The Fractured Tower

Book 2, Chapter 72

The Giant’s Finger was considered an endurance trial more than anything else. There were four discrete sections, with the first floor being the gauntlet, the second being a maze—and also a gauntlet, in Sorin’s opinion—and the third not being a floor at all, but instead a sort of living staircase that actively impeded their progress. That was more annoying than dangerous, but it also succeeded in the true goal of the place.

It stole their time and their energy, drained their reserves, and weakened them for the actual fight at the end. While the monsters absolutely could kill a careless climber, it usually happened deeper in once they were worn out and started making mistakes.

That didn’t work so well on Sorin’s team, who reached the guardian’s arena in about two hours, though he had to give the living staircase credit. They were all grumpy by the time they were done with that. Its trick of altering the height of a step an inch or so just as someone was about to step on it to make them stumble was beyond obnoxious, even more so than removing the step completely.

“Man, fuuuuuuuuuuck those stairs,” Rue said.

Vendis scowled darkly. “I could not possibly agree more with that statement.”

“I think I rolled my ankle about a hundred times in the last twenty minutes,” Yoru added.

“And you can’t even set the fucking thing on fire. It’s stone! It doesn’t burn,” Nemari said.

They all looked to Odric and Sorin, who’d had by far the easiest time with their more developed earth sense. Neither of them had really struggled to predict the coming changes, and both had in fact saved someone else more than once when the staircase had tried to send them tumbling back down to the base.

“Yeah, I’m just going to come out and say it. Fuck the both of you, too,” Rue told them.

“I helped you!” Odric protested.

“I said what I said.”

“It’s over now,” Sorin said. “And supposedly, there’s a floor guardian up here with us, so let’s get serious for the moment. You guys can go back to complaining once we’re done.”

After a few more moments of grumbling, they assembled back into formation. Odric and Vendis made sure to heal any remaining bruises, scrapes, or puncture wounds received from a stair abruptly sprouting spikes the moment it managed to successfully trip someone, and they advanced from the landing through a much smaller archway.

Sorin did not miss the stairway sealing itself off behind them and the whole room vanishing, marking the first occasion of being locked into an arena in the red tower. “No retreat,” he muttered, prompting everyone else to look back.

“We did know that going in,” Yoru reminded the group.

“It’s a bit more nerve-wracking to experience it than to hear about it,” Rue told him. “Now where’s the damn guardian at? I’m not sensing anything.”

“It’s possible some other team killed it recently and the tower simply hasn’t made a new one yet,” Nemari offered up as an explanation.

“Would the tower still trap us in here if that was the case?” Odric asked.

“It would not,” Sorin said. At least, it wouldn’t this early in the climb. On Floor 50? Sure. I can’t imagine it doing it here, though.

“Then it’s hiding somewhere, just like every other monster in this place. Sorin, do you sense it moving through the walls?” Yoru asked.

“That’s the strange thing. I don’t sense it at all, either. Nothing is moving here. Your family’s report described it as a big pile of rocks that assembles itself into a humanoid shape roughly fifteen feet tall. Nowhere does it mention the guardian hiding to ambush climbers who challenge it.”

“Oh! I know what’s happening,” Yoru said with a laugh. “We reached the top too quickly. My cousin told me this happened to him a few years ago. Their theory is that the guardian starts growing out of the Giant’s Finger itself once climbers arrive, maybe sped up by climbers destroying elementals. They thought it might recycle parts of them rather than make its own pieces.

“In a way, the Finger is the guardian’s body. That’s why it’s all made of stone. It simply hasn’t shifted enough mass up here yet. See those orbs hanging from the ceiling? Those are the stones that will make up its body. By getting up here so quickly, we’ve earned ourselves a breather before it attacks.”

Sorin didn’t need to follow Yoru’s pointed finger to observe the orbs. There were hundreds of them scattered across the ceiling, most the size of his fist and a few bigger than his head. It wasn’t nearly enough mass to make the guardian as described, but over the next minute of study, he did note a few of them slowly growing larger while new bumps appeared in empty space.

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About ten minutes later, there was a crash as the first stone fell free and struck the floor fifty feet below. Weirdly, it then rolled itself over to a random spot halfway across the room, its oblong body thumping with each rotation until it finally settled itself into place.

“Uh… Okay,” Rue said once it was done.

“It was certainly… loud,” Nemari added.

“I bet it’s a bit more distracting when you’re fighting for your life down below,” Yoru said. “Plus there’s going to be a few hundred more of them crashing down and rolling around here very shortly. We should probably make sure we’re not in the way of that.”

That caused all of them to look up and scan the ceiling, which no longer had a single open spot left on it. At best, there were gaps of a few feet between stones, and certainly nowhere near enough space for any of them to confidently say they wouldn’t be brained by one on its way down.

“Ah, I see. This is the guardian’s opening attack. We got a bit of a break, but there’s also a punishment for getting here too quickly,” Sorin said. “If this had happened while we were still climbing the stairs, the guardian would already be formed, and we wouldn’t have to worry about getting pummeled before the fight even starts.”

