Wizards tower 3 a litrpg.., p.10
Wizard's Tower 3: A LitRPG Adventure, page 10
After weeks away from my bed, I was asleep in mere moments and felt refreshed when I awakened the next day.
The morning brought with it several surprises, not the least of which was a mild regret when I saw the stone bodies of Orwell and Murettita, if those were their real names. I wondered if perhaps I had acted hastily or if I could have handled the matter better. I couldn’t think of a better solution, even the next day, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. Petrifying the two was only putting the matter off for later, and I knew it. I had put so many matters off for later that it left me feeling uneasy.
It didn’t help my feelings when I noticed the faces Philipe and Drina made as they saw the statues. In hindsight, I could have chosen a better location than the first floor to explain they would have to pick up on some extra duties. Still, that half-circle table was the best place for the other meetings I had today. The other residents of my tower were very tactful and didn’t broach the subject, the cooks going so far as to pretend the statues weren’t even there.
The first of my other meetings was with my former assistant Kine. He was the first to enter, carrying a bag over his shoulder. The man looked to be in high spirits, though, as he approached my curving table and sat down across from me.
"Good morning, Master," he said cheerfully. Then he paused as he noticed the two statues. He shook his head as if dismissing an errant thought, then placed the bag in front of me. "I wanted to show you something."
"Good morning," I answered, happy he was in a much better mood than when we last spoke. He had seemed overwhelmed with the administration of a small village of refugees then.
Kine spoke as he began to unwind a string that closed the bag. "The village's children wanted to do something to thank you, and came to me for guidance. While I wasn’t certain what they planned to do before speaking with me, I noticed that you have an interest in unique clothing. I suggested they make a hat."
"Oh?" I didn’t expect anything from the rehomed orphaned children at all, least of all a gift. It had been a long time since I had been given a gift without some kind of ulterior motive behind it, so I felt a little excited at the prospect.
Kine’s hands undid the final string, but he paused before revealing the present. In a conciliatory tone, he said, "Master, the children want to present this to you, but I know how you are. I thought to show it to you before they did, so that you wouldn’t be too surprised."
That warning didn’t bode well, but I was still excited. With a smile and a wave of my hand, I motioned for him to continue. And he did.
He revealed a monstrosity, a disaster of epic proportions. The thing was so hideous I couldn’t help but grimace. A single tight band of brown cloth at the bottom made a cylinder, but the top was outrageous. Strips of cloth of every color and type imaginable had been woven together haphazardly.
Together, the band and strips might have presented the general shape of a beaten mushroom, but the sheer unsightliness of the thing was far, far worse than the shape.
"Oh." Were the children looking to mock me? Had I done something to earn their ire?
Kine scratched the side of his face. "So… you see the reason I wanted to show it to you before they presented it."
"Indeed. Do they expect me to… wear it?" I asked, not able to keep the apprehension from my voice.
"I’m afraid so," Kine answered.
"Hmm."
I stroked my beard as I stared at the most tragic form of headwear I had ever seen. Perhaps I should ready myself to depart today before they got the opportunity? I shook my head. No, it looked as though each child had contributed their own bit of cloth, and I didn’t want them to think their thanks were unwelcome. Most were orphans that had already lost much and traveled far. I didn’t want them to feel unappreciated.
And yet…
Yet, the thing resting on the table before me was absolutely hideous. I could maybe wear it once for the children and then stash it away to never be seen again. Yes, that I could do. It would be easy to claim that I didn’t want to damage something so valuable.
With a sigh, I looked back up at Kine, who sat with a nervous and hopeful expression on his face. "Very well, but—"
"It won’t happen again, I swear!" he answered fervently.
I nodded. "Good. Is that all?"
Kine began rewrapping the Death of Fashion in the bag. "One more thing. A minor grievance. With your new guards, and the village raised, the men are complaining there aren’t enough women."
I snorted. "And?"
Kine looked resigned as he spoke, not daring to meet my eyes. "And they would like to know if they could visit some of the flowering ladies from time to time."
"Flowering ladies? The nature elementals? There is a good chance they will be eaten if they do. Are they aware of that?"
"They are, and consider it an acceptable risk—from my understanding." Kine had finished hiding That Which Shall Not Be Named back in its bag, but still wouldn’t look me in the eye as we spoke.
It was a complicated request. On the one hand, I hated the idea of anyone relating any part of my tower to a brothel. On the other hand, any man stupid enough to be eaten in the attempt should probably be removed before their idiocy created a worse problem. Or, worst of all, before they bred and created an entire family line of morons.
I tapped my finger on the table as I thought about the matter. Kine waited patiently, though he shifted about in obvious discomfort. It took long moments before I made up my mind.
"I’ll consider the matter later," I pronounced definitively.
Kine nodded once—whether in agreement or acceptance, I couldn’t tell. "I’ll let them know, Master. Have a good morning!"
I bid him farewell and waited for the Sister of Elora to enter. I didn’t recall this one’s name, but she seemed relieved to see me and bowed low.
"Good morning, Lord Fargus," she called from her bow, though she remained bowed.
