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Tower Of Zhen Wei

Kapitel 1: The Long Descent

Snow fell gently over a little village called Feng, up on the 79th floor of the great Tower of Zhen Wei. A cluster of little, stone houses billowed pleasant white smoke up into what looked very much like the open sky. At each corner of the little village rose tall watchtowers of red brick and bright stucco.

The evening was peaceful. Firelight flickered behind glass windows and closed shutters. The falling snow muffled the sounds of the wilderness without. And in Jin and her family's cosy little house, a familiar argument was starting.

'Long ago, there was a world outside this tower,' Granny was explaining to her granddaughter. 'A world of life and joy and peace. A huge and varied world full of all sorts of people. That was until the Ruqin and their evil master came, and all the people of the world banded together to fight for their homes.'

Jin rolled her eyes. 'We've all heard it, Granny,' she said. 'Just skip to the part where you tell me what I did wrong.'

Granny glared at her granddaughter across the dining table, where sat her daughter and son-in-law. 'Jin,' Granny said, with immense weight. 'It was your turn to cook us dinner, was it not?'

Jin's mother groaned.

'And I did just that, Granny,' Jin said, waving over the table at her immaculate spread of shredded cabbage and carrot, and boiled turnips. She'd even managed to get some salt to add to the food.

Granny looked bereaved as if her husband had just died again, at the two bowls on the table. 'Jin, are you playing games with me? At my advanced age?'

Jin's father stifled a snort with his hand.

Outside, the gentle snow and flurries of wind obscured the earth-shattering footsteps and the huge shape of something the lookouts should have seen coming from the other side of the tundra.

With trembling chopsticks, Granny lifted a single blade of shredded cabbage to her wrinkled lips. 'Must I subsist on this?'

Just as Granny closed her mouth around the tiny morsel, a scream, and a huge crash rocked the small, peaceful town. All four of them looked to the shuttered windows. With a groan and a crash, the southeast watchtower collapsed into the main street outside.

'Stay here, Granny,' said Jin's mother. She and her husband grabbed up their weapons and coats. 'Jin, keep an eye on her.'

Jin was just grabbing her own sword and coat. 'But…' she started to say.

'Please?' said her father. 'Just stay near the house and make sure nothing gets close.'

The parents hurried out into the whirling, soft snow, slamming the door behind them. Jin, one arm into the sleeve of her coat, stared after them for a moment as the alarm bells started to clang outside.

Jin looked at Granny, who had picked up a slice of boiled turnip. 'I'm not going anywhere,' Granny said. 'You'd best go help, I expect.'

Jin grinned across the table. 'Thanks, Granny, tell them when they get back please.'

Granny would deny having said that when her daughter and son-in-law got back. They wouldn't believe her.

Jin charged out into the soft snow, only just remembering to slam the door closed behind her, and looked around for the danger. It was rare that the Ruqin made it all the way to town before the alarms sounded, but it wasn't the first time.

She couldn't see the bots or beasts that she expected to be crawling over the curved, tile roofs of the little village. She couldn't see the web of armed people driving them back and away from what few children and elderly were too infirm to join the fight.

From behind her, Jin heard a boom, then a scream, then a whoosh. She spun around just in time to see the north-east watchtower erupt into a pillar of flames. Oh, that was bad.

Jin could barely make out the massive figure behind the flames, through the smoke and falling snow. It was bigger than any Ruqin Jin had ever seen. It opened a gargantuan mouth and Jin could see flames building within.

A great swath of ice and snow rose from the ground to meet the blast of roiling flames as the snow around Jin disintegrated into the magical surge. She started running in that direction to join the fight.

Jin pulled up short as the blast of fire tore through the wall of snow and ice and thundered into the ground, tearing up and through the stone buildings of the little town and setting alight anything that could burn. There was more shouting and screaming.

It was her mother who appeared from the whirling snow, sweating and scorched. 'Jin, you have to go for help,' she panted. 'Two levels down. We can't beat this ourselves.'

Jin stared, torn. 'But I…'

'Jin.' Her mother's tone was hard. 'We'll hold it as long as we can, we're counting on you to get help.'

Jin gritted her teeth. She could fight. They could fight. The village had never met a Ruqin they couldn't destroy. Surely if they just… She spun around, found the southwest tower, and started running.

Jin knew she wouldn't be enough to turn the tide herself. Her mother was just being cautious. The monster would be defeated and the town rebuilt by the time she got back. It was just to be safe.

The snow was thick and soft outside the town, pulling at Jin's boots as she pushed herself through it. The stairs weren't far. She could make it to floor 77 in no time and be back before the night was through.

Jin ran. She ignored the sounds behind her. She ignored the crashes, the booms, the shouting, and the screaming. If she looked back, she would be wasting time. Granny would have finished the parsnips by the time she returned.

