Chương 76: Arc 2 - Chapter 18

The conversation as to which Door to take was brief and somewhat boring. Fritz described them a second time, highlighting the first as somewhat dangerous, the second as very dangerous and the third as barely dangerous. Bert, of course, voted for the very deadly flooding caves. Fritz leaned on the side of taking the somewhat dangerous underwater jungle but they were both thoroughly outvoted.

"Alright, clean air it is," Fritz said somewhat disappointed they'd chosen the easiest, and therefore the most boring, one. After the team had aligned their Attributes and marvelled at their new strength and Abilities, Fritz thought they might want to take a little bit of risk. Maybe want to try out their new Powers, but alas, it was not to be. He did, however, console himself with the thought that it wasn't likely there was no danger at all. That and there might still be secrets to find.

"Follow along my newly leveled fellows," Fritz announced as he heaved his pack onto his back.

"We have a Spire to Climb!" Bert cheered and followed while the others did so with a bit more wariness, whispering to each other in subdued tones. The quiet talk didn't sound mutinous but it still seemed they were some reservations about their esteemed leaders. Fritz only blamed them a little, Bert was a madman after all. Striding under the painted, red, wooden arch and up the creaking steps he led them up to the next Floor.

The air was clear and cool, a bright blue sky sprinkled with small white clouds greeted Fritz as he stared into the new Floor. They seemed to be at the bottom of a valley, terraced pools rising all around them like an endless mountain range. Thin, drooping trees dotted the landscape, their long branches covered in leaves only a slight shade darker than the sky. Fritz suspected that they were something akin to the sapphire willow that grew in his mother's garden, or the one that used to sit inside his own Sanctum.

Before it had changed. At the very tops of the terraces, on lush, green knolls, were brightly painted wooden buildings and towers, enclosed by fences and arrayed like villages even if they seemed subtly wrong to his sight and sense. Looking behind himself, so as not to stare at the sight of the too-familiar trees he found, he saw that the stairway seemed to be cut into the bright green grass that covered the hill-like walls.

After collecting himself he turned back around, facing the floor and all it had to test him with. He strode across the green grass, down into the basin until he was knee-deep in water, clear as newly cleaned glass. Through it, he could see neat lanes of black seaweed running the entire length of the massive pool and their dark, slippery leaves caressed his legs gently. He felt like an intruder in this still and silent world, like some callous calamity come to ravage the calm and maim any peace or prosperity.

Fritz splashed ahead, getting out of the way of Bert and the others as they stepped through the door and into the water below joining him in taking in the wondrous sight.

"This floor is much nicer," Lauren observed as she took in a large breath and sighed it out contentedly.

"It's not dry, but it's not raining," Rosie said staring up at the light blue overhead.

"Think that's what the real sky looks like?"

"Nah, it's probably yellow or white. Like the sun is," Carter said dismissively. Twenty feet away something moved beneath the water, rustling the gently waving dark leaves beneath.

"Did you see that?" Fritz asked, just as there was another flash of white scales between the black stalks of seaweed.

"I think I did," Carter said, squinting to where Fritz pointed. Fritz motioned for his team to stay back as he stealthily sloshed through the water. He grimaced, realising it would be hard to stay silent unless they stuck to the walls and ridges. When he had reached where he'd glanced the patch of white, he peered through the seaweed but found no sign of whatever he had seen. Something moved in the distance. What Fritz had taken for a post or one of the sparse, thin willow trees started striding towards him.

It was at least seven feet tall and its eerily human-like limbs were thin and pale. Its stooped body was covered in a blanket or maybe a loose robe of rough, brown-black cloth, looking almost like a filthy hessian sack. The thing's head was hooded and wrapped with strips of the same material, covering its face like bandages. With three fingers it clasped some long pole of wood capped with three sharp beaks of iron. The strange implement was like a strange mix between a pitchfork, scythe and a hoe.

The thing came forward slowly on legs like stilts that barely disturbed the water as it strode. The way it moved was both graceful and somehow wrong, like it was a puppet and a parody. Fritz got the impression that it wasn't charging them, nor was it getting ready to spring an attack. He motioned for his team to wait for his signal and to only strike the tall creature if it showed any ill intent. As it got closer Fritz got a better look at its hidden features, mostly the large, milky eyes that stared at him dumbly.

Its bared skin seemed to have some swirling pattern of light, raised scars like it had been burnt and branded with strange circular shapes. When it was within six feet it stopped and raised one of its grotesque hands. It waved a finger at them, seemingly in warning.

"What?" Fritz asked.

"No," The creature rattled out in a rough whisper on the very edge of hearing.

"No?" Fritz asked astonished that it spoke.