"Good morning, Sister. Please have a seat." I gestured to the chair Kine had just sat on a few moments ago. Then I waited as she approached, sat, and spent far too long trying to situate herself.
I had little to differentiate her from the other sisters, as they were all about the same height and wore the same garments, but if I had to, her eyes were a little more widely spread and her lips a tad bit thinner.
It was only after her sixth tug to straighten the same sleeve that I spoke, "Sister, you wanted to see me?"
She didn’t answer right away; rather, her shoulders fell. She placed her hands into her lap and stared at them for a moment. I wanted to push the conversation along, as I had numerous research plans that I would be looking into in my laboratory after this meeting. I also feared she was here to resign her position, and I was completely unsuited for that conversation.
When she finally did look up at me, it was as if she resolved whatever turmoil she had been facing. "Lord Fargus, the goddess Elora has sent me a divine message to communicate to you."
I tried to hide my surprise, but I wasn’t certain how well I did. The young woman continued regardless of my expression.
"The goddess wanted me to tell you to prepare yourself for a betrayal. That a woman close to you will break your trust soon."
A woman close to me would break my trust soon? With the presence of her statue nearby and the recency of it, I couldn’t help but think of Murettita’s false identity as a slave. If that was the warning, it had come too late. Was there another woman close to me who would betray me soon? If it wasn’t the assassin, who could it be? Loralie? She was close by. Chelsea? I wouldn’t be surprised if she betrayed me by accident, but I doubted she would do so intentionally. Lilly? She had left, so she wasn’t that close.
The other assistant hired, Drina? That was possible. Orwell had been a spy or something close to it. It also called into question Rhaela the Red’s loyalties, as she had hired them both and volunteered to be a spymaster of a sort. If I had hired someone else’s spy as my spymaster, how foolish would I be?
We spoke a few minutes more on simple matters, such as the ongoing construction of the temple and how the orphan children were faring—small talk of little import. Yet her goddess's warning loomed over us both.
Afterward, I thanked the sister for her message and departed for my laboratory. I could consider the matter further while I worked.
18
I had just seen the young woman out and was six steps down the stairwell when I heard her scream. I stopped mid-step, and my foot hovered in the air as I considered my next course of action. Of course, I should go see what she was screaming about. Yet, in my heart, I simply wanted to keep walking down the stairwell to reach the laboratory I hadn’t set foot inside for several weeks. It called to me, as new ideas for experiments swirled in the back of my mind like words on the tip of my tongue.
I knew if I turned around, those vague thoughts might never solidify into proper ideas. I closed my eyes and tried to force them up, but those nascent ideas slipped through my fingers. With a heavy sigh, I turned myself around and went back up my staircase to see what the woman’s scream was about. If it was over something silly, like a rat, I would be very upset.
Yet when I opened the door and walked out onto the bridge over my moat, I only saw her standing still. One hand covered her open mouth, and her terrified expression was cast towards the skies. When I followed her gaze, I saw what she did: Thousands upon thousands of wyverns were flying over the tower, headed northeast.
Seeing monsters in those numbers would have terrified me as well, had I not spent time floating above an ocean of hydra. Not that I wasn’t wary; I was. It would only take a small change in their direction to go from flying overhead to landing around my tower, and I had few magical safeguards against powerful foes in such numbers.
No, I wasn’t frightened at all, I realized as I sneered upwards. Wary? Yes. Cautious? Yes. Annoyed at the interruption in my day? Very much so. I turned and walked back inside my tower, heading upstairs to the roof for a better view. Guards ran up and down past me, each carrying armfuls of bows or quivers of arrows. Philipe stepped forward to walk by my side on the second floor, awakened by the commotion.
At the top of the stairwell, six different guards whispered to each other as they looked out onto the rooftop. I could see and hear their fear clearly, as they refused to take the final step that would place them outside the tower, but they moved aside when they saw me. Given that I had an audience around me now, I stepped forward onto the rooftop with dignity and grace, rather than the irritated pace with which I had carried myself up the stairs.
There were two guards, a man and a woman, already outside on the rooftop, both with bows readied but not drawn. I ignored their salute and relieved faces as I walked towards the center of my rooftop and beheld the spectacle above me. There were so many wyverns in the air that they made the sunny morning feel overcast. Most were 4th Tier monsters, but there were hundreds of 5th Tier greater wyverns mixed in.
I’d never much cared for the look of the things. They lacked the elegance of drakes. I had once attempted to correct the illustrations used in the Adventurers’ Guild and around the capital. Some famed artist had drawn them to appear as flying drakes with a scorpion’s tail, which was a misrepresentation at best. The things' bodies were shaped closer to that of a hornet, with a thick, bulbous tail. It was absurd that the rendering had become so widespread, especially as it risked the lives of adventurers hired to slay the monsters. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been successful at the time, owing to the death of the artist. My attempts at fixing a misconception had come across as an attempt to slander a dead man’s name, and no number of reasonable arguments would even be heard on the matter.
