach here.”

“Do you think that dumb creature is the only thing I have defending the tower?” she snapped. “You should leave while you still can!”

I caught a flash of doubt in her eyes. “I don’t care. If we can beat that, we can beat anything you have.”

“Get out!” Alwyn shrieked, growing red in the face.

“Where are the other sorcerers?” I shouted back. “Where are you?”

“They are out of the way. As for myself, you won’t know until I decide to show myself. But when I do…” She let the threat hang in the air.

“I’ll be ready,” I growled at the challenge.

“I’ll erase your taint from this land, you filthy commoner!”

“I grow weary of her childish outbursts,” said Sun, cleaving the large frame and picture with her axe. The blow killed whatever magic Alwyn was using and it fell in pieces to the cold stone.

“There’s a lot of elitism going on around here, isn’t there? What’s wrong with us common folk?”

Sun kicked at the torn canvas and shrugged. “There are always people at the top who have a bad attitude. Is it so different in your world?”

I thought of the politicians who lorded over us. Their arrogance was only outmatched by their stupidity and ineptness. The old saying that cream always floats to the top worked better as an analogy when the dairy product was replaced with shit. Quite what we’d done to deserve such utter mediocrities forming our political parties I had no idea, but we must have pissed someone off.

“Do we take everything?” asked Sun, as furniture, vases, and other antiques began to disappear.

“No!” I blurted. “We’re here to help. What would the sorcerer’s think of us if we save them and they return to an empty tower?”

“We’ll say it was Alwyn,” she suggested.

It was a good suggestion and I gave it some thought for a split second. “No. We’re better than that, Sun. Pop it all back for me, please?”

She huffed and a stack of furniture appeared, falling in a clattering heap.

“Really?” I asked as she made to leave it.

“Alwyn did it,” Sun replied. “Or the golem.”

I shook my head in resignation and headed for the stairs. Without the threat of impending death, we climbed floor to floor checking things as we went. The lower levels were dedicated to the living and storage areas. Kitchen, larders, and general stores. I’d missed the dining room in my mad flight upwards. There were places at the tables for hundreds of people, and I wondered if the sorcerer’s actually numbered that high. Randulf had mentioned nothing except for apprentices and the sorcerers that served the individual fortresses. If I added them all up on my map, it worked out about four dozen at most. Plates and goblets had been laid out, all now covered in a thin layer of dust. How long that would’ve taken to accumulate in the still room was anyone’s guess. The windows were basically viewscreens onto the outside world without the ability to actually move through them or feel the wind. I moved forward and touched the open space expecting glass, but it wasn’t. I could feel the rough stone beneath my fingers, even though it was invisible to the naked eye.

“Enchantment?” I asked Sun.

She only had eyes for the mugs which seemed to be solid gold.

“Ok, you can take one if only to make up for the fact this place tried to kill me. They all look exactly the same, so we’ll just say it was Alwyn’s one.”

Sun grinned at me sheepishly as a pair of cups reappeared on the table at her side.

“Sun!” I exclaimed.

Another clattered to the wooden top and she shrugged.

I shook my head in disappointment. “Any more?”

Her eyes told me all I needed to know and I felt like Mama Fratelli from The Goonies questioning Mouth as three more popped into existence.

“We’re going to have to talk about your thieving. I think you’ve got a problem.”

“The only problem I have is that you keep getting in my way,” she grumbled.

“I’m trying to keep you on the right path,” I replied, heading back to the stairs.

“You’re trying to keep me poor.”

“No man is poor if they have friends,” I countered. I’m sure the line was from a great movie, but it still applied.

“I’d rather have riches,” Sun grunted.

I made a dramatic show of clutching my wounded heart and collapsing to the ground. Sun simply stepped over my dying form. “Charming,” I muttered, jumping to my feet and following her upward.

She eyed the chests that accompanied the small beds in much the same way as she had the goblets so I quickly guided her past the sleeping areas. What might’ve passed for a normal tower disappeared as we came upon the real magical floors. The first was a veritable greenhouse, with plants and herbs of all sizes and colours growing in the numerous beds. A gasp of marvel escaped my lips as I noticed the small grey cloud that floated into view. Lightning crackled across the tiny puff of vapour followed by an almost adorable rumble of baby thunder. The plant it had chosen was watered by the brief downpour before the cloud moved on to the next.

“That is so cool! It sure beats a watering can.”

“Can we make use of any of the materials?” asked Sun.

“Probably,” I replied. There were shelves filled with old books and scrolls that no doubt contained recipes that would help us. The sheer volume created a spanner to throw in the works. “Do we have time to study it all though?”

“No. Let’s move on.”

I jogged after the warrioress as she took the steps three at a time. The next room was of a similar bent to the one below, except in place of plants were thousands upon thousands of containers with all manner of minerals, liquids, and to my disgust, animal parts.

“Alchemy lab,” I explained.

“Useful?” she asked again, and again I had to explain the lack of time to study. The best case scenario is we turned ourselves into mice or blew our eyebrows off. The worst case is we could level the whole damned tower with our mistake.

The next floor was so bizarre I almost didn’t believe my own eyes. The tower itself was tapered like any normal building, but this room was dozens of times larger than that of the one below. I ran back down to the alchemy lab and looked out through the window. There was nothing above me but air and the straight line of wall which reached the clouds. Returning to Sun, I found her kicking amongst the debris.

“Anything?”

I pointed around in wonder. “This shouldn’t exist as it is. There’s no way the tower is this wide.”

“Magic?”

I had no better explanation and nodded. “What else could it be?”

“There was a battle here,” she explained, picking up a scorched breastplate.

“I think the whole room is designed that way,” I replied, finally seeing it for what it was.

“What do you mean?”

“This looks like combat training. Somewhere they can practice their spells and stuff.”

Part of the room resembled an indoor forest. Another had walls built like the inside of a castle. A third portion had a dozen vast pits that looked like gladiatorial arenas. I gave up after that, it was all too surreal. The only thing I was certain of was that there were no sorcerers anywhere within.

The next three floors were libraries, lined with books from floor to ceiling. More than a person could ever read in a hundred lifetimes. At least the mind bending proportions of the room below were back to normal.

We passed studies, replete with dozens of desks and chalkboards marked with undecipherable incantations and spells. The wind was growing stronger the higher we climbed, the parchment being blown around the rooms like fallen autumn leaves.

“What is that?” asked Sun as we came out on the next floor.

“I don’t really know,” I replied.

It was barren except for a small dais with four curved pillars, one at each point of the compass if my map were correct. They were tapered in at the top like claws about to close in on whoever climbed the low platform. It screamed portal to me, but there was nothing magical thrumming in the air. It was just full of swirling dust that occasionally seemed to take on the form of incorporeal spirits.

More bizarre floors were left behind us; one had a storm raging within, the weather beating against the walls and floor. Another was open sky, as if we were on the back of a soaring eagle. I actually tried to put my foot where I knew stone to be, only to have it touch nothing. Sun pulled me back before I fell. I gave up trying to make sense of what I saw after that.

Reaching what I assumed to be the highest floors, instead I found daylight and sky waiting around the curve of the steps. We both stepped out onto the roof of the tower and looked at each other in shock.

“Well, shit,” I muttered.