“Co on, you gotta get up. If one of the guards catches you on the ground, they’ll make you start the line all over.” I barely managed to process the words. They were the first I’d heard since my brain had settled back into my skull. Or at least they were the first I had managed to comprehend. I was fighting through waves of nausea as well as the pain of what I was sure were several broken bones.
“Just leave him. We don’t have ti for this,” a voice different from the first said.
“Can you help ? Everything hurts. Sothing, maybe orcs attacked , don’t even know where I am,” I groaned as I forced down another attempt at vomiting and finally managed the herculean effort needed to open my eyes. I needed to see where I had been sent. Instead, my vision was blocked by the person who had been speaking to .
I blinked, trying to clear any fuzziness from my eyes as the man, assuming that was what he was, stood before and reached one of his four hands down, offering help. I reached out with my good arm and was quickly pulled to my feet. The pain briefly jarred again from focusing on what I was looking at.
“Thank you,” I said, finally looking up at his faces… He had two heads. Both the voices I had heard earlier in my daze had belonged to him or maybe them. I had no idea.
“No problem. Na’s Cecile and the grouch is my brother Elicec,” the left head said.
“Thanks, I’m Dave. Where am I? And what do you an by going to the end of the line?” I asked, sohow managing to keep the panic out of my voice. I was still working on getting my bearings. Now, on my feet, I was better able to get a good look around. Everywhere I looked were lines of creatures, so human, so so alien, I couldn’t easily compare them to any fantastical creature I knew of, and everything in between.
What I didn’t understand, though, is why I could understand the multitude of signs I could see. Each one seed to be written in plain English, but that was the least pressing question of the many in my mind. For now, it was probably best that I just accept the small blessing that it was. My anxiety was threatening to shut down at any mont, and with the fight just to stay on my feet, I couldn’t let my mind be overwheld with questions.
“This is the Spire, specifically the line for new Arena fighters, but you should know that. You’re already on the third floor of the line,” Cecile said. He looked down at with a raised eyebrow. Both of their heads looked human enough, which led to the feeling that he was growing suspicious of my presence. The glare on his brother’s face made decide to go with the truth as far as I knew it. I desperately needed help, and all the other races seed to be pointedly ignoring .
“My planet was attacked by a faction of orcs, and as I was about to die, a bird froze ti and sent here, saying it was the only chance I’d have to save the world. He said he was going to mark with his insignia, but I have no idea where that is, or I’d show you,” I said, knowing how insane every word that had left my mouth sounded. I was leaning onto my right leg. It was getting harder to stand on my left at all.
“Oh, that explains it. You’re a newbie. We’ve never t one before. So, if you have an insignia, that explains how you cut the line. Most of us just have to buy our way in…” Cecile was cut off by his brother.
“So of us have to work for our chance,” Elicec grumbled.
“Hey, don’t be an. Would you rather our whole family be dead to so asshole orcs as the reason we are here? Do you think Dave wanted any of this to happen?” Cecile asked his brother.
Elicec’s glare finally lessened as he answered. “No, you’re right, I’m sorry, Dave. You didn’t deserve that. It’s just that there are a lot of shady people around, and we have to be careful. It took a long ti for our families to get the funds to send us here.”
“It’s alright, I get it. Everything I said sounded completely insane to , too. But I’m so far out of my concept of sanity that I have no idea what to do. Is the insignia important?” I asked, wincing in pain several tis. The bird had said sothing about using it to gain access, but I had no idea what he ant or even how to see it.
“Maybe, not really sure. We’re pretty new here, too,” Cecile answered.
“Open your right hand and concentrate on who you are,” Elicec answered imdiately afterward, looking back to his brother after he spoke and shaking his head. He had a look of disappointnt on his face.
Ignoring the pain, I held out my arm and stretched out my fingers. Then, I focused my thoughts on who I was: Dave Imogen. I felt sothing in my hand, almost like a thought on the tip of your tongue that you can’t fully grasp but sohow centered in my hand. I considered who I was beyond just a na, everything about myself: I was a father. I was once a husband. I’d spent years of my life as an engineer. I was a hermit, and now I was a refugee of planet Earth, and sohow the only hope to save my kids.
The sensation on my hand changed; it grew warm for a second. And then words appeared written on my palm. There was a symbol that just looked like a bunch of aningless scribbles. Below the symbol seed to be my address of sorts.
Na: Dave ImogenOrigin: U-1.9392912^10e37 Earth-107I2T112Origin Status: UnincorporatedAffiliation: ErrorClass: N/ARanking: N/A
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
“Should it say error like that?” I asked, confused about what most of it ant. As soon as I stopped focusing, the information vanished from my palm.
“I don’t think so, no,” Elicec answered. He cocked his eyes at , and I suspected he once again doubted my story.
I coughed hard, sending waves of pain through my chest. The broken bones were becoming too painful to stay standing for much longer. “Is there a doctor, or sothing similar I can see? I’m pretty sure several of my bones are broken, and it’s starting to hurt to breathe.” The pain was moving from vomit-inducing to barely able to suppress a scream. I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to stay in this line, required or not.
“Here, take this. It should help,” Cecile said, pulling a pill out of his pocket and pushing it into my hand.
“Dammit, Cecile, we don’t have many of those restoration pills. You can’t give them away like that!” Elicec’s voice had shifted from annoyed to angry.
