Path of Dragons

A slight breeze flowed through the opulently decorated hall, fluttering the tapestries decorating the walls. Elijah only had to look at the end of the corridor to see the open window which was the culprit. Could he have entered through that opening? Or was it only there for ambiance? He had no idea, but it highlighted the fact that towers were far more complex than he’d first expected.

His first time through one, he’d thought the experience was fairly linear, but each subsequent run through a tower had hammered home that each task could be completed in a wide variety of ways. Some of those options would only be open to people with a few specific abilities, yet others were based on the way people thought. Perhaps a more straightforward person would have simply led his group through the front door. Or a thief might’ve found his way to the open window Elijah had just found. There were likely dozens of ways to overcome each obstacle, which made each tower a dizzyingly complex set of branching possibilities.

His previous task had been to reach the lord’s quarters, which he’d clearly accomplished, because his new goal had been updated:

At least it was uncomplicated.

Elijah looked down to see that a silver box had predictably manifested. He knelt down and opened it, retrieving the items inside. When he did, another notification flashed before his inner eye:

At first glance, they looked like MMA gloves, with padding along the knuckles and bare fingers. Yet, when Elijah picked them up, he couldn’t deny that they fit their name.

“Weighted gloves indeed,” he muttered. Even with his Strength, their weight was noticeable. More, he could feel hard protrusions in the knuckles that would functionally be similar to using brass knuckles. Finally, they were made of almost identical grey leather to his Ghoul-Hide Satchel, which meant that he had no interest in investigating their composition.

Elijah had something of a choice to make. He couldn’t wear his Claws of Gluttony at the same time as the Weighted Gloves. So, he needed to decide whether or not to replace the older piece of equipment. His first instinct was to keep what he had. The Claws of Gluttony were a little limited, especially given that their effect only worked when he clawed his opponents. Yet, Anticoagulant was a powerful ability that, though it wasn’t flashy, had definitely made plenty of difference.

But the Weighted Gloves called to him, largely because of his past. He’d spent a lot of time in the boxing gym, and though the gloves were a plainly different design, they still reminded him of those days. So, his choice was probably inevitable. Wasting no time, Elijah nicked his finger, bleeding on the Weighted Gloves before shoving some ethera into the items.

Then, he exchanged the gloves for the Claws of Gluttony and checked his status, noting that he’d gained an additional five Strength and Dexterity. More importantly, he sensed that the item came with an ability. He didn’t know what it was called, but when Elijah mentally flicked its switch, the gloves disappeared. He activated it again, and the gloves came back.

He did it a few more times, noting a couple of things. First, the additional attributes he’d gained remained in both states. Second, there was no limit to how often he could use the ability. That meant he wouldn’t have to walk around wearing a pair of fingerless leather gloves, which was strangely comforting to his vanity.

He already had to deal with everyone noticing his bare feet. Complicating that with a pair of weird gloves was probably pushing the eccentric image a bit too far.

Regardless, he was happy with his choice, so he placed his Claws of Gluttony into his Ghoul-Hide Satchel, then turned his attention to the notification he was most interested in.

“Towers really are great for leveling,” he said to himself. Of course, Elijah knew his actions weren’t really repeatable. Not for most people, at least. He had a unique set of spells and abilities that made him almost entirely self-sufficient. That meant that he didn’t have to split his experience – each kill gave a set amount, which was split between whoever had contributed to its defeat, according to how the system interpreted their efforts. So, the result was that, so long as he had plenty of high-leveled monsters, he could achieve a truly frightening leveling speed.

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He knew it would slow down, though. His first levels had been achieved by killing dozens of crabs and fish, each of which was barely even recognized by the system at that time. Back then, anything powerful enough to give him any levels had been killed by the panther. But since then, he’d noticed that each level he’d achieved had been the result of more effort than the last.

And things would soon get out of control.

Still, he suspected that he would need all the levels he could get if he was going to keep going, so he wasn’t going to argue with the system that, for now, seemed to favor him.

Regardless, he was eager to look at his new ability:

There was a lot to unpack with that description. First off – it was a potentially amazing ability. Elijah could already think of quite a few situations where it would have been incredibly useful. In his draconid form, mobility was essential, so anything that could help in that area was a boon.

The second thing Elijah noted was that the cooldown would decrease based on his Dexterity. In one of the guides he’d purchased, he’d discovered that most skills whose cooldowns were based on a specific attribute – rather than being static – had a minimum cooldown. Still, it was nice to know that Flicker Step’s cooldown would decrease each time he leveled.

It was an interesting ability, and he knew it would come in handy. But he didn’t have time to truly investigate or test it. After all, he was still on a timer. By his reckoning, he’d already used up half of his allotted time. Through the window, he could see the evidence of the sunrise. And if he failed to complete the tower before the twenty-four hours had passed, the elves were doomed.

