Shuffling to the edge of the forest of titan redwoods, I raise myself onto my tiptoes and attempt to peek over the giant, fan-like fern leaves. {Earl? Where art thou? I do not know… well… I do not know…} I wiggle my hands, stop, and then try to think. {I suppose I do not know what I do not know, but I would at least like to know enough to know what I am ignorant of.}

I reach out and poke at an enormous fern leaf. The leaf shivers as droplets of dew pool together and glide down the fern’s waxy surface. Reaching the leaf’s edge, it drips, washing a bit of my gown’s hem away before finally thumping against the ground. I squat and brush aside the grass, discovering that Tenebrous’s solid marble surface is still present just below the surface.

‘Hitting that with any force would truly hurt. It will take a bit of time for the forest to cushion naturally. That being the case, I did not fall down here from the empyrean.’ Standing, I glance around Fairy’s Pantry and place my hand over my kiln’s shell. An eerie sense of isolation tickles at the back of my mind. ‘There should be nothing here. I need to stay calm.’

I do one more spin searching for Earl and notice a path through the blueberry bushes. ‘I do not remember specifying there be a path there?’

Just as I am about to follow the path, someone behind me shouts, “Reception: Greetings, Mistress Fleshie Champion!”

The cattail shivers, and I have to grab it to keep it from reflexively attacking the girl behind me. ‘Good lord, I am glad I do not have a heart.’

I spin around to find who I expected, Earl. She raises her lantern, shedding light upon her hollow pupils, tattered white gown, and a grin filled with razor-sharp teeth. “Inquiry: If Mistress was a fleshie, would this expression make the Mistress let down their guard? Would it kindle a desire within the Mistress to cease breathing and allow their fleshy body to decompose somewhere in the cold and damp forest?”

Shaking my head, I reply, {Nay. I do not believe it would have that effect.}

“Admission: That is disappointing…” Raising her arms, she shrugs. “...but it’s also unlikely to be necessary.”

{...I suppose. Earl, what was that wall earlier? The one with me on it.}

“Answer: Does Mistress recall the time when the Acolyte showed the Mistress the so-called ‘game’ on that flimsy ‘plastic’ device of theirs?”

I cross my arms and think back. Only one time comes to mind, and it was the second time I ever spoke to Terra. It was the same night she explained to me the relationship between body, soul, and spirit using a sandwich to do so. After we finished, I noticed something on her lap-top that had me excited initially, but after seeing it, I found it was not what I thought.

{Thou art referring to the Dino-Tower game? Back when I first met Terra, and thought it would help me with my own Tower. That ended up not being as helpful as I hoped it would be.}

She shakes her head, and her smile turns into a grin. “Response: That is only because the Mistress didn’t notice the veiled intricacies behind the Dino-Tower.”

{Veiled intricacies? ...Are dinosaurs going to be a frequent enough issue that we will require large firearms to stop them?}

Tilting her head, she thinks for a moment and then responds, “Answer: This one doubts that conclusion but this one is also unsure of the dinosaur population in Material Realm. This one has been in Tenebrous for as long as this one can remember, which is not actually that much. Most of this one’s memory was overwritten when this one became an Interface.”

{Oh… Well, I am not certain about the dinosaur population either. Thus far, I have only witnessed one, and I am the one that created it.} I join Earl by tilting my head, and then add, {Terra said they were all gone, but I am not so sure.} We both go quiet, pondering the likelihood of dinosaur attacks. Finally, I shrug. {It’s not a concern at the moment; let’s return to the topic at hand.}

She thinks for another moment, also shrugs, and recovers her smile. “Extrapolation: The dinosaur part of it is not important nor what called for this one’s attention. It was how it used colors, images, and competitiveness to ingeniously manipulate the weak will of fleshies into wasting large swaths of time. Inquiry: Then, after wasting their tiny amount of time in the material world on the Dino-Tower, does the Mistress know what the fleshlings received?”

Recalling the ‘game’ I saw on Terra’s lap-top over a month ago now, the only thing I can remember is images of defenseless dinosaurs being massacred by numerous towers. Terra called it a ‘tower defense game,’ but the dinosaurs were merely passing by, and the towers were attacking them. I shake my head. {I do not recall. Might thou remind me of what it is they received?}

The lantern creaks as she opens her arms wide. “Solution: All they received was a number that was higher than some other fleshie. That was all that time and effort amounted to.” She drops her arms and sighs. “Request: The creator of Dino-Tower is a manipulative psychopath, and this one wishes for the Mistress to consider making them this one’s servant.”