"No, take, white, scale," It laboriously elaborated.

"White scale?" Fritz asked dumbly.

"Sacred," It intoned pointing at its feet. He looked down and found it wasn't actually pointing at its feet but at a six-foot-long eel, with scales as white as plaster that coiled around its leg then swam away lazily. Lauren gasped.

"Clearblood eels," She hissed with some avarice glimmering in her eye.

"No, take," The thing said still staring at Fritz.

"Oh. Well, we don't want your eels," Fritz lied.

"Do you know where the Stairway is?" Without another word it turned and walked away, seemingly done with its warning. The team stood there for some moments not moving and not speaking.

"What in the Abyss was that thing?" Carter said.

"I think it was a man-alike," Lauren said.

"It must be," Fritz agreed.

"And what's that? Some kind of monster?" Bert asked, rubbing his knuckles.

"Yes and no," Fritz said tilting his head this way and that.

"Why haven't I heard of them?" Bert continued.

"Maybe because you don't pay attention, but mainly because they're not common and people don't like talking about them," Fritz explained.

"Why don't people talk about them?" Rosie asked, sloshing up beside him to stare at the man-a-like's retreating back.

"They're uncanny. Didn't you see how wrong they were?" Fritz said.

"Not as scary as the lobsters," Rosie stated.

"I think... I think I wouldn't want to boast about slaughtering a bunch of creatures that resembled, however strangely, humans," Fritz hedged.

"What about Goblins, Elves or Orcs?" Rosie countered.

"They're different, goblins are faeries and Elves are a human strain like Merfolk. Though there may be elf-alikes in some of the life-aligned Spires," Fritz said, with somewhat shaky conviction. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Doesn't seem that different from killing goblins," Bert said.

"Yes, but this thing didn't attack us and it spoke," Fritz said.

"It spoke?!" Bert asked incredulously and the sentiment was echoed by the entire team as they voiced their own surprise.

"Yes, didn't you hear it whisper not to take the 'white scales'?" Fritz said somewhat shocked and suspicious that they were playing some sort of joke on him.

"No," Lauren said.

"I just saw it point at the clearblood eel."

"I saw the same," Bert agreed.

"Huh," Fritz said.

"What's a clearblood eel? Are they valuable?"

"Yes! Their meat is both a delicacy and a restorative. But the real prize is their venom which is a valuable alchemical material," Lauren explained eagerly, as only an ambitious appraiser could.

"Venom?" Rosie squeaked. Fritz looked to see one of the eels lazily circling her legs, flaring its blue gills. They were sightless things, having no eyes and blindly swimming through the pools that were their entire world with only scent and touch as their guides. Oh and apparently taste.

"Yeowch!" Bert yelled, having lunged and grabbed the eel by its middle and been bitten in return. He held the wriggling thing and pulled its clamping jaws and long glass-like fangs from his flesh. Thin and watery blood poured from two one-inch holes in his arm.

"No!" Rosie cried.

"You got yourself bit!"

"Worry not," Fritz proclaimed.

"Bert's recovery is far greater than a normal man's. A constitution rivalling the greatest of heroes." Bert grimaced as his bleeding didn't stop but instead lightened in colour becoming almost pink, dripping ceaselessly down his arm.

"Isn't that right, Bert?" He added, a note of worry seeping into his voice. Bert seemed to wobble and his skin paled around his wounds, becoming as white as a Know-note.

"Uh, Fritz, you got any of that anti-toxin?" He asked calmly. Fritz quickly searched through a belt pouch and threw him a vial of the anti-toxin.

"I don't think that will work," Lauren said worriedly.

"I think the venom works a different way, purifying rather than rotting."

"How could purifying someone hurt them?" Rosie asked.

"You need blood not water in your veins," Fritz noted darkly as he watched the trickling blood get ever fainter in colour. Bert drank the antitoxin anyway. then sat against the sloping grass and began to breathe slowly.

"Clearblood eels," Carter said.

"I get it now." He added as he also watched the holes drip.

"Well!" Fritz said.

"We need to get to the Well." He couldn't feel the Stairway, unlike the first floor, which either meant it was hidden away or too far to feel with his Door Sense's passive area. Fritz spun and focused on his Door Sense, tuning it to his Awareness and spreading it as far as it could go. He still couldn't feel the Stairway so he stretched the Attribute to its limits then felt something odd as he strained at the edges of its range.

His head began to spin and nausea roiled in his gut, his whole sense of direction bucked and heaved before he could pinpoint what he felt or find the Stairway up. Fritz felt too many things, too many places, too many dim thoughts all at once. His skull started to split and he splashed into the pool up to his neck and saw the rippling of the water spread out until it alighted against the grassy wall or the legs of the man-alike as it hideously glided towards them again.

