They forgot to check the stairs going up, but the progression of floors offered evidence risk lay upon them and not between them. Luther regained his position at the front. Melody sprang to life from the soft tap of his boot upon the fourth level. The wizard’s abrupt halt pressed Lyall’s nose into the folds of Luther’s cloak...and the scent of his companion’s cologne in his nostrils. Lyall’s poor tongue took another chomp, though one kept subtle. 

“Is that a piano?” Aurae pressed close to Lyall’s own back to peek around the curve. 

“A piano that is its own player,” Luther stated. 

He moved out of the way for them to follow. The fourth floor greeted them warmly as its large windows speared spotlights of spring sun across an open floor perfect for dancing alongside the piano’s dulcet waltz. Lyall worried it was a tune to capture them in a trance as the lower levels had done, but Aurae slid across the glossed planks and spun into a sway without signs of manipulation. She bowed to an unseen companion before taking their invisible hands and stepping into what certainly seemed to Lyall to be proper movements. He only knew the folk dances of Luteria’s festivals. 

Luther slowly walked the outer perimeter of the floor, hands down at his sides but fingers constantly in movement. “I sense nothing apparently amiss. It’s difficult to directly discern—” 

“Alliteration,” Lyall interrupted. 

“Yes,” Luther chuckled fondly. “In short, the tower is made up of so much magic that the less burdensome sensing spell I typically cast is nearly useless. I know one that separates everything distinctly, but it only lasts for a brief time and rapidly depletes my arcane stamina.” 

“I grow exhausted when I overcast, but I heard it’s more dangerous for non-divine magic users,” Aurae said but also asked. She hopped as if pretending someone lifted her. 

“Yes,” Luther now examined the piano. “Passing out is common, but intense exertion can lead to one’s arcane nerves being damaged. The worst result is the inability to ever cast a spell again.” 

“What’s an arcane nerve?” 

“A complicated topic I’d be glad to lecture you on during our planned dinner.” 

“Neh,” Aurae grunted. 

She danced with heightened vigor as if she hadn’t heard Luther. Lyall steered clear of her circle to investigate the door, for the dance area wasn’t the lone area on this floor. Another room took up a third of the space. However, Lyall barely finished inspecting the frame for traps when icy hands dove into his back. 

“HAH!” Lyall spun around, sword singing in time with the waltz as he whipped it in an arc. Luther, concerned, hurried to the center of the floor, although Aurae kept dancing. Thinner fingers of the imperceptible variety tickled Lyall’s side. He thrust his blade down where it did the expected thing of absolutely nothing. “There’re ghosts!” 

“Who do you think I’m dancing with?” Aurae quipped. Her claim no lie, Lyall flitted to Luther’s side hoping neither heard the timpani his heart had become. Aurae gracefully swept her arm out. “Not actual ghosts though. There are borrowed elements of necromantic energies to trick the untrained, but their existence is that of simple arcane illusions. I suspect any ‘haunting’ is the defensive tactic of this floor.” 

“Not good with the supernatural?” Luther spared Lyall sympathy. Lyall groaned. 

“I’m not hiding it well, am I?” 

“You look pale as a...” Luther started with a knowing smirk, but he flapped his hand dismissively. 

“I can’t stab a ghost with a sword,” Lyall explained, sulking at his blade. 

“There are many monsters in this world you can’t stab with a sword,” Luther reminded. 

“How is that encouraging?” 

Luther opened his mouth, closed it, and found his answer momentarily. “I’m afraid I did not consider that one fully.” 

“I saw nothing harmful on the door, so I’m going to open it,” Lyall declared. He sheathed his sword, flailed pitifully at ephemeral hands clutching his ankles, and threw open the door to reveal a place with no windows, soft lights overhead, and walls made up of nothing but shelves of tightly packed books. A lone table and four chairs with a teal rug made up the rest of the room’s interest. 

“Oh, there’s something we need in here for sure,” Aurae hopped over on her toes. She took the first book on her left. “It’s blank.” She grabbed the next one. “This one too.” 

