The Gathering of Survivors

When the Guild got through the door, the door slammed shut behind them and there was no more danger following them, a big part of them collapsed against each other, hugging, cheering, glad to be alive. I smiled. There weren't quite fifty of them, I noticed the missing faces right away, but nobody that I had been particularly close had died, and the numbers were still much better than they should have been in this nightmare prison. Anna breathed out a sigh of relief and slumped against the closed door, while Elijah trembled with a look on his face that was simple relief at being alive. Even Artemis was in good spirits as she came over to us and gave us a fist-bump each.

"Thanks, Alex, we couldn't have done it without you," she said. "We'd be hella dead too," Zack said, as he opened up his rotting fruit sack, filling the room with the scent of rotting fruit, but distinctly also alcohol. He took a banged up solo cup from somewhere out of his gear, scooped up a cup and drank it. He didn't as much as wince, but I was pretty sure that was from his currently massive Resilience. "How did it go?" Hannah said. "Rough at first. We didn't have a lot of strong fighters in the beginning of it, but I could deal with most of it. You mentioned something about puzzles?" Artemis said. "It was mostly puzzles, though there was that objective: survive room at the beginning," I said. "Well, we were mostly dealing with random monster encounters in the basic challenge rooms. Anyone else fail a quest?" Artemis said. "Can't raise physical attributes at the moment," I said. "Fuck," Hannah said. "I've got spells. Chum says there might be a way to get rid of it. Anyways, looks like most of us made it through," I said. "Yeah. Fuck. We managed to reconnect with the people with lower scores the next hall after the traitor," Artemis said. "What the fuck was up with that?" I said. "I have no fucking clue. Elijah said it was an item he lost?" Artemis said. "No fucking way. The Silver Mask?" I said. "That's what we've been calling her," Artemis said. "So, it could be anyone. I guess not Elijah. If he was with the failure team, he would be the obvious suspect. I guess he was just actually stupid enough to lose one of the most dangerous items we've ever seen in here," I said.

I explained to them what it did, and they all pretty quickly got how dangerous it was. Essentially there was likely someone with the Traitor ability, the one that I'd been offered and turned down during my Coward days, which gave them quests with great rewards for harming the Guild. This person was now in the possession of the Mask of the Silver Empress. This item allowed them to act with impunity. While wearing the mask everyone would believe they were a different person, no matter if we saw evidence or had to believe impossible things for that to be true. From what we'd discovered from testing it in House Alsarab, even unmasking the traitor may no longer be enough.

"Let's leave that aside for now. It's not like we can do anything about it. Alex, thank you so much, you were invaluable. In fact, I'm going to say something you're probably not going to want to hear," Artemis said. "What?" I said. "You may be of a lot more use for the Guild as a spell nexus than going on your own quests," she said. "You're right. I don't want to hear that. If I stay behind and paste spells for you to copy, I'm going to fall behind. And once that happens, I am going to first become useless and then die," I said. "Or you could die on any one of your fatal quests. Like, you know it's not just skill that's got you this far, you've been lucky. We all have been," Artemis said. "Fuck. I need to think about this. If you brought spells back to me, and if enough people had decent Arcana scores, and if we could find somewhere safe for me to set up… Well I'd consider it," I said.

I don't actually know why I was so against the idea. Artemis had taken up a mostly administrative role, and she was doing fine both in terms of levels and power. It's not like I wanted to rush into certain danger, just for the excitement and the dopamine rush of new abilities. Did I? Surely a cushy job as basically a dispatcher was more suited for me. And now, without any chance to raise my physical attributes, well, I should at least be considering it. As I was paused and thinking, Anna had recovered her steam and walked up to us.

"Hey, Alex, make it through alright?" She said. Her own clothes were still steaming and/or smoking from the prodigious amount of spellcasting she'd done very recently. "It was actually not that bad for a change. You all saw a lot more fighting than I did after we split up. Failed my buffness quest, but I'm not focusing on that for right now," I said.

People were now streaming in through the doors more and more often. While no one single group had been as large as the Guild, the total number of newcomers must now have been over a hundred.

"Anyways, who's that Asshole?" Anna said, pointing out Xem, lounging in his arcane hammock set-up. "I'm not exactly sure, but I think it's a splinter of the guy who made the Tower," I said. "Alright. So let's kill him," Anna said. "No! Don't attack him. Someone tried it. It wasn't even a fight. I promise to you, we cannot defeat him, not even all at the same time," I said. "Could file a complaint," Chum said. We sort of all looked at him confused.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. "What? He's in breach of like a thousand multi-planar laws. I mean it's a long shot, but can't hurt to just ask to be sent home. Legally he would have to do it," Chum said. We looked at each other and Chum. Artemis called Clarence over. Clarence was still holding on to wearing his suit, though it was looking bad at this point.

And then they started walking towards Xem to actually negotiate with the creature. That was just crazy. Wasn't it?

