Spike sprinted across the floor he was on. The top and bottom were metal grates, with wrought iron stairs up, and he slammed the cork into the red vial he had, tossing it up to Smolder who waited one floor up. “Got it, which color you need?”
“Purple!” Spike said, looking down nervously.
The giant wurm monster snapped at another floor below them, slowly chewing up the lower iron floor.
Smolder poured the red vial into a blue flask, shaking it a little, and tossed back down to Spike. “Got it!”
Spike leaned out of the torn iron floor, pouring the purple stuff into the wyrm’s mouth as it was open, causing it to shudder and recoil, and it’s eyes turning green. “It’s green next!”
“What? We just used up the last blue!” Sandra shouted from above.
“What?!”
The wyrm continued to move upward as the whole party tore apart the various floors, trying to find anything to solve the puzzle. “Look, I think we have to start over,” Tabitha said.
Spike sighed. “You’re right.” He held up his guildchain, blinking out, and the rest did too.
Garble stomped on the ground. “This is another one of the tower’s ‘special’ ones, isn’t it? Some kinda dumb boss-that’s-a-timed-puzzle crap?”
Spike lifted his hands. "I dunno, these are kinda interesting. Better than 'beat the big monster' ones. We know how those work by now."
Smolder swatted the back of both of her dragon friends. "You two sound like you're both old people complaining about the 'good ole days'. Whatever, let's get back in there and beat it!"
Sandra tapped Tabitha on the side. When the other girl looked over, she smiled a little nervously. "Been thinking."
"Bad habit."
"Stop!" Though Tabitha's expression implied she wasn't being super serious. "For real. He's underestimating how important you are, to the story. To my story." She took a slow breath. "If it wasn't for you, I'd already have given up. If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have gotten this far. If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be here, inching towards the top."
“Yeah but… you’d want to,” Sandra replied. “You convinced us to take you. Well, you and Spike.”
Tabitha furrowed her brow. “Hey, I’m trying to bear my soul, here.”
“You are…” Sandra said. “I guess I just… what makes this different from before? From your other party? From when we parted ways first?” She looked at the rest of their party, who seemed if anything more eager to get to the top. “They dragged me up, and my life was going to change either way, but you were here to help?”
“Well… it is different,” Tabitha turned her head away. “I was real frustrated when we left. And maybe I should have talked to you about it, and I definitely shouldn’t have picked on you like I did." She gave Sandra a sudden glare. "I knew you had more in you!"
Sandra laughed awkwardly. "And you got to see it, in a roundabout sort of way, but we're getting off topic."
"So what's the topic?" Tabitha rolled a hand as they walked along. "You started it."
"I did… The tower, it has one thing going for it that it had before and after this guy. It likes a good story." She waved a finger between herself and Tabitha. "We are that story. We are the story that's going to emerge from this place. It can't be the dragons, they won't be there."
“Just the supporting characters, huh.” Tabitha smirked.
“That’s right.” Sandra smiled, wistfully. “What I’m saying is, whatever happens at the top, we are the ones who are going to have to deal with it, I’m sure.”
Tabitha stopped smirking. “It doesn’t have to be that way. I’m sure we can find another way to send the dragons back, and we can do the minimum at the top. He has some kind of… curse thing on you, from your parents, right?”
“It likes a good story, Tabitha.” Sandra's hands animated, pantomiming her thoughts. “If we try to just say ‘this isn’t the end’ and do the boring practical thing, I don’t think it’d like that, besides.” She looked back at the dragons. Garble was looking on with glassy eyes as Spike talked to Smolder about how to conserve the colors so they could get further. “They were sent up by the tower. This might literally be the only way to send them back. If not this then some other life altering quest that one in a million people get to do. This is the only chance.”
“It’s also the only chance for the curse thing to be cleared,” Tabitha said. “You can’t just leave that on the table.”
"And I'm not." She took a slow breath, extending her hands away from her as it came free. "I'm facing it. It's time to be a grown up."
"Weren't we already doing that?"
"I mean for real." She set a hand on her hips. "I'm taking my future in my hands. I'm ready to write my story." Tabitha didn't seem to be getting it. "He had his chance. All he wants is an end. I don't think he cares if he gets the ending he wants, just an ending, so, whatever, I'm writing it."
Tabitha elbowed her friend. "And you're alright with your story ending with them gone forever?" She could see the flash of sadness. "They're your best friends, me excluded."
“And I am the reason they’re having to go through this,” Sandra hissed. “I won’t let it go forward.”
“What does writing your own ending mean? What do you plan to do?”
