The Great Tower: Day 1 (Patreon)

Whew, it's been a while! But I'll aim to get back to revising this on the weekends.

Herocore Ep 2 is honestly much too much work to try and put a timeline down. Even just outlining is a bitch... but that probably means it will be that much better when I finally release it. Willow's next adventure is pretty ambitious; I want her to participate in a stereotypical fantasy auction, which is a bit strange to orchestrate...

Anyways, here you go~

A metaphysical knife cut through the fabric of the world and the paper-thin edges curled up like greedy fingers. Then I was somewhere else.

...huh? I blinked my eyes to cope with the sudden burst of light. As my eyes adjusted, I could quickly scan the surrounding terrain. I frowned. The strange grey figure of the Ilium was gone; I was standing now in a mass of confused looking beings in a large dark room. The bodies around me were strange and varied. Scales and fur and feathers and pulsing exposed muscle moved fueled by the same confusion that I felt.

More and more words blurred across my mind. But I didn’t have any sort of idea what those words meant. Just that those beings made me think of those words. Where had those words come from?

The next thing I noticed was the ground. The floor was dirt. I raised my foot and stomped it experimentally. This place definitely didn’t look familiar but at the same time… It wasn’t like I could remember anything else. This dirt floor was all I had ever-

I must learn to kill.

The thought rose unbidden to the forefront of my mind, with a vehemence that made me clench my fists. Afterward, that thought sank back into the core of myself where it took up residence. Although I didn’t really understand what it meant, I found myself settling into it. Like a spine, that powerful thought would give shape to my psyche.

But before I could examine the thought any further, a loud voice barked out across the mass of bodies, “Hey, Newbies! Most of you will die. Congratulations! That means you won’t have to stay here in hell for very long. If anything… I’m envious.”

After letting that sink into the group, the voice continued.  “Alright, first things first. Think ‘Status’. A window should appear in front of you.”

Unbidden, I did as I was told.

Status

Name:

Lvl: 1

Race:

Con: 3

Str: 3

Agi: 3

Dex: 4

Int: 5

Wis: 5

Spr: 6

Luck: 31

Titles:

Blessings: Lesser Air Affinity

As soon as the blue panel appeared before me, several others appeared.

Welcome Traveler! The Great Tower is proud to have you join the Production Team, and we wish you the best of luck!

Congratulations! Due to your actions, you have earned the Title “Nameless”: As a being without a name, you live, fight, and die alone. +1 to all stats.

Congratulations! Due to your actions, you have earned the Title “Raceless”: As a being without a race, you have no common ground with any being you might encounter. You are truly alone. All races view you with suspicion. Gained the Blessing “Endless Stomach” and the Attribute “Biomass”

The Status screen flickered and then reappeared with the changes.

Status

Name:

Lvl: 1

Race:

Con: 3(+1)

Str: 3(+1)

Agi: 3(+1)

Dex: 4(+1)

Int: 5(+1)

Wis: 5(+1)

Spr: 6(+1)

Luck: 31(+1)

Biomass: 0

Titles: Nameless, Raceless

Blessings: Lesser Air Affinity, Endless Stomach

Alone… That word meant something. I understood it. But-

I must learn to kill.

I’m not alone, am I? I thought. My face twitched. I could feel it shifting into a smile, but I didn’t understand why. There was something about that mental spine that felt warm to me.  I have that.

Before I could think further, the voice spoke again. “Alright, see it? Who has a Blessing? Raise your longest appendage.” I raised my hand, inwardly feeling slightly smug that I had two Blessings. As soon as I did, I was teleported before a short woman with a pig face and small beady eyes.

“Blessing?”

“Lesser Air Affinity and-”

The pig-faced woman spoke over her shoulder.“E class….eh… put him in the marsh bowl. If he survives for a week, then we can use him. Boy,” Now the thing turned to glare at me. “If you want to live, kill and level up. It’s the only way out.”

“I already know that,” I said, truly grinning now. That seemed to shock the pig-faced woman, but before she could react, everything around me disappeared.