It breaking into pieces and throwing itself all over the arena was a well-documented strategy the guardian employed, especially against teams that favored ranged offense, so they’d likely be facing something similar soon enough anyway. It could actually work out in their favor if that meant the guardian exposed its core for Rue to pick off with a force spear, though Sorin wasn’t confident in her ability to strike a small, fast-moving object with the spell.

A second rock fell from the ceiling, this one a miniature boulder half the size of Sorin’s body. It cracked the floor where it landed, and the broken stone chips bizarrely flopped in place, trying to roll after the boulder. Soon enough, they were all splitting their attention between rocks raining from the sky and rocks zipping around the floor.

“Son of a—” Yoru bit off as one of the smaller stones rolled into him on its way to the rapidly growing pile. “Why is it always the ankles with this place?!”

As the numbers increased, it became more and more difficult to dodge the projectiles and to avoid being tripped up by them. Sorin also grew a bit worried as he watched the size of the rock pile increase to over ten feet wide at the base and equally as tall. There were still quite a few loose stones rolling around, not to mention the ones swelling up on the ceiling.

Is this thing really going to be only fifteen feet tall? And I’m still not seeing anything that might be its core. Usually there’d be some sort of visual indication in texture or polish or even just size. Maybe that part hasn’t fallen yet, but…

“Rue? Have you spotted the core?” he yelled over the booming echoes of the ceiling collapsing on them one stone at a time.

“Fu—No! Ask again later!”

Sorin absently dodged to one side and considered the room as a jagged rock that came up to his hip slammed down into the floor. It wouldn’t be the first time the tower had altered something to make it harder for them. They’d assumed bad luck or simply hadn’t known better on the early floors, but he trusted the Telpikes’ archive. They were a climbing family. That information was life or death, and they’d thoroughly vetted it.

Tower bullshittery again, then. This probably isn’t going to be as easy as we expec—What the fuck is that?! There aren’t supposed to be summons here!

A boulder, roughly five feet in diameter, slammed into the ground to Sorin’s left. Other than its size, that wasn’t unusual. The issue was that it didn’t start rolling toward the rest of the pile. Instead, it picked itself up on its tiny legs and rotated to face Sorin, revealing a rock-borer beetle, or at least something that looked very, very similar.

Sorin saw Rue whip around through Blind Sense. Her eyes locked onto the beetle. “Shit, is that one of those stone bugs from the ruin?”

“Looks like it. Watch out for the bigger boulders overhead. There’s plenty more up there.”

The combination of Soften and his sword worked just as well here, but when he didn’t get the accompanying burst of anima, he knew for sure they were something the guardian had made. “They’re summons. They probably won’t stop coming until the guardian’s down. Ignore them if you can. With any luck, they’ll just come to me to be killed.”

“We’re not that lucky!” Nemari yelled.

Another beetle had dropped and was obviously running straight at her. About halfway there, it was struck by a rolling rock on its way to the pile, which hit it hard enough to knock the beetle on its side, where it landed on several smaller rocks that were also rolling away. Nemari blinked in surprise as they carried the beetle toward the pile.

“Okay, we sometimes get a little bit lucky,” she amended.

“Core’s up!” Rue announced. “I think this thing’s going to start moving.”

A few moments later, a limb composed entirely of smaller stones held together by nothing but magic stretched out of the pile. It didn’t have hands or fingers, instead ending in a simple flat stub where the last rock sat. It also didn’t really seem to have joints, or maybe it had too many. Either way, the human shape it was copying was not made to bend that way.

Sorin was distracted for a moment by another beetle coming down near him. The only good thing about the beetles was that they weren’t also rolling their way to the pile—all except the one that had literally been caught up in the rush and carried, and that one didn’t seem to be forming up with the rest of the elemental. It just kind of sat there at the edge, unmoving and unnoticed by the guardian.

Unfortunately, the monster’s awakening hadn’t done much to stop or even slow down the rain of stones from overhead. That meant they’d have to deal with that environmental hazard the entire fight, which Sorin was less and less confident would be a quick one with each passing moment. He raced forward, yelling out directions as he wove through the living stone.

“Everyone hit it now. Make sure you’re getting included in this kill. Rue, spear it where the core is so I know where to aim!”

Fire and stone and blood flashed by overhead, targeting what was roughly the torso of the still-forming elemental. Most of it splashed off harmlessly, or at best chipped off a bit of rock that just fell down to be reabsorbed in the main body. That was fine. As long as they did some damage, the tower would recognize their role in the fight.

The force spear was a different story. It combined well with Rue’s Pierce soulprint, and now that it was up to E-rank, it was strong enough that when it struck, it hit the elemental hard enough to send a shower of pebbles out of the elemental’s back to ping against the nearby wall.

Lower than I expected, Sorin thought to himself as he noted the impact site right around the hip. I bet it moves, though, so let’s hit it hard and end this fight before things get any worse.