We Lucky Few

A cut off scream broke my heart as another scream began behind me. Mrs. Xiang was, and there was really no other word for it, wailing and rushing towards the door, when it swung open with great force and a Guild member I didn't recognize back into the room, firing arrows out of a magical bow at strange bird-like creatures, giving cover for three other people. They all made it. Although, of course, there was supposed to be five. Before we had time to discuss that, however, the door swung open forcefully again, this time opening up in a torrent of salty water, carrying Chimo and his group with it, and we had to force the door shut by working together, and even then it took long enough for the water to be up to our ankles. Which flowed back into the door when it was next opened, and the party coming in was holding on to the door on top of a sheer cliff, the rush of water nearly knocking them off their holds.

All in all, reunions, mourning and taking a basic fucking break were lost as an option for the next twenty minutes, as party after party finished their individual challenges. Even Mrs. Xiang helped, though she had a look in her eyes that could have been either hard or empty, and I couldn't tell which. As more and more normal and nice people came through, Anna became more relaxed around them and went all in on helping everybody out. The next out of the core party were Hannah and Zack. Zack was carrying two unconscious bodies on either shoulder, and Hannah had a new shiny black chestplate, but their last party member made it through fine, as they appeared from the creepy dark woods that they had come through.

After a while there came a knock at the door. I shrugged and opened it.

"Good evening, Mr. Vorhal. I am pleased to report that we have successfully circumvented our particular challenge," Clarence said, as he and his four wards walked casually into the still chaotic waiting room. Or was it a sitting room?

The last to come through was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Artemis. Despite everything, I was relieved that we hadn't lost the whole of any one group and, in fact, most people had survived over all. Artemis was visibly just as relieved as soon as she did a head count. Including Anna and the aliens there were exactly fifty people from our sector in the Tower.

"Is this Anna?" Artemis said. "Uh, yeah. Anna, this is Artemis, she's sort of our definitely not a leader, Artemis- Anna, she's a wizard too," I said. "Sorcerer, actually. I gave up the ability to cast non-fire spells to be a lot better at fire. Couldn't grind the levels for wizard, it wasn't, uh, safe," Anna said. "Well, that's everybody then. Listen up!" Artemis began in her leader voice.

Then the door opened up one more time and a man rolled into the room, landing in a crouch. He was wearing a dark leather hood over his head, inscribed with golden symbols. He wore a deep dark green cloak and a short sword on either side of his belt. He said, in a clearly put-on gravelly voice:

"Stay away, I work alone," and did an entirely unnecessary vault and a roll towards the exit. I had checked the door and it had been locked, but now that he- apparently the actual last person to survive the challenges- was here, the door clicked open and he turned to us waving a drawn short sword and waving it threateningly as he left the room back first.

Other changes were taking place in the room too. There was a large round table rising up from the floor, with chairs around it. I felt an odd sense of satisfaction that the chairs were clearly much more closely together than designed, as it suggested that the Tower didn't expect so many of us to make this far, but as soon as I thought of it the memory of Mr. Xiang's cut off scream punched me in the gut with almost physical force. There was a piece of paper in front of each chair and a name on the top.

So even as Artemis was trying to get the Guild in order, people were beginning to look for their own names and reading the papers of other people without any apparent shame.

"Looks like instructions. And, uh, a grade," a young man I didn't remember the name of shouted.

"We'll get to that in a moment. We still haven't gone over our injuries and triage," Artemis said. "Anyone happen to find any healing potions?" I said. "No cupboards?" Hannah said. "Not a fucking one," I said. "Alright, alright, the Tower clearly wants something of us and it's pretty obvious what it intends. Please find your paper and read it. The information might very well be private," Artemis said. And people were willing enough to follow at least this very reasonable request.

I caught a moment with Anna before sitting down.

"Sorry, it feels like bad moment after bad moment," I said. "Haven't had much of the other kind in the last two days," she said. "Yeah. Not exactly the ideal reunion location," I said. "At least we're almost done here," she said. I winced. "We're kind of operating under the assumption that it isn't," I said. "I know, I know, it's just… Easier to pretend I don't see those signs," she said. "Well, it might at least be something different. And we're getting pretty strong," I said. "I am. You seem kind of wimpy for a wizard," she said. "I'm out of mana!" I said. "Walk and talk? I want to see what this paper says. Probably something about how we're all going to die if we don't check it out in the next fifty seconds," she said.

So we walked around the table looking for our names. After a moment of chaos, we had managed to form a rough circle around the table, walking around until each person found their name.

"Anna, are you, shit, I mean, how are you?" I said. "Not great. I'd literally never been in a fight before the beginning of this thing, and now I can barely count them," she said.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. "Same. Seen some people die. It's been really rough," I said. "I- Yeah, me too," she said, hiding something that I didn't press for. She found her little report card thing first and sat down to read it and I kept walking. Finally I found a sheet of paper, or parchment, or vellum for all I knew and it started with:

Alex Vorhal Level 11 Wizard Most Improved B+

I looked back up and saw that there was a small group of people to the side. Hannah had gathered up her own paper and was standing to the side with the badly wounded and shocked, including Mrs. Xiang. I swore under my breath. There hadn't been a moment to release the built up tension, to react to all of the shit that was going on, and now we were looking and whatever mad ravings the architect of this place had clearly placed in front of us.