I ignore her request and try to understand how the wall with my depiction on it and the Dino-Tower are related. {So thou made this new wall to imitate the Dino-Tower’s own. I presume thou now intend to use this wall to manipulate people into, I suppose, staying in the Tower longer.}

“Response: That is one of its uses, yes.”

{But the part I still do not understand is, why am I on it?}

“Answer: That’s because the ‘Mistress Interface’ isn’t a true Interface. All it does is draw upon both this one and the Mistress’s consciousness to construct a message. Since that’s all it does, it isn’t very good at filtering things, but rest assured this one will find a way to filter it before the fleshies arrive for slaughter.” She raises a single finger and continues, “Note: The Mistress should remember that it only ever illustrates things that the Mistress is consciously aware of. This means that a floor may actually be more or less dangerous than the message says.”

{I am not sure how I feel about it ‘drawing from my consciousness,’ but I could see it being beneficial as a means of indirect communication.}

“Statement: Though it’s limited in its functions, it can display its message to any single fleshie, that’s within the Mistress’s line of sight, ensuring they understand whos Tower they are in... However, its main use in that regard is to appear to a fleshie that is entering through a gate or passing into a new floor.”

{Even if it’s limited, it’s at least some form of communication that does not involve me hanging signs or using sign language.} I glance around the lush forest, once again taking in the sight of a green forest of gigantic trees. {Fairy’s Pantry... Verily, it’s all here? The trees are so big...}

Earl walks next to me and nods. “Response: It lacks the necessary fleshling beasts, and there is no variance in topography excluding the hill and the firmament walls, but the vegetation is all here at an average of 72% non-magical maturity.”

My gaze drifts to the towering trees around me, and I hesitantly ask, {Why… Why wouldst thou specify that they are non-magical?}

“Answer: There is always a tiny chance a plant may evolve or mutate when awakening, even without the Mistress’s paste being the cause of its awakening. Inquiry: Is Mistress ready to officially complete the Tower in the material realm, or does Mistress wish to explore Fairy’s Pantry?”

{‘Officially complete?’ What is there left to do?}

“Answer: The Tower has already germinated, but the Mistress must be there to witness it take its first breath.”

{Witness it take its first breath?}

“Response: It is simply a momentous moment for the Mistress and the material realm, so this one believes the Mistress should be there to witness it. There is no need to think about it too much. The Mistress must simply confirm that they wish to commence the sprout stage and awaken the Tower.”

I study the crowded forest floor. ‘I do want to explore, but I have been in hibernation for over a fortnight during a particularly precarious time… Terra is probably waiting for me back in Central Park, and with all the water droplets, it would be great to have the arc suit.’

{I shall go to the material world and then do my best to return here as soon as I am able—nightfall, perhaps.}

She nods. “Request: Follow this one to the willow.” Doing as she requests, I follow, and together we walk the path that runs between the thorny blueberry bushes until we reach the burning willow tree. “Direction: Command the willow and empyrean to allow the Mistress’s passage.”

Tilting my head, I gaze at the willow and say, {Prithee... allow my passage.}

A crack appears in the willow’s bark, and with a woodlike groan, it opens, revealing what resembles a pool of purple sap.

Earl lowers the lantern and raises her free hand with her palm out. She smiles as if she is a salesman trying to persuade a customer to purchase a low-quality product. “Explanation: This tree has a direct connection to the Tower in the material world. It is a much more stable and ‘old-fashioned’ link to the material realm than any gate. The Mistress may think of it as their personal as well as emergency entrance or exit.”

I narrow my eyes, raise my hand, and then approach the wall of purple sap. When I am directly in front of it, I reach out to touch it with my fingertip and ask, {What doth thou mean by, old-fas—} As soon as my fingertip disturbs the sap, glass roots rush out, seize my kiln, and yank me into itself. {E-Earrrl!}

My haze washes away, my vision becomes cloudy, and I can hear the whispering of voices all around me. A few of them sound close before fading away in the distance. I can make out a few of them.

“I was just crossing the street, and now it’s so dark,” a man’s voice says.
A woman’s voice asks, “Honey, where are you? I can’t see anything!”
“Make sure the safety is….” Another man’s voice says before pausing and saying, “Jim, no.”
“Did the Elixir work…? Cosmic System, are you there?”

