Clara woke up another day, wandering the long streets of Lanostiv. There weren’t too many things to do for someone as famed as the Saintess, let alone as someone as freed. The efforts of her day to day work left her with very little time to react.
She saw the more gruesome injuries as well as the light ones, and her healing magic was famed for working for anything. Just the other day she healed a mute child, and even that was hypothetically outside church hours.
But there was no rest for someone like Clara, who always worked hard to ensure everyone can live on within the modern era; revolving around any injuries that could be solved with the wave of her hand.
Very often, she thinks her power is too much for one person to wield. But she would always keep wielding it for her moral duty of healing just about anybody. Her Saintess class only added to the obligation.
And then there’s the social part. Even when she was out shopping, or eating out with a few friends from the Sanctuary; if somebody was slightly hurt, it was on her to help them. Sometimes it got exhausting, but it was always nice.
She always felt happier after a day of work than a day of rest, for every day of rest is another day people bleed out due to improper medical care, and every day she worked was many more people healed.
And now she was in the Tower, and she was left to wonder of the terrible deaths her inactivity caused. But, there was something more important, for her existence here leads to the party surviving, and the parties survival leads to the world’s ongoing survival, at least if the quest is to be believed.
65 - Ball
Reality collapsed in on itself, at least if the quest reward is to be believed. Heavenly’s screaming was distant and growing more so as time passed on. Eventually, Clara found herself in a comfortable bed within a mansion.
This mansion was well lit, and when she walked outside the hallway, she noticed her mana was back to full. She felt well rested as well, but the window that led outside showed not a sprawling villa, but rather a deep void filled with floating candlelights instead of stars.
The candles float alongside paths, never colliding despite moving chaotically through whatever matter left them suspended in their pathways. It was beautiful, the orange glow of each candle leading the eyes to the next, and next, to the small dots of flame in the distance a potential few kilometers away.
The flames continued to dance in the dark, and Clara saw Judine step out of her room as well, a similar expression painted the duo’s faces. General confusion and awe at the strung along machinations of the candles.
“Do you know where we are?” Judine was first to ask a question as Clara was busy looking in the distance. “This location doesn’t match anything I’m aware of, and this mansion has plenty of rooms.”
Clara thought for a minute, and stated what she thought to be obvious. “I’m quite sure we are in the setting of this floor, or maybe even the next few.” Clara shrugged as she looked at the candles some more. “I mean, this location seems to be Floor 51; and since we gained the rewards of the quest for Floor 50, and we aren’t dead nor about to, we have to be on Floor 51.”
She looked at the system message glaring at her, and closed it. She’ll claim it once she’s with her party once more, Clara decided in the moment to ignore whatever the rewards were trying to claim until she found Pallad especially.
[Rewards To Claim: 5 Legendary Items, 5 Legendary Skills, 2 Legendary Traits, Level 5 skills instantly to Level 99.]
“Do…” Clara had trouble finding the words, as she looked over the candles, especially at how the flames refused to go out as few flickered for a moment. “Do you think Pallad’s still alive?” She felt her own grip on her sleeves grow in intensity.
Judine’s silence answered all Clara needed to know as she closed her eyes. But Judine lightly tapped on her shoulder. The look in Judine’s eyes gave conflicting information, and her voice only offered more support to her true opinion.
“That man isn’t going down that easily.” Judine’s voice was filled with determination, but it still fluctuated ever so slightly. Her voice betrayed Judine’s hiding doubt. Clara simply nodded at Judine’s efforts.
“Of course,” Clara looked more steady as she walked down the hallway, lit up with beautiful golden chandeliers, and the candles outside looking more like reflections of the lighting fixtures indoors. “I’ll have to apologize to him for doubting him when I see him once more.”
Clara is interrupted in the walk through what felt like an endless hallway from a more imposing force in a black flowing dress. She gasped seeing them, covering her face with a fan. “Oh great heavens no!” She sounded more offended than Bariton does whenever someone critiqued one of his sillier songs.
“You cannot be here for the ball dressed like that!” Before Clara nor Judine could ask any questions, the two were dragged away into another room. The duo were placed in front of a grand closet with all sorts of clothes.
“You must dress for the occasion you two!” The madam finally lowered her fan, and her face was beautiful. It was a face that took the breath out of Clara’s lungs, and she quickly turned away.
“Ohoho~” The laugh the woman gave out was interesting as well, and she simply winked at Clara. “But please, don’t let me get in the way of you two changing! There are more dresses in that hallway, you may only exit if you are properly dressed to be beside me!”
The woman left as soon as she entered, and closed the door. The footsteps down the hall clearly implied she was in heels, but the speed she moved was also curious. It was at an even pace, clearly showing she was used to the heels she was wearing.
Clara looks back at Judine and nods. There were plenty of suits and dresses in this room, and they were all made of silk. Finely woven as well, clearly made by true masters of the craft, potentially better than anything they could ever attain in Forsivo.
******
Shammus awoke to find himself in a bed, alone. After reality crashed down around everything, he was unsure where he’d wind up, and if the party would still be here. He left the fancy room behind as soon as possible, ensuring his inventory, and the quest, were still there.
He nodded at seeing the Floor 50 quest being gone, and the rewards just needing to be claimed. He decided that could wait before he found the rest of his team as he wandered into a grander hallway.
The wood making up the hallways was intricately carved and painted, probably for hours on end. The side table every few doors has a unique vase and urn atop them, clearly hand painted, and clearly valuable. The golden chandeliers lighting up the room similar to a noble’s home, similar to the Castle of King Forsivo VI.
He looked out the window and took a step back as he saw the Void. He knew it was the void as Voidsense told him it was. He heard the same exact whispers coming from the candles left afloat in the nothingness that was outside the mansion, and even as some came inertly close to the wooden walls, nothing caught aflame.
Shammus took a breath of relief seeing the chaotic motion, thinking back on how his party had moved around in the previous floor, and noted how he himself was relatively unharmed compared to Pallad.
He worried for a moment, but the worry stilled as a bard walked up beside him. “Yo!” It was certainly Bariton, and Shammus didn’t even have to turn to know it was. He simply waved to the bard without turning away from the window.
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The whispers weren’t in a language he didn’t know, far from it. Bariton clearly decided the same regarding the quest completion rewards, for he didn’t have anything special on him. The whispers didn’t grow louder, and Bariton’s voice grated against them. “The moon certainly looks beautiful tonight, hm?”
Shammus paused for a second, his lips tight together as the feeling hit him of familiarity with that phrase. But then he looked out in the void and confusion washed over him. “What moon?”
The candles kept floating past the window, going somewhere no-one would know, and one of the candles flickered down for just a moment. But there was no moon in sight, and Shammus was even more confused. He was almost drawn to open the window and look around in angles impossible for indoors.
Bariton’s eyes dim ever so slightly as Shammus sighed trying to find one trace of the moon Bariton had seen. But Bariton stays silent afterwards. The silence is something Shammus can’t stand, for whatever reason, maybe it was the years spent in it.
And so Shammus began walking down the hallway, its repeating nature made it appear longer than it truly was. “Let’s get moving, Bariton.” Shammus’s walk was slow, methodical. Contrasting Bariton’s walk, which while slow felt more… forced.
Shammus frowned as he picked that up. “Were you injured during the fight of last floor?” Bariton suddenly stood at attention at the question, and quickly waved his hands.
“N-no, Pallad definitely took a majority of the hits!” Shammus frowned slightly hearing that, for what other reason would somebody slow down? Usually, Bariton was much more fast, always moving like someone who couldn’t stay still.
Yet now, he was more slow, not more careful while being. It was worrying to see his friend in such a state, Shammus felt. And he had a question biting at his throat, but he was just too afraid to ask.
For what if that was a wrong assumption? What if the party still doesn't trust him, and what if it’ll be seen as accusatory? Even the word ‘too’ wouldn’t fix it. Another candle flickers down outside, and it drops with no sound, but the movement automatically draws Shammus’s eye.
Bariton stops alongside Shammus, and looks curiously at the candle that dropped from the heavens, that fell from its rightful place with the others. The glimmer in his eyes was much more noticeable when he looked out over the void.
“Right, we must keep moving onwards.” Shammus caught himself getting distracted, but he was quick to right himself, after what felt like ages staring into the others eyes anyways. Bariton cleared his throat and nodded.
The two moved onwards further down the hallway, finally reaching a bend. The door onwards was unlabeled as well, and when Shammus opened it they met with someone unnaturally tall, and unnaturally human.
The person stopped and apologized after ducking under the doorframe, their impossibility stretched thin body contorted upwards as they did. “Oh, sorry… I didn’t see you there…” The suit the man wore was immaculately tailored as well, alongside the coat.
“Ah, no problem at all Mr..?”
“Don’t worry about the name…” The voice sounded quiet, similar to something someone making up a name on the spot would use. “...but you two are dressed quite poorly for this occasion…”
The insult mixed into the speech caught Shammus off guard completely. “I apologize kind…” Shammus tries to find a gender, but the body seems to constantly shift out of view whenever looked at closely. “Ser, but what occasion are you talking about?”
“Oh…” The tall creature looked ashamed as it pulled it’s arms up to cover it’s nonexistent face. “...you don’t even know of the ball about to happen…” The tall being’s suit seemed to tear a little bit, but it repaired itself covering the spikes growing ever so slightly.
“Ooo~” Bariton looked excited at the message of a ball. “A ball?~ Like, the kinda party right?!” Bariton was practically bouncing in place. Shammus felt a grin twitch at the corner of his lip as the bard showed excitement once more.
The tall creature’s face split open in a similar grin as Bariton kept talking with it, until eventually it began moving. Shammus wasn’t paying too much attention to the speech and more on the sounds of the voices, specifically the way the bard’s went against the small voice of the creature.
The tall creature stepped through the hallway slowly, and simply stopped in front of one room that looked the same as all the others. The difference was the vase on the nightstand outside, with it being white with blue flowers painted along the rim.
The other side of the door had a vase with red. The long arm raised with the weight of a hundred and pointed at the door shaking. Shammus opened the door for Bariton, and was surprised to see closet of closet of dress, of suit.
There were hundreds if not thousands of them, and the creature closed the door behind Shammus, as he investigated the clothes. They were all of obscenely high quality make, in fact all having a system message.
“Hm, well then Bariton, why not play a game of dress up?” Shammus offered the bard, trying quite hard to conceal it as a date, but he didn’t really have to try to keep secrets as he kept looking about at the dresses.
“Oh!” Bariton said nothing about the idea of it being a date. “So it's like a challenge of who can look better afterwards?” Bariton’s questioning seemed innocent enough to the swordsman, and he nodded. “Ha, then prepare to get smoked!”
******
Pallad was sore all over, and the cushy bed made it even harder to get up. He was finally resting after that long battle, and it was a beautiful fight. But Pallad couldn’t afford to stay stopped, as he slowly got up. His bone armor shedded onto the floor, clattering against the hardwood.
The bone turned to dust in a singular instant, and a gust of wind opened the door for him. He saw a beautiful sea of nothing, and within were thousands upon thousands of candles, the orange lights from them landing on his eyes as a softening embrace.
They reminded him of home, and the sanctuary’s internal light fixture of a glass chandelier. The chaotic motion matching the stars in the sky slightly better than the glass chandelier, but still off. They didn’t collide, but it felt more like they were on a double pendulum then moving in a smooth direction.
It was a tradeoff, they were off in coloration, and the chaos seemed to work out just fine to mimic the motion in the sky, but the glass chandelier back home was grander, and felt more imposing to be within the lair of a God of Light.
The fires instead were comforting more than imposing, and were less captivating as Pallad moved forward with a limp through the long hallway. He heard a voice muttering on the other side of a door about some ball, and when he saw the person exit his eyes lit up.
It was General Wrath, with the exact same scars he first had in front of the city gates, but instead of the sword the size of a door, it was a great warhammer with a hammerhead the size of Pallad’s torso.
“Ah, Pallad! Splendid to see you here!” Wrath grinned as he walked towards Pallad, but the grin dropped when Pallad limped forward. “Ah. You were injured by a foe greater than me, huh?!” Wrath laughed with a grand guffaw.
“Aye… Splendid to see a great General such as you in such an unfamiliar environment.” Pallad was forced to stay formal, lest the pain overtake his voice and he screamed. He felt his leg was definitely shattered, alongside his ribs.
His arm too, maybe his other wrist was dislocated. He was in pain all over, and Wrath laughed when he saw this. “Well I was going to ask you to spar with me, but…” Wrath doesn’t even mention Pallad’s injuries as he looked himself up and down, and Pallad did the same.
It was fantastic armor, and it seemed well polished. Not a single scratch, which transposed the scarred hands of Wrath, alongside the scarred face. It had beautiful rubies along the center of the chestplate, and the metal was clearly platinum.
“This is my suit for the ball! And I dare say Pallad…” Wrath walked up to Pallad, and while Pallad was originally the same height as Wrath, when Pallad was forced down by his leg being so thoroughly shattered, Wrath was a bit more imposing.
“You don’t have a suit!” Wrath grabbed Pallad by the shoulder, and Pallad winced as he learnt that too was broken. Wrath laughed at the wince as he let go for a moment. “Apologies, apologies…”
Those were pretty insincere, but Pallad could care less. “Well, there’s definitely more for ya!” Wrath walked on, turning around every few seconds as Pallad limped along. He felt his natural healing did some to help, but the pain didn’t dull all too much.
Wrath kept walking, the metallic boots landing on the floor and he opened up a door leading to a massive armory. That’s when Pallad remembered the rewards of the quest he had finished by reaching this point.
[Rewards To Claim: 5 Legendary Items, 5 Legendary Skills, 2 Legendary Traits, Level 5 skills instantly to Level 99.]
Pallad breathed out a sigh of relief at the quest still being available to claim, and he just waved the notification away, wincing as moving his arm hurt. It hurt bad. The armory was lit with the candles instead of the chandeliers of the main hallways that were way too long.
“Alright!” Wrath practically kicked Pallad into the armory, and slammed the door behind him. The pain subsided further in this room, as the candlelight seemed to push some of his natural regeneration into overdrive. “Now you get dressed well before the ball, ‘cause I have to show you off to my friends!”
The footsteps leading Wrath away from the dressing room led Pallad alone to decide what to wear, between the suits of armor with gemstones strewn about, with a mirror as well. It was clear all these weapons weren’t for proper usage, with the way they all didn’t even have system descriptions befitting Uncommon weapons.
They were expensive to be sure however, with the rubies on the gold, and the diamonds on the platinum. Pallad had much to choose from…