“You can have it back; it’s alright, but if you can point to a place to get so dical attention, that would be great,” I coughed into the hand that wasn’t holding the pill after I said this. My hand ca away from my face speckled with crimson splotches. That was an increasingly bad sign, and both of the brothers had spotted it.
“No, Elicec, just because we aren’t on the farm doesn’t an we are going to lose our manners. Dave clearly needs our help, and you aren’t the kind of man who just leaves soone to die like that,” Cecile said. His voice had beco utterly serious.
“Dave, take the pill right now. Forget what I said, do it, or I’ll have to force it down your throat,” Elicec said, his glare dropping again.
Not having much choice in the matter, I shoved the alien pill in my mouth and swallowed. Instantly, I felt a rush of energy throughout my body. It reminded of the first ti I’d ever had an energy drink. I felt like I could do anything, but as quickly as that feeling ca, it vanished. It left behind a body devoid of pain. Either it was an amazing painkiller or it had instantly healed my bones. The latter seed nonsensical, but considering I was in another universe talking to a two-headed creature that towered over , I figured it was well past the ti to argue what was possible and what wasn’t.
“Okay, I uh, I feel amazing. How did that work?” I asked, blinking rapidly, still shocked at the pain being completely gone. Even the usual aches I felt in my knees and back seed to have vanished. I lifted my cracked glasses off my head; sadly, the world turned blurry. The pill hadn’t fixed everything.
“It was just a mid-grade healing pill, nothing special. Good enough to knit bones back together but can’t do much beyond that. Have you never had one before?” Cecile asked.
“There isn’t anything like this in my world, no magical healing or whatever this is at all,” I replied. The bird had said sothing about that, hadn’t he? How he’d been surprised anyone would co to our universe with its complete lack of mana. Did that an other worlds were full of magic or mana, if that was sohow different from magic? I probably shouldn’t assu they were the sa.
“That sounds awful, and I’m sorry you ca from such a hellish world. Stick by us, and we’ll do what we can to help you through registration, though I don’t know that we’ll know much more than you. Our planet is pretty unconnected from the greater Spiral itself,” Cecile replied, once again offering a hand. This ti, it looked to be for a handshake. Were those sohow universal?
I reached my hand out to grasp his, and he squeezed once and twice and released. Okay, that was different from the handshakes I was used to, so not quite universal. “I appreciate it and thank you again. I’ll try to find a way to repay you for the healing pill if I can,” I said, and I ant it. For all I knew, they were here trying to save their own planet, too, and had just wasted one of their precious few resources to help . That was a debt I had to repay.
“Don’t worry about it. As much as Elicec might be a bit of a grump, even he knows making so friends and allies here is a good idea, especially soone who already has an insignia. You really don’t know who gave it to you?” Cecile asked.
“I only know him as Big Bird. I found him with a broken wing once, and up until minutes before I ended up here, I didn’t even know he could speak. Oh wait, I just rembered he gave sothing else.” I reached in my pocket and pulled out the small orb Big Bird had spat at .
“What is that? It doesn’t look like a mana orb,” Elicec asked, looking at the orb with confusion.
I dropped it back in my pocket before speaking. “I think he had called it refined experience. Does that help at all?” I asked, having no clue what a refined experience orb was.
“That would have to be a lot of experience to solidify it into an orb like that. I think I read about sothing like that, but why did he just give it to you? Did he tell you what to do with it all?” Elicec replied with his own question.
“We were short on ti. All he said was that he thought I’d find it more useful than him right now,” I answered.
“Interesting. I guess it’s possible you could use that to jump-start your leveling. Might have to be pretty careful in how you use it, though. I’d guess that’s enough to burn out a core,” Elicec replied. What the hell was leveling? Or a core, for that matter?
Before I could ask about either of those things, a voice behind spoke up.
“Form twenty-nine C, please,” I turned and found the words had co from an older not-quite-human-looking woman behind the counter. She had far too many teeth.
“Uh, what?” I asked back. I had apparently stepped in front of the brothers at so point and was now next in line.
“Show them your Insignia, Dave,” Cecile whispered behind .
“Did you lose your form? You will have to go back down to the first floor…” She had started explaining before I cut her off.
“Sorry, I have an insignia right here, see?” I raised my hand to show her the symbol and words below it.
She studied my hand for what felt like much longer than she needed to before speaking again. “Are you two with him?” she said to the brothers behind .
“Yes.”
“No.”
They both said this at the sa ti, causing her to glare at them. “Alright, I want all three of you to follow . You’ll be getting a private eting with my boss. There’s sothing off with that insignia, and I don’t like it,” she explained as two extrely large elephant-like creatures walked up beside her. They were dressed in a way that scread ‘security guards’ to .
“Yep, we heard you. We don’t need any problems. We’re coming.” Cecile nudged forward after the woman as he and his brother followed behind. I guessed that ant they were so sort of security guard. Was the insignia fake? Had the bird been lying to for so reason? I hated being so far out of the loop on information that I didn’t even know the right questions to ask. So I just shut up and followed her silently into the hall.
The Spiral, assumingly nad after the pattern they make, are the universes that are connected to the System and aligned as though spiraling around a column that both ascends and descends forever into the infinite expanse of space between worlds. This space is not empty, though, as it is where the infrastructure, personnel, and, most of all, the bureaucracy that is needed to administer sothing so large are housed in an ever-expanding tower.
An excerpt from A Visitor's Guide to the Spiral Tower by Greg.
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