In Shining Armor

It was a testament to the rapid exposure therapy to weirdness of the Tower that it only took the most outgoing of us a few seconds to adjust to the strange ogre creature welcoming us. The silence before Zack spoke was very nearly not long enough to be awkward.

"Hey, big guy! Got beds for two hundred?" he said. "A silver a night, and some of y'all will have to share, but we can squeeze you in! Come, come, it's chilly outside," the ogre said. "I'm Zack, what's your name," Zack said, holding out his hand. The ogre gave him a handshake which looked exactly like a large father taking a toddler by the hand. "Gromshnag the Insatiable! So you know I'll have enough food for even all of ya!" he said. "Booze too?" Zack said. "More than you can drink!" Gromshnag said. "Everyone got at least one silver?" Zack called to the group. I hadn't been checking my own coin reserves, because they had been more or less entirely useless in the first challenge, but checked now.

Inventory

P: 0 G: 113 S: 2341 C: 1421

"I'll cover it, you can pay me back later," I called out, as I walked up to the conversation. Anna raised an eyebrow at me, but kept close. "I'm Alex," I said, and extended a hand to shake. Even with the surprising gentleness of the giant, he still gave me a crushing hand-shake, clearly by accident. "Our head wizard guy," Zack explained to Gromshnag. "Good! Good stuff! My aunt was a witch, I know it ain't the same, but she taught me a few cantrips. Keeps the beer cold!" Gromshnag said. "Anything we should know about the inn? Traps, food non-digestible for humans, conversations that send you into a berserker rage, polymorphed wizards, general treason, or any other things that would likely kill us at night?" I said. "Well, old Xem has really fucked you all up, hasn't he? Worry not, we're a designated safe zone, the only people that can do you harm are others with a Journal," Gromshnag said, "But do beware elven wine. There is a relation between eternal youth and alcohol tolerance, that should be obvious if you think about it." "The gold to silver conversion is 10-1?" I said. "It's 8 to 1, actually. No, we do still use a base ten system, it's just weird with coins. A dead empire or something, I'm not much of a historian," Gromshnag said. "Keep the change," I said, as I passed him 30 pieces of gold. It was two handfuls, with how large those coins were. "I'll be happy to, but let's call it a big ol' dinner for your crew. What are y'all?" Gromshnag said. "The Adventuring Guild," Zack said. "Which one?" Gromshnag said. "Right. Well, the world we come from didn't have adventuring guilds, but we had stories about them, so we called ourselves the Adventuring Guild, but now that you mention it, it makes a lot of sense that there would be actual adventuring guilds scattered around the multiverse," I said. "That didn't make much sense to me, but come, come on in," Gromshnag said.

As we poured into the large, warm inn, any trepidation many of us might have had melted away. There was a long table dominating the main hall, with a roaring fireplace almost as long as the room on the opposite side, where the entire trunks of several trees were burning. The vibes were somewhere between a viking mead hall and an English country pub. The furniture was solid dark wood, simple and functional, while the walls were whitewashed and covered in decorative plates, pastoral paintings and little clay figurines hanging. Above the fireplace there was the stuffed head of what appeared to be a giant donkey.

Most of the Guild sat down gratefully at the long table, which could easily seat our number, but I was drawn to a smaller table at the corner. As I started approaching it, I noticed that there was a man, smoking a clay pipe and wearing a cloak that covered half his face in the dim light. I almost laughed, but when he saw me approach, he threw a pebble at his feet which burst into darkness like smoke.

"No alchemy in the inn!" Gromshnag called in his ground-shaking voice, but when the darkness cleared, the seat was empty. I remembered the man from early in the third day of the challenge- Jacob, or something- that had taken on the edgelord persona fully, and now that I thought about it, had been roughly the build and demeanor of the man who'd just disappeared. I let out a deep sigh. Well, so long as I was becoming more wizardly, I guess I couldn't fault others for taking on fictional traits.

Gromshnag worked with an amazing efficiency, considering he was the only one obviously working here. There were two hundred mouths to feed and he resolved that issue quite quickly by bringing out two massive wooden platters- easily the size of a door each, covered in large chunks of meat, entire blocks of cheese, steaming cauldrons of stew and full barrels of drink on each. He set them down in front of the Guild, and half of them had more food in front of them than they could reasonably eat in one trip.

Anna joined me at the corner table.

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"We're safe, we're comfortable, and we're waiting for the food. Do it now," she said. And I had really run out of excuses by this point.

I focused, and flipped my book over to the pseudoportal spell. I thought about which of my friends should I try to contact first. Alyssa seemed like a safe first choice. I didn't know her that well, and would probably obsess the least if I couldn't reach her. So I focused on her and I cast the spell. It worked, kind of. At least the spell finished casting, but as soon as the pseudoportal formed completely, I could see only mist and roiling smoke through it.

