Chapter Text
“A massive stone tower?” Mark rubbed at his eyes as a machete dangled at his side.
His adventuring partner Dodger pushed them in this direction after their little encounter in the Creepy Shack, but really anything but backwards was an option.
“Yeah,” she grinned, “saw it poking out from behind the swamp when we decided to go around it.”
“It’s HUGE!” Enis’ eyes widened.
As usual, Enis was all over the place. No matter how hard he tried, Mark could never get rid of that freakin’ kazoo, and it grated on his nerves at the best of times.
“Who had the time to build a stone tower out here?” Mark wondered.
The trio walked towards the mighty tower as the winds of the wastes howled over the dusty land. From ugly cabin to ugly swamp to… whatever this was, Mark was relieved that it was one of the sturdiest structures he’d seen in a long time.
“Oh man,” Enis smiled widely with his protruding fangs, “Maybe there’s some cool treasure in here! Or a princess waiting for her prince to come save her…”
“Or an army of bandits,” Dodger sighed.
Mark nodded, “Most likely an an army of bandits.”
“Well, we’re gonna have to make a decision pretty fast. We don’t got too much light left.” Dodger pressed towards the heavy gates of iron bars and pressed her hand against them.
In a shocking flash, her hand pulled away, and the eye insignia that marked the bars flashed with a violet light before it fizzled away, and the gates cracked open with a loud screech.
“Woah… that’s awesome…” Enis’ eyes sparkled.
In a moment, his arms were looped through both Dodger’s and Mark’s as he pulled them through into the inner room.
“C’mon! We gotta go see what’s goin’ on!”
“Whoa-whoa whoa whoa whoa – Enis! Slow down!”
Mark shook Enis away as he turned back to address the group. The tower seemed as dank as every other place they’d visited. The smell of old moss and eroded rock accented the barren entrance like a blue sky to a painting of flowers.
Mark prided himself as the leader of this group. Or, if not a leader, then at least he deserved some credit for keeping them alive. He’d killed his share of monsters, much to Dodger’s chagrin.
Monster Gulch made you paranoid. Everything was a threat, and if it wasn’t dead, then you were.
Of course, when you meet sparkly man-child monsters like the Yodelling Vegan Bloodsucker it tends to make you reconsider what’s going on.
Mark still considered that he might’ve died and this was his penance for being an asshole in life.
“What’s wrong, Mark?” Enis asked with a habitual tilt to his head.
Dodger chuckled, “I thought you’d like being in a place as sturdy as this.”
“The sturdiness isn’t my problem,” Mark responded, “It’s the creepy magicky stuff that’s going on.”
“Oh c’mon Mark, not all magic is evil.” Enis waved him away.
“Well it’s evil or it sucks.” Mark glared, “I think Dave can attest to that.”
“I still don’t know why that didn’t work…” His book popped out from his satchel again as Enis started flipping pages.
All of a sudden, a screech echoed through the centre chamber. As they glanced outside, they noticed some kind of beast-man being fried in the background as its claws scratched at the gate they passed through moments before.
The moon hovered above like a bright silver coin as another sound added to the monster’s death-throes. A quiet rumbling shook under the stone as a second wall rose us and separated the inside from the outside once more.
In the span of a few minutes as Mark lectured about the importance of avoiding dangerous magic traps, they found themselves blocked from their exit.
“Well, I guess that the tower made a decision for us.” Dodger shrugged, “Now c’mon. Maybe this ugly thing has some cool stuff!”
Dodger practically skipped towards the spiral staircase and started trekking upwards. Enis and Mark shared mixed looks before they started following their greedy friend.”
“So, do you know any vampires that live in towers, Enis?”
“No!” he chuckled,” Vampires like mansions a lil’ better. Maybe it has somethin’ to do with Dracula being so popular and acting so rich. I know some hang out in churches or other places…”
“O-okay,” Mark yawned.
The staircase went up and up and up… but they stopped at first at the first floor they came to. A warm fire bellowed in a thick fire place. Books lined the walls and two old, yet comfortable looking chairs sat within its warmth consuming the flames for their own internal furnace.
He grumbled under his breath, “…doesn’t mean there isn’t anything else here…”
As if on cue, the fire of the furnace became aggressively blue as It roared brighter and larger than he’d ever scene. Dodger had to jump back behind the chairs as a silhouette emerged inside of the dark flames.
”SO YOU ARE THE GUESTS THAT HAVE ENTERED OUR TOWER!” A booming voice echoed through the chamber.
Dodger stared blankly at the flames as Mark pulled out his machete. It was then that he noticed Enis standing way too close to the flames, his skin bedazzled in the blue light.
“Enis!” Mark snapped, “don’t get too close!”
A figure emerged from the fire. The flames clung to its body like streaming feathers, and eyes of violet flashed across the room. Then, in a blink; All the fire was gone as it left a figure in blue robes standing in front of the soft fire of the fireplace. The vampire and the pair of raiders stood back as the figure reached up and removed his hood.
Crystal blue eyes met them on a young face.
“Well, I’m glad our animosity gate worked,” the young figure sighed, “It kept out most of the…”
As he scanned the room, his eyes fell on Enis. The vampire in question gave a quiet little wave to which the man just blinked.
“Lemme guess… Vegan vampire?”
“That’s me! I’m Enis! And those two over there are Dodger and Mark!”
