Where the Hearth is

  Our escape into the conjured realspace was a series of flashes of semi-conscious memories of damage and healing, all my will focused on holding on to the spells that kept everyone else alive for as long as I could. It must have taken but a few minutes, since I couldn’t have kept on the mana expenditure for much longer than that even with the incoming healing and mana boosts. I was soaked in my own blood by the time a pair of my friends dragged me over the threshold and I let go of the spells. I pointed weakly at a small door under a spiral staircase going up around the outer wall of the tower and I was shoved into a small, soft, dark space. I did not hold on to my consciousness for much longer than that.

  Time passed.

  I awoke to find myself in a small, padded cellar, and was confused for a moment as to where I was. I was, as ever, fully healed and restored. I could feel the crumbly layer of dried blood in my beard, hair and on my face, and as I licked my lips I could feel and taste it on my mouth. There was no light in here, and so I touched the walls around me until I found a doorknob. I opened it and a pale white light washed into the cellar. Aside from the major blood stains all over it, this really was the perfect spot for me and my recovery ability. It was just large enough to curl up into fetal position, padded in soft, red satin pillows on every surface- close enough to blood colored that you could barely see the stains- and, as I noticed as soon as I opened the door, completely soundproof.

  The interior of my tower was full of people. I was glad for it, of course, saving them had been the entire point of using my tower token, but I still felt and almost instinctive urge to be left alone in my tower that I couldn’t quite place. Realizing that they must be exploring it made me almost jump out of the cellar with an irritated look on my face. Anna and Will were waiting nearby, chatting quietly sat by the wall. Before going to them I took a quick look at the interior of the tower.

  In many ways it was the stereotypical wizard’s tower. This ground floor was a wide open area, with a few doors leading to what must be small annex rooms- likely wardrobes, cupboards and perhaps a bathroom- with a spiral staircase circling the room once in its entirety before disappearing to the next floor up. The materials were simple- granite, dark wood and wrought iron. There were iron sconces on the walls, lighting the rooms in firelight, but, upon closer inspection, not burning any torches or any other material, but apparently purely magical. On the floor there was a massive, dark blue carpet, which was circular and depicted the star map of this world. Currently some thirty people were comfortably arranged in this room, sitting and eating on the floor, lounging by the walls, or talking in groups standing up.

  Will was the first to notice me crawling up out of the cellar, and he waved me over, saw my state, and frowned.

  “Maybe the chat can wait. Good news, we found a bath!” Will said. He looked a bit guilty suggesting it, as if he didn’t want to imply that I was dirty, but as I was literally covered in crusted blood, dirt and toad saliva, I hardly felt the offense.

  “Oh fuck yeah. Where?” I said.

  “Basement. There’s a queue, but they’ll let you go next,” Anna said.

  Fuck. They would, wouldn’t they. A part of me was strangely upset that they were bathing in my bath, which let me recognize that feeling as alien. Indeed, there was a strange effect to the place. I felt possessive of it, immediately and instinctively, as if this tower was a home that I’d built and spent a good portion of my life in. It felt like home. No, it felt too much like home.

  “I really don’t like my mind being messed with,” I grumbled, which must have looked like it came from out of nowhere.

  “I- kind of know what you mean,” Anna said.

  “You do?” I said. I stopped mid-way from turning around away from them.

  “Yeah. It feels like we’re intruding. At least it does to me,” she said.

  “Huh. Now that you mention it…” Will said. There was a fluttering of wings and the slight scent of sulfur.

  “Don’t know what they’re talking about, boss. Nice digs, you should see the other floors. I know a dozen damned souls of former wizards who would have sold their souls for a tower like this one. Two who did!” Chum said.

  “It’s nice. We’re still trapped though, aren’t we,” I said.

  “Adam has some ideas. But you stink of blood and mana burn. It might make you popular in the venochemy district in the City of Damned, but from what I know of humans they’re gonna get real weird about it real soon,” Chum said.

  I left without further discussion. Honestly, the thought of a proper bath was an overwhelming temptation.

  As I arrived in the, uh, I guess ‘subterranean’ portion of the tower, I found that I wasn’t the only one who had had that thought. This area, which was, of course still floating in nothing like the rest of my tower, looked like a dungeon in a fantasy film. Dark, close and winding, and full of people queuing with loofahs, bars of soap, towels and fresh clothes. There must have been another thirty people here. When they saw me, one by one they looked up at me, first in annoyance, then in wide-eyed awe (fuck). And everyone let me pass them by until I reached the heavy wooden door with a brass doorknob and decorative filigree. Steam was coming from under the door, and you could hear the splashing about of someone inside.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  I waited patiently for some twenty minutes, thinking of ways to get out of here. Naturally, Adam had some sort of a plan. Mana was really the issue, since if I could get overcharged once again I could probably carry everyone wherever Adam needed them to go. I started to get a nagging worry that I would have to dismantle this tower into the same type of primordial mana the way that Adam had done to the dungeon to get us this far, and I really hated that idea.

