Chapter 9
I clutched my shoulder against the blood that still poured from the wound. While the sword was finally out, and my regeneration was starting to kick in, I still worried about the effects of the blood loss. I certainly felt light-headed, but it was hard to say if that was an effect of the pain, the bleeding, or the sword whose power I’d just sucked down like an energy drink. Despite the pain, however, one thing still compelled me to stand up and move away from the wall, and the rusted remains of the blade’s tip, still lodged between the stones. I left a trail of blood as I walked across the room, toward the giant chest that still glowed with sunlight, the allure of loot a siren’s song too strong to ignore. I inspected the chest, looking it over to see if there was any mechanism to opening it, or a trap, or anything out of the usual. After several long seconds, I finally decided to just push on the lid and roll the dice with fate, only to discover that the box… seemed to open on its’ own. It resisted my push, instead slowly opening at its’ own pace, a piercing light shining within as it creaked open to full extension.
When the light faded, it was replaced by a single point of light, hovering like a contained star in the center of the box. I experimentally reached toward it, feeling for any heat or sense of danger. Finding none, I gently touched the star, and a system pane appeared before me, hanging within my mind, giving me a sense like the pouch concealed within my sash.
[Greenwarden’s Initiate Robes (Rare)]: These robes once belonged to initiates of the Greenwardens, an organization long-extinct. It allowed its’ wearer to pass by hostile flora unimpeded, rendering even the most aggressive of plants docile in its’ presence. Enchantments: Greenstride, Self-Repair, Attribute Bonus: 5 Int, 5 Will 5 Wis.
The robes were a patterned mix of brown and green, something akin to camouflage, though clearly more for decoration than in expectation of hiding with it. The patterns were evenly spaced, and seemed to shift slightly under my gaze, the borders of the two colors twisting together into vine-like patterns. It felt a little sturdier than the robe I was wearing, and the idea of a self-repairing robe was a great one, considering the state of my current garb. No amount of careful tugging and tucking was able to keep the robe covering even most of my torso, the swordsman’s blade having done quite a bit of work in that respect. I untied my sash – something that seemed almost impossible, until I actually thought about taking it off, and the sash quickly relented to my touch – and set it atop the lip of the chest, pulling the Initiate Robes out of the orb of light as if it were a party trick. I put them on, and it suddenly constricted around me. I panicked for a couple of seconds, certain the robe must’ve been some kind of trap, before it settled around me, as closely fit as if it had been tailored for me. I pulled the sash back on around my waist, and it immediately fitted itself to me, sitting snug just above my hips, cinching my new robe into place. “Huh,” I murmured, pulling at the robe in various places to inspect it, finding it felt far more comfortable than the coarse cloth of my original robe.
[Congratulations! You have completed the first of the Greenwarden’s Towers! Seek out the others to complete the set and awaken the Forest’s Guardian.]
Quest Gained: The Greenwarden’s Towers
[Clear the towers. Progress: 1/5. Rewards based on individual contribution.]
I looked around the room curiously, somewhat surprised. Was that it? The body of the slain guardian still laid nearby, and I thoughtfully inspected the notification his death had given me.
[Greenguardian Nespin slain. EXP gained.]
Title Gained: [Dungeon Delver]
Clear one dungeon. +2 to all attributes.
Oh great. He had a name. Somehow, knowing his name made it a little harder to walk over to him and actually inspect his body for any loot. The armor was clearly magical, but just as clearly useless to me; between how badly it was damaged, and how heavy the armor itself was, I had little desire to scrape it off the corpse to try and recover it. Instead, I checked at his waist, and found a belt similar to my own, including the sense of what it contained when I touched it. A few each of health and stamina potions, and something that looked like a fragment of a disc, broken into jagged, uneven pieces; I held one of those pieces in my hand, and felt some kind of magic coming from it, though it felt incomplete. Judging by the quest and the sense of incomplete power coming from it, I estimated the size of the piece to be about 20% of the full object. One fifth. I groaned in irritation, taking off his belt and strapping it around my chest like a bandolier, realizing the man’s waist had been much broader around than my own.
When I inspected the balcony, I realized that, looking down, I could see the doors to the tower, and a small lever set into the wall near the railing. A tug on the lever confirmed my hopes, and I saw the doors swing inward down below, the way out finally open. Looking up, I also saw an additional set of windows above me. I was confused as to where exactly the entrance to it was, until I looked back toward where I had entered; there was a stairway that formed the wall blocking the end of the spiral stairs outside of the door, reaching up into the floor above. I ambled toward it, hoping against hope that there wasn’t another fight waiting for me.
