Artorius descended through the ash-hazed sky, wings straining against the molten wind. Each beat sent knives of pain down his spine, but he kept going, circling the monument that loomed before him like a spike through the world itself.
The tower rose from the dead plain, half buried in volcanic glass, half piercing the red heavens. The structure curved and twisted like a living fang, smooth and seamless, its surface translucent as pale crystal. Beneath that glass-white hide pulsed faint veins of argent light.
The air thickened as he drew near. Every gust shimmered silver, filled with drifting motes that whispered in tongues older than thought. The ground was paved in scale-shaped tiles of fused bone that rang softly under his boots, like distant bells tolling underwater. Each step sent a pulse through the air, as though the tower were aware of his arrival.
When he finally landed at its base, heat rippled off the ground in mirage waves. His wings folded back with a ragged hiss, the membranes smoking faintly. For a long moment he just stood there, staring upward, heart hammering. The spire reached high the top nearly vanished into the low clouds, a seamless column of ivory and crystal that hummed in harmony with the wind.
Runes crawled along its base fluid, shifting, and alive. They glowed faintly, a script of dragons, not carved but grown into the tooth's surface. When he moved, the runes shifted too, watching him, rearranging into new forms he could almost read. His chest tightened. Each breath he drew felt heavier, filled with knowledge that wasn't meant for mortals.
Silver winds coiled around the base like ghosts, their whispers threading through his mind. Words rose out of them fragments of equations, names of stars, the last thoughts of creatures who had outlived time.
Before him yawned an opening, it was vast, dark, perfectly round, the entrance carved in the shape of a dragon's open maw. Rows of petrified fangs framed the archway, gleaming like polished ivory. The air that drifted out carried the smell of cold metal and forgotten paper.
Artorius gripped his lance tighter, jaw set. Then, with wings folded and the whispers pressing close, he stepped into the mouth of the tower.
The darkness swallowed him whole. The air within the place was cool, sterile, and humming. Each breath felt filtered through what felt like disinfectants. His footsteps echoed faintly on a floor so polished it mirrored his shape, distorted by the faint luminescence that bled from the walls.
The walls were the color of moonlight on steel smooth, curved, and alive with a faint pulse, as if some vast creature still slept within the tower's walls. When he brushed his fingers along the surface, he felt vibration not random, but rhythmic, like the thrum of a great heart buried deep below.
Silver glyphs stirred beneath his touch. They slid away like minnows under ice, then reformed elsewhere. Each rune emitted a faint chime, together forming a whispering melody that filled the corridor. He realized, with a start, that the tower was singing.
He continued upward. The passage spiraled, broad at first, then narrowing as he climbed. Every so often, pale light flickered through the walls, refracted by veins of crystal that ran like capillaries through the translucent material.
The Tower seemed endless. And then he caught movement, a gleam at the corner of his eye. He froze, lance lifting instinctively at the ready. At first he thought it was a reflection, a trick of the light. Then the reflection moved. Something peeled itself out of the wall.
A draconic shape sleek, the size of a wolf unfolded from the crystal as if melting from liquid glass. Its body was composed entirely of mirrored scales that caught and split the tower's faint light into rainbows. Eyes like shards of diamond fixed on him.
The System message blinked into existence: [Silver Whelp — Level 4]
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Another one emerged. Then another. All together he counted eight of them sliding down from the walls, wings half-unfurled, tails dragging sparks across the mirrored floor. They made no sound save the crystalline chime of their movement.
Artorius backed up, scanning for angles. The corridor was too tight for flight. The light reflecting from their bodies hurt to look at directly and they stood at every corner cutting off the paths to escape.
The first one lunged. He parried, barely, lance glancing off a body as hard as tempered glass. The shock numbed his wrist. A second struck from the flank, claws carving glowing lines across the air a breath away from racking across his chest. Their speed was unnatural, each movement fluid, synchronized, as though one mind controlled them all.
