The Labyrinthine Tower part 1

Entrance Examination
The first thing I saw of the Labyrinthine Tower was its shadow — not its spire.

It loomed against the morning sky, a crooked monument of stone and brass, taller than any cathedral I’d seen, the upper floors veiled in clouds that churned as if the building itself was brewing weather. Enchanted lamps flickered along its many balconies, and the faint hum of magic filled the air like the sound of a thousand whispered arguments.

A group of robed figures waited at the gate, each wearing the same expression — equal parts arrogance and exhaustion. Apprentices, I guessed. They eyed me like a stray cat that had wandered into a symposium.

A woman in crimson robes approached — Professor Calistra, according to the sigil on her brooch. Her eyes gleamed like polished glass.

“Another applicant,” she said, circling me once, her voice sharp enough to cut parchment. “The Tower accepts those who can survive its test. Fail, and we’ll sweep your ashes off the steps by dusk.”

“Comforting,” I muttered.

She smirked. “Follow the light. Try not to scream.”

The gates opened with a groan that felt alive. I stepped through into the Examination Hall — a massive chamber filled with floating quills, whispering scrolls, and chalk diagrams that rearranged themselves mid-equation. At the far end stood Professor Magnos, a hulking man whose beard was partly on fire. He didn’t seem concerned.

“So,” he boomed, “you want to join the Labyrinthine Tower? Cast a spell. Any spell. Doesn’t have to be impressive — but it will be watched.”

Dozens of quills turned toward me like an audience of vultures.

I lifted my hand, murmuring the words I’d practiced on the road. A flicker of flame sparked between my fingers, then flared into a small, steady fireball. For half a heartbeat, it felt glorious.

Then the flame sneezed — yes, sneezed — and exploded into a rain of burning ink.

The quills shrieked and dove at me. The scrolls flapped like angry birds. The desk tried to bite my leg. Somewhere above the chaos, I heard Magnos laughing.

“Good! Improvisation test begins now!”

I dodged a dive-bombing inkwell, ducked behind a floating chair, and used the nearest spell that came to mind — Arcane Gust. The blast of wind sent half the furniture tumbling, extinguished the rogue flames, and pinned the remaining quills to the wall like skewered butterflies.

When the last one fell, the hall went eerily quiet.

Magnos stroked his singed beard. “Not bad,” he said. “You broke half the room, but at least you did it creatively.”

Before I could reply, another voice chimed in from the balcony — cool, clipped, and unmistakably judgmental.

Eleanora Glintwhisk, student prodigy, was watching me through a shimmering monocle. “Amateur casting technique,” she said. “Poor mana efficiency. But at least they didn’t explode outright.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I think.”

Magnos waved a charred hand. “You’ll fit right in. Report to the registrar before the ceiling regrows teeth.”

The corridor outside the hall wound upward like the inside of a seashell. Floating lanterns followed me, lighting the steps with gentle curiosity. The higher I climbed, the more alive the walls felt — murmuring with faint whispers of stored magic, half-forgotten lectures, and possibly ghosts.

At the top, a woman made of light awaited me — or rather, a projection of one.

“Welcome, Initiate,” said Caretaker Wren, the sentient echo that ran the academy’s systems. “Do you accept the terms of your apprenticeship?”
“What terms?”
“Unpaid labor, unpredictable danger, and academic humiliation.”
“I’ve survived worse,” I said.
“Excellent,” she replied. “Then the Tower accepts you.”

A mark of faint blue light flared on my hand — the sigil of initiation. The walls around me pulsed in approval, and from somewhere deep below, I heard the tower sigh… as if waking from a long nap.

As I stepped out onto the balcony, the sun hit the ancient ruins that sprawled beneath the Tower — the Labyrinth of Foundations, dark and yawning. They said the Tower was built over the bones of something much older, and for a brief moment, I thought I could hear it — faint echoes rising from below. Like a door whispering, “Welcome home.”

Behind me, Wren’s voice resonated once more, distant but clear. “Your next trial will not be so forgiving.”

I looked down at the glowing sigil on my hand, still faintly warm.

“Didn’t think it would be,” I said.

The Tower’s Secret
The next morning began with a thunderclap and the smell of breakfast spells gone wrong. Someone downstairs had attempted to conjure pancakes and summoned a pancake elemental instead. The corridors were sticky with syrup.

Welcome to the Labyrinthine Tower.

Professor Magnos found me staring at the carnage and handed me a parchment still smoking at the edges. “Congratulations, Initiate,” he said, voice rough as gravel. “You’ve proven you can break furniture. Let’s see if you can fix history.”

The parchment bore a single line:

“Descend where the light ends. The ruins remember what the living forgot.”

“That’s ominous,” I said.
“That’s academia,” he replied. “Caretaker Wren will escort you to the lower levels. Bring your courage. And a towel.”

The elevator to the under-levels was older than the Tower itself — a cage of bronze and runes that shuddered with each footstep. When I stepped inside, the floor glyph flared blue and began to hum. Wren’s projection flickered beside me, pale and patient.

“Few students are allowed beneath,” she said. “The Labyrinth predates the Academy by several centuries. It resents disturbance.”
“Buildings don’t resent things.”
She tilted her head. “This one does.”

The air grew colder as we descended. Stone gave way to black marble veined with red luminescence, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat. The runes carved into the walls whispered as the lift passed them — syllables that sounded almost like names.

