Big Goddamn Heroes

"God fucking damn it," I said, "Do we really need to go into all of these rooms?"

I was scraping off acid putty out of my ears some twenty minutes later. Nothing quite as horrifying as the fire room had come to pass, but we had murdered a whole goblin tribe, Hannah had made a deal with a classroom full of undead coyotes and we had destroyed several disgusting hives of insectoid monsters.

"Yes," Hannah said. "Come on Vorhal, we aren't that much further away from the old guildhall. People are counting on us," Artemis said. "I know, I know, I'm just complaining. I don't mind the Horrors, really, they're some of my favourite things," I said. "Hey, boss, a piece of advice, stop being such a whiny little baby," Chum said. "Et tu, Chum? Alright I won't complain about any of the stupid shit the Tower throws at us," I said. "That's complaining," Hannah said. "No, you're right. I guess there's nothing we can do but suffer through it," I said.

We were now within dashing distance of the original guild hall. There was no way for us to know that there was anybody left there to rescue, and shooting barbs at one another was more productive than covering in fear. And of course, I hoped all of those people were still alive. I mean, shit, I was trying to. At the very least I hoped that Clarence was alive, because he was fun to hang out with. That's kind of like empathy, isn't it?

Artemis had humanity for all of us, and as we rushed out of the nth consecutive classroom and towards the old guildhall her cry for the people we'd left behind inspired both the shambling Hannah and the normal living human myself to go out there and rescue the remnants of the Hall.

As we came closer there was a lot of blood in the hallway. We didn't see any bodies, but the monsters were moving through the hallways so frequently that this wasn't strange. Hell, most of the blood was soaked into the floors and the walls.

"It might not be theirs," I said. "Shut up," Hannah said.

We moved up to the door with all caution. Chum was the sneakiest of us all, though I'd managed to level up my stealth a little. I sent him ahead to check the door while the hallway was clear. We had managed to kill the last three roaming packs in the hallway, and it seemed that we were due a break.

"It's clear, boss. Ain't nobody in there," he said after taking a glance into the old guildhall. "Shit, they can't all be dead. The classrooms were supposed to be safe," Artemis said. "Artemis?" a distant, muffled voice came from the classroom, and Artemis pushed by us and ran into the old guildhall. "Clarence?" I said, as I started moving myself.

We made it into the old guildhall and saw that it was a wreck. All the weapons, supplies and food was taken; the quest board was broken and the sticky notes were scattered on the ground. There were signs of struggle everywhere, but the room appeared empty. So where the hell had the voice come from. Then, as if he had always been there, Clarence appeared next to the blackboard. He was camouflaged, chameleon-like next to the board, his body, clothes and face all blending in with his background, but even that was a sudden change. When we had come in here I could have sworn there was nothing there.

"Thank God you are safe," he said and gave Artemis a hug. As he moved towards her his clothes and features lost the chameleon quality and returned to their old gunmetal gray and navy blue. Artemis hugged him back, firmly, though she hesitated for a moment. I guessed that their relationship had been quite a bit more distant on old Earth, but this place had a way of making friends out of people.

"Clarence, what happened, where is everybody?" Artemis said. "It was awful, Artemis. The bell rang and suddenly there were monsters everywhere. The people camping out in the hall- well, I don't think they made it past the first minute," he said. "I'm so sorry. This is not your fault," Artemis said. "Me too. It must have been terrible. But where is everybody? What exactly happened?" I asked. "Just, just let me catch my breath," Clarence said. He must have been using an ability to hide for over two hours now- that's how long it had taken us to get here. Whatever pool of power the ability used, he must have been exhausted. He sat down at a desk, leaned back and breathed for a while, then continued:

"The first few packs ignored us. It was as if they didn't think they could go through the open doors. Mindless things, monsters of tooth and claw. So we were all in here, thinking that we were safe, that the horror outside was what we should be focused on." "You weren't. The classrooms that were open before the bell rang weren't protected," I said. "We learned that five minutes later. These creatures, monsters with aquatic features, fish heads, octupus heads, mostly human bodies, but all sorts of slimy appendages, they were more cautious in their exploration. When they reached our doors they didn't just assume that the doors were sealed somehow. Instead they waited for their leader- an octupus faced man in robes with a staff with symbols seared in his face- and when he- well, they, I suppose I don't know their gender or anything- came to the door they just walked through. Then all hell broke loose," Clarence said. "It's alright, Clarence, take your time," Artemis said. "Respectfully, ma'am, fuck that. They took them. They had nets and chains and manacles, and they came in here and started taking people by force. Me, Lawrence and Jimmy, we fought back, we got a few and sort of held them back for a moment, but nobody else could fight. Then their leader put Jimmy in a watter bubble, and he started drowning, and Tommy surrendered. I activated my hiding power," Clarence said. "Shit, man, that's correct. You did the right thing. Now you have us and we will find everybody," I said. "Sir, again I must say, you don't understand. When they couldn't find me they didn't let Jimmy go. The squid-man spoke and he said that if I didn't come out he would drown. I felt like it was the reasonable thing to do, one man dead for a chance to fight another day, I had to do it. But I think now that I must have been acting out of nothing but base fear," Clarence said. "Clarence, from somebody who really, sincerely knows what he's talking about- it's not your fault. The Tower put you in a situation where your choices were to either die or let another die. And I bet it mocked you for it. That is because it is evil, not because it is right," I said. I almost sort of believed it. "Squid face, brands," Hannah said. "Yeah. It's got to be one of them," I said. "Pardon?" Clarence said. "One of the apprentices of the creature who made this Tower. We will have to interrogate them," I said. "You've learned things," Clarence said, "Good."

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We learned another just a second later. Hannah, now idle while keeping watch by the door, did a thing many of us had gotten into the habit of doing and leaned on the rock-solid open entrance door. And fell over, as the door swung back. I almost cheered despite it all.

"Oh fuck yeah," I said, "We just caught a serious break." "What are you talking about," Artemis said as she was helping Hannah to get back up. "The doors. I can seal them. Clarence can take a nap, we can go through our journals and we can get our people back," I said. "We should go now. There's no telling what they're going through," Artemis said. "They were taken alive and it's been hours. And you are exhausted, as am I. We should take at least an hour- rest, regroup and, if he's willing, get Clarence back into fighting shape and take him with us," I said. "Absolutely. I've worked 16 hour days on a twenty minute nap before in my old career. An hour would be a luxury," Clarence said. "We don't need you conscious, we need you in good shape. Same goes for Artemis and myself," I said. "I can just wing it," Hannah said. "I only mean that you don't need sleep," I said. "I know," Hannah said. "So, let me seal the door and put Clarence to bed," I said, but when I turned to look to him, he was already passed out on his elbows at the desk.

When Hannah woke us up the countdown on the blackboard said 44:45:13. I woke up fine. I was groggy, but I had been here for less than two days and slept for about ten hours total, perfectly reasonable amount. All the running around and adrenaline made me feel like it had been a lot longer, but my body, at least was able to continue going, and my mind was somehow supernaturally expanded beyond what I could even conceive before coming here. My every thought was crisp and clear; my every memory only a thought away. The strange clarity of a raised Mind was powerful, but I didn't think it had really changed me on a fundamental level. I thought the same sort of thoughts that I had before, only faster, and more accurately. If anything, the willpower and self-esteem attributes, along with maybe intensity seemed like they would do more to change my personality, but even then I suspected they would only allow me to present and express myself in a more honest, confident way, rather than actually changing what I was.

I checked my journal. I had gained a bunch of experience, and was now over half-way to level 7. We had also recovered some loot in the boxes in some of the classrooms, most notably an amulet for Hannah that would slowly knit her wounds together without burning as much of her mana, as well as a set of 6 health potions and 2 elixirs of mana. We'd split the potions so that each of us had two now, and all of the mana elixirs went to Hannah for now, as I had never really gotten that close to running out. The closest I'd come was the fight with Kalax and the zombies, when I was casting a bunch of second rank spells, but even that time I was only getting sort of tired. She definitely needed them more.

