In the Flame Clan bunker, under the supervision of Loth and The Devourer, a blackened hand was floating in the center of the Key Site’s beam of concentrated Miasma.

It was suspended in a viscous gel that held it fast, bubbles of pure oxygen rising up from the bottom of the blessed steel and glass container.

At the bottom of the contraption, A pale larva was released into the gel, and for a moment it froze as it came into contact with the dense miasma.

A moment later it seemed to shake off its confusion and begin chewing through the gel, digging its way upwards toward the disembodied hand.

Time marched by as the insect slowly and steadily made its way to the severed hand, until it finally reached the object it sought.

The insect wasted no time spinning a cocoon around itself and the hand.

“Now we see if Fate is watching.” Loth mused quietly as the sac pulsed inside the beam of pure miasma.

 

*** William Oh***

 

Once everything was as squared away as it would ever get, Will left behind two dozen of Sammohan’s men to establish a waystation and proceeded to call his Door to the next Floor.

Will took a deep breath and carefully blew it out as he walked through the Door, the first Climber stepping foot on the 21^st Floor in ages.

Nothing wrong with the air, Will thought, scanning the area he found himself.

He was inside a hallway with bright lit panels above that occasionally flickered when he wasn’t looking directly at them.

The walls were a boring beige and the floor was made of some kind of tiled marble that seemed to be easy to clean and hide bloodstains.

Will tested the air, giving a light inhale. The smell was vaguely mildewy, as though the halls had been subject to decades of neglect.

That’s odd. There should be twenty thousand years of neglect, not thirty or forty. Will thought as the other doors appeared around him and the fixed team entered the hall beside him.

Welcome to the 21^st Floor.

There is a Key Site in need of clearing to the north.

Just one? Will thought. This high up, everything should be gunked up pretty bad.

Was there a sapient species keeping things clean here, or was there only one Key Site?

“Hmm, hmmm…” Will frowned as he heard humming coming from down the hall, catching the attention of the entire team.

At the end of the hall, a pale young woman with a mop and a bucket turned the corner, cheerfully humming as she dipped the mop in the bucket and began sweeping it across the floor.

She didn’t seem to have miasma structures inside, and her voice didn’t seem to bounce off the walls. Illusion?

“Excuse me,” Will called out to her with one hand on his tomahawk, ready for her to shed her human disguise and begin scuttling towards them at any second.

She didn’t acknowledge Will’s words or even the sounds he made, simply continuing to move sweep the mop back and forth as she moved forward, occasionally pushing the bucket on wheels forward with the mop.

Will’s gaze caught on the mop itself, which seemed to be stained a deep crimson, nearly black, by the thick blood she was pulling from the bucket and smearing across the clean tiles, leaving a lumpy crimson mess behind her as she moved towards them.

To Will’s eyes, the dark blood appeared as if it had been drawn from vital organs, like the liver.

“Miss?” Beth asked as the woman came closer, dancing backwards as the woman continued to mop through her space without acknowledging Beth’s presence.

I think she might be environmental and not a monster.

“Let’s go over it. Don’t touch her or the stained floor,” Will said, picking himself up and floating past the woman spreading blood across the tiles. Will didn’t know if the floor was diseased, trapped, cursed, or just icky, but any of those was a good enough reason not to touch it.

Jorn summoned some kind of giant spider and rode it along the side of the wall, while Loth simply flew.

Beth and Sammohan got a ride from Mason, who floated effortlessly above the stained floor behind Will.

Will peeked around the corner and didn’t spot any enemies, then continued, pausing to stare out the window.

Outside was a world of crystal buildings underneath a grey sky. Far down below them were tiny human figures running away from a flood of miasma, the slowest ones fell, their bodies mutating into monsters and attacking each other with abandon.

It was complete chaos.

“Should we help them?” Jorn asked, peering down beside Will.

“They’re not real,” Will said, consulting his map. “According to my map, there’s nothing out there.”

“What do you mean, there’s obviously something out there, I mean…” Jorn’s voice slipped as the scene reset like someone re-placing the pieces of a chessboard. The unfortunate humans below carried out their last horrific moments.

Once more, from the top.

“Everything outside keeps repeating the same thirty seconds or so,” Loth mused. “But the woman with the bucket seems to have continuity. I think we’re in some kind of floor that’s been cut adrift from a specific time, or perhaps a fragment of a god’s memory of an event.”

“How confident are you?” Will asked.

“Not at all.” Loth replied, gazing out the window. “Ask again after I’ve had some time to study the Floor.”

“Where’s the Key Site from here?” Mason asked.

Will checked his map and drew a quick line between them.

“That way.” Will said, pointing. “Monsters, too.”

“We need to get some levels.” Jorn mused.

“That’s true. Jorn, would you mind having some of your minions touch the bloody floor?” Will asked.

They moved on until the bloody floor faded to clear marble tile again, seemingly slowly vanishing a few hundred yards behind the strange mop-woman. They set down on a clear patch and assembled before Jorn directed some dog-sized spiders to cross the bloody floor.

The blood instantly boiled up and turned into a swarm of deep red five-legged monstrosities that leapt and latched onto Jorn’s spiders, biting cookie-sized chunks out of the spirits.

“I got this,” Mason said, holding up his palm.

Charge swelled up and a roar of flame consumed the hall. An instant later, the bloody monsters were scoured away, leaving Jorn’s slightly-charred spirits behind.

Will checked his XP, finding that it had ticked up slightly. Maybe a few days of grinding would get them to the next Primary, but they didn’t have to do that here and now.

