Sell you a Bridge chapter 316

June 21st 2016 Mysterious Tower, 4:00 PM EDT

When  we came through the portal it was into...nothing. Well, not really.  Empty air, more like. Nothing implied a howling abyss, and we'd been IN  one of those recently so I knew the difference. This was just empty sky,  albeit with a crazy train track made of hard light spiraling through  it. On the weird meter it didn't really register exactly, though the  fact that there were bright orange clouds of sulfuric mist rioting below  us was pretty novel.

"Wow..." I said in awe. "This is a  terrible place to build a house." Everyone turned to look at me and I  shrugged. "What? A floating island over a weird sea of orange mist? This  guy has super amazing wards that can keep out anything right? He  couldn't have put his tower on a beach or something?" The flat stares  were not encouraging, and I just snorted and looked away, muttering.  "Sure, act like I'm crazy for thinking the super wizard could pay some  attention to ambiance."

Zee looked offended on his behalf.  "We live on a spooky island in Gotham Harbor with a creepy old castle  on top of it. What the hell do you know about ambiance?" She pointed  harshly out at the now looming tower. "A huge majestic tower is a magic  user's romance. Just because it isn't edgy enough to cut yourself on  doesn't mean it's not amazing. I'm definitely building myself a tower  for research purposes once all this is over."

I just  rolled my eyes. "Yes dear." As the train came to a stop I checked in  with her. "You can get us PAST these super wards right? Because I'm  going to be pissed if I survived an attack by the god of tyranny just to  get fly swatted by some old guy's magical lawn security."

With  a casual wrist flick, Zee summoned Star Seeker. She pointed it at the  opening door of the purple train and gave a quick twist. There was a  click and a keyhole of light appeared in the door, not as big as the one  back in evil Gotham, but big enough to create the outline of a door.  The middle of the keyhole faded out, leaving a gap surrounded by light  that we could walk right through.

She shot me a sardonic  look, raising one eyebrow, and I shrugged. "A simple yes would have  sufficed. Well then, let's got all of you. I don't know who's in there,  but assuming they don't try to kill us they might be able to help. If  they do try to kill us...well, it's not like we don't have experience."

I  hopped from the train car, onto the flat grassy expanse of the island.  There were trees around the edges, but plenty of empty land in the  center for us to walk through to reach the giant ass stone tower  situation in the midst of the island. I had to admit, once you got past  the shitty entrance trip, this place actually was pretty gorgeous. I'd  never say that to Zee of course. I had no desire to end up living in a  tower. I'd live in a castle like a proper god, thank you.

As  we approached, I could see the huge doors of the tower. They were  massive wooden slabs, one had a moon and one had a star, and the aura of  the doors was blazing with power in a way that told me they were much  sturdier than they appeared. The tope itself was pretty tall, with a  pointed roof, and bent at odd angles partway up. I could see multiple  windows of stained glass and a few small outcroppings the looked like  individual rooms built onto the side, each with their own miniature  pointed roof.

I turned to Zee, who held up her keyblade  again and tapped the door handles. The pair of doors popped open easily,  and we walked inside. The interior was...bigger than expected. Space  augmentation had been used on this place for sure. The interior of the  tower was like a hundred feet in every direction, and the outside looked  to be about thirty. The base of the tower was a big ass entryway. An  open room with nothing in it except a single staircase that led up along  the wall into the distance above.

The whole place was  surprisingly well lit, despite there not being any obvious lightsource,  and it was lined with greek style columns along the stairway, with one  large grey stone column in the middle that the stairs brushed up against  that seemed to be supporting the whole tower. Other than that, there  wasn't really anything down here. Just orange walls with a strip of  purple rectangular patterning along it at waist height, circling between  the columns.

"Huh." I said in interest. "This is  certainly interesting. I feel like there were better uses for this floor  space, but it definitely makes an impression." The floor was a circle  of orange stone lines with a ring of cobblestones.  "I'm not sure where  this light is coming from, but the atmosphere here is pretty impressive.  It has a lot of gravitas to it." I stroked my chin thoughtfully as I  looked around, but was jarred out of my review by a smack upside the  back of my head.

I turned to see Artemis glaring up at me.  "If you're done with your rendition of 'househunters:creepy tower  edition' maybe we could actually CLIMB the creepy tower so we can meet  the person in charge of it like we're here for. We're right through a  portal to Twilight Town, those cultists could still find us, and while  I'm sure the wards will keep them out for a while, I'd rather be gone  before they can try to follow us at all. Especially since we don't even  KNOW the person who lives here is friendly." She shot Zee an apologetic  look. "Not that I don't believe you sweetie, I'm just saying."

