The Tower of Emnu

The first thing Aaron felt was the heat. It was like running against a wall of warm air, even more pronounced than on the stairway. It felt like he had stepped into a furnace. But then he felt the warmth on his face and he realized it was the sun he felt.

Aaron blinked and shaded his eyes as his vision acclimated to the sudden brightness and he stared with slight disbelief at sand. Sand wherever he looked. Aaron stood on a small marble outcrop that formed the top of the stairs. The walls stretched up into the sky to his sides and everywhere else he could see Dunes, hundreds of meters tall, the dark red, almost crimson sand stretched as far as the eye could see. It was a bloody desert alright and nothing moved besides the heat that was dancing above the dunes.

Quickly Aaron ripped out the arrows that were still stuck in him and applied a generous amount of healing potion before taking a sip of the foul tasting liquid. Then he stripped out of his shredded pelt lined leather armor he had stolen from the big axe warrior in his first ambush and stuffed it into his backpack. The armor was barely usable anymore and also too hot for this climate. His wounds healed quickly, most had already closed for the most part during his mad dash up the stairs. He actually had to rip open some wounds to remove the arrows, but the pain barely even registered anymore. He was really getting used to pain and he was not sure if that was a good thing or not. Still as the pain receded and he could feel the bright sun shine on his back, he felt much better. He rolled his shoulders with pleasure. The pain had vanished like magic. He fished out a simple shirt from his backpack, that was a bit too small for him, threw it on and fastened his backpack again. He studied the desert for one long moment, but could not spot anything dangerous or noteworthy except the sheer existence of the desert. Without any more hesitation he ran straight towards the closest dune.

His enemies were still on the hunt and he did not know how much of a lead he had on them and how or even if they would pursue him into the desert.

His feet hit the sand running and sank in a bit as he churned through the red sand in a quick jog. He looked down at his footsteps as he ran, his thick leather boots felt cumbersome and uncomfortable in the heat already, but they had their uses. The ice block that had frozen around his foot was finally slowly melting and the heat quickly drove away the chill that came from the spell. Aaron ran up a dune, leaving obvious tracks behind and at the apex of the dune he activated wind steps. He soared through the air as he jumped down the dune, landed at the lowest point of the next valley between dunes and jumped again, crossing barely over the next dune. He repeated these jumps two or three times before he felt like he had left behind no traceable steps people would be able to follow in the short term. A gentle wind tussled Aaron’s short hair as he stopped and took stock of his new environment. The red sand and the gentle dunes seemed at first glance entirely abandoned, but Aaron did not trust this peaceful facade one bit. He looked up towards the blistering sun and could not deny that if this was not an actual sun as the walls in the distance would suggest, then this was a really great approximation. It felt just like the real sun on his skin and he closed his eyes.

After the sudden violence, the night, the pain and quick decisions that could have easily doomed him, he finally took a breather.

He was tired and his mind still reeled at the sheer number of people that had chased him. He wasn’t just talking about a few dozen Aspirants, but hundreds. Because most of the defensive line around the hills had not even been a part of the chase in the end. He had no idea where the group that had cut him off had come from. Maybe another reserve unit or something? Really how was anyone supposed to fight that? But then again, that was probably the point. No matter how strong or strange his abilities were, if they sent enough people to hinder and a few that could kill him, then eventually he would die. That they had spotted and surrounded him at all was probably bad luck on Aaron’s part, but it was inevitable really. At some point they would find him again. When his pursuers came to the second level how would they hunt him? How would Aaron hunt himself in their shoes?

The desert looked vast and desolate. The line of sight was very limited because of the dunes and the changes in elevation. But that was not really favorable terrain for him, since he had no way to break line of sight easily, or take cover. He could theoretically hide under the sand, or behind a dune, but that was more of an all in move out of desperation. The dunes did not offer much concealment and would not funnel anything into a tight space where he could force close quarter combat against a single attacker, like he had been able to in the canyons. Hiding underneath the sand would be quite effective in an ambush, Fremen style, but if they spotted him he would be easily surrounded and killed off. No, Aaron’s best bet was to just keep going, to keep on walking, keep on moving. He did not see any way how an army of a few hundred could reliably scour this desert and find him in the short term. Maybe if they had some special skills or magic to accomplish it but he very much doubted that was the case. They would have used those already after he ambushed the first group. It seemed also unlikely because so far every mage he had seen had basically been a one-trick pony. They had one or two spells that they used and nothing else. It was to be expected as they were all novices down here on the first few levels of the tower.

