FINAL CORE - All Missing Content! (Patreon)

Hello! I have been told that I goofed regarding my practice of informing you all when new content that gets added to RR releases after the chapters have been on Patreon, which, yeah, fair enough, actually. My bad!

Instead of me posting the links like a goober, you can instead see all of the previously additionally added new segments of FINAL CORE here. In the future, when I add something to a RR release, I’ll add the full new text with a context-note to the top of the next new patreon chapter =)

Thank you all for your feedback!

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Chapter 27

~ [Beulah] ~

Beulah stares around himself, looking around the room of the tower that he's been brought to by the red orb of light. For something divine, the red creature was fairly snarky, all things considered. This is an odd place. The tower as a whole, certainly. But this floor especially. It's floor eighteen.

Floor eighteen, despite the incredible heat that drifts around it, is a somewhat odd, enclosed forest, lined with strong needle-trees. Lights dance around the forest, cinders from the floors above and below drift through the air like fireflies. But they never set the heat-resistant species of trees alight and instead paint the room with a mystical glow, akin to the orange hue of the color of a fox's fur.

From what Beulah has gathered in his somewhat frantic time here, trying to understand the nature of this place, he's come to understand that this tower is a dungeon. This is fairly unusual in and of itself. The fact that it's clearly a divine and spiritual place is even odder. He isn't a spiritual person, nor has he ever been. But there's clearly something happening here that's impossible to ignore. Could it really just be blind luck that, while running for his life, he found his way here? To this place? To the only place he could have gone to escape the guards? To survive? He doesn't know. But it's certainly something to think about during the quiet nights.

The red spirit had told him that there's work for him here, but it didn't really specify and he doesn't really know what his 'work' could entail. He's not really qualified to do much of anything, honestly. But, he supposes that if he's being allowed to live here, then having a day job can't be bad, right? He'll bide his time for a while, lay low, stay quiet. Maybe in a few weeks, the air will clear and people will forget about him outside. Then he can get out of here. He'll run to the north or the east, maybe. He can start over there.

Beulah nods. This is a good plan.

Something rustles in the bushes next to himself. The man's head snaps to the side as a creature pops out of the smoldering undergrowth.

~ [Kitsune Shrine-Maiden] ~

• Class: Priestess
• Element: HOLY/NATURE
• Type: Trickster
• Category: Homunculi
• Rank: C
• Level: 15

A shrine-maiden is a sub-variant of the priestess class, dedicated solely to defensive measures around a specific, physical structure. Where-as priestesses are free-wandering casters, shrine-maidens are bound to their home shrine and only have power around it. Wandering too far from their shrine will reduce their power significantly.

However, their shrines allow them to tap into the world's ambient magics, gathered by the building, making them far more powerful than an equivalent level caster while inside or near their homes.

Kitsunes are human-beast half-breeds and are extremely mischievous creatures.

HP: 36/36

SOUL: 44/44

• [Fox-Fire]: Inflicts stacking status [Burn(1)]to a target. Bypasses FIRE-RESISTANCE by dealing NATURE damage
• [Shrine Magic]: Allows for active magical manipulation of the rooms of the inhabited shrine, allowing for a variety of tricks, traps and deceptions.

Beulah takes a wary step back.

The bushes behind him rustle. He turns his head, looking as another long-eared face pops out of the underbrush. Its eyes shine in the firelight, staring intently his way with a predator's gleam.

His gaze wanders nervously around the area, having trouble differentiating if the orange glows in the woods around himself are flowing cinders or the shine of even more eyes, warily staring his way.

"I uh... I was sent here to help work?" he says, lifting his hands into the air in a pacifying gesture.

All of the faces disappear, vanishing back into the forest, leaving Beulah looking around himself in silent confusion for a time as fires crackle noisily all around himself.

On the edge of his vision, a trodden path opens up in the burning forest, leading towards a small, wooden structure that is surrounded by ever-burning trees. Soot falls down from the stone ceiling, dropping from above like flakes of tarnished snow.

Nervously looking around himself, Beulah makes his way towards the shrine, gulping as his boots sink into the mounds of ash beneath himself. Just for a few weeks. He just has to survive for a while here. Then he can make his escape.

________________________

Chapter 39

~ [Isaiah] ~

Isaiah stands there with crossed arms, staring out over the landscape as the storm rages. Wind howls and the cascading, gray water crashes down over the world as if intent to drown out every color and texture to be found below.

The tower rumbles beneath its feet, growing another floor in height. The uthra are busy at work, getting the tower into shape and also upgrading the stockpile, which is the next big job. But it can’t continue to be outside like it is forever. Not only does it destroy the image of the tower, but it is too risky for any items of value that they might obtain to just leave them out in the rain.

New Area

~ [Dungeon] ~

Floor {32}

The thirty-second floor of the tower dungeon. It is currently empty

Capacity: {66} Monster-Points

Traps: {03}

The next sub-boss/challenge room will be available in {03} floors.

The next boss arena will be available in {08} floors.

Isaiah stares downward, tilting its head, as it gazes at the odd creature, kneeling there in the mud.

How strange.

Why doesn’t she find a tree to hide in?

(Author's note. For context, the 'strange creature' refers to Scion, who is still outside praying in the rain during the second inspection team arc)

___________________________

~ [Red] ~

Uthra, Female, Worker {3}

Red rolls her eyes. “Put it over there! Dummy!” she barks. “Or are you trying to have the tower collapse in on itself?”

“Can it do that?” asks Green curiously, propping up the massive support column with Crystal’s help, down in the underground tunnel that’s being converted into an upgraded stockpile. “I just figured dungeon-magic will hold it all together no matter what.”

“It’s complicated,” says Crystal, as the massive stone column is stood upright, fitting perfectly between the compacted dirt and stone below and the ceiling above. “The dungeon-magic will hold it together, but we still need a touch of plausibility for the system to accept it.” Crystal turns to Red. “Anyway, who put you in charge?”

Red, having a noticeable span of size over Crystal since she is a worker of a level higher than he is, leans down towards him. “Isaiah did. Obviously. I’m the top dog here. Remember that, pipsqueak.”

Crystal plants his hands on his hips, his wings buzzing. “You know, back when Emerald put me in charge, I was a lot nicer to you,” says Crystal, shaking his head. “I don’t know where you were between then and here, but you really changed, you know? You used to be nice.”

“‘You used to be nice~’” mimics Red sarcasticially in a squeaky voice, shaking her head. “- It’s called having work-ethic,” she says, slapping the back of her hand into her open palm. “Try it out when you two put up that next pillar. Let’s go. Chop-chop!” She waves him off and crosses her arms, as Crystal and Green return to work.

The uthra narrows her eyes, watching them for any mistakes.

______________________________

Chapter 41

~ [Witch Perchta] ~

???, Female, Witch of the Blackwater

Witch Perchta sits outside of her house, leaning back on a chair as she stares up towards the night, towards the stars that seem to hide something behind their mischievous twinkling.

She’s wary of the stars. They’re up to something. They have been for weeks now. Something is at play in the world.

She tilts her head, taking a sip from the cracked, porcelain cup in her hands, watching the steam rise past her eyes and drift towards the somber sky, as if it had ambitions to join together with the heavy clouds up above herself.

Moving out here, away from the city, away from people was the right idea.

She takes another sip of her tea.

– Something rustles in the nearby forest.

The witch turns her head, looking at the wild, emerald slime that is crawling through the underbrush. It's a runt, particularly small for its species. She assumes it has been an unsuccessful hunter. Given the late hour and that slimes are usually awake during the daytime, the little thing is presumably on a desperate hunt. Given its very small size, it will likely be chasing after rodents and frogs and such things at the moment. Whatever it can hope to catch.

She takes a calm sip of her tea, watching it as it feels around the base of a tree that a large lizard is clinging to.

Nature is a very interesting thing.

(Perchta) has used: [Petrify] on (Lizard)

Applied Status: [Petrification]

The paralyzed lizard loses its grip and falls from the tree. The instant it thuds against the ground and a vibration moves through the forest floor, the slime pounces onto it, devouring it whole.

Perchta sips her tea and watches the hungry monster eat.

______________________________

Isaiah

~ [Dungeon] ~

Floor {81}

The Garden of Thorns

Capacity: {164} Monster-Points

Traps: {08}

A large garden, full of thick, heavy brambles that wind around in all directions like coils. The sky is visible through the openings above. Snakes creep through the overgrowth.

Room Effects:

• Touching any thorns will apply stacking status: [Poison {1}], [Bleeding {1}]

Isaiah works, pleased with the latest news. It is still unsure as to what exactly they will be doing with the anqas, but it can not help but feel a visceral, shared joy at the creature’s bounty and perhaps too, a tinge of jealousy.

