“Tsk, how many more floors can there be?” The tall man grabs the reward without really looking at it. Besides, his unique skill Lucky Break would be plenty enough to get it out of his inventory when he needed it.
“The Tower counter ticks up, yet you have no option but to give up!“
“Shut up already. I’m on floor 27.” The man responds once more to the token, even if its incapable of responding.
He ensures the cloak still covers his long brown hair, even if he’s a swordmaster he knows he can’t afford for the other 9 or so sent here to recognize him.
- Eight Years Later…
“Wow, isn’t this tower so much easier than we thought it would be?”
“Of course you’d think that Pallad, we’re already on floor 7, despite only being here for fifteen days. But that’s the thing, we took care of the first two floors in one day, but now we’ve been stuck here for seven.” Sornid responds, looking beyond the railing of the ship they were manning.
“Bah, it’s not as bad as you think, Sornid!” Bariton cuts in, sliding down the mast from the crows nest, “I’m sure we’ll see some poor soul on floor 40 who’s been stuck there since they sent the swordmasters into the tower.”
As soon as Bariton cut in, Clara speaks up from the cartographer table.
“Hey, there should be an island at our seven o’clock!”
As Clara says this, Judine looks from the ships control room, “There sure is! What do you think we should do? There’s light, so there’s probably civilization.”
“What else? We raid them for supplies!” Pallad raises his voice, clearly tired of the ocean, and having to ration out, as by Sornid’s orders.
“But what if this tower layer is finally a peaceful one?” Bariton sits upon the railing, staring at the island upon the starboard. “We should act accordingly, with the idea of a potential peaceful solution existing.”
“Silence, all of you. Bickering gets us nowhere.” Sornid exits the captain’s quarters. “We’ll anchor nearby and try to coexist with the locals. If we have to fight, we can. We’re strong enough to.”
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The five all decide on Sornid’s plan. They all get off the ship and swim to the beach, and warm up besides a fire, discussing their game plan for this island.
“The towers floors are becoming more and more vast, it’s almost as if we are to be roped in with the absurdly fast pacing.” Judine theorizes.
“And then once we get past the point the Return Stone works, we’re stuck here?” Pallad tries to get more information out of Judine as he holds up the Return Stone.
The Return Stone doesn’t even need to be tried, since every time they grab something with a stat block, it opens up a little system menu about it. Often ignored, but now it states “Inable to be used within this Floor of the Tower” in red text at the bottom of the description.
After the night of theories being thrown around and awaiting for their clothes to dry, they get further into the island. It’s not very big, about the same size as the floor 2 forest, but there are two cities.
One of the cities catches their eye, this one is walled off, and now they suppose they should enter through the front gate.
“Who are you?” The guard at the left of it speaks up, aiming their spear towards the throat of Sornid. “This isn’t a place for adventurers.”
“We are just a group of sailors, looking for a place to purchase food my good sirs.” Bariton gives a light bow to them, to show respect.
“Didn’t you hear what my brother said? This is no place for adventurers.” The other guard speaks up, this one more firm in his voice.
“Oh please do let us through good sirs,” Judine steps forward, getting the spears pointed towards her. “We aren’t here to cause trouble, but rather here to find out more about this area.”
“I’ve heard enough.” A voice comes from the top of the wall, which is tall enough for the person up top to be inable to be seen from the parties angle.
“As have I.” Another voice comes from the top, but this one jumps down, showing a man of Pallad’s size, although with more scarring around his face. Their armor is only from the neck down, yet they hold a sword the height of a person, and a blade thicker than a door.
“General! There is no way you are to test these five!” The leftmost guard speaks up.
“General! Please, think of those within the city!” The rightmost guard pleads.
The general’s answer is simple; “Ha! These five want information, they’ll need to earn it.”
“Hmph, and what do you have in mind?” Sornid speaks up, smoking out of a pipe from Level 3, one that naturally calms the nerves of whoever smokes it, and the allies as well.
“A duel, one of you against one of me. If you make me use a single spell, discluding my traits, your win. Otherwise the ground being soaked in that man’s blood is mine.” The general gets into stance.
“Sounds fine by me.” Pallad steps forward. “The name’s Pallad Binn, what’s yours?”
“Ah, from a cultured area. My name’s General Wrath!” The general speaks loudly, “And although you may not hold a title, I do! For it’s Hatred of All.”
“Ha! My title isn’t one you’d know, it’ll be Fighter of All once I’m a god!”
“Hm… A truly interesting title.” Both Pallad and Wrath get ready for battle…