Artorius descended through the ash-hazed sky, wings straining against the molten wind. Each beat sent knives of pain down his spine, but he kept going, circling the monument that loomed before him like a spike through the world itself.

The tower rose from the dead plain, half buried in volcanic glass, half piercing the red heavens. The structure curved and twisted like a living fang, smooth and seamless, its surface translucent as pale crystal. Beneath that glass-white hide pulsed faint veins of argent light.

The air thickened as he drew near. Every gust shimmered silver, filled with drifting motes that whispered in tongues older than thought. The ground was paved in scale-shaped tiles of fused bone that rang softly under his boots, like distant bells tolling underwater. Each step sent a pulse through the air, as though the tower were aware of his arrival.

When he finally landed at its base, heat rippled off the ground in mirage waves. His wings folded back with a ragged hiss, the membranes smoking faintly. For a long moment he just stood there, staring upward, heart hammering. The spire reached high the top nearly vanished into the low clouds, a seamless column of ivory and crystal that hummed in harmony with the wind.

Runes crawled along its base fluid, shifting, and alive. They glowed faintly, a script of dragons, not carved but grown into the tooth’s surface. When he moved, the runes shifted too, watching him, rearranging into new forms he could almost read. His chest tightened. Each breath he drew felt heavier, filled with knowledge that wasn’t meant for mortals.

Silver winds coiled around the base like ghosts, their whispers threading through his mind. Words rose out of them fragments of equations, names of stars, the last thoughts of creatures who had outlived time.

Before him yawned an opening, it was vast, dark, perfectly round, the entrance carved in the shape of a dragon’s open maw. Rows of petrified fangs framed the archway, gleaming like polished ivory. The air that drifted out carried the smell of cold metal and forgotten paper.

Artorius gripped his lance tighter, jaw set. Then, with wings folded and the whispers pressing close, he stepped into the mouth of the tower.

The darkness swallowed him whole. The air within the place was cool, sterile, and humming. Each breath felt filtered through what felt like disinfectants. His footsteps echoed faintly on a floor so polished it mirrored his shape, distorted by the faint luminescence that bled from the walls.

The walls were the color of moonlight on steel smooth, curved, and alive with a faint pulse, as if some vast creature still slept within the tower’s walls. When he brushed his fingers along the surface, he felt vibration not random, but rhythmic, like the thrum of a great heart buried deep below.

Silver glyphs stirred beneath his touch. They slid away like minnows under ice, then reformed elsewhere. Each rune emitted a faint chime, together forming a whispering melody that filled the corridor. He realized, with a start, that the tower was singing.

He continued upward. The passage spiraled, broad at first, then narrowing as he climbed. Every so often, pale light flickered through the walls, refracted by veins of crystal that ran like capillaries through the translucent material.

The Tower seemed endless. And then he caught movement, a gleam at the corner of his eye. He froze, lance lifting instinctively at the ready. At first he thought it was a reflection, a trick of the light. Then the reflection moved. Something peeled itself out of the wall.

A draconic shape sleek, the size of a wolf unfolded from the crystal as if melting from liquid glass. Its body was composed entirely of mirrored scales that caught and split the tower’s faint light into rainbows. Eyes like shards of diamond fixed on him.

The System message blinked into existence: [Silver Whelp — Level 4]

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Another one emerged. Then another. All together he counted eight of them sliding down from the walls, wings half-unfurled, tails dragging sparks across the mirrored floor. They made no sound save the crystalline chime of their movement.

Artorius backed up, scanning for angles. The corridor was too tight for flight. The light reflecting from their bodies hurt to look at directly and they stood at every corner cutting off the paths to escape. 

The first one lunged. He parried, barely, lance glancing off a body as hard as tempered glass. The shock numbed his wrist. A second struck from the flank, claws carving glowing lines across the air a breath away from racking across his chest. Their speed was unnatural, each movement fluid, synchronized, as though one mind controlled them all.

He ducked another blow and thrust low, striking where the joint met the hooked wing. The lance tip pierced the crystal hide and stuck deep, then to his surprise the creature shattered in a burst of silver dust. No blood. Only shards and light. He did get a message saying he slayed it but that was it. 

The others hesitated, flickering like reflections on water. Then they moved again, faster now, light bending around them. He fought against them in silence, panting, lance arcs catching the faint light as the hallway filled with glimmers of shattered guardians. Even though they did outnumber him and outlevel him, he had been through many fights so far and he assumed he had the advantage of his class and archetype which they most likely didn’t have. 

When the last fell, the air rang like struck glass, the fragments melting into the floor until nothing remained. The tower grew still again, its song resuming quieter, now, almost approving. Artorius stood in the glow, his reflection warped in the mirrored floor. He had a good look at himself after what felt like eons and he looked less like a man now and more like the denizens of this hellhole: a dragon walking upright.

Still he thankfully got a level from all the killing as he got a message: Congratulations! You have leveled up.

Race: [Royal-Blood DragonMen] has reached level 3 – Stat points allocated, +1 Str, +1 Con, +1 Dex, +1 Per, +1 Char!

He wiped the blood from his chin and climbed higher.

The stairs wound upward for what felt like hours, the glow in the walls brightened to a steady, argent radiance that painted the curve of the tower like moonlight on water. Then the stairway opened.

He stepped into a cavernous chamber vast enough to contain a mansion, its walls concave, its roof lost in shadow. The floor beneath his boots was a perfect circle of translucent glass, beneath which slow rivers of light pulsed like veins.

And above him floated books in the air. Thousands of crystalline tablets drifted weightless in the air, each one inscribed with delicate runes that glowed and dimmed like breathing stars. The room hummed not with air, but with knowledge. Lines of energy arced lazily from tablet to tablet, forming constellations that shifted and rearranged in patterns too complex to follow. The entire chamber was alive with memory.

Artorius stared in awe. Thoughts that weren’t his filled his mind with impressions of time before time: wings spanning islands, fires that forged worlds, the music of dragonkind echoing through the void. His knees nearly buckled beneath the weight of it. Every heartbeat brought new whispers, new knowledge, burning through his skull like a fever.

He won’t deny it, he was curious, he wanted to know more but as the saying goes curiosity killed the cat. The temptation to reach out towards one of the tablets and learn more was unbearable and he did just that.

The moment his fingers brushed a tablet, the runes flared white-hot. Light surged up his arm, searing through flesh into bone. Visions flooded him, a storm of wings, a sea of stars, a blinding lattice of equations describing the birth of fire. He tore his hand away with a ragged scream, skin smoking. The tablet floated placidly back into its orbit, as if nothing had happened.

If that had been all he might have been able to walk away, but the Tower didn’t welcome thieves. A rumble shivered through the chamber. The floating tablets drifted aside, parting like curtains. From behind them, something moved. Shapes unfurled from the far walls, long, serpentine bodies shimmering with facets of translucent blue and silver. They moved with lazy grace, light refracting off their hides in prismatic ripples, alive with magic and purpose.

A System message flickered before him: [Crystal Drake — Level 6]

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Counting them off as they slid or jumped down from the book shelves, they numbered five in total. Their bodies slid silently around him, eyes like molten glass. Artorius braced, his lance heavy in his hands. His pulse thundered in his ears.