WQ - XVI. The Tower

Up, up.

Hand over hand, sandals scattering sparks from window-ledges and alcoves. People inside the steeple gaped with astonishment as they were treated to a view through the window of scrabbling feet and swinging scabbards, to a glimpse of a beak-shaped leather mask as a small, dark figure pulled himself from trim to scaffolding, from buttresses to balconies. He climbed the highest tower in Vintergard…

…But it was still not high enough.

Rook perched and looked out across the capitol of Astorea, across the lively player-city in the woods. He could see where the tall buildings became tiny houses, then scattered farms, then vanished into deep woods.

Far to the west he could see the blur of Naryu Canyon, where Titanius (with its eyes! And its tentacles, and its deep-deep darkness) had slumbered and been defeated. To the East he could not-quite-see the ocean, the coast where he’d washed up like too-much-seaweed on the rocky shore. And below (immediate and imminent, like lava beneath his feet) could see the remnants of destruction—some from long-ago, some from the vile portal which had spewed its foul energy throughout the streets, some from pillagers and nobles turned-against-the-King.

But with his eye (his little eye) Rook spied something else!

Another tower—this one half-built, its base intact but laborers clambering up its sides like termites up a mound. They carried beams, prepared scaffolding like a wire-frame of which to shape their art around. A new tower, even taller than the one Rook stood upon.

But how long until it was done?!

…When the small man with the black hair and the mask and the no-words-no-voice showed up to help the construction crew, they gave him startled looks—but they did not complain. They were sorely short on willing hands, and only one other “adventurer” had joined them.

Rook saw @Ash Vargold and cocked his head to the side, small and passive, as if trying to place him.

Then he pointed.

!!!

Gestures! Sudden movements! The toolbelt around his waist jangled merrily as he leapt, pointing at the sky and then at the Caenis man. He sucked his arms in close to his sides and wiggled his fingers in his best squid impression.

“What the hell is this guy doing?” One of the carpenters asked in dismay, watching the energetic reenactment of the entire Hylands Rift. “C’mon, you two, stop playing around. We have work to do.”

Rook did not stop playing, but he did start working (for what it was worth.) He stuck close to Vargold like a small, beaky shadow. He made tentacle-jazz-hands insistently, pestering him for a response.

WORLD QUEST: BUILDING

 

To say Ash had "joined" the group might have been too charitable. He'd been in town, sure, and he'd watched the construction occurring with the vague curiosity of someone peering into the windows of a new shop. A passing interest, and little more.

...well, at least until the man that Ash assumed was the boss of the current operation had dragged him in. "If you've got time to stare, you've got time to help!" he had said, before pushing him towards the job of moving materials about the construction site for the builders who needed it. It was hard work, and tiring, but... in kind of a good way. It had none of the stress of combat, and there was something about the whole thing that staved off the dissonant fluttering of his heart.

Hell, he'd even started singing a bit, much to the confusion of the people around him.

"Side by side, you and I gonna live forever, let's party foreve- hm?" Someone was pointing and gesturing wildly at him across the site. They didn't look like one of the other workers, but they looked... familiar...

Salt breeze. Dark eels. Wind and light.

...oh. Oh. Now he remembered. He'd come through the same portal as he had, back in Titanius. The kid had apparently pushed himself too far and gone unconscious with the effort, and Ash...

Ash had gone back into the portal with the rest of the group, leaving him behind.

Old-fashioned guilt simmered in his gut, but there wasn't much time to drown in it - there was still more work to do, after all. Ash was quick to busy himself with it, in a vague hope that maybe the masked kid would lose interest, but... nope. Friendliness it was, then. "Ah, uh... hi. Yeah, I remember that. You're... doing well, it looks like?"

 

Doing well? Rook bobbed his head decisively, yes, he was well. He had been disappointed that Titanius (with its sac'lings and sizzling acid lake!) was slain before he could return to the fray, but alas, he would find other evils to fight and other players to duel! Perhaps @Ash Vargold could be one of them? The thought pleased him and he almost challenged the Caenis to a battle then and there except for another grumble from a worker, reminding him of his calling.

Not to work, or serve, or even to rebuild. To climb. To survey. To see and maybe glimpse a light (like a lighthouse) he could follow towards the truth.

“You two, up with the aeromancers. We’re going to need to carry this line up to the top and need a couple spotters. Hold ‘er steady!”

