The Tower

Shelter From the Rain

"Woah! Look at that, Raiju!” Felix shouted, pointing ahead of them. Rising above the horizon was a tower, if you even wanted to call it that. It was quite chaotic in appearance, with random protrusions, openings and ledges with no discernable purpose. Based on the nearby trees, Raiju guessed it was about three stories high.

Just as he was wrapping his mind around the sight, there was a flash, followed by a roar of thunder. “We need to move quicker,” Raiju said. “The storm front we have been watching all day has caught up with us. Maybe we can take shelter in that thing.”

“Oh, I hope so!” Felix said, delight crossing his face. “It looks like a really interesting place.” He had turned to walk backwards, facing towards Raiju.

Felix was quite average looking. He had medium brown hair that he kept short, but not remarkably so. His eyes matched his hair. He was shorter than Raiju, so less than a hundred eighty centimeters. The one thing that did stand out about his appearance was his strength. He was solidly built, and Raiju could attest to his ability.

On the other hand Raiju could not help but be drawn in by something about Felix. He had never followed anybody before, preferring to strike out after his goals alone. But something about the insatiable positivity of this man before him pulled Raiju along in his wake.

And, showing a bit more of that boundless spirit, Felix grinned and spun on his heel. “I'll beat you there!” he shouted back at Raiju as he began to run. Of course, as he did, Raiju felt the first fat raindrop his head.

“Great, guess we're getting wet tonight.” Raiju glanced up at the darkening clouds before taking off at a run himself. He was not trying to beat Felix. The man also had an extreme competitive edge, and Raiju would not get pulled into his games.

“Come on slowpoke! Is that the best you can do?” Felix called back, having turned to run backwards in order to look at Raiju.

Raiju felt a vein throb in his forehead. “Slowpoke?” he growled. “I'll show you slowpoke.” He sped up, bringing his jog up to a full run. It wasn't until he was catching up to a laughing Felix that he realized he had been pulled into Felix's game. It was too late to back out now though. Raiju capitalized on Felix's lackadaisical attitude and passed him as he was turning to start running seriously again.

As they closed in on the tower, Raiju could see it was situated atop a low hill. That would make for a tough finish to the race. A quick glance showed him that Felix was a decent distance behind though, so Raiju was feeling pretty good about his lead. Or, he was, until he noticed Felix had stopped at the base of the hill. Then, with a roar to rival the thunder above them, Felix leapt, launched forward by an explosion of fire. He rocketed past Raiju and straight towards the tower.

“Ah, crap,” Raiju said. “That idiot is going to get himself killed.” Raiju took off into a full sprint, and watched incredulously as Felix rocketed into a patch of large mushrooms growing around the base of the tower. A cloud of spores bloomed around him, but Felix emerged unharmed and laughing.

“That was totally crazy! Oh, and looks like I won Raiju.”

Raiju pulled to a stop as he reached the base of the tower himself. “You just about killed yourself, and you're worried about who won a race?” Raiju shook his head. “I've decided to follow a madman.”

Felix just laughed harder. “Come on, lets find the door.” He started making his way around the tower, knocking on parts of the wall.

Raiju began moving the opposite direction. The rain was starting to fall harder, and he was eager to get out of the storm. He met Felix on the opposite side, where he was standing in front of a door, examining it closely.

“Traps?” Raiju asked.

“Probably,” Felix answered. “Its made of a smooth metal, so it is probably from the First Era. Everything from back then has traps.”

“Well, they just wanted to keep pillagers like you out,” Raiju said.

“Hey, you're with me now. That makes you a pillager too.” Felix stuck his tongue at Raiju. “Anyway, there are some runes on here, but I have no idea what any of them do. I'm just going to blast the thing.” Felix took a few steps back, and Raiju stepped behind him, trying to hold his cloak against the rain. Felix leaned forward, protecting his hands from the rain. He formed a small fireball between them, and launched it at the door. It struck the door and fizzled out, but then a wave of ether pulsed from the door, striking the both of them.

Raiju's vision went black, and he felt as though the very space around him was being folded. “Great... teleportation trap,” he thought.

As his vision came back into focus, Raiju found himself in a cage. Hopefully said cage was also inside the tower, a likely prospect given the difficulty inherent to long range teleportation effects. As he looked around the room — it was circular, probably an entire floor of the tower — he quickly spotted Felix standing in the center of the room. The center of the room was otherwise clear. Around the wall were tables, shelves, a couple of tall and nondescript humanoid statues, and the cage that Raiju was being held in. Felix was looking around as well, and spotted Raiju quickly.