He ducked another blow and thrust low, striking where the joint met the hooked wing. The lance tip pierced the crystal hide and stuck deep, then to his surprise the creature shattered in a burst of silver dust. No blood. Only shards and light. He did get a message saying he slayed it but that was it.
The others hesitated, flickering like reflections on water. Then they moved again, faster now, light bending around them. He fought against them in silence, panting, lance arcs catching the faint light as the hallway filled with glimmers of shattered guardians. Even though they did outnumber him and outlevel him, he had been through many fights so far and he assumed he had the advantage of his class and archetype which they most likely didn't have.
When the last fell, the air rang like struck glass, the fragments melting into the floor until nothing remained. The tower grew still again, its song resuming quieter, now, almost approving. Artorius stood in the glow, his reflection warped in the mirrored floor. He had a good look at himself after what felt like eons and he looked less like a man now and more like what the denizens of this hellhole: a dragon walking upright.
Still he thankfully got a level from all the killing as he got a message: Congratulations! You have leveled up.
Race: [Royal-Blood DragonMen] has reached level 3 – Stat points allocated, +1 Str, +1 Con, +1 Dex, +1 Char!
He wiped the blood from his chin and climbed higher.
The stairs wound upward for what felt like hours, the glow in the walls brightened to a steady, argent radiance that painted the curve of the tower like moonlight on water. Then the stairway opened.
He stepped into a cavernous chamber vast enough to contain a mansion, its walls concave, its roof lost in shadow. The floor beneath his boots was a perfect circle of translucent glass, beneath which slow rivers of light pulsed like veins.
And above him floated books in the air. Thousands of crystalline tablets drifted weightless in the air, each one inscribed with delicate runes that glowed and dimmed like breathing stars. The room hummed not with air, but with knowledge. Lines of energy arced lazily from tablet to tablet, forming constellations that shifted and rearranged in patterns too complex to follow. The entire chamber was alive with memory.
Artorius stared in awe. Thoughts that weren't his filled his mind with impressions of time before time: wings spanning islands, fires that forged worlds, the music of dragonkind echoing through the void. His knees nearly buckled beneath the weight of it. Every heartbeat brought new whispers, new knowledge, burning through his skull like a fever.
He won't deny it, he was curious, he wanted to know more but as the saying goes curiosity killed the cat. The temptation to reach out towards one of the tablets and learn more was unbearable and he did just that.
The moment his fingers brushed a tablet, the runes flared white-hot. Light surged up his arm, searing through flesh into bone. Visions flooded him, a storm of wings, a sea of stars, a blinding lattice of equations describing the birth of fire. He tore his hand away with a ragged scream, skin smoking. The tablet floated placidly back into its orbit, as if nothing had happened.
If that had been all he might have been able to walk away, but the Tower didn't welcome thieves. A rumble shivered through the chamber. The floating tablets drifted aside, parting like curtains. From behind them, something moved. Shapes unfurled from the far walls, long, serpentine bodies shimmering with facets of translucent blue and silver. They moved with lazy grace, light refracting off their hides in prismatic ripples, alive with magic and purpose.
A System message flickered before him: [Crystal Drake — Level 6]
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Counting them off as they slid or jumped down from the book shelves, they numbered five in total. Their bodies slid silently around him, eyes like molten glass. Artorius braced, his lance heavy in his hands. His pulse thundered in his ears.
The first attack was a beam of refracted light, a focused lance of energy that split the floor beside him, fusing glass into molten puddles. He dove aside, the air crackling where the blast passed. Another beam followed from the opposite side, perfectly timed.
He rolled, shards slicing his palms. He noticed they were using the tablets to focus their spells which was smart too smart for all these creatures he ran into so far. The light bounced and bent between them, refracting like mirrors until it converged in lethal spears.
He ran, dodging the beans though some did strike him as one tore through his shoulder and another his back. Bearing through the excruciating pain which at this point had become a constant companion with him, the floor shook behind him as a drake's tail smashed down where he had been, scattering crystal tablets into spiraling orbits.
