Level 1 Fallen

Our ascent through the tower slowed more the higher that we went. Despite having read every book that should have been in the village, there were several questions where the content did not match any of the information that we acquired. In some cases, we could review the texts and come up with educated guesses based on other information, but in others we were left to blindly choose an answer.

Because of this, we spent nearly six hours on the ninth floor, having to repeatedly take the ‘Drake Express’ back to the top of the tower. Thankfully, when we reached the tenth floor, we were not greeted by another pedestal asking questions or dimly lit corridors. Instead, there was a glistening crystal dome covering a large room, within which was a large chest at the center.

Along the walls of the room were more murals, similar to those we found at the Trial of Resolve, while the floor was painted with the same vertical eye. While Marron excitedly began to document the murals, I walked with the other two to the chest, curious about its contents.

On the front of the chest was a sign written in Cromoran text, which promptly translated itself in our eyes. ‘For those who have surpassed the wisdom of ancient sages, a reward is in order. The belongings of all those who have since failed the trial shall be stored for those deserving of their prize.’

My eyes widened upon reading this, and the other two quickly understood as well. “So, it holds all of the loot from the failed challenges?” Bella asked hopefully. She had been downcast for the last few hours of our ascent, as if she had begun to lose faith in our ability to climb the tower.

“It should, yeah,” Diane agreed, opening the chest. Rather than a pile of items, a screen appeared in front of her. When she saw this, she perused the list briefly. As she neared the bottom, she suddenly stopped, her eyes going wide in alarm. Her head snapped to the side, glaring at Bella fiercely. “Why didn’t you say anything?!” she hissed under her breath, causing Bella to shrink back slightly.

“I-I couldn’t with Marron around, right?” she answered just as quietly. “And we can’t send messages while we’re here…”

“What’s going on?” I asked confused, only for Diane to grab my hand and drag it over to the chest. The loot list appeared before me, and I scrolled near the bottom as well to see what had gotten Diane so upset.

1x Offline Leveling Trait (4☆ - Positive)

My eyes widened, my entire body freezing up. Bella had lost her trait during one of our failures in the dungeon? Until we reached the summit, we didn’t even know if we were going to get our loot back. We all thought that whatever we dropped would be lost for good.

I myself had lost the Fire Magic Expertise skill, which now appeared on the list of loot. This wasn’t particularly bad for me, since I hadn’t touched my fire magic skill in ages, finding Fire King to be far more useful. However, for Bella to lose Offline Leveling meant that she would have been completely cut off from her path of growth.

Making sure that Marron was preoccupied with the murals, Diane quickly retrieved the trait scroll from the chest, shoving it into Bella’s hands. “There are ways you could have told us about this without letting her know. Don’t try to play it tough, okay?”

Bella let out a sigh of relief, clutching the scroll hard enough that her knuckles went white. Her eyes reddened slightly, and she nodded her head. “Right… thanks. And, sorry for not saying anything.”

She activated the scroll, reclaiming her trait. Moments later, Marron walked over, seeing something off about the atmosphere. “Everything alright over here?”

I briefly stiffened, trying to think of something to say, but Diane quickly came up with an excuse. “It’s fine. Bella’s favorite weapon dropped in one of our failed runs, so she was worried that her Player would be mad at her. Thankfully, it looks like this chest has all of our lost loot, so she was able to get it back without a problem.”

Marron blinked at that, before letting out a bright smile. “That’s good. I actually lost one of my own weapons. Is there a Rubite Stiletto on the list?”

Diane looked through the loot list, quickly retrieving a red dagger and passing it over to Marron. “Feel free to look through and claim anything else you need. It looks like there were some failed challengers before us, or maybe it was the dungeon’s default loot, but it’s all pretty normal.”

Marron shook her head, placing the dagger back in her inventory. “That’s fine. I don’t need much, so just consider it as part of your payment for helping me with these dungeons.”

Diane nodded her head in agreement, working with Bella to begin emptying the chest as Marron returned to her work deciphering the murals. We had each died at least a dozen times in this dungeon, so we had dropped a fair few pieces of loot. Most of it was unimportant items, but there were a few that would be best to reclaim.

For instance, I hadn’t even noticed, but one of the houses that I kept in my inventory had been dropped in a previous attempt, and now sat in the chest as unclaimed loot. I’m sure anyone else finding this would be astonished to suddenly get a free house upon clearing the dungeon, but I quickly reclaimed it.

I looked over at Marron, who seemed to be scribbling something down on a scroll as she looked at one of the murals. Afterwards, she turned and saw me looking in her direction. “Ah, perfect timing! Drake, can you come over here and take a look at this mural for me? I think that there might be something hidden in it and I need a fresh set of eyes.”