“There you are,” he said, the energy in his voice not dampened one bit. “Good thing you're nearby. That could have been bad.”

Raiju rolled his eyes. “Yes, hopefully you will learn restraint before you kill us. Anyway, it isn't all sunshine. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm trapped.” Raiju sent a small bolt of lightning towards the bars, where if fizzled out. The cage was protected against magic, of course.

“Right, well, I can figure that out and free you.” Felix resumed examining the room. Raiju was about to join him, peering from between the bars, when he saw motion from the corner of his eye. One of the statues had animated and was crossing the room towards an unsuspecting Felix.

Raiju shouted to warn Felix, who spun quickly, his normally jovial demeaner vanishing in an instant. His ability to to enter this battle state of his still sent a chill down Raiju's spine. Raiju also had to admit a degree of admiration for Felix's improvised fighting style. He generally fought with just his body and his magic, although he was would utilize his surroundings whenever they would lend an edge.

Felix leapt into action with barely a thought. He flung a small table from against the wall at the statue. As the table flew, the various trinkets and tomes that had been covering its surface scattered as well. Felix dashed after the table, and as it struck the statue, he slid low underneath it. As he passed the statue, now distracted by a table in its face, Felix hooked one of its legs with one arm. With the other, he fired a quick blast of fire to boost his momentum, tugging the statue's leg out from underneath it.

Raiju watched Felix move out of the corner of his eye, preferring to watch the cloud of objects flung from the table, hoping to see something useful. A glint caught his eye, and Raiju spotted a small key — the kind common to the First Era — fluttering through the other objects.

“Felix, key!” Raiju shouted, pointing towards where the key landed just beyond Felix's current reach. Felix glanced where Raiju was pointing, and reached to grab the key. However, the statue was quicker to recover than expected. It flipped itself over, grabbing onto Felix's legs to prevent him from moving towards the key.

The statue rose back to its feet, dangling Felix by his legs. “Well, this seems a rather unfortunate position,” Felix said, the humor rising in his voice once more. “Lets see if I can't break something important.” Felix lashed out with a fist, punching the statues knee. Raiju winced as he did. He could not quite wrap his head around Felix's reinforcement techniques, which helped him hit hard things — like this stone statue — without feeling so much of the backlash. Raiju considered the technique useful, but he had not had much cause up to this point to hit things much harder than flesh. Prior to meeting Felix he had, like most sane people, avoided First Era ruins, where things like animated statues were most likely to be.

Reinforcement technique or no, Felix's blow had done little to affect the statue. It continued to hold him in the air, as if considering what to do with its target. Not giving the statue a moment to consider, Felix attacked again, this time focusing a jet of fire at the things face.

“Fire isn't going to work stupid! Its made of stone!” Raiju yelled.

“Sure, but I am not much good with any other sort of magic attacks. Hold on, I am going to try something.” Raiju winced preemptively. Every time he had heard Felix utter that phrase, he tried something totally bizarre. And, sure enough, Felix met expectations. He began swinging around the statue, then blasting fire behind him to propel him more. The statue stumbled a little, but started to recover. Not giving it the time to do so, Felix had already swung the other direction, blasting again. This time the statue fell to a knee, losing its grip on one of Felix's legs. Felix took the opportunity to use his hands to launch himself into an uppercut kick into the statue's face.

Felix's kick knocked the statue backwards, and as it fell, it let go of Felix altogether. Felix maintained his momentum, and landed gracefully on his feet. He turned and dashed towards where the key had fallen and tossed it across the room at Raiju before squaring back up on the statue as it rose.

Raiju caught the key out of the air and scrambled to insert it into the lock. He finally got it lined up just right, a tougher prospect than he liked. First Era keys were very small and fit tightly in their locks. This compounded with having to blindly try to unlock himself delayed Raiju more than he liked.

When he had the door flung open, the statue had backed Felix against the far wall of the room. Raiju began to chant a quick spell before flinging a few orbs of force at the statue. The orbs impacted, blasting large sections out of the stone. The statue paused, and Felix lashed out with a kick, knocking it backwards, where it cracked into large chunks. Whatever spell had animated it dissipated as the statue lost structural integrity.

