62 (II)
Falling
Shammus kept at the door, working at it although the knowledge that he was trapped didn’t make anything better. He tried to peel the talisman sealing the door, but suddenly he heard footsteps approaching.
He muttered a short damnation for knowing how he was probably close to his demise. But Shammus knew better and he flung himself down the stairs, landing with a soft thud besides Clara and Judine. He sighed as Clara flinched for a moment, and pulled the two close to him as the door cracked open, the door groaning with it’s age.
It was ominous as the footsteps fell heavy on each step, the stairs creaking under the weight of the sins of the person atop it. Or maybe just the mass of the person, and Shammus prayed it was that for that would mean it was Pallad.
When the person stepped into view, Shammus let out a breath of relief seeing Pallad. The news he brought dragged back the tension in his muscles. “Bariton is still distracting Insanity, and I placed down more clues to the rumors going about, people are still sleeping, but I secured a route out of town and to the capital.”
Shammus knew this was good news, but his plan was going by far too easily. Maybe Heavenly would descend at any moment, and force more blood to stain his already reddened hands. Clara gripped his arm as he let the two go.
“Alright, new step to this plan. We get Clara and Judine back to the capital.” Shammus’s speaking was smooth, as he made this plan quickly. “Those two will ensure the fugitives are received within the capital’s walls, at least if Lanostiv is similar enough to when I was around that there it is still a walled city and still the capital.”
Pallad’s nod confirmed that this country hadn’t changed nearly as much as some others over the 1000 years he was gone since the war of Lirdsuania. But Shammus still had to go through with this. “Pallad, help Bariton distract Insanity, you didn’t close the door yet yes?”
Pallad’s nod still confirmed his theory designed from the lack of sound from the door. Shammus moved quickly to prevent it from closing with the wind from the open window of the hallways. A sword placed in between the doorway and the door prevented it from slamming shut, but it also flew open at the speed of Shammus’s movement.
It slammed against the wall, and the sound of a lyre cut for a singular moment. Shammus raised his arm to halt the movement of his party, who were following with Pallad pushing Clara and Judine out the room of terrible proportions, terrible red light.
A light breeze filled the stone halls, and there was a thin veil of moonlight. As though their mission was blessed by the gods that weren’t ensnared here. And the sound of lyre followed the cool breeze, and Shammus looked out to see multicolored leaves.
It was fall, maybe the capital would be closed for the start of the school of adventuring or whatever it was called. Shammus was hoping otherwise, but either way Clara and Judine both have weight in there and should be capable of pulling survivors of the church in.
Should be. That phrase was too uncertain for Shammus’s taste, but he couldn’t help but doubt this realm. It was similar to a personal dungeon; potentially even was one, but designed for the party as a whole.
They all seemed to hate the collateral damage, and here it seemed unavoidable. It was entirely possible with what had been done so far, it was just at a larger scale. A potentially universal scale as he didn’t know what else had changed in this world other than that Heavenly Dealer of None was a god that actually did something.
Potentially Brightness’s Delight didn’t even take the Sanctuary from Petra Losine, destroying the Saintess as a position, but he made a gamble that would hopefully pay out. Pallad would lead those two back to the capital as Shammus made his move to rather force an evacuation.
The church was more like a fortress with it’s stone walls and lacking murals. He could’ve sworn the ceiling was painted, but it was strange. There were none. Eventually he found his target, Insanity. He drew upon both Agony and Justice and flew forward at his maximum speed that didn’t ionize the air.
The area around stayed slowed as the air whistled out in the face of the weapon, and Insanity parried the blade away with his arm, and Bariton vanished as swiftly as Shammus came in, and Insanity’s similar red eyes to his own reflected his face.
Contorted in rage. The hatred in his own face seemed false though, he didn’t feel the tug at his lip that came with bared teeth. And now that Bariton was gone, the ringing of the metal finally came to an end as he pulled back.
“Apologies, Father Linore.” Shammus kept his weapons out, but put them at the side. “I thought you were an intruder for a second. Bariton is known to get side-tracked in conversation with opponents.”
“Ah, it’s entirely understandable.” Insanity made his response as he lowered the arm that was cut. It was hardly even scratched, which itched a small fear that Shammus had in his mind; not for Insanity but for whatever did the torture in that chamber. “I apologize for standing in the way of your violent outburst.”
“No no,” Shammus began speaking once more, not to defend himself, but rather to take the blame. “The fault is all my own; after all I shouldn’t have even shot forward in the first place, to have such a ‘violent outburst’ as you called it.”
Insanity’s laugh was devoid of joy. He could sense it, and it wasn’t even painted in the eyes. This was definitely a divinity full of pain and suffering. One that was built from deceit. One that was formed by its god to lie to survive.