And before I know it, my vision is unclouded, and I am in a sparkling blue barrel-shaped room. ‘What… what just happened. Those voices… Were they people who were going to Tenebrous?’ A realization dawns on me. ‘When Earl said ‘old-fashioned,’ she meant I was exiting Teneborus the same way the dead enter! ‘Old-fashioned’ was an understatement, Earl!’ I try to move, but I am once again just my kiln. I glance around, finding that I am alone in this huge room. ‘Uh-oh.’

There is a crackle when the glass roots that yanked me into the purple sap extend outward and set me upon the hard surface. They surround me and begin to spew haze, and my body begins to rebuild itself.

‘Aye, that is much better.’ My Kiln wiggles and then rises into the air. While the roots continue to pour haze and rebuild my bodies, I start looking around the room.

The room is around a hundred feet in diameter with a rough, jagged wall that almost appears as if it is fashioned from a sapphire-blue gem. I look toward the ceiling, observing that it is around fifty feet in height with glass roots full of haze spreading everywhere along the ceiling. These resemble the roots that were once buried underneath Bethesda Terrace and Arcade before hibernation.

‘I am in the Tower? I am really inside the Tower. After trying to survive for so long to get here, I am finally here… but it’s a bit dark, is it not?’

My eyes trace the twisting roots until I reach their ends at the edges of the room, where they disappear into the sapphire walls. Following them in the other direction, I discover that they all run to the ceiling’s center and then collectively fall in a circular pattern.

Where they lead is what looks to be a tiny sprout with a white stalk and a few purple leaves made of glass. The tiny sapling sits alone in the middle of the sapphire floor with four large and six small roots embedded in the floor all around it except for a spot where two roots are missing.

The roots that were spewing haze stop and then retreat away from me. They bend back and then retake the vacant positions next to the sapling, hiding or perhaps protecting it. With the two new roots, there are now eight small roots and four large ones.

I move closer, scrutinizing the roots further. There is one large root and two small roots per haze type, meaning there are twelves roots total split evenly between sable, vermillion, heliotrope, hoary. Within, I can see there is a lot of haze, and much of it is motionless.

Pressing my glowing violet eye between two of the roots, I spy upon the tiny sapling hidden within. ‘That must have been what sprouted from the seed. Such a huge room and so many roots for something that is only a couple of inches in height. The seed I planted to begin germination was around the same size as this little sprout.’

As I move my face away from the roots, one of Earl’s purple walls appears.

I read the wall, and then glance around the empty room. With a nod, I answer, ‘Aye, I suppose I am. Let me witness the Tower take its first breath as Earl said I would.’

There is a pop from the sapling and a shock courses through my kiln. My hand and cattail shield my kiln instinctively as I back away from the sprout. The twelve roots that surrounded the sapling detach from the floor, spewing haze of all four types across the floor. With them out of the way, I can see a little violet flame inside the center of the sprout.

The twelve roots bend and move toward the corners of the room. Each of them attaches themselves to the outer perimeter of the floor. When all twelve are attached, they resemble a crown canopy without the cloth draped between them.

Once they have all connected, there is a deep groan as the sound of cracking glass reverberates. The walls, ceiling, and floor whimper while taking on a glow as haze slips through thin fiber-like passages within every surface. It is as if this room is full of veins, but instead of blood, the haze flows through them.

There is the sound of what resembles a heartbeat, and the sapphire floor begins to turn into a clear blue stained glass as the haze flows through it.

Looking downward, I discover that I am on a platform at the apex of a fractured mass of shattered sword-like glass shards, or more precisely, a pit of long javelins that reach from dozens to a couple hundred feet in height. Amidst all these javelins run the glass roots that pump haze of the four types from the tiny sprout and then twist themselves around the javelins, flowing downward like glass vines.

‘Good lord, the Tower is both alive and a death trap for anyone that is not made of haze!’

The heartbeat sound fades, and I hear a creak behind me. I look toward one side of the room to find a small circular area on the rugged wall is being smoothed over and becoming transparent. At the same time, beside this window in the making, appears two items made of rigid glass: a simple round table and a modest chair.

‘I have furniture and even a window!’ I drift by the table and chair and stare out the foggy window that I find faces northwest toward the Lake and Terrace.

Off in the distance, I can see the snow-covered Central Park, a dinner party at the Boathouse, the Cedar Hill campsite with smoke rising from their fires, the gray city of New York, and the sun high in the sky.

‘Thank the lord everyone has not been killed by the other Kiln. I was afraid I would awaken in a graveyard.’