“We’re looking for the needle in the haystack.” Lyall grimaced at the thousands of books surrounding them. “What if you continue on this side, Aurae? I’ll start from the right, and Luther can take the middle.” 

“No better plan than that,” Aurae agreed. 

She and Lyall got to work. Luther wordlessly moved to the center of the arched outer wall, but Lyall quickly noticed he didn’t touch a single tome. He contemplated them instead, muttering to himself and shuffling left and right. Finally, Luther quietly slid a book into his hands. Lyall abandoned his work at the boastful grin snaking Luther’s lips. 

“It’s this book,” he announced. 

“How did you know?” Aurae gaped. She joined Lyall in staring at the opened book, whose pages had been cut into a box for a hidden compartment housing a golden key. 

“Simple. The rest of these books were in order. This one wasn’t.” 

“I don’t even know what language these titles are.” 

“It’s Dranaght, the main language of the Artifex Era. None of these books are that old, however, so I surmise they’re titled in Dranaght for the purpose of confusion.” 

“Glad to have you along,” Lyall clapped his back. “Thanks to you, we’ve completed this floor in under ten minutes.” 

“You’re just happy to get away from the ghosts,” Aurae poked his cheek. 

Lyall scoffed but couldn’t answer. Luther pocketed the key and returned them to the stairs where they realized something they hadn’t before. The stairs didn’t go past the next floor. 

“Perhaps there’s another set we cannot see,” Luther theorized. “The tower goes up to se-VEHN!” 

They’d gotten arrogant. The stairs that’d presented no challenge dropped out from under their feet. Steps linked into a slippery slide, and the thin balusters transformed into trap-triggered solid walls Lyall’s fingernails bent against as their clawing, screeching fluster to find purchase failed. He’d no leniency to acknowledge that pain, the slam of his tailbone upon the slide, or Luther’s flailing foot jabbing into the soft of his back. The two hours it’d taken them to progress upwards reversed into a cruel two seconds down; a hole opened at the bottom of the tower was about to pitch them hundreds of feet into the forested valley below. 

Aurae shouted. Bright, white light bursting from her hands winced Lyall’s lashes. She rammed herself to a harsh stop with a conjured, spectral rod reaching the length of the slide and provided further leverage with glowing footholds inches from the drop. Lyall wheezed upon their collision, which Luther mimicked from their own collision. 

“...Not the way I wanted to end up in a train,” Aurae adjusted her grip on the rod. 

“Aurae,” Luther hid his face behind his hand again. 

“Sorry.” 

Lyall glanced back at Luther. “Would this be a moment worthy of teleport—” 

The stairs transformed again. Thankfully, they merely reverted to their normal state, leaving the three of them in a pile before the starting step on the first floor. A brief discussion occurred on the prospect of taking a break, but the choice was made to press on. Aurae moved alone from the fourth to fifth floor—Lyall and Luther ready to lean and catch—yet the stairs proved peaceful. Lyall went next without issue, and Luther successfully following signaled the trap was a one-time experience. A master bedroom and bath filled the entire level. A thorough search gave them no trials, traps, nor keys. Seemingly left with no way to ascend, Lyall, Luther, and Aurae put their faith in what awaited them on the balcony past a glass door, and it provided in more ways than one. 

Delicate ivy twisted and weaved over the outside wall as an abstract painting, its design mirrored by the spiraling wood supports of the soft benches and chairs perched in the perfect angles to catch dawn and dusk. A glass table begged to be laden by tea and snacks caught the ethereal, firefly glow of the arcane sconces to dance gentle flame across its surface. The thick top of the railing gave one plenty of space to fold one’s arms upon the smooth stone or rest a glass of drink, and the wind—playful but sweet—swooped low into the cirque, charged upwards, and broke over him in pine-scented bursts like the mist of a breaking wave. Lyall took a moment to stand by the railing, let his mind still as he enraptured himself in the simple sight of nature’s art, and wish to experience a calm stay in such a place. 

Aurae quietly stepped over and lightly nudged his elbow, whispering, “If this tower wasn’t a nuisance, this would be a marvelous spot for a date.” 