But then again, he was distracted and I decided I'd risk my life once again. As Clarence walked up and introduced himself, before running up to join them I cast a spell.

And then, when I wasn't immediately reduced to a pulsating pile of meat on the floor in an instant, I rushed over to join the conversation.

Xem hadn't instantly recognized my spellcasting, so at least I knew that the description of the spell was accurate and couldn't be overpowered by infinitely higher magical might. Keeping that in mind, I cast the HUD spell, and the world went weird. It actually did even more than it advertised. I could track my health and mana points in two bars at the bottom left of my field of view, and as I looked at my friends I could see their classes and levels. I knew most of that stuff from the Party page of my Journal, but I could now see it over their heads.

Artemis was a level 17 Rebel Human Guildmaster, Hannah was a level 15 Undead Human Death Knight, Zack had caught up to her as a level 15 Drunken Human Punk, and Anna had gained a few more levels as a level 14… fuck, I hadn't seen her title before. Above her head I now saw Level 14 Jaded Human Sorcerer. I had got some hints about how she'd got that title, but it still didn't seem like the time to press, especially as they began forming their argument to Xem. The reason I'd cast the spell in the first place, was to inspect Xem and confirm my suspicions. But I was somewhat surprised. While I couldn't see his health or mana totals, his title or his class, I could see that he was level 29. Nearly double anyone here, but not beyond what this spell could reveal. I had expected even a shard 1/10 000th the power of the Architect of this place to be so far beyond us that we'd stand no chance under any circumstances, but that seemed… well, at least somewhat within reach.

Come to think of it, he hadn't cast the spell himself. A pseudoportal had opened up and, presumably, the actual Archmage had cast the spell that had murdered Sergei.

"Yeah, buddy, so either you let us go, or I'm reporting you to the Divine Plane outreach office next time I go back to Hell," Chum said, as I joined the conversation. Xem laughed a mad, evil laugh that finally reminded me of the madman that'd made all the voice recordings we'd heard before. "Why, my pathetic little imp, why should He simply not burn out that pesky soul of yours in that case?" Xem said. "What my partner is saying is that we would like to understand how this establishment is running in accordance with the law of the land. Or, such as the case may be, are you engaging in criminal activity fully aware that you are doing so?" Clarence said. I had a few flashbacks of the… god, disintegration wasn't a strong enough word… the death of Sergei. But it appeared that since none of them were openly attacking Xem, he was willing to converse. Or, once more, perhaps Xem Prime was unwilling to get himself involved for anything short of physical violence. "A common mortal misunderstanding of law. It is a so-called law of physics that what is released from your hand must fall to the ground, the nearest, strongest point of gravity," Xem said, releasing his cocktail from his hand. Naturally, he cast a spell with a thought and the cocktail remained mid-air, "And yet, here I am. I have the power to make it not so. None of you have the power to stop me. No intergalactic organization, no god, no other wizard can stop me. So what is law to me?" "Not you," I said. "Pardon, insect?" Xem said. "The law may be nothing to Archenarch-Mage Yngarothrax Xem, for his power is beyond our comprehension. You are not him," I said. "A-ha, and would you like to meet him then?" Xem said. "Just clarifying the situation for my friends," I said. "The distinction is immaterial for you, young heroes. You can no more kill me than you can kill the Archenarch-Mage. Even if you somehow managed, he offers his protection to me," Xem said. "So, law means nothing to you? Have you no moral qualms at least about kidnapping thousands of people?" Clarence said. "Thousands, my boy? Millions. There are two thousand survivors in just this tiny section of the whole of the first challenge of the Tower. And morality is the whole reason you are here. Your ascension will be for the greater good, one way or another," Xem said.

And as he spoke, we began to see it was true. More and more people passed through the doors, and the room was becoming to feel less cavernous. Indeed, it appeared to be more or less appropriately sized for the hundreds of people arriving every few minutes. As I looked around I heard grating singing and blood-curdling laughter as the Monarch of Goblins and the devil I knew arrived along with the whole of the Goblin Market right behind them.

"So, what is this purpose? What do you want from us," Artemis said. "All shall be revealed in time. The master of the Tower acts at his whim alone, and he believes that you are not to know your purpose yet. Much will become clearer soon. Indeed, we have 2013 of the 2052 remaining survivors already here. A good thing too, as we only have a few hours before the challenge concludes. Let me scan the halls, I will be right back with you," Xem said, and cast a spell with a wave of a hand, going through some list in his mind.

"Pah, stragglers. I hate stragglers. I think this one is just holed up in a room somewhere. Very well, we shall not waste arcane energy on cowards and fools," he said. He raised his hands up and he cast a spell with an actual incantation. It wasn't very clear how many syllables he was using, but in less than thirty seconds he was done. The room shook and the lights flickered. I thought I heard a scream rapidly approach and then disappear into nothing. The next time he spoke, his voice carried across the now nearly packed room.

"Very well, now that this section of the Tower doesn't exist beyond this room, we may as well get started on the final evaluations," Xem said.

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