The ripple's shallow waves inflamed inspiration in Fritz and he pulled back his Awareness, letting it float around him like a cloud bank. He regained his feet as soon as his head stopped spinning, his vision settled, and the scream of silent sounds stopped. And just in time as the man-alike 'farmer' brandished its rake-claw threateningly at Bert who still held the writhing eel.

"Drop the eel!" Rosie shrieked. Bert looked dazedly at the white-scaled thing and threw it into the water at the creature's feet. The man-a-like ceased menacing them almost immediately, then waved a finger at them in ominous warning before striding off. Fritz shook his head.

"Are you alright, Fritz?" George asked.

"You weren't also bitten were you?"

"I wasn't bitten. I just pushed too hard on Awareness," Fritz explained through the fog of his aching head.

"Bert? How are you feeling?" He asked, turning to his friend.

"Better," Bert said. And he did look healthier, or at least the blood had stopped flowing, which had to be a good sign. That and the colour was starting to return to his skin, well what little colour there was to return.

"The tonic?" Fritz asked, with a relieved sigh.

"Don't think so," Bert said.

"What do you think then?" Fritz asked.

"Bones," He replied simply, glancing around at the others and subtly signalling Fritz he'd explain in detail later.

"Bones?" George asked, a thoughtful look appearing on his face as he looked between Bert's bracers and Quicksilver's hilt.

"Fantastic!" Fritz cried.

"Really had us worried there Bert. I would berate you for acting so foolishly but I know you only put yourself in harm's way to save our precious flower Rosie." Carter snorted.

"Precious flower, more like a stinging weed!"

"Hey!" Rosie yelled.

"I could be precious! I could be a flower!" She said as she started lightly slapping her brother on the arm over and over.

"Ouch! You're stinging me!" Carter said.

"See what I mean!" Fritz ignored the bickering and returned his thoughts to his recent inspiration. Instead of using all his Awareness and his Door Sense and trying to hold onto it all for as long as possible, he wondered if he could stretch it out for just as far as it could go for just a second, then let it collapse again. A ripple in a still pond rather than the constant roiling of a sea as it currently seemed to work. He needed to test it.

Fritz looked inward, pulling in his Awareness until he could no longer feel those vague impressions of where everyone was standing and the minute flashes of enigmatic emotions that emanated from them. He could feel his Attribute hovering over his skin and tried to draw it even closer but it wouldn't budge any further. It was like his body was a wall of impervious stone covered by a mist of fuzzy feeling.

With an effort of will he forced his Awareness out, and found it was far harder pushing it out than pulling it in. Slower too, he noticed, as it glided away like a cloud bank on a strong sea breeze. He ignored the innumerable impressions assaulting his senses, focusing only on the feeling of Door Sense as his Awareness expanded over the land. When his senses reached their limits and could stretch no further he pulled back on his Awareness as hard as he could, sucking back to his skin within moments.

Fritz smiled painfully as he sweat and his head ached, but it was far more manageable than trying to hold it that far for an extended period. He decided to label this technique as pulsing, mainly on account of the kind of pain it produced in his mind, but also because it felt right to. He attempted to try out his new discovery again and found the 'pulse' far more sluggish, slow and unresponsive, both in the quality and quantity of impressions.

He could feel over only half the distance he had before when the pain came back twofold and he quickly pulled his Awareness back as he cried out.

"What's wrong?" Bert asked worriedly.

"Nothing. Just... experimenting," Fritz supplied sheepishly.

"Do you have to do it in the middle of a floor?" Bert asked. Fritz winced, his senses still raw from the pulse. He silently hoped he hadn't broken anything in his brain as he replied, "You're right. Give me a moment." They did, they gave him a whole nine minutes as they stood about staring at the odd landscape, commenting on the strange sights and the alien weirdness of the man-alike farmer.

"It's not even doing anything," Carter groused.

"It just mills about."

"Yeah, it's not really farming at all!" Rosie agreed in incredulity.

"Lazy lout!" Bert joined in. It was strange, Fritz supposed, but those were the Spires for you. They didn't make sense at the best of times and seemed utterly bizarre at the worst. Like some sort of dream or nightmare.

"At least it's not trying to murder us," Lauren said.

"I would welcome it to try," Bert declared raising his fists in its direction.

"Right, I'm feeling better," Fritz said, standing from where he was seated along the grassy slope. He wasn't being exactly truthful, his head still ached somewhat and his Awareness still felt dull and raw. It was definitely recovering but slowly. He wondered how the Advanced Attribute actually worked and if he could do similar things with his Control, Grace or Dusksong. He supposed he'd already been doing it with Control, like when he broke through the goblin chief's compulsion.

