B2 Chapter 42: The Cosmic Graveyard

I turned to the source of the voice and what I saw caused me to involuntarily take a step back.

There was an eight-foot tall, muscular, white alien sat in a comfortable leather chair. He was completely hairless with pure black eyes and a short, bat-like nose. Perhaps in an attempt to be disarming, he was holding a glass of wine in one hand and an open book in the other. He took a sip of the wine and I couldn’t help but notice that he had long black fingernails that had been sharpened to points. His skin was like a toughened carapace and short lower fangs jutted over his thin lips.

“What…”

I had to clear my throat. I almost couldn’t get the words out. Just his very presence radiated danger.

“What do you mean next time?” I asked him.

He chuckled and closed his book. “You didn’t think the hunt was over, did you? Your collar is still attached, is it not?” His voice sounded aristocratic and cultured. It felt completely at odds coming out of the body of a killing machine.

He was right as well. The collar hadn’t come off when I’d killed the Shrikon, which meant that he had never been its owner. I went back to the body and drained its blood into a cache gem. It wasn’t much comfort, but at least now I had a weapon that could cut them.

“Don’t look so glum,” he said. “This is a classic game of theirs going back thousands of years. First, they send one unarmed soldier. If they should fall, then two are sent. If you’re lucky enough to kill two, then a squad of four will be dispatched, and so on and so on.”

“So they’ll just keep escalating until I what, defeat them all?”

The alien raised one skeptical eyebrow ridge. “Can you fight a hundred of them at once?”

My stomach twisted at the thought, but I refused to accept it. This wasn’t the end.

“No, the Tower would’ve left me a way out,” I said.

He tutted. “You’ve been here too long to be that gullible.”

I needed answers and decided to turn the question around on him. “And why are you here?”

“Oh yes, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Tanver Vhar, and I used to be a resident of a Tower just like this one a long time ago. Now I’ve come back here to do some business and a little sightseeing. You don’t often see Blood Reavers anymore. I thought they’d been outlawed for the Tower’s, so you caught my interest.”

“Why would they be outlawed?”

“They often burn twice as bright as the other Tower residents. Consuming everything around them in a frenzy until they burn themselves out. Some would reach the ground floor and decide not to leave. They’d go back up the floors, half mad, while searching for any residents they’d forgotten to kill on their journey down.”

He’s talking about them becoming addicted to the blood and perhaps even turning into Scarlet Beasts. But if they were so detrimental to the Tower, then why was I given this Class?

“You’re wondering why you were given the Blood Reaver Class, if it's so unstable? Well, I can’t read the Officiator’s mind, but to me, it looks like an act of desperation.”

“Desperation?”

“Yes. It’s in a room with some other dangerous figures. Tensions are running high, so it decides to light a stick of dynamite and toss it onto the table as a negotiating tactic. The best part is that no one, not even the Officiator is sure of how long your fuse is.”

“That seems a little dramatic. I haven’t noticed anything close to that and I have no plans of exploding.”

“Is it? It brought Yakeshi out of retirement. It’s been centuries since he took an interest in the tower. You’ve got an Old One like Roan sponsoring multiple residents, which is another rarity. Even the Red Queen has finally been allowed in to sponsor someone.”

I flinched at the names being rattled off.

“Don’t worry. Nobody can see or hear us right now. We’re in a privacy bubble of my own design.”

“It sounds like you’ve taken more than a passing interest in this place.”

He inclined his head in acknowledgement and took a sip of wine.

This Tower being unique was interesting, but not particularly helpful for right now.

“Why are you telling me all of this?” I asked. “You could’ve observed me without being seen. Why reveal yourself and these things to me?”

He shrugged. “Maybe I wanted to prod the dynamite a bit to see if it will speed things up by offering you my help.”

“Like a merchant?”

He smiled, showing more sharp teeth. “I can be. Is there something you wish to purchase?” His eyes shined at that last part.

Tread carefully here. Every sense I had told me that this was a very dangerous man.

“I wouldn’t even know where to start,” I replied honestly.

He looked off to the side and at first I thought there was a Shrikon behind me, but then I realized that he was scrolling through his inventory. “Hmm, how about a ring that will translate the Shrikon language for you?”