Quite the opposite, as it turned out. The top floor was set up like a private room, with a large bed, nightstand, a dresser, an empty armor stand, and a place to hang a two-handed sword, judging by the width of the pegs. It was functional, but nice-looking, and while it was far from the fanciest room I’d ever seen, I nonetheless had one overpowering compulsion.
I jogged back down the stairs to the balcony, shoved the lever back up – the doors below snicking shut – and back up the stairs. I kicked off the soft leather shoes I had started with, taking a moment to frown at the wear and tear that already marked them, and then I sprawled out on the bed. I was shocked to discover just how comfortable the bed was, despite its’ apparent age. It was enormous, large enough for me to sprawl out in the center. The fact that I was sleeping in a dead man’s bed bothered me, but only enough that it triggered my memories of the absolutely chaotic day.
Realizing I’d created such an enormous wildfire, that it had killed people. The ambush at the clearing where the men didn’t give me time to explain the resurrection mechanics. It almost felt like a video game, the way that I kept respawning in the same spot over and over again even as the creatures mauled me to death. That memory – already half-repressed – got me wondering about the redhaired woman who called herself my Shepherd. She hadn’t done a very good job of it, if her job was to guide me, or… explain… anything at all. She just killed me a bunch of times and then ditched me in the forest. Talk about half-assing a job. I realized it didn’t bother me as much as it should that I had killed people; the worry, the pain was there, but it was as if it sat behind a barrier; it was the seeming of regret, but without the heart-wrenching pain. I probed at that feeling for a few minutes, confusion and an odd sense of relief warring for dominance in my chest.
I wondered, briefly, how many other people I knew were in here. Was it everyone? Or only a certain few people? Had the whole world been taken like this? I shuddered to imagine seven billion people given superpowers, and with their conscience suppressed. We had a hard enough time keeping things orderly in a world where no one had powers like this; how would we keep order, now?
Almost as if bidden to rise, the memory of the Shepherd trickled back into my memory. “Conflict,” she had told me.
“Are we going to stand here all day, or are you going to embrace this new world?”
“Where is your power, now, David? Why are you afraid?”
Fear, I thought to myself. When I was afraid, I had trouble controlling my powers. It became so much harder to focus, to shape them. Fear of pain. Fear of death. Fear of failure. The thought of fear robbing me of my powers rippled through me in a wave of disgust, revulsion. Fear is weakness, the thought crawled into my mind, and weakness is death in a world ruled by power.
Those words hung in my consciousness for several long seconds, the force of them bouncing around inside of my skull for long enough that I became vaguely certain they were not my own thoughts. I wandered out onto the balcony, and even over the tops of the trees – enormous as they had seemed, I was clearly much higher up, even though I was certain I hadn’t crossed that much distance within this tower. The ground seemed strangely far below me, considering it had only been five regular-height floors. Maybe the ceilings had been a little high and roomy, but definitely not enough to account for the hundred-plus feet I now stood at. I could see four other towers, far enough off and at the right angles that I was certain they formed the points of a star. What I also realized, now, was that right about where the center of the star should be, there was a clearing in the tree-tops. I couldn’t see down into it, but I could see enough to know that it was pretty sizeable. Even in the fading sunlight, I could see for miles and miles, my eyes picking out small details I knew I would’ve never been able to before; there were several tiny trickles of smoke just barely overtopping the trees, scattering as soon as it broke their swaying crests. Dozens of individual campfires scattered loosely over the forest, and a handful visible farther out; enough that I was confident there were other people all around the edges of the enormous ring that the towers and clearing had made. Here and there were several smoke trails close enough together that they must’ve been a camp for multiple people, huddled together against the fear and dangers of the wilderness.
Looking to my right, I could see the swathe of devastated forest that I had accidentally wrought; smoke still hung thick in the air, the horizon obscured behind the pillar of darkness. It was a smaller chunk of the forest than it had seemed, and it looked to have eventually burned itself out some ways away from the tower. I had no idea how many people or animals had been consumed by the flames, and had little desire to check my notifications for a detailed accounting; that they had died was enough, and I felt that the Scribe – whoever they were – would know the tally exactly.
For a moment, I worried about other adventurers, the vengeful party returning, or if the enemy would respawn; one consideration overruled all others, however, as I walked back toward the bed and fell into the center of it, allowing me to close my eyes and doze off in a handful of seconds. That consideration was a simple one, clear and insightful, loaded with meaning to my fatigue-addled thoughts: If they do, that’s a problem for morning me.