But it has new young now. They did not come from eggs, as far as it knows, but they do chirp and squeak all the same with hungry mouths and curious eyes.

So it must continue to build a nest. Nests are often found in forests. The section of the tower, the external island that is floor eighty and the sub-tower above it, will be a nature-based area. Perhaps with themes of growth, of parenthood and of the treacheries therein.

It holds its hands together, forming a ball of dungeon-magic that takes the shape of an egg, and then places it to the side as a decorative element.

"Hmm..." The entity stands there, looking at its creation. Perhaps a quest?

It nods, tapping the egg with a taloned finger.

~ [QUEST ITEM] ~

(Normal)[Fragile Egg]

A large, extremely fragile egg, belonging to an unidentified creature. Pale, blue speckles coat its cream colored exterior.

Quest goal: Deliver the egg, unharmed, to the nest on floor ninety of the tower.

Quest reward: [SECRET]

Weight: 1.6 kg

Value: 99 Obols

_____________________________

Chapter 56

~ [Grob] ~

Goblin, Male, Scout

Location: Floor Seventeen of the Tower

How many weeks has it been?

He doesn’t know anymore.

Idly, aimlessly, mindlessly, the goblin continues to whack against the pipe just like he does every day. The patrolling group of ‘fake’ goblins walk by behind him on their routes, just like they do every six minutes and thirty-seven seconds.

They have yet to realize that he isn’t one of them.

For days, weeks, he has been here, trapped, after the initial assault on the tower from his group that had failed spectacularly. He has been surviving by eating spiders and rats and the corpses of monsters that adventurers have killed in the tower.

– When they come, he hides.

The monsters here always respawn, they come back. But he can’t come back. He isn’t one of them.

He’s just been here pretending forever, so that they won’t know. So that they won’t kill him. This is what he has to do, there is no other way out for him. There hasn’t been a chance to escape the tower.

The patrol group walks on past around the corner and he stops, sighing. His arms don’t ache anymore, not like they did in the early days.

– Voices. Humans. They’re coming from downstairs.

Quickly, he stops his ‘work’ and runs into a hidden niche, made out of many different pipes coming together down in the corner of the room. Nobody ever looks there and he’s been successfully able to hide. But it’s too cramped to stay in all day and the pipes are searing hot.

A group of adventurers run in and blast their way through the fake goblins, as if they weren’t even there. He recognizes them. This group is here often. They move fast. They’re strong. If they see him, it’s over.

After a minute of explosions and chaotic violence, they leave the room, heading upstairs and he sneaks out of the pipes, safe for another day.

His eyes wander to the doorway, leading downstairs. Thoughts of leaving, of running out down through the tower to escape come to him, as they always do. Of course, the humans would have had to kill all of the monsters below to get here. But… what if they didn’t? What if there are traps and other mechanisms? What of the outside?

“Hey,” says a voice from behind him. He shrieks in surprised terror, falling down and crawling backwards, as he looks up at the red, glowing shape that hovers above him.

There’s a clinking sound of metal and he watches as a coin rattles down at his feet, clamoring against the stones. “I like your spirit,” says the red entity. “I figured you’d hold on a day, maybe two. But we just hit thirty!” she says, leaning down towards him. He flinches. An audible sigh comes from above. “Really showed me. Get the fuck out of here,” says the voice and by the time he looks back, she’s gone.

The goblin looks down to the golden coin at his feet, picking it up.

___________________________

~ [Amble] ~

Dwarf, Male, Archer Sub-class - Crossbowman

Location: Floor thirteen of the tower of Isaiah, [The Ritual Smoke Chamber]

Serenity surrounds him on all sides, both on the inside of the physical realm and the spiritual. His steps ring out all around Amble as he walks, his crossbow held up high at the ready to shoot at anything that might leap out of the smoke towards him.

Cinders and ash nest in his scraggly beard, but do little to avert his eyes from down the sights of his weapon. Herbal smoke fills the chamber, pouring up from hot metal grates in the floors beneath his creaking boots.

There is an oddly familiar smell in the air. It is the smell of lilac perfume. It, oddly enough, reminds him of when he was a child, back before he became an adventurer. His mother had wanted him to become a scholar. But he wanted to buy her a house to retire in. These things conflict with one another and he won out in the end. Scholars don’t get paid that well.

– Something moves in the smoke.

He turns, spinning quickly to the side and pressing the trigger on his crossbow. The bolt flies out in an instant, striking against a massive, horrific face just before himself.

The bolt then breaks, clattering uselessly to the ground.

Amble exhales, lowering his weapon to look at the face. It’s just a carving, a statue of a grim expression of some tormented entity, hewn into the walls and obscured by the smoke. He wipes his forehead, loading a new bolt into his crossbow.

Room Effect: [Ritual Smoke Chamber] restored +3 SOUL to (Amble)

The room seems to have some kind of restorative effect on his soul-points, which is useful at least. He’s pretty strong himself. 'Crossbowman' is one of the stronger classes there is, if you start the job at a low level. But crossbows are expensive, so most people can’t go down that route until they have the money at a much higher level. But by then, dropping their ‘archer’ class to switch to ‘crossbowman’ is a huge investment for small gain.

He got lucky that he pulled this thing off of some dead noble guardsman years ago. It’s what let him take this class at a very low level and become one of the rare full-class, non-noble blooded crossbowmen.

It’s an interesting class. Whereas archers get a variety of elemental attributed enchantments for their arrows, things like ‘ice arrows’ or ‘explosive arrows’, crossbowmen get a variety of physical abilities instead. Abilities that allow an extremely rapid rate of fire, for example. Or ones that allow the bolts an extreme amount of piercing energy, allowing them to blast through multiple enemies at once.

– He sniffs the air.

There hasn’t been a single monster on this floor yet.

The smell is getting to him though. It sounds odd, in a place like this. But it’s making him nostalgic.

“Amble…” whispers a voice behind him. It sounds like his mother.

Amble spins around, pulling the trigger immediately.

The bolt flies into the smoke, striking uselessly against a wall in the far off distance.

Amble looks around himself, not sure if the eyes that he sees belong to the many stone faces, carved into the walls, or something else entirely.

Tentatively, he grabs another bolt to load into the weapon.

There’s something about this place, this tower… There’s something about it that he can’t quite put his finger on.

The smell of an old, familiar memory lingers in his mind’s eye.

The dwarf, not a religious person, nonetheless, says a quiet prayer as he makes his way down the room by himself.

_____________________________

~ [Salvator] ~

Human, Male, Wizard (Wind)

Location: Floor twenty-one of the tower of Isaiah, [The Judging Loom]

Salvator covers his face, pulling his scarf up from the folds of his baggy robe. It’s a cruel contrast. Floors ten to twenty were full of a smoldering, infernal heat, the likes of which he has never seen before, even in the great desert to the east.

But now, right after the literal oven that was the fight with the phoenix on floor twenty, floor twenty-one is the exact opposite.

Strands of thin ice span across the room in every which way, as if they were thin threads of spider’s silk, caught in the midst of a harsh winter. A large bridge spans the room from one side to the other. It is not well fastened and sturdily built. Instead, it is precariously balanced on a massive crystal of ice. Along the strings of frozen ice that span the air just above the bridge, hang weapons, items, potions, coins. Loot and treasures of various nature hang over the bridge, as if hung out to dry on a laundry line in the snow.

His wet clothes, soaked full of sweat from their prior completion of the fire floors, crunch as he moves, as his damp coat and pants freeze stiff.

Noli, one of his party members, taps a foot against the bridge.

Like an unbalanced scale, it immediately tips towards her. Not enough to fall from its perch, but certainly enough to unnerve anyone trying to step onto it.

“Hey, check out that sword,” says Quare, their party tank. He follows the man’s finger, pointing to a sword that is dangling above the bridge, well within reach of anyone standing on it. It’s hard to say from back here, but from the distance, it certainly looks like a powerful weapon of some kind.

“Leave it,” says Salvator, shaking his head. He walks on, pulling his party-member Noli back before stepping onto the bridge himself. “If you touch anything, you’ll knock the bridge off balance.” He walks out onto it, feeling the construction sway unnervingly beneath his feet. He knows that he can’t die here in the tower, but… still… That human instinct of self-preservation is very hard to beat sometimes. “We can’t waste today’s run. We need to get to twenty-five, or the others are gonna leave us in the dust.”

As he walks out onto it by himself, Salvator holds his hands out at his sides, despite the fact that the bridge is already very wide and that he himself isn’t at risk of falling off. It just feels safer this way.

He looks up at a sack of coins, hanging right above his head from a strand of ice. They’re within reach of his fingertips.

The man exhales, lowering his gaze back forward to cross the bridge, untempted.

