Tower climber 2 a litrpg.., p.14
Tower Climber 2 (A LitRPG Adventure), page 14
29
Sakura was back in her office at the climber’s guild about two hours after the worst monster-wave Zestiris had ever seen.
“I understand,” said Sakura on the phone to the mayor of the outer-rim.
The man was absolutely furious and was berating her for the entirety of the phone call.
She couldn’t blame him either.
This was never supposed to have happened and it had on her watch.
“I thought we followed all these rules because you freaks were protecting us,” said the mayor. “How did that thing end up getting from your side onto ours?”
“Well, that’s the thing, Mr. Mayor,” said Sakura. “The monster didn’t start on our side. He spawned in the outer-rim—”
“I don’t care how it happened,” spat the mayor on the other end. “Just that it did and that my people are more terrified than ever. Angry, too. You know we’ve been dealing with riots here on our end. The people are asking questions. Getting fed up with these rules. Oh man—this is just what I needed. I’m up for re-election in a couple of months, you know?”
Sakura tried to placate the mayor as much as she could. She didn’t have a strong answer for why after decades of the monster-wave never going as far as the outer-rim, suddenly—after the events of this evening—things had changed. She was in the dark on this one just as much as him.
When she finally got off the phone, she pulled out her cupboard and picked out a pack of painkillers. She swallowed the pills down to relieve the pounding headache in her forehead.
The last words she said to the mayor weighed on her.
“I promise I’ll find out how this happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Max and Casey had been sitting in Sakura’s apartment for almost three hours until the climber president stepped through the door.
They both stood up off the couch at attention when she entered.
“Is everything okay, climber president?” asked Casey.
“Please, Casey, call me Sakura,” she said. “And, well, things are a bit chaotic right now, that’s for sure.”
“Is there anything we can do to help?” asked Max.
Sakura shook her head.
“With this matter, no,” she said. “That’s because I need you two to deal with something even more important. Please, sit down.”
Sakura walked to the kitchen and turned on the electric kettle and got three mugs out.
“I’m sorry to have kept you two waiting,” said Sakura as she fished out a box of chamomile tea in a kitchen cupboard.
“What’s going on, Sakura?” asked Max. “Why are we meeting like this? Why all the secrecy?”
Sakura didn’t speak again until she’d poured them three mugs of tea. She brought the two mugs out for Casey and Max and then went back to retrieve her own. She then sat down on a sofa chair across from the two young climbers.
“So when you defeated Derrick of the Hidden Vipers, he left behind a black feather. As did the assassin who attacked you many months before as well. Do you know what that black feather symbolizes?”
Both Max and Casey shook their heads.
“The black feather is the mark of a very evil organization of inter-floor tower terrorists known as The Fallen Angels.”
“Tower terrorists?” Casey said as Toto took a sip out of her mug and squealed in pain as it burnt its mouth.
“That’s correct,” said Sakura. “Not much is known about them, but we’ve been made aware of some of their activity from the other active guilds and races higher up in the tower.”
“Are we going to notify those other races about this attack by them down here?” said Max.
Sakura shook her head.
“Not yet,” she said. “The situation is more complicated than that. Now that we can link The Fallen Angels to both Samuel Archer and the Hidden Vipers we can see the group is trying to sow discord on the lower floors. I’m still not sure why exactly or what their end goal is, except that they wish to create chaos and destruction. That’s why contacting the other guilds higher up might create more hysteria than we wish. It could be playing right into the organization’s hands.”
“So what are we going to do?” asked Casey.
“There’s been a very peculiar lack of information coming out of floor-10 at the moment, which makes me worried that The Fallen Angels have been trying to reap a similar kind of destruction in Elestria just as they did here in Zestiris.”
“We have to warn them then,” said Max.
Sakura sighed. “They haven’t been communicating with us for the last few months. That’s where you two come in.”
Max and Casey blinked at Sakura.
Is she being serious? Max thought to himself.
“But Casey and I—we’re just two E-rank climbers,” said Max. “Aren’t we a little low-ranked to be dealing with inter-floor tower politics of this magnitude.”
“Yes and no,” said Sakura. “Yeah—I wouldn’t normally assign such a sensitive mission to E-rank climbers. However, the current situation warrants it. We need climbers to investigate what’s happening on floor-10. If we send high-ranked climbers to poke their nose in Elestria that could create a thorny diplomatic situation.”
“Why though?” asked Casey, perplexed.
“Yeah,” said Max, chiming in. “Why is it so wrong for Zestiris to check things out? Wouldn’t Elestria want our help?”
“It’s the rules of the inter-floor peace treaty,” sighed Sakura. “And you have to remember: of all the races in the tower who choose to climb and explore further, humanity is the youngest and the weakest. The other tower-races hardly give us a second thought, just consider the fact that none of them have embassies or outposts here in Zestiris.”