The stairs down were dark and dry. The snow never seemed to reach them. Jin had climbed down dozens of times, leaving the town to hunt. She took them two at a time, ramming into the walls at each landing to change direction.

The stairs seemed to go on forever, as they always did. Dark and quiet and empty. But Jin knew that barely seconds had passed when she burst out into bright daylight and sweltering heat.

Before she stretched a bright, glittering desert. It had been a forest two weeks ago, the last time Jin was here. Sand and cacti spread out to the horizon. There was a horizon? Why did this floor have to be so big just when Jin was in a hurry?

Dotted through the desert were large, lumbering Ruqin-like worms with legs, chewing their way through the sand and cacti. Gathered in clusters and winding lines were the small, useless robots called drones. Standing guard was an assortment of armed robots and large mechs.

Jin paused at the bottom of the stairs to tie her coat around her waist and look around. The stairs that took you down weren't always directly across from the stairs that brought you to the floor. Once, Jin had arrived on this floor to find the stairs down directly next to the stairs up.

This time, she hadn't been nearly so lucky. It could have been worse, of course. Despite the desert stretching over the horizon, a wall extended left and right from the archway Jin had just arrived through. Jin had seen floors where the archways of the stairs were freestanding and much harder to find.

Running as fast as she dared in the loose sand, Jin followed the wall around to the left. She gave the Ruqin a wide berth and none of the guards even looked at her as she hurried around the wall.

She had to slow to a jog in the pressing heat, but it still couldn't have been more than half an hour before she spotted the darkened archway of the stairs. Jin was slower now, but she still took the stairs two at a time.

It was probably fine. Her mother was probably worrying too much. And maybe time moved slower on that floor. Jin thought of a dozen more reassurances before she burst into the 77th floor.

'Shit.'

Jin was faced with a room barely as big as the main room in her family's house. It appeared to be made from solid, black stone blocks. There was a pillar in the center, carved all around with the same, odd symbols that could be found all over the tower if you knew how to look for them.

The symbols seemed to be glowing a faint blue, which Jin had never seen before.

It was the fascination of most of Jin's village, the possible meanings and uses of these symbols. And this was an amazing opportunity to copy down an extremely clear and detailed set of them. Except that Jin was busy.

She swore at the pillar several more times as she dashed around it and into the next set of stairs. There were supposed to be people on the next few floors, sensibly spread out to avoid attracting too much attention. Surely, even if the next floor had become something useless, one of these floors would have someone she could ask for help.

Next was a swamp. Small enough that Jin didn't have to waste much time searching for people. Next was a tiny room where the floor moved whenever you took a step so you couldn't get anywhere. Jin had to climb across the walls.

Next was a room where gravity rotated every five seconds. Next was a snowy mountaintop that Jin had to sled down from. Next was a huge, natural cave full of glowing insects that burned to the touch.

Next was an ocean. Jin had to debate with herself whether to look around or not. On the one hand, it opened in all directions and she was sure she could see signs of distant islands. On the other hand, the stairs down were right in front of her.

Jin kept on going down. It was all useless. Some floors were huge, some seemed endless. Some were tiny. Some were traps. Some made essentially no sense. But there were two unifying themes, in Jin's mind: there were no people in sight, and the stairs down were easier than looking.

Surely, if she kept on going down, she'd find people who would help her. Surely it hadn't been all that long. Surely her mother had been worried for nothing. Surely Jin was doing her best and no one could blame her for the layout of the tower being pointedly useless today.

Jin must have climbed down twenty floors before she had to stop and fight. She'd been doing fine avoiding what Ruqin she did see, and fleeing from those that spotted her. But she'd come to a level that was either a maze or a labyrinth and there wasn't much getting around the Ruqin that looked like a suit of armor with blue lights strapped on.

It just stood there, in the tight corridor, and seemed to stare at Jin from the glowing blue lights on its helmet. It was taller than her, probably about two meters tall, and it had blades folded back against its arms.

For a few seconds, Jin hoped that the Ruqin was inactive. It didn't move, didn't attack, didn't do much of anything. And then it started to hum, that hum of machinery coming to life, and Jin sighed to herself.

She had lost track of time between all the floors she'd been through, but she was sure she was pushing it. It must have been more than two hours since she'd left home to look for help. She didn't have time for this.

With a whir, the Ruqin snapped into a stance like it was going to start boxing. The blades swished and clicked forward, protruding from its fists. It made three quick jabs at the air, very like a boxer. Left, right, left. The same three jabs that Jin felt like she'd seen a million times.

Jin snapped her sword from the sheath on her back, pulling it free with a scrape as the blade rubbed against the cutout that made it possible to draw from her back in the first place. The Ruqin shuffled toward her. Left, right, left. Left, right, left.

The sword scraped off the Ruqin's left shoulder, leaving Jin's chest and neck wide open to the haymaker swing. A little piece of the wall just behind Jin's back disintegrated into nothing.