The laugh kept on as Shammus put his dual blades into his inventory. It was still up in the air whether he’ll be struck down for his hubris in attacking the god or not. And Shammus’s smirk showed what he knew to be true.
And Insanity’s laugh slowly died down, as he stared into Shammus’s eyes once more. “You know of that room, don’t you?” Insanity’s glare showed he knew all about how he was the one previously in that room. “So, where did you bring Clara and Judine, hm?”
His voice lost all the niceties it had when he was pretending to be Linore. It didn’t matter any longer, Shammus supposed. “You’ll see them again when our plans are complete.” Shammus stated with the same hubris he used to face an opposing army with. It was good to be back in command and on the field.
“Ahaha!~ But don’t you have only 3 more days effectively?” Insanity spoke with a hint of sick joy. “You won’t be able to escape this floor, and you have yet to prove that this church is the problem mentioned by your little quest.”
Shammus took these hits to the plan in stride. He had to, and if he let his opponent struggle against him in such a negative method there’d be too little forthcoming to strike against. But then he felt an arm against him. One with unimaginable grip strength.
Holding Shammus tight with just enough force to avoid harm, but to prevent movement. And when Shammus tried to employ an escape that he used to use before he got his class; it failed. Even when forcing the grip to loosen by opening his hand similar to palm strike, and pushing against the thumb.
“Yeah, you’ve got everything plotted out don’t you?” Insanity pulled Shammus closer, holding him by the waist similar to a line dance, and when Insanity twirled Shammus, he noticed he was suddenly in the sky, both of them painting the moon with a silhouette. “I can see why that bard has so much music for you! And to break your party, the most effective way would be to break your plots out at the base.”
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Shammus tried to struggle away, and Insanity simply turned him to face the ground. If he were to fall; he’d probably kill everyone inside the church. “Ha, you think we don’t have a strategy for if our idea to avoid collateral damage were to fail?”
His voice was filled with venom, and he pointed it at Insanity like a rabid dog baring his teeth. Shammus knew full well how pointless this was, those lives were all real; and that’s why he was so determined to save them.
Insanity knew that. Clearly with how he kept spinning the two around. The joy in Insanity’s laughter felt genuine, and it even reached its eyes. But Shammus knew otherwise and stabbed Insanity's hand. This one pierced skin, and the blood was impossibly dark.
Insanity frowned, and his face contorted from the natural ways. What Shammus saw just then was something inhuman, the true face of Insanity potentially. The way the face contorted was unnatural; and he didn’t have the words to describe how.
It fell into some kind of Uncanny Valley, something notably inhuman but also notably human. His evolutionary fear gland told him to run, and so he did. He fell from the sky, and quickly collapsed the air with Aeromancy against his feet to jump against.
The air shattered like glass as he bounced off it to land into a tree, which was proven an inconsistent plan as he pierced the tree like a cannonball. By the System… Shammus’s thoughts were slowed down from that, and Insanity’s unnatural face painted over the moon as it looked down at Shammus like an eye.
Shammus noticed he no longer felt his own limbs and how they moved a bit too late as Insanity’s laughter rang throughout the forest. It was hard to even tell how close or far the church was through the dense foliage and leaves touching the ground.
They exploded up in a cloud of leaves as the trees seemed unnatural. The sky was dark, and the stars were missing. All that was visible was the moon, and it blinked at him. Shammus knew this wasn’t real, but it looked too real to deny.
And Insanity showed his power, as he opened the ground beneath Shammus. The earth split open like the maw of a giant beast, the magma beneath glowing at the bottom of the throat. Shammus was falling down into it, and he tried to activate his Godly Descent so he could have wings-
And it didn’t work. The wind began to feel real again; his skin no longer impossibly numb as he caught a twig. He felt his shoulder dislocate with the sudden stop of his fall, and the twig tore out. Shammus let out a yelp of pain from the dislocation of his shoulder, and flailed wildly to try to stop.
The laughter only continued on and on, droning for what felt like forever. Shammus tried to tune it out with the wind rustling by his ear; sounding like a rush. This hole was impossibly deep; at least if Shammus’s theory on the size of the world was accurate.
The wind seemed to sound like the laughter as well, and Shammus knew this was certainly no regular dream. This was a nightmare, and Shammus had no way to wake up. He kept falling, and when he finally hit something, it simply broke him rather than the fall. The pain should’ve been enough to wake up with.
The earth began to close itself up, and that’s when Shammus willed himself to stop in the air with aeromancy. He shattered the air he was going to use to catch himself well before it could solidify enough.
The whispering laughter grew more and more grating on Shammus, more specifically his mind, as his injuries seemed to heal themselves. He felt them heal themselves, something he couldn’t do normally without focusing.
He felt the sinews fuse to one another, bit by bit. And how it drained his mana which was constantly being refilled by his torturer. The seed of bitterness was planted then, and it was being nurtured with every minute he spent here.
