B2 Chapter 7: Following (Patreon)

[That’s right, folks. It’s time for you all to come home. I know you’ve probably been missing the tower something fierce, and you were probably wondering when this time would come. Turns out that it’s right now! There is, however, a problem.]

The message ended there and a few of the tower residents looked at each other in confusion.

[Okay, that seemed long enough for a dramatic pause. Now I’ve found myself in something of a dilemma. All of you have taken a little vacation from my tower and received tutelage and knowledge from higher beings that the other tower residents didn’t get access to. To counterbalance this unfair advantage, I temporarily froze your levels to prevent you from gaining experience points. But after watching all of you for the past week and a half, it just didn’t seem like it was enough.]

Yep, here it comes.

[So I’ve pumped poison gas into the room you’re all standing in. It’s colorless and odorless, but you’ve all been breathing it in since the moment you stepped inside. Each of you has one hour to return to the tower before the poison kills you. Oh, and just to cull the numbers a bit and keep things interesting, I’m only accepting the first 80% who make it. Better hurry if you don’t want to get left behind.]

For a moment, everyone waited in case there were more messages to come, but there was just one that kept updating.

[59:54]

[59:53]

[59:52]

The group erupted into a panic. Some of them started fighting amongst themselves while others fled for the exits. I couldn’t see Roland or Jason, but I did spot the sullen girl who’d come with Roan. She stood off to the side and calmly observed the other tower residents.

A part of me wanted to ask her what she was thinking, but there wasn’t time. While the one-hour timer was an issue, the bigger one was that it was only accepting for the first 80%. Which meant it was a race to get there first, but the System had given no information on how we were supposed to return to the tower. It can’t be by conventional means like a ship. I didn’t know where this planet was in the universe, but I doubted that we were an hour away from Earth. No, it must be a portal. A hidden one, but not too well hidden or nobody will find out. The point of this challenge is to fight amongst ourselves. Rushing to the portal before the poison kills us is just the incentive to start the conflict.

And just like that, I suddenly had a good idea of where to start looking for the portal.

I turned and left the ballroom. Once I was out of everyone’s sight, I put my hood up and lengthened the shadows around me. The hallway was brightly lit, but as soon as I stepped out into the night; I became much harder to perceive. My shadow woven cloak and my Heart of Darkness ability rendered me almost invisible. Now I just had to quietly make my way over to the giant transportation warehouse where Samara stored her spaceships. It would fit the System’s sense of humor to put the portal in such an obvious place.

“Hey, are you going to skulk the whole way there?” asked the girl from the party.

The voice came from behind me. I whirled around but couldn’t see her.

“Where are you?”

“Close by. Your shadow work is abysmal, by the way.”

Her patron god Roan was related to shadows and death, so I tried to pretend not to be bothered by the fact that she’d seen through my power so easily.

“Why are you following me?” I asked her.

“Isn’t it obvious? The System put the portal back to the tower somewhere around here. You live here, so you have the best chance of knowing where it is. Hence why I’m following you.”

“But why did you reveal yourself now?”

“I got bored.”

I waited for more, but nothing else came. “That’s it? You aren’t worried that I’ll try to kill you.”

The girl stepped out of a shadow to my left. “Nah, you don’t seem like the type. Now come on, we can save ourselves from an intergalactic AI overlord’s poison and talk at the same time.”

There was something still off about her and she was friendlier now than at the party, which was weird.

“You seem happier now facing impending doom than at the party,” I said.

She shrugged. “Impending doom is easier to deal with. Besides, I’m always more comfortable when he isn’t around.”

I scoffed. “Oh please. I bet mine was worse.”

“It’s not a competition,” she replied bitterly.

“Mine handed me off to psychopathic teacher that practically killed me every day until I learned my lessons. Sometimes it was multiple times a day. I think the record was thirty-two in a single day.”

She held up her hand and cocked her head. “Shh, stop talking.”

Other voices could be heard growing closer. Suddenly, she grabbed my hand, and we stepped into one of her shadows. It overwhelmed my heart of darkness ability and smothered it out completely. Her shadows were stronger and deeper, which emphasized just how weak and amateurish mine were in comparison. Despite feeling that we were completely obscured by shadows, I could still see everything around us, though it was with a slight greyish haze.