Sakura’s words made Max shiver. He thought about Sakura, Samuel Archer, and even the previous climber president. They’d all displayed incredible strength and power to him. It was terrifying to think what else might be out there if humanity was the weakest of all the races in the tower.
“So, you see the tightrope we have to walk here, right?” said Sakura, taking another sip of tea from her mug. “Yet, two young E-rank climbers heading up to floor-10 isn’t out of the ordinary. You were heading there anyway, weren’t you? Well, now you have just one more reason to go check it out.”
Max and Casey looked to each other.
Max turned back to Sakura and shrugged. “Well, sure, I guess—”
Sakura’s face went red and a vein formed in her forehead.
“Um, I think you mean, ‘Yes, climber president’ or have you forgot who you’re speaking too?”
Both Max and Casey’s shoulders jumped, even Toto’s face had taken on a serious expression.
“Yes, Ms. Climber President,” said Max, lifting up a small bag of groceries from the floor. “Is now a good time to tell you I brought ingredients for bacon and egg ramen?”
Sakura’s angry face disappeared and she lent back in her chair and smiled.
“Now is a perfect time,” she said. “A good meal is exactly what I need after the day I just had.”
A few floors above Zestiris, in the land known as Elestria, was a small village engulfed in flames.
Smoke filled the alleys and streets of the quaint village like a fog.
Dead bodies laid on the ground.
One man walked through the main street with a casual air. He had medium length black hair with bangs that rested just above his cold calculating eyes. He wore a black suit with waistcoat vest with a white shirt and black bow tie. The man was known by his infamous title: The Gambler.
Death didn’t bother the man.
Certainly not death and destruction that he’d caused personally.
No, he celebrated such carnage. Such chaos.
It may have been the very reason he did such things, but he wasn’t sure.
Maybe, maybe not.
He flicked a coin in the air as he walked past more dead bodies.
Innocent villagers. Entire families.
Another man, hunched and deferential, ran up to the black-haired well-dressed man.
“I have frustrating news, sir,” said the man.
The Gambler grimaced. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?”
“It sounds important though,” said the hunched man.
The Gambler sighed. “Go on.”
“Intelligence says the Hidden Vipers on the lower floors have been wiped out,” said the man. “Will this hinder our plans?”
The Gambler shook his head. “It’s too late now for Zestiris or anyone else to stop our work here; but inform our agents on the floors below to keep an eye on anyone attempting to ascend to Elestria.”
“I’ll get straight on it, sir,” said the hunched man.
“Now leave me,” spat The Gambler. “Can’t you see I’m working?”
The assistant scurried away as The Gambler made his way further down the street of the burning village.
The smell of smoke and ash filled his nostrils. Burning wood crackled nearby. A man—a blacksmith—lay dead in a crimson puddle of his own blood.
A quivering crying voice echoed down the street.
It was the voice of someone who’d just witnessed unimaginable horror dealt to those he loved.
It was who The Gambler was looking for.
It was the mayor of this pitiful spot of a village.
The mayor laid on the ground on the stone steps in front of his home. He squirmed in pain. His left leg and right arm were broken.
His eyes bulged in both terror and rage as he saw The Gambler approach.
“...Why...?” gasped the mayor.
The village lay along a very important river that connected to the different capital cities on this floor. By systematically burning down the villages that dotted the river, The Gambler was breaking down the supply routes of the two capitals. Once you break the supply chains, people will get upset. When people are upset, they start to protest and riot in the streets.
The Gambler shuddered with pleasure—chaos would reign.
“Why, why, why,” snickered The Gambler. “That’s all people ever ask. My answer is always the same: why not?”
The mayor shook on the ground, crying at his misfortune.
People were all the same, thought The Gambler. Human or Elestrian or whoever else.
Their decision-making processes he always found strange.
Here The Gambler stood, the creator of all of this poor man’s problems and yet he did nothing but cry. Whimper like a baby.
It was pathetic, thought The Gambler. But such predictable behavior always meant one thing: this man would be willing to play.
The desperation in the mayor’s eyes told him so.
“Don’t cry,” said The Gambler. “How about we play a game?”
The mayor continued to shake in terror and pain on the ground.
“A...game...?” he asked, barely able to gasp out the words.
“Yeah,” said The Gambler, pulling out a pair of dice from his pocket. “A game. A bet more like. We’re both going to roll a pair of dice and whoever gets the higher number wins. If I win, you die and the rest of this village goes up in flames with you. If you win, everyone still alive gets to live and I leave you fine folks to continue as you were.”
The man looked at him in shock.
The Gambler had seen that look plenty of times before.
The look always meant the same thing.
You can’t be serious? were the words painted on the mayor’s face.
But The Gambler knew. As shocked as the mayor may seem, the decision was already made.
The Gambler reached out with his hand, his palms open, holding the two dice for the mayor to grab.
“Wanna play?”
The mayor, shivering, picked up the dice and clutched them in his hands.
“Your fate is now in your hands,” smiled The Gambler. “Good luck.”
The mayor clutched the dice like his life depended on it, which to be fair, was true.