And just like that, I was standing in the middle of a marsh. Night was falling, and crickets began to chirp around me. Tall reeds rustled softly, and I could hear the sound of running water nearby although no matter how hard I searched I couldn’t find the source. Slowly, I was sinking into the mud beneath my feet. My stomach rumbled.

As I looked down, I realized that my clothes were suddenly different too. Gone was…

I frowned. Why did I think these clothes were different? The brown tunic and plain pants were all I ever remembered wearing, even if it was only from the last 20 minutes. Before that… there was only a haze.

Worse than a haze. There was a scar.

Even if this body existed before that, I didn’t exist, I thought sourly as I lifted up a mud-caked foot to examine it. The sensation of the cool mud between my toes was actually quite pleasant, honestly. I squelched my foot up and down, enjoying the feeling of mud displacing beneath me.

I also currently had a belt on, which had a loop, and a cudgel hanging from the loop. I hefted the cudgel, fascinated by its shape. A few practice swings had me wincing at how heavy it was. Somehow, I could immediately intuit the natural violence that this tool could be put toward.

I suppose this will be how I kill…

A few swings wouldn’t be difficult, but more than that…

Ribbet.

I turned, surprised to find a frog the size of a basketball hopping out of the tall grass towards me. Its bulbous eyes considered me, swiveling independently to lock onto the hand holding the cudgel. Then it took another hop toward me.

Frog? Where did that word come from…? And basketball? Some instinct was telling me that my lack of memories was unusual, but-

The frog opened its pale green lips and a pink blur darted forward to splat unpleasantly against my collarbone. My first instinct was to blink. I could see rows of tiny, jagged teeth within the frog’s fleshy mouth. I frowned. Suddenly the instinct I had that this was a frog was nothing more than a distant memory, like a plume of smoke that had been run through too many times.

All I had was my hunger and this frog. My stomach rumbled again, urging me into motion.

I was snapped out of my reverie by the tongue yanking me forward, causing me to stumble and fall to my knees. I immediately sunk into that same mud I had played with earlier. The cool sensation on my legs helped narrow my focus further. I needed to stop thinking about this. And I just need to…

Learn to kill.

The frog hopped towards me, and almost mechanically I raised the cudgel between us.  The heavy wood swayed. My fingers felt fat and clumsy against the leather grip.

I was… afraid. I knew I had never done this before. My body was screaming at me that this was uncomfortable. The instincts that were flailing in my mind were strange and half-baked. My right hand tightened on the wooden shaft. The frog hopped forward, continuing to reel me in towards its mouth. It hopped again.

All I could rely on was that spine. There was no confusion in that sharp-edged violence.

The fear continued to struggle, but it was being displaced by something. Something that was better than experience, that was more demanding that desire: necessity.

I lashed out with the heavy cudgel, my eyes almost glazed over. There wasn’t any finesse to the movement, just a jerky smash aiming to hurt the frog at whatever cost.

Survive. Kill.

Unfortunately, my body wasn’t quite as on board with the plan as my instincts were, and the cudgel skidded off the right side of the Frog’s slimy head. Most of the force deflected away from its skull but the heavy tip of the cudgel slid down its face, popping its eyeball from the pressure. A small spray of blood and eye pus splashed onto my face.

The frog gurgled in pain and used a flick to detach its tongue from its grip on my collar bone. The monster twisted and began to hop away, likely driven by fear and pain.

The drops of blood and puss on my cheek oozed down. The skin of my face tingled. I could hear my own breathing, even though I didn’t really feel it. Everything was numb and on fire. I was far away from those things. All I was focused on was the retreating back of this fucking frog. Without standing, I surged forward like a beast on all four limbs.

As it jumped, I caught its leg. Was it really fear that I was feeling? Was that why I was so numb?

It began to croak wildly, kicking its legs to shake my grip. One of the kicks smashed into my chest, but I barely even noticed. A sound of rustling reeds reached me, but I was much too caught up in the strange feeling of strength I had as I held the frog. When I pulled, it could croak and struggle but I easily pulled its bloated body toward me. My grip was firm.

