Tower Ascendant: A LitRPG Adventure (Realm Grinder Book 3), page 12
Kitira waved her hands, and a teacup sailed over through the air, filling itself as it went. It drifted onto Tormund’s lap, and he gratefully took a sip.
“Ahh! Now that hits the spot.”
John opened his inventory and took out the package of notes, then passed them to Kitira. “Here. I believe this is what you were looking for.”
Kitira nodded and took the package. She unwrapped the burlap and looked down at the pages, which were covered in a variety of scribbles that John didn’t recognize.
“Yes, I do believe that this is it,” she murmured. “It’s all written in goblin script, so it’ll take me some time to translate, but this will be what I need. You must truly be desperate to have brought it to me so quickly.”
John could only nod, then glance over at Tormund. “Now, I think it’s time that he tells us what he knows.”
“No.” Tormund shook his head. “No, it most certainly is not time for Tormund to tell anything. Thank you for the tea, Kitira, but I’m afraid I need to be-”
“Lockdown mode.”
The candles briefly flickered red, and a loud clunk sounded from the doors. Tormund froze, and Kitira crossed her arms.
“The doors are now locked with Level S bolts, and anti-teleporter fields have been activated. You’re stuck here until you tell us what you know.”
Tormund pointed his staff at Kitira. “I am an ancient being! You shall fear me! Or I shall call upon all my ancient knowledge! I shall attack you, and leave you as a mere pile of ash! I shall… Lightning!”
His staff lit up with flickering bolts of lightning. And, with a dull pop, a single snap of static electricity made Kitira’s hair stand on end. She rather casually reached out and touched the table, which caused the electrons to discharge and her hair to return to normal.
“Tormund?” John crossed his arms. “Kitira obviously knows who you are. Shall she start telling us what she’s learned, presumably from Paul’s notes?”
“Ahh…” Tormund licked his lips. “Perhaps-”
“Paul makes only a few mentions of him.” Kitira glanced over at John. “He was a close friend of his, at least whenever it was that Paul wrote all those notes. He notes that Tormund was excellently studied, that he knew English, Latin, Spanish, German, Hebrew, and Greek-”
“And Slavonic.” Tormund pointed out, scowling. “I once wrote an excellent epic poem in Old Slavonic, and if I do say so myself, it was some of my best work.”
“He also notes that, while being one of his best friends and having the keenest tactical mind he’d ever met, Tormund was a robust coward, utterly useless in all the arts of combat, and was usually a liability.”
“He said that?” Tormund sank back into his chair. “And here I thought he was my friend.”
“You ought to see what he wrote about John,” Kitira commented. “He had many things to say about all his friends.”
“And what did he have to say about me?” John sat up and scowled at Kitira.
“Boys!” Kitira snapped, then relaxed. “As it happens, I’ve been quite interested in learning more about Tormund. Paul mentions many people extensively, but I’ve always been able to locate them among the denizens of the Tower. Some of them are in different guilds than he seems to remember, some of them are at different ranks, or have died, but… Tormund was the only person I couldn’t seem to locate. I think I always thought that Floor 24 being named after him was just a strange coincidence, but… perhaps it wasn’t.”
Tormund crossed his arms and shifted about uncomfortably. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.” Kitira folded her hands. “Tormund, whatever’s happening, we’re nearing the end of civilization as we know it. Again. Everyone can feel it; we’re winding toward something, and we desperately need to know everything possible if we’re going to make it through.”
Tormund groaned and put his head in his hands, then slowly looked up at John. “A lot of it, I’m not allowed to tell you. The guardians will erase me from existence if I break their rules, and I really, really don’t want that to happen.”
“Fair enough.” John nodded. “Tell us what you can.”
Tormund sighed and stroked his beard. He was conflicted, that much was obvious, and he drank three cups of tea and went to the adjacent bathroom twice before he finally seemed to agree to talk.
