Re-ality; Spire

“If the real battle starts when we get to the shore, I’d hate to see what that looks like.”

With a light touch, Pax landed back on the ship with the rest of the team. Eris was still alive and well. It seemed that time really had been turned back a few minutes. He’d talk to Djyn about it later, but for now there were more pressing things to deal with.

“It's good to have you back Pax. Things got a little dicey while you were out fishing. Djyn somehow is almost completely out of mana.”

A cannon ball splashed down and exploded next to the ship, rocking it violently.

The shore was rapidly approaching and the density of enemy attacks had increased proportionally. It was all hands on deck manning the weapons and defenses, but somehow no one was worrying about the cannonballs.

- - - - - - -

“That's right, our strike team has been assigned the pivotal role of capturing the spire.”

Saying this didn’t make the team members any more interested in what Vincent was talking about, to his dismay. They didn’t seem to understand how much was hinging on them, so Vincent elaborated:

“This is The Spire. An ancient structure built by ancient humans long before Artenian colonists arrived. We assume that they used it to defend the shoreline against sea monsters, but there is no way to be sure. The only thing that we do know is that somehow at the top of the spire there is a magical device that amplifies someone’s magic. For example, the fireballs that someone throws when using this instrument would be about ten times larger than normal…”

“So it’s just a tall building with a thing that amplifies magic at the top?” asked Eris, who was apparently paying attention.

“Not exactly, you can think of it as an unimaginably tall tower that is indestructible, self healing, easily defensible, and has an instrument on its roof that amplifies an individual’s magic by about ten times, no matter how strong they originally were. We can expect there to be about 100 well trained mages defending it on top of the mage getting amplified by the tower.”

Suddenly all the team members were paying attention. In the hands of someone capable, a device that could amplify magic by that much would be extremely dangerous.

“You mean to say that we’re taking that tower by ourselves?” asked Sakura, voicing the complaints of the entire group.

“Yeah, we’ll get support up until the entrance. Don’t worry guys, I have a plan,” Vincent responded as he pulled out a large diagram of the spire and hung it up on the board. “See here, the center of the Spire is hollow with a spiral staircase going around the inner circumference. We’ll make our way here and go straight to the top!”

Even Pax was paying attention now, though this nothing for Vincent to be celebrating.

“No offense, but that's just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard,” said Derrick, the discontent obvious in his tone. “We're all just going to die.”

“Hah, not if Ivy has anything to say about it…” Vincent dramatically waved his arm towards where Ivy and Pax were sitting as he spoke. “right, Ivy?”

Ivy, who still hadn't been paying attention, looked up when her name was called. She studied the diagram for a moment then nodded, “Yeah sure, I have a plant that would work there. You’d just have to cover me for a minute so that I can plant it properly.”

- - - - - - -

When Pax returned to the ship, it looked like he had been dunked in red paint. Of course, Eris knew that it was blood he was covered in. Still, it was such a massive quantity of it that it took a few moments for Eris to even register it as blood. How did that boy always end up covered in blood?

Even though the strike team was nearly at the shore, Eris couldn’t shake off her uneasiness. Something had happened during their trip. Somehow, she could tell that the reality was looking at was twisted. It was a strange feeling, one that she had only felt a few times in the past.

And every time she got this strange feeling, Djyn was coincidentally out of mana. She knew that there was something he had been hiding from her for some time now.

Would he have told the other Eris about this by now?

The other Eris had been close to Djyn, that much was certain. However, the exact nature of their relationship still remained a mystery to her. Perhaps they were just close friends, kind of like their current relationship. But somehow, she knew that there had to of been more to it. Otherwise, what could explain the strange look that he sometimes gave her?

Any time she asked Djyn about the time before she lost her memories, she would get conflicting anecdotes. There was no way of knowing what had been true and what was false. She didn’t blame Djyn though, she knew he had it worse.

Eventually, she had stopped asking about who the other Eris had been. And Djyn had stopped talking about the past as well. It didn’t matter, she trusted Djyn, and she hoped that he trusted in her.

It was for this reason that she wasn’t scared even as dozens of spells flew through the air. She wasn’t scared as she danced through the air, severing heads all the while.

She was scared, though, when she came to the entryway of The Spire.

- - - - - - -

The material that made up the walls of the spire reminded Pax a lot of the strange concrete that the buildings in Guileva were made of. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to think about the implications of this information because he was the vanguard of the strike team, and their hosts weren’t exactly welcoming to them.