As he reaches the other side, he waves to his party-members for the next one to cross, hoping that they keep the same level of resolve.

___________________________________

Chapter 58

~ [Cardinal Erzael - Cardinal of the West] ~

Human, Male, Cardinal

Location: The City, Cathedral Gardens

Erzael wanders the cathedral gardens, lost in his thoughts.

His eyes drift towards a bed of flowers, all hued with varying shades of spring crimson.

It’s true that the tower of Isaiah, looming next to the southern city is a majestic presence, a sign of something ultimately other than a thing stemming from the strict confines of mortality.

However, the threat it poses as an icon of social disruption is too great. Even if the west, the city in the mountains that he presides over, is distant and secure in its fundaments, this tower is big. It might be too big.

Word of the gods returning to the world would upset the careful balance they have built over generations to secure peace, prosperity and safety for their people. The witch hunts have just come to an end as a final sealing brand on the envelope of their development. A new thing like this… It could just ruin everything, right?

His eyes continue to wander, moving to the other cardinal, of this southern city, who stands afar and gazes off into the sky.

He has the most to gain and to lose from any developments here, but he has also been the quietest, given his nature. Perhaps it’s time the two of them spoke.

The cardinal from the north is a powerful man. His domain and wealth far surpasses theirs, as the north is an extremely prosperous region and the most central for the faith, being the home of the great cathedrals. The cardinal from the east, from the distant ocean across the grand desert, is also a powerful man, holding sway over the greatest hub of trade and commerce in the nation.

That leaves the two of them, himself and the man from the south. Their cities aren’t forgettable by any standards, however, they do not hold such powerful assets.

Perhaps it’s time that they make a move, to secure their own lives and those of their people.

Games of power such as this have a tendency to become bloody fast, even outside of the looming shadow of the tower that hangs over their heads.

"Cardinal," greets the man, walking towards his associate from the south. "I think we need to have a talk," he says, turning his head to look at the witch-wood tree that the other man stands before.

__________________________

Chapter 60

~ [???] ~

Human, Female, Shadowy Priestess

Location: Floor six of the tower

The sky drifts by as lazily as it does every other day. Soft, cotton clouds float off towards the horizon, awash in a sea of cream-colored sunset.

The wind pushes through the open face of the tower, rushing past her, billowing the fabric of her robe violently to the side as she sits there, frozen and stiff on the broad shoulder of the golem.

She doesn’t move. She doesn’t blink. She doesn’t twitch or make a single sound that would stand as a sign of differentiation between herself and the stones of the tower.

– It looks like nobody is coming for a while.

She sits there, existing as static a piece of the landscape, as is a tree in the forest.

The shadowy priestess looks over her shoulder and then down towards the golem.

It turns its head, looking up her way. She leans down, nuzzling her face against its forehead and then jumps down off of its hand, down to the water-channel lined floor.

She bends down, looking at a channel of water, staring at the face down in it that stares back up her way.

A large, looming shadow leans over behind her, hanging heavily above her head, as the golem stares at the other odd thing down there.

The things in the water look just like they do.

She looks up at the large, stone face hanging above her head. The priestess lifts a hand, touching a finger against it. The golem lifts a massive finger, very softly touching the top of her head.

The two of them stare.

______________________

~ [Red] ~

Uthra, Female, Worker

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck!” hisses Red to herself as she shoots towards the tower, her wings buzzing in agitation as she flies to find Isaiah. There’s a problem — a real big problem.

She shoots past the bottom of the tower, flying over the heads of many adventurers down below. They often like to gasp and marvel at the uthra as they fly by, which, fair enough. She thinks that she’s worth marveling at. Red isn’t so sure about the others, but she is for sure.

The uthra flies past the tower, looking into the open floor six.

– She shoots past it, flying too fast to slow down as she blinks, looking back over her shoulder, not sure what she just saw.

The uthra flies back to the tower and looks into floor six from the outside.

Oh. Nothing’s wrong.

The golem and the priestess are standing exactly in the center of the room, entirely unmoving, entirely still, as they should be.

Red rubs her eyes and then flies off. It must be the stress. It’s making her imagine weird shit now too.

“- Fuck!” swears Red again, shooting off towards the east. “Nobody ever listens to fucking Red!” she rambles to herself, vanishing into the forest.

__________________________________

~ [The Humming Man] ~

???, Male, Chronomancer

Location: The City - Streets

Today was a big day. But he still has some time left before he has to get back to the tower. It’s getting there, but it isn’t ready just yet. He needs to wait for the right moment, if he wants to get what he’s after, and it simply isn’t here yet. But the core is getting closer and closer by the day.

The humming man walks outside through the city, past some children that are sitting in an alley, begging for money. Even now, at night, it is full of life and splendor as adventurers run around the area, busy at their work that never ends. Merchants then in turn tend to these nightly customers, keeping their businesses running non-stop day and night, as is the way of things in the large city down here in the south. In the other regions of the nation, it’s common for everything in the city to just… stop when the sun falls and the moon rises.

But this is not the case down here.

He stops in the middle of the street and pulls out a small, fabric tissue from his coat, unfolding it with a flap and then gently laying it down in the very middle of the street, between the boots of dozens of people who never quite seem to walk into him or onto the spot where he stands.

He looks down at the fabric square, nodding contently. It just lies there like a piece of trash in the middle of the road. Nobody pays it any mind or even bothers to pick it up. But also, nobody tramples on it. They all simply walk around it, not even aware that they’re doing so.

He hums, walking over and away and bending to the side to look over a merchant’s stall, full of freshly steaming baked goods, and then over his shoulder at a stand, full of mechanical clockwork, the likes of which is only common in the western city, which is weeks away from here by foot.

Someone walks up next to him, ordering from the baker, who hadn’t even seen the humming man standing there.

Leaning back, the humming man hums as he watches.

The stranger pays for his dinner, a large bread roll and turns around to leave.

“Hey!” yells a man from across the street, from the clockmaker’s stall.

– A thief runs off, holding a coat full of mechanical scrap in his arms. Looking back over his shoulder, he runs right into the man who bought the bread-roll. Metal flies everywhere, scattering around the road.

The bread roll, too, flies, shooting straight through the air.

The humming man whistles, emphasizing its drop as it bounces off of someone’s head and then lands perfectly in the center of the towelette that he had laid out before.

The thief gathers himself, picking up some scrap in his arms as he vanishes into the crowd.

The baker laughs, clapping the hungry adventurer on the shoulder for a job well done in helping his merchant colleague as he gets back up to his feet, and he gives him a new bread roll for free.

– A scurrying, small silhouette runs out from the alley that the humming man had passed by to get here, grabbing the old, fallen piece of bread from the middle of the street, before vanishing excitedly back to her clique, with whom she shares the bread.

The humming man hums to himself, watching the world go by.

It’s fun, isn’t it?

His eyes wander along the thousands of faces that all belong to people who don’t even come close to understanding the true complexity of the world, being so lost in their lives.

It’s fun, being the man who has everything.

Because what do you give the man who has everything?

– Whatever else is left.

The humming man hums to himself.

And whatever could be left, after one has everything already?

Well, one of these things that is left is something that can never be hoarded, like material wealth can. It is something that can never be ‘had’. It is something that can only ever be held for a single, solitary moment.

He watches as the child, the girl in the alley, tears into her half of the hot bread and hums delightedly as she eats a rare treasure.

– It is the simple, clean sensation of a moment being experienced.

He likes the song that she’s humming, so he adjusts his tune to hers and hums along.

_________________________________

Chapter 63

~ [Anderwal] ~

Human, Male, Scholar of the Witches' Sect

Location: The Northern City

They’ve been called.

It’s time. Finally.

He’s always kept the faith. He never lost hope that this day would come again. Every day he prayed, studied, and prepared for this moment.

Anderwal checks the maps that are strewn over the table one more time, his hands running across them as the men around him collect their things together, slinging bags over their shoulders.

“How long has it been?” asks Anderwal, sighing in quiet relief.

His finger lands on the southern region of the world, on the core city down there.

“A while,” replies his colleague, placing a hand on his shoulder. Anderwal looks at his kin in spirit. The man nods his head. “Come, brother Anderwal. It’s time for our pilgrimage to begin anew. The world is heavier than ever.”

“I’ve been waiting for this day,” says Anderwal.

“I know. We all have,” replies his friend as everyone collects by the door. A few odd dozen men and women, all carrying large rucksacks full of equipment for a long journey on foot, stand there, ready.

Anderwal looks around the library they’ve made over the years and then nods, knowing what has to be done before they leave. Nobody can find this old place. There are too many secrets, and they’re not coming back here.

He picks up the old map and rolls it together. “I serve,” says Anderwal. He holds the map over a candle, setting it on fire. The flames eat away at the paper, creeping and crawling towards his fingers.