  Finally the door opened, a young woman with wet hair in a towel and a fresh set of clothes came through, jumped at my bloody visage, then smiled and apologized when she recognized me, then pushed through back upstairs. I entered the bath proper.

  I might have moaned a little. Fortunately there was nobody around. It was perfect. First there was a large, wooden tub of steaming water. As I closed the door, it drained, a flash of white, purifying light presumably cleaned it and it began re-filling. There was also an adjacent room that turned out to be a sauna, a shower with a brass shower-head, a full-sized mirror next to a sink with both a straight-razor, foam, soap and even face-care products, and several clean towels with my initials embroidered on them in red thread.

  There were oils scented of lavender and pine, perfumes and a variety of soaps I hadn’t seen outside of one of those specialty soap stores in malls when I was a kid.

  A while later I got in the bath and let the familiar numbness wash over me. I had almost died. Again. It didn’t get easier. But I had done it before. The fear was familiar. Perhaps I had grown stronger. I swished the water around and forced myself to relax entirely.

  I spent about an hour in there, showering, bathing and steaming myself until I was eventually cleaner than I had been when I first was dragged into the Tower. I did not shave, but I did straighten, trim and oil my beard. As for my clothes, it was simple- I burned them all. My magic items were impervious to fire damage, while the rest eventually burned up in magical flames. I kept the fires going until every bit of filth was gone, then threw them into a ball of vacuum to get any remaining particles out. Then I pulled out a fresh change of shirt and trousers from my magical backpack, and put my robe, boots and wizard hat back on.

  I’d become accustomed to looking into a mirror and seeing a filthy, sunken-eyed vagabond in a motley assortment of clothes looking back. Now that I was clean, trimmed and rested, I found a wizard looking back. An eccentric one, to be sure, more Pratchett than Tolkien, but confident in his bearing and power. I even smiled. Then I turned and went back into the hallway.

  I found it abandoned. Fuck. Presumably, people had had some sort of a schedule for the bath. But since everyone was treating me like some sort of a savior, they hadn’t informed me of this. Oh well, that made things easier, if nothing else. I was about to go looking for Adam, when I realized that by just having that thought I could sense his presence, pulling like the presence of my party members pulled through my ability. He was above and, I could tell, on the sixth- top floor.

  Well, I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, and so I began walking to meet him.

  The top floor of the tower was clearly some sort of an office and a library. It was emptier than the others. I only saw Adam going over some diagrams on a blackboard, referencing several notebooks. My eye was also drawn to a football-sized white stone on the desk in the middle of the room. Adam noticed me.

  “Friend Alex. I hope I haven’t trapped us all in the Nothing. I hadn’t counted on such major entities interfering,” Adam said, still scribing on the blackboard.

  “How did you intend us to leave here then?” I said.

  “I can sense most of the anchor points to the Tower from here through my wrappings. I apologize. I really should have gone into detail with the plan. It just never felt like there was the time,” Adam said.

  “There is time now. What’s the situation,” I said.

  “A traversal point is roughly a mile up from here. Not literally of course, but that is the amount of mana you would have to expend,” Adam said.

  “Something like twenty minutes then. My full mana bar ran out in less than five once it hit that,” I said.

  “I would suggest gathering more mana through your spellrod, but that was before I learned how few specialized spellcasters are in here. Ms. Anna could likely double your range, but no more than that. With blood magic you might get us all of 75% there,” Adam said.

  “I’m not leaving people behind,” I said.

  “It is the first logical conclusion. You could get half out, right now,” Adam said.

  “And I wouldn’t know how to get back,” I said, “I don’t think I could find this place in Nothing again.”

  “It is still more than would have got out without your help,” Adam said.

  “Your help too. But there has to be a way. And, besides, I don’t want to leave this tower behind,” I said.

  “It doesn’t want to be left behind either,” Adam said. I thought I felt a bit of suspicion in his voice, though he was nearly as unreadable as ever, “That stone. No one else has been able to move it,” Adam said.

  I walked over to the desk and picked up the stone. It seemed to weigh as much as pumice. I felt intense magical tingling from the stone and there was scratching immediately heard from the Journal.

  I opened it up, holding the stone in one hand.

  Log

  Heart of A Wizard’s Tower located. Bind your souls together Y/N?