The Great Tower: Prologue (Patreon)

Whew, just this little teaser for now. Not that I changed much from this portion, but I spent most of my time reading back through and familiarizing myself with what happens later. Trying to think about plots I want to shift...

Well anyway, the goal for the release two weeks from now is to finish out his week in the marshes. Frog antics. Yanno. Enjoy!

(P.S.: I was surprised how much I enjoyed revisiting this xD)

To each member of the board, Mikani turned. Her luminous yellow eyes were expressive and watering. She bit her lip. Her hands tightened on the edge of the table until her knuckles were white.

Yet no one came to her support.

Blinking back tears, Mikani said, “The humans of Earth are my life’s work. For ten thousand years… we’ve stolen so many pop culture ideas from them to boost ratings-”

“And yet profits are falling,” Den said harshly. Although he likely didn’t mean anything by it, Den’s position at the head of the table aided a tragic air of finality to the decision. Mikani hiccuped into her hand.

With a sigh, Den shook his head. “The way they’ve been governing themselves recently… their ‘entertainment’...”

Den trailed off. But as Den settled into silence, Qube spoke up.

“They are an embarrassment.”

Mikani glared hatefully at Qube. “But what I don’t get… is why HE is going to take control of their lives.”

Qube readjusted his glasses. “We run a business, Mikani. You would do well to remember that.”

Before Mikani could spit out the string of curses that was brewing in her mouth, Den leaned forward. “It is not as though they will not be given a chance. Like all of those without Citizenship, the humans will be cast on The Great Tower. Their fates are now their own.”

“Don’t fuck with me,” Mikani said bitterly. “At best, they will serve as fodder. Even if they can tap into some of the Tower’s spirit, their natural abilities-”

“Everyone loves an underdog,” Qube said smugly. 

If she could do it without being punished, Mikani would have loved to bash Qube’s face into the heavy wooden table. But even if she had the will to do something like that, Mikani was unsure if she could.

Before becoming the head producer, Qube had climbed The Great Tower himself. And had made it to the 40th Floor.

So Mikani settled on glaring. 

Qube laughed, clearly enjoying her frustration. “You never know, one might experience moderate success. They appear to be a relatively adaptable race, after all.”

“Meeting adjourned,” Den rumbled.

*****

Click.

For the hundredth time, the young man from Earth refreshed his internet browser. Once again, the newest chapter of his favorite webnovel hadn’t been released. Obsessively, he checked the time. 6:02 P.M. The daily release should have happened.

Why hasn't it been posted?

But that thought was cut off by the sensation of being punched in the gut. The air around him seemed to tremble… and then he was somewhere else.

He was sitting in a pitch black chair in the middle of an infinite white space. And in front of him was floating a grey creature with 11 eyes. Other than that, there was nothing. Just… color.

Black. White. Grey.

Eleven eyes.

The young man’s brain was whirring at full speed to capture and understand all the information that was being thrown at him. But only one thing was immediately clear: the grey creature in front of him was very bored.

“Welcome, chosen one. You will soon be competing on The Great Tower, one of the greatest programs the integrated multiverse has to offer! In order to make things interesting, you are offered the chance to sell bits of yourself to I, the Ilium, in exchange for power. What are you willing to offer, contestant?”

What a weird question, the young man thought. What wouldn’t I be willing to offer for power?

Because based on this setup…

The young man looked carefully around. He surreptitiously knocked on the black chair he was sitting on and then winced as he cracked his knuckles painfully against the material. It wasn’t wood… but it wasn’t metal either.

When it was clear that there wasn’t any answer in the surroundings, the young male asked. “...bits of myself? Like body parts?”

“Perhaps.” The Illium seemed surprised he had responded at all. “Body parts, personality traits, inches of your height… basically anything. The more precious the thing is you sell, the more you will get in exchange. I have many methods”

The trick in novels is always to do something extremely simple that most people wouldn’t think to do. So what comes next…

The male considered briefly. “First, I will sell my name.”

“Done.”

The male blinked, then smiled ruefully. Then he closed his eyes, thinking something very hard. It’s a gamble… but if I want to succeed, I must take risks. To start…

...first, leaving a trace for myself later…. And then… just need the guts to say it.

To the young man’s surprise, the words came with surprising ease. “Next... I sell my memory of my previous world.”

The creature chuckled, snapping his fingers. “Fine accomplished. Anything else?”

As soon as the Ilium snapped its fingers, the light inside the young man’s eyes winked out. Because the body sitting in the chair was barely a man at all anymore. It was simply a creature of instinct. It had been deprived of memory, name, and therefore meaning. It was a misplaced child, more than anything else. A broken toy that had been ripped for a god’s pleasure.

The silence slowly stretched. The Ilium sighed. These things happened occasionally. An individual would sell too much, resulting in it becoming almost nothing. 

Of course, the Ilium did not lie; it gave them power in exchange. But it was not an instant power. It was more akin to seeds planted within these sellers. Seeds that needed time to flower and grow.

After five more minutes, the Ilium had enough waiting in silence. “If that’s all-”

“Wait.” The male’s voice was deeper, somehow, when he spoke now. The thing that had once been a human male frowned at the ground, its face split into thousands of deep lines. Then it looked up. Despite itself, the Ilium flinched.

There was a new light there. Something deranged and warped, like the dreams of a twisted king. But there was also resolve there. A determination that the Ilium had no way of giving, no matter what was sold to it.

Was it luck…? The Ilium wondered. Or was this inevitable? To have the nerve to sell his name and his memory. This is-

“I must… tell you something. ‘I sell my humanity’. And then…” The lines on the thing’s face grew deeper as the internal struggle reached a fever pitch. 

“It… is done…” The Ilium said quietly. The thing before him still bore the shape of a human, but that was simply a default. What breathed from within that skin was no longer anything close to human. It was a machine that had all of the function parts ripped out. What was left...

The male thing gazed into the distance as the grey creature with 11 eyes continued to observe this strange thing. All at once, the deep ridges and lines on the thing’s skin disappeared. Because the face of the one time human male split into a wide smile.

A smile so wide it could swallow a world. “And now I must learn... to kill.”