He ducked beneath a sweeping claw, thrust upward, his lance grazing along its neck barely a scratch. Its scales were harder than diamond, but when he pulled back, he saw thin fractures spiderwebbing outward. He grinned through bloodied teeth. Everything breaks.
Still slowly chipping away at them would be time consuming and he would most likely be finished off before then, staring closely at the beans bouncing against the tablets a thought entered his mind.
Grabbing his lance, he chucked it at the nearest drake, it flew straight in the air and caught one of them in the flank. The drakes turned toward it instinctively for one moment giving him the opening he needed in that instant, he snatched a shattered tablet from the floor and slammed it against a beam heading his way. The fragments caught the magic and sent it careening towards one of the drakes.
It seemed as if the creatures never expected one of their attacks to come back towards them as it just stood there for too long as the beam struck right into its face. That one was done for the count as he even got a prompt from the system, but he ignored it as he focused on the one that shot a bean right at him forgoing the tablets they used to bounce it around.
With the crystal tablet still in hand, he only held it up as it hurled the attack right back to it, ending it for good.
Looking at his remaining foes, he had only 3 left in which one was uselessly pawling at his lance to try to remove it. The drakes realized that their tactic was not working and looked as if they gave up on shooting beans at him, but Astorius wasn't having it as he used his Command.
"Shoot," he called out and the creatures were left with no choice as the ability took effect.
The air exploded into chaos, light scattering in every direction, beams ricocheting from surface to surface. The drakes shrieked, their own spells turned against them, flaying their wings into shards.
Artorius threw himself behind a pillar of crystal as the chamber filled with searing radiance. Maybe he shouldn't had them fire all at once. When it faded, the air was thick with settling dust and the smell of ozone. He pushed himself up, coughing.
Around him lay the shattered remnants of the drakes' splintered wings, glowing fragments, pools of liquid light. The floating tablets had stilled again, their runes dimmed, as though the library itself mourned its keepers.
He looked up. At the far end of the chamber, a staircase rose into a narrow shaft of light that reached for the heavens. The pulse of magic above was stronger now steady, alive, aware.
The Tower was leading him higher. Artorius picked up his lance from the dead drake, still glowing faintly with refracted light, and began the ascent.
-
The climb from the crystal library twisted into silence.
The stairs here were no longer smooth, but carved spiraling through ribs of translucent bone. The light dimmed the higher he climbed, until it became a thin silver thread flickering through the glass like a dying heartbeat. Every step he took rang faintly, echoing up the hollow spine of the tower.
Then the air changed. It wasn't heat. It wasn't cold. It was pressure. Like invisible hands closing around his skull. Thoughts that weren't his began to whisper half formed, half remembered voices echoing in his mind in tones eerily familiar.
"You shouldn't have come here."
He froze, heart pounding as he asked himself if that was English. The stairway opened into a wide, circular chamber. The walls here were darker smooth, silver glass polished to a mirror finish. A shallow pool lay at the center, the surface flat as a mirror, glowing faintly from within. Symbols spiraled outward from it, not carved but burned into the floor, each one flickering with soft mental resonance.
The moment he stepped in, his reflection rippled. And then the reflection smiled back.
Something stirred beneath the surface. The pool quivered, then exploded outward in a burst of argent fluid. From its depths rose three serpentine forms, sleek and elegant, their bodies composed of liquid silver threaded with veins of light. Their eyes were pure crystal cold, emotionless, yet all-seeing.
[Psychic Silver Dragonling — Level 9]
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Their bodies hovered just above the pool, the air rippling with psionic force. Their presence pressed against his skull thoughts like hooks dragging through his memories.
Show us your fear.
Show us your hunger.
Show us what you truly are.
Artorius staggered as images flashed through his mind. The Luck Dragon, its kind eyes dimming. The hatchlings he'd slain in the fields. The wurms tearing each other apart in the Bone Gardens. Every drop of blood he'd spilled replayed in perfect clarity.