That might be useful, but I mostly planned to kill them on sight, so I wasn’t sure if it was worth it.

“What’s the cost?” I asked.

“It’s free of charge as a gesture of good faith. No, don’t look too suspicious. Things like that are worthless to me these days.”

He tossed me the ring.

*Item Identified!* [Language Translator Ring (common: C-grade)] – A common item, useful for deciphering rare languages from places in contest or completely unincorporated by the System.

[Error!]

[Forbidden Device Found on Tower Resident]

[Restricted Personnel Detected]

[Calculating Probable Scenarios…]

[Warning! A Level Five Cataclysm Imminent]

[Omega Purification Protocols Required]

[Error!]

[Err…]

Tanver Vhar snapped his fingers. “That’s enough of that.”

The System messages were silenced and suddenly I became even more afraid. Considering the magnitude of those messages, I chose to put the ring in my inventory instead of wearing it. To my relief, the alien didn’t seem offended by my choice and so I had to ask.

“Who are you really? A merchant couldn’t have done that to my System messages.”

In response, he threw the last of his wine in my face. I froze, too shocked to move, and then a new message appeared.

*System Citizen Identified* [Tanver Vhar, Class: Unknown, Level: Unknown, Grade: S+]

He threw the wine at me because he knew the System would register it as an attack. It confirmed that he wasn’t a Tower resident or a player, as the System called them. I’d never seen it come back with an unknown message before on a Class or Level. Usually when it didn’t want to reveal something to me, there would simply be question marks there. Did unknown mean that the System was unable to retrieve that information? And then there was his Grade. S+ was supposedly the highest Grade one could achieve short of becoming a god.

What the hell was somebody like this doing here?

“Why are you really here?” I asked.

“Just a little of this and that. You’ll barely notice me.”

I frowned. “I feel like everything you say just creates more questions.”

“Good. That means you're paying attention.”

“You’re also testing me.”

He nodded. “Better. Now let me ask you something. What do you think of the place we’re in right now?”

We were surrounded by large statues with pieces missing. It looked like someone had collected broken ones and then just dumped them haphazardly here. Was it just for ambience? That the System wanted the theme of adventurers stumbling through the jungle and finding a lost civilization.

“I’m indifferent to it, I guess. The whole thing just looks like window dressing to liven up the artificial setting that’s been created here.”

Tanver Vhar shook his head. “You were the first warning, and now this place is another shot across the bow. You are standing in a graveyard. Each statue represents a shrine to a different dead god.”

I took a quick count. There must be over a hundred here, though every statue looked quite worn. I asked him about that.

“There’s a lot of them here.”

“Yes, and there aren’t many people who could name even a single one. I know I certainly can’t. It’s been quite a while since a god has died.”

He said it wistfully, like he hungered for it.

“How do gods die?”

“Painfully,” he replied with a smile. Then, almost as fast as it appeared, it was gone, and he waved his hand. “Ah, but enough about that. You don’t need to know about their cheating. It’s a bit above your pay grade. What I came here to say is that when you walk through the Golden Door, you should take the offer of leaving the Tower for good.”

“You seem certain that I’ll win and while I hope that I do, but I can’t leave my friends.”

“What makes you so certain that they’re even still alive?”

“Hope.”

“Hope?” He chuckled. “You’re in the wrong place for that. This is a meat grinder. Less than one percent of Tower residents survive all the way to the end.”

I shrugged. “If I walk away now, then I’m abandoning those I care about. I’ll feel responsible for their deaths and think that things could’ve gone differently had I still been there.”

He tilted his head slightly in curiosity. Like he was seeing me in a whole new dimension.

“You’re a strange Blood Reaver. Never met one before that wasn’t obsessed with power and feeding their addiction. You might have the potential to be bigger than dynamite.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, but it felt too strange to thank someone for not being seen as insane.

“Well, I should go. I’ve taken up enough of your time. By my estimates, you have two minutes until the next Shrikon team reaches you.”

Oh crap, the head start. I’d completely forgotten about it and wasted most of the time on a strange conversation.

“If you want a final piece of advice, find the statue of the warrior with crossed swords and then head in a straight line past it. Do that and you might find something that can assist you.”

The fuzzy static sound returned and the area around him glitched in and out before he vanished completely.