But the idea that the same could be done with the others intrigued him. However, this was not the time to test them, as Bert had reminded him.

"I want to check out one of those 'villages' at the peaks. It'll probably have a clue about where the Stairway is. And higher is always better," He said, laying out his plan.

"Except when it's not," Bert said.

"Except when it's not," Fritz agreed easily, much to the exasperation of the team. With that they set out, climbing the grassy slopes and wading across the waist-deep pools. It was only mildly difficult and the complaining was minimal. In fact, the team seemed to be in much higher spirits than the last floor and were joking, chatting and laughing as they exerted their new Enhanced Attributes and tested their new strengths and Abilities.

It turned out Carter's Heave worked well when climbing, allowing him to scale the slightly steep slopes with ease, he did suffer from the Stamina drain though. But Carter remarked that it was well worth the cost. The other's Abilities were far less suited to the endeavour, having taken more combat-focused choices. They weren't disappointed though, far from it, and they all searched eagerly for ways to apply their new Powers.

All except for Lauren who was panting heavily and muttering un-lady-like curses under her breath. Carter offered to carry her with his Ability, but she declined, saying that "it's not dignified" as she pulled a stray blade of grass from her hair and wiped her muddy palms on her battle robes. Fritz decided against commenting on her messy state and just called out for them to hurry along, as it seemed the sun was beginning to set.

"I want to be up there before nightfall," Fritz said.

"It'd be a nightmare for you lot to try and move around in the dark." Lauren huffed but only she could be blamed for her holding onto her Attributes and Abilities. Fritz thought the choice a foolish one. You should take all the Power you can when it's offered, he told himself, then realised he still hadn't aligned his own Attributes in his haste to get moving. He would have to do it when they had to rest or would sneak a moment to do it at the next Well where he was to be offered his next Ability choice.

They finally reached the top of the terraced hill, finding it surprisingly flat. There, just as Fritz had seen, was a small village with a tall willow in its centre yard. Everything about the place was ever so slightly wrong. For one the small wooden houses with bright red shingled roofs were too short for the twenty or so man-a-likes that aimlessly ambled around. They seemed to be built for people half Fritz's size, perhaps a goblin might fit in comfortably but not a man and definitely not the creatures.

The man-alike's weren't identical, some were taller and others sightly wider, but they were identically dressed in the same hessian sack-robes and carrying the same style of claw-rake. When Fritz and his team cautiously entered the village proper the eerie things ignored them completely and continued on in their bleakly benign behaviours. For two there was a market with no goods or foods just tilted stalls that lay empty.

A man-alike stood behind the table as if selling and more stood around as if buying, all clasping their strange claw-rakes and standing as still as statues. Silent as stones. Soulless as the Spires. To call it eerie would be a disservice, they were unnatural at their core and watching them gnawed at the edges of his sanity. Fritz's skin crawled and he shuddered from a sudden chill deep in his heart.

"Yeah.. okay," Rosie muttered.

"I can see why people don't talk about them now." Fritz heartily agreed with her, even though these ones weren't aggressive like others he'd heard tales about, they were just horrible to behold. He'd likely keep the tale of this floor to himself, fighting the Hound was a far better story to tell anyway. He turned away from the false market and peered over the hills. The sun was setting in the distance and they were given a grand view of the surrounding peaks and pools.

Beneath them, in a great basin filled with water was a grand tower, halfway built but obviously abandoned. And, with certainty, Fritz knew that the Stairway up was in that building. As the orange of dusk flowed over the terraces they could see hundreds, no thousands, of small dots of light, like small embers appear within the pools. Lauren gasped, Carter stared in awe, Rosie was silent, and George sighed.

"Whoa," Bert stated. The last of the light disappeared as did the small specks of orange with it. Fritz was sad to see the lights go, but sadder still they had to wait for the dawn to leave this floor. He was broken out of his thoughts by the shuffling of cloth and sudden shambling of movement as the man-alikes left the village yard and squeezed into their houses. When they inevitably couldn't fit most just lay down in the dirt and slept. Or pretended to sleep.

"What do we do now?" George asked.

"We rest, and wait for the dawn," Fritz said.

"Then we go to that tower. I think the stairway is in there."

"Why not just go now?" Bert asked.

"Too dark, imagine how easy it'd be to trip and drown in this moonless, starless night," Fritz said motioning at the empty black sky.

"Fair enough," Bert agreed to the shudders of the levelers.

"Let's set up camp, it seems to be safe up here," Fritz said.

"For now," Lauren mumbled.

"Yes. For now."