Episode 1: The Treasure in the Tower

The night was still. The full moon light froze everything in place, like a spotlight on a scene, the actors unprepared and petrified. The trees made way for a bay of water, of which housed one flat island, of which housed one tower of immaculate design, and of masculine height and girth, rather slender it was, though designed with hard, jagged rock, the shaft was fantastically smooth. This unnaturally perfect structure stood tall and proud over the trees, whimsical in comparison, almost as if they were hairs around the pillar’s base. This beaming beacon of beauty did serve a purpose other than to be impressively large – though a structure truly needs no more purpose than to stand tall and proud. This tower served as a mecca for knowledge, inseminating the very minds of anyone who could bear to handle the absolute magnitude of information that throbbed throughout this tower. And it was on this night, that the treasures of the tower would be in jeopardy.

For within the bottom of this tower laid two treasures: two stones that were said to have the key to the source of all life. These stones are engraved with cryptic symbols that are believed to describe the origins of life; the tablet of water, thought to describe the source of life, and the tablet of fire, thought to describe the fuel that keeps life going. While it is argued by many scholars that these artifacts lack the phallic prowess to be able to bestow such profound wisdom, their ability to have survived for thousands of years have proven intriguing enough by many to have them preserved and studied by the greatest minds the world has ever known, remaining to be uncracked in all of its history.

“That’s a really big tower,” croaked a young man, standing a couple hundred feet away from the base, cloaked by the brush of the forest.

“Bigger towers hold greater treasures, my friend.” The second man smirked, clearly impressed by the impressive size of the erect building before him. He was a darker complexion than his rather fair-skinned accomplice, with a full beard in contrast to his comrade’s clean-shaven face. His facial expression carried a confident demeanor, which complimented by his large and lean stature, carved a man of terrifying confidence and charisma. And truly just a beautiful specimen to look at.

His partner in crime, however lacking these qualities, stood by his side, with an equally confident sneer.

He may have been taller than his masterfully chiseled confidante, but he lacked all qualities listed previous. Something about his eyes seem crazed yet focused. Despite his physique, he eyes down the behemoth in front of him, as if he’s tangoed with matters of this size before.

“Where are we getting started?” The yoked man bellowed.

“The polite way to handle a situation like this is to start at the bottom before slowly making your way to the top, but the night is almost over. We gotta make this a quicky.” The lanky man put his fists to his hips. “But just how do we get up there, Souva?”

Souva’s smirk grew to a grin as the ground below his feet began to smoke. “I’ve got just the thing. Grab on, Naiako.”

Naiako leaped onto Souza’s back and held on tight, making sure to give a few squeezes to Souza’s pecs for good measure. “Almost set.” There was a sudden whirl of wind around the two. The air around them suddenly became quite crisp as a barrier of mist started to form around their perimeter. The grass beneath Souza’s feet started flaming.

“Much better,” Souza sighed. He started lifting his heels, and as he did so, bursts of flame released with each lift. Soon the bursts were so strong they began to lift off the ground. “Here we go!” Souza crouched, his hands on Naiako’s thighs. He clenched his legs and his grip, Naiako gives a little gasp, and Souza lifted his heels one last time. The ground beneath him explodes, and the two are propelled high into the air.

Souza’s feet crackled with explosions, their form followed by a trail of smoke. They continued upwards, soaring up to the top of the tower. The thinner air at this height began to weaken the explosions coming from under Souza’s feet, and their speed began to slow. “We’re not going to make it to the top, gotta find an emergency landing.” A window was up ahead. The crackling from Souza’s feet slowed, but their speed didn’t slow as Souza might have expected.

“You missed our exit,” Naiako spoke softly.

“I think I can make it work.” Souza rotated himself, now facing the window below. He quickly fumbled around with his feet, knocking off his boots.

“Oh shit,” Naiako gasped, losing a little of his composure.

“Clear me out,” Souza yelled. Naiako breathed in deep, and suddenly a burst of clouds evacuated and collected away from them in all directions. A gust of wind then swooped in to fill the space. The bottom of Souza’s socks sparked up and quickly pulsed out a strong blast. The duo propelled forward, pushing through the thin cloud ahead of them and fast towards the window.

Inside the tower, a young man stood by the window, adorned in a long white robe gilded with gold threads. His forearms were extended, palms up, with an orb floating slightly above them.