Lyall inhaled sharply through his nose at the return to reality. “Is there someone you’re interested in?” 

Aurae’s immediate departure with a disappointed scoff and sigh set him with a low frown and furrowed brows. She joined Luther at the left end of the balcony, which is what Lyall should have been drawn to in the first place. There were their steps to go up—stone ones arching around the outside of the building. None of them enjoyed the lack of a railing, but the steps were long enough to not make the brief climb particularly terrifying. Luther even crackled intensely with arcane spark, cloak fluttering, since he used his powerful sensing spell to guarantee no magic would get in the way again. He lowered his arms after a moment and wiped sweat from the top of his brow. 

“There is no trick to these. The stairs will not drop, they will not disappear or shrink—they're simply stairs,” Luther declared. “I’m confident in my conclusion, so I will take the lead up.” 

“I’ll be right behind!” Aurae cheered. 

“You’re quite enthusiastic for not liking heights,” Lyall noted. 

“I’m not the type of person to avoid things I dislike or freeze when I’m scared.” 

“You’re going to do it because you have to do it,” Luther stated determinedly. 

“I like the resolute way you said that. Can I copy you?” 

“Sure,” Lyall smirked, and he and Luther chuckled at Aurae’s confusion. 

Neither of them chose to explain. Luther started up, Aurae demanded she’d hear the answer later, and Lyall delayed a few heartbeats to stare out at the mountains painted brown and blue. He’d wished to complete this job with enough time to return to Perrine before the sun sank, but now he considered that a night camping here might not be so bad. Deciding to simply leave it up to how much longer they took, Lyall managed three stairs. 

The trees erupted into cacophonous shouting. Every pine, spruce, and larch quaked in their bark, the unruly crowd of a titan-sized arena. Their dominating cries and shouts stirred the wind, bludgeoned Lyall’s thoughts senseless, and shot goosebumps down his arms. Instinctual anxiety churned in his core as emotion to match hit, for the trees were anxious. Some excitedly so, and some in warning. Lyall’s vision blurred from the onslaught, but one truth rang clear. 

The stairs were not safe. 

Lyall kicked himself backwards. He stumbled landing blindly on the balcony, yet he forced his tongue to cooperate through his dizziness instead of demeaning his gracelessness. 

“Get off the—!” 

It all happened in an instant. The bricks of the outer wall pulled apart, opening a gaping hole aside his companions where a shotput blast of wind launched them off the stairs like launched cannons. Luther and Aurae harshly tumbled a hundred feet into the open air. In one impossible leap, Lyall reached the railing with time left to watch the two people turned pitiful leaves hang in the sky in that timeless second before the plummet. 

Luther had to be alright. Had to. Surely this time he’d cast the slow fall spell. Lyall hoped until his heart oozed hot that the worst result from this would be Luther wasting energy teleporting the two up to Lyall and them camping the night to restore his magical vitality. However, Lyall couldn’t help but rove a desperate eye over Aurae. She and Luther angled apart, enough that Lyall didn’t know if Luther’s slow fall would work on them both. Would she fall alone—ending up as paste or being speared by a branch? 

Lyall thought of Priest Khessyd. He’d been the lone one to extend a warm hand to the bizarre girl showing no sign of distress at her mother cruelly abandoning her for the world to see. From the moment he’d gained permission to be in his own office, Lyall hadn’t been able to look at the man without seeing how every glance upon his daughter stirred fondness. When he’d prayed over Lyall and Luther, Priest Khessyd hadn’t beseeched Caxtune as a holy man...but as a father. 

Lyall reached his hand out. He knew he could do nothing, but he wanted to do something. Pure desire scorched his chest into ashes, into pain beyond pain. 

Anything. 

Mist swirled his hand. Not quite red. Not quite purple or pink. A mix of all, it purred cool and tempting its promise of satisfaction. 

Lyall clenched his fist. Surrounded by mist of the same hue, Luther and Aurae froze in the air. Lyall wrenched his arm back. 

In a blink, they popped safely onto the balcony behind him.