Rest Period

My room fob was for room 055, with Hannah, Zack and a good number of other members of the Guild within the same general area. Anna was at 099, but we were all within the first hundred. It seemed and unlikely coincidence, so we went into the hallways to find our rooms. I laughed bitterly as we went out of the roomy lobby into the hallways.

"What?" Hannah said. "I just realized I have a fear response to hallways," I said. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I feel like anything could jump out of those doors," Artemis said.

The door only a dozen feet ahead of Artemis slammed open and there was a strange howl. We all froze and went for our weapons, before we recognized that the howl was a whoop, made by a woman, specifically one Emma from Brighton.

"This place fucks, don't it?" she said. She was wearing a bathrobe and a towel tied around her wet hair. "Emma, was it?" Artemis said. "What you forget the name of who's shagging ya mum?" Emma said. "Fuck you, Emma," Artemis laughed. "Fuck me yourself, coward," Emma said and took two steps towards Artemis. "I give up, I surrender," Artemis said. "Good to see you, Artemis, Alex, Zack, Hannah, aaand Anna was it?" Emma said. "It's not impressive to remember names when your knowledge is cranked to eleven," Anna said. "I'm Chum!" Chum said. "Her knowledge is five," Emma said, pointing at Artemis. "How do you know that," Artemis said. "Magic, innit?" Emma said, "Come on, come on in, bad luck to chat over the threshold."

The whirlwind energy of the young woman led us all into her hotel room before we really knew what was happening. It was nice. A large living room led to a bedroom and a massive bath, all in light wood with a grandiose four-post bed.

"I ain't ever slept on nothing like this. I'm gonna fucking wake up a proper lady or something," Emma said. "Nice, is every room like this?" I said. "Nah, there's differences and stuff. I got a bucket of Yorkshire tea bags and like seventeen kebabs in my fridge. Proper big ones too, not like that European shit," Emma said. "Adjusted to your preferences?" Anna said. "Can I have one?" Zack said. "Knock yourself out, big man," Emma said and Zack took a wrapped kebab the size of his forearm out of the fridge and started eating. "You just ate," Hannah said. "I got stats making me buff. A few more points in Physique and I'll look like a Hemsworth. I can eat how much I want," Zack said. "You look like a high value bear from one of the good gay clubs already, good on ya," Emma said. Zack shrugged and said "Thanks." "So, are there any other differences? Like furniture and rooms?" I said. "Some. I never went to the old crone's room, but the rest of the team made it. They have a few knicknacks that fit them better, but it's more or less this. Wanna come around for boardgames at night?" Emma said. "Hell yeah I do," I said. "Well alright, git then, you all stink of blood and sweat and shit," Emma said. "I will kill whatever I need to to get to my room," Anna said and we were pushed out of the room with the same intensity that we'd been let into it.

Oh, duh. I hadn't known Emma before the Tower, of course, but I expected that she must have put some points in intensity. That worried me a little, since I was planning to boost that attribute soon, and didn't really like the idea of such an extreme change in personality, but I had to make my spells stronger, and I was sure that would do it.

We left, meeting Arnold and Brooke on the way. They too had been roomed near the rest of the surviving members of their sector. They left the same room and looked flustered enough by meeting people they recognized that it was pretty clear what they'd been up to. We didn't want to interrupt their solace, and so kept going, the numbers on the rooms increasing sequentially.

There was one person waiting for us there. It was Kryn, one of the strange alien humans that we'd encountered in our first fight on day three. He had a somber smile on his face as he read his new Journal. Since he hadn't come from Earth, the Tower had treated him as a monster. Until, that is, he left the first challenge and became a 'hero' like the Goblin Market and the devil.

"Looks like I'm the only one who made it. And now I'm a hero," he said. There was venom on the word 'hero' in his voice, and I recalled that his group had come to this place in order to rid it of heroes. Which is why there had been a fight between us and, like, dozens of them.

"It doesn't mean anything, you're you," I said. "Who is this guy?" Anna said. "I'm Kryn, and I guess I'm one of you now. I was captured by Artemis when we tried to kill all of you," Kryn said. "Sorry to hear about your loss," Hannah said. "We knew what we were signing up for. Or, we thought so. Dying would have been one thing, but this? Am I a traitor, or a deserter now?" Kryn said. "That paper doesn't mean anything, Alex is right," Anna said. "Doesn't it? It changes you, fundamentally. I thank you for your kind words, but I will need to sleep on it," Kryn said.

As much as it was the right thing to console the guy some more, he didn't seem very receptive to it, and we all were now very conscious of the fact that we were dirty, tired and the food and drink in our bellies made us daydream of sleep. Artemis' room was first and she disappeared into it. We each made for our rooms, until only Anna and myself were left. At my door she punched me on the shoulder:

"Good job, Alex. We made it," she said. "Yeah, somehow," I said. "So, I guess this is what adventure is like in real life," she said. "Maybe if you have the universes worst That Guy combining every rpg horror story in one campaign," I said. "Well, I have a good feeling about this. I think it will get off the rails in the next challenge. We will be able to build something, to really start growing," she said. "Why do you say that?" I said. "Eh, another set of horrid hallways? Another dungeon even as we're starting to get powers that'd make keeping us locked up harder? That'd just be dull," she said.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. "And our host does have a sense of drama," I said. "Exactly. Get some rest and get cleaned up. We'll catch up tomorrow," Anna said.