“We all do, Anderwal,” replies his friend. “We all do.”

Anderwal shoves the burning map into a shelf, full of old books that immediately begin to smolder.

The library begins to be engulfed in flames as the members of the Witches’ Sect in the far northern region of the world depart, ready to make their way to the southern city, to where they’ve been summoned after years of silence after the witch-hunts.

______________________________________

~ [Grob] ~

Goblin, Male, Scout

Location: The edge of the island, by the Grand Ascent

He crawls down through the forest.

It’s been days.

It was hard, not only getting out of the tower after the red creature gave him the coin to escape the island but also just getting to a place where he could use it. He had to escape the tower, sneak out past hundreds of humans, who were sitting outside, armed to the teeth day and night. He had to run down the island, which is full of them and of many hungry, gnashing creatures and odd, dangerous plants that tried to eat him. But he finally made it to the grand staircase.

– It was a shock at first, of course.

He had no idea that… That this had happened to the world. This island, their entire forest has been sundered. The wood-mother’s heart must be as broken as is the pride of his tribe at their many crushing defeats at the hand of the white tower.

The goblin stands there, feeling the air rush through his hair as he stares at the world with an impossible fear in his heart as he looks around himself. No goblin has ever been this high up before. No goblin has ever climbed to a peak such as this, and here he is.

His eyes wander back in fear towards the tower that crests far higher into the sky than he recalls, during his entrance, when it was just a simple ruin that they had believed to be a human outpost in their forest – an incursion into holy land.

The sight of it, just like the sight of the distant, far reaching lands below himself, fills him with fear.

He looks down at the coin in his hand, ready to leave, ready to return to his people after weeks of being separated from them.

Grob squeezes the coin, hoping that it works and hoping that he even has a home left to return to down below.

________________________________

Chapter 66

“So what is it like?” asks Isaiah. “Being a spirit?”

Black, sitting on a branch of the very-big-tree, shrugs. “Oh, you know. It’s fine.” He shrugs. “It’s a lot of moving, with the humans always destroying the new dungeons. If you’re lucky, you get to work in one of the really old dungeons of the world.” Black shakes his head. “There’s this place in the ocean that humans can’t really get to. If you land there, you’re basically retired. But it doesn’t pull many new workers anymore these days.”

Isaiah tilts its head, looking at the uthra. “Have you taken on many other forms until now?”

“Not as much as the others have,” explains Black, dangling his legs. “I’m still young. Red and Crystal are the oldest. Crystal’s still fine, but I hear that Red got really mean.” He leans in, holding his hand by his mouth. “I hear she used to be a big softie, until after the whole Emerald thing happened.” Isaiah nods, and Black leans back. “But those two have been around the block. I only did a couple of dungeons and managed to get away every time,” says Black, looking up towards the sky. “Last time I was a gnome instead of an uthra,” he says. “That was a nice place. Too nice.” Black sighs. “– The gnome guy didn’t last.” Black thinks for a moment, staring at the tree. “He was on the other continent. They’re super weird there, you know? Across the ocean.” asks Black. He holds his hands on top of his head. “They’re like… animal-people. Rabbit ears and fox tails and junk.” He shrugs, looking back. “Those guys aren’t allowed over here though. The humans and them have a whole thing going on. Don’t ask me.”

“I see,” replies Isaiah. “I am trying to better understand your nature.” It looks the uthra over. “So, when you are not a dungeon-worker, you exist as something else?”

Black nods. He holds his hands together, jumbling his fingers around. “Yeah, we’re sort of cosmic balls of energy. It’s weird. But that sums it up, really.” He shrugs, looking back at Isaiah. “We live in the other place, until it’s time for us to go down and help out in a dungeon again.” He spins a finger. “If we die, we die like anyone else. But if the dungeon dies without us, we go back to the big-empty until we get called down again to start a new job.”

“And this ‘other place’,” begins Isaiah. “Where is it?” The creature tilts its head. “Who gives you your marching orders? Is it the gods?”

Black shakes his head. “No… well, maybe. I don’t know where it is.” He rubs the back of his head. “You’re kind of asking a fish if it knows where the ocean is or what the tide does.”

Isaiah thinks for a moment and then nods. “I understand. Thank you, Black.”

“Sure,” replies Black. “Anyway, should I get the graveyard running again?” he asks. “I know you want us to look for the witch, but I can’t help but feel like we’re going to need it soon.”

“Do you tire of your regular landscaping work in the south?” asks Isaiah.

“No, I like dirty jobs,” says Black. “But I don’t disagree with Red that much, though, on some things.” Black looks Isaiah’s way. “I also think that you really are too soft on the humans. We’re really going out of our way with all of this stuff instead of focusing on what we should be doing, which is pure, hard, cold survival. All of this trying to fit into both worlds as some kind of middleman – it’s going to bite you in the butt one day,” says the uthra, pointing at Isaiah. “I’ve seen how this song and dance play out.” He gets up, standing on the branch.

“Perhaps,” says Isaiah. “Or perhaps, because I made the effort, we will all be able to move towards a better world, instead of just some of us.”

“Maybe,” replies Black. “Or maybe we’ll all just die before we get there, like Green.”

Isaiah stares at the uthra for a time. The air between them is quiet for a time. Isaiah then simply nods. “Thank you for your honesty, Black. I will keep what you said in mind.”

“And about the graveyard?” asks the uthra.

Isaiah plays with the pearl in its hands, staring back out over the landscape, towards the human city and the camps between here and there. “Very well. Begin expanding the underground tombs. Perhaps we will have some need of them, against my heart's wishes.”

_____________________

~ [Salvator] ~

Human, Male, Wizard (Wind)

Location: Floor twenty-five of the Tower of Isaiah

The howling winds of his magic flow all around him, his robe and hat both billowing wildly in the frosty gale that reaches, creeping towards him with fingers that never seem to stop crawling up his skin. The cold bite pierces through his robes and scarves as the monstrous entity before him lowers its head to glare at him – one of the two last people standing. Large, jagged teeth made out of solid ice crackle as it readies itself for another attack.

– The monster, a long, snakelike worm with a dragon’s head, retreats back. Its elongated neck, made entirely out of solid, sharp, jagged ice, pulls itself into the wall that it came out of.

It vanishes.

Salvator looks around them at the room. It looks much like a cathedral, made entirely out of ice. The floor, the pews, the statues and ornaments, and even the windows, high up above them – everything is made out of ice. Stained glass depictions of saints and entities, carved out of colorful ice, show a story that he can’t quite piece together. But he’s not watching for that.

The monster here hides in plain sight.

It’s some sort of golem-like entity. It springs out of the stained glass, as if they were pools of water for it to lash out from. It hides in the ice, only to later break free from the statues of heavenly patrons. The room is covered in beautiful, intricate pieces of artwork. Some of them are real; some of them are it, but it’s impossible to say what’s what.

– He and his party member stand back to back.

“Ready?” asks Salvator, over the howling winds that fill the cathedral, whistling as they stream over the sharp corners of ice-hewn constructions.

“Ready,” replies the woman next to him, lifting her staff. A red, burning glow grows around it.

(Consumeris) has used: [Major Inferno]

If you can’t tell which piece of the room is safe to be near and which one isn’t, well, why not just get rid of it all then?

— Something hisses, clicking off to the side with loud, chattering, razor sharp teeth.

(Salvator) has used: [Heavy Gale]

Both of them cast at the same time, their spells mixing. Heavy, hot flames lash out around the frozen room, filling it to the brim with fire as the stormwinds pull it over the sculptures and past the windows and the altars, melting all of it at once.

(Consumeris) and (Salvator) have used WIND + FIRE combination spell: [HEAVY FIRESTORM]

The room around them lights up, hissing as something long and serpentine violently lashes out in the flames.

_____________________________________

Chapter 67

Intro text

Dear diary,

My best friends are coming to visit me! They sent a letter to let me know. I’m really excited! I haven’t seen them in a long time, and I’ve been very sad and alone ever since the move. Back then, nobody ever wanted to be friends with me until I met them, so it was really super sad when I had to leave them behind. I cried a lot, but you know that. I think your pages are still stained.

But now they’re coming down to see me, and I am really happy!

I am going to bake a cake for when they arrive.

I do not know how to bake a cake. I have never baked a cake before. But I will do my best!

I do not have an oven or money for ingredients, either.

But I will figure it out.

I’m so happy!

See you tomorrow, diary.

~ Witch Perchta’s personal diary that she scribbles into before she falls asleep every night, hugging it

___________________________________

~ [Witch Perchta] ~

???, Female, Witch of the Blackwater

Location: The city gate

Witch Perchta looks around at the city that she's entering. She hasn’t been in one of these in a while.