We  mounted the stairs heading up to the higher reaches of the tower, but  after ten or fifteen minutes of walking we came to another door. Zee  tapped the wooden bulk of the door and it opened up to reveal...more  stairs. Shooting the others a quizzical look I stepped through the door,  looking around the stairs to see...a bottomless pit. "Oh what fresh  hell is this?" I moaned. Then looked up the steps to see another  identical door less than a hundred feet up.

Looking  around, I was able to see that we were literally standing on a small  strip of stairs floating over a bottomless pit in a massive brick shaft  with matching doors on both ends. "Ok." I said wheeling on Zee. "Why?  What does this accomplish? What is the magical arcane significance of  putting a strip of stairs in a bottomless cylindrical pocket space with  accessible doors on both sides. And don't say security, because if they  could get through the door IN they can get through the door out. Explain  to me the logic."

Zhe  opened her mouth, stubbornly glaring at me for a minute before her  shoulder slumped. "I've got nothing. I admit it. This is stupid. The  rest of the tower is cool but I have no clue why anyone would build this  particular section." She perked up. "But that just means that I don't  have the wisdom to understand it. This is clearly some kind of advanced  defensive measure that I haven't come into contact with."

"Bullshit!"  I yelled in frustration as we ascended the steps. "You can't just claim  that you win an argument because the answer is above both of our heads.  You haven't provided any actual evidence. You're literally trying to  use the fact that this is so stupid as evidence of how brilliant it is."

Artemis  groaned loudly. "Enough you two! This isn't the time for your foreplay.  I'm getting a weird feeling about this place. Morgan, you see anything  around here that seems suspicious?" Her voice sounded tense, and I  turned in concern to see her glaring around in unease. That was odd,  Artemis was a heavenly punishment elf though, and the more martially  inclined of the two of those in existence. She might have senses even I  didn't in come circumstances.

Deciding  to take her warning seriously I focused on the nearby surroundings,  doing my best to get as much information with my aura sight as possible.  I didn't see much of consequence except...shit. I stopped, and everyone  else did the same. We were halfway between the two doors. "Dark energy.  The balance leans heavily toward dark in this tower. I'd gotten used to  it in Gotham and barely even registered the change. It's even thicker  here than it is in the rest of the tower. I think there's someone in  here with us who uses the stuff."

A  slow clapping sound began to echo through the stairway, bouncing off  the walls of the brick shaft so far away from us. "Well spotted, the  both of you." Came a deep voice. A dark corridor sprang up in front of  us, and a cloaked figure emerged from the blackness to take up position  in front of us. I felt another surge behind us as the dark coalesced and  a second cloaked figure appeared at our back. "Sadly it's a bit too  late."

Zee  bristled. "How did you get in here? The wards on this place are  incredibly potent, you shouldn't be able to access the tower without a  key." She sounded literally offended by the concept of their intrusion,  and I had to stop myself from smirking at the tone.

A  rumbling laugh echoed from the man ahead of us. "Wards? Yes, there were  wards on the tower. However, didn't you notice you had to open them a  second time when you entered this stairway?" His tone was mocking and I  could hear malicious enjoyment dripping from every word, but I didn't  really have time to care about that. Because as he mentioned that little  tidbit about opening the wards again a whole bunch of things fell into  place that hadn't made any sense before.

I  groaned as I pinched the bridge of my nose. "It's a kill box." Everyone  turned to look at me in confusion, and I gestured to the stairs. "A  small area designed to funnel enemies into. I bet there's a mechanism to  dump the steps or bathe them in fire or something. The dark energy here  is so much denser because it's accessible from the darkness. It's an  opening in the wards meant specifically to lure enemies into this tiny  confined space." I grimaced up that robed figures. "And our dumb asses  stepped right into it. I bet the native defenses won't even trigger  because of Zee's key."

The  hooded cultist chuckled again. "Well aren't you a clever one. You put  that together quicker than most. Yes. The gaps in the wards led us in  here. I was confident in my ability to survive in any case, but your  presence provided an opportunity. We would have missed it completely if  not for Saix." He called down to the form behind us, the one the others  had just taken notice of with a start. "Well done my friend, the Luna  Diviner indeed."

His  hooded head turned away from me, a noticeable gesture despite his face  being completely consumed in darkness. "And it's so nice to see you  again number thirteen. The lost member of our flock returned at last,  and alongside the witch and the godling too. Truly today is a wonderful  day." The cloaked man held out a hand and a massive scythe manifested  into it, a strange looking weapon with a green shaft and a rose red  blade. "Now. Are the three of you planning to come along quietly?" He  waved a hand and a series of floating beings whose bottom halves  appeared to be flowers appeared, holding white scythes of their own. "Or  are we going to have a little fun?"