Every agonizing minute, as he hit more areas, and then the sky finally was sealed away, and he landed in a hallway. Shammus felt his legs snap with a gutwrenching sound. The pain jumped up from his legs to his torso then fell back down like a brick of ice.
The stinging slowly subsided as he felt his bones refuse. He was no longer in the same location, instead being in an odd hallway with impossibly smooth flooring. It looked like gemstone tiling, but the singular stone slabs that made the walls were odd to see.
His legs kept refusing for agonizing moment after agonizing moment. He sees the blood reenter his body, separate from the contaminants. He didn’t have power over his biomancy outside of using it as just another sense.
He finally was able to stand, the agonizing pain his legs causing them to shake. The feeling of loss of control was a terrible opposite, and he walked towards the metal door with the unnatural lighting. It wasn’t even fire, nor magic that lit up this hallway.
And the lights hurt to look at too. He pressed the button besides the metal door, which slid open, with the only indication of a door previously being there being the metallic doorframe and two metal flaps on one side and one on the other.
There was nothing on the outside of that hallway, and Shammus tried to turn off to the other side to see no door on that side. Shammus walked forward, and he fell once more. This fall was more comforting, as instead of the laughter of Insanity, it was the whispers of the void that joined him.
The seed was slowly torn out as he thought of his allies. He thought of Bariton, and his impossibly clean golden hair and green bards clothing, and awfully blue eyes. He thought of Judine, with her more noble attire and blonde hair matching her golden eyes.
Shammus thought of her theory of the system. That it was sentient and had a consciousness. And he thought of how that theory could very well be his saving grace in this moment. Shammus called out to the system, expecting nothing to occur, but when his Godly Descension ability activated for a split second, he knew it was working.
Even when the system didn’t respond to his prayer, something occurred. Insanity’s laughter died down as his wings sprouted out, them molding from the void he was ensnared in. His fall finally ended as he stared off into the void, towards where he thought Insanity was.
“Just you wait three days.” Shammus stated, not hiding a single card close to his chest. He wasn’t confident of his victory. He knows he already won. “Nights may be repeats of this, but we will always prevail. Such is the fate of the system, Divinity.”
As Shammus spat out that last word, he awoke alone in the party’s room. The only room with any sign of Godly signals, and the sun was beautiful. It was the only sign that this wasn’t another dream, for the sun basked on his skin and left an unnatural warmth on his skin.
Shammus looked over at the wall, and at the mural of God of the Sun. It seemed to change since last time, and now it is the god not carrying the sun, but being the sun in the sky. It was a nice thought, that the warmth on his skin was from the god’s radiance directly.
He remembered an odd myth at that time as a smile drew on his face, how God of the Sun supposedly burnt those who deserved it, as a sense of vigilante justice against Lord of the World’s courts, and even sometimes on the side of the courts being the final decider in other mythos.
We’ll be added to that mythos, won’t we? Shammus mused as he remembered the quest. Well, four of them will be. I’ve lived plenty long enough. Shammus used his own thoughts to avoid sorrow of how one of them will have to be left behind. He was content to be, his own age wasn’t showing just yet, but t’was only a manner of time.
He was content to perish; to be a stepping stone for his friends, and it seemed God of the Sun agreed with that idea with the mural just beneath. The God of the Sun walking into the flame, as a mortal; to allow his allies to progress through the hells.
And Shammus would be fine to lose the power of the void for that. He smiled lightly as he looked towards the sky through the window. The clouds wisping alongside the blues and oranges from the sunrise.
He knew his party would succeed; for they were reliable allies. It was nice to have those by one’s side. He opened up the quest window, and saw the time limit he was first given 10 years ago.
[Quest Gained!]
[Complete Floor 100 of the Tower]
[Condition: Complete the one hundredth floor of the tower, alongside every other floor whether through Floor Skip Passes, Completing the Secret Requirement, or Breaking the Floor.]
[Rewards: Divinity upon the first 4 on Floor 100, Immortality, +10,000 Levels, +1 Mythical Item.]
[Time Limit: 8 Years, 131 Days, 1 Hours, 7 Minutes]
[Failure: Destroyment of World 392ae311, otherwise called Earth by inhabitants]
The previous bottle neck at floor 40 was passed quickly when his new allies arrived, and that moment also killed one of those five. He couldn’t help but feel guilty for becoming a ‘replacement’ for that guy, or even being technically the cause of his death.
His name was Sornid, and from what Shammus could pick up, he was greatly missed. But with these people; with these souls, Shammus could save the earth and potentially even go out with a bang.
Shammus smiled lightly, but he knew this party would probably have a large deferment closer to Floor 100, maybe around floor 99 instead of floor 50. So he decided to bury that problem. They had 8 and a half years after all. It’ll be a beautiful day in hell when he continues onward.