For once, nearly the entire strike team was working together cohesively. Everyone was there, apart from Sakura, who had been needed to cast wide area healing for their soldiers. As expected, with so much strength concentrated in such a small area, the rebel forces couldn’t put up much of a fight. The meagre perimeter set around the spire had been breached instantly by a laser of blood, followed by the slaughtering of all the defenders.

The entrance to the spire had no door, it was just a large hole in the side of the building. It seemed tall enough to comfortably allow entrance for a giant. The strike team moved in without needing to say a word, with Derrick joining Pax at the front to provide some reconnaissance. The team just had to get to the center of the floor, where there would be an opening that led to the top of the spire. This however, was not as straightforward as initially thought.

The spire was massive and labyrinthian. Derrick never lost his sense of direction, so they could rely on him to get them there eventually, but there was no way of knowing how many dead ends they would run into on their way there. Luckily, the defenders hadn’t anticipated such a swift attack, so their fortifications had been hasty and relatively weak. The halls of the spire were tall but fairly narrow, only illuminated by torches lit by blue fire. It seemed the torches would never dim, likely feeding off of the spire’s own mana. However, it wasn’t known how exactly the spire generated its mana, or even if it instead got the mana from someplace else.

So that all troops could get some manner of rest, the vanguard of the team alternated between Pax,
Vincent, or Eris, with Derrick always next to them doing reconnaissance. It was for this reason that Pax was not at the lead when they finally found the spiral staircase leading to the top of the tower.

Instead, it was Vincent who got struck by lightning as soon as he stepped into the chamber. He had managed to dodge at the last second, so he only lost his leg to the devastating attack. Derrick, who had been standing nearest to him, pulled him back into cover and Pax moved to heal the leg. Under Pax’s healing magic, the leg regrew within seconds –Much slower than Pax could have done for himself, but still remarkable. Eris stood to defend against any follow up attacks on their position, but none came.

It seemed that the defenders would be camping the stairway. Of course they would, it was a single staircase that went from the bottom to the top of the colossal spire. By sitting on the steps, they could easily hit anyone below them. Considering that Derrick hadn’t even noticed them until actually reaching the room, they must have been pretty high up.

This didn’t really change anything for the strike team, in fact, this situation was to be expected. It would just require a bit more effort on Pax’s part.

The plan was simple, really. Pax would create a shield of blood and bone to protect Ivy as she planted the beanstalk that would bloom to provide cover and carry the team upwards. Vincent would accompany the pair to block anything that came through with his battleaxe if need be. Djyn, from the safety of the hallway, would cast illusion magic to keep them concealed for as long as possible. Sadly, there was nothing that Eris and Derrick could do in this situation so they just guarded the team’s back.

And so, the trio walked out from cover under an invisibility haze that covered blob of blood that concealed a large bone umbrella.

Sadly, the haze was seen through before they even got to the middle of the floor. Perhaps someone on the other side had good vision. Regardless, Pax cursed as they were pelted by a continuous stream of magic attacks. As soon as this happened, the trio rushed to the center as the rest of the team watched from the sidelines in fear.

Ivy began planting as Pax set down the bone umbrella to better focus on bolstering defenses. For the moment, the blood was being torn away faster than it could be reproduced. At any second, they could reach the layer of bone at the bottom, at which point things would get dangerous. He had hoped that he wouldn’t have been forced to use the spell that had once been his trump card, but started muttering the words anyways.

When he finished, he shouted the final phrase, “ –Flood of the Unliving”

Pax fell to the floor and clutched his throat as he vomited thousands of gallons of blood. The sea of blood was aimless at first, but soon wrapped around the cocoon holding the three members of the strike team. Further converging on itself, the blood shot upwards like a vortex, swallowing up all of the attacks that had been sent its way.

The sea of blood swirled in one spot for a few minutes, wavering every once in a while, but ultimately holding strong. When it eventually dissipated, the soldiers thought to attack the enemies that should have been vulnerable, but instead were greeted by a beanstalk that grew more intensely than the flood of crimson they had seen moments ago.

Dismissing the protections, Pax looked back to the room’s entrance, where the second half of the team should have been, only to see a blank wall.

“Shit…”

Vincent’s eloquent words put it well. Indeed, they had succeeded in securing a path to the top of the tower, but found themselves separated from half of the team.