Before the wizard spun around a sharp metal blade had already found itself placed against his neck and he found his back pressed against the wall.
“Another warlock?” he grimaced.
“Okay, this time it’s actually my turn.” Dodger stepped forward as she carried her baseball bat over her shoulder.
Mark stumbled into the wall. The figure that was once there was now leaning against his bookshelf with a tattered volume in his hands and a chesire-cat grin from cheek-to-cheek.
“You know, I don’t know if we would’ve tried making a monster safe haven if we knew that every raider out there was gonna kill us.”
“Dude, a ‘monster safe haven?’” Dodger sighed.
The trio leapt backwards as the figure appeared between all of them with a bright smile on his young face.
Then another hand appeared from the void and smacked him upside the head.
“Ow!” he groaned, “C’mon sis…”
“Mason, please,” a second figure in similar robes faded into existence beside him. Her figure was tall, demanding, yet held a mischievous smirk not to dissimilar to the first man’s face.
She turned to face their guests with a much gentler face as she cleared her throat, “I apologize for that. I’ve told my brother that he should be kinder in his welcoming of guests.”
Mark still held his machete above his head, while Dodger and Enis soon moved to meet him at his side.
“Hi!” Enis grinned.
“Well hello there. Please, do not worry while you stay in this tower.” The woman explained.
“Yeah, so you can rip us apart for some kind of magic experiments?” Mark growled. His stance emulated that of a mama bear protecting his cubs, while Dodger just kept looking around.
The younger wizard leaned over to his sister, “What do they think we do here?”
“Let me explain,” the woman announced, “I am Margaret, and this is my brother Mason, and the pair of us built this tower as a safe haven for those who brave this Gulch.”
“So, magical wizards built a tower in the middle of nowhere and they don’t have the intention of using us in torturous experiments.”
“Says the pair that’s travelling with a vampire.” The boy scoffed, “What made that happen?”
Mark rolled his eyes, but Dodger responded with a small laugh, “Well, he tried to heal our friend… and failed. But he tried.”
“Poor Dave,” Mark wiped at his blade with the end of his shirt.
“I’m still not sure why that didn’t work. And I’ve read the book a whole bunch of times by now!” said Enis.
Dodger and Mark made the executive decision a while ago to make sure that they could distract Enis at night time. They thought they would get over it the first night, but sadness still seemed to creep up behind him at a moment’s notice.
It was a little different for Mark and Dodger. Their experiences had harsh impacts on their levels of empathy. Sadness… wasn’t really a thing any more. It was usually replaced with intense bloodlust or bubbling rage.
One of these distractions was getting Enis to re-read his spell to see if he missed something. Mark was surprised, but pleased that it had worked as long as it had.
“Here, do you mind if I see that?” Mason asked as he hovered close to Enis.
The wizard in his blue robes shimmered silver around the edges. If Mark hadn’t pinned him to a wall earlier, h’d be convinced Mason was incorporeal, but perhaps it was just a glamour, or a way for the boy to show off.
When they compared him to Margaret, her blue robes were of the same make with the same symbols stitched into the fabric, but her robes didn’t glow the same. The strangeness of her ensemble came from the glimmer violet gems that decorated her neck and her braid of brown hair.
“Oh no, this isn’t right at all…” Mason shook his head.
Enis spun around, “Whaddya mean?”
“Lemme guess, the whole thing was made up nonsense that Enis thought would –“
“- distract us from the boredom of the wilderness!” Dodger cut him off.
Mostly because Enis was staring right at them with teary eyes and Dodger was not in the right mindset to deal with those emotions.
“No, all the right steps are in here… they’re all messed up!”
Jaws dropped. Dodger and Mark stared at the wizard, Enis’ eyes light up as he spun around, to face Mason, and Margaret in the background muffled her laughter behind her robed hand.
“What? How?” Enis asked
Mason snapped his fingers and the book hovered out of his hand. It sneezed out its pages one by one until he was standing in the centre of a paper storm. Just as they were all torn away, the pages smashed into the binding one after another, and the book landed back in Enis’ hands as delicately as a bird.
“I always thought that rhyming would make more sense…” Enis mumbled.
Mason grinned, “You’d think that, right? No, magic is ridiculous. C’mon, maybe I’ll show some more magical nonsense!”
“That sounds so COOL!” Enis cheered.
The pair were gone in a blink as Mason led him back down the stairs, probably deep into the dungeon beneath.
That left Margaret with the two others in the room.
“Look lady-“Mark began.
Margaret raised her hands, “I promise you: We will not harm any of you while you stay here. I know that it is difficult to believe me. Maybe some food will change your mind.”
“That sounds awesome.” Dodger knocked Mark in the ribs to stop him from talking. The pair shared an aggressive stare before the woman nodded and started making her way upstairs. Once out of ear shot, Dodger turned back to Mark.
“Look, this is how we play it. We play along as long as things are safe.” Dodger explained.
“And if they aren’t?”
“Then we club ‘em, take their stuff and get out of here as soon as possible.”
Mark grinned, “Now that’s a plan I can get behind.”
“Good. Now let’s get going. Don’t wanna keep our host waiting.”
Dodger paused to wonder about Enis alone with the other magician,but he assumed they’d be fine. Enis may not act like it all the time, but he was a vampire.
The two wizards seemed like nice people anyhow.
The growling noises outside that seemed to get even louder than usual? That was a little more concerning.