Chapitre 3: The Door
Winston dreamt of a God. A God so large that he could not be seen in the clouds from the waist up. The God walked towards a tower and walked atop it. His arms were equally gigantic as his body. He held them out. The tower expanded and expanded, and then some more. It kept expanding beyond what the human mind was truly capable of comprehending, eventually overtaking an infinite cosmos.
Then, a door appeared to close off the tower, covering everything beyond it like a mist.
Winston jolted awake once again. His eyes were unfocused as he thought over the contents of the dream.
As a Seer, and one with particularly higher spirituality due to the influence of the Marauder and Apprentice potions, dreams were not meant to be ignored. Most, it not all the time, dreams held deeper meaning, as it is the spiritual intuition giving a revelation or warning about whatever it is to come.
What is the symbolism behind the dream? I saw the same door in the dream.
Winston thought about it for a moment, coming to various conclusions on the get go.
"The Door leads to a tower. Perhaps the tower might be a symbol for something else, possibly a rise to power considering the figure of a God atop it? A power ladder that allows one to become a God?" He mused.
I already have a way to ascend to godhood. However, most of the acting required for it needs to interact with other people and get their feedback. Only then can I progress in Sequence.
Winston shook his head.
Whatever it might be beyond the door, it is somewhat clear that it's a path to power, or at least something close to it. Winston completely trusted his spiritual intuition. In the series Lord of Mysteries, Klein's intuition rarely ever failed to deliver; although that too was partly because of the buff of the sefirah castle, but as someone that had three Sequence 9 potions worth of spirituality, he wasn't far behind Klein's intuition. In fact, he might even theorize that he was somewhat more spiritually sensitive.
He sighed.
His arrival at the space, which was marked 2 days ago, give or take, had been particularly mundane. He had simply appeared. But everything that came with it wasn't. He had been practicing his powers all this time, getting more familiar with it.
Along with that, he had practised cogitation at practically every free instance he got.
And since he couldn't stay here indefinitely, which would entail straving to death, and finally having an idea of what was beyond the door, he concluded that there was practically no reason to staying in this place.
Winston got up, his eyes turning muddled as he activated his sight, unveiling the secrets beyond vision. The majestic door that spanned hundreds of meters high and hundreds of meters wide appeared in his eyes.
Walking forward, he placed his hand onto the ethereal door. Not being physical, it was impossible to touch it normally, save for at the expense of spirituality and using his Apprentice powers.
The door didn't budge. He concentrated.
He used the door openings abilities of the Apprentice pathway to the absolute limit of what his spirituality would allow for.
Alas, the conceptual power of a sequence 9s abilities could only get so far.
Winston sat back down on the surface of the cave, quietly overlooking the door still. He contemplated.
I can't open the doors as of yet. How am I supposed to get in then? He looked around.
The cave only extends so far. Even if I use door opening, it only leads to a wall of stone. Meaning, there no other air pockets at least 50 meters from here.
Just as he was thinking about his next choice of action, the door suddenly trembled.
The surrounding colours dimmed and scattered as a deep crevice opened within the door. And inside lied an even blinding light than anything the door could ever hope to produce. Winston had the instinct to close his eyes, lest he went blind from the intense light; however, he knew that doing so might make him miss the opportunity; alongside the knowledge that his spirit vision wasn't inherently connected to his physical body, but instead it was information supplied directly to his spiritual body, or the astral projection.
The crevice largened, now large enough for an entire person to pass through.
No brief moments of hesitation passed him, which might have been indicative of his spirituality warning him. Hurriedly getting off the ground, before the door could close as it was already motioning to, he jumped through the narrow gap into the light, closing off his spirit vision while doing so.
Soon, the door closed and the surrounding spiritual colours returned to their usual rest.
~~~
A lonesome light shone high up above, amidst the spinning mist and the racing winds. The long stone hallways, supposedly untouched for thousands of years, hosting murals of strange imagery and unknown individuals that marred the walls, supposedly unviewed for ages, the entrance to the first floor had finally gotten a visitor.
Winston Smith, the enigmatic man opened his eyes. His upper body was still completely naked with his underside covered only by undies.
He propped up his chest and looked around. The murals on the walls, the long, seemingly infinite hallway that extended both ways and the ceilingless space which had a lone light shining from above gave him the impression that it had not been probed in for centuries.
Which would be correct, a sign of his enhanced deduction from the Marauder potion.
He got on his feet and looked around again. Suddenly, a voice called out.
"Oh-ho! Another irregular! The Tower hasn't received such extensive visits from the outside in centuries!" A sing song voice, a deep monotone said from the side.
