Darkness surrounded me. All I could sense of Sophie were the sound and vibration of her boots on the stone. Neither of us spoke. Alone with my thoughts for so long, I finally found time to make sense of what had happened in the Caverns, and just what it meant for us and our futures.

Now that I processed his words, the burden put on my back threatened to crush me just like the dark of the tunnel. How could the Mystic expect me alone to save the people of the city? Even if I could, why would I help destroy the city? Not only was I not convinced the Squalor was a good alternative, I also had much to lose. After all, Amy was still in the city. What would happen to her in a revolution? Heck, Nate was employed by the City Council. Now I didn't have a choice though. I had been thrust into this position against my will, and was now forced to oppose the council.

However, if I wanted to fight off the gloom in my heart, all I had to do was think back to big sis, to Eileen. The memory of my courageous sister who had never shirked back from her duties dispersed the darkness and eased my steps. Once we met again, I was sure Eileen could provide me with some clarity, some direction.

Even though I couldn't guess at Sophie's thoughts, I wouldn't dare impose on her while she was still trapped in her own worries. And so we walked in silence, through the darkness.

Finally, we reached the end of the tunnel. Off in the distance, we could see the light of day shine into the tunnel. As if we had arranged it in advance, the two of us sped up our steps in unison as we hastened towards the guiding light. Soon we stood before the steps that would lead us up into the holiest of holies, the magic academy of Astralis. Finally, we had reached our goal: The Towers of Knowledge.

The towers had received their name from the seven massive spires which dominated the political and intellectual center of the city. Here, the mages overlooked not only the entire city, but the whole world, to study and preserve the ancient art of magic.

Within each of the towers, it was said, one of the Grand Mages resided, themselves successors to the seven Archmages who had founded Astralis. From their homes at the top, they would choose their students, conduct their research and pick their successors, to replace them as part of the City Council at their time of death. Each year, hundreds of hopefuls from all across the city would enter the complex under the protection of the guardians.

As such, the Towers of Knowledge should have been a hub of activity. I had always expected young students sweating as they rushed from one class to the next. Maybe they would gather on the lush grass outside the halls of study to debate on the true mysteries of magic knowledge, or argue with their teachers over new applications of mana shapes. Some might search for like-minded friends, or prowl the halls with dreams of a romantic encounter. Instead, they could be all proper and serious, studious learners buried into their own research, intoxicated by the truth.

However, what we found was nothing like any of the images I had formed of a university. Back in the harsh sunlight, we found ourselves surrounded by an old garden. Beneath my feet was the dry crunch from a thick layer of composted earth. All around us stood massive trees, but they had died long ago. The corpses of lumber stretched their bony fingers towards the sky, in desperate search of salvation, but none had come forth. Now the dead trees were reminders of a time when the garden had been filled with life.

Some ways away, I could find the remnants of a stone path, the stones cracked from the roots burrowed underneath over decades and centuries. As everywhere, the path was also buried by the soil which had once been leaves and saplings, a moot attempt of the trees to keep their species alive.

At one point, this garden might have been intended for leisure, but nature had reclaimed the land long ago and almost wiped out all traces of human moulding. Yet later, nature itself had lost against the woes of time, to leave behind only a graveyard of plants.

With morbid fascination, I stared at the bizarre imagery around. Not a single sound could be heard, except the howling wind, caught on the barren corpses of the trees from time to time. A look up and I could see that indeed, we were within the inner city. Although I could see the towers from almost anywhere in the city, they had never been this close. Right before us, the massive structures stretched towards the sky. No matter how it looked, we were still on the right path.

“Maybe they abandoned this garden. It makes sense that the old man would pick a place like this for his secret entrance. A place no one would enter.”

Sophie's voice came from behind me, strangely hopeful. Not even the anarchic girl would want the towers to be in this state. Since the thought that the deterioration of our home had gone this far was too much to bear, we pushed it away.

