The Ejection and Calibration

  Yana fell through the sands for a long moment. They seemed to scrape against her as if wanting to understand who she was and where she had come from. The fall was not distressing, but she did move quickly through the grit. She never had the notion that this side was bottomless, and she no longer saw it as dangerous. So, she decided to allow the sands to take her where they would.

  Eventually, she heard the sound of laughter—it was like heavy raindrops hitting a thin tin roof—and she frowned in annoyance. The voice was familiar, and it grated on her nerves in a way that signaled it was not a danger, but rather an irritant.

  “Why have you not greeted me, Fate-Seer?” There was a pause, and then more pattering laughter. “You do not remember me?” The voice sucked its teeth. “How do you expect to break the final illusion of the tower with no memory?” The voice paused again.

  Yana smiled. “The first two are already broken. I don’t need memory to break your illusion.”

  She sensed cracks forming in the illusion around her and she quieted as a subtle change flowed out. The sands shifted and her descent slowed. She oriented herself and moved up in the shifting dunes, no longer allowing them to direct her motion. She rose higher and higher, the sands again pouring around her and not directly on her. The swirling darkness of her eyes worked to decipher the world.

  Something clicked within her, and the voice again pattered with laughter. “Come down to me so that you can understand the truth of the tower.”

  “But you aren’t the truth. You are the creator of the lie. Why should I believe that you would ever help me?”

  She felt another crack form in the illusion and the sands stuttered. She looked around herself with purpose and moved to her right. As she did, she felt another crack form, and the sands shifted again. A smile slowly formed on her face.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “It would seem that your illusion is crumbling. Speak to me outside of it. Let’s see how you fare in reality.”

  She felt anger rise from below and she huffed, smirking. “Why become upset about things that are inevitable? Come, let’s speak on a plane of reality and talk about illusion.”

  The anger welled up, and before the illusion fully cracked, Yana was thrown from the tower by a tremendous amount of power. She was suddenly in the air outside. She had been ejected very near the top of the tower, and as she stabilized, she laughed aloud. She gently lowered down to her familiars—Alisha appeared on her shoulder—and as her feet touched the ground, Almawa spoke in her mind.

  “Your Illusion magic ability has risen two full levels. I see you are finally doing things. Two magics leveling up significantly in one day. Perhaps you can break bad habits.”

  Yana scowled and sat on the ground. Her familiars moved around her into a protective formation. She had enjoyed the reports from Almawa without the snark. She shrugged and focused on her upgraded illusion magics; she needed to understand what it had realized, as they were not yet fully connected.

  Her grey skin glowed silver as she delved into her magics. A round eye of swirling darkness opened in the center of her forehead and her mind seemed to expand. Her understanding deepened as she balanced and integrated the new power. Her body trembled with effort and her mind shifting caused her soul to quake.

  A new world opened up within her as her magics built a world of illusion that an enemy could be cast into. It grew out before her—a great expanse that mixed illusion and reality—and began to fold in on itself. Her magic created layer after layer of distinct illusion that would manifest uniquely for each individual entering them. She felt the magic spread through her senses. White lines spread out from her third eye and silvery paths formed, ending in intricate runes on her throat and shoulders. The runes glistened on her skin like ethereal tattoos.

  As she processed her level up, she began to understand the Truthless Lie Tower. The truth of the tower was that all three of its sides existed in illusions of its past, while the center of the tower existed in the present. All that was felt in the sides was a lie; truth only existed in the center.

  Yana’s eyes opened slowly, her third eye closing and drawing in the runes and the silver lines. She began looking for the passage to the center of the Truthless Lie Tower.