Pleased that Ash would be coming along, the dark-haired Quick secured his belt to the line (for safety!) and stood where he was told, upon a small platform rigged to an oversized parachute. It was something like a crane without mechanics. Fortunately, Rook wasn’t doing the heavy lifting—these workmen weren’t about to let a totally untrained passerby do the job they’d been trained for. An extra pair or two of eyes, however…

As the aeromancers slowly filled the balloon and the platform began to lift off the ground, ascending towards the dropoff point, Rook scuffed at the plywood with his sandals and cleared his throat. He wanted to hear about Titanius, and the battle back through the portal, and the aftermath! He’d found Corvella but the troubled knight had given Rook few details—he needed more—

“Rrrrr.” Was he saying his name? It was a trill like a parrot’s and he shook his head and started again. “Rrift? Rift!” Ah! That was enough, wasn’t it? Unfortunately the worker with them jumped at the word. “Another one? Wha—Gods and Goddesses, don’t scare me like that! It was enough the first time!” He made a gesture to himself with the air of a crossing-motion. Rook studied the man with surprise and glanced back at Vargold, cocking his head to the side as if to ask do you understand him? Rook made a puzzled sound as the platform continued to rise.

 

"Ah, yes, of course..." Ash put on his best face of cheerful acceptance, but it wouldn't take a mind reader to see the twinge of... fear? Resignation? The idea of heights didn't appeal to him, even in a game where one could at least theoretically survive a fall, or have ways to slow it. He followed Rook's example of tying himself off, and then up they went.

The aeromancers knew their job, most likely, and they had real death to worry about if they failed, but... damnit. Still stressful, especially when your entire job was to make sure the platform didn't wobble too much. Thankfully, there wasn't much else to it...

The masked player (he still didn't know his name, he really needed to ask) was... trying to speak? It seemed like he was having trouble, physical trouble and not something that could be explained by broken hardware or not understanding the language. Strange, but it wasn't something where he'd pry, and he seemed plenty expressive without words.

"Yeah, you should be careful talking about them, they get people... pretty understandably jumpy." It got him jumpy, too - @Rook the Quick would probably notice the way his hand tensed near where a sword would hang, or how his eyes were darting. Enough of Titanius' influence had seeped out into the world that a new rift opening up seemed a distinct possibility. But there was nothing dripping malice into the world around them, and eventually Ash relaxed.

"Are you... asking how the rift went? Or... oh. You mean what happened when the rest of us got back?"

It made sense. The masked man seemed eager back then, eager now... of course he would want to know. Ash just... didn't know if he was ready to talk about it. Though in the face of such an eager audience, readiness probably didn't mean much in the end. "Er... maybe when we're not so high up, I can tell you. Rather not... distract the workers keeping us aloft, y'know?"

 

It was here the rift had opened. From its mouth had poured not sea-snakes, not serpents there to feast upon its oceanic prey, but a deadly scourge of another kind. This one could not be stabbed through the eye and ridden back to the bottom of the sea. This one could not be strangled by scores of spirits, squid-shaped or no. The Vintergard rift had spawned liquid blackness, predatory, carnivorous. It was no mere acid, mindless and indiscriminate. It hunted.

It was no wonder the ordinary citizens of this world were so afraid; that the word itself invoked a trauma that distant Titanius to the West did not. The rift had appeared as suddenly as the Hylands one, belching evil and upheaval into their world and with the efforts of a few, disappearing again just as quickly.

...None of this was on Rook’s mind, however. He was watching-watching. Watching @Ash Vargold, watching carpenters. The platform would not shift or wobble, this structure would not fall! It had to stretch tall, tall— high enough for one small man to climb and look out from like the crow’s nest on the mast of a ship. Rook tapped the back of the Ash's hand and mimed moving it to one of the handles on the edge, a handhold for more stability. He seems worried! He should hold on tight, so he is not afraid. Rook nodded encouragingly, crouching down to demonstrate.

Once the uneven leverage had been adjusted, their ascent continued. Periodically the platform stopped for workers to take things from or pile things back on. Rook found himself with a stack of empty buckets. He kicked one off the edge to see how far it took to fall. “Hey! What’re you doing? Cut that out!” The worker who’d been with them exclaimed. Rook gave him a puzzled look, as if he didn’t understand, and looked back down. A distant tink could be heard as the pail finally hit the street. What fun!

Enjoying the wind in his hair, Rook secured the rest of the buckets with a cord and badgered the next foreman they saw when the tired aeromancy team swapped out for a break a little after noon. It took some scribbling motions and pointing and even a croaked “Plan?!” before the puzzled woman caught on. “Oh! You want to see the blueprints, huh?”

It took a little bit— Rook tapped his toes impatiently and followed Ash around while he waited—but the woman finally jogged back up. “Hey! All right, I got the specs from the architect, check ‘em out!” Beckoning the duo over to an unused worktable, the foreman spread the papers out. At last, the skeleton being built and their vision of the end product could be seen.

