The Road to Ascension

The model of the Ascension Bridge had been crafted by the three-dimensional display, along with its surrounding area. The straight, metallic bar rose through a slice of the Ninth Disk, and then another slice of the Eighth, and onward and upward until it reached the top that, among the Bitter Nines, only Golgon and Cidi had ever had the privilege of seeing with their own eyes: the Ascension Chamber, a bulbous mushroom cap-like top of the superstructure that ran a colossal shaft through every layer of Vantage. Unlike the shafts below it, the cap had massive, open archways allowing free passage; after all, there was nowhere to go but down from there.

“So ascension bridges are one straight shot to the top?”

“In the old days, yes,” Golgon slowly replied as he focused on the model rising from the black plate in the ground, “but necessity demanded security, and so the Peak tightened that control: the bridges can be opened by anyone with the authority of a disk above, and that authority travels with them... but only to go as high as they live.”

A small, featureless silhouette, no more than a peg with a head, rose in front of the Ascension Chamber on the topmost disk.

“Some rich Dorani from the First Disk could travel all the way down to the Plate and back, opening the security gates as one each time he did so.”

Half of the ascension bridge’s wall fell away to permit an internal look: there, huge, thick plates shaped like flower petals were locked together at every Disk level. The model traveler moved into the chamber at the top... and each closed flower bloomed downwards, opening a thin gap. At the same time, a dozen little Lawmen formed around the bridge at the sixth level, and then another wave on the seventh and then all the way down, with three dozen standing around it at the Plate. The peg person began his slow descent on a tiny, circular platform as John watched the machinery of this elevator, and its security, play out as one.

"Is this how fast the barriers close? I mean, I don't know how tall this thing is, but if it's really a city long..."

"Ah... but the barriers won't close... once we finish the second phase of our original plan." Golgon produced one of the thin rods of refined metal John had returned to the thieves. "The Lawmen no doubt think we're readying to buy weapons or numbers with their precious tubok and zeebok... after all, why would we raid a refinery if we could refine it on our own?”

Way too much to figure out... “Putting aside what that even means: what are you going to do once you ‘refine’ it?”

“A bridge key,” suddenly interrupted a frustrated voice. John watched as Cidi joined them once again, now irritated by the sounds and smells wafting from Miles’ room, but she seemed to brighten up with the topic. “The bridges are fueled by mana deposited using bridge keys; bridge keys, meanwhile, are charged based on what they’re made of to permit the movement of the mechanisms.”

“Ah, have another in you, John the Newman?!” called Hurk as he pulled the last crops from the latest portal. John snapped another one open over a fresh patch of the field, and Hurk began to cleave into them anew.

Golgon nodded once Hurk went back to farming; the Knights, or at least those not lured by moans towards Miles’ bedroom, struggled to haul and organize the bizarre crops already piled around the giant. “Aye, young one: every opening, and moreover, every fortification spell on the barriers, requires great amounts of pure mana... and to prevent anyone from corrupting or draining said mana, the only access points are the key ports on every Disk...” The corner of the black display rose to form two objects: one, a rectangular slot with teeth of a certain pattern; the other, an angular, ornate device with a key extension clearly in the shape of the hole next to it. “These keys are enchanted with runes of storage, keeping inside themselves the depths of mana that the key’s material can hold. A mere bok key holds naught but a small mote... a zeebok key, however, can hold all the mana of a runemaster...”

“... and a pelos key could hold all the power of a bridge! My family has been responsible for one of them for three generations,” Cidi proudly added.

Golgon nodded. “Which is why we need a pelos key... and to make one, we’ll need what we thought was held at that refinery... and three times what we managed to steal.”

“But even if you power the bridge… what opens it?”

“The Peak needs no power… quite the opposite.” Golgon reached down and dragged his finger on a flat bit of the malleable display; two couples of arrows flanking an X, and some small, indiscernable sigils at each corner of the X, were drawn just short of finishing the fourth such sigil. “‘The Rune of Essence Capture… invaluable to charge the keys in the first place, but if put on the key… they can drain the bridge of power.”

The model responded to its master’s whims: for a moment, the elevator froze and the flower barriers ceased to close. Suddenly the elevator fell, toppling the peg towards the Plate while the tower continued to be frozen in half-opened stasis.

Golgon continued as the model restored itself, “Each bridge possesses too much mana at any given time for anything less than a pelos key… and once inserted with this sabotage, the pelos key will drink its fill… right from the mechanisms of the Peak. The Peak may scramble for one of its own, insert it above the First Disk, and re-awaken the bridge… but before you, we planned to rise above faster than the Peak could move. Now, with your power…”

“So… this ‘pelos’ stuff. It’s not derived from this ‘bok’ stuff everything seems built on?”

“Oh, it is,” the Ootuk confessed, “but submitted to the pressures and transmutations of powerful magic and real pressure, refining the lesser zeetok until it finally finds its golden glimmer.”

“Golden… wait, the Lawmen armor?”

“Ho ho, how they wish! No, pelos is far too rare for that, given its expense; the Lawmen wear various grades, but none even near zeetok; they merely paint them the color of pelos to symbolize the Peak’s authority… as worn on her gaudy home.”

The model of the First Disk traveler, restored to its tiny elevator, finally reached the Plate; as it finished its descent, the waves of models of Lawmen eased from their tight patrols around the bridge. “Why all the Lawmen, even when its someone authorized?”

