Untapped ~ Chapter One!

Joe walked along the empty streets of Vanaheim, staring at his feet and thanking his lucky stars that his Exquisite Shell protected them from the cool surface of the smooth pavement beneath them. Technically he was still wearing outdoor-acceptable slippers, but they were so heavily damaged that his toes were poking out in areas.

As the small group trudged along for another hour, the eerie silence took more of his attention. Occasionally, the Ritualist would even peek over his shoulder to make sure his friends were still with him, but the uncomfortable expressions on the faces of Heartpiercer McShootypants, Socar, and even Nimue—the Nyanderthal pretending to be a regular cat familiar—did little to ease the odd tension in the air. Joe glanced up yet again at the towers reaching endlessly into the dark void of the sky above them and flinched as he was startled out of his reverie by Heartpiercer suddenly speaking.

“I guess he was right, huh?” The others looked at her, so the Archer elaborated slightly. “The vagrant we ran into a few minutes ago? He said we wouldn't be able to find our way around the planet without a local guiding us.”

“Yeah, but he also wanted to be paid in cheese? Then he kept muttering ‘plump’?” Socar shrugged off her concerned words. “I don't think he had all of his spoons in the drawer, if you know what I mean.”

Joe spoke up, needing to clear his throat after such a prolonged silence. “That's normal here, as far as I'm aware. The cheese, at least. A while back, I was talking to Jake the Alchemist about this, and he mentioned the currency here actually is cheese. I don't know exactly how that works, but remember that we’re on a new world. Every one of them so far has had something different going on, so I don't recommend discounting anything you're told. But… at the same time, yeah, maybe we can find someone other than a guy sleeping on a bench to confirm.”

“If we even can find anyone,” Heartpiercer murmured in frustration. “It's been hours, Joe. You said this world is one giant city, right? Isn't a city supposed to have people?” 

“There's got to be some trick to it,” Socar declared solemnly as he squinted and scanned the area. “I know every street and tower looks the same, but if a local can find their way around, there must be some way to tell where you are.”

A burst of noise came from above them as an enormous gout of sparkling, magical fire blasted out a window of one of the towers. Beyond a few shouts of alarm, there was no indication that anyone saw or cared about the sudden detonation. At least, no one came running to help, and the light show ended quickly. Joe watched carefully yet couldn't even see silhouettes through the high opening before some opaque barrier closed off the space. “Well, clearly there are people. Just not in a place where we can get to them.”

Distant laughter echoed off the hard walls, bouncing around the street and making it difficult to pinpoint the origin of the sound. Unconsciously, the group stepped closer together, hands clasping their weapons. When the high-pitched chuckles ended, Nimue let out a soft *hiss*, and Socar nodded along. “Yeah, that was pretty creepy. What kind of world did we land on? Should we… do you think we should go back?”

No one spoke, yet at the same time, they didn't turn around. After a few moments, Joe relaxed slightly and began treading forward once more, leading his friends along the endless road. After a few more hours, a bright, scintillating glow appeared in the air a few miles ahead of them, and the Ritualist stopped dead. “Did we circle the entire planet?”

“Looks like it,” Heartpiercer grumbled in discontent. “I suppose that'll happen when it's a dwarf planet and we have superhuman stats. Well, if nothing else, now we have a landmark we can use as a reference. Should we try, I don't know, taking a left turn or something?”

They took another step, and with each one, the endless path stretched onward. Soon, a soft humming of machinery distinguished itself from the background noise, and the group looked on with interest as they closed in on a tower with extremely clear differences from the others around it. Behind the massive square wall encircling the tower's base, machines scaled the sky-scraping structure in a flurry of motion. Not only were the tireless constructs scrubbing the exterior, they were swapping out worn down components with new, gleaming versions.

“That one looks pretty active. Should we knock?” Joe tried to keep his voice cheerful, though the oppressive silence had started to wear on him. Without waiting for an answer, he walked up to the enormous double doors set into the wall, reaching up and pounding on the metallic surface—and only just barely making a sound. Trying not to react to the stifled mirth of his friends, Joe pulled out a Ritual Orb and levitated it upward, sending it slamming against the surface to produce three sharp knocks that echoed up and down the road.

A contraption on the door itself *whirred*, revealing a complicated circuit board, complete with spinning gears, tubes filled with crackling energies, and dripping with dark oils. Joe stared at the open panel in confusion, unsure how to react, only for the protective casing to slide back over it when Joe did nothing to interact with it. “That’s… what do you think that was all about?”

He’d tossed the comment out, not expecting a reply. So, when Heartpiercer actually had something to say, Joe’s ears perked up with interest.

“If I had to guess, I'd say that was a puzzle of some sort?” Her words came out slowly, though her eyes lit up with interest. “I have no idea what we would do with that, but maybe we can find one we can figure out. Let's start knocking on doors.”

Joe deflated slightly as he realized what she was saying. “Please tell me you don't want us to go around knocking on every individual tower on this planet until we find something that makes sense.”

“If you have a better idea, I'd be more than willing to hear it.” She let out a soft chuckle, examining Joe with a critical eye when he sagged in place, as though every bit of his stamina had leaked out at once. “Maybe we'll even be able to find you some proper clothes. If I had to guess, I'd say people are avoiding us because you look more like a hobo than that vagrant did. I’ve no idea why you haven't bothered to replace your gear, since you’re wearing basic clothes that offer no bonuses, are covered in holes and burn marks-”

“I blame Stu.” Joe immediately countered, only for her to roll her eyes and easily refute him.