The mayor took a deep breath and sighed.
He threw the two dice onto the ground.
They bounced on the hardened dirt and continued to roll.
The mayor’s eyes bulged as the dice toppled forward.
His fate belonged to whatever numbers appeared.
The dice came to a pitiful halt, revealing their numbers. A one and a four.
“Tsk tsk,” said The Gambler, taking a big puff from the cigar in his mouth. “I thought you’d be better at rolling dice than that.”
The mayor shivered and began to cry.
“Please don’t kill me.”
“You think I’m going to kill you before we’re done playing our little game?” said The Gambler. “You think so little of me to go against my word? You offend me, Mr. Mayor.”
The man picked the dice up from the ground.
“You see,” said The Gambler. “I still have my own roll to make. You could still win, though let me tell you your odds aren’t great. On average the most likely roll of a pair of dice is a seven and you rolled less than that. If I were a betting man, I’d bet on you to lose. Good thing I did.”
The Gambler threw out his hand and let the dice fall out from his palms and tumble to the ground.
Tears fell down the mayor’s face as he watched the dice bounce and roll, watching his fate get decided right in front of him.
What’s the difference between watching a dice roll or seeing your own executioner sharpen his axe? Both involve watching your fate be decided for you, mused The Gambler. So what’s the difference? It’s the abstraction of the dice. They create their own reality separate from the one you live in. One of chance and luck. A reality of hope.
The dice landed firmly on the ground.
The Gambler looked down to the numbers to see what they were.
A one and a five.
The Gambler laughed.
The mayor’s head fell in despair.
“You were close mayor,” laughed The Gambler. “I only beat you by one.”
“Please,” said the mayor. “You don’t have to do this...”
The Gambler winced.
“That’s where you’re wrong mayor,” said The Gambler. “We set the rules down together. Our fates are linked. We can’t escape what we agreed upon.”
Then, without a second hesitation, blood burst forth from the mayor’s eyeballs.
The man was dead in less than a second.
Simultaneously all around him the town burned even more.
The Gambler kicked the dead mayor gently.
“Dear Mr. Mayor, do you know the saying: ‘the house always wins’?” he smiled. “Lucky for me, I’m the house.”
30
The following day, Max got up bright and early and met Casey outside the climber’s guild hall.
He waited by the doors as she hugged an older man and woman.
That must be her parents, Max thought. They look nice.
Then something unexpected happened. All three of them started walking towards him.
“Max,” said Casey. “These are my parents.”
The two grown ups smiled at Max.
“Oh hello,” he said, holding out a hand to be shaken. “It’s nice to meet you.”
The father, who was shorter than him, walked up really close to Max and looked up at him suspiciously. He then poked Max in the stomach.
“You’re a bit funny looking, eh?” said the man.
“Honey,” pleaded the mother to her husband.
“What?” groaned Casey’s father. “The way my daughter talks about you, I would’ve thought you’d be less funny looking is all?”
Max wasn’t sure how to respond. He just scratched the back of his head.
The father turned back to Casey.
“Are you sure this guy is going to keep you safe up in there?”
Casey grinned. “I think you got it the wrong way around, dad. I’ll be the one keeping him safe.”
The man chuckled. “That’s my girl.”
He turned around and looked Max over once more. “Well, goodbye and good luck, funny-looking boy.”
The man went over and hugged Casey once more and Casey’s mom came over and gave Max an unexpected hug.
“Don’t listen to my husband,” whispered the old woman in his ear. “You’re very handsome and he knows it. So does my daughter.”
The mother then let go of Max and gave her daughter one final hug goodbye.
Casey waved them off and watched them walk down the street.
She wiped a tear from her eye and said, “Alright, we ready to go?”
“One last thing,” Max said as they stepped inside the guild hall.
He marched up to the mission board and grabbed an old mission slip that no one had signed out.
“You gotta be kidding me,” said Casey. “You’re taking another mission with us.”
“No one’s signed this one out,” said Max. “And it bugs me. It’s a merchant who needs help getting to Elestria. That’s where we’re heading, I figure we might as well take it.”
“Seriously? It doesn’t even offer a reward, though?”
“That’s why I like it,” said Max. “This person needs our help. Let’s give it to them. Also, they might be able to tell us more about Elestria. Think about it as research.”
Casey made a face. “Wow, you’ve so quickly turned what I imagined was going to be an exciting adventure into something that sounds a lot like homework.”
Max beamed a smile.
“I don’t know what your problem is,” he said. “I like homework!”
Max signed out the mission and they started heading for the tower entrance.
“WAIT!”
Max and Casey both stopped and turned around.
Sakura was standing behind them. Her face was pale and serious.
“Give me one second,” said Max to Casey, before he walked towards the climber president.
“Sakura,” he said. “I’ll see you soon, okay? As soon as—”
The climber president’s arms instantly wrapped themselves tightly around Max. She squeezed herself against him in a tight embrace.
