The Tower's Price: A LitRPG Adventure (Tower of Power Book 5) Page 7

  Ves kept her large mace in one hand and her mirror shield in the other as she led them into the oasis. They approached and Morgan looked into the clear water. “I guess we have a source of water to replenish our supplies at least.”

  “Do you sense anything below us?” Ta’elara asked.

  Morgan focused, but it was still very hard to tell things apart. He was used to detecting things that moved, not stationary objects. He started trying to map out the roots themselves, and he quickly zoned out the others as Ves started refilling her barrels with water. Then, something caught his attention, and he started walking in that direction.

  “Morgan?” someone called, but he just waved in the direction of the source of the voice as he approached a small shrubbery.

  There, just beneath the surface, he felt something strange. The roots of the plants of the shrubbery seemed to be growing strangely, almost as if they were growing around something. Morgan knelt and looked at the ground, then started moving the sand and dirt around.

  “What is it?” This time he recognized the voice as Clara’s.

  “There is something beneath the ground here.”

  Quickly he reached his target: a solid object made out of stone. As he cleared more and more sand he found that it was in fact a carving of some kind of an animal head. Beneath the plant was the head of a statue, and by the look of it, it stretched even further down beneath the ground.

  “Move aside,” Ta’elara said. After everyone gave her space, she pointed her staff at the ground. A few moments later the ground started to shake and then it started to float. Pieces of earth rose and sand fell from them as she moved the earth around and dug the statue out by creating a deep hole all around it. Morgan saw that the statue was of some kind of a humanoid creature with an animal’s head, one that reminded him of statues of Egyptian gods on Earth—except that the head was of an animal that he had never seen before. It had large eyes that resembled the multi-faceted ones of a fly, along with a short snout and wicked teeth.

  But beneath the statue was stone, clearly arranged there for a reason. Morgan was just about to ask Ta’elara if there was a way for her to gently move them away the stone off when she brought her staff down and blasted it to pieces. The statue toppled and fell into the hole that she just made, followed by a loud crack of stone and dirt.

  Morgan closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  “Really, Ta’elara, that thing is who knows how old and you blew it apart just like that?” Morgan asked.

  The Grand Mage blinked at him. “What does its age have to do with anything?”

  Morgan sighed and shook his head. Why am I always surrounded by such special kinds of women? He walked over and looked down into the hole she had made.

  “Well, I guess we found something,” Morgan said.

  Beneath him was a hole in the stone that led into what appeared to be a tunnel—and perhaps their way into the submerged city.

  “We should go and get the others,” Ves suggested, and after some deliberations they agreed that Ta’elara could fly over to the campsite faster than if all of them went together.

  So as she flew off, the three of them started setting up camp. The oasis seemed like a better location than their other campsite. Ves and Clara set up their tents as Morgan looked around. Slowly, he started sensing some strange sensations with his skill; at first he thought that it was just the source of the pond, the spring, and that what he was feeling was the passage of water near roots.

  But then he realized that it was something else.

  “Guys!” Morgan yelled. “Monsters incoming!”

  Both of them dropped everything that they were doing and ran toward him. Morgan stood at the edge of the oasis and looked out. He saw the sand moving, as something just beneath its surface was charging at him. His bow-form hand rose and he nocked an arrow and then used his Phased Shot with his Piercing Shot. The arrow flew straight at the moving form and stabbed into the sand, only to ricochet with a ping and fly to the side to land in the sand.

  Crap! Morgan immediately reached for his launcher and the explosive canister already loaded in it. He fired it just as the sand burst open and something leapt out. The canister hit the monster and exploded, but it didn’t seem to have done enough damage as a massive monster the size of a rhino landed just in front of Morgan.

  “Why the fuck is it always spiders?” he murmured just before he jumped to the side and evaded another leap by the Sand Spider LVL 56.