“There, that is why you need to have a variety of spells,” Raiju growled at Felix. “That way, next time I'm stuck in a cage, relying on you to get me out, I have a prayer of you being successful.”

Felix just laughed, any remainder of his battle face leaving. Choosing to move on from Raiju's comment, Felix instead turned to the rest of the room. “Look at all the stuff in here. I wonder if any of it is useful? Or valuable, I suppose.” He crossed to a table and began sifting through the contents.

“Careful,” Raiju warned. “You never know if anything is cursed. You wouldn't want to pick up something nasty because you were being careless.” Felix stopped touching everything on the table, opting instead to eye it over, more carefully. Raiju sighed. “And besides, look around. What is missing from this room?”

Felix looked around, confusion evident on his face. “I dunno, what are we missing? Oh! Wait a second, I see now. There is nowhere to start a fire to cook dinner. That is bad. Maybe we can find something elsewhere in the tower.” Raiju waited for Felix to notice what he had as Felix looked around the room. “Hold on a second. How do we get anywhere else in the tower?”

“Took you long enough. No doors, stairs, or even windows. We're trapped.”

“Well, looks like it. These First Era ruins can be tricky like that though. Those wizards from back then really didn't want people messing with their stuff.”

“Right,” Raiju said. “That is why most people don't mess with their stuff.”

Felix raised an eyebrow at him. “Come now, we won't make it anywhere in this world without delving a few old ruins. Come on, you'll even find it fun someday.” Felix grinned. “Now, lets see if we can't figure out how we are supposed to get out.”

“Hmm, it might help to figure out what this room was used for in the first place,” Raiju said, scratching his chin. He moved over to a table himself and began looking through everything. A quick scan with ether detection showed him a few things that had signatures strong enough to be enchanted. There was a teakettle and four cups, a rolled up piece of parchment, a ring of metal about five centimeters in diameter, and a stub of wax. The parchment was probably a scroll holding a spell, but Raiju had no clue about the other objects. Not that it particularly surprised him. He was not very good at reading ether signatures, he mostly used it to locate enchanted items and such.

Raiju decided to risk picking up the scroll. He unrolled it, and puzzled over the diagram for a moment. It appeared to be some sort of summoning spell, but that was far from Raiju's specialty. He considered asking Felix, but his new captain had shown a staggering lack of the fundamentals of magic. Raiju had no idea how Felix had managed to become so proficient at fire magic with his inability to interpret even basic spell diagrams.

Shrugging, Raiju tucked the scroll into his pack, and moved to the bookshelf next to the table. As he did, Felix called, “Hey Raiju, check this out!” Raiju turned to see Felix tossing a ball in the air repeatedly, before catching it again. At the apex of its trajectory, the ball flashed with a burst of blue-white light. Intrigued, Raiju scanned its ether signature, but strangely enough, found it had no more ether than a standard unenchanted object of its size.

“What is going on with that?” Raiju asked. “Felix, careful. That thing doesn't have a particularly strong ether signature.”

“What? Really?” Felix asked, more excited than cautious. He caught it and began turning it over in his hands. “How does it flash then?”

“It must be some kind of First Era technology. Surely you must have heard of the artifacts recovered with indiscernible functionality.”

“Yeah, sure,” Felix said in such a way to convince Raiju he had no idea.

“Look, nobody knows how these things work. That is probably one of them.”

“Really? Why didn't you just say that the first time?”

“Do you really not know what the phrase indiscernible functionality means?” Raiju asked, feeling concerned.

Instead of answering, Felix just tossed the ball to Raiju and began examining the contents of his table once again. Raiju remembered just in time to avoid looking right at the bright flash, and managed to catch the ball as it reached him. It looked to be made of glass. After turning it over a few times himself, and finding no clue as to its purpose, Raiju set the ball onto the table next to the tea set and turned back to his bookshelf.

As he perused the shelf, he quickly found a common theme about the books stored here. There were some books on the fundamentals of animating non-organic objects, and the rest seemed to be in depth manuals on various configurations of animated objects, including a few on golems. As he reached the end of the shelves, Raiju turned back towards Felix.

He was about to tell Felix about his discovery, but found that Felix was now in the cell Raiju had been trapped in earlier, door locked with a pair of handcuffs holding his hand behind his back. The chain linking the cuffs looked much smaller and more delicate than what should be able to hold Felix, and an examination of the objects ether showed that it was indeed enchanted.