I went into my room and found a warm, clean space. There was more fabric and plaid here than Emma's room, with rugs, carpeting and even fancy rugs hanging off the walls, intersecting each other in patterns that turned to spell diagrams. I took a hot shower. I stood in there for what must have been half an hour, soaping and shampooing up two, three, then four times, before rinsing it all off. I still didn't exactly feel clean, there was a smell of death embedded somewhere in my nostrils or subconsciousness that wouldn't quite leave. But I dried myself off, put on the complimentary bathrobe and fell unconscious in the bed.

After the third time I woke up screaming, I moved to my wardrobe, and slept like a baby, waking rested, healed and recovered.

When I woke the room was pitch black, but for the floating text of a digital clock. It read 02:32 AM. Yeah, that made sense. Since we'd been fed what I assumed was lunch before I went to bed, I must have slept through the whole day and half the night. Sleeping for, like, 12 hours made a lot of sense from how physically and mentally exhausted I'd been. I was still not quite used to waking up spry and energetic again, that hadn't been how it worked for more than a decade, but here I was, crawling out of a closet fully rested and ready to go. I flipped on a light-switch, and a softly snoring Chum woke up with a start.

"Up, it's time for research," I said. "It's the middle of the night, boss!" Chum whined. "We've slept through the day," I said. "You slept through the day. I was learning something called Magic the Gathering from the English lady," Chum said. "You went out without me?" I asked. "You were out cold, boss, and they told me I could learn to summon pixie ninjas," Chum said. "And when you found out it was just cardboard?" I said. "We played something called commander. I lied to everyone," Chum said bursting with excitement. "You don't look so tired. So we can go over my remaining level up options," I said.

I opened up the Journal and the options for wizard schools literally filled several pages. Now that I had spells from a dozen different schools, I could pick to specialize in each of them and gain a new spell if I did. The exception was my Invisible Armor spell, which currently read:

Invisible Armor (Abjuration) Tier [special 1], Rank 1

When you cast this spell, you conjure a suit of perfectly fitted, comfortable suit of armor on to your body. The suit of armor appears as if donned properly. You may choose to have the suit appear completely invisible, as a lightly glowing barrier, or as a suit of glass armor. At Rank 1, the armor is as tough as steel plate, though more brittle. Every time you choose Abjuration as your specialization, the quality of the abjurative barriers that make up the armor improves.

Requirements to upgrade the spell to Rank 2: Choose Abjuration at level 15

The best I could understand it, if I picked it now, I would both get the rank and tier increase to the spell, while if I left it for later, the tier would go up, but the rank would remain the same. It wasn't anything I'd tried before, so I asked Chum about it.

"Well, it's kind of iffy. I don't know the full design of this magic system, after all," Chum said. "This magic system? So magic really is different in different planes?" I said. "Eeeh, yes and no. More precisely I should have said I don't know how this progression system works. Technically magic is more or less the same everywhere, it's how you get at it that's the difference. At a glance, and based on the rest of your spells, I'd expect a tier increase to boost the complexity of the spell itself, allowing for more impactful magic. The rank increase seems to take what you have and make it more powerful. At a complete blind guess, getting the next tier of this spell would probably allow you more specialized and modifiable armor, while a rank increase would make it tougher and add a choice of a couple of different boons," Chum said. "So should I take it? Seems like a lot of rewards for specializing in one school," I said. "It's definitely a solid choice. I'd bet 50/50 that if you don't pick it, it'll give you a new requirement to rank it up. But it looks like any spell you'd pick would now be tier 2. So, it's tricky. Your armor spell is pretty good already, but look over at least the good ones of the others," Chum said.

I kept the armor as one of my options and narrowed down the rest of the choices on offer to three. The Journal still didn't give me details on what the spells would do exactly until I picked them, but some of them seemed so powerful that I couldn't just ignore them. I noticed that the spell schools that I'd passed up on last time now offered different spells, not just tier-ups, but Chum was pretty sure that even if I didn't get the option for mage armor at level 20, I'd get something equivalent in utility, just stronger.

Class You have reached a multiple of 5 in the Wizard class. You may change or reinforce your wizard school choice.

Biomancy Specialization: Accelerate Healing (Tier 2, Rank 1) Chronomancy: Stasis Field (Tier 2, Rank 1) Evocation: Fireball (Tier 2, Rank 1)

"Don't expect too too much of Chronomancy. It is a very powerful school, but probably the most complex magic in the multiverse," Chum said. "Seems powerful though," I said. "Incredibly. Also the easiest way to make yourself never have existed," Chum said. "Healing seems good," I said, "Very good." "It is. Don't expect it to restore your spells and stuff, like your ability does. It could definitely save your life though," Chum said. "And of course, there's fire-ball," I said. "Oh, come on, Boss," Chum said. "What? It's fireball!" I said. "Fireball's dad magic," Chum said. "What the hell does that mean?" I said. "Trust me, Alex, it's the classic rock of spellcasting," Chum said. "Classic rock is awesome," I said. "You're hopeless. Look, damage per mana, sure, a fireball is probably the most effective spell you can pick. But you don't have the blaster kit. You're all shields and trickery. That greasefire spell can do almost everything a fireball can do anyways and it has utility with the grease," Chum said. "Fine, fine, so it's between Chronomancy, Abjuration and Biomancy," I said. "No bad choices there, boss," Chum said.

So I sat back and thought about it. My armor had already saved my life several times over and the boost in rank would definitely help my survivability, especially now that I couldn't take any more stamina for the moment. Healing would be invaluable. Our only healer was Bjorn and he was pretty much constantly busy, not to mention the potential for keeping me alive in an extended battle. Not only did stasis field seem like an amazing crowd control spell, it would lead me down the path of what could be the most broken school of magic in this system. It was an embarrassment of riches, three choices, each of which was far too good to turn down.

"Oh what the hell, let's get weird with it," I said, and circled the Chronomancy specialization.

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