“Joe. That was so long ago.” Heartpiercer crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “You've had plenty of time to figure out some new gear. It's not like you were hurting for items to barter with. Anytime in the last… I don't even know how long, you could’ve just figured something out.”

Joe rubbed the back of his bald head, an uncomfortable smile appearing on his lips. “It never came up? The cold didn't bother me much, since I have good protection from the elements with my magic. At least everything stays clean, and… are there really that many holes?”

“If you were cheese, your shirt would be Swiss, and we could have bribed that local to show us around.” Socar offered ‘helpfully’. “Even though you think it doesn’t matter to you, I can tell you there have been a few people who were going to seek you out for class training, but figured you wouldn't be able to work with them because you looked so destitute. You know, not being able to take on students, or maybe your class is just so hard to learn that you constantly had to live like-”

“Got it.” Joe cut off his friend's deluge of words before he was called a hobo yet again. “But… am I seriously losing opportunities because my clothes are a little-”

“Ragged?”

“Tattered?” Heartpiercer offered at the same time as Socar.

“Mew,” Nimue solemnly meowed.

AutoMate took that moment to phase into being in the mug dangling from Joe's belt, reaching up with its tiny tendril of coffee and patting him gently on the shoulder. Its coffee bean eyes stared into his, as though preparing to join in the impromptu intervention. *No sad. Drink. Be happy.*

“Thanks, Mate,” Joe murmured, unclipping the carabiner and lifting the mug to his lips, taking a sip as the elemental vanished, leaving behind only ten ounces of steaming beverage. “At least one of my friends isn't putting another hole in my pride.”

“Better there than your pants,” Heartpiercer remarked dryly. “Starting to look a little too much like fishnet stockings for comfort.”

“I get it! New clothes, as soon as I can get ‘em!” Joe threw his hands in the air and started walking toward the next tower. “You know what else? Next time, one of you can knock, and maybe someone will actually open the door instead of leaving us to our own devices.”

“You know, the bifrost is right there. You could take a few hours, pop down to another world, get dressed, and come back?” Socar’s innocent offer sent Heartpiercer into peals of laughter, even as Joe’s ears went pink. “We’d wait for you.”

The Ritualist simply shook his head instead of responding verbally, but at least they didn't have to walk through silent streets anymore, as now Heartpiercer couldn't stop herself from falling into fits of laughter every few minutes—the wind had picked up, sending Joe's clothes flapping like a flag that had barely survived a war.

Joe tossed his few remaining Ritual Orbs back and forth, leaving one to orbit his head like a tiny moon as they knocked on one gate after another. Most of the gates showed no reaction at all, though a few of them shifted and twisted with obvious puzzles like the mechanical one had done. Illusions covered the surface of one, arcane writing another: harsh, golden light that raised goosebumps on Joe's arms as it appeared—making him realize how smart it had been to use his orbs to do the knocking. 

Despite the endless possibilities, none of the group could make sense of the puzzles that appeared. So, with a collective shrug, they moved on to the next, then the next. 

Socar spoke out a few hours later as they twisted and turned through the roads, trying to keep the bifrost on their right, just to make sure they weren't doubling back. “Look…! This area isn't anywhere near as random as we thought it was. Here. The large road we circled the planet on is a straight line, but if you look at these smaller side roads? This one curves subtly, but every third block, the alignment is reset. Look at that… the wall around the base of this tower is a few inches shorter than the one on either side of it, which would allow the flow of ambient energy on the secondary ring of the feng shui along the northeast axis. That is, if we can assume the bifrost is landing at the magnetic north of this planet.”

“I feel like you’re trying to make a point but are either unwilling or unable to get there,” Heartpiercer unintentionally quipped, earning herself a distracted, frustrated glance from their resident Formations expert.

Socar gestured vaguely at the tower with his right hand, making a sinuous curve with his left as he detailed a street in the distance. “I know this isn't obvious, but there should be a nexus point signifying ‘spiritual growth’ with a subset of earth somewhere over here. It's creating a massive funnel and should be gathering the energy… but I just don't know for what.”

“Do you know where it's collecting?” Joe latched on to the concept like a man spotting an oasis in the desert. “Nothing’s making sense on this planet. I'll take any lead I can get.”

“Sure, it’s just right there.” Socar walked into the middle of the street, his eyes on the towers around them, gauging the distances between them, their relative height, the wind flow, and tapped on a specific section of the road. “This spot. For some reason, the nexus point is just hovering above ground?”

*Whump.*

As he pushed his index finger into a spot in the air, which didn’t offer an inkling of being important, the perfectly smooth road collapsed slightly, slamming up and around Socar like a venus flytrap made of stone. Joe's first instinct was to attack the hard surface, but it melted away, leaving the ground just as perfectly smooth as it had been a heartbeat earlier. 

There was no sign of their missing party member, but an instant before Joe gathered energy to try and resurrect his friend, who he assumed had just been slain, he heard a creaking sound off to their left.

His chin jerked toward the unexpected noise, and he glimpsed Socar’s pale face just before the squealing gate slammed closed.