The Fractured Tower

Usually, the portraits in Sorin’s space showed him in the middle of using whatever the soulprint did. Might of the Hunter bucked that trend. Sorin was nowhere to be found, his presence instead being replaced by the golden-maned lion he’d just killed. It dominated the entire painting, majestic and ferocious at the same time.

The instant it materialized, energy rushed through Sorin’s battered body and renewed the strength of his limbs. Fatigue sloughed off him like a snake shedding its skin, and he straightened to his full height. The pain didn’t disappear, precisely, but it was somehow less important, a background annoyance rather than the screaming ache of his muscles having torn themselves apart from overuse during his battle.

Like the lion that embodied it, Might of the Hunter wasn’t a complex soulprint. It was powerful and direct. It simply made him more of everything physical. His strength, his stamina, his agility, and even how sharp his senses were all multiplied. More than that, his ability to endure pain was magnified in conjunction with the massive boost to his regeneration rate.

Sorin took a minute to just admire the painting. It was a fitting testament to the guardian he’d claimed it from, one he wouldn’t mind duplicating in the real world if he’d had the time and skills. Many years ago, he’d taken it up as a hobby, but he’d never been able to measure up to what he was seeking to emulate. The paintings had also felt strangely personal, making him hesitate to share them.

This one was proud by its very nature, made to be adored. And yet, the more Sorin looked at it, the more the smile slipped from his face. It was magnificent, but it also felt... lacking in some way he couldn’t define.

“How can you be a complete soulprint that’s still missing pieces?” he asked the painting.

Because it doesn’t feel like it’s mine. It’s a portrait of another creature. It needs more of me to fully realize its potential.

And he had the pieces already. Blood of the Mountain and Warrior’s Vigilance were right there, both equal in size to Might of the Hunter. Unlike the latter, they’d been with him for months. He’d molded them to perfectly fit his needs each time he’d boosted them up a rank. They were true reflections of him in a way this new soulprint wasn’t, not yet. But it could be.

Merging those three soulprints together created something greater than the sum of its parts. It gave Sorin the opportunity to shape Might of the Hunter to fit him perfectly. Right now, it was the distilled essence of the guardian, a power not yet his own. Two soulprints could increase his strength, but they might do it in different ways. One way fit his style of fighting better than the other. That was the difference between Warrior’s Vigilance and Might of the Hunter. The latter gave more raw power, but he could better wield the former to maximum effect.

The result was an enormous, sprawling oil painting that utterly dwarfed the rest of his soulspace. It glistened, the metaphysical paint still wet, in a frame made of light. Instead of just a portrait of the guardian, it showed him standing there. He had all the same poise and pride, and the lion lingered behind him, framing his figure and supporting him.

Words failed Sorin when he tried to think of how to describe it. All he knew for sure was that the thought of sharing it no longer existed. This wasn’t a display piece, meant for the world to see and admire. It was a personal declaration of his own power and control over the world around him.

Lion’s Blood. My first B-rank. Everything I went through was worth it for this alone.

Sorin came back to himself, his hands still clinging to the lion’s mane. They didn’t shake anymore. Nothing about him resembled the man he’d been half an hour ago. That Sorin was frail, timid by comparison. He survived through raw cunning and skill. That skill was still there, but now he had the proper lever to apply it.

Sorin released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and unclenched his fists. Straightening up, he stepped back from the lion’s body. “Thank you,” he said simply.

Then he recovered his trove of soulprints and walked into the lion’s den. The exit had opened at the back, a simple cleft in the stone leading to a pseudo-Antechamber where the tower-forged cache waited for him to claim it.

* * *

Sorin passed through the darkness and into an Antechamber lined in white ivory with red stone highlights along the edge. There were six waist-high pedestals waiting for him there, lined up in a semi-circle. Each contained a single chest.

Sorin set down his bag and started on the left. He flipped the lid back, revealing an oval of grey slate with a single line etched through it vertically. There was no question what it was, not after looking for it for so long.

“Can I use this here, or do I need to go to a full Antechamber between floors?” he asked. Shaking his head, he said, “I don’t know why I keep expecting you to reply.”

The second chest contained a pair of ivory daggers that reminded Sorin uncomfortably of the lion’s great incisors closing around his head. They were magical, painfully obviously so, but Sorin couldn’t begin to guess what the enchantments were. Tower-forged gear rarely felt the need to constrain itself to human understanding of magic.

Though daggers weren’t his primary choice of weapon, Sorin wasn’t about to scoff at such a powerful set. Someone somewhere would put them to good use. They went onto his belt to ride on either side, just behind his hips so as not to get tangled up with his sword.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The third chest was a soulprint known as Eyes of Light. Sorin stared at it blankly for a second, then scowled. He wanted to absorb it immediately, but adding his first B-rank to his soulspace had left him short of room. If he played it right, he thought he could fit it in, but it would require merging a few things together if he wanted to keep his ability to free cast C-rank spells.

Before I do that, let’s see what’s in the other three chests. There might be another soulprint that changes my plans.

The fourth and fifth chest were the least impressive rewards, probably. One was a belt buckle depicting a roaring lion’s head viewed in profile. The other was a shard of bark from one of the common savanna trees. Without being able to tell what they did, he couldn’t say for sure what use they were, but he wasn’t going to discount them yet.

The sixth chest was different from the others. They’d had objects resting in padded interiors. This one flew open on its own the moment he touched it. What looked like a chunk of prismatic crystal floated into the air, hovered in place for a moment, then flew forward and struck Sorin in the face. He never felt the impact, though.

* * *

When he opened his eyes, he was looking down at five people standing on nothing but an ever-shifting corona of light. With a start, he recognized himself there, and not the new, young Sorin. That was him in his original body, crow’s feet, salt-and-pepper hair, and all. Right next to him was Zellick. Nhiv was on his left, and Meto stood next to her. Imuran stood slightly apart from all of them, just like always.

“It’s just... None of this is what we were expecting,” Meto said.

“Supposed to be a reward at the top, not more work,” Zellick muttered darkly.

“This is what your ancestors agreed to when I agreed to shelter them,” a voice Sorin didn’t recognize said.

Is that the tower? We actually spoke to it? Is... Is this the tower’s memory of the conversation?

“And how long ago was that?” old-Sorin asked.

“I do not experience time the way mortals do. I can only say that the ones who arrived have all passed on.”

“You mean you ate their anima,” Imuran said.

“That is the fate of all who die within my reality,” the tower agreed.

“And all of this is just to grow better snacks,” Meto said, his shoulders sagging. “All the struggle. All the suffering. The pain.”

“Necessary. Humans must be cultivated in order to be useful. It is a long, arduous journey. Your souls cannot be stuffed with so much of my anima so casually. It must be expanded gradually if you are to survive the process. Only through overcoming challenges can you grow into what your ancestors agreed to become.”

Meto frowned up at Sorin, or rather, at the avatar of the tower they were speaking to. “And those who fail become food for you, which is... everyone.”

“That is the way of life. All things are consumed to provide life for something else. I could have simply devoured your ancestors when they first arrived rather than give them the chance to grow.”

“Wouldn’t want to harvest the crop too early,” Imuran spat out.

Old-Sorin raised a hand to silence the chorus of agreements. “Setting the fate of countless generations of people aside for the moment, explain to me why you need our help. Don’t you control everything?”

“The eldritch darkness is anathema to my light. It is an infection, one that I have contained longer than your species has existed. I wish it to be fully excised and destroyed. Your ancestors wished for the same. They said the darkness had consumed their home. That was why they fled.”

Nhiv spoke up for the first time. “It’s just like you. It’s an anima-devouring entity, a soul eater.”

“Yes.”

“Destroying it might save you, but then we’re still trapped inside your reality.”

“Not so,” the tower said. “Has your kind truly forgotten the pact it swore with me?”

The five climbers exchanged confused looks. After a moment, Sorin said, “I guess so. Maybe the people in these other towers remember it, but it’s been lost in ours.”

“You shall nourish my reality and purge it of the eldritch darkness. In return, I shall shelter you, be the ground upon which you walk and the sustenance that sustains your life. I shall be the ship that sails through the stars until the darkness is banished and a new world is made ready for your arrival.”

“Wait, so... you’re saying that we destroy the void, and the tower doors open? Everyone is free to leave?” old-Sorin asked. “What’s... What’s the world outside even like?”

“Your Floor 0s are modeled after the outer reality, though of course it is not so limited in space.”

“What happens then?” Imuran asked.

“Those who wish to climb may enter my reality and test themselves. Should they fall, their anima will nourish me just as it does now. Those who do not may live out their brief existences beyond my bounds.”

“Guys,” Zellick said. “I think we have to do it.”

“We don’t really have much of a choice,” Meto pointed out. “Our ancestors agreed to it. We’re just the first people to actually make it to the top of a tower and finish the preparation stage.”

“Incorrect.”

“What?”

“You are the third group to reach this point.”

“Well, what happened to the other two teams?” old-Sorin asked.

“The first team was how I discovered that simply grafting the soul modifications on directly results in the host dying.”

“Oh,” Zellik said in a small voice, looking a bit queasy. “Guess I’m glad we’re not the first, then.”

“And the second?” old-Sorin pressed.

“Killed the rest of his team after they overcame the final aspect manifestation.”

Sorin didn’t need to experience the rest of the memory to know the tower meant Samael. It didn’t surprise him to learn that when they’d been deciding how to split up, that he’d volunteered to take the red tower, either.

“The process is not without its drawbacks. Your own anima must be converted into the modifications, which will force you to climb once more to regain your current strength. It cannot accept mine the same way it does for what you call soulprints, not for this,” the tower informed them.

Huh, that old crackpot theory was right, after all. Soulprints are just the anima of the tower, Sorin thought to himself. Another great mystery of the tower revealed.

“We’ll have to go it alone at first. Once we can move between towers, we can link back up and finish the climb,” old-Sorin said. “It’s too bad this other climber is such a piece of shit. We could finally have ended Zellik’s whining about needing a sixth.”

“There is no point in strategizing,” the tower told him. “Your minds are not equipped with the capacity to remember this encounter. It is only with my active assistance holding your senses of self together that allows you to form a coherent thought right now.”

The light flared, blinding Sorin and, judging by the startled cries below, the rest of his team. When it cleared, he was back in the Antechamber, and the shard of light was gone.