Blinking, I walked over to see what she was talking about. The mural in question showed what looked like elves sailing on an open sea, launching magical skills against a horde of misshapen monsters. “I’ll be right back,” Marron said with a smile, rushing back towards Bella and Diane with her sketchbook and scroll clutched to her chest.

I perked a brow at the odd behavior, but decided to do my best and study the mural without asking questions for now. If there really was something hidden there, I wasn’t sure I could find it. But when I heard a gasp behind me, and glanced back to confirm that the others were all safe, I understood why Marron had called for me.

There wasn’t any real secret, she just wanted me out of the way to talk to the others privately. Although I was somewhat irked to be left out of the conversation, I knew that Bella or Diane would tell me what had happened after we left.

“Sorry!” Marron came back after just a couple of minutes, holding just her notepad and pen. “Have you found anything?” When I shook my head, she offered a small shrug. “Ah, sorry to bother you with this. I thought that the pigment looked a bit different, so maybe you’d be able to see something I couldn’t. Anyways! I’m about done writing everything down if you want to start heading to the last trial.”

I was surprised that she had finished so quickly, but another scan of the room revealed that there really weren’t as many murals as there were in the first dungeon. That and we had spent a fair bit of time dividing the loot in the chest, so Marron had really had all the time that she needed.

“Sure, let’s get going then,” I agreed, calling out to the others. Once they had all gathered around, I teleported us back to the lava region near the Trial of Resolve. The final dungeon was said to be north of here, so this would save us a lot of time.

Just as I was preparing to pull out the car and start driving, Diane tapped my elbow. “Let’s fly there on dragon-back this time,” she insisted. “It’s already starting to get late, so we might not have enough time in the day to explore the dungeon if we go by car.”

As she said that, I could see her fingers tapping at the air at her side, so I nodded my head. I transformed into my draconic form, and Bella helped pull Marron up onto my back. Before Diane got on, she had finished typing the message that she was preparing, and sent it to me.

Marron noticed that Bella has Offline Leveling, and that she had lost it. She called you over to get you out of the way so that she could bring Bella a contract saying that Marron wouldn’t in any way divulge the information about her trait if Bella paid her fifty gold. She couldn’t have you around for that in case it appeared in your sponsorship clips.

My eyes widened slightly as I read the message, though my draconic face likely gave little away as to what I had seen. Was that why Diane waited to send the message until after I had transformed, just to be safe?

Still, for Marron to go to such lengths to protect Bella’s secret, even using a valuable contract scroll to willingly prevent herself from leaking the information made me look at her in a new light. Had she put it together when we got the loot from the chest, noticing our hushed conversation?

Regardless, I took to the skies, teleporting rapidly to the north and earning a small shriek from Marron. She was definitely not used to this method of flight, while Bella and Diane had long since adapted to it.

Within minutes, we had left the lava zone and were flickering through the frozen skies. “What landmarks are we looking for this time?” Diane asked when I paused between teleports to get my bearings.

“According to the first ruins, there should be three pillars of ice rising to the sky arranged in a triangular formation. The final trial should be ten kilometers east of the southmost pillar.”

Once I had that information, I began rapidly teleporting again, happy that my True Sight and other skills had returned. This biome had very poor visibility, making it hard to see more than ten feet in front of me without the use of True Sight. If I didn’t have it, and we had driven the car here, there would have been a very real chance of crashing straight into one of those pillars.

As far as monsters went, there were several hiding within the blizzard, though I made sure to teleport around them. At my speeds, it only took half an hour before I spotted the pillars in the distance, abruptly changing course to head to the location Marron had mentioned.

Thankfully, it was fairly easy to find. I didn’t see any sort of village at the marked location. There was simply a blood red door sitting atop the snowy land, as if anchored in place. Worse yet, the door was open, with absolutely no signs of safeguards to prevent people from stepping through and into a black and red swirling portal.

Still, that seemed to be our destination, so I teleported us to the door and landed in front of it. The other three looked surprised at the open door as well, climbing off of my back. Marron shuddered, pulling out a heavy jacket and draping it over herself. “Going from the scorching sands to a boiling lava lake, and now this… this cannot be good for your health. But for this dungeon… if we eliminate the hints left behind for the other two dungeons, the only thing that I can think of for this is the quote, ‘Only the pure of heart may pass’.”

“I’m not sure how that helps us,” Diane sighed, shaking her head and pulling her hood down a bit lower. “Different societies define purity in drastically different ways. For now, let’s just head inside and hope it’s a bit warmer.”

The other two agreed, and we all quickly made our way towards the door, finding no traps impeding our approach. We passed through the portal one by one, and--

You have died.

I appeared in the center of Fallcry, dumbfounded at the sudden death message. Looking around, I had arrived alone, leaving me with one question on my mind.

…What?

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