"That's weird," I said. "Didn't work?" Anna said. "No, it just fizzles if the target doesn't exist. It latched on to… something, but I cannot see through it," I said. "Ability?" Anna said. "That's what I was thinking. Chum?" I said. "That's what it looks like to me. Either that or she's in a lightly warded chamber. Could try the dispel?' Chum said. "Well, I guess we know she's alive at least," I said, "I don't love the idea of casting from health when I don't know if I'll get anything." "Thank god," Anna said, "Then again, I guess that means she's in here." "She's alive. I'll try the dispel trick when I have access to a dark hole to recover in," I said. "It's your hitpoints," Anna said.

Next up was James. We'd been friends for a decade, and he was always the sort of guy you wanted on your side in a conflict. An asshole, sometimes, but never judgmental or prejudiced. He was a good friend, but compared to Will, I could at least prepare myself in case it was the worst case scenario.

I cast the spell and it fizzled.

"Well fuck," I said. "Dead or back on Earth?" Anna said. "Dead or back on Earth," I answered.

And then there was one. I cast the spell again, and it worked. Three castings left me at around half my mana at this level, but if I cast through the pseudoportal, it would instantly drain the rest of my mana and then take the remaining cost from my hit-points. I had an ability that made it a little bit less of a suicidal proposition, but it still sucked.

The spell formed, the vision cleared, and for a moment I didn't know what I was looking at. There was a man astride a white horse clad in chrome-shine armor head to toe, wearing a white tabard with "DF" emblazoned on it in gold. A shining steel lance rested on his shoulder, and a dazzling frog-face helmet covered his face. I looked around for Will for a second among the more bedraggled people that were also within sight of the knight, but when he saw the pseudoportal, he raised his visor, and I saw my friend's face looking back at me.

"DF. Dungeonfuckers," Anna said, with a smile, "Son of a bitch."

I myself rose to my feet with excitement and leaned in closer to the portal. Will was alive, and he was doing much better than I was, from the looks of it. His broad smile turned to a laugh, as he saw my ridiculous outfit, and then a bit more serious when he saw Anna, brooding in black tattered robes. But he shrugged and leaped off his horse, and walked up to the portal. He began talking, but of course we couldn't hear him. I tapped my finger to my ear and shook my head and he nodded. But I couldn't just leave it like that. I still had the telepathy spell from the Gloach encounter back in day 2, and tier 1 spells didn't hurt me all that badly even cast through the portal. So I took a deep breath and I cast the spell.

You won't be able to respond to this message. We are heading to the mountains, if you can see any in the West, that's where we're going. We're as safe as we can be, with many people. If you want to communicate anything else, you're going to have to find paper.

He looked concerned when he saw me get a nose-bleed and shiver with pain as I cast the spell through the portal, but he got over it quick. He raised up his finger, then nodded intentionally. Then, he called out to one of his companions, and got a ring-binder notebook, like many of the ones that we found during the first challenge. On it he wrote one word- Jess, his wife's name- and underlined it several times.

"Anna do you have any mana potions?" I said. "Just the one. For this you can have it," she said.

I turned back to Will and nodded just as intentionally as he had. Then raised my finger in a 'hold on a minute' gesture. I cast the spell focusing on Will's wife. We weren't that close, but I'd been around for dinner here and there. The spell fizzled. I didn't bother checking for the kid- I still hadn't seen anyone younger than 18 in the Tower, and I was becoming quite certain that it was because there simply weren't any children here. I cast the spell to Will again, and gritted my teeth as I cast telepathy again. With my current health pool and blood magic efficiency I could cast first tier spells about five times before dying, but twice already hurt a lot.

She's not in here. Statistically it's most likely that she is still back on Earth. Sorry I cannot be sure. Where are you and what's your plan?

The look on his face soured. It might have been the statistically most likely outcome, but he knew what the other possibility was. He had the note-book. May as well use it.

He took a while to write. Anna was holding on to my shoulder with a genuine smile on her face for the first time in what seemed ages.

Will wrote back: Have a quest near the mountains. Dungeon: Rock Toad Caverns. Will wait for you two there for three days. Contact me if impossible. Also use paper instead of blood magic, dumbass.

Instead, I called my spellbook to me with a word of power and scribbled on the edges of a page:

Then how would you know I'm a fucking wizard, bitch?

Will laughed and wrote.

So glad to see you both. It's been a real adventure. We need to meet ASAP.

And I responded.

That dungeon. We'll find it. On the dawn of the third day look for my coming from the East.

He smiled, then got serious as he seemed to hear a noise from the distance. He nodded and I let the spell fizzle.

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