So we wandered through the old roads, flooded with loose soil, in search for an exit or any sign of life. Just to be safe, I reshaped the light barrier around the two of us. Like lost children in a forest, we stumbled through the bizarre, alien landscape, the towers permanent beacons to our path.

“Don't they feel oppressive to you?” Sophie asked all of a sudden. When I looked over, she motioned to our front. Of course, I already knew what she was talking about. Before us stretched the seven Towers of Knowledge. Although all of them were different in design, all of them were held in a style as monumental as it was imposing.

“I think they look solid, reliable.”

“So can these mages ever do any wrong to you?” her annoyed voice asked.

“I'm not saying the city doesn't have its flaws. I'm the caretaker here, I know. Still, even if things aren't perfect, the mages are trying their best for the common people. At least I have never seen anyone starve in the outer city, not even in the Squalor.”

“How gracious,” Sophie scoffed. “I guess that excuses all the atrocities, huh? All the half-corpses in the city, or the raids.”

“I never said it did. But when you rule someone, tough decisions need to be made sometimes. What would we know about the inner workings of the city? No matter how it looks, maybe the mages are doing the best they can. How would you know?”

Somehow, I was reminded of the gangster bosses I had overheard back in the jackal's lair. Before I had heard them talk, I was convinced that the gangsters were just there to exploit the poor common people of the Squalor, even though those bosses had only tried to make as many as possible survive, through adversity. Maybe the council was in a similar position and could no longer tolerate a cancer like the Squalor.

“The best they can? You're kidding. If this is the best they can do, it's nowhere near good enough. No, the mages have had their turn, and they've failed. If you ask me, it's time for some fresh wind.”

My eye twitched as I turned to face my ward. How could someone this smart be this ignorant?

“They're the Grand Mages! They've been in charge of the city since forever. How could anyone ever do better than them? Just because you can't accept-”

“Shhh,” Sophie interrupted me, just in time before our argument could turn into a fight. With her reminder, I realized that we had been far too loud this close to the potential threat of the inner city. When I looked back ahead, I realized that the nearest tower had taken up most of the sky. At last, we had reached the edge of the garden, and with it a scenic little cobblestone wall, ideal for lying on top of and dozing away a summer afternoon.

However, just like every other place we had seen, it was dirty and dilapidated. Chunks had fallen off after a dead tree trunk, bereft of the ground's firm support, had toppled and smashed a section to pieces. Without a further word, we left the forest and entered the path to the outside. What we found didn't fill me with confidence.

“It's not just the garden that's been abandoned,” I whispered.

Before us stretched a large plaza, once a spot for the students to mingle. However, soil from the gardens had blown over and smeared the clean, white ground with a dirty brown. I could still feel the grainy crunch of the dried earth beneath my feet. This wasn't soil anymore, it was sand.

Closest to us was a short building, what looked like the annex to the first of the towers. We found no lights, no sounds, no activity, nothing but the soft murmur of the wind, the crunch of the sand under our soles and our own breaths. Despite the rot, the titanic structure of the tower still stretched into the sky unperturbed. Complex geometric designs and sharp angles dominated the construction, to give it an appearance of authority and mystery. However, even it lay abandoned.

“What is going on?”

As I went up to the wide entrance to the tower annex, a whisper came from my side. The glass door had been cracked and muddied, so my probing look yielded no results. Neither did my attempts to rattle the handles.

Locked. Or blocked off forever.

With a frown, I touched my palm onto the door's gap and shaped my mana. The force burst into the ocean of silence and rammed open the gates. As if I had committed a crime against the peace and quiet of this space, Sophie looked at me with wide eyes. However, of course I knew she was just worried about the noise.

“So what? No one's here anyways,” I answered her silent judgment. “Let's go. We need to find out what's going on here.”

Unlike the outside plaza, the space inside looked almost pristine with its blue and white, synthetic tiles. However, the untouched, flawless nature of the rooms only made them look more surreal, more in conflict with the chaos outside. For the second time today, I was reminded of Mr. Oraya's picture. An island of chaos in a sea of calm. This was the exact opposite. A small island of order in the ocean of the chaotic world.