People of all types wander the streets, busy living their lives. Hundreds of them, thousands of them, buzz this way and that as they perpetuate themselves across the world, spreading the energy of their lives around like someone trekking in mud into a house with dirty boots. Smiles and grimaces, frowns and glowing faces covered in excitement – all manner of expressions fill the world, bothering everyone around them who has to look at them.

Being around strangers is exhausting.

Perchta sighs, rubbing the back of her head. She gets overwhelmed in the city. It’s too loud. It’s too much.

– Something wiggles in her bag at her side.

The witch looks down at her single bag of possessions, inside of which something wiggles around in confused protest. She opens the flap of the bag, looking inside at the little green slime that she had taken with herself from the forest. It’s the same one she had fed a lizard to that one time.

“Trust me,” says the woman to the monster in her bag as she looks over her shoulder. “You’ll rather be here with me than out there,” she says, closing the flap and gently patting the satchel a few times.

Perchta sighs and then looks ahead of herself.

She has to get situated. She has to find ingredients for a cake and an oven, so she’ll need to figure out the whole ‘money’ thing, and then she has to get ready for her meeting with the cardinal.

Perchta adjusts the straps of her heavy bag, hoisting it up onto her sore shoulders.

Just a little longer. Then her friends, the other two witches, will be here to help her kill the thing in the tower.

Perchta stamps her feet in childish excitement, spinning around in a circle once in the middle of the street before running off into the city. It’s going to be a busy day!

_______________________

Chapter 69

~ [Scion] ~

Elf, Female, Priestess

Location: The Tower

“Monsters sure do eat a lot, huh?” asks dark-elf Rorate, walking and holding the full bucket of odd, chunky goo in front of herself with both hands. “Is this what you do all day?”

The elf walking next to her, Scion, nods. “Yeah. Thank you for helping me today,” replies the priestess. “I mostly feed the different floors with whatever Red and the others make for me to bring them.”

Rorate nods, staring up towards the ceiling as they walk up. “Red sure is a good cook.”

“Right?” asks Scion, sighing as she looks down at herself. “I need to slow down. I had to ask Teal to adjust the hem of my robe twice now.”

Rorate laughs. “Well, we’ll grab lunch after this,” she says. “I’ll keep an eye on you.”

“Thanks,” groans Scion, the bucket in her hands sloshing. “Red said that today I’m supposed to feed the monsters on this new floor.”

“Do you think that the adventurers even get this far?” asks Rorate, staring up towards the ceiling.

“No,” replies Scion. “I heard the best group is at… uh… the forties now. Most of them are down in the thirties.” She looks at Rorate. “Do you get a lot of visitors?”

“Oh sure,” replies the dark-elf. “Some of them try to kill me now and then, but it’s mostly been fine.”

“Oh… huh…” Scion stares at the floor. “I think I’d be scared if I had to do your job. It seems like a lot, talking to so many people all the time.” They stop, looking at a staircase to their side. “This is ours.”

“It’s not so bad,” replies Rorate, stepping up the shortcut that leads to floor seventy. From there, they’ll just be going down one floor. This is the fastest way. “You get good at whatever you do, if you do it long enough.”

Scion laughs. “I don’t feel like I do much, honestly. I just pray, and I feed the monsters. I’m not sure if I’m really that useful.”

“Don’t say that,” replies Rorate, looking down over her shoulder as they go through the shortcut, buckets in hand. “Isaiah chose you for a reason. It sees something in you,” assures the dark-elf priestess of Isaiah. She smiles. “I used to think the same about myself, but then I sort of figured it out one day.” Rorate ponders. “It was a real revelation for me, that moment.”

Scion stares at her and nods.

The two of them reach the floor and look around.

“Food!” calls Scion, stepping into the floor as she looks around the area. She’s never been to this one before. Red said it was a newer development, having only recently been granted monsters in anticipation of the slowly rising adventurers. She shakes the bucket full of wet slush in the air. “Come get it!” calls the elf, her voice echoing around the strange floor.

“What a weird place,” says Rorate, walking next to her and looking around the area. It looks a lot like her own cathedral, but the design is much more… organic. It’s almost cave-like in a way, with humid vapors drifting through along the passages, lining the coarse, stone walls with a slick dampness that collects together into droplets, running down the surfaces into small channels in the ground, where it collects as running dribble, presumably flowing down into hidden channels to meet the rest of the water flow of the tower’s other floors. There are altars hewn from prismatic crystals and pews, struck free from rock.

– Something sloshes in the distance. They look, but neither of them see anything.

“I guess the sixties are stone-themed floors?” guesses Rorate.

“Maybe,” says Scion. She walks around, looking at several altars. “I kind of like it. It reminds me of… I dunno, like a secret shrine in a misty forest somewhere, you know?” The priestess smiles, setting down her bucket on an altar as she looks around. “I think it’s very inspiring.”

“Right?” asks Rorate. She seems to get inspired, straightening up as she gets an idea. “Scion, would you like to pray together?”

Scion gasps, grabbing Rorate’s hands, still holding her bucket. “I’d love to!” says the elf excitedly, dragging the dark-elf over to the altar. Rorate laughs and sets her bucket down to the side, and the two of them kneel down together by the statue of a beckoning Isaiah, hewn out of glistening, ruby-tinged crystal. “Do you think Isaiah watches us when we pray?” she asks, adjusting her position.

Rorate nods, sitting comfortably. “Isaiah is always watching us.”

Scion sighs in relief and nods, folding her hands and closing her eyes.

The elf exhales, contently, happy that she gets to be this person that she’s becoming, happy that she gets to make friends and follow a purposeful existence for the first time in her being. She begins to say as much to Isaiah, who she is sure can hear her thoughts of gratitude.

– Something pokes her side and she laughs, elbowing the hand away as she focuses on her prayer.

What a great life this is becoming. She wonders where this is all going? What’s Isaiah’s real goal now, at the end of it all? The tower and its people are all growing so fast that -

– Something pokes against the side of her body. “– Rorate, cut it out,” says Scion, moving her arm to push the hand away again as she readjusts her robe. “That’s very disrespectful when I’m trying to pray. Isaiah is watching us,” she says in a hushed whisper.

“Huh?” asks Rorate. “What are you talking about?”

Scion sighs, opening her eyes to look at the dark-elf. This is very unlike her. Rorate is usually very professional about her faith and not ever… hands on.

All Scion sees is green.

The elf blinks, slowly lifting her gaze that wanders confusedly up what is an extremely chiseled, muscular, green translucent body made out of wetness. A creature of emerald color, taking the shape of a very ambitiously trained human woman with a chiseled six-pack and almost comical physical features above that, ‘wearing’ a smock of ooze that drapes down her head and shoulders, stands there, looming over her with wide, wet, yellow eyes. Green, slimy arms

~ [{Holy} Slime-Person] ~

• Class: Monster
• Element: NATURE / HOLY
• Type: Adaptable
• Category: Non-specific
• Rank: B-
• Level: 60
• A slime-person.

Slime-people are advanced adaptations of the typical ‘slime’ monster that is found in most forests and caves around the world. Slime people, like their acidic, smaller brethren, are typically predatory creatures. However, unlike normal slimes, slime-people are far more intelligent and have moved away from their base hunting instincts.

In order to be protected against human attacks and hunts, they have adapted, changing their slimy bodies to look just like a human’s, in order to provoke sympathy to foster their survival. Through generations of trial and error, they have learned to typically mimic the form of either a biologically potent female human or elf, as these are simply the most likely to be shown mercy by hunters. Given this, they have been dubbed by most adventurers with the catch-all phrase ‘slime-girl’.

However, the chosen form of theirs appears to be culture dependent. Depending on the environment a slime-person develops in, some unusual stragglers will vary and take on other shapes that are deemed the most viable in their area, such as the bodies of men or even monsters such as goblins – whatever allows them the best survival chance in their setting.

Slime-people are held to be able to become moderately intelligent.

Priest(ess): The slime-person has taken on the mantle of faith, copying the body of a particularly devout and astutely trained priest(ess). Given that its body is made up out of holy-water, it has access to a variety of HOLY spells that augment its natural NATURE affinity.

HP: 69/69

SOUL: 22/22

The elf screams in surprise, falling back as the oddly moist room around them comes to life, with liquid dribbling down the wet, secreting walls and taking the shape of dozens of such slimy creatures.

Scion lifts her hands instinctively.

(Scion) has used: [Holy Barrier]

A glass wall appears between her and the slime, which splats against it, its humanish body squishing together into dribbling goo that runs down the pane of the magical window.

Scion grabs anything she can and Rorate yanks her up to her feet, and the two of them run off to the side, diving through swarms of wet, gooey hands that reach up out of the floor and walls from many puddles that begin to take on the shape of bodies.