I didn't recognize the two people to my sides. I knew their faces, two younger men. We were mostly a group of people between 20 and 40 at this point, and I really hated what that meant. Look to your left, look to your right, on both sides there should be another person who is now dead.

Once again I was stuck in a place where it seemed that I had no choice. The Archbastard had called this a tutorial, so from a game design perspective it should be restricted. Part of me wanted to ask how much fire Anna could conjure up and whether we could burn a hole in the walls large enough to let the darkness in, but somehow I doubted even that would work. At least with not the wards and the elemental forges operational.

So what could I do? I looked down at the piece of paper and continued reading. I would keep following these instructions until the first moment I saw an opportunity to subvert them. It came down to power. And I had gained a level without really noticing it. So I kept reading.

Alex Vorhal, Wizard, level 11 Most Improved B+

Rampant Violence: 70/100 Arcane Power: 90/100 * Survival: 95/100 Swoleness of Body: 20/100- F Psychopathy: 5/100- F Teamwork: 75/100

See me after class: you have failed several portions of your performance review. Improve them before Graduation to avoid a penalty.

Valedictorian: you have scored the highest among your peers in one or more of the portions of your performance review. Maintain your lead to receive a bonus upon Graduation.

Congratulations! While the Tower is very much a pass/die institution, it is nonetheless admirable that you have gone above and beyond and earned a passing grade. You have gained access to the optional rooms in the remaining halls, which grant valuable rewards for dangerous tasks.

Check your Quests for additional personalized tutoring opportunities.

"If you aren't going to use increments below five you might as well use a 20 point system, asshole," I said to the air. "I got a perfect score in survival," Zack shouted from across the table. "How? You've exclusively done suicide charges at the enemies," Chimo said. "Yeah. And I survived," Zack said.

Then, everyone seemed to realize we're not actually at school and don't have any reason to stay quiet started talking with their neighbors.

I, meanwhile, turned to the Journal. The level-up and the quests were things I really should check out.

Level Up!

You have reached an odd level. You have gained a Title ability. You have gained one attribute point.

Level 11 Sentinel Abilities:

Alarm: Learn a spell-like ability. This ability allows you to create an invisible, intangible line up to 20 ft long between any two anchor points within sight. You may designate any number of people as allies. You and your allies will be telepathically warned when anyone not designated as an ally crosses this line. A part of the intruder's body has to cross the invisible line for it to work, but even a hair touching it will trigger it. You may have up to four lines set up at one time.

Everpresent Guardian: Choose a location. Once every 24 hours you may open a portal that will instantly transport you to the location. You may choose a new location once every 3 days.

Bodyguard: Choose a person. You are now always in a Party with the person, in addition to any other Parties granted by the Party ability and you gain all the benefits as described in said ability. You are bonded to this person until either of you dies, at which point, assuming you are the one who survives, you may choose a new person. All your physical and mental attributes count as 5 points higher when intercepting an attack made against them. This ability only works when defending exclusively your charge, but works with both physical and magical intercession.

An interesting set of choices. Bodyguard would be a big commitment, and I'd pick either Artemis or Anna. That said, the Tower had often separated me from the rest of the Guild and it would be entirely useless if I was out there questing or scouting, especially as I didn't see Artemis abandoning them any time soon. Anna, on the other hand I could maybe party up with more permanently, but I would have to ask her first.

The Alarm would be useful, if pretty boring, but if we couldn't have relied on the Lounge back in the first section of the Tower, ambushes and monsters sneaking up on us could be a dreadful danger, which this spell could almost entirely circumvent.

The teleportation ability seemed to be the most powerful on the whole, but it was just so useless here and now. It seemed apparent that we would be moving for most of the rest of the day, and we had no idea what would come after.

I decided to start by figuring out my options, and took Anna to see Artemis with me.

"Anything interesting on the assessment?" I asked Anna on our way around the table. "Tower bullshit, I'll get access to some challenge rooms and penalized for not being psycho enough," Anna said. "Same here," I said. "Yeah, I got 35 points, I guess you need 40 for a pass," she said. Which was worrisome, because I'd had to do some pretty fucked up things and only managed a 5, but I wasn't going to judge my friend on the Tower's word. "Hey, Artemis, got a new ability we'd like to discuss," I said.

I explained the ability to them both.

"I'm stuck behind a desk most of the time. Pick Anna, or another ability," Artemis said. "Sure you're not just refusing because you don't want anyone to do anything on your behalf?" I said. "Not you too, don't start. You were away for more than two thirds of last two days, and that number is only that high because you slept at the Guild twice," Artemis said. "I appreciate the offer, Alex, but I don't even know what's out there right now. The wording also seems really specific. Like, it'd work only when intercepting attacks against me, that won't happen 99% of the time even if we do work together for the rest of the Tower," Anna said. "I'll pick a different ability then, I guess. Wanna party up anyways, Anna?" I said. "I think you should maybe check the quests you've gained first," she said.

And I did.

Fuck.

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