“Everything Paul wrote was true,” Tormund finally whispered. “I was a coward. I am a coward. I’ve been afraid to even study the arts of combat, because if I know how to fight, then I might be drawn into a fight, and I just… I can’t… I didn’t ask for this world to come. I didn’t ask to be sucked into this place. I didn’t ask for monsters. I was minding my own business, settling into my retirement, when the world exploded. The Tower seemed safer than being outside, but of course, we all know how that goes, and…”
He put his head into his hands, then shrugged. “After Paul and I defeated Nadderthal, I was unable to recover. I was a nervous wreck, afraid of even small shadows. I stuck by Paul’s side as he forged through the next few floors, but I was only dragging him down. When we came to Floor 24, he vowed to help me, and he did.”
“He managed to incorporate you into the Tower,” John whispered.
“Yes.” Tormund nodded. “I don’t know how he did it, but I know it was a combination of his study of how the Tower worked and a deal that you, John, managed to strike with the guardians. We renovated Floor 24, and I became the floor’s master. And… that’s where I’ve been ever since.”
“Alright.” John nodded slowly. “That all makes sense, but… next question. When did this happen. Everyone in the Tower I talk to, whether it’s a Bloodskin, or you, seems to have memories that go back before the Tower showed up. You talk about us progressing through the Tower over and over and over again.”
“Yes… I can’t answer that question.” Tormund sighed. “What I’ll say is that you’ve more or less hit upon the gist of things. Cycles, death, resetting the board-” A thunderclap echoed through the room, and Tormund glared up at the ceiling. “I haven’t ticked anything on your list! Leave me alone.”
The thunder receded to a distant rumble, but it trailed off for a long moment, reminding the three of them that they were being watched. Finally, John sighed and shrugged.
“Well, I’ll only ask one more question, then. What triggers the reset? What makes the cycle begin again?”
“That, most assuredly, I cannot answer, John Mavren.” Tormund climbed to his feet. “I’ll give you two bits of information, and then I’m sealing my lips. First and foremost, I can say that the reset never has to happen. In the strictest sense of the word, each and every cycle could be the last one, but every single time, it resets, right like clockwork. The second thing I’ll say is that Paul’s greatest gift to me, my only desire, has been the greatest curse I could have possibly placed on myself.”
John raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“What I mean is that I don’t know how many times I died before I was sealed into the Tower. What I do know is that since that time, I have watched all my friends die, over and over and over again, until I’ve lost count. I thought I was mortal then, and that by connecting myself to the Tower, I would ensure my survival. Instead… Instead, I watch all of you keep coming back to try again, and I see myself trapped here, knowing that if, by some miracle, you do manage to save the world and put an end to this Tower and all the monsters we know and love, I’m likely as not to die, for good, at that point.” He shook his head. “Ignorance is bliss, I say, and in that, you’re the luckiest one I can imagine.”
John grimaced. It was far from what he wanted to hear, but he supposed that it was all he would get. He glanced over at Kitira, who waved a hand. The candles all flickered green, and the bolts on the door were released.
“You’re free to go.” John patted Tormund on the shoulder, then paused. “If you’d like, you can teleport back up to Floor 24 and resume your life of watching and waiting. I’m sure you’ll be happy to have a new basement and larder to decorate; maybe you can think up some new puzzles to keep explorers entertained.” He paused as Tormund eagerly took out a teleporter crystal. “On the off-chance, though, that you want to break this cycle, I’d urge you to think about doing something different.”
Tormund froze. “What… What do you mean?”
“What I mean is that we need every hand on deck, and whether or not you can reveal your knowledge to us, you serve as the only link we have to the past.” John snapped, then paused. “Well, the only link that doesn’t have red skin. The only link who actually could help us. Run back to your tower, Tormund, or stand and fight.” John took out a teleporter crystal of his own, and paused for effect. “If you run and hide again, Tormund, you know what that result will be. If you were connected into the Tower one, we can unplug you again. You may not want to face death, but doing so is the one and only chance we have of coming out of this in one piece.”