“To see the truth within, one must eliminate the truth without. What does he mean?” The man pondered into his orb, a light gas swirling within. The view within was hazy. “To unlock the truth in my mind, I must eliminate the truth without it. Is that it?” The haze in the orb began to ease, but only a little bit. “Oh, I must be on the right path! The truth without my mind… What could this be? How can one postulate without the mind? To find the truth that must be eliminated outside of the mind, one must think of it, no?” The haze became dense once more. “Bullshit. This personal growth shit sucks.” The haze began to take a redder hue. “Apologies, O Great Orbe. To see the truth within, one mut eliminate the truth without. To unlock the truth within my mind, I must eliminate the truth without it. Without my mind, what can be true?” The orb returned to a calm state, but the haze remained dense. “Are you the truth without, O Great Orbe?”

The haze began to swirl, and the orb began to vibrate. A silent voice pierced through the wizard. It says, “It is likely.”

“That helps little, O Great Orbe. Perhaps destroying you would give me peace of mind, at least.” The haze in the orb swirled and dissipated. All that remained within the orb is the glass of its construct, reflecting the midnight moon spectacularly. The wizard admired the view and hovered the orb a little higher. “You’ve been of no help, my orb friend.”

He began to raise the orb to release to the ground and shatter it. As the orb lifted, the reflection of the moon sunk and a strange figure lowered into scene.

“Hm?” The wizard studied the figure as it grew in the reflection. He looked towards the window.

The figure clashed into the window and broke free to the other side, glass sent off into all directions. They continued onward to the next object in their path: the orb. The wizard’s eyes widened. So quickly, almost without thought, he moved his forearms outwards. The orb expanded rapidly, pushing with it the duo that flew in. They made contact with the top of the orb and bounced deep into the large room. The wizard returned his arms to himself and the orb to its original size. He turned around.

The duo, now separated on the ground, turned to the wizard. The wizard looked back. The two looked at each other. They looked back to the wizard. The wizard was now staring at the orb, mouth agape. The two looked at each other. Naiako pointed at a door. Souza shook his head. Souza pointed at a hole in the floor. Not one placed there by the crash landing, but one that seemed to have been placed purposely. They looked back at the wizard. The wizard was staring at the orb, mouth agape. The two dived in. To the hole in the ground, to be clear.

The hole was completely black, air rushing past them as they descended. Naiako let out an uneasy moan, when suddenly they’re halted – not landed, but suspended – within the darkness. And then they fell a short distance onto the floor.

Out of the darkness they’re thrown, and onto their backs they landed. Sitting up, they saw the room they’ve been dropped off to: a large, round room, decorated around the perimeter with tall, arched structures, and within them the view is like a mirage, like you can almost tell what lies past the arch but a wave of air dances the image to a frenzy. Behind them, a similar arch did the same thing. “Is that,” Souza began, “the wizard from the room we landed in?”

Looking intently through the hazy wall of air, Naiako could barely make out a wizard staring at an orb, mouth agape. “A portal it is. Then this must be the main portal room. You’d think there’d be some level of security around a portal room after a window getting blown out.”

As Naiako finished that thought, the images beyond the arches started to wobble and ebb. Through the visages step out several robed mages, effortlessly adjusting to the new room they now walk in.

“Oh, yeah, there it is,” Souza replied, getting up from his crouch. “We need to make a decision.”

“Yeah, I know that, I can't see well through these portals though.” As Naiako scanned the portals for a destination, the first wizards that came to the portal room have already spotted the intruders and are preparing their moves. Wizards with robes of many colors, holding wands or books or staves, calmly discussed amongst themselves what course of action must be taken on the intruders.

“We’re put into a rather unique situation,” one wizard in blue stated.

“Only one window on the entirety of the structure and through it they came; quite interesting,” said another in grey.

Another wizard in blue stepped up, robes gilded in black. “Though the matter at hand be unscheduled and of much intrigue, it falls not on the circumstances of which the situation before us has arose, but the purpose behind the circumstances that have led us to this moment: if not coming through the front door, is it not a fair assessment that these two are not benevolent tourists, who would have knocked politely upon our chiseled twin doors, ordained in rare gems found throughout Terra? I theorize it a fair assessment, thus! That these two, who must not be benevolent tourists curious about the studies of our halls, are here of another interest! And to enter through the sole window to speckle the walls of this tower, instead of entering through either the aforementioned chiseled and ordained front twin doors, and neither the yet-to-be-mentioned stargazing balcony at the top, of which the view is a delight to those who seek answers far beyond the walls of our world, and is an avid location of interest for amateur and professional flyers alike to land and rest, and share a cup of tea with one another and discuss the wiles of their travels and share cartographic notes among another, highlighting treasures and interests found in their travels, is of high interest! Therefore I postulate that these two unannounced guests, who have not suggested for our presence to guide them through the tower via knocking on the distinct doors that stand tall at the base, who have neither landed on the balcony to meet with their fellow flyers to share tea and discuss cartography and treasure and tale, have entered through an abnormal entrance for abnormal purpose: perhaps a purpose that is unforeseen or unwarranted! In lieu of the purpose of the access points mentioned thus and the purposes for those entrances, the purpose of the presence of the two must be as odd as the method they chose to enter our tower! Adventurers, may I hear your,” the wizard turned. The two were gone.