So what should the enemy do? Block the exits. If that was a feasible plan. Realistically they would have to block any way to the first or third floor and Aaron had no idea how many stairways there were. It might just be one or two or it might be dozens. If they could not find him, then they could limit his options that way. And if this whole level was one huge desert then Aaron had a big problem. Water.

If Aaron could not find a reliable source of water and food within a few days he was most likely going to die. Now his enemy did not know that, they were not aware of his absurd need of calories. But they would know about his need to find water. So if they knew the terrain and the spots where water was available they could also wait and block those spots to force another fight. Which meant Aaron had a limited amount of time to find and secure such a spot before his enemies arrived. He always had the option to steal his food and water, but that meant risking a fight, risking taking on more than he could chew. None of these options were good. The feeling of anxiety, of being trapped returned and there was no easy solution for it. One way would be to go up another level to the third floor right away before his pursuers had the chance to block the exits, but he did not know if the conditions up there were better or worse. Probably worse honestly. Emnu had designed this tower to create soldiers out of his Aspirants, to test their mettle, to train them.

He did not know what the first floor’s purpose was, but if he had to guess it probably was more about the basics of survival, giving people a chance to organize and learn how to survive in the wilderness, even though it was a tame wilderness. The second floor felt more like a continuation of this challenge. ‘You learned how to survive in the forest and snow? How about a desert?’ that kind of thing. But realistically he could not know what the point of the level design was. It was possible there was no thought to it and it was just what Emnu had felt like at the time.

Aaron doubted that, many things he had seen in the tower so far felt deliberate, but in the end it was just a gut feeling.

He turned in a slow circle studying his surroundings and tried to get an idea of how to proceed. He climbed up the highest dune in the vicinity, but stopped half way up. His foot was getting stuck and made his gait uneven because of the melting block of ice. Aaron grunted and sat down in the sand and started to hack away at the ice with the pommel of one of his daggers. The heat had made the surface slippery and with some effort he managed to crack and in the end break the ice. Once enough cracks spanned through the ice it broke away and in the span of two seconds melted away.

With a sigh he got out of his wet boot and massaged his foot, tested his toes for frostbite, but his foot was totally fine. He chalked it up to his improved physique and got his boot back on and got back to scouting without thinking too much about it. Even on top of the dune, the red sand seemed endless, the dunes and valleys stretched beyond the horizon and there was literally nothing that stood out to him. No landmarks, nothing. With a sigh he decided on one direction parallel to the wall and started walking. If he had the wall at one side he would at least not get lost as easily and he might also spot stairways down or up, which was a nice bonus. The desert was almost unbearably hot and soon Aaron scrounged together a cloth to put on his head to give him at least some protection from the sun. He was sweating buckets after not even 10 minutes in the desert and he was thirsty already. He drank small sips of water from his waterskins, which luckily were both filled, since he had barely drunk from then because there had been clear river streams on the first floor wherever he went. He had stopped worrying about perfect hygiene or dirty water. If it tasted fine, he would be fine.

He very much doubted his Fiend-god art had such a simple weakness like being susceptible to diseases and so far he had not even gotten a stomach cramp.