“Rorateee~!” screams Scion, wet sloshing behind them as they run.

“I know! Keep moving!” calls the dark-elf, yanking her down as a massive, muscular slime giant of a man lunges over their heads, having tried to grab them both.

The monsters in the tower are usually very friendly to them, so this is all very unusual for a variety of reasons.

Scion feels something wet on her leg and looks down, a tendril has wrapped itself around her ankle and yanks. The priestess yelps, falling down as it pulls on her. Her hand slips free from Rorate's, and she’s dragged back, screaming, towards the oozing horde with hungry faces.

An instant later, Rorate stamps back, crushing the tendril that had grabbed Scion’s ankle, and pulls the priestess out of the gooey tendrils that are descending down over her. The two of them sprint towards the exit staircase, metal clambering at their sides, panting and covered in ooze by the time they arrive, their robes soaked through.

“What was that?!” asks Scion, looking at herself as she shakes off the slime from her robe that is soaked through to her skin and undergarments.

“I don’t know,” replies Rorate, looking around as the slime-people approach the staircase, but don’t move up it. “I heard stories about slime-people like these once.”

“S- stories?” asks Scion fearfully. Rorate nods.

– A wet tendril flies in towards them, and Scion screams.

It grabs hold of the half-spilled bucket of monster food that she had been holding onto this entire time, having instinctively grabbed it as they ran away, and yanks it out of her hands and back into the swarm.

The recoiled priestess, still standing fearfully on one leg, holding onto Rorate for dear life, stares back behind them as the slimes descend down over the buckets of food, which is what they had wanted the entire time.

After all, what else could it have been?

Scion laughs an uneasy laugh and then sighs.

“So… lunch?” asks Rorate.

The priestess nods. “Lunch.”

The two slimy priestesses walk back the way they came, just as a window pops up before them.

~ [QUEST] ~

'FINAL CORE'

Difficulty: Extremely Easy

The grand tower of Isaiah seeks to bridge the gap between the heavens and the mortal world within this year of life, so that joy, sanctity, and hope might be restored to the lives of all living beings.

The world must change. It will change.

Quest Goal: Speak the name of Isaiah.

Quest reward: Your soul will be saved, as will your days upon this mortal world.

Quest Failure Effect: {UNKNOWN}

Scion quietly gasps and then immediately falls down to her knees, holding her hands together. "Isaiah. Isaiah. Isaiah. Isaiah. -" repeats the pious elf over and over.

A stomach grumbles next to her.

She stops and looks up at Rorate, who holds her stomach for a moment and then kneels down on the stairs next to her, looking over her shoulder once, before the two of them get to that prayer that they had wanted to say before.

- And then they get lunch.

____________________________________________

~ [Taishi-shi] ~

Vildt (Rabbit), Male, Classless

Location: The far off Eastern Continent, House ruins

The boy lays on his back, down on the dusty, dirty floors of the old house ruin, and stares up towards the distant sky, far, far above his head with empty eyes. Floating motes of dust drift past his vision as he watches the clouds passing by through the broken roof, covered in dangling vines.

The house is a wreck. It has been so since… well, since forever.

He had found it after running for a long time. It’s out here by the ocean on the coast, atop a small hill covered in yellow grasses. There are some others here too who have also run far from the dangers of the inner lands. Mostly somewhat older adolescents his own age, give or take.

The ones his age are fast and nimble. It is either the older adults who get caught and eaten, being too large or too brave to hide, or the younger children, who are too loud, careless, and dumb to know what to do.

He has been here for a while, just existing.

– A heavy tick interrupts his daily allotment of total silence.

Taishi-shi sits upright, looking around the room. What was that?

His long, rabbit-ears twitch, his sensitive hand pressed down against the creaky floorboards of the old house.

– Tick.

The boy’s head turns sharply, looking towards the wall on the western side of the house, his ears twitching as it ticks again, the thing.

Curiously, he rises to his feet and wanders over past the broken furniture and fallen beams, towards a window that serves more to obscure the view of the distance than to allow it.

– Tick.

What is it?

The boy tilts his head.

A status window suddenly appears, and he watches it, staring in confused, quiet existence – the normal state of his being.

– Tick.

~ [QUEST] ~

'FINAL CORE'

Difficulty: Extremely Easy

The grand tower of Isaiah seeks to bridge the gap between the heavens and the mortal world within this year of life, so that joy, sanctity, and hope might be restored to the lives of all living beings.

The world must change. It will change.

Quest Goal: Speak the name of Isaiah.

Quest reward: Your soul will be saved, as will your days upon this mortal world.

Quest Failure Effect: {UNKNOWN}

“Is…ai..ah,” mutters the dazed boy, more out of vague curiosity than pious fervor. He slowly blinks, tilting his head in confusion, as his large ears twitch again as the heavy striking hand of a clock comes to him, from all the way across from the other side of the world.

– Tick.

________________________________________

~ [Johan, the Baker] ~

Human, Dark-Elf, Baker

Location: The City, Front Gate

“That’ll be eight Obols,” says the baker, handing a man a loaf of bread.

“It’s always getting more expensive,” replies the customer, sighing. “It used to be seven,” he says, digging into his pockets.

“I know,” replies Johan, shrugging. He gets this conversation six or seven times a day, depending. “But everything is more expensive. I’m paying more for flour than I used to, so I have to charge more just to stay even.”

“Yeah…” mumbles the man, handing him the coins.

“Thank yo-”

A window appears next to him, and the baker stops, looking at it.

~ [QUEST] ~

'FINAL CORE'

Difficulty: Extremely Easy

The grand tower of Isaiah seeks to bridge the gap between the heavens and the mortal world within this year of life, so that joy, sanctity, and hope might be restored to the lives of all living beings.

The world must change. It will change.

Quest Goal: Speak the name of Isaiah.

Quest reward: Your soul will be saved, as will your days upon this mortal world.

Quest Failure Effect: {UNKNOWN}

In that instant, the entire shopping street is filled to the brim as hundreds of similar windows appear before everyone. Every mother with her swarm of energetic children, and even each of them, every merchant, hawking their wares, and every adventurer on their way to earn their fortune, all stop as they all get a quest at the same time.

A deep tension is felt immediately in the air as lessons from history return to the people. Such events, global quests, in the past have been catastrophic – mostly being such calamities as the rise of the terrible Demon-King.

“Isaiah,” whispers a voice to the side, and then several others mutter it.

The world changes.

Half of the street devolves into a panicked frenzy as people tear their families away from what might turn into chaos very quickly, others cover the mouths of their friends and family, looking around in terror as if they were summoning the demon incarnate, and others still hold their hands or simply look around in confusion as they mutter the name over and over, expecting something to happen right here and now.

But apart from the city coming to a full stop in the shadow of the tower, apart from a full halt of commerce and the mild trampling of terrified families escaping the streets to head to the local church, and apart from hundreds of whispers and words that move through the city, not much happens.

He hears it, though.

The people are saying the name, repeating it over and over to themselves, not sure if they should or shouldn’t be doing so. But the person next to them is, so they do it too and this catches on – the hum spreads, moving through the entire city like a growth and a moment later, he swears he can hear the whole world chanting in perfect unison.

– The eight coins in his hand shake.

______________________________________________

~ [Cardinal Erzael, of the West] ~

Human, Male, Cardinal

Location: ???

Cardinal Erzael opens his eyes.

But his body remains dead.

The spirit of the man looks around himself, somewhat fearfully as he examines the dark, total void that he is immersed inside of.

“Hello?” asks the cardinal, looking around himself at the total void that he is immersed in. All around himself, he can feel and hear water. Is this… is this the other side? He died, right?

He recalls dying.

Schweig killed them. That bastard. It's not like it’s a surprise. He had tried to play nice and do things by the book. He wanted to give Schweig a chance, believing that no man is beyond the redemption of his soul.

But perhaps he had mistaken his station after all.

– It was just like she said would happen.

“And?” asks a sharp voice from the distant darkness.

Cardinal Erzael of the west looks, as the spirit of his fellow dead cardinal from the south rises up out of the murk, floating next to him. But it isn’t the quiet cardinal of the south who is speaking. It is the voice from off in the distance, echoing out throughout the endless waters of non-existence.

The two cardinals look at each other and then nod. It is as they had discussed once prior now. Schweig made his move. The principles of their faith and of the people who follow it cannot be left in the hands of a man like him.

They look back together towards the rippling, quivering darkness. “You were right,” says Cardinal Erzael. “– Witch Perchta.”

“We have a deal, then?” asks the witch’s voice.

Cardinal Erzael sighs, loathe to do business with a witch, especially with Perchta. But in this case, she is clearly the lesser of two evils. Perchta wants to be left alone at the end of the day, but Schweig… he can not be trusted to be by himself, unsupervised in a seat of power without them to filter him.