  He hit the ground and rolled, and then there was a roar and a massive red spirit bear smashed into the spider. Morgan got to his knees and turned, aiming his bow and using Mass Exchange to pull in mass from his Bracelet of Mass Storage as he used his Phase Shift. By using the skill rather than an ability, he expended more energy and had to focus, but by now he had practiced enough that he knew what he was doing.

  Ves’s bear raised one paw and then smashed down, making the spider hit the ground. Clara dropped a field of slowing around it and Ves ran forward, water from the pond flowing to her shield and coating it in ice. She snapped her shield forward and icicles flew at the spider. It chattered as ice shattered on its chitin and one icicle stabbed between its plates. Morgan changed his aim for the small gap in its neck where there was no chitin to protect it.

  He waited for his opportunity as Ves and her bear kept the spider occupied. When Clara used one of her newer abilities, causing chains made out of light to grow out of the ground and pin the monster, Morgan saw his chance and let the arrow fly.

  He dropped his Phase Shift as the arrow flew and the simple wooden arrow smashed into the monster’s neck. It obliterated its head and entered the body, punching between the chitin. The chitin cracked from the inside out as the kinetic energy of a small arrow with much greater density was transferred on its inner organs.

  The spider rocked and dropped to the ground, without its head and with half of its top armor ripped open from the inside and the rest filled with cracks. A few of its legs twitched, but it was most certainly dead as a notification appeared in the corner of his HUD. He gained a bit of exp for the kill, but nothing super impressive.

  He walked over to Ves and Clara, who were inspecting the corpse. As he got closer, he realized just how big it was and shuddered.

  “Just my fucking luck, a spider the size of a truck in a fucking desert. Great,” Morgan said.

  The girls gave him compassionate looks, as they knew about his hatred of spiders, but didn’t comment on that as he continued listing obscenities and kicking the corpse. It seemed that the monster was even one of the beast types, meaning that it could be harvested. It also meant that it would stay there and keep reminding Morgan that there were spiders in the sand around him.

  He continued cursing until Ta’elara arrived with the others, and then cursed some more after.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Morgan sat next to the pond, relaxing and thinking with his eyes closed. The spider hadn’t been much of a threat, but fighting against a monster again made him remember the previous floor, and the fact that even with all of his power he hadn’t felt like he had much impact. He knew that wasn’t true, that his attack at the army’s front line had allowed the raid group to punch through, that his explosives had killed many. The amount of exp he’d gained told him as much. But he knew that if they were to survive, they had to grow stronger still.

  Morgan’s kit was adaptive and strange. His arm was basically a mimic, a part of him that could change shape and form into anything that it had consumed. The biggest problem that he had with it was that outside of his forms, having his arm change into something else took time and energy. His three forms were like memory slots. He could create a form and then save it, and then he didn’t need to spend as much time and effort the next time he wanted to assume the same form. Now, he had an extra two slots, and he was trying to think of something useful that he could use. His Basic Form was an altered version of a human arm, based on what his hand used to be back when he first create
d Klyn. He had a few tendrils inside, like vines: one that could shoot acid, one with razor sharp leaves, and another that was more like a manipulator tendril. The bones and the flesh were strengthened, while still retaining about the same weight of what an ordinary hand would have.

  But Klyn no longer merely occupied his arm—it was now his heart as well. He’d had had his human one destroyed and in order to survive he had used Klyn to form the heart of a wolf monster that Ta’elara had him consume when they were doing tests. He had adjusted the heart somewhat, but it was still not a human one. It was far more powerful, which did come in handy at times. He had been feeling slightly strange with so many alterations to his body, like he was abandoning his humanity, and then he remembered what had happened when he’d became ascended and when he died on Earth. According to Oxylus, his old body was still on Earth, and he had been granted a new one. By becoming ascended, he had become something beyond human. All ascended were basically of the same race, one that had different forms. They obeyed the same rules, and when they died their bodies disintegrated into energy particles.

