Chapter 327: Mirror Sky

William Oh oft explores virgin lands where no-one else has gone before. Strangely enough, these places often worship him as a god. Unfortunately, he’s been there so many times, the religion is old and tired, and his name is casually taken in vain.

• Jason Salazar

“Will-damn it!” Peruga cursed as the main shaft of his woodchipper snapped and hung loose.

His younger siblings needed to set their mycelia in freshly chipped wood to make it safely through the winter. Their digestive tracts hadn’t grown enough to stay ambulatory the entire time like an adult.

Which was why the woodchipper’s main shaft snapping was such a damned problem.

I’ll need to borrow the axe from Gangan, Peruga thought as he left the machine and headed back inside, wiping a crust of spores from his around his eyes. Gangan didn’t like them, but he was the only one in the village with the right tools to cut down and shape a new shaft.

He’ll probably want some kind of debt. Looking for a way to steal our woodchipper.

Metal was a relic of the gods who lived in the ancient ruins, and it was very rare. Peruga’s parents had inherited the tiny blades that formed the working surface of the woodchipper from their great-great grandfather, who had found it on a perilous expedition.

It was the backbone of their pulp business, and without it, they would be forced to become day laborers or hunters.

Gangan wanted the woodchipper, badly, and Peruga was afraid he would use underhanded methods to force them to give it up.

“If there was one Will-damned thing I didn’t need this fall it was for this to go wrong!” If only we hadn’t sold all of it already. There’s not enough time before the winter hits.

“Are we gonna die, Peruga?” Millie asked. The little cap was looking up at him with moist eyes. “You can eat me if-“

Will-damn it, she heard me.

“You’re not gonna die,” Peruga said, patting millie’s head. The little cap squirmed around in her pot, a smattering of knitted wools and sewed fabric strewn around her.

She was doing anything she could to make a little extra money.

“William Oh won’t let us die.”

“I find it highly unlikely the god of the end is interested in saving us in particular.” Millie said.

She’s growing wise to my tricks, Peruga thought.

“Nonsense. Every thousand years, William Oh descends on us and gives good caps and bonnets metal and polished wood and all the pulp they can lay their mycelia in.”

“But is that gonna happen for us?” Millie demanded, her stubby hands on her waist.

“Well-“

Knock Knock Knock!

Probably Gangan, looking to make a ‘generous’ offer. Peruga thought, his head heating up with anger as he turned towards the door.

Peruga wrenched open the door to his home with an invective on his lips and-

That is not Gangan.

The creature stood roughly twice the height of the tallest cap, gangly and its head shape was all narrow and wrong. It was a disturbing, ominous sight to say the least.

It was wearing an ultra-fine cloth mask of some kind over its entire face, obscuring every part of its skin. Unless that is it’s skin. I don’t even know with this alien creature.

“Who-what are you-“

“Don’t spend it all in one place.” The creature spoke in a strange, deep voice that shook Peruga’s ear-frills with its potency, as though it was born to command the air itself.

As if by magic, several enormous chunks of metal appeared and clattered onto Peruga’s doorstep.

Pergua made out a saw, a chisel and a planer among the tools.

“Are you…giving these to us?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I thought you might need them.” the creature said.

“What do you want, my sister or something?”

The figure leaned past Peruga and glanced over at Millie, who was huddled up in her pot. “…No. I just overheard you and thought you might need them. You don’t need to pay me anything.”

“And you’re not going to haunt us or something?”

“If you’re going to keep this up, I’ll take the tools back.”

“I’ll take them, I’ll take them!” Peruge said, gathering the god-metal in his arms. With these he would be able to repair the shaft and be back in business in a matter of days.

“Thank Will!” Peruga sighed as the prospect of losing a sibling became far more distant.

“You’re welcome.” The strange creature said before being drawn backwards like a piece of bait on a string in a highly disturbing cross between motionlessness and high-speed.

“Was that William Oh?” Millie asked.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“…Maybe?” Peruga said, scratching his tingling ears. Whatever it was sure had been loud.

“If it was, he’s really scary, and I think you should probably not say his name so often when you cuss, Peruga.” Millie said, slowly unfolding.

“I think you’re right.”

***William Oh***

“Why the detour?” Mason asked as they got back on their way to the Key Site.

“I heard someone take my name in vain,” Will said.

Mason’s silk-covered face turned towards Will.

“Seriously?”

Will just looked back at him, fully aware that Mason couldn’t see his grin through the breathing mask.

“Who knows?” Will asked.

“Damnit Will, you just keep getting weirder.” Mason said.

“Says the guy with a built-in septic system.”

“…touche.”

The Key Site was overrun with a living fungus of some kind. They didn’t seem to be thinking beings like the civilians Will had given tools to, instead they were strange snake-like hybrids. They spat dangerous miasma-altering spores when aggravated, but their range was only a few hundred feet, so Will had Beth shoot it from outside its range to see what kind of damage could be done by a non-relic enhanced by Abilities.

Each shot carved out a hole the size of a man’s head. It took nearly her entire supply of magazines to clear the Key Site, but eventually all the snake-like fungal monsters were dead.

“Not good enough,” Beth muttered, scowling at the smoldering monster corpses dissolving into miasma.

“It’s good enough.” Will said.

“But I spent nearly everything I had to take out one Key Site.” Beth said, frowning up at Will.

“On the 18^th Floor,” Will said. “You’re a support Class. You’re not supposed to be able to take out an entire Key Site by yourself under normal circumstances, so this is a good result, even if it was slower than what Loth or Mason could do.”

“I have some Anchorite deposits inside me too, so you don’t have to worry about ammunition, either.” Mason said.