However, there is one thing surrounding the window that draws my attention away from the camp: long, pointed shards of light blue glass. These shards are vaguely translucent for the first inch or two and face upward at various angles. In fact, the Tower itself seems to be constructed entirely of these shards. From what I can see from here, the Tower is blue and has a semi-hourglass shape. If I had to compare it to something, it looks as if hundreds of thousands of thin glass blades facing skyward have been pushed together and fused into a single three hundred foot tower.

I stand on my tiptoes to see if I can stare straight down. From what I can see, it luckily appears as if the spikes are much fewer in the Domain itself. The main exception is some long lance-like spikes that jut away from the Tower’s base. If I had to describe the spikes at the Tower’s base, it almost looks like a giant dropped an uncut sapphire into a puddle, and the puddle froze solid while splashing out and away from the sapphire.

The Terrace seems to be mostly left as it was, but every tree within a hundred and fifty feet of the Tower has been transformed into a mixture of solid glass.‘...That is not going to happen every time I expand the Domain, right? I do not want all the trees to be glass. That seems like it may be an issue if my Domain continues to grow.’

I press my face against the window to see the already crowded areas around Pilgrim Hill and the Boathouse café to my east has become even more congested since I began hibernation. The denizens of Pilgrim Hill all gawk at the Tower, eating and drinking from bags, bottles, and other such containers that I have frequently scavenged from the rubbish here.

‘There are so many people outside, and almost none of them know how to live the life of a serf. In a country the size of England, there were still problems supplying London with the food it required. Perhaps the Breadbasket in Fairy’s Pantry will be a bigger prize than I realized, but in all seriousness, they would be lucky to grow enough food in this park for a tenth of the people here right now.’

I turn and approach the little sprout, and when I am near it, a piece of white-hot glass breaks away, drifting toward me. The sprout regains its shape, and the piece that broke away enters my haze. I take a step back, but it chases after me and splats against my kiln. It fuses with the shell and disperses outward, making the shell a touch more transparent and the violet flame within a tad brighter than it was before.

A wall from the Cosmic System appears.

Even with all the incredible things that are happening around me right now, the magnificence of this wall causes me to raise a fist. ‘Huzzah! More stat points! Pray thee Cosmic System, let’s forgo the training, and I shall use them to raise my strength stat immediately!’

But before I may fully appreciate the new skill points, it is smothered by a large swath of purple.

‘Earl will be assisting me, but everything comes down to my decisions from here.’ Studying the wall, I find that many of the words are familiar terms. ‘It’s good I understand much of it, but… this still seems like a lot.’ I cannot help but glance around a bit dubiously before straightening my back and thinking, ‘Aye, I know I am prepared, so go ahead and show me everything under “Material Domain.”’

Reading over the substantial purple wall, I find myself leaning closer and studying the information. ‘I can vent haze from any node! That’s a huge strength increase in the Domain, and I can see if I have hoary or heliotrope forms too! It even says the Tower is protected from normal attacks! That means it’s impossible for most people to do any damage to the Tower!‘ My feet begin to feel more firmly planted. That is until my eyes drift to the bottom words. ‘The Bishop of Manhattan! He is close enough to be subject to the Tower’s leeching!’

I spin around to move back toward the window, only to find a girl standing silently in my path.

A big lantern bumps against my kiln with a ting. “Reception: Greetings, Mistress!”

The cattail shivers at the unexpected noise in a room that is meant to be empty. {Earl!? What art thou doing in the Material Realm!?}

“Answer: The Tower can shield this one from the degeneration of the material plane, so this one can inhabit its area of influence without issue.”

{It shields spirits?}

She nods. “Response: Its purpose is to keep Essence from leaking from the Tower, the Domain, and the Mistress’s kiln.”

I raise my arms, motioning toward the empty room. {But... didst thou use the sprout to get here also?}

She balances her lantern on the floor and then nods. “Response: This one can also use the Mistress’s gate.” She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Statement: This one could hardly bear the voices of the whiners on the way here.”

‘...Only Earl could refer to the newly deceased as “whiners.”’

After saying that, she remembers something, raises a finger, and adds, “Note: This one cannot stay long because this one must return to seeking the beast spirit.”

{Earl, thou hath been searching for that beast spirit for three weeks now…} I glance at the window and then say, {When I return to Fairy’s Pantry, we shall search and explore together.}

She grins and nods eagerly.

{Aye, but first…} I move around her and then hastily walk toward the window. {But first, I need to look outside and see if the Bishop is out there.}

She raises her arms and lantern with a huff. “Query: Is outside not why we have an Acolyte? What is the Acolyte even doing if not being outside handling these types of things?”