He turned away from Tormund, not wanting to push him too far, and spoke his next command. “Floor 55.”
With that, he was taken away. He still didn’t understand everything, but… hopefully… maybe… they would actually be able to turn the chaos into a win.
CHAPTER 16
[Now Entering: Frozen Sea]
[Floor 57: Northern Lights]
[Power: SSS+++]
[Will: SSS+++]
[Skill: SSS+++]
[Level: 100]
“I. Hate. Water,” Farida muttered as the boat struck a massive wave, sending a blast of freezing foam up over the boat. Not far away, John gritted his teeth. He had to agree with the assessment, that was for sure. His hands were frozen to the rope, which, in turn, was frozen to the sails. Thankfully, that fact gave him enough leverage to turn the enormous sail when necessary, but it also made things more than a little unpleasant.
“Bear left!” Enora called from the captain’s desk, high overhead. “Turning!”
“It’s called starboard, not left!” John called out as he obliged, swinging the sails in the proper direction. Enora spun the enormous captain’s wheel, making the rudder beneath the ship help as well.
“No, it’s called port.” Farida snapped.
“A port? Where?” Enora called down. “I don’t see one!”
Farida groaned, and John chuckled. She was roundly hating the environment, and it was rather humorous to watch.
All around them, the sea churned and rolled. Bits of ice crashed against the hull, while in the distance, massive icebergs lumbered through the waters slowly and lazily. High above, the northern lights sparked in all their wonder, casting the area in hues of red, green, and blue.
“Which iceberg are we looking for, again?” Enora called out. “By now, they all just look the same!”
John thought back to the small village, and pointed ahead. “The one that looks like a polar bear, I think!”
“That one looks nothing like a polar bear,” Farida snapped. “A yak, maybe, but not a polar bear.”
“It totally looks like a polar bear!” John protested. “See the legs, and the claws?”
“All I see is a lump of ice.”
“And all I see are people arguing!” Enora snapped. “Keep it down so I can focus!”
John smirked at Farida, who shot a ball of fire at him. The joke was on her, as it rather warmed him up, but he took the hint and went back to just sailing.
The ship they were on looked rather like a Viking vessel, though John was quite certain that it wasn’t even remotely historically accurate. In any event, they were nearing what they thought would be the last leg of the floor, after spending entirely too much time running from village to village fighting off snow monsters. Now, they wandered slowly across the ocean, sailing between massive icebergs, avoiding being dashed to bits against enormous chunks of floating ice chunks, and steering far away from the tentacles that popped up here and there.
John had to admit defeat when they got closer to his chosen iceberg and realized that, in fact, it didn’t look like a polar bear. Soon enough, though, they caught sight of an iceberg at the center of a ring of drifting ice that very clearly looked like the great beast, and they set their sails upon it. Thirty minutes later, they bumped up against the ice, and the three of them gratefully scrambled out onto a small ledge.
“And there’s that.” Farida formed a bow in her hands and fired a large arrow through the bottom of the boat. There was a blast of fire, and water began gurgling up through the new hole in the bottom. “Let’s see how it likes the bottom of the ocean, where it’s even colder.”
“Ahh, Farida?” Enora bit her lip. “What if we need to get back?”
“We fast travel. Duh.” Farida turned toward the iceberg, then pointed at a small crevice. “That’ll be the entrance. Come on.”
John couldn’t really argue, and they made their way forward across the blisteringly cold landscape. As they reached the crevice, Farida dropped inside, followed by John, followed by Enora. The drop was perhaps ten feet, and as they landed, they found themselves in a small tunnel that seemed to run for about fifty feet. At the far end, a large stone door blocked the way. John started in that direction, while Farida created a large ball of fire to warm her hands.
“Aren’t you worried that that’ll melt the ice?” Enora asked as they walked forward.