“This place is cramped.” Will said to Loth. “Can you arrange the team to suit?”

“Sammohan, stay inside for this Floor. Bring out Arkesh.”

Will blinked. Arkesh wasn’t exactly small in his snake form, and in his old-man form he wasn’t really much of a fighter, except for his psychic Abilities.

Will’s confusion was resolved shortly after the old man stepped out of the portal, blinking at the bright overhead lights.

“What is that?” Loth asked, guiding the old snake to the window.

“Oh, that’s outside The Tower.” Arkesh the Mind-Conquerer said, stroking his outrageously long beard. “You get glimpses sometimes when a Floor has mutated. This is a particularly nice view.”

“Explain.” Will said.

“Well, there’s outside the Tower at the bottom, where you were all born, and there’s outside the Tower at the top, where this is all happening. The last thirty seconds of the end of the world.”

“So is this a crystalized moment in time that we’re witnessing?” Will asked.

Arkesh shook his head. “Nuh-uh, this isn’t a past recording or anything. It’s happening now, and will continue to happen until The Tower collapses under its own weight.”

Will and Loth shared a look. What the Abyss are we supposed to do with that?

“Alright, back in ya go.” Loth said, ushering the Immortal Serpent back into Mason. “You are very convenient, Mason.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Mason said.

“Jorn, put a group ahead and behind us. A blocker. Something small and tough. Will and I will pick off the monsters as they hold them in place. Beth will provide support keep an eye on our rear.” Loth said.

Jorn nodded and dug out another bone totem. This summoned a creature that seemed to be a cross between a badger and armadillo, with short limbs, powerful looking jaws and a tough layered plate along its back.

They swarmed in both directions, forming a guard fifty feet ahead and behind.

One of the doors that lined the halls flew open and a pale human in a smock flew out, some kind of metal stand with clear sacks of liquid toppling to the ground behind him.

There was no sign of rationality in the emaciated man’s eyes as he latched on to the nearest armored badge and bit it.

An instant later, the other badgers seized his limbs and dragged him away from the one he’d bitten, pinning his limbs down and going for his throat. They hesitated as Jorn hesitated.

“Is that actually a monster?” Jorn asked with a frown.

Will glanced at the forms squirming beneath the man’s skin, mostly hidden by the smock.

An instant later, he erupted as more humanoid creatures climbed out of his chest as though it were a portal to a dimension entirely populated by emaciated feral bald men.

As this was happening, the bitten armored badger, along with the others that had seized him began twitching and spasming uncontrollably as hostile miasma overwrote its form, gradually growing in size as it’s hair began to fall out.

“I would say ‘yes’.” Will said as the battle began in earnest. “Dismiss the badgers before the magic flows back to you.”

“I can’t dismiss just one of them.” Jorn said.

“Dismiss all of them, then,” Loth said, concentrating on her hand. “Switch to something with a ranged attack.”
They were flooding the hallway now, a tidal wave of naked emaciated bald men with the exact same face, but that wasn’t the worst of it.

Will could see the hostile miasmatic structures saturating every part of their body. Spring-loaded and ready to inject transmutative miasma into anything that so much as touched them.

Hmm.

Will unleashed a cannonball, turning one of their heads into paste, dismissing the manifested object before it could be corrupted.

Yeah, that could work. A bit tedious to do them one at a time, though.

Loth tapped Will on the shoulder and Will stepped out of the way.

The leading creature lunged forward and Will’s blood ran cold as Loth caught his wrist by hand.

There was a thick layer of miasma around Loth’s hand that suppressed the spring-loaded transmutative magic.

Will watched as she copied a line of her impregnation Ability onto the miasma injectors in the monster’s skin.

Will shot more cannonballs to keep the others back and tore off the monster’s arm as it attempted to scratch Loth with it’s other hand. Loth ignored defense and continued to modify the monster’s natural corruptive ability on the fly, leaving Will and Beth to keep her unharmed.

A moment later, she released the creature, flinging its hand into its own face. The spikes of miasma deployed and injected transmutative magic into the monster’s skin.

The monster gave a surprised expression before it hunched over, it’s back bulging.

An instant later, massive scarabs with the man’s face exploded out of his back and latched onto the other copies, converting more and more of them into insects.

The flow of battle changed directions, and the shiny black carapaces overtook the naked flesh, until the entire hall was filled with human-faced scarabs.

“Die.” Loth commanded.

As one, the human-faced scarabs rolled over onto their backs and expired.

“How did you know that would work?” Will asked.

“I just noticed how similar their magic was to one of my Abilities.” Loth said. “So I took it.”

“That thing’s spring injector was better than what we made with the chalice.” Will said.

“I noticed that. Tell me you made a sketch.” Loth replied.

“I was a little distracted. Next one.” Will said, to which Loth clicked her tongue.

“What are you guys talking about?” Jorn asked. “And how did you…do that?”

Jorn must’ve felt something strange. The kid had very high Focus, which meant he could feel the change in miasma, but he couldn’t perceive what was happening with all his senses, like Will.

“Magic,” Loth said, wiggling her fingers, much to Will’s amusement.

They crept forward through the patch of dead scarabs and came up to the door that the monster had come through originally.

Beep, beep, beep.

The room had a dozen narrow beds, but only one was occupied.

There was an emaciated young man struggling to breathe in the furthest corner. A woman was seated beside his bed, her quiet sobs swallowed by the beeps that came from the machine beside his bed.

Will checked his map, glanced into the room, then met Loth’s gaze and shook his head.

They weren’t real.

Moving on.