At the bottom waited a circular antechamber filled with dust and silence. Professor Calistra and a few other students had gathered — Eleanora, Sera, and a lanky apprentice named Fennick who looked like he’d lost a duel with gravity.

Magnos’s voice echoed through a projection crystal mounted on the wall.

“Your task: record the structure of the first level. Touch nothing that hums, glows, whispers, or bleeds. Simple enough.”

Fennick raised a hand. “What if it hums and bleeds?”
Magnos sighed audibly. “Then scream politely.”

We advanced into the ruin. The passages were warped and uneven, lined with what might once have been doorways but now were sealed with melted stone. The deeper we went, the more I felt something watching — not from the dark, but through it.

Calistra, ever the pyromancer, kept small fire orbs hovering above her shoulders.

“They say this labyrinth was once a sanctum,” she said. “Before the Tower was built, mages worshiped something here.”
Eleanora rolled her eyes. “You mean the old cult that thought stars were eyes of angels?”
“Demons,” Calistra corrected. “They were only half wrong.”

A low vibration trembled through the floor. Wren’s projection flickered. “The labyrinth shifts. Proceed carefully.”

We turned a corner — and there it was.

A wall fresco, older than any magic I’d seen. It depicted tall figures — not quite human — offering glowing orbs to a massive, haloed being. Around its feet, smaller creatures writhed in chains of light.

Eleanora traced the edge of one symbol with her finger. “These runes predate human script. They match nothing in our archives.”

That was when I noticed one line of symbols still moving — rearranging themselves as if aware of our gaze.

“Did anyone else see that?” I asked.
Calistra stepped closer. “See what?”

The runes froze again, perfectly inert. Maybe I imagined it. Maybe not.

We continued until we reached a sealed archway of black stone. At its center glowed a sigil shaped like an open eye.

“That’s… beautiful,” Fennick whispered, leaning closer.

The sigil blinked.

The room erupted into chaos — tendrils of shadow shot from the walls, books flew open on their own, and a shrill wail filled the air like steel on glass. I felt the world twist; the kind of vertigo that makes your stomach forget which way is down.

“Containment field!” shouted Eleanora.

I reacted on instinct — slammed my palm to the floor and muttered the simplest barrier charm I knew. The sigil sputtered, cracked, and shattered into harmless motes of light. The wailing ceased.

For a long time, no one spoke. Then Professor Calistra exhaled and muttered, “I liked it better when the chairs attacked us.”

Wren’s projection reappeared, her voice thin with static. “That seal should not have broken. Something below is awake.”

We retreated to the elevator in uneasy silence. As the lift ascended, I glanced down one last time. In the glow fading beneath us, the broken sigil’s fragments were rearranging — forming a new pattern, almost like writing.

When we reached the upper hall, Magnos was waiting, arms crossed, beard still slightly on fire. “You survived,” he said. “Good. The Tower eats the careless.”

“Professor,” Eleanora said, “the runes were active. Someone’s tampering with the lower wards.”

Magnos frowned, and for the first time since I’d met him, the humor left his eyes. “Then our problems run deeper than I thought.”

He turned to me. “You did well. Not many Initiates hold a barrier that long.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Though my legs disagree.”
“Get some rest,” he said. “The labyrinth will still be there tomorrow. Unfortunately.”

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The Tower creaked and whispered as always, but now I heard the whispers differently — like voices trying to remember a language long forgotten. And when I finally drifted off, I dreamed of an open eye carved in stone, staring up from the depths, waiting for someone to return its gaze.

Shadows in the Library
The next few days passed in uneasy quiet.

Or rather, uneasy loudness — the Tower had an unnerving habit of echoing its own noises. Doors creaked when no one touched them. Windows sighed in windless corridors. Even the chandeliers hummed on their own, as if rehearsing a song only the stones remembered.

Still, I would’ve ignored it all if not for the books.

The whispering began three nights after our expedition into the labyrinth. At first, it was faint — a murmur like parchment shifting or wind rustling through dry leaves. But by midnight, it grew clearer, threading through the corridors like smoke.

“Open… read… remember…”

I wasn’t the only one who heard it.

During breakfast, half the students looked sleep-deprived and jittery. Someone’s coffee was levitating upside-down.

Professor Lirien Mossbrook, the librarian and keeper of the Arcane Archives, addressed us in her calm, unnervingly soft voice: “A mind is like a library,” she said, pouring tea that smelled faintly of ink. “Both are easily corrupted.”

That was her way of saying something was very wrong.

That night, a message appeared on my desk — written in luminous ink that vanished after I read it:
“Meet me in the Arcane Library. Midnight.” — L. Mossbrook

The tower restricted access until midnight. When I tried entering earlier, the head librarian waved me away with a scowl.

“Not now. We’re sanitizing the tomes.”

The doors shimmered with sealing runes until the moon reached its zenith. Then, with a slow, heavy click, the locks gave way.

Entering the Library (Night)
The Arcane Library was unlike any ordinary archive. Its shelves spiraled upward, stacked with spellbooks that occasionally shifted places on their own. Lanterns floated overhead like docile fireflies, illuminating dust motes that glittered like tiny stars.

And beneath that tranquil facade — whispers.

Ira the Whisperer, a translucent librarian spirit who managed the night shift, floated beside the entrance, her form barely holding shape. Her voice was like parchment dragged across stone:

“The books hunger for voices… feed them not.”

I tried to ask what she meant, but she only smiled — or tried to — and faded into the air.