There was a blast of wind down the hall like a bomb had gone off around the corner. The Ruqin was slammed bodily into the wall, still trying to execute the haymaker swing. Jin stabbed her sword into its chest as her wind kept it pinned to the wall.

With a shower of sparks and a crinkling sort of nose, all those blue lights on the Ruqin went out and it slumped. Jin pulled the sword free and the Ruqin collapsed into itself, leaving a single, glittering, translucent Cube.

Jin stared for a moment. She didn't need it. It might come in handy. It wasn't like it would take long to get it anyway. Jin reached up to her neck and, for the first time since leaving home, realised she wasn't wearing her pendant.

She dug in her coat pockets. It was there. She must have taken it off for dinner. Her jaw clenched. She was wasting time. Jin held her pendant down to the Cube and the gem pulsed as the Cube liquified and flowed into the pendant.

It hadn't taken that long, surely.

Jin was back to jogging.

She jumped across bamboo poles over a spiked pit. She skirted a pit full of lava. She crossed an idyllic meadow. She pushed her way through a room completely full of wool.

As she descended, the floors seemed more silly than dangerous. She ran into more Ruqin, of course. She skirted around another set of harvesters and their drones and guards, slowly eating their way through a mountain.

She dispatched two more robots standing between her and a trampoline to jump over a pool full of what smelled a lot like milk. She didn't find anyone. She couldn't see anyone, couldn't even see structures that people might live in.

It must have been hours and hours. She was tired and her stomach was growling. She could barely force herself to go faster than a walk. It was all pointless. Everyone was dead. She'd failed. She might as well just lay down here, on the unpleasantly squishy, green floor.

But they'd never lost to a Ruqin before. And her mother had probably been worrying too much. Couldn't Jin just go back? Couldn't she just give up? Or maybe if she went back, she would actually find the people this time. Maybe she would get the right versions of all those floors.

She would return with a whole army of people ready to fight a giant monster that had already been defeated long ago. Maybe some of them would want to stay. Maybe there would be more people in the village for once.

If she didn't find anyone on her way up, though, this would all be a complete waste. The best thing to do, she was sure, was to keep going down until she found people. That way, if she already had an entourage, it would be easier to convince people to come with her on the way back up.

And it wouldn't matter that she'd raided one of the towns on level 77. And what if they didn't want to help anyway? It was better to keep going down, surely. There were supposed to be way more people down here.

Except that she still didn't find any of them. Floor after floor of snow and sand and forest and swamp and weird geometry and silly hazards. Floor after floor empty of anything but the odd Ruqin. Left, right, left.

Jin had lost count of how many floors she'd been past. She'd lost track of time. She'd lost track of most things, or so it felt. She didn't have time to stop and rest or eat or drink. She had to keep going.

In a familiar field of gently drifting snow, Jin encountered a mech. A Ruqin easily four times her height, with a cannon for one arm and a claw on the other. A Ruqin that didn't just stand there and stare at her. A Ruqin launched into the attack.

Jin skidded on her back away from the first blast of the cannon. The snow under her vaporized and the wind shoved her out of the way of the second blast. She rolled under the third blast. Left, left, left.

The Ruqin lunged at her with that massive claw. Jin launched herself into the air and jammed her sword into the left shoulder joint. The claw grabbed her around the middle and hurled her into a wall. The wind barely softened the blow. The screen on the wall that showed the snowy fields warped and stuttered, but kept on playing.

With a thud, its left arm exploded and sent her sword flying. Jin ran for the sword as the Ruqun tried to fire twice more with the destroyed cannon and nothing happened. She rolled under a swipe with the claw and cut through its knee joint, right at head level.

She jumped out of the way of the second grab with the claw and landed on the Ruqin's chest as it collapsed, trying to aim the missing cannon up at her. Left, left, left. Jin jammed her sword into its chest.

Right. The claws jammed into the thing's chest like a cage pressing her in. Right. The claws screeched through the glowing metal of the Ruqin, trying to grab Jin off.

She twisted the sword and the Ruqin collapsed over backward. The cage of claws stopped Jin from softening her fall. With a clang and a thud, she felt a sharp pain in the side of her head.

As the Ruqin started to disintegrate, Jin's vision blurred.

Did she hear voices? Or was it her imagination?

She didn't have time to rest. But her arms wouldn't push her up. Her legs wouldn't stand.

Were there figures approaching her? Blurry and indistinct. Were they talking?

It was probably more Ruqin. Jin tried to pick up her sword, but it was stuck to the ground. She tried to flex the wind, but the air was so still. The snow fell gently around her.

Her vision went black around the edges. A glittering, translucent haze blurred the figures into shapeless nothing.

Jin could hear voices. She was sure of it.

She'd finally found help.