He fell to one knee, gasping, lance clattering beside him. These things were mentally messing with his mind as he was experiencing the mother of all headaches. Blood dripped down from his nose, his eyes, his eyes… everywhere as they mentally assaulted him.
Then he heard himself, his own voice, mocking him. "Monster."
The serpent-like creatures moved as one closing in on him slowly, enjoying his suffering and upping the ante. Pain exploded behind his eyes. The world fractured into shards of color, the floor bending, twisting, warping. He felt himself pulled apart past, present, future every version of him screaming. His blood boiled. His thoughts bled away until he felt nothing.
He roared. It wasn't defiance. It was instinct. His inner self or was that his class, he wasn't sure, flared to life, golden fire burning through his veins. The psychic pressure faltered for a single moment and that was all he needed as he commanded. "STOP!"
The creatures who had at first reared back, hissing silently now froze in place. This time Artorius' command seemed to be all encompassing as the creatures could barely move as he snatched up his lance and drove forward. The first strike pierced one creature clean through, its body bursting into a fountain of molten mercury. But even as it fell, its voice echoed in his mind, "You cannot kill thought."
His killing blow seemed to break the creatures out of his command as the second one struck, coiled around him, fangs sinking into his shoulder. It didn't tear flesh, it drained memory. Faces, names, the warmth of the sun gone. Rage took their place. He spun, wings flaring wide, the wind shattering the silver mirror beneath them. The reflection fractured into a thousand pieces, each one showing a different version of himself: man, dragon, corpse, king, god.
He struck, breaking through the haze of memories as his lance blazed with Heroic Blow, the light golden and pure against the silver gloom. It punched through the creature's head, the psychic connection snapping with a deafening mental scream.
Two down. One to go.
The last hovered high above the pool, the largest, its scales glowing like moons. It stared down with perfect stillness, then spoke directly into his mind not with malice, but with pity. "You are a broken thing pretending to be whole."
The chamber darkened. The walls turned translucent, showing vistas of stars and dragons drifting through memory. The serpent's mind expanded, filling everything. He felt it prying through his memories, searching for something, but he was done playing these games.
Artorius snarled, dragging up everything left in him: pain, fury, pride, blood. The flame inside roared again. His will hardened. "Get… out."
The psychic storm collapsed inward as his aura exploded outward, golden flames meeting silver misty thought. The creature recoiled, its body flickering like liquid flame. He leapt, wings propelling him through the air, lance raised high. He drove it down through the creature's skull, straight into the glowing pool below. The explosion was silent, made of light and thought rather than sound.
When it cleared, the pool was gone and evaporated into mist. The mirrored walls were cracked, the runes burnt out. Shards of silver drifted down like ash. Artorius fell to one knee, panting. His nose bled. His head throbbed like it was splitting in two. But the voices were gone.
Killing them also seemed to have netted him some positives as he got: Congratulations! You have leveled up.
Archetype: [Leader] has reached level 3 – Stat points allocated, +1 Int, +1 Will, +1 Char!
Congratulations! You have leveled up.
Class: [Storybook Squire] has reached level 3 – Stat points allocated, +1 Str, +1 Con, +1 Char, +1 Luc!
All that remained was a whisper, faint but approving, echoing from the walls themselves. "Come," he heard a call. He simply stood, breathing the cold, silent air, and turned toward the final stairway—where the light of the summit waited, and something greater than all the others was calling his name.
-
Chapter 7 Recap!
Leveled up Race: Royal-Blood DragonMen to Lvl. 3!
+1 Str, +1 Con, +1 Dex, +1 Char!
Leveled up Leader Archetype to Lvl. 3!
+1 Int, +1 Will, +1 Char!
Leveled up Class: Storybook Squire to Lvl. 3!
+1 Str, +1 Con, +1 Char, +1 Luc!