I could feel my heart pumping, a strange heat filling my veins. I felt… powerful. More powerful than this frog thing, anyway.

At some point, it seemed like the frog realized additional struggle was pointless; it resigned itself to its fate and whipped back to face me. Its mouth was wide and filled with rotting and jagged teeth. But my arm was already smashing downward with the cudgel.

This strike struck it directly at the crown of the head and created a dull cracking sound. I jerked my head to the side as the tongue erupted forward, almost halfhearted. The frog slumped to the ground. Yet that constant urging in my chest didn’t stop. I continued to strike.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

After the skull split and revealed the dull grey mush of a brain, I hesitated and simply held the cudgel up. Some part of me tensed, as though I was about to be smashed by a wave of emotion. As though remorse and regret would bubble up, chiding me for so callously ripping away the life of another living being.

As I gazed at the smashed skull, the broken skin, it's swiftly deflating body, my instincts told me that something should happen. A life was loss, and that naturally released remorse.

But I felt nothing. Just a dispassionate satisfaction from winning. Is this how one kills?

Ribbet. Ribbet.

Ultimately, I had won. No matter what weird impulses were hidden in this body, surviving was the only real goal. More than that… I simply didn’t know. And in the face of the delightful satisfaction of killing, all of my doubts melted like snow in spring.

Shrugging, I turned to the three additional frogs that had appeared from the tall grass and were hopping towards me. I had a vague impression of myself, and that impression seemed… shaken by what I had just done. But I was swiftly becoming dissociated with that impression, and a new self was emerging, with a phrase like a burning brand guiding me forward.

I stood to face the frogs, wincing as I did so. That kick to the chest I received was starting to hurt. Even so, that wouldn’t slow me down. My hands were tingling.

I must learn to kill-

Splat.

A tongue smashed into the cudgel, immediately yanking it away. Seemingly pleased, the other two frogs hopped near to me while the third dropped the cudgel and hopped on top of it. The first frog shot its tongue out towards my leg.

This time I was ready. I twisted to the side, avoiding the tongue but slipping on the slimy mud. The second frog forwent its tongue and just leapt at me with its mouth wide. Instincts flared to life and I rolled out of the way. Again, a sharp twinge of pain snaked out from the location where I had been kicked.

As I tumbled backward, I managed to get my hands up and grabbed the upper and lower jaws of the frog intent on swallowing me whole. Breathing heavily, I held the frog above my head, struggling to keep its mouth from crushing my skull. The teeth might be small, but they hurt like a bitch as they began to dig into my hands.

It’s jaw flexed; the force almost too much for me to resist. The teeth continued to dig and saw away at the flesh of my palms and fingers. It was incredibly painful to endure, but a transformation happened within me as I realized that these frogs wanted to kill me too.

I needed to learn to kill… because to kill is to survive. Any other choice was to accept death.

“Ow.” I spoke almost reflexively, as the dull pain became sharper and deeper as the teeth began to bore little tunnels into me.

“Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.” As I muttered to myself, slowly rising in volume, my strength surged with a violent fury. My arms were trembling, but the veins on my muscles bulged outward. I began to push open his jaws. After a few seconds, I had reached the limit of how wide its jaw naturally opened, and I felt rather than saw its struggles to eat me shift to struggles to escape my grasp.

A tongue from another frog slapped into my legs and began to pull, but although it could unbalance me, it did not have the weight to pull me across the ground. The frantic limbs of the frog I held continued to scrabble for purchase, but they couldn’t reach me.

“OW. OW. OW. OW.” By now I was yelling, grinding my teeth and glaring at this maw that consumed my vision. The flesh of its mouth and throat were bare to me. It all looked so soft, so weak. So fragile.

To kill is to survive. Anything else led to death.

With a sickening crunch, the mechanism of the jaw shattered as I ripped off the bottom portion of the frog’s jaw. Blood spurted out, mixing with the mud around my feet. Some dripped down to the tongue that was attached to my leg, which continued its doomed mission to pull me forward.

I gazed at the torn flesh dispassionately, then dropped it to the ground as I began to stand. Another tongue slammed against my shoulder, but I just smiled. I stood and kept my center of gravity low, grabbing the tongue on my shoulder and yanking the frog towards me.

It somehow disconnected the sticky bit of its tongue from my body, but I had a firm grip and drew it inexorably forward. The exterior of the tongue was spongy, but I wrapped it securely around my wrist.

The other frog disconnected its tongue too and turned to flee. Heh, looks like you finally get it now.

When the frog I yanked towards me was close enough, I raised my left foot and stomped once, powerfully, immediately crushing it. The frogs had taken me by surprise initially, but all of their strength was concentrated in their legs and the explosive release of their tongues. When they couldn’t bring those strengths to bear… they were just prey.

Prey.

The last fleeing frog hopped towards the tall grass. I dashed forward, picking up the cudgel as I scrambled in pursuit. After leaping to my feet, the distance began to narrow.  My longer strides covered a significantly greater distance. Panting, I brought the cudgel down in a wicked arc to smash its skull inward and eviscerate its brain.

Then, breathing, I considered the 4 smashed frogs around me. My stomach rumbled. I scratched the back of my neck.

*****

After several failed attempts spanning several hours, I was forced to admit that the damp nature of the area would prevent me from lighting a fire. I wasn’t quite sure why a fire was so important, but that smoky remnant of whoever I had been before insisted upon it. But as time passed and my efforts led to nothing, my stomach pangs grew more painful and demanding.

At least water was plentiful. The strange impression inside myself that seemed to be a remnant of what I once was hesitated at drinking the tepid water, but I was thirsty NOW. So I drank deeply, quenching my thirst. I had the patience to then wait almost a full five minutes.

I didn’t die. Perhaps the smoky remnant wasn’t as intelligent as it thought it was. And now that I thought about, perhaps I didn’t need to pay it much attention. it balked at the thought of eating the frogs raw, but…

My stomach rumbled loudly, banging itself against my ribs so that I would capitulate to its urgent demands. I raised the least broken of the bodies, the one whose jaw I ripped off, and sniffed it. My eyes brightened; it smelled delicious. Why had I so long wasted my time when eating was this easy?

I licked the dripping blood and involuntarily released a low moan. My stomach shivered. Next thing I knew, I was ripping the skin and flesh of the creature apart, devouring it. Bits of grit and bone I tossed aside, but the rest disappeared within my mechanically opening and closing mouth, filling a craving I didn’t even know I had.

It was only when all that remained in front of me was a pile of bones that I noticed the small blue windows that appeared during my meal.

Biomass +1

Biomass +1

Biomass +1

Oh? I gained Biomass from eating?

I considered how I felt. My stomach rumbled. Well, there is no harm in eating a second. They don’t appear to be very filling. As I picked up the next body, another box popped up next to the corpse.

Inspect?

Curious, I clicked it, and another status screen appeared.

Lvl: 1

Race: Lesser Marsh Frog

Con: 2

Str: 1

Agi: 2

Dex: 2

Int: 3

Wis: 1

Spr: 1

Blessings: Tongue Grab

‘Heh, no wonder it’s so weak’, I thought to myself, but I could feel myself smiling. Then I ate its corpse, leaving nothing but bones. After eating all the bodies, I checked my status again.

Name:

Lvl: 1

Race:

Vit: 4(+1)

End: 2(+1)

Str: 3(+1)

Agi: 3(+1)

Dex: 4(+1)

Int: 5(+1)

Wis: 5(+1)

Luck: 31(+1)

Biomass: 11

Titles: Nameless, Raceless

Abilities: Lesser Air Affinity, Endless Stomach

I clicked on the word Biomass on my status screen expectantly, but nothing happened. I frowned. Why did I click on it like that? Also, that impression within me was telling me I should be trying something, but…

I yawned. Killing frogs was sorta tiring. Rubbing my full stomach, I walked over to the treeline so that I was away from the tall grass from which the frogs came and prepared to sleep.