  But Morgan had started thinking of his changes in terms that he understood, thinking of things like cyberpunk on Earth. He was improving his body with something else, but it was still his body. And then he gained a new trait—Soul and Not a Body. It had told him that his body had evolved, that the symbiont had now become a part of him and that his soul now extended into it; that Klyn was now the same as any other part of his body, and was completely under his control. He had noticed that since the change. Before, there had always been a sense of a will behind Klyn, but now it was just like his other arm. Except that this one could devour matter and change into literally anything.

  He had spoken with Ves at length about his changes, and possible paths in the future. One of the most obvious paths was for him to replace more of his body with Klyn. It made him only a bit apprehensive, since somehow he still identified this body as his and Klyn as something foreign, but he knew now that that no longer held true. Regardless, his ascended body was most certainly not the body he had been born with. It was a bit ironic that it took being transported to another world and getting a symbiont as an arm for him to come around to his mother’s thinking. Morgan wasn’t the body—he was the soul. That was the core of he was, and he didn’t think that his soul could be changed by what he did to his body, unless he messed things up somehow and detached his soul from his body, killing himself in the process. He doubted that Oxylus would catch his soul again.

  But just because he knew that he could do something did not mean that he was comfortable with it. It would still be a complete departure from any type of normal existence. The more he changed, the more he would become a person to whom physical form mattered little, because he could always change it. And that scared him, the thought that he could just focus and change his appearance. He had Klyn consume things made out of powerful magical metals, and he could change the surface of his arm to become like that. How many different things would he be able to do if more of his body was Klyn? Would he be able to turn himself into some kind of a golem type thing with metal skin, or something like Colossus from X-Men?

  And what about his brain? His thoughts? What would happen if he replaced them? Would he lose all of his memories and become a baby again? He didn’t think that he would touch his brain even if he decided to change things further. In the end, however, he knew that he needed to do something—he needed more power if he was to protect those important to him. He did not want to stand helpless and watch anyone else die.

  He looked across the camp, looking for a certain person. Body alteration wasn’t something novel and strange in the World. Vallsorim himself had a prosthetic arm, one made out of metal and enchanted to move as he wanted it to. It had some sick abilities, too. Vall had spent most of the wealth that he had earned in the Tower on buying the best augmented arm for himself, even though he could’ve had his original grown back. Body alteration wasn’t something strange, but it wasn’t as common as it could be, either.

  Finally, Morgan found who he was looking for. Evermou was standing next to one of the trees on the other side of the camp, and Morgan headed his way. He hadn’t really ever spoken much with Evermou. He was a full-blooded elvar, or elf. Morgan had always called them elves, but apparently there was a group of really old-school elves who didn’t enjoy that term. Ves and Vall didn’t mind, but then again they were only half-elves, and they hadn’t really grown up near other elves. Evermou, thankfully, wasn’t one of the more traditional ones, but he was still a bit off-putting, what with keeping his perfect poise and expression on constantly. Morgan generally didn’t mingle with elves, since they didn’t look kindly on half-elves, which was why he hadn’t even attempted to speak with Evermou from the outset.

  The tall, blond elf was an exact picture of what people on Earth imagined elves to be like: regal, haughty, perfect in every way. As one of the leaders of the Erthirium Riders teams, he had been on the same level as Ragnor Raam and Ta’elara. He was a great power.

  It was only later that Morgan realized the truth about the man.

  His unnatural beauty wasn’t something he was born with, but an enhancement. Evermou’s kit resolved around utilizing the artifacts that he had implanted inside his own body. He was an illusionist who kept a glamour over his body in order to hide his true appearance. Morgan had seen only glimpses of it in battle, so he still didn’t know what exactly Evermou looked like.

  As Morgan approached, Evermou didn’t react, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t know that Morgan was coming.

  Awkwardly, Morgan stopped next to him and spoke. “Evermou, I was hoping that you had a moment to talk?”

  The elf turned and looked at him. From a step away Morgan could see the unnatural beauty in his face, in his eyes that were the color of ice and almost shone.

  “Morgan,” Evermou said and tilted his head. “Yes, I am free. How may I help you?”