The voices grew louder and six men appeared. They ditched their party clothes for their tower armor and some walked down the path with weapons in hand.

The one who led them had an axe and yelled, “I know you’re here, Eloise. Come on out!”

I looked at her and gestured for her to deal with this. She shook her head and indicated that they would pass by soon. The continued yelling by the axe man suggested otherwise, and I got tired of it.

“Yeah, no, I’m not doing this,” I said, as I stepped out of her shadow. “She’s over there guys.”

I pointed and Eloise dropped the shadow.

“Why?” she asked me, annoyed.

“Because the clock is ticking. I don’t have time to waste on this, and besides, for all I know, Roan put you near me to try and gain my confidence.”

Eloise scoffed. “What? As if you’re that important. You weren’t even a town founder.”

“Why does everybody keep throwing that in my face?” I growled. “Nobody cares that the System gave you a gold star.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” said the axe man.

I turned to him. “What are you, some kind of revenge posse? Come on, man. It’s not worth it. Our levels are still frozen till we get to the tower. You won’t benefit from killing her.”

The man grimly smiled. “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong. The personal satisfaction of seeing her die and knowing she won’t be around to trouble me in the future is more than enough of a reward.”

I looked back at her. “Wow, it sounds like you really messed with him. I’m going to go, but good luck with your whole revenge thing.”

I started inching around the group. I was being completely honest when I said that I wanted no part in this, but the paranoid leader became suspicious.

“It’s a trick. He’s trying to get behind us. Take them both!” the leader yelled.

I sighed. “No, I’m not with…” I was cut off by a sword being swung at me. I took offense to that and blocked it with my knife before punching him in the throat. Sword guy collapsed, choking on his crushed windpipe while another two drew magic wands.

“Nope, we’re not doing that either,” I said.

I dashed forward, cut one across the neck with Savage Rupture and then used Heart Strike on the other. As they died, I looked back to see that there were two men dead at Eloise’s feet while leader was suspended in the air with his arms outstretched. Two small shadow portals floated above him with a pale, withered hand coming out of each one to hold on to the man’s wrists.

Eloise leaned close and whispered something to the man. He blanched and started to cry. Eloise snapped her fingers as she walked past him. The portal hands ripped his arms off and then vanished while the man fell to the floor, screaming.

“Ready to go?” she asked in an upbeat tone.

I nodded and once we were away from the screaming, I asked, “you’re not upset that I didn’t cover for you?”

“No, you were right. We barely know each other.”

“Why were they after you, anyway?”

“That guy missing his arms is named Durbin, and I may have convinced everyone that he was the town founder. Things sort of escalated into a witch hunt and he was forced to spend a week living in the woods being hunted.”

“And of course, you were town founder the whole time?”

“Naturally. What about you? How did you deal with your town founder?”

“Oh, it wasn’t an issue. We sort of helped each other and focused on descending floors.”

“I mean, if they were town founder, it kinda sounds like they helped you,” she grinned.

“Funny.”

“You should be flattered that I’m still following you, despite being such an underachiever. Though it was impressive seeing how you handled Durbin’s goons.”

“Stop, I’m practically glowing from the praise. And did you just call them goons like it’s the 1940s?”

We continued arguing about this until we reached the transportation warehouse entrance, which was unsurprisingly still locked.

Eloise frowned at me. “What are we waiting for?”

She summoned a large shadow portal and a giant fist flew through it and punched the door, which had no effect.

“Yeah. You don’t think I tried that after I got torn apart and partially eaten by a shark?” I chuckled morbidly and pointed to my left arm. “This isn’t even my original arm. Had to grow a new one after my shark teacher ate the old one. Suffice to say, we’re never breaking in there by force.”

“Your teacher was a shark?”

“My teacher was a lot of things. Let’s not dwell on it.”

A bush behind us rustled. We whirled on it with weapons and shadow fists drawn.

“Who’s there?” she called out.

Roland and Jason emerged from the bushes.

I threw up my hands. “Perfect. Looks like we’re all following each other. Do either of you know how to pick a lock?”

“Sure,” said Jason.

He approached the door, took a set of keys out of his inventory, and unlocked it. The three of us stared at him. “What? I swiped these off of one of those orange aliens that work here.” He threw the door open. “Alright, let’s get out of here.”

We entered the warehouse, and aside from an assortment of spaceships, there was no portal.