“This is the normal response: heightened security for whenever the bridge is opened for any level beneath the Sixth Disk... and twice as many for the Plate. It is not for the traveler, but for everyone else who might try and smuggle themselves into a higher station.”

“Alright... so the bridge cuts through the barriers that keeps me from portaling upwards...”

“Or us, if you teach us your runes, John the Newman,” Golgon declared almost too eagerly.

John frowned as he watched the flower barriers seal back up. “I don’t use runes, and I don’t think I can teach that anyways.”

“You... don’t?”

“Nah, I can’t even teach my summons how to open… well, point is, I can’t.”

“I mean.... your runes, child. You do not use them?” John met Golgon’s perplexed stare with his own confusion, but the Ootuk continued, “I had wondered if you had carved them into your bones or... had plates with them etched in under your skin as some have taken to doing. Is that what you mean, child?”

John shook his head. “Magic seems to be... pretty loosely defined, really. I’ve seen all kinds now and just with humans and a few types of mon... non-humans,” John quickly corrected. “I mean, none of the magic you’ve seen from us so far is rune-based, either... I think.”

Golgon passed his slack-jawed gaze across the Humans with a newfound wonder. “That is... something incredible, John the Newman." Golgon seemed to stare past them all, to something far away... but resumed speaking just as John became concerned, "As a scholar, I would seek more on that later... after we have freed Vantage.”

The glow in Golgon’s eye put John’s focus back on the model. “Well as I said, I can just get past all of these if they’re open, right? Because they’re all in the same space... and then, if we have this key, we’ll be sure to get through it all at once.” As if in response, the Game agreed:

NEW QUEST! “The Key to Ascension”!
Aid the Bitter Nines in putting their plan in motion!
OBJECTIVES:
Harvest enough refined bok to make pelos: 38%
Craft an Ascension Bridge Key (Pelos): 0/1
Enchant the Key to Drain Mana: 0/1
REWARD: +70,000XP, +$300,000, +5 bars of pelos, +1 significant magical weapon
BONUS OBJECTIVE: Suffer zero casualties before completion of the quest: 0/1
BONUS REWARD: Learn one offensive spell OR +2 to an existing skill

“So... a fetch quest,” John deadpanned.

“Pardon, child?”

“Nothing,” John chuckled as he hit ACCEPT without hesitation, “it just looks like I’m going to be getting you what you need.”

Golgon nodded with a smile. “Your eagerness to help strangers like us is... well, exemplary. It once was the case that we, too, lived so generously... or so it is written.”

John had to look away from the earnest praise. It’s not like I don’t have something to gain, after all... “So I just need to rob a few refineries, right?”

Golgon shook his head. “They will be on far too high an alert, now, and our diversion will not work twice.”

“Well... it will if it takes out too many of them to fight back, right?”

“Ho ho! I fear the pale child has already gotten to you, John the Newman... but you cannot put down over a hundred-thousand Lawmen, now can you?”

John suppressed a grin. “Well... we’ll talk raiding refineries later. For now: how were you all going to face the dozens of them on your way up?”

The model shifted into a wider map of Vantage. “As to our original plan: it called for a brutal, long fight up the bridge as we ascended, inserting the key on the Ninth Disk terminal, and facing the arsenal of the Peak for the rest of the ascent. The Disks would close their doors to prevent breaches, and those doors would no longer open once the key was inserted. Still,” Golgon sighed, “ the prospect of fighting every Lawman on the Plate and in the Peak... we were not sure if we’d be capable of doing it... but with you here, to bring us to the very top before any could retaliate... well, we have only the breaching of the Peak Fortress to consider. Indeed, with your power, perhaps we needn't even worry about that."

The model display completed its new transformation: now it was a wider map of Vantage, featureless save for the five towers piercing through it. Floating over the top disk, impaled on the centermost ascension bridge, was the pyramid John had seen in every vision of Vantage: the Peak, or Peak Fortress as John now learned. The pyramid featured no etchings or designs on its hull and, except for the ascension bridge impaling it, had only one entrance: a tiny archway at its base on a single side. And inside...

The Throne... just based on their legends, on the power of Sovereignty, this... this must be it!

"We could not have considered attacking the first ascension bridge—this central one which leads directly into the fortress—before now. It is the most severely guarded, the most heavily armed... and it is the only way to enter the Fortress without attacking its front gate."

“So you were just going to beat up every Lawman who could get to you in time.”

Golgon cackled at that. "Do not let Miles the Human misguide you, child! Even Hurk the Smiling Fist knows the value of caution and retreat; we needed only pass them, and hastily so, until we could finally find and kill the Peak. All the Lawmen cannot fit inside the Fortress, and the Peak would not escape us.”

John contemplated the pyramid before asking, "And who was going to take her place?"

"None," Golgon spat, "and never again!"

John stared at the Peak... and then looked around. His eyes swept over the strangers--Penelope and Yui, the whole Order’s lot--and considered those more familiar to him: Galley, Rave… Tricia most of all. They were stuck feeding on elf milk and whatever fruits John could grow to keep up with their hunger until he got them home… and so far, no way home, aside from the one involving the Peak, had made itself known. John had quietly realized his dilemma… and looked back to the Ootuk whose eyes glittered with hope and inspiration for what he imagined to be the future.

The Peak is the King... and if I'm going to get out of here, I need to become the King or else find some other way to jump to another Kingdom...