Thirty minutes later, Wallace returned, ready to leave. I suggested he warn the crowd before I summoned the blood clone. He used his megaphone-like ability to get everyone’s attention and told them what I was about to do and not to panic as it would be harmless. The crowd backed up, a mix of fear and excitement on their faces.
While sittin' around and waitin' I’d figured out how to modify my UI a bit, it was fairly intuitive. Summonin' the clone was as easy as mentally selectin' the tiny icon at the bottom of my vision with the image of my drake’s face on it. The air next to me rushed out in all directions, displaced by the huge drake. Cries of alarm rang out in the crowd. I mentally prodded the drake to extend its wings and unleash a bestial roar. A dick move I know, but I just had to. Even I was surprised by the volume, the roar vibrated the ground, the organs in my chest, hell, I felt it in my balls. It was a sound designed by god or nature to induce fear in its enemies. Some of the crowd fled briefly, calmin' only when they looked back and saw the huge beast hadn't moved from its original position. I struggled to hold my laughter in. It was time to get to business, so I scanned the drake's spiny back. I couldn't see us sittin' there without receivin' a wound to a sensitive area. Lookin' around I found a small cluster of white mushrooms with red polka dots on the caps about the size of a barstool seat. I whipped out my new sword and prodded the caps, they had some give to them but they felt sturdy enough to sit on. I chopped off six just below the cap, throwin' the extras into storage, carryin' the rest over to my clone. I climbed up my drake’s shoulder and shoved three mushroom caps soft-side down onto the central spines just behind its neck, spaced out a bit to give us some elbow room. I tested the front one out. It wouldn’t hold up long term but it would do for a quick flight. I'd have to figure out how to make a couple or three saddles out of boar hide at some point. My clone somehow seemed even bigger from up here, sittin' on its back ten-feet or more above the crowd around us.
“Ready to go whenever you are Mr. Mayor,” I said, grinnin'.
Wallace’s complexion had paled, a sheen of sweat beaded on his face. “Just Wallace will do. I left the mayor’s office behind years ago.” The gray-headed man looked like he was probably fit at one point in his life but had gone soft with age. Still, he managed to climb up and take the middle seat. Wiesner took the last seat and I mentally commanded my drake to take off as gently as it could. It took several runnin' leaps forward, flappin' its huge, powerful wings. Wallace grabbed hold of my cloak to maintain his balance. We picked up elevation just in time to miss the closest towerin' shroom caps. Soon we were well above the colorful polka-dotted mushroom forest. Beyond the mushrooms lay more familiar lookin' forests of trees, even if the trees were unknown to me. Here and there godlike trees towered over everything, some rising a mile or more in height, the roots at the bases of their trunks spread out like mountain ranges. We seemed to be in a wide valley between one of these ragged mountain ranges, far in the distance on our other side a massive volcano emittin' a plume of black smoke was surrounded by smaller mountain peaks. Wiesner reached forward to tap my shoulder and pointed in the direction of one of the ragged peaks, a river ran down its slopes and occasionally pooled into clear blue lakes. I noticed somethin' in the far distance in the direction of the settin' sun, so far I almost didn't see it, but it must be huge to be visible from here. It looked like a black string connectin' Terra to the Heavens. Decidin' to investigate I mentally nudged the drake towards it.
In the back of my mind I could feel the drain flyin' put on my blood clone, hours of life force were being' consumed per minute. I originally infused the clone with one year of my life force, it being a creature much larger than me it made sense it would burn energy more rapidly. Overall the cost was minor though. I’d just have to reinfuse it periodically and kill more beasties if I got low, which didn’t seem likely.
The strange object grew more impressive the closer we got. It had appeared like a tiny thing on the horizon when I first saw it. After flyin' towards it for about five hours at a speed I guessed to be forty or fifty miles-per-hour the object now appeared to pierce the clouds like a pitch-black space elevator with the circumference of a football stadium. As we neared it, I nudged my clone to descend. The area surroundin' the base of the object was barren soil, stones and scattered piles of bones for a mile in all directions. Our landin' was a bit rough, Wallace damn near fell off, grabbin' my shoulders at the last second to avoid it. Finally on the ground, we walked over to the tower. There were no doors, windows or any discernible features that I could see. Up close it did have some kind of pattern in its pitch black surface, remindin' me of carbon fiber but not as distinct. The pattern occasionally shifted, as if tiny, ghostly runes were being reordered on or in its surface. It gave off a feelin' that it was alive, sentient. I walked up and put my hand on it before thinkin'. After the fact, I realized it could’ve killed me, but luckily it didn't. I did get a system message though.
[Do you wish to enter the Millenium Tower of Ascension? Please note that death in this dungeon is final. Each level is designed to be more difficult than the last. After defeating a level you will be presented with the option to leave. If you return, you can start at the bottom or continue where you left off and ascend further up the dungeon tower. Once challenged, the tower must be challenged periodically until completion. If a new level is not defeated once per month, the denizens of the lowest floor will be released upon the surrounding area and each level will marginally increase in difficulty. Reaching the top will grant significant boons to those who defeat the tower, as well as the option to reset the tower difficulty.]
“A dungeon!” I exclaimed. “The Millenium Tower of Ascension. I think we should put our town right by it. Eventually it could grow into a city surroundin' it. People might teleport here from all over to climb the tower and we would control access.”
Wallace seemed disconcerted, “What about our people? We have less than a day left until the safe zone drops. There’s no way you can fly a thousand people here in that time.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“I agree with McLain,” Weisner stated. “This could set us up for the long term. We’ll just have to fight our way from there to here.”