It was art as much as function, a gateway as much as a beacon. Not one, but two: paired towers, the mirror image of one another. It was strange, and beautiful, and invested as he was in its completion it did not occur to Rook to ask why such a project was underway.

 

Don't look down, don't look down...

The fact that death was temporary here - barring certain rumors, at least - didn't mean squat when faced with a fear of heights. Ash gladly gripped the railing, though the fact it put him closer to the edge was... well, anyway. He busied his mind with the job of spotting and shifting, though in a momentary lapse a bucket went over. He tried not to shoot too nasty a glare in @Rook the Quick, but he did make a mental note to keep a closer eye on him. The other player didn't look like kid, but his mind kept reading him that way - maybe it was his behavior?

You never knew on the internet, anyway...

For a while, Rook followed Ash, but when the plans came out the roles were reversed as Ash leaned over his shoulder (making his character tall was awkward, but it was amazingly useful when he wasn't bashing his head into doorways) to look at the plans. He couldn't help but be amazed - the mirrored towers looked like something out of a storybook, or... well, out of a video game. Their style didn't quite match the city around them, but considering that half the city was ruins... perhaps a new direction was what they needed.

"It's very pretty... the architect has a powerful vision." He looked out through the skeleton of the tower, across the gap to the mirror of the skeleton they stood in, and across the city as a whole. What would it look like, once this was done? What would visitors thing to be welcomed by these towers, glinting in the setting sun, or to stand inside while light scintillated across the floors?

"I can't wait to see what it looks like in real life. This could become an icon for the city."

 

The towers would greet the eyes of travelers on the horizon, the bastion of Astorea’s capitol—they would mourn the people lost to Titanius and mark the place where the black rift had seeped through the streets of Vintergard—and they would stretch higher, taller, greater and more beautiful than any other structure of the city. That was the architect’s dream, and it was their job to make it a reality.

Construction was coming along quickly. Almost too quickly, one might have thought—impossibly so. With as many magic-users as laborers, as many tricks and fantastical shortcuts as there was carpentry, the beams were set, the stories were stacked, and the foundation was laid.

Powerful, Ash had called it. Rook took off his mask while he sipped water, the leather beak dangling around his sucker-scarred throat like a makeshift necklace as he drank, thirsty and tired. Yes, powerful. Unreasonable, some might say—impractical. (But Rook didn't care! He believed in QUICK!) “We’re really supposed to finish the exterior next week?” he heard one of the workers muttering, clustered around the prints. “Man, forget getting any sleep. Guess I’ll see my family in a month, huh?” Another one threw down his mug in disgust. “Cutting this many corners is against everything I was taught, dammit, I wouldn’t set foot on this thing in a million years once it’s done. It’ll blow over at the first strong wind.”

Once dusk fell, many workers went home, but some lit torches and globes of magefire and continued laboring. It was clear they were meant to continue through the night. Rook tracked down @Ash Vargold again before the Caenis man could slip away, dropping down from a crossbeam or roof to land in front of the man. He pointed at the platform they’d ridden earlier, where the tired aeromancers had just been relieved by the new shift for the night, then sprang and jogged to it and beckoned the green-haired man over.

Crouching, Rook pointed up at the top of the tower. “All the way up?” one of them asked doubtfully and Rook nodded. “I don’t know, man…” The other said. The small swordsman's face became broody and he pointed insistently again. The first aeromancer slapped his partner on the shoulder. “Hey, it’ll be a good warmup before we start some heavy lifting, come on. Let’s take these guys up. You both hold onto something, and enjoy the view!”

Rook took the handle on one side as the wind below them increased into a powerful stream and the platform began to rise smoothly, up, up, past the rafters they’d stopped at before and up the narrowing spire towards the top.

The view of the city at night from its highest point—Rook wanted to see that.

 

The hours slipped by with the work - if anyone had ever told Ash that he'd spend a day off doing physical labor in a game, he wouldn't have believed them. Such was the power of Terrasphere, where even something like construction became interesting and unique.

With each passing mumble and mutter, Ash frowned, before putting his own magic to use. With paper charms and passing phrases he tended to tired limbs and weary souls. This was a place being built by the living, and for the living... but the city's dead couldn't help but take an interest of their own.

It meant that the half-dozing man slipping from his position found a helping hand as he grasped desperately for purchase, though as he panted on stable ground he couldn't see who had saved him from a long fall. It meant that the inspector with eyes glazing over nevertheless caught the loose bolt that could make the difference between a joint holding or collapsing, as if someone has whispered its location into her ear. Small things, but it was small things that could make the difference between life and death, and he dead had no need for more company today.

