Ashinaro was panting by the time he reached the final floor of Unar’s Tower, clambering over steps that were canted at an extreme angle and exiting out into a room open to the sky.
He frowned up at it, wondering if the trolls had somehow managed to damage the tower. It had always before been impervious.
He studied the way he’d come.
Or, was this Unar’s chamber?
As far as he knew, the top floor wasn’t open to the sky, and it seemed unlikely that even a group of foreign Champions could manage to damage it so severely when even Ascendent Maris had been unable to so much as collect a sample of the tower.
The room below had a higher ceiling than the previous floors, and the tower itself was massive, so it was possible no one had noticed that the height didn’t quite align—that there was an extra floor above what they thought to be the pinnacle. Though with it open to the sky, it seemed like someone should have noticed.
He peered out at the surrounding land. He’d never had this high of a vantage of it before. He could even see the Genesis River that flowed from the Sea of Serpents into the birthing grounds at the heart of Argalis.
It wasn’t hatchling season, so the waters were empty of hatchlings. There might be a few weak monsters, but otherwise it was devoid of life. Soon it wouldn’t be. The next blood moon wasn’t far off, and thousands of eggs would crack open, disgorging their fledgling inhabitants. The strongest among them would fight their way upstream until reaching the birthing grounds.
A hazy memory flashed in his mind, but he pushed it away. He didn’t like thinking of his origins.
He returned his attention to the room, focusing on the quest.
If this was Unar’s chamber, there was nothing here that resembled a journal, only stone columns topped with crystals, similar to that room he’d seen on the second floor.
Maybe it was a puzzle like those, and he had to move them to reveal the journal.
But these ones didn’t budge when he pushed on them.
He stepped back, studying the lines radiating out from the pedestals.
After considering it for a moment, he tried picking up one of the crystals topping them.
As soon as he did, music flooded his hearing and the world shifted, a ceiling forming overhead, and he found himself standing before a door.
He’d been moved, physically. It had happened so fast he hadn’t even registered it.
He didn’t know where in the tower he was now.
He approached the door the music emanated from.
He tested it, finding it unlocked, and pushed it open just enough to peer inside.
The room beyond was hexagonal, its walls lined with mirrors of various shapes and sizes. In the center, a skeleton danced and twirled to the odd music. There were no musicians, so Ashinaro didn’t know from where the music came.
It certainly wasn’t from the skeleton. It wore a tattered costume of once-bright colors, its face hidden behind a mask painted with a grinning face. In one hand it held a scepter, its other was empty.
Neither looked like a paw.
Ashinaro opened his beyondsight on it.
[The Jester]
He frowned.
Not a monster. Yet, no renown or race, either. Unless, was ‘the jester’ its race? If so, it was a race he’d never heard of.
Strange. If it were veiled, he wouldn’t have been able to see into it with his beyondsight at all. If something had been dead for a long time, you might not be able to see its renown, but this clearly wasn’t dead.
The tattered clothes made it difficult to be certain, but it didn’t quite look like the skeleton of a human. It had a tail, but clearly wasn’t drakken. The tail was much thinner and shorter than a drakken’s. Nor did it look like the battleform of a Beastkin. He supposed it might be one of their beastforms, but that didn’t explain how it looked to his beyondsight.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Whatever this was, it was something no one had found before. Perhaps an ancient race lost to time, or maybe even the fay themselves.
Excitement at the discovery coursed through him.
The music stopped abruptly.
The jester froze mid-pirouette, then slowly turned toward the door. “A visitor!”
The door slammed open, fully revealing Ashinaro.
“How delightful! We so rarely get intruders anymore. Are you here to play?”
Before Ashinaro could come up with an answer, the jester cocked its head at an angle that should have broken its neck and cackled. “Everyone’s here to play! They just don’t know it yet. Shall we dance, little pet?”
“I’m here on a divine quest for a journal and… your paw.”
The jester looked down at its arms, then back at Ashinaro. “Seems you’re out of luck. I don’t appear to have one. And even would it were so, it would be attached, and I am rather fond of attached things. They’re so much more useful than unattached things. Don’t you agree?”
“Then just point me to the journal and I’ll be on my way.”
The jester spun in place. “The question is,” it pointed its scepter at Ashinaro, “what do you have inside you, little dragon?”
“Nothing you’d be interested in.”
“Entertainment! Entertain me, and perhaps we can discuss my paw.”
“So you do have a paw.”