Wallace grimaced, but gave a reluctant nod, “That makes sense. It seems likely we’ll be fighting either way. I would have preferred being dropped near a friendly native town. I suppose we’ll just have to make the best of it.”
“We’ll bunker down at night and travel durin' the day,” I suggested. “Should be easy enough to make temporary walls out of the shroom caps.”
“What if we just sleep on the mushroom canopy? Away from the forest floor.” Wallace suggested.
“We hunted earlier from the canopy,” Wiesner said. “Makes sense that other predators would too. McLain killed that drake miniboss fairly easily, but if another one, or hell, several attacked at night from the canopy or sky… we’d be sittin' ducks. We’ve no clue what’ll come out at night or where they’ll come from. For all we know, the ground we sleep on might not be safe.”
Wallace held up his hands in mock surrender, “I’m convinced. Let’s head back and try to get the others onboard.”
The flight back felt relatively quick but nightfall was fast approachin’. We found our group without an issue; from the sky a thousand people clustered together stuck out like a sore thumb even with the partial coverage provided by the shrooms. After landin', Wallace returned to his stage, the mushroom cap, and explained the situation. Many people wanted to use my town buildin' plan right here while the safe zone was up. Wallace simply explained that the town buildin' plan was mine and the decision was ultimately mine. Some idiot yelled out that they should just take it from me and build it. My response, after I laughed heartily, was to prod my blood clone to release a massive gout of liquid fire onto the stalk of a huge nearby shroom, engulfin' it, topplin' the cap and turnin' it all into cinders over about five minutes. Durin' that time no further comments were made about takin' my loot. The end result was obvious; we would leave, but in the mornin'. Nightfall was an hour away I guessed. The safe zone would drop sometime in the mornin' so tonight we could sleep without fear. Some crafty individuals fashioned lean-to shelters usin' small shroom caps propped up with wooden poles, providin' decent protection from possible rain or wind. Me and Wiesner made ourselves busy by headin' into the forest collectin' firewood for the night. A couple dozen people followed us and helped out. I told them to just make a big piles out in the forest and I’d tote it back. Once back at camp we made a huge bonfire with a stack of wood next to it standin' two-men high. I went ahead and butchered our last boar, roastin' and sharin' it out. I only had four beers left, wantin' to make them last I shared one with Wiesner.
Nothin' of note occurred until the sun was settin'; three bleedin' and bedraggled individuals wandered back into camp, one missin' an arm, well, he was holdin' it in his other hand, but ya know… Various people ran over to them to help. Curious of what they’d encountered out there, I went over as well. Someone had tourniqueted the man’s stump a while ago, but it was leakin' and he looked pale.
“Can anyone help him?” one of the three newcomers asked.
“My skills can’t save the arm,” an older, gentle-seemin' man stated. “I can stop the bleeding and seal the wound though.”
Another lady was shakin' her head, “Neither can I.”
I activated Sense Life, it was difficult to maintain in a crowd for longer than a bit, too many swirlin' colors and emotions. Immediately I noticed that the arm was still glowin' with life. I hadn't had a chance to attempt to heal anyone yet so I figured now or never. I walked up and unarmed the wounded man. I seeped my own energy into the arm, inspectin' it fully. An image formed in my mind in 3D, showin' me what was healthy and otherwise. The arm was fully viable, I just needed to figure out how to attach it. Next I checked his bleedin' stump. Closin' my eyes gave me a better mental image, I intuitively knew how to close off the leakin' blood vessels, caught up in the moment I didn’t try to think about how I knew--I just focused on the task at hand. Linin' up the arm with his stump was the most difficult part, after that I infused my energy into both stumps and used that energy to manipulate, line up and reattach the bone, muscle, skin, blood vessels and nerves. When a bit of flesh or somethin' was missin' I added more life energy and stimulated the cells to multiply and fill in the gaps. Overall, it was a very intuitive process. Openin' my eyes, I found a whole arm, nearly scarfree. I’d even cleaned the blood off the man’s body and clothes, sendin' it to my Bone Vault without intendin' to. A crowd had formed around us in however long it had taken me to accomplish the healin'. The man I’d healed moved his arm around experimentally, lookin' at it in wonder and grinnin'.
From behind me an Australian lady yelled, “It’s a bloody miracle! The Second Coming is upon us! He has returned as promised!”
Whispers of shock and disbelief started up around me. I figured I needed to nip that shit in the bud real quick so I shouted at the lady, “Quit talkin' nonsense! I reckon all of y'all got some kinda magic now. Y'all just gotta level up and get stronger.” I might’ve gone a bit heavy on the southern accent, I could speak cleanly when I wanted to, other times it just slips out, but I was okay with my message overall.
“Thank you sir!” the healed man said. “Name’s Darren. You?”
“Bud McLain. Just call me McLain. Tell me Darren. What did yall see out there? Boar and drakes is all I’ve seen so far.”
“We killed two boar before the wurm hit us from below.” Darren had a way of gesturin' theatrically as he spoke. “We felt a vibration in our feet and then Bam, some kind of huge stone worm as big around as a minivan exploded out of the ground, took my arm off before I knew it. Luckily it went after a bigger bite and dropped my arm, I managed to dodge the next attack and Mat here was able to grab my arm off the ground before we took off.” He pointed at a twenty-somethin' year old ginger beside him.
“Did y’all happen to identify the worm?” The trio shook their heads. “Bummer. Anyways, sounds like y'all might’ve worked up an appetite. There’s some boar left over by the fire. Tuck in.” Timothy, the last unknown of the brave trio, introduced himself before they all thanked me and left to get food. Rememberin' the other group Wallace said went out I halted them long enough to ask about them. Unfortunately, they hadn’t seen anyone else until their return.