Further inside, we found large lecture halls, where hundreds of students must have soaked in the knowledge bestowed upon them by their teachers. There was a large kitchen area, where they could eat food and share stories. Further down lay dormitories, libraries, storage rooms... the facilities were massive, but no matter where we came, we found no sign of life.

When we had first arrived here, the library had been my greatest desire. It was my chance to learn proper magic, based on the wisdom of the old masters, rather than whatever the Mystic had been able to guess from decades and centuries of experimentation. However, all we found inside were useless chairs and tables as well as strange stone boxes, put up in long, orderly rows.

“What are these?” Sophie asked.

I wasn't surprised at my companion's confusion. After all, she had never seen anything similar to the markings on these stones. I however knew exactly what they were.

“They're mana symbols.”

As soon as I saw the stones, I was reminded of the dancers, the ones who had guarded our path to the Towers of Knowledge. This must have been the place the Mystic had learned from. He must have spent years imitating the glyphs on the stones around us. However, unlike the mana symbols on the secret gateway, these here were carved right into the stone slabs.

Curious, I forced a sliver of unshaped mana into the central funnel and the stone began to glow in a soft light as the dancers resumed their dance. Although the carved symbols on the stone moved like living beings, I was numbed to the wonder. It was just another surreal sight on a day of endless novelty. Though the view itself was mesmerizing, nothing else happened.

For a while I tried different shapes of mana, but no matter what I did, the dancers would remain unmoved by all my attempts at control or communication. Then suddenly, I could feel a force enter my head, like a cool drop of dew. It spread across the inside of my forehead and soon covered my entire brain. Somehow, I understood what had happened. Some magic shape had entered my mind to transmit the ancient wisdom hidden within the stone slab.

This must have been how the library worked. However, no matter how long I waited, no knowledge would enter my head. Nothing was transmitted. Had I made a mistake somehow? I kept trying again and again, reshaped my mana into various forms, but no attempts bore fruit. The infinite knowledge locked in the stone would elude me, so close and yet so very out of reach.

I became desperate. Never would I let all this wisdom just lie and rot here, all this power. Determined to risk it all, I gathered mana in my arm. If I couldn't get the stone to open with a knock, I would use a ram instead. At this point, I couldn't consider how to conserve mana. If only I could learn the secrets of the ancient mages, I could learn how to regain my mana anyways. Just as I was gearing up to force my way inside, I felt a tug on my arm which brought me back into reality.

When I looked over, a concerned Sophie had her mouth agape in a silent scream, while she tugged on my arm. Like a fade-in in a movie, my senses returned to me bit by bit. The light tug turned into the desperate shove and pull it was, while Sophie's voice turned from silent background noise to a murmur, and finally to anxious shouts.

“Brayden! Hey! You there!? Answer me dammit! Are you just gonna go off like that!?”

Although I realized that something was wrong, my mind still felt disconnected from the world around me. All I could offer was a vague response.

“I'm fine. You can stop ripping out my arm now.”

Sophie finally stopped her struggle. Confused, I watched her face switch first from disbelief to happiness, then to anger in the span of a second.

“Can you tell me what's so funny?” she complained.

“I just checked out this stone for a bit, so it's fine. I get that you're worried about me and it's really cute, but there's no need to get a panic attack.”

Maybe that hadn't been the most optimal answer. The anger got worse.

“What are you talking about, you moron? 'A bit'? Do you know how long you've been standing here?”

For a second, I stared at Sophie like the moron I was. Then, my eyes turned to the wall, where a large window broke up the room. In the past, it must have given the library an airy feel, giving way into the plaza at the foot of the tower. However, just like all the other windows we had passed, these ones were caked in the dirt and grime of the outside world. Still, even through the opaque window, I could see that the light outside had dimmed a lot. It was almost night.

“How long have I been standing here?” I didn't even realize that I had mirrored Sophie's question. Fear spread through my limbs like a rush of icy water.