The jester giggled. “Silly me, spilling all my secrets. The jester won’t be pleased.” It tilted its head. “You know, I find I don’t care for instructions much. It’s been so long, and master hasn’t returned. I fear he never will.”
“Unar?”
The mask spun, revealing a frowning face. “You know my master?”
“Of him. I’m here for his journal.”
The jester snorted. “Your divine quest. Playing at godhood. Let’s see…”
Pain erupted through Ashinaro’s head. It felt as though someone was digging around inside and scooping out his brain.
He found himself on his knees, staring at the jester, whose mask spun back and forth between grin and frown.
Then it suddenly cartwheeled across the room, landing uncomfortably close to Ashinaro. “Life is performance. Death is the final bow.” It leaned in, mask inches from Ashinaro’s face. “Show me how you dance with death, my pet.”
“Eg—” Ashinaro had to clear his throat. “What?”
“What gods persist, for none have sent you on this crusade. Master’s journal you seek, yet self is all that exists.”
Ashinaro wondered if whatever the jester had done to him had scrambled his brain. “I don’t understand.”
The jester playfully bonked him on his head with its scepter. “Silly silly silly. Well, we’ll just need to test you then. Come now, on your feet.”
The jester struck, its scepter ripping through the air toward Ashinaro’s head without any playfulness whatsoever.
He instinctively ducked the blow while swiping his staff at the jester’s head and using his tail to flip himself over the not-monster, landing behind it and spinning to strike again.
“Good!” it cackled, dancing out of range, its tail moving side to side. “Now, show me the fragment of this false god.”
Strangely, Ashinaro understood what the jester wanted. To see Flesh’s Frenzy.
He was happy to oblige.
Flesh peeled away from muscle and bone, reforming before him as a perfect—if eyeless—duplicate. It held his staff at the ready, awaiting Ashinaro’s command. The connection felt cleaner, smoother than last he’d used it. The effect of the white core he’d instilled.
“Disgust is the emotion it’s fed by,” said the jester, studying the flesh golem. “I want to see yours.”
His golem lunged forward, thrusting the staff at the jester’s midsection.
It twisted impossibly, avoiding the strike entirely before retaliating with a swipe of its scepter.
The golem easily avoided it, as boneless as the jester.
Or would have, had the scepter not tripled in length, slashing across the golem’s scales, opening a wound which rapidly healed. Only a trickle of blood flowed from Ashinaro thanks to the relic’s new red core.
“I see I see,” said the jester, spinning in place, the grinning side of its mask facing forward. “Very well then, pet. I shall aid you on your crusade. I must be leaving this place eventually, and tomorrow is as good a time as any.”
“What?” Ashinaro asked in confusion. This jester spoke in riddles.
Then his golem slammed back into him, replacing his confusion with surprise.
He grunted.
Right, Flesh’s Frenzy only lasted for one breath.
The jester vanished, its mask and scepter dropping to the floor.
The room shifted around Ashinaro, and he found himself back in the chamber open to the sky.
The mask and scepter were at his feet now. He tried to pick them up, but they disappeared the moment he touched them.
He turned his attention to the room, which had changed from the last time he was here. The pedestals were all gone, save for one. Atop it rested two objects. The first was a tiny, skeletal object attached to a loop of fabric.
When he got closer, he saw it for what it was: a bloodrobber paw.
He picked it up, and it spun, pointing in a direction he knew would be east.
A bloodrobber’s paw always points east.
Was this the jester’s paw? As in, a paw belonging to the jester, not that it itself had paws?
It was just a common trinket. He couldn’t see anything special about it. It looked like every other one he’d ever seen.
He slipped it into his pack, and examined the item that sat beside it.
It was a simple thing, parchment bound in thin leather.
Unar’s journal.
The moment Ashinaro picked up the journal, he felt a relic appear within him.
Ashinaro considered the Excavator, then reread his quest.
Discover the Jester’s paw and use it to extract the Excavator’s core, and Excite will grant you an additional of his relics.
It hadn’t updated, and he had no idea how to extract the core.
He stared at the device, looking for a place to put the paw, but didn't see one.
Not expecting it to work, he tried simply touching the paw to the machine.
To his utter shock, it worked.
A core unlike any he’d ever seen freed itself from somewhere within the machine and before he could do anything flowed into him.
Not to his core, but to something else.
Which made him realize there was something else inside him, something foreign.
Before he could examine it, he felt the second relic appear within him.
“Huh. That was easy.”
“You know,” a voice said from behind him, “I really didn't expect that to work.”