“What did you do now?” Raiju asked. “I turn away for a few minutes and find you chained up.”

“I just picked them up,” Felix protested. “Next thing I know, they have my hands like this. Definitely not fair, there should be some kind of warning or something.”

Raiju rolled his eyes. “This is why I told you to be careful. You never know when something is going to work in ways you don't expect. Shouldn't you be more used to this than me? You're the one that likes delving ancient ruins.”

“Hmm, I guess that is true,” Felix said after pondering for a moment. “But, in all fairness, I have never seen a pair of handcuffs that lock up whoever touches them.”

Raiju sighed. “There are going to be a lot of things you have never seen before, idiot. If you keep poking every little thing, you're going to die before long.”

“Right, right, sorry,” Felix said. “I promise to work harder on ether detection. Now, can you help me get out?”

“Right, well, we are looking for another key then. I suppose we can't be so lucky that the same key is for both the prison and the cuffs.” Raiju picked up the key he had unlocked his cell with and opened the cell again. To his shock, the key fit the cuffs perfectly also, and they fell off of Felix.

“Woah, cool! That is lucky,” Felix said, grinning broadly. He took the key from Raiju before picking the cuffs back up. This time, the cuffs did nothing except hang from his grip.

“Well, that makes sense, I suppose. There should be a way to use them without getting yourself trapped. They key must specify you as the owner.”

“Which is super cool!” Felix said, twirling the cuffs a few times before looping them over his belt. “Finders keepers,” he said with a wide grin.

“Anyway,” Raishu said, redirecting the conversation before Felix could get started on something else. “I suspect this room was a workshop for a wizard from the First Era. I would further surmise that he was focused on animating objects, if the bookshelf and statue are anything to go off of.”

“Well, that would explain those then,” Felix said, pointing at a number of small statuettes marching about on the tabletop he had been examining. Raiju moved closer for a better look. The tiny statues appeared to be modeled after some sort of military, though not any that Raiju recognized. They looked to be nothing more than curiosities, as their ether signature was fairly weak for an enchanted object.

“Interesting,” Raiju said. “Though, I don't know if there is anything useful there. Anyway, we need to focus on figuring out how to get out of here.”

“Right, well I have an idea. Though, I don't think it is the way you were looking for,” Felix said, giving Raiju a serious look for once.

“I don't like that look,” Raiju said cautiously.

“No worries!” Felix exclaimed. “It will definitely work. It just might also cause a little... destruction.” Felix grinned.

“You look altogether to happy about that fact. Also, I don't think we have exhausted our avenues of investigation. We should try to find the right way out. There is no way the wizard built this room without an exit.”

Raiju returned to searching the room. Hours later, he had found nothing of note. He had catalogued a few more enchanted items, and looked over a couple more shelves, largely dedicated to construct animation, but there seemed to be no clues on how to leave. Felix had been no help at all, having turned to play with the animated soldiers not long after they had last talked. He had since fallen asleep.

Rather than waking Felix, Raiju decided to sleep as well. It had been getting late when they had entered the tower, and the room did not seem to have any pressing dangers. He barely felt as though he had begun to sleep when he was woken by Felix shaking him.

Raiju popped to his feet before realizing there were still no dangers. “What was so important that you needed to wake me?” he asked Felix.

“I think I figured out how to get out of the room!” Felix said, excitement beaming from his face. “Though, I suppose this means I don't need to blow a hole in the ceiling.” If he was disappointed about this, it didn't show on his face.

Raiju decided it best to ignore the comment about wanton destruction. “What did you find?”

“Here, under this rug in the middle of the floor. There is some kind of spell circle.”

Raiju considered for a moment. “How exactly did you discover there was a spell circle under the rug?”

“I pulled it aside, obviously,” Felix said, pointing to where the rug had been rolled to one side of the room. Indeed, there was a spell circle beneath it. Raiju moved to get a closer look at it.

“It looks like it should have some sort of teleportation effect,” Raiju said after looking at it for a moment. “It is not a simple one though. I think it may be keyed to several locations. Perhaps this is part of what brought us here.”

“Do you think you will be able to activate it?” Felix asked, moving to look at the circle next to him. “I for one can't make heads or tails of it.”

“No kidding,” Raiju said dryly. “I am not much more than a beginner at spell formula, but you make me look like a genius. How did you manage to attain your level with fire magics without studying any fundamentals? You still haven't really explained that.”