“No,” Farida answered curtly. “It’ll be fine. It would take a lot more heat than this to melt through anything. Just… You slice things, I burn things. Let me be.”
John chuckled as he reached the end of the passage. He placed his hands on the stone doors, which grumbled softly. With all his might, he shoved them inward, then took the spear from his back and marched forward.
And that was when a massive black fist slammed into his chest and sent him whirling backward across the ice.
It wasn’t actually that strong of a hit, but with nothing but ice under his feet, there was little he could do. He dug his spear into the ice to slow himself down, while the massive snow monster that had apparently been waiting on the other side of the door lumbered forward and roared.
It was about ten feet tall, and was covered in white fur, with black hands and feet. The feet in particular had long claws that dug into the ice, holding it solid. Farida immediately formed a bow in her hands, while Enora rushed forward with her shield and sword at the ready. The creature snarled and brought a fist crashing down on Enora, and while she was able to block it, she was driven backward several feet under the attack.
Farida wasted no time, and unleashed a barrage of arrows. The flaming projectiles slammed into its body and knocked the monster backward several feet, and its health bar dropped into the red. John braced himself as best as he could, then launched his spear. It slammed into the chest of the monster and dropped it to the ground with a thud. The spear materialized in John’s hand again, and he slowly started forward.
“Walk carefully,” he muttered. “I have a feeling that traps are going to be common here.”
“Don’t worry,” Farida mocked him. “We can take care of ourselves. You’re the one who keeps falling in the ice pits, remember?”
John grimaced. The roads through Floor 57 had been particularly bad about hiding large pits, usually filled with snakes, giant bugs, and other unpleasant things. He began poking at the ice in front of him, hoping to be able to avoid a similar situation here.
The passage began to slope down ahead of him, and, quite suddenly, he felt his feet beginning to slip. Horror shot through him and he dug his spear into the ice, slowing his descent, but Enora simply laughed. She tossed her shield down onto the floor and jumped onto it, whirring past him in a blur. Farida had a similar idea, though she mounted a platform of fire and flew down. Not to be outdone, John lifted his spear and sailed downward, drawing his weapon into the ready position.
The passage whooshed downward for a short distance, then came out into a massive, central cavern beneath the main portion of the iceberg. High above, a large crevice revealed the sky, sparkling with color. Meanwhile, down below, on the ground, were hundreds of snow monster nests. A hundred snow monster eyes swiveled in their direction as John came sliding up next to Enora. She stomped on the edge of her shield and bounced it up into her hands once again, then drew her sword.
“You ready for a battle?”
Farida slowly appeared next to them. “There’s another passage just… right there. Two feet away?”
John glanced in the direction she was pointing. Sure enough, another tunnel led away from the snow monster nests, seeming to dive deeper into the iceberg.
“Yeah, but you know they’re all going to come after us the moment we do that.” John shrugged. “Come on!”
With that, he rushed forward and threw his spear as hard as he could. It slammed into the chest of the closest monster, dropping it to the ground, and the horde of monsters rose up from their nests and charged headlong toward them.
A grim smile spread across John’s face as he threw himself into the midst of the combat. His spear whirled and lashed about, striking down dozens of the creatures. Farida lifted her bow and fired arrow after arrow after arrow, causing flames to erupt across more of the monsters than John could count. As they stumbled and fell, he glanced over at Enora, who was striking faster than his eyes could follow. He hadn’t asked what level she was up to, but he was certain that she was progressing rapidly.
Slowly, methodically, he carved his way through the snow monsters, not really even breaking a sweat. They took a few hits each to knock down, but it wasn’t anything terribly difficult, and he soon reached the far side of the room with only a few stragglers left. Farida snapped her fingers and made a fiery tornado spring up around one of them, while Enora threw her shield and bashed down another. John finished off a third with a perfect throw, and, with that, a great calm settled over the room.