Sandra hesitated. “It… doesn’t matter what I plan to do. When we get up there I’ll know what it is.” She smiled, one of serenity. "It's just… hard to explain, but it's mine, and I… for once… accept that. This isn't a roll of the dice. I thought it was." She snorted loudly, hurrying to catch up. "The one roll that changed everything and got this going, was rigged. It always was."
Tabitha shook her head with a soft grumbling, clearly not getting whatever was putting that smile on Sandra's face. "You used to chase me." When had they flipped so completely? She hurried to catch up with the party. "Let's do this!" None of that changed what she planned to do. She was gonna be a hero!
Garble’s platform flew through the tunnel with him in it alone, the tracks clacking below it, and another two beasts leapt onto his platform, him immediately turning his blade on them. “Even alone, I am strong! You’ll be cut down to my song!” The leapt to him as he slashed at them. His hit was solid, but their claws dug into him, before he spun around, clearing them.
“Gah,” he winced. The monsters here were not pushovers. Easy to beat, but they hit pretty hard. And the rest of the party were in… some other tunnels.
And just as suddenly as that, the side walls opened up, and Tabitha’s cart slid up to his, bumping into it lightly. She was surrounded by three flying monsters, bashing them back with her shield to no avail.
Garble immediately lept into action, leaping across the gap. “These monsters need to take a hike, and they will when they eat my dynamic strike!”
His first blast cleared half, followed by the others, and he hoisted his sword on his shoulder, smirking at Tabitha. She was panting, but still up. “Yo, I know I just saved your bacon and all, and this ain’t your specialty, but maybe you got a heal before our carts split up again?”
Tabitha raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t we pack some potions just for this occasion?”
Garble kind of stared at her for a moment, immediately opening up his pack, pulling out a potion. “Oh… I mean…” He immediately gulped down two of them.
His partner on the platform chuckled to herself.
“Shut it!” Garble tossed the flasks aside, them disappearing before they could shatter. “You even said it yourself when we were talking about uh… whatsit. Optimisation. It’s my job to beat up things, not heal. I forgot I had it.”
“You’re right, you’re right, but when you’re alone you gotta switch strategies, dude.”
He snorted and looked away. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The two of them continued to travel on the rails at high speeds. “How the hay is this much space inside the tower, anyway?” Garble peered back from where they came, it fading into darkness. “We’ve been traveling for a while…”
“I dunno, there’s gotta be a trick to it, which is probably why we never saw anything like this before in the tower, that guy at the top probably made it.”
“What a pr--” The platforms began to flash red. “Oop, time to split up again.” Garble hopped to his platform, both of them splitting up shortly after, and Garble was alone again.
"No." He slowly waved his upheld hands back and forth. "No no no. This is going too smoothly. You're making it look as if I'm barely even trying."
Smolder gusted fire at the idea. "You're kidding, right? Each floor is more insane than the one before it!" She threw up her hands in obvious frustration. "You're trying to get us to give up, but that ain't happening!"
"Oh, stop that." He looked… embarrassed. "You're just saying that."
Spike crossed his arms with a smug smile. "You picked us, put us together for a reason. We're not going to fail now, but that was your work, wasn't it? You're beating you."
The tower master frowned with obvious thought. "You… are… not entirely wrong…" Not that he seemed to enjoy that. "Still, we're so close, and you aren't being really tested?"
Garble slammed his sword down point first, embedding the thing that was more like a club than a sharp sword, proving with enough effort, anything was sharp enough. "What would a 'real' test look like?"
“Something that is only ended hanging by a thread, something you have to perfect to continue through, something with specific requirements,” The man rattled off. “There are multiple different ways to challenge people.”
“Well we cleared the last one without any of that,” Spike said. “We only did it once, and really it wasn’t that hard. We just had to think a little differently.”
The man floated back and forth, tapping his chin. “No, that floor was definitely one for pre-sixty. To give the climbers a different kind of challenge, something exciting they won’t see outside of this.”
“You want us to ascend,” Sandra said, in an accusing tone. “Why do you mind at all?”
The man looked back, and smirked. “Why, Sandra, you should sort of know. Unless I give you a real challenge, how will the story be complete?”
Sandra’s hard countenance bled into one tinged with fear.
The man floated up again. “In many stories, I’d say the person driving the story isn’t the protagonist, but the antagonist, wouldn’t you agree? They set the story in motion, after all, and the protagonist only resolves it once what the antagonist set in motion is ended.”
“But… the protagonist is the one who decides how it ends.” Sandra steeled her gaze again.
“You’d be surprised how often that isn’t true,” The man said, not flinching.
There was a tense silence, until Garble began shouting, “What the flame is going on?!”
Sandra was startled out of her glare.
“Why the hay are you talking about stories and antagonists and challenges?” Spike shrugged at their opponent. "We're coming up there, like it or not. Then we got some things to discuss."