Winstons sight darted to the speaker, there finding a figure too eerie to describe in any form of beauty or majesty by human standards.
It was a humanoid figure, standing at a height of an astonishing range between 180 to 185 centimeters, save for his propped up ears, which when added made him look about 240 centimeters. He had a pure white skin and an elongated face, which stood almost featuresless if not for a singular slit that travelled lengthwise on the lower part of the head. The back of this slit held clear crystal blue eyes and the front held an almost unnoticeable row of sharp teeth.
His arms were unusually thick for his body structure, at least by human standards and he wore a purple spandex like garment.
He twirled and twisted a golden staff with crystal balled ends in the air, masterfully displaying tricks with it.
Winston readied himself to use spirit vision, wanting to get a clearer picture.
However, his thumb accidentally met his middle finger instead of his ring finger. Seeing that, he instantly got rid of any thoughts, that still harbored or had yet to arise about using spirit vision on his rabbit like humanoid being.
He distinctively remembered Megose from LoTM, the one that gave the readers PTSD on pregnant woman that harbored an evil God in her womb. At that moment, a critical detail about spirit vision was understood in the novel. "Do not look directly at God."
"Who are you?" Winston asked, throwing to the back of his mind the fact that he had nearly gotten himself killed just a moment ago.
The rabbit like figure didn't notice anything. He again spoke in the same sing song voice.
"I am Headon. The guardian of the first floor of the Tower."
"The Tower? Guardian?"
"Tower indeed. What you are inside is the Tower of God." He spread his arms across, as if to take the world into his arms. "What do you desire?
"Money and Wealth?
"Honor and Pride?
"Authority and Power?
"Revenge?
"Or something that transcends all these?
"Whatever you desire... is here..."
His staff pointed up. "Everything is at the top of the tower. Anything can be achieved at the top, the Tower is such a place."
Winston looked on.
"As for me being a Guardian, each floor of the tower has a guardian assigned to the specific floor, I am simply the guardian of the first one."
Winston nodded.
"I see. How many floors are there in total may I ask?"
Headon smirked, displaying his front teeth openly.
"That can only be found as you climb the Tower. Do you have what it takes?" He asked.
Winston quieted down for a moment.
It doesn't matter how I got here or how I ended up inside this Tower, what matters is I won't survive back in that cave. He looked at the rabbit.
As of right now, I need only enter the tower. The rest can be figured out with time.
"Are there any inhabitants in the tower?"
"Indeed there are. Each floor harbors millions of inhabitants."
"And they all climb the tower?"
"Not all, no. Only the ones I select."
"And I take it that I've also been selected?"
Headon's smirk widened all the way to his eyes.
"No. You were not chosen by me. You came in on your own." He pointed his stick at Winston.
"You have chosen yourself. The only question from here is whether you are willing to climb or not."
Winston contemplated for a moment.
"What does that mean?"
"You can find that out on your own."
He nodded.
From his words, I can at least deduce that the people from the outside are few to name. And as of right now, there might have been another visitor before me, or even multiple of them. And supposedly, they might just have some advantages or disadvantages because they have 'chosen themselves', as opposed to everyone that it chosen.
And it suggests a culling mechanism. Not everyone that gets selected can reach the top, meaning there is a competition underway to the top. That means danger.
Winston gazed at Headon who was smirking at him.
"How do you climb the tower?"
"You must take a test on each floor to reach the next one."
"What what might be this floor's test?"
"I beginning to like you. The first floor test... hmm. Let's see." He scratched his 'chin'.
Then behind him, the scenery underwent a change.
What was previously a darkened hallway that had no end, a large cage door appeared in it's place.
A green hue emanated from the air beyond the cage, and water like waves filled the air. The waves rolled and tumbled in the air, like currents in an ocean. And in the waves, a predator lurked.
A gigantic fish like creature with a long tail and two appendages floated silently in the air, swimming in the waves.
At the center of the cage, some distance from the door of the cage, some shards of a dark substance were lying there. Slowly, they disappeared and a lonesome door appeared in it's place.
"The first test is simple. Walk through that door, and you pass."
"And what of that monster?"
"That is a white steel eel, a creature found in the tower. It hasn't eaten anything for some time, so it's particularly aggressive."
Winston looked at Headon in silence, unsure if the rabbit like figure purposefully wanted to get him killed.
"I reckon if I don't take the test, I'll be thrown back out?"
"That right."
"Then that leaves no choice." He steeled his resolve and walked towards the cage.
Either he died here from the beast, or went back and died from starvation. It was obvious what he was going to pick.
~~~
A/N: Throw me them stones, if you want to of course.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone