As the dust settled and all became silent, everyone couldn't help but back away from the flaming tower. Yet, it was someone like Queenie who showed the most reaction.
If… you could call falling on her bum and slowly inching away with tears in her eyes a reaction. Actually, yes, I would consider that a reaction; it's why I typed it. As for whether you consider that a reaction, I could literally care less.
As for why she was acting this way, that would come into play soon enough (sooner than you might think).
However, as soon as they began retreating, a loud rumble abruptly echoed. The bridges that connected the tower to the sides of the river began crumbling rock by rock. The group watched in sheer horror how they were suddenly trapped and that if they didn't enter the tower, they would drop down into the river and most assuredly die. After all, none of them could fly and even if they could, there was no guarantee everything would go as planned.
Soon, it began collapsing near them and they were forced to enter the darkness of the tower's interior. Ann and Bob had to forcefully carry Ran and Queenie inside as they were both vehemently against going in there.
Once they entered, the iron door was pulled back up by the chains and it was now clamped shut.
Seeing as they were in complete darkness, they shuddered by what they might find if they shined light on the place. But… that's exactly what happened.
The soul juice from the river was sucked up the funnel and through the hole, making a beam of multicolored juice shoot up the center of the tower. Under all the emissions of the juice, the tower was lit up to a seeable degree and they saw their surroundings.
They were frightened at first, but they soon saw that this level of the tower was mostly empty except for a spiral staircase that also doubled as the ceiling, as well as a pedestal next to the hole that the juice shot out from.
The room was actually quite strange. The walls, floors, and stairs were all made of iron. There were no seams and the whole thing appeared to be made from the same mold. Even the pedestal was made of it. And while the beam provided some illumination, the majority was still dark and obscure.
Now, they were stuck inside this tower and the staircase to the next level was blocked by an iron gate. Then, once everyone settled down and were once again calm enough, the pedestal shined with an eerie red light.
"Well, what do we do now? We're now stuck in this place, with no way out." Shirley looked at everyone worryingly—she just wanted her pal back, but now they were trapped within some underground lair of sorts. While she was indeed built differently compared to the rest here, she was just a teenager like the rest. The unknown was a strong fear and should not be underestimated.
"We should try and find a way to leave. I… I don't like this place. It feels like someones always watching me," Queenie said. She looked around and clearly there was something she was holding back that made her look so anxious.
"Then, there's only one thing we can do." Ann, on the other hand, was confident. She had recently reached rank-5 and under the continuous consumption of cores, she was steadily heading towards the peak.
And so, with pride welling up inside her, and without anyone's consideration, she directly activated the rune formation attached to her sigil.
After ranking up, her sigil was strengthened just as much as her soul was. After all, the sigil was made of the soul and so it could be said that it was also the soul itself.
Her right gauntlet quickly appeared and it was much more defined than before. The holes they had before were replaced with twice as many small spikes, all of which resemble those on the collar. From the tips of the spikes, thin spindly threads emerged and quickly converged on her palm.
They weaved themselves into a small bead no thicker than the width of her pinky finger. The process took no longer than two seconds and while the resulting laser beam was less than half the size beforehand, its penetrating abilities were more than twice as powerful.
Clearly, she took Queenie's very obvious words as they should use force to create an exit. But she didn't go for the door, she had no confidence in it going through that. The gates blocking the staircase on the other hand…
Immediately, the laser beam crashed into the gate. However, before doing so, black runes flashed on the gate and a screen appeared, blocking the shot effortlessly.
And so, before anyone could reprimand her, she deflated like a balloon, her confidence reached rock bottom and her mind quickly returned to reality. She had never felt so helpless. Luckily, nothing happened afterwards, otherwise, they would probably be dead already.
Now there was only one thing left to do. And that is to follow the story. No one said this was free roaming; the powers that be were obviously biased towards a linear storyline, and they all felt used inside. They were being played like a fiddle and they could only put up with it.
You know what, I'll be honest here. I'm not good at the fiddle. Or any instrument for that matter. Actually, no, I did play the clarinet in middle school… Okay, I wasn't good at that either.
So, with no other options, they carefully went towards the pedestal on the tips of their toes. When they were near it, all they saw was a button. A button that was glowing red.
"So, who's going to try it?"
"I'll go check." Ran then went up to it, gulping as he did, and looked at it up close. On its face, "press me" was written in the runic language.
What? How did you think they wrote stuff down? Their spoken language? You thought they wrote in their spoken language? Oh silly readers, that's absolutely preposterous!
That would be like dogs writing "bark bark or woof woof", and all of them being able to understand it. And while a lot of species have their own written language which they base off the common tongue, none of them are similar to each other. There was no standard, until runes that is. Once a species learns runes, it was just easier for everyone if they used the written language as well.