While he walked through the desert at a nice even jog his mind wandered. He hated how reactive he had to be, how much the people coming after him forced him to slow down his already slow progress to become stronger. And while he was strong right now, he very much doubted he could take any group that had followed him in a fair fight. Not that he would ever fight fair to begin with. But he remembered the lightning mage blasting him with literal lightning and one of the mages following him had sent a fireball after him. That explosion had really hurt and with better coordination they would have probably killed him. Escaping by a hairs breadth was not a comfortable feeling. So far he had been lucky and unlucky at the same time, but if his luck turned fully he might not survive his next encounter. He worried and he could feel how the anxiety got stronger and stronger until it was a deeply uncomfortable twinge in his guts. He had never had anxiety before coming to the tower and he hated it. Sure he had feared for his mother, but he had never felt it with his body, had never been anxious like this, it had always been just his heart that had hurt. It had been different than this visceral reaction to any little stressors and the reason for his bodies new reactions was probably obvious. This body of his was not really his body. It was the body he had been summoned in. It had changed a lot as well with becoming a cultivator. So he could not pinpoint if it had been the summoning or his ascension to cultivator that had changed his physical reactions to stress, to death, to killing people and so much more that felt different with this body.

Some things were positive of course, like how agile and how much control over his movements he had. But his emotional landscape was in turmoil and that at least had never been the case in his previous life.

Aaron slowed his jog as he spotted something moving in the corner of his eyes. He turned abruptly and stared in the direction he had seen the movement in. The sand looked disturbed, but Aaron could not put his finger on what had disturbed the sand. He really hoped there weren’t any giant sand worms in this desert the size of houses. That would be awkward. But on a closer look he spotted an indentation in the sand. It almost looked like something had buried down into the sand there. He felt a slight vibration underneath his feet and activated wind steps in a fraction of a second before he jumped and leapt into the sky.

A giant black carapace broke out of the red sand followed by a massive stinger and two shovel like pincers that snapped at his ankles. Aaron tumbled away in the air and then dove downwards in a spiral. The stinger lashed out barely missing Aaron’s torso. With one step Aaron was speeding backwards, getting some distance to that stinger that oozed venom. The substance sizzled in the sand as it dripped down on it. He had wondered what this level was on about and yeah, this seemed more appropriate for a training hell. The familiar feeling of facing a challenge, of being competitive, of seeing a hurdle he could overcome filled him as he studied the scorpion. The Scorpion was the size of a big wolf and its entire length was easily beyond two meters. Its beady black eyes were locked on Aaron and its pincers snapped dangerously as it stretched its stinger up in the air to warn and to leverage the creatures length.

It had 6 legs and 2 pincers so it definitively was a Scorpion, but it was just too big to be possible. Its mandibles snapped dangerously as it chittered in a strange alien cadence. The mouth of the thing was horrific, the mandibles jagged and sharp and its torso moved in a strange undulating vibration that ran through its body. Aaron drew one of his daggers and got into stance, ready for it to move. His wind steps activated, the feeling of silk underneath his feet distinct in the back of his mind. He stared at the giant scorpion as it stood there unmoving for a few long moments. Then its stinger raised high in the air moved faster than Aaron had expected. He dove to the side, without taking a step, his body just moved with his movement as the stinger flashed by. Aaron sprang forward and dashed, taking quick straight steps toward the beast. The scorpion drew back its stinger and released it once more before Aaron was in range. He easily dodged the second attack as well and then was in range of the pincers. Aaron ducked one pincer as it passed by close over his head, the other came in fast from his left and Aaron twisted in the air and passed through the gap between both closing pincers. He landed feet first on the scorpions first segment, his speed and momentum knocking the beast off balance.

Aaron straightened and ducked another dangerous swing of one of the pincers before he rammed his dagger into the beasts beady black eye. An inhuman scream echoed the desert and the beast skittered back, but Aaron did not let it off. He got on top of the beast and brought it to its knees with his weight. He evaded the stinger from behind him, grabbed it and twisted it. The stinger segment broke off the beast with a horrible crunch and then Aaron slammed his fist in a hammer blow down on the creature, while it bucked, its legs churning the sand. The beasts carapace was as hard as armor, but the segments were not. With enough blunt force he smashed into it until he literally tore it apart with his knife cutting the two segments apart. The scorpion collapsed and Aaron gagged as dark green ichor stained the sands and part of his clothes. Overall the fight had not been too bad, it had been dangerous and he was fairly certain that if he got hit by that stinger he would have just fallen dead on the spot. Still this scorpion actually gave Aaron hope. Such a big predator meant there had to be some sort of prey they hunted. He wasn’t really keen on trying what giant scorpion would taste like. Maybe if he was hungry enough, but for now he should search for a source of water or something like it. He remembered reading about cacti being a great source of water when you are lost in the desert, but there were none around sadly.