“Their rude demeanor of entrance suggests they wouldn’t have the manners to listen to your thesis,” a wizard in yellow sneered.

Naiako and Souza popped out at the other end of a portal from the room. As they got up, they saw that there isn’t much to this room, it’s very bare, lit by poles with glowing orbs on the top of them, and in the center of the room, a podium holding up 2 stone tablets. The two approached the podium.

“Well, Naiako, what are they?” Souza asked, not doing much investigating into the tablets.

Naiako gets in close, eyeing the carving and detail into the stones. There were words or a kind of writing etched into the slabs, but the language was unknown. The gray rectangular pieces were in pristine condition. If the language is unknown, then surely, it’s from some long-last civilization? Then how were they in such good condition, no chunks broken off, no erosion can be seen in the engraved inscriptions into the tablets? The only recognizable glyph on the tablets were one that is meant to represent water, on the left tablet, and one that was meant to represent fire, on the right. “I think these are the Tablets of Life.”

“Useless,” Souza grunts. “Nobody’s gonna want to buy these, even the boring wizards here can’t figure out what it says.”

“I don’t know how much time we have left before the wizards can catch us, and this tower is way too confusing to navigate. Might have to just take them to say we took something.” Naiako reached for the left tablet and lifted it off its holder. Souza picked up the other.

“They’re probably gonna wait for us in the portal room,” says Souza. “Should we go through the door?” Souza points to the opposite end of the room from the portal.

“Might get messy, but the portal room seems messier. Sounds like a plan.”

Souza slowly opened the door, peaking to see what lay on the other side. This room seemed to be at the end of a long hallway, and it didn’t seem that there were any other doors along the hall. The other end was so far off it was impossible to even see the end. “It doesn’t look too good from here.”

“Then we should get a better view.” Naiako, who was peeking out over Souza, pulled the door back all the way and began to walk through the hall. Souza let out a slight chuckle and followed.

They walked for a minute down the hall. There really were no other doors, just a long, winding hallway. They finally reached the end and saw that the hallway made a right turn. They stood at the end of the wall before the turn and looked at each other. With a nod, they continued through the turn. In this wing of the hallway waited a wizard in a white robe, gilded in gold.

“I’ve been following you two,” the wizard spoke. “I must thank you; you’ve helped greatly with my studies.”

“You can help show us the way out of here if you’d like,” Souza recommends.

“That would be a simple matter, if you two were leaving only with what you came.” The wizard looked at the tablets. “I highly doubt you two went through all this trouble just to steal those, but, if you have a strategy to crack their codes, I’m very curious.”

Naiako let out a monotone hum. “Yeah, no, we don’t, but we figured you guys weren’t doing any good with them so we’re going to take them somewhere else now to be studied. That’s it.”

The wizard smiled. He reached into his left sleeve and pulled out his closed hand. He opened it, and an orb manifested above it.

“Oh, shit, you can just do that?” Souza exclaims.

“Thanks to you two, now I can.” He kept the orb hovered over his hand and looked into it. He raised it so that the two in front of him were now viewed through the lens of the orb. Reality shifted through the lens, and the wizard let out a curious Oh.

“It seems you two might have a plan with those tablets. Keep them safe.”

They look bewildered. “Uh, okay?” says Naiako.

The wizard grinned. “Let’s waste no more time. You two should be on your way.” He took out a chalk from a pouch tied to his waste. It levitated over to the two and drew a circle on the ground around them. He muttered something under his breath, and the chalk circle began to go up in smoke. Within the smoke, the visage of another place could be seen. It looked to be the forest that surrounded the tower. “You should wait for the smoke to fully envelope before trying to step through it,” the wizard instructs. “Until next time.”

The two could no longer see the wizard, but they heard his footsteps getting quieter and quieter. Souza took the first step through the smoke and went through. Naiako followed. They were standing deep in the forest now, the tower difficult to see through the brush and canopies of the trees. The smoke behind them dissipated. “I fucking hate wizards,” Souza grunts.

“What does he mean we have a plan? I don’t know what to do with these things!”

“Well, where do you wanna go with them? I doubt we can sell them, notorious as they are for being unreadable.”

“There’s a large school of magic at Parseids, maybe we can just go there.”

“To Parseids it is.”

The two raiders, now holding their fates in their hands, head off to start their new adventure.