“We do,” reply both dead cardinals at the same time.

“Good,” replies Perchta. Their ‘bodies’ contort and swirl, as a heavy current streams through the underlife, the well of souls that they are now in, and drags the spirits of both cardinals off to some other place.

[The Pact is Sealed]

___________________________

Chapter 73

~ [Isaiah] ~

“Isaiah! Isaiah!” calls an excited voice from the side. Orange.

Isaiah turns to look, but it doesn’t see her. “Up here!” It looks up, seeing Orange draped over a branch on her back, her legs kicking up into the air.

“Hello, Orange,” says Isaiah, looking at her, waiting to see what news she has to bring.

The uthra doesn’t say anything. She just lays there on the branch, smiling and kicking her legs up into the air.

“...Yes?” asks Isaiah.

“Huh?” asks Orange, turning her head sideways, her short hair hanging downward.

“What have you come to report?”

Orange blinks. The two of them stare at each other for a time.

“...Report?” asks Orange. “Oh, right!” She thinks for a moment. “I was flying after Red to help out. But she said I was annoying and that I should go and kill all the humans if I’m bored,” explains Orange. The uthra thinks, hanging upside down. “Then I thought ‘okay’, and so I flew off and got a really big rock from the old quarry. But then I thought, ‘wait, maybe Isaiah doesn’t want me to kill all of the humans’.” She thinks for a moment and then looks back down towards Isaiah from her upside-down position. “So I came to ask you first to be sure.”

Isaiah nods to her. Orange is always rather… excitable. “Thank you, Orange. Please do not harm the humans,” replies Isaiah. “I am fond of them.”

“Right?! That’s what I said to Red too!” says Orange, holding her hands to her cheeks and squishing them. The uthra slides off of the branch, falling upside down and spinning around back right side up just before she lands on the ground, hovering in front of Isaiah. “And she said that’s because you’re sick in the head! Too many worms.” Orange leans in, looking Isaiah in the eyes. “Is it true? Can eating too many worms make you sick?”

Isaiah tilts its head. “Too much of any good thing will make you ill, Orange,” it explains. She nods. “But I am well, thank you.” Orange floats in a circle around Isaiah, examining Isaiah oddly. She spins around in the air, looking strangely close at its neck and then grabs its arm, lifting it up to look under it. “Orange?”

“Huh?” asks Orange, looking back up at Isaiah.

Isaiah turns its head to look at the uthra, who is holding its arm from above in the air. “What are you doing?”

Orange blinks and the two of them stare at each other for a moment. “Looking.”

“At what?” asks Isaiah.

Orange shrugs and the two of them stare at each other for a time.

“Do you not have any work left, Orange?” Orange nods, letting go of Isaiah’s still extended arm. She grabs its wrist and flips its palm upward-facing and then crosses her legs, floating down to ‘sit’ on top of its open hand, as she and the other uthra had done in her smaller stages often. However, she is much too large to really do this anymore. That doesn’t seem to bother her though.

The uthra sits there on Isaiah’s hand that she is much larger than, staring out at the world around them. “It’s all smaller now than it was back then,” she says, not so much ignoring the question, it simply may have never reached her. Isaiah looks at the uthra and then looks back to the world too.

“Yes, it is,” replies Isaiah, its eyes wandering over the smallness of everything that lies below the island.

The wind comes, blowing past the two of them with a warm, sleepy presence of summer. Birds fly by and insect song fills the hazy, hot air.

It’s quiet for a time.

Orange stands up on Isaiah’s hand and then shoots off immediately, blasting through the sky like a shooting star as she apparently figures out something to do.

Isaiah stares, watching as the uthra vanishes into the forest.

The forest…

It turns its head around, looking towards the houses atop the roost, where the others rest and where the dryad, the keeper of the forest, is resting.

Perhaps now is the time to fix the wrongs of the past.

– “Isaiah!” says an excited voice from behind itself. Isaiah turns around to look at Orange, who has returned. The uthra holds out a small flower. “I found this for you!”

“Thank you, Orange,” says Isaiah, taking the flower. Orange nods and then shoots off again.

{Blooming}[Primrose]

The first flower to appear during the advent of spring. Primula vulgaris is a widespread, pale-yellow flower that thrives in many habitats. It grows best in moist soil with good run-off.

Weight: 0.08kg

Value: 000

___________________________

Chapter 77

~ [Beulah] ~

Human, Male, Thief

Location: The Tower, Floor Eighteen - The Shrine

“Beulah,” says a quiet voice from next to him. Beulah turns his head, holding onto the broom as he looks at the shrine-maiden standing there, stiff and still like a statue as he walks past her. They don’t hide and run from him anymore. Although sometimes, they will use their tails as barriers when they become overstimulated. The middle shrine-maiden stands there.

She holds out her hands, and Beulah looks down at what she’s holding.

“I found a bug,” she whispers. There’s no reason for her to be whispering, they’re alone. But they just have trouble understanding tones and volume sometimes.

Beulah stares at the thing in her open palms that is, indeed, a bug. It looks like some random cricket from outside. Some adventurer must have dragged it into the tower with them. Likely, it was clinging to their bag and just jumped off here.

He looks back at the shrine-maiden, who hides her lower face beneath a tail, staring at him as she holds the cricket out his way. “It went ‘ie ie ie’,” she explains.

“Nice,” says Beulah.

“Ie ie ie,” repeats the shrine-maiden.

Beulah nods.

Makes sense to him.

“Ie ie ie,” repeats the man. The shrine-maiden giggles.

The cricket hops away.

She gasps, exploding in a puff of smoke as she transforms into a fox and chases after it, leaving Beulah standing there, watching as the two of them disappear. Then his eyes wander down to the floor, covered in fresh hairs and fur that he sweeps away into the pile.

_____________________________________

~ [???] ~

Human, Female, Monk

Location: The Tower Graveyard

She sits in the graveyard, meditating amongst the haunting spirits that fill the gaps between the many tombstones. She sits next to the graves of the compatriots who she had fought side by side with during her time as an assailant on the tower.

With crossed legs, her hands on her knees, a straight back and a slightly bowed head, she inhales deeply once more, holding the breath before returning it back out to the world from which she had taken it.

She does mourn the loss of these lives around her. They were not friends or family, merely work acquaintances.

But the loss of life, she sees now, was entirely avoidable. None of these people needed to die. Isaiah had already opened the door for them to step through, but they, lost in the rigidity of the confines of their lives as dungeon-inspectors, had been unable to see it for what it was.

In those days, she had lost her composure. The things she trained for during her life and youth had become buried under the weight of responsibility, burden, and purpose.

– Something places itself down onto her lap.

The monk opens her eyes, looking at the face below. An uthra lies there on the damp grass of the graveyard, with orange hair and a dress of the same color.

“What’chya doing?” asks Orange.

“Meditating,” replies the monk and closes her eyes again to return to her practice.

– An open hand lightly slaps itself against her face, clinging there like a spider to a wall. The monk opens her eyes again, staring through the fingers that obscure her sight.

“Why?” asks the uthra.

“To clear my mind,” replies the monk. “To stay sharp and in focus in all moments of life.”

“...Huh…” The uthra, lying on her back, lifts a leg into the air. She focuses, pursing her lips as she presses herself back, trying to get her foot to touch the monk without moving her hand from her face or her back from the ground.

“What are you doing?” asks the monk.

Orange sticks the tip of her tongue out of her mouth, pressing her lips around it as she focuses. “Trying to touch the top of your head with my foot,” explains the uthra, doing her best to do just that.

The monk, fairly certain she won’t be able to meditate with this creature here, decides to engage. “Why?” she asks, looking down at the head resting on her lap.

Orange stops, freezing half-way through her contortion, and the two of them stare at each other for a time in silence.

“You wanna go fishing?” asks Orange, entirely out of the blue.

“Pardon?” asks the monk.

Orange lets her leg and her hand flop down, and she lays there, spread eagle as she moves her arms and legs up and down, as if trying to make a snow-angel. “I’ve never been fishing before. It seems like it could be fun,” explains the uthra.

“I suppose it is, as long as you are not a fish,” she replies.

Orange gasps, her eyes going wide.

The uthra spins over onto her hands and knees, looking at the monk. “Could you imagine being a fish?” she asks. She blows up her cheeks, puffing them out as she stares. The monk tilts her head, staring at the odd creature. She has had encounters with Isaiah’s uthra now and then. They are certainly interesting. But this one seems particularly… excitable and unable to focus in the least.

Slowly, she lifts her hands, pressing a finger against the uthra’s face.

“Ffff–” air leaks out of Orange’s pursed lips as the monk’s finger deflates her cheek. “- ish.” They stare at each other for a time. “Fish,” repeats Orange, nodding.