Will glanced over at Mason.

“Resource Nodes?” Will asked.

“Yep.”

You stole my resource nodes, didn’t you? Will thought, frowning as he pondered how the Abyss Mason pulled that off.

Assuming Will survived, there was going to be a major reshuffling in regional power unless Will got his Stronghold out of Mason.

I’ll worry about that later.

Thank you for clearing the Key Site. You may advance to the 19^th Floor or descend to the 17^th Floor at your leisure.

When everyone was ready, Will stepped through the Door and entered the 19^th Floor.

This time, he held his breath until he spent a moment confirming that there wasn’t anything harmful in the air.

The air on the 19^th Floor was much drier than the previous one. It felt stale, dead and motionless, much like the 8^th Floor.

There were living trees, but they were sparse, sickly and mostly dotted empty patches between the Floor’s true landscape:

Grey, lifeless ruins that went on as far as the eye could see. Unlike the 15^th Floor, there was nothing growing on or covering the ruins. They were bare and well preserved.

Most of the roofs were rotted or torn away, but the strong stone walls mostly seemed to be holding up, creating a strange landscape of hollow stone boxes that stretched for miles in every direction.

Was this the capital of some ancient city? Will thought as he scanned the ruins before he paused, noticing something strange.

The lighting of the 19^th floor wasn’t casting any definite shadows. The interior of the buildings were slightly shaded, but there was no concrete light source.

Curious, Will glanced up and wished he hadn’t.

Above, rather than a sky and a sun, there was a mirror reflecting the city itself back down at him.

Will could tell it was a mirror because there was a little Will dot near the center, which mirrored his movements.

Yeah, that’s probably some kind of environmental trap. Will thought suspiciously, staring up at the reflected city above.

His Map Ability said there was nothing beyond the mirror. Not air, not land. Nothing.

We should get out of here quickly, Will thought. It gave the same antithetical-to-life feeling as the 8^th Floor.

Will wouldn’t be surprised if super-zombies started crawling out of the dim shaded portions of the ruined buildings.

Anything? Mason signed at Will when he arrived.

Will shook his head.

Sky is maybe dangerous, Will signed back, pointing up before removing his air-filtering mask and replacing it with his usual one.

Mason glanced up and blinked.

“Yeah, that’s pretty creepy.” The Nuker said, frowning up at the reflected city high above them.

“Where’s the Key Site?” Jorn asked, scanning the city.

Will didn’t see any telltale beams of blue light. Are they completely choked off or just beyond the horizon? He wondered, turning his attention to his map and activating the settings he’d designed specifically for locating Key Sites.

None.

Hmm. That could be a problem.

As far as Will knew, there was no such thing as a Floor that didn’t have a Key Site. Such a thing would break The Tower.

That meant one of two things must be true:

They weren’t on the 19^th Floor, or the Key Sites were hidden from them.

“I’ll do my job and scout.” Will said, lifting himself into the air above the partially collapsed buildings. “You guys find somewhere safe where Sammohan can go prospecting. If we can’t get out of here quickly we might as well look for something useful while we’re at it.”

The enormous miner gave a quiet fist-pump.

Will didn’t go very high in the sky. The mirror surface that curved over the entire world gave him a bad feeling, so he flew just above the tops of the buildings, doing a quick circuit around the ancient city to extend his range out as far as he could without leaving a blank spot in the center of his mapping area.

Still nothing.

Just an expanse of grey featureless buildings and omnipresent ambient light.

Will returned that evening and joined them for a debrief.

“No monsters at all?” Jorn asked, seemingly a bit disappointed.

“None that I saw.” Will replied. As far as he could tell, the entire Floor was entirely clear of monster, which didn’t make any sense, because there was certainly a decent amount of miasma on the floor. The concentration was just a bit higher than that of the 18^th Floor, but there were no monsters or anomalous mushroom-people to be seen at all.

“What do we do?” Beth asked.

“We’ll look for the Key Sites tomorrow, and if we don’t find anything, I’ll buy Doors for everyone to move up to the 20^th Floor.” Will said.

“Oh. Okay.” Beth relaxed.

The light that seemed to come from everywhere gradually dimmed as night approached. They set up a camp and a dedicated watch around Mason and Will went to sleep.

The Floor was unnaturally quiet and still, so every cough and squeak of wooden cots shifting registered clearly in Will’s ears, making it tough to fall asleep.

When the light began to return to the world, Will stepped outside and scanned every direction, looking for any change in the environment that could spell trouble.

He found one almost immediately.

The mirror-sky that hung high above them wasn’t hanging quite so high anymore.

When before it had been a few hundred feet up, it had lowered overnight, now only about fifty feet above their heads.

Mirror-Will was no longer a speck waving back at him, he was now a pale, ghoulish rendition of Will’s form, looking back at Will with unnatural intensity.

Will waved.

The reflection waved back a heartbeat later.

“Mm-mm. Nope.” Will said, shaking his head.

Would you like to purchase a Door X7?

Absolutely.

“Everyone get outta bed and get your shit sorted! we’re getting the fuck outta here, we’re not looking for the Key Sites.”

Will made sure everyone was accounted for and had their own Door, then got the Abyss out of there.

Welcome to the 20^th Floor.

There are five Key Sites to the west in need of Clearing.

There are no Strongholds on this Floor.

You may not purchase a Door for yourself for another 20 days.

Before Will could get a sense for the nature of the Floor, he was struck by a pressure wave, and an instant later he was tumbling through air hot enough to melt steel.

Good old-fashioned explosions. So much better than the creepy mirror sky, Will thought an instant before he hit a barren cliffside.