Felix laughed. “Not much to say. It just comes naturally I guess. Anyway the spell circle?”

“Hmm, I might be able to. This is a bit complicated, but I don't think it requires much for a trigger. It may even be keyed to an enchanted item in the tower. Tough to tell if it would be an item in this room though.” Raiju's eye fell on the strange ring he had noticed earlier. He decided to take a risk and picked the ring up. It did not immediately harm him, so it was unlikely to be cursed. Further, when he stepped into the spell circle, he felt a sense that he could send himself, plus anybody else in the circle to a few distinct locations.

“Felix, get in the circle. I think this is how we navigate the tower.” Felix stepped in beside Raiju. Then, Raiju focused on one of the locations, briefly annoyed that they were not in any way labeled. Trial and error it was then.

Once again, it felt as though space itself folded around him, and Raiju opened his eyes to see a much cozier room than the previous one. This room held a couple nice sitting chairs, a small fireplace, and a dinning table with chairs. There were also windows, showing that the weather had cleared up outside, and dawn had come again.

“Lets stop to eat!” Felix said, moving towards the fireplace.

Raiju snatched the back of his shirt. “We shouldn't. We still don't know what sort of traps could be in here. I would rather get out as soon as possible.”

“Awwee,” Felix whined. But, he stayed in the circle alongside Raiju as they teleported again.

The next area was a well furnished sleeping quarters. Raiju looked with desire at the bed, still feeling sleepy from the poor sleep he had gotten. He forced that image out of his mind as he focused on the final location. This time they arrived in a foyer area, with coat racks, tile floor, and formal sitting. There was also a door in the wall. It appeared to be the reverse side of the door that had teleported them into this tower.

As Raiju was looking around, Felix nudged him. “We have an issue. The teleportation must have used quite a lot of ether. A voidling is on its way.”

Raiju gave Felix a sharp look. “Can we beat it? I've never fought one before.”

“No worries,” Felix said, though his grin was tight. “I have a plan. If it doesn't work, just cut it to pieces. It feels like a small one anyway.”

As they were speaking, a tear began to open in the space before them. A shiny black claw — long like a mantis' claw — stepped out, the surface of it appearing as though it were drenched in crude oil. The claw was followed by a second, then a third, and finally a fourth. The claws were attached to an egg shaped body with many long insect like legs supporting it. There were no discernable features on the body aside from its limbs, but the creature still managed to shriek a discordant, multi-toned warble before charging the pair.

“Hold it off a second!” Felix shouted as he dove to the side. Raiju went into an immediate retreating defense, freely giving ground while blocking what slashes he could. He tried to angle himself to keep moving around the circular room and not get caught against a wall, figuring that would be suicide. Whatever Felix was planning needed to happen quickly, because this thing was very aggressive with its four bladed claws. As he was thinking that, a slash made it past his defense, slicing through the sleeve of his shirt.

Another claw was headed his way, and Raiju knew he would not be able to block, when the voidling suddenly seemed to fold, then vanish. Felix was standing behind where it had been, grinning. “It worked! We need to move quickly though, I suspect it won't take much time to break free.” Felix grabbed Raiju's arm and pulled him quickly out of the tower. “Did it cut you?” he asked, noting the tear in Raiju's sleeve.

“No, just barely missed. What did you do to it?”

“Cuffed it,” Felix said, grinning broadly.

“Oh, that was a good plan then. Pity about losing the cuffs, although they probably don't work outside the tower anyway.”

“Yep. Its a good thing you didn't get hit. Wounds from voidlings can get nasty.

“How exactly was I supposed to 'cut it to pieces',” Raiju asked. “That thing nearly had me in pieces.”

“Yeah, I would have had to give more support if the cuffs didn't work. Its a good thing they did.”

The two charged north, away from the tower. “Well, that was nearly a bust,” Raiju said. “I managed to pocket a spell scroll of some kind, but nothing else.”

“I got a several of those army men,” Felix said, pulling one out of his pocket.

“Those could be useful if we can figure out how to command them.”

“Maybe. Though, I just think they are cool,” Felix said, his broad grin sliding back into place.

“Well, better luck next ruin, I suppose,” Raiju said. They were nearing a mile from the tower, and the base was out of view, so they slowed back to a quick walk.

“Yep!” Felix said. “Onto the next adventure!”