“I see,” replies the monk, looking at the uthra.

Orange nods again.

“Okay. Bye,” she says, and then shoots off, vanishing in a blast of energy as she flies into the fog of the graveyard.

How… strange. The monk looks into the distance for a time and then resumes with her prior posture, closing her eyes and returning to her meditation.

– Something wet flops onto her lap.

“I’m back. I found a fish,” says Orange.

The monk stares at the fresh fish that seems to have just been ripped straight from the river a second ago. It flops around in her lap. She looks back up at the uthra, seeing that this will go nowhere productive if she forces the issue of silence.

“Would you like to take a walk together?” asks the monk. Orange’s eyes go wide, and she nods excitedly. “Very well,” replies the woman, getting up. She hands the fish to Orange. “But put this back into the river, please. I think it does not enjoy being outside of the water.”

“OKAY!” yells the uthra, for some reason. She snatches the fish back and vanishes. An instant later, she returns. “So what’s it like to have dead friends?” she asks. “Are you sad?”

The monk lifts an eyebrow. “This is a poor question to ask someone,” replies the woman, nodding her head as she starts to walk.

Orange flies after her. “Oh.” She hovers next to her as she walks to nowhere in particular. Walking can be just as good as meditation. The calming of the mind, the quieting of the hissing voices that persist throughout the days of one’s life, is the intent of the practice. Both meditation and walking are ample tools to do this, but so can any other focused practice such as combat training or any activity that leads to a focusing and silencing of the mind, allowing one to be with oneself without distractions.

“Sorry,” says Orange. “Red yells at me too. She says I’m annoying. Can we not be friends now?”

The monk looks over at the uthra, staring at her, perplexingly, almost frightened face as they move through the graveyard. “The point of a walk is to walk,” replies the monk. Orange blinks and then lowers herself down onto her feet, holding her arms unsteadily at her side as if she had never used her legs before and had no idea how to stand right.

“Like this?” she asks.

“Close,” replies the monk.

“Can’t we just fly?” asks Orange.

“I can not fly,” replies the monk.

“Oh…” Orange stares down at her feet as she stands there with bowed legs, like a dancer ready to spring into the air. “I mean, have you practiced?”

The monk stares at Orange, waddling alongside her. The uthra laughs as she looks down at the ground as she walks like a proud bird. “Look! I’m Isaiah!” she says, flapping her wings.

“Come on,” says the monk. “The river is not that far away.”

“Huh? The river?” asks Orange. “Why are we going there? I thought we were walking?” She shakes her head. “I can’t swim.”

The monk looks back at her, tilting her head. The creature is very lively. With this kind of energy, perhaps there is no stopping it? Perhaps channeling and redirecting it is the only way to survive its full onslaught in a healthy fashion? “Then we’ll have to ask the fish about it when we get there,” she replies, allowing herself to make a joke.

Orange gasps and laughs. “Good thing I put it back into the water!” she says, ‘walking’ alongside the monk.

“Mm,” replies the monk.

The two of them have a nice walk together and, while it isn’t exactly meditative and peaceful, it is certainly… a learning experience.

The fish has little to teach them, however, having swam away as fast as it could and being nowhere to be found by the time they get to the river.

___________________________

Chapter 78

~ [Mirani] ~

Human, Male, Merchant

Location: The Eastern City

“I’m going,” says the man as he stares towards the distant south-west, out into the night that covers the incredible span of desert that stretches on from where he stands until the distant horizon.

“What of your family?!” asks his brother, not for the first time. “Mirani!”

“What am I to do?” asks Mirani, looking over his shoulder towards the man who stands in the doorway. The sound of weeping can be heard inside – the hoarse crying of a woman and the wailing of fearful children, his. His brother steps forward, grabbing his collar.

“You are to do your duty as a man!” yells his brother, pointing back to the house in which his family sits.

Mirani looks at him, at the venom in his younger brother’s eyes. “I am,” replies Mirani, grabbing his hand and pulling it off of himself. “The gods have beckoned me. This is my duty.”

“Idiot!” yells his brother. “Your duty is here!” he shouts, looking back at the house behind them.

Mirani grabs his brother’s head with both hands, planting a kiss on his crown before he releases him and turns to walk off into the desert. “I entrust them to you, brother,” says Mirani, looking back at the young man and the house that leaks light, before he walks off into the desert where others have begun marching too.

Status Applied: [Pilgrim of Isaiah]

• +25% LUK
• +25% MAX-STAMINA
• +1% SOUL-REGENERATION / Minute
• + EXP for every nine steps taken directly towards the tower

First it was only a man.

Then it was two.

Then a dozen.

And now hundreds of them move through the night, pilgrims. Lantern-light fills the desert, as if the stars had fallen down unto the world. The swarm of fireflies moves towards the south-west, towards the tower.

Isaiah, the gods, have called for the faithful to gather.

__________________________

~ [Countess Avoria] ~

Female, Pure-Bred Elf, Noble (Countess)

Location: The Central-City, Castle

Avoria stands atop the balcony, staring down and out over the central-city, of which a portion is hers by birthright. Her guardsmen stand outside the door to her room, and she wistfully watches the world go by.

Carts move down along busy roads and people wander this way and that, far out of her reach, but not out of her sight.

It has been months now. But she has yet to be able to leave the confines of her quarters, given a dispute amongst bloodlines that she wants no part of, but has, nonetheless.

! [NEW GLOBAL MESSAGE] !

THE [FINAL CORE] HAS BEGUN TO CHARGE ITSELF WITH SPIRITUAL POWER

Continue to offer your prayers to Isaiah, so that we may return to the gods.

Pray. Chant. Sing. Undergo your pilgrimage to the tower and let no man stop you from following the road.

A window appears. In confusion, she looks at it and, by the time she looks back down below to the city, it has all changed in an instant.

For just a second, everything froze.

Thousands of people, carriages, and anqas had all fallen entirely still, unmoving. It’s like the moving, vibrant world below her, that has always seemed like a vague painting that hangs in the castle’s halls, has finally become one.

Then, it changes once again.

But the movements become erratic. People abandon their routines, moving around like the blood flowing through the veins of a body and now, instead, move in other directions. Not all of them, but some and this causes the oddity of the world below to look very sickly and strange. It is as if this blood were flowing the wrong way, returning back to the heart from the artery it had just come through.

Carts turn and make their ways to the gates. People shutter their windows and homes. Not all of them, but enough that there is a noticeable change from up here.

She’d like to go too.

Avoria turns her head, looking at the door to her chambers.

It’s locked from the outside.

But she supposes that she’ll have to stay here and pray instead as she has been doing for weeks.

The woman closes her eyes and her hands and speaks, hoping just once, to be heard.

___________________________________________

~ [Dungeon Core Yovel] ~

Dungeon Core of the Southern-City

Location: Floor 101 of the dungeon in the heart of the Southern City

Yovel sits there, snipping vegetables. Some humans left them here when the hobgoblins on floor ten sent them packing. The dungeon-core, a small, child-sized entity with sharp ears and an entirely featureless body – like a porcelain figurine that an artist had neglected to paint – hums a little tune to itself as it works.

– A window appears and it turns its head to look at it.

! [NEW GLOBAL MESSAGE] !

THE [FINAL CORE] HAS BEGUN TO CHARGE ITSELF WITH SPIRITUAL POWER

Continue to offer your prayers to Isaiah, so that we may return to the gods.

Pray. Chant. Sing. Undergo your pilgrimage to the tower and let no man stop you from following the road.

It rolls its eyes and returns to its cooking.

The new guy sure is making a ruckus. Although, Yovel supposes that it doesn’t mind. The number of humans who come to its dungeon is still significant, given that it’s smack-dab in the middle of their damned city. But it’s been considerably less since the tower arrived, and honestly, it doesn’t mind.

Yovel hates humans.

The knife cuts through the tuber that lands in a little pot as it turns its head, looking around its quaint little house at the very bottom of the southern dungeon.

It’s been a dungeon-core for a long, long, looong time. Life was better before the humans got here. It was just quiet living, without people barging in and, metaphorically and literally, shitting everywhere.

It wonders how Perchta is doing. She had her house around there somewhere, didn’t she?

“Eh. Whatever,” mumbles Yovel, as it returns to its cooking.

Dinner for one.

Like always.

Forever.

It quietly stares at its hands for a moment, holding the knife and a piece of an old tuber.

– Forever.

“- BAKAW!” shouts the creature, randomly and finds itself perking up again.

That’s a trick it learned from a human once, the only good thing to ever come from them. It’s hard to be sad when you make chicken noises. So every time it gets sad, it does just that.

The dungeon-core continues to hum and returns to its cooking.