But, how do you think every species talks to each other in a common tongue? Convenience? Sheesh, you underestimate me, the author, too much! Actually, the answer is really simple; their common tongue originates from their soul. Huh? That doesn't sound like an explanation at all and I'm just making excuses? How dare you!
You know, I was going to go into more detail, but since you jumped the gun and shot your shot, who am I to say when I'm dead? Dead men tell no tales.
…
"So… do you think we should press it," I asked Ann. I like buttons, and pressing them, but this one looks scary.
"Well duh Ran. How else are we going to leave," Ann quipped at me. She was starting to get agitated after losing to a bunch of metal bars, so I think I should hurry up and press it.
And that's what I did. My finger, the one I like the most, my pointing finger, reached out and pressed it down. It felt heavy, and its surface was really smooth. I wanted to fidget with it as it made a cool clicking sound, but it went too deep and disappeared. I was gonna be sad, but a screen appeared above the button and surprised me.
On the screen, it was pitch black—I'm not a fan of black, it makes me think too much when I look at it and sometimes I feel something looking back at me. But there was a cool-looking creature on the front that distracted me from the darkness. It had a long head with sharp teeth, a short midbody that had a long limb on each side, with the tips of the limbs being pointed. The back end was made of many tendrils that ended in a diamond shape. Its eyes shined with a light, but the picture was all white so I don't know what color it shined in. It also had crystal on its head that shined some light as well. I don't know, it looks cool and I kind of want to pat its head, but I think it will bite me, so I don't think I like it anymore.
The creature was to its side, but its eyes felt like they were alive and were looking at me; I was unsettled and looked away from it.
On top of the creature, "SPACE INVADERS" was written and they looked to be in 3D. They were so creative, sometimes the title would move or shift and its angle would change.
On the bottom it said, "Start" and that was the only option—they were greedy since they kept all the options for themselves.
In the end, curiosity got the better of me and I clicked start, and everyone watched, waiting to see what would happen. However, luckily for us, it just showed a bunch of more stuff instead of "starting everyones death, like some of us so pessimistic thought. I smiled boastfully at them and they all collectively rolled their eyes, even Fluffy. I don't think I want to sleep with her today anymore.
At the top, it said "Load save file" and showed a card-like box under it and a plus icon was next to the box. I looked at the one loadable file.
It had different words on it like "name" and "score" as well as "playtime".
Curiously enough, they all had corresponding answers. The name listed was "DEV", which is a name I've never heard of before—why was it in all caps. That's so cool! I want my name to be in all CAPS too!
So, someone started before me…
Anyways, I was really surprised by what else it said. Like, for "score"; instead of displaying a number, it just said "error". That was weird, but I don't like the word error. Like, how can a word know what's wrong with something; to objectify something like that is despicable. And then to generalize it like that too, it makes me sad.
But the next part was what hit me the hardest. For "playtime'', it said it was "87,600,000 hours". That number… was more than I can count with my hands and toes!
"Shit! Whoever came before me is probably dead and just a bag of bones. This Dev person sure has some persistence though." They looked at me after my commentary, and they were just so over everything already. So I just ignored them and kept going.
Out of curiosity, I clicked the save file and for a second I almost expected it to continue. But, it did not. It just said "Error, data not found. Please import the data, IRL DLC, to continue playing with all the add ons previously installed. Otherwise, all saved data will be overwritten and reset to the default game. Do you wish to continue?"
I gulped a heap of saliva. Even if the person who played before me is dead, I suppose, I gotta respect the grind. Just look at how many hours they've played. They played more hours than I've been alive. Not to mention all this crap about missing data; what does that even mean?
So, I just went back.
"Eh, what's this?" When I went back to the previous screen I saw some more stats that I hadn't seen before. It was in a smaller print and the number before it was just too eye-catching so I missed it.
"'Last time played'?" Well judging by the words, the stat was pretty self explanatory. So when I saw the corresponding response, I almost jumped up like a cat that saw a cucumber behind it.
"'Last time played: three minutes ago'!?" I stiffened up and my breathing quickened. The horrors of this implication rampaged through my mind as I turned towards everyone:
"Say, how long has it been since we got here?"
"Hmm, a few minutes."
"Like three?"
"Yeah, it's been about three minutes since we entered the tower—I've been counting," Bob responded. My first thought was why was he counting, but then I remembered it was bob so it made sense. That's why I like him, he's so unique. Not that I wouldn't like him if he was normal, though—I like everyone. At least, that's what I say to myself.
But my second thought…
"..."
FUCK!