  His calm and respectful tone was a far cry from the ways that most of the other elves that Morgan had met spoke with him, and it was at odds with the way he looked. Morgan gestured to a few small rocks nearby and led the man there. They took seats away from the camp and the noise of the rest excavating the tunnel that Ta’elara had almost closed up. Ragnor Raam wanted them to rest before sending someone down to explore, which was probably going to be Morgan again.

  “I was hoping to ask for some advice,” Morgan said as they sat across from one another. “About my hand.”

  Morgan focused on his hand, having the skin change color before returning to normal.

  “If I can help I will, although I do not know much of things such as your arm.”

  “It isn’t really about the hand itself,” Morgan said. “After the last floor, I leveled, and it was upgraded. I wanted to ask your perspective on altering your own body.”

  “Ah,” Evermou said. “That I can help you with. What do you want to know?”

  “Well, I’ve been having some problems accepting the fact that I will lose even more of my body, you know. I know abstractly that it will still be mine, that I will control it, but still. It feels…” Morgan trailed off, and Evermou nodded his head.

  “Unnatural? I know what you speak of; I have felt similarly. You need to look at it in another light. You are not losing your body, but improving it. What becomes of it after you replace a part is still you. It remains yours.”

  “It stills feels somehow like I could become a passenger in my own body.”

  “I don’t know what your arm is or how it will feel. For me, my enhancements always feel separate, but this does not bother me. They are an extension of my body.”

  Then, his eye shimmered, and instead of a glacial and beautiful eye, Morgan saw a red, multifaceted gem set into the socket. He had seen him use it before, firing a beam of decaying energy that harmed anything living. He noted the tone of his real skin around it, slightly tanned compared to the pristine pale tone of the glamour.

  �
��My eye,” Evermou started as he put the glamour back on. “It is an artifact that I purchased from the third floor’s shop—an item that was meant to augment other equipment. Instead, I had it replace my eye. It was a hard decision, but it has paid off. I have a matrix that connects items in my socket to my mind, allowing me to use them easily. Ta’elara actually was the one who helped me develop it. The gem itself cannot allow me sight, but the matrix was built in with a rudimentary farsight spell that acts as my eye. I can still see through it, although not exactly the same as my original eye could.”

  Morgan looked at his arm, closing the fist and then opening it. It didn’t feel any different than his ordinary arm, and yet he knew that it was different. Is that only mental? Am I thinking too much about it? Klyn is a part of me, an extension of my own body, just as Evermou thinks of his own improvements.

  “Do you have any advice on what I should do?”

  “You can replicate anything that the arm has consumed, yes?” At Morgan’s nod, Evermou continued. “Find what you are lacking. All of my alterations are to compensate for something. Ta’elara has helped me greatly in this regard when I was just starting the process. Perhaps she might offer more insight?”

  Morgan nodded, and then smiled at the elf. “Thank you for speaking with me.”

  “Think nothing of it. We are all in this together. If you grow stronger, all of us grow stronger,” Evermou told him.

  Morgan stood and left him sitting there as he headed out to find Ta’elara. He knew exactly where she was, so he didn’t have long to search. Before he could get to her, Lucius found him.

  “Morgan, do you have a moment?” Lucius asked.

  Morgan blinked, but then nodded as he saw the look in the man’s eyes. Lucius led them a bit away from the others, and then started to pace around.

  Morgan could see that he was distressed, mostly because he knew the man. Still, even his pacing was controlled, his back straight and his eyes looking forward. Lucius had grown up in one of the big Guilds, with powerful ascended. His grandfather had been a chosen, like Morgan, meaning that he had been brought to this world from another one. From Morgan’s talks with Lucius, he gathered that his grandfather came from an alternate version of Earth, where the Roman Empire never collapsed. Lucius’ grandfather had been a legionnaire and had brought a lot of the Roman ways of thinking to the World. Lucius even looked the part of a Roman, wearing similarly looking custom made armor.