Unnatural Delight

A feeling of dread came over me, as the pressure on my back persisted and the sounds from the cylinder kept their strange glass-cracking tones. I was bleeding. Internally. I did not know anything about medicine, but I knew that the words 'internal bleeding' were a sign of danger from general osmosis. I could barely move my hands, I couldn't stand up and I didn't even know if I had done anything of value in this, my latest foolish endeavor. My fire resistance spell was running out in a room still mostly on fire. And I heard a scratching coming from my Journal. I smiled a blood-crusted smile. I could force myself to move, if I really wanted to. My hands went to the Journal, and I lifted it to my face. Though my fingers were red with my own blood, the page of the Journal was its usual ivory white.

Log Thanks for that. Experience to level 9: 2499/2500

There was no explanation nor elaboration there, but I had clearly pushed the Tower intelligence, or its algorithm or whatever it was well past its intended purpose, and so I just accepted it. Then came a hissing overwhelming every other sound in the mechanical room. The klaxon and the red warning lights came on and I felt as much as heard sealed… doors? Portholes? Something pop open, and I heard suction and felt my eardrums pop. Really, I was lucky that I still had working eardrums. And the pressure on my chest became lighter. At first I thought I had imagined it, but as I started to sit back up with my own strength, it was clearly true.

I tried to stand, and managed, just, while holding on to the cylinder that I had just "repaired". Even in my own head I made sure to include the quotation marks around the word. It should not have worked, but apparently it was a good enough patch job to get this system back to running. I didn't know exactly what was happening now with the room emptying of elementals, but I had a few theories, one of which wasn't even dumb.

I thought that now that the breach in the system was patched, it recognized that it would no longer be futile to suck the elementals back in. Furthermore, a closed system would run more smoothly than one with a disturbance, surely making a blockage in the running of the tower. The room was growing dark as the fire elementals disappeared into holes in the wall, and I was left in a dark room illuminated by nothing but glowing purple runes.

There came a scratching from my Journal and I kicked my boots together to make a reading light.

Log Artifice skill gained at level 1 Quest updated: Elementally, Dear Alex

Quests Elementally, Dear Alex The Monarch of Goblins has asked you to investigate the strange elementals escaping into the lowest floor of the Tower. Find the issue, fix it and return to them for your reward.

Update: WARNING! Elementals fueling sector 341 001 of the lowest level have been decreased by 2%. Further reduction will severely impact the habitability of the Tower. Starting with your location. Find a way to repair the problem without destroying all of the elementals.

Update: repairs, while abysmally amateurish, have been completed to a borderline satisfactory degree. Return to the Monarch of Goblins to gain an additional reward.

There was a lot more, ongoing scratching going on, and so I flipped through the pages until I found

Chat

Did you have something to do with the elemental thing, Alex? -Hannah

What's going on with elementals, and why do you think Alex is involved? -Chimo

We just destroyed a rock monster, lost Robert. The Journal says we aren't getting any more experience from elementals. -Hannah

Alex? Are you there? We should really make regular check-ins when we're separated. -Artemis

I couldn't be sure that I would be coming back to them. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off I had a horrible, sick feeling inside me, and it felt extensive. I felt cold and shaky. But, hell, I could hold a pencil.

Still alive, pretty hurt, hoping my healing ability kicks in before my organs fail.- Alex

Sounds bad. Where are you? -Hannah.

Like 20 minutes from the library. By the time you get here I'll probably be healed or dead. The elemental thing was me, sorry. -Alex

We have people with healing magic now. Well, a person with healing magic. We can get there in an hour, and you have no idea of knowing if it will be too late. -Artemis

If you're sending Bjorn, I can take him to Alex. -Zack

We'll reconvene in the safe room, then all go. Alex, we kind of need you back here. The barrier spell is really invaluable. -Artemis

Yeah, been learning that myself. Look, I'm pretty sure my healing ability will work, it should kick in like four minutes from now. If it doesn't I can still try to crawl. I promise I won't go unconscious without telling you where I am, then you can come rescue me. -Alex

What did you do with the elementals? -Hannah

Long story. I think they're a part of an engine that runs this whole tower. I had to kill a bunch. -Alex

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How many? -Hannah

Like 30? Plus there was a mass battle with another hundred or so. -Alex

Shit, we're dying here against pairs and threes. What have you been up to? -Hannah

Hey, I nearly died to one one-on-three with you two. The barrier spell works really well in certain situations combined with some other spells. Anyways, there's a lot of dangerous creatures here that might react aggressively if you come. It'd be better if I finished my quest and came back to find you. -Alex

Just so long as you understand that you dying will mean other people dying later. Hell, you being late will have a bodycount. So do what you need to and get back here. -Hannah.

I understand. But people will die here whether I'm here or not. I think the healing is starting to work. I will see you all before the second day is over. -Alex

It was slow, but it was beginning. I wondered where it got the blood from to replace what I'd lost. If it was magic, surely my mana-drained body should be ravaged even further, rather than being healed. Was some of the magic that was being pumped into the Tower by the elementals somehow healing my wounds and replenishing my blood? The more I learned about magic, the more unbelievable the Tower became. It wasn't just that the Tower itself was unbelievable, but the Journals and progression made the whole thing exponentially more complex as it developed. Was there an intellect behind it, or was it all planned by our unknown creator of the Tower? So, as far as I could understand the only three possibilities were, either he had created artificial life -a mind to manage the Tower-, he was responding to each person's actions in real-time, or he had accounted for every possible action of many hundreds of people and prepared for it. Hell, the likely answer was that it was some combination of all three, and some stuff I couldn't even imagine. And the best idea we had for a long-term goal was to somehow kill this person? What were we going to use? The Journals that he had, apparently, created?

I waited in the dark room and I meditated. I hadn't done that in a while, not formally, but it seemed like the right thing to do. I couldn't be sure I could get mana back that way, but it was the best idea that I had.

Twenty five minutes passed and I felt as good as new. Better, even. Raising the mind attribute had clearly done something to my ability to clear my thoughts and observe my own mind from without. I managed to take a lot of my recent traumas and anxious thought patterns out of the many boxes I'd sealed them away in order to survive, and, with the time and relative safety to carefully examine them, a lot of the bone-deep terror that I was riding on for the past thirty-something hours lessened a little. I wasn't fine. To be fair, I now knew that I wasn't fine, which could be a liability in the medium term, but I knew that long term I would have to face shit like this in order to come out the other side anything resembling a sane man.

When I stood up, I learned of another perk of the Journal and progression- after sitting perfectly still and up-right for twenty five minutes, there was no soreness, no itches, hell, my foot hadn't even gone to sleep. I was just… fine. Two days ago I would have thought any hell would be worth it just for this healing skill that I now had. I knew a lot more about how bad things could really get now, but it was still pretty neat.

So, since I was fine, I got going back to the Goblin Market. The way back was uneventful, and in sealing off whatever issue had caused this breach in the Tower system, I found myself thinking of these tunnels as maintenance shafts. I mean, that was clearly what they were, but in the white light of my boots and without the sense of impending danger, I really felt like I was in the tunnels under some military installation, or perhaps a prison. Eat your heart out, Foucault.

When I crawled out of the tunnels and back into the destroyed classroom where the fight between the market and the elementals had taken place, I found the Monarch waiting for me with the strangest, most strained smile on their face.

"Welcome back, young hero," they said, "what a terrible, unnatural joy do We feel at your return." "Uh, thanks?" I said. "We do not appreciate intrusions within Our mind, but We can hardly blame you for causing this. We expect the Tower is very happy indeed with you, and thus, so must We," they said. "I'm sorry. It was the quest itself. Solving it required doing something that the Tower needed done," I said. "It couldn't be helped then. We will reward you both for your successful quest and give you a further boon. We dare not make a liar of your Journal, after all," they said. "I wasn't aware that you knew so much about what was happening to me. Can you tell me anything more?" I said. "We know little. We found Ourself in a demiplane of heroism, and We refused to be a monster for heroes to slay. We found those intelligent enough to recognize Our truth, and made a village of them. And thus you found Us a Monarch within the Tower. We learned more of the Tower and your Journals from some other heroes passing through. Then, some time after you set off to help us with our elemental problem, We found Ourself thinking 'gee, wasn't that Alex guy a swell fellow, and shouldn't we give him a nice big reward', which was not a thought We would ever have," they said. "You seemed to indicate that you knew more about the Journal than we did," I said. "Not the Journal. Just planes of heroism in general. It is foolishness to go against their design, at least until you have gathered enough power within them to break through to the multiverse without. We cannot do so yet, and you can barely survive. As such, We shall be following through with what your Journal wants, which, We presume- correctly- is to give you further award than We first intended," they said. "Um, thank you," I said. "It has little to do with you, hero of cowards. You shall be granted the following boons: a book, a key and a pot of gold. These were to be yours regardless of any boons granted by the Tower. Our last reward will be a bundle of grass and twine. Burn it within the same floor of the Tower that We are in, and We shall come to your aid. It will happen but once, but We have the power to destroy anything We can imagine finding on this floor," the Monarch said.

I bowed deeply, with my left leg extended. It just seemed right.

"Thank you, Monarch, I shall forever remember your grace and the value of your promises given," I said.

This was the second or third time I found myself talking all fantasy-like in the Tower. I had assumed it was just the circumstances and my nervous, slightly manic brain firing strange connections in my synapses, half-remembering lines from fantasy novels, to fit with the themes of magic and adventure that I was living through. But the Monarch had just told me that their mind had been influenced by the Tower.

"Receive your reward, and We grant you Our leave," the Monarch said. "Pardon, a thought just crossed my mind, and I thought I would ask for your opinion on it. I just said something I would not have said back in the world I came from. Do you think my mind is being influenced?" I said. "Truly? You would never say it?" they said.

And I thought about it. I wouldn't say it to a cashier or a gas station attendant, or my boss, or, Hell, even if I met actual royalty back on Earth. But I had said similar things many times. When I was with my friends, pretending to be fairy kings and noble knights, I had said things far more ridiculous than that.

"I suppose I might say something like that if I was telling a story to my friends," I said. "And that is a part of your answer. We will say that the purpose of any demiplane of heroism is to change the minds of those who would be heroes within it. This place is designed to teach you to think in certain ways, to react in certain ways, and to solve your problems in certain ways. But hear Our advice: those who survive a plane such as the one you stand upon are most often those who see what the design wants of them and refuse to give it. Leave now, or I shall ask you thrice," the Monarch said, and with another bow I grabbed my rewards and left the Monarch of Goblins behind.

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