So, with that in mind, he shifted back into his draconid form, adopted Guise of the Unseen, then padded down the corridor. There were only a few ways to go, so it didn’t take Elijah long to establish that the wing was vacant. But it was obvious from the sheer wealth on display that it was meant for the lord of the manor.

Or perhaps gaudiness was the better word.

The decorator had clearly spent quite a lot of money on the décor, and they obviously had a preference for gold, silver, and red velvet. In addition, the resident was obviously something of a narcissist, because there were dozens of large paintings depicting a handsome, white-haired man with ivory skin. He looked like the epitome of aristocratic class, complete with a velvet cape, pantaloons, and a haughty expression that made Elijah feel like even the paintings were looking down on him.

However, there was no evidence of the man himself. So, Elijah quickly left that wing behind and found his way to a wide, central corridor. He spent a little more time exploring the next wing over, but it was empty as well, though it had clearly housed one or more women, judging by the dresses in the closets he found.

With those two avenues having been exhausted, Elijah found his way back to the main corridor, then backtracked to a large, locked door. If his sense of direction was correct, it would lead him back to where he’d found the vampire girl and the people she had killed.

So, there was only one other way to go.

It was the obvious one.

Elijah padded down the center of the corridor, keeping One with Nature flared as he looked for any traps. There were none, and eventually, the hall ended in a set of open doors. Both were elaborately carved with symbols Elijah didn’t recognize and trimmed with red gold.

Elijah slipped inside, and he very nearly gasped at what he saw.

It was an enormous cathedral. The vaulted ceiling soared high above, and the walls were lined with pointed arches, inside of which were stained glass windows depicting the man from the paintings. That same figure was seated before a giant pipe organ on the other end of the chamber. It was obviously Lothgal. Even if Elijah hadn’t recognized him from all the paintings, he could feel the power wafting off the man.

And judging by what he felt, Lothgal was the most powerful creature he’d ever encountered. As Elijah watched, the man began to play the organ, which erupted into what sounded curiously like Bach’s Toccata and Fugue. It was a little too on the nose to be completely coincidental, but Elijah wasn’t terribly concerned with how a magical tower had manifested a famous piece of Earthen music typically associated with vampires. If it could create ogres, trolls, and ghouls, anything was possible.

Regardless, Elijah settled in to wait, intending to implement the vampire girl’s plan of killing Lothgal in his sleep. However, as the minutes stretched into more than an hour, he began to feel the timer ticking down. After two more hours, it was clear that Lothgal had no intention of slowing down. He’d switched to another piece of organ music that Elijah didn’t recognize, but was equally haunting.

Judging by his theatrical and enthusiastic organ playing, it didn’t seem that Lothgal was eager to return to his chambers for some well-earned rest. So, Elijah decided to act before it was too late. He padded forward on silent feet, passing one pew after another until, at last, he reached the dais upon which the organ had been placed. In the back of one facet of his Quartz Mind, Elijah felt that something was wrong, but no matter how he looked at the scenario, he couldn’t quite figure out what that was. So, he pushed his misgivings aside, positioned himself behind Lothgal, and, after using Venom Strike and Predator Strike, pounced.

And he found nothing but air before crashing into the pipe organ. The instrument let out a loud clatter as pipes were knocked aside and sent to fall onto the floor. Meanwhile, Elijah struggled to extricate himself from the wreckage.

It wasn’t until a few seconds later that he managed to free himself that he saw what had happened. Lothgal was still sitting exactly where he’d been before Elijah had pounced. In fact, he was still enthusiastically playing the organ that was no longer in front of him. The illusion flickered, then disappeared.

That’s when Elijah heard a slow, methodical clapping coming from the central path through the cathedral. He turned to see the real Lothgal’s measured approach. The man looked exactly as he had on the dais – which, in retrospect, was clearly an illusion – though he wore a broad, yet condescending smile as he slowly clapped.

“Bravo! Bravo, beast!” he said jovially. “You are quite entertaining. Perhaps when my pretties are done with you, you can be my jester. I have always wanted one.”

Then, Elijah became aware of five more presences flickering into being. It only took a glance to put two and two together. Each newcomer was a woman dressed all in white, and beautiful ones at that. But they were all pale-skinned, with the same indefinable aura of hunger hanging from their shoulders that Elijah had sensed from the vampire girl.

Moreover, he could feel that same sense of wrongness he’d experienced from the plague rat.

They were vampires. Obviously. As a Druid, it was his duty to rid the world of unnatural things. So, despite his surprise, Elijah calmly shifted into his human form. Then, he aimed his mind at the closest vampire bride and used Nature’s Rebuke.

She screamed in agony, and the final battle of the Magister’s Estate began.

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