“...less than a day if that's what you're asking.”

Even though she tried to console me, Sophie couldn't look me in the eyes, a futile attempt to hide their redness. Our strange circumstances must have been pretty hard on her. Just as I wanted to turn my apologetic face into a real mea culpa, my companion changed her tune again.

“Anyways,” she said in a spry voice. “We should go up and see what's on the top floor of this place. If we're gonna find anything, it would be in the room of the Grand Mage, right? Once we're done with that, we should go find a bed. It's getting kinda late and I'm not used to the whole 'walking and running and fighting' ordeal. Tomorrow's another day.”

As Sophie trotted away, I stared at her back and then back to the stone slab which had trapped my mind for hours.

“You better not touch that thing again. Next time I'm just gonna leave you there. Maybe I'll even draw on your face first.”

Before I could even move, Sophie's shout echoed to me from outside. At least she still had her terrible sense of humor. Everything seemed okay again, if only for a little while.

Since the day was getting late, we went with Sophie's plan for the moment: Find our way to the top floor, the place where the Grand Mage of this tower should have resided. We didn't get very far in our attempt.

Although we found a flight of stairs, it only led us another three floors up before we couldn't go any further. Later on, we also found our way to an elevator into the inner sanctum.

However, there was no way to open it. Instead, we found another piece of carved stone next to the closed doors, like the one in the library. Even after I had expended a considerable amount of mana on it, the elevator remained just as closed as before. More mana might have fixed the problem, but there was no guarantee of success and Sophie's sour look told me what horrors awaited me should I try again.

I had wasted too much mana anyways. We would just have to try a different tower tomorrow. With my recklessness held in check, we went into one of the dorms we had seen on our way and picked a room with multiple beds to call our own for the night.

“You think the other towers are gonna look like this one?” I asked, my eyes looking at the bunk above me.

After we had laid ourselves to rest, my mind was still racing with all the things I had – and more importantly hadn't – seen today. There hadn't been any of the horrors the Mystic had suggested we would find, and none of the vibrant student atmosphere I had hoped for. So I asked the only other person in this place for answers. Luckily, Sophie was more than just a little smarter than myself.

“Who knows?” my bunkmate answered. “It's probably safest to assume that this one is an exception rather than the rule.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well, the city outside is still running, isn't it?”

“...true.”

“And it's running on magic, right? So considering all that, the towers would be the last place to go down if something happens. Think about it, why would the outer city be in such a pristine condition, if the towers themselves are dirty and falling apart? It makes no sense.”

“Sense or not, that's how it is.”

“Maybe it was abandoned for a reason. Maybe the Grand Mage who owned this tower did something to piss off the other council members, so he got axed and his place was closed down. Or maybe the number of mages has just been shrinking. Think about it: In the outer city, entire city blocks are no longer in use, like the area around the Squalor.”

Although Sophie couldn't see me, I still nodded. Several quarters of the city were no longer accessible, mostly on the outside. In my caretaker days, I also met a good few older folks who told stories about the city's energy back in their youth. Of course, they could have just been blinded by nostalgia. While I still thought on Sophie's point, she had already moved on to the next one.

“Seems like our population has been on a steady decline. The old man said so as well. Less people means less mages means less space needed to get all of them under one roof. Why waste resources here when you can put everyone into three towers, or two, or one? Makes sense to me at least.”

“That's still no reason to let the place rot like this. Wouldn't the tower be an important historical site at least?”

“Who knows. We'll find out tomorrow. Since there's nothing here, we'll just have to go over to the other towers. The mages have to be somewhere, don't they?” Although Sophie's voice sounded strong, I could sense the slight quiver hidden behind her strength. “At least those red beasts have to come from somewhere in here. Those are absolutely real.”

“I guess you're right. Let's try again tomorrow.”

Although it took me another hour, I managed to calm my chaotic mind and forced myself to sleep. Tomorrow for certain. Tomorrow I would be reunited with Eileen.