And throughout it all, he kept an eye on Rook as he tagged behind him like a shadow. If he winced at the scars at his neck, realized that perhaps he hadn't escaped the fight quite as unscathed as Ash initially thought, he didn't comment on it.

Day became night, and Ash found himself yawning despite himself. Save for the few moments he'd slipped away to log off and handle more physical needs, he'd spent his entire day here, and the lure of a cool room and a soft bed was powerful.

And then like a ghost the masked man appeared, beckoning him once again towards the elevator. "You want to go up again...?" he said, slightly exasperated. He was ready to say no, but... well. He didn't actually dislike the guy that much, for his unusual mannerisms and croaking silence.

And, well. He still needed to get his name.

So onto the platform Ash went, his grip on the railing not so deathly tight as before, and up they rose, higher and faster than before. "Please be careful," he muttered, but his voice was easily lost in the rushing wind. It wasn't until the ascent began to slow, the wind from the aeromancers dropping from gale to gust to breeze, that Ash risked looking out from the platform and across the city.

"...wow."

Even at night, lights filled the city. Gaslamps and magelight globes twinkled and bobbed through the streets and peeked out from windows. It was like looking at a mirror, the city a dim reflection of the grand, starry expanse above. Ash had never seen anything like it. Perhaps he never would again.

He leaned on the railing, glancing at @Rook the Quick with a defeated smile. "Alright, I'll admit it. This is freaking sweet. Thanks for dragging me up here." He took a moment to enjoy the view, this thing that he'd fought to protect, before letting out a sigh. "...you wanted to know what happened in the fight against Titanius, after the eels, right? To be honest, it... wasn't that great."

Behind them came a quiet gasp, a hasty whisper of "Wait, they were there?" before the back and forth shushing started. Ash disregarded the gossip as he continued, voice low. "The shield had already fallen, but people were still fighting strong, until... I guess Titanius decided he was done with us."

The memory was vivid. The cloying darkness, the oppressive silence, the erratic, monstrous heartbeat of the beast that even now seemed to echo in his own chest. It was a while before Ash finally continued. "It was... dark. Quiet. We were getting picked off one by one by Titanius. Someone - Astor, I think - called out for a final charge, and we did. A lot of us died... me included."

He inhaled suddenly, the sharp hitch of an interrupted sob. He pulled his mind out of the darkness, focusing on the sting in his hands as he slowly loosened his grip on the railing. Breathe in, breath out. "I don't know what happened after that, but... well. We won."

 

He wanted to go up!

Up, up. Higher, taller, faster, quicker. Rook dreamed of haste in magnitudes, of wild acceleration. His actions verged on promise of the exponential, the elevated. Of course he wanted to ascend— again, again, until they reached the pinnacle! He was a man of destinations and ends, a man of silent superlatives and breathtaking sights!

Oh, and it was a grand sight to behold. The afterglow of sunset was a soft wash on the horizon above the Astorean capitol, the sky still light as the city fell into shadow. This was the crow’s-nest vista he’d been hunting for, the bird’s-eye view the little swordsman had sought. Vintergard lay in two-dimensional splendor beneath the two men on the platform like an inverted blueprint, studded with a spiderweb of lights and lanterns. It was shining, and spectacular!

As @Ash Vargold spoke, his words strung a similar tapestry of sounds, a story spinning out from the origin point where Rook (slayer of eels, swimming ocean-sleeper) had been severed. The dark-haired youth was attentive, the tiniest nod or tilt of his head made prominent by his beaklike mask. He was a good listener.

A broken shield. A last stand. A synchronized sacrifice.

“It is... beautiful, very.”

His voice was uncertain and unsure, but it was not a question. He cleared his throat again. The wind had died down for a moment, making space for the quiet man’s struggling speech. Both the sight before them and the one behind them, by past or distance. “Ah. Lucky. Me, and you. Both are....” He hesitated and then gave a decisive nod. “Lucky. To see.”

To see what they had! To escape destruction! To stand on the peak of ambitions and plummet, but to survive nonetheless! To carry on! That was the pinnacle of strength. Rook was grateful for the darkness. He was grateful for the feelers that had erupted from his soft throat, was grateful for the bloody battle, or what he’d seen before it came to its fruition. Each moment was a building-block of growth, of promise, of ascension— time would tell if these cornerstones would crumble, but Rook was not afraid.

He saw that Ash had stopped holding onto the handle, that the Caenis man stood on his own two feet on the windy platform. Good! He should not be afraid either. A breeze ruffled Rook's hair as his eyes returned to the horizon. Yes, perilous as the fall might be, the heights were that much more sublime.

(And from the top of the half-constructed tower out over the city, across the city, beyond the city, Rook saw a distant gleam.)

The future had never seemed so amber-gold!

FIN​