Just thinking over that time pushed my annoyance with the wyverns even further, and I couldn’t help but frown. Today was to be my day for experiments! I wouldn’t get many more days like this until my responsibilities with the Pestilence were completed, and those seemed to grow greater by the week. Not that this was anyone’s fault but my own.
Soon, the guards and my assistants braved the rooftop to stand near me. I considered casting more wards on the tower and village below, but the wyverns showed no interest in us. I began considering sending one to fetch wine while I watched. Guarding against the possibility of attack wasn’t the most thrilling of experiences.
Yet as I was about to openly voice my request, the swarm shifted. In the very center of it flew a wyvern larger than the rest. Its wings spread at least three times wider than the others and beat much more slowly. Curious, I cast an [Analyze] spell and was dumbfounded by the results. This beast, an [Ancient Greater Wyvern], was a 6th Tier monster! Even from the distance, I could see its head tilt towards me, and an all-too-intelligent eye met my gaze.
I couldn’t help but shiver with fear and excitement. I had traveled across Sena and Mirktal and Tervan for years in war. I’d adventured and fought numerous beasts and monsters. I had studied tomes of secret and forbidden knowledge and called upon the powers of the elemental planes. In all of my experience, I had never heard a word or seen proof of any being beyond the 5th Tier. I had suspicions, of course. Yet, those suspicions included suppositions that it was the Tier of gods and planar rulers. The Tier of dragons now gone.
Yet here before me was proof that this Tier existed. That the world was still far greater than I knew. And if 6th Tier monsters existed, it meant something even more important to me. Something that I knew would drive me forward for decades to come. If monsters existed at that Tier, mortal monsters, then there must also be mortal magic. What outlandish new spells would I find? What concepts of magic and what complexities in spellforms could I learn?
I found myself elated at the prospects and filled with a joy I hadn’t felt in years. I couldn’t help but laugh. The laughter erupted out of me in deep, uncontrollable booms. I didn’t care what those around me thought, nor what expressions they made. I didn’t care that rumors of me laughing beneath a swarm of deadly monsters might find their way back to the king and nobility. No, I cared some. I just didn’t care enough to stop myself.
The thrill of hope and potential was burning inside my mind for the first time in more than a century, and that feeling was worth more than any amount of coin, titles, or land.
19
Three days passed in a blur of excited experimenting. I berated myself for being annoyed at the interruption in my plans, as the inspiration I felt from seeing such a powerful monster was more than enough to replace whatever tiny ideas I’d had beforehand. Feelings of impatience were something I still struggled with often, despite my relative age.
My first experiments with petrification were all dismal failures, unfortunately. Breaking off a limb and repairing it using earth manipulation didn’t result in anything positive once the squirrel or rat was unpetrified. The limb would either remain as stone or return to flesh, only to slide away from the main body. If it remained stone, it would be stone attached to the body that weighed the creature down and caused it to drag the limb around.
Further experimentation showed me that any damage to a petrified body was experienced in full once the petrification spell was removed. When I moved an additional limb from one to the other, it created a horrible, gory mess—which was still an improvement from my fear that they would turn into an abomination.
Likewise, the addition of more stone to a petrified creature would not provide any additions to their flesh or body once they were unpetrified. The animals that I tested the idea on rarely survived, and the ones that did screeched in pain. Creatures returned to life with stone melded throughout their bodies in disturbing ways, only to die moments later. The only mild success was a squirrel I’d topped with a stone casing, which was able to return to its normal form—and then be promptly crushed by the stone that it had been underneath.
Given that stone was not living, and I could find no magic patterns in the spell that would cause an extension of life, it appeared that petrifying and unpetrifying a person would only halt their aging process at the time of the spell. It wasn’t any true extension of their life at all, but rather a period frozen in time. The lack of success here was a disappointment that might have left me perturbed on any other day, as it was yet another branch of magic that proved unfruitful in regard to furthering my own research into longevity magics. Yet, for these three days, my excitement and enthusiasm felt infinite.
I did find that summoning an earth elemental into the petrified form of a being changed the elemental entirely. I had used a selection of four petrified rats and three petrified squirrels for the experiment, and found that each elemental summoned into one exhibited the behaviors and instincts of the animal rather than what I would have expected from an elemental. The fusion also corrupted the elementals in some way, making it so they did not return to the Plane of Earth upon destruction.
This had unprecedented possibilities with regards to petrified people, but I was loath to begin experimentation immediately. Would a petrified human possessed by an earth elemental act like a human? Would it retain Skills and Tiers? If so, it would be far and above the benefits offered by golem guardians. However… would it retain its human memories? That was a line I wasn’t certain of crossing. Even if such a being could recall their past, and I could find a way to heal the moving statues with earth manipulation, I wouldn’t want to curse anyone with that kind of life.
I, for one, didn’t want to fathom the idea of being made immortal at the cost of not being able to drink wine again.
Were humans aware of the world while petrified? I didn’t think they were. I needed to look into that soon, or I would risk that the two I had petrified might lose their minds. Yet I was also unsure if the inclusion of an elemental could change their awareness. If they were aware, I couldn’t trust that either wouldn't attack me on depetrification.