Aaron left the corpse of the scorpion behind, although he knew it would leave a trail behind. He stopped exploring the desert parallel to the wall and went deeper into the second floor. Not even 5 minutes later Aaron spotted a suspicious groove in the sand and made a big circle around it. It was the only thing that changed out here in the endless desert. Aaron felt parched after having only being in the desert for a few hours and whenever he took a sip of his shrinking water supply it did not feel like he got any relief at all. The thirst stayed, annoying and in good company with his growing appetite that had slowly turned back into hunger. The deeper he ventured away from the wall the more scorpion signs he spotted. The desert suddenly turned into a maze of roaming beasts. But before Aaron could get into a situation where there were too many of the beasts roaming the desert he saw something surprising. In a splash of red sand one of the scorpions broke out of his hiding spot and plunged its stinger into the sand. Another scorpion broke out of the sand screeching and skittering. The scorpion chopped at the attacker and then they were in a furious melee. Stingers jabbed and slid off carapaces and the pincers ended up being much more important. Eventually one of the scorpions managed to cripple 2 of the other scorpions legs and the beast collapsed.

Aaron watched with interest and slight disgust as the scorpion started to devour the other scorpion in a furious bloody carnage of cannibalism.

Aaron was not sure if earth’s scorpions would eat their own species or why that had happened at all, but while he headed deeper into the desert he could see more and more scorpions fighting and killing each other. But by that time there were so many in the desert they actually started to change the landscape. The dunes looked ragged and churned up and Aaron did not think going further into the desert was a good idea. He turned wallside and started running back, only occasionally skipping over a scorpion he could not evade otherwise with wind steps. The closer he got to the wall the fewer scorpions he could see and that made Aaron very suspicious. He had not seen any other animals in the desert so far and so the question was how could this immense scorpion population exist?

Magic probably. Aaron suspected there was some foul play at work. For a mage who could bring back the dead from other dimensions creating big scorpions to inhabit his desert seemed like a small task.

With a frown Aaron kept relatively close to the wall, but far enough away that he could evade anyone that might be waiting for him. He hoped and suspected there would be other exits and he was right in the end. After hours of walking he finally saw another stairway that had led up. Nobody was waiting for him there to his relief, but it might be a trap. He hesitated for a long moment before he jogged past the stairway. If he got too hungry or thirsty he could always return to this way down. The desert was endless and Aaron slowly grew tired as he looked up to the glaring sun. How long had he walked the desert now? 10? 16 hours? But the sun had not moved and Aaron had a terrible premonition. What if there was no night on this floor? What if the sun kept shining like this forever?

He had spotted no food or water sources except scorpion and he was not that desperate yet.

With a sigh he fell into the half shadow of a dune and leaned back against the marginally cooler sand in relief. His head hurt, his blood pumped in his ears and he was so thirsty he felt like he had never drunk a single drop of water in his life. He had emptied one of his two waterskins already on the journey and he stared with slight disbelief at his shrinking resources. He barely was able to get the dry rations down, but his hunger was the best spice and he got it done in the end. Still slightly hungry and so thirsty he took one long sip out of his waterskin and sighed. Without extensive preparation this floor was hell. He simply did not have enough water to keep this up. He seriously considered returning to the first floor and stock up on water, but he discarded that notion. He would walk till he hit the next stairway and then decide what to do. If he was lucky then they would not expect him to do this, but if he was unlucky a small army would be waiting for his dehydrated, hungry self. Was he too stubborn? He did not know and in the end he did not care. He just needed to keep going, he would only rest his eyes for a moment.

Aaron blinked into the bright light and relaxed after closing his eyes. He breathed out softly and was asleep before he could do anything else.