So I was staring off in the distance, trying really hard not to think about something. I could tell that I was doing it because I was thinking about the mechanics of the Tower with all of my Tower-enhanced mental faculties, instead of thinking of-

"Morning, Clarence, everyone, are we still all going?" I said. "Certainly. I only wish we had coffee," Clarence said. "We do, back in the saferoom. We will get everybody there, and then you can have a cup," I said. "I rather expect that the mind-numbing horrors that we are to face within the next hour will rather wake me up just as well as a cup of 'joe'," Clarence said.

Hannah and Artemis were packing up their stuff, getting ready for adventure. Funny word that, 'adventure', it certainly implies danger and hardship, but it sounds so exciting and wonderful when you're sitting home heating up hot-pockets in the microwave. Now that hardship and danger was becoming our daily life, the word itself lost a lot of its luster.

The first challenge came in finding any tracks of the others in the first place. Clarence had, of course, seen which way the captives were taken- further back away from the new safe-room-, but telling which way they had gone afterwards was harder. I couldn't help but think that the cafeteria where Brad and Clara had died was also that way. The Tower was a labyrinth, if we took one wrong turn we would never find them, and it would take longer than the remaining two days to map out the Tower in any real way.

We had no choice but to start moving and hope that it worked out. Our first fight after the rest was brutal. Some sort of a troll creature; similar to the ones in the lord of the rings movies came lumbering towards us through the hallway. It was only because it was too big to easily fit in the hallway or swing its massive club around that we could take it down. I had to use the barrier spell once, and the blow I took from it was hard enough that I spit up blood and needed to find a dark space to rest. We avoided the fire-breathing wyvern in a classroom full of dry brambles. I may have screamed and pulled us into the room when I saw it breathe fire, and Hannah might have called me a fucking asshole for it. But the brambles weren't poisonous and the wyvern passed us by, so really, it turned out to be the right choice, though we didn't stay to clear out the brambles and whatever else might have been in the classroom. The loot wasn't worth it.

It was after the third fight we actually fought in the hallways- a large cat; perhaps a mountain lion of some sort, I don't know- that Clarence noticed something that gave us hope to find the rest of the people of the guild.

"Excuse me, hold on a moment, look here," he said and pointed at a wall.

By now all the walls of the hallways looked damaged. There was the cuts from the spikes, claws and weapons of the monsters in the hallways, but that was only the start of it. Some of the intelligent monsters were defacing the walls with crude carvings and graffiti, while others excreted slime, acid, or fire. It was by now very unusual to find any clear patch of hallway wall that wasn't damaged by anything at all. Even with all that, as soon as Clarence pointed out at the symbol on the wall, I knew immediately that it was special.

The symbol seemed as if it was still burning, and though I had never seen it before, I knew it said "humans, follow", just like I had known that the symbols of Kalax's face said "vile, incompetent'. It was clearly leading us to an ambush. We clearly had to go anyways.

"Nice job, let's fucking get them," Artemis said, and we went on.

We fought through the hallways and classrooms, and I could barely tell where we were anymore. Clarence was keeping a crude map, and I trusted him with it. After a while, we started to smell the stench. I won't go into much detail, think 'old fish' and 'blood', but don't think about it too long.

This time, there were guards at the door. Clarence's description of the fish-men hadn't been enough. I had expected mostly humanoid monsters, with a fish-head where the face should have been, or some sort of Shape of Water creatures, but what was there instead were twisted and bent humanoid shapes, but where their neck should have been the fish-heads started. They looked about with their dead black eyes and gulped air like it was water with their tooth-filled mouths. They carried spears and shields, and when they saw us they let out strange, wet shrieks.

Well fuck it, there was a fight. Hannah and Artemis were already charging, while Clarence had disappeared. I began chanting my attack spell, still jogging towards the door. The first fish-man put up a good fight, holding off both Artemis and Hannah for a few seconds, while the other one turned to run into the classroom. He fell with two daggers in the back of his head, driven there by an invisible Clarence, who materialized as he surfed the falling body into the room at the same time that the women overwhelmed the other guard. I barely needed to give them a little help with distraction.

As we rushed into the gloomy, underlit room, we heard the sounds of exclamation and fear from restrained humans. We weren't too late. Some of them, at least, were still alive.

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