Tower of Origin - Book 1 - Chapter 6 - The Tower of Origin Part II (Patreon)

                                                                        Blake Artorius
                                                    Year 6137 | Month 11 | Day 1

I grunt as I land on one knee on the ground.

Stupid voice.

I raise my head again to find Diane smirking at me with obvious amusement.

A frown covers my face, but not due to her. It’s due to the various Chrono gathered around us looking at me.

Diane seems to notice this as well and says, “Don’t worry about them. They’re just curious about the new Chrono.”

She then turns and sends each of them a glare, causing the majority of the spectators to continue with whatever they were doing before I quite literally dropped in. Meanwhile the few that are still staring are – if my guess is correct – likely the Chrono who are either the same Tier as Diane or even stronger.

“Is this your brother?” one of the remaining Chrono asks, causing several of the Chrono who had continued walking to noticeably slow down their pace in the hopes of hearing the answer.

Diane glares at the man who had spoken – who also happens to have the same colored Chrono eye as her, except with a slightly darker shade of red. One more akin to blood.

“You don’t have to answer that,” the man says with a light shake of his head before turning to face me, “it’s already clear based off of his emotionless gaze and how you treat him.”

My brow twitches slightly at his words before I turn to look at Diane.

How does a random Chrono know about my mentality?

Surprisingly, my question is answered by the man almost immediately despite me not having spoken it out loud, “She’s the director of Faust’s CRD. How could the factions not look into her family?”

I turn my head back towards the man with my eyebrows slightly raised in surprise.

My face is emotionless, so how did he…

“Don’t worry about him,” Diane suddenly says from beside me, “he’s the leader of the Chaos faction in Faust, and he won’t touch you.”

The man glances at her before his lips quirk upwards slightly and he nods his head, “The director is right. I won’t mess with you as long as neither of you become a problem.”

He then walks away without another word towards the direction of one of the buildings.

‘As long as neither of you become a problem.’

These words repeat in my head once as my eyes follow the man.

I guess he’ll probably go after me if either me or Diane ‘become a problem.’

Anyways…

I turn towards Diane and ask, “Faction leader?”

She doesn’t take her eyes off of the man as she answers, “Yes. Damian Arteah is a Tier 4 Chrono with an ability known as Blood Seek. He can control any blood that’s outside of a living being regardless of the blood’s origin and can read the minds of anyone once a week per person. Although how much he can read and for how long hasn’t been figured out yet by the Chrono records.”

My eyebrows raise at that odd combination of powers before she finally takes her eyes off of him and continues, “But he doesn’t like to draw trouble to himself or his faction, so unless you do something against him or the Chaos faction itself, he won’t bother you.”

And since you’re so wary of him, and obviously don’t treat him very well, I feel it’s safe to assume that you probably have some bad blood with him.

This thought goes through my head as I stare at Diane’s face for a few seconds before turning towards the tower without speaking my thoughts out loud.

“Anyways,” she continues while looking around for a few seconds as the other stronger Chrono all begin to disperse, “I’ll go show you the Tower of Origin and you can try your first game.”

I nod my head and we begin to walk towards the strange black fog that’s covering the body of the tower.

Actually, now that I think about it, where’s the tower entrance?

My question is answered soon after as Diane simply grabs onto my wrist once we reach the black fog, says, “We need to be in physical contact to enter it together,” and then pulls me with her into the fog.

What the…

My thoughts trail off as I find myself and Diane standing in the middle of a small chamber. The chamber has two three different receptionist desks, with each having what looks like a winged human being with slitted eyes standing behind them.

Keepers? I didn’t realize they were also the receptionists in the Tower alongside their jobs as game hosts.

As if reading my thoughts, Diane whispers to me, “Apparently, the older Keepers who’ve retired already like to work the receptionist desks despite the desks not really needing anyone behind them to work just so that they can interact with the Chrono and get a feel for them.”

I glance at her before furrowing my brows slightly and focusing on the desks.

They don’t need anyone to man them?

That’s interesting.

I look around the rest of the chamber as we begin to walk further in. The chamber itself looks very futuristic and yet also old at the same time. It has strange lines of deep blue – the same shade as the lightning outside of the tower – running through the otherwise black walls, with older style furniture lining the chamber. Stuff more along the lines of what might be in a castle.

“Hello, miss Artorius,” an almost unrealistically clear voice echoes through the room, drawing my eye back towards one of the keepers, who happens to have his eyes glued to my sister with a polite smile on his face, “would you like to register for a game?”

One of the other keepers stares straight at me, so I stare right back as Diane answers the first keeper who had spoken, “Hello again, Sir Retor! Before I do my own game for the night, I was actually wanting to help show my little brother around!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the keeper – apparently named Retor – turn his gaze towards me with a faint look of surprise as I continue my staring contest with the keeper stationed at the desk on the side of the chamber.

“Well, welcome to the Tower of Origin, and congratulations on your Awakening, mister Artorius!” he says while spreading his arms out wide.

But despite that, I continue staring at the keeper who hasn’t taken his eyes off of me since I entered the chamber.

A few seconds pass by in silence before I eventually mutter, “Greetings,” still without moving my gaze.

It isn’t until a faint smirk stretches across the face of the keeper whose been meeting my stare and he nods his head and says, “Greetings.”

A short and relatively awkward silence ensues before I finally move my eyes away from him to go to the counter on the right of the back of the chamber, which is manned by a female keeper who hasn’t said a word this entire time.

If I were to guess, I’d say the female keeper’s desk and the talkative one’s desk are the ones to register for a game while the one I had that short staring contest with is for advancing in Tier.

My guess is confirmed as a HUD appears above the desk without any sort of trigger from either me or the female keeper.

“Reach out and touch your answer,” the female keeper says in a straightforward tone of voice.

I do as she says and touch the Yes option, causing a brief look of surprise to cross both of the keepers’ faces in front of me before the words on the HUD change again.

I raise an eyebrow slightly at the sight of the words before they change once again.

Hmm?

That’s all?

I turn to look at Diane, but she just nods her head, indicating that I should select yes.

So that’s just what I do, and after that, some sort of wheel appears in the place of the HUD with what must be over a hundred different options that are all too small for me to read on each division of the wheel.

The Tower of Origin decides on what game you play… by luck?

As if answering my question, the wheel suddenly begins spinning.

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