Chapter Forty-One: Floor 1 Level 2

FORTY-ONE

Roan woke as someone shook him gently. He wiped at his face as his brain shifted into gear. A bolt of adrenaline shot through him and he jerked awake, looking around the room as he saw dozens of faces staring at him. Standing up he discreetly checked his pockets and gear, making sure it was all there. From the frowns he saw on a few faces, he hadn’t been discreet enough.

Everything was there and both manuals were sitting in the middle of the room with people still reading them. Deacon snorted and shook his head, but didn’t say anything as he pointed toward the portal. Roan looked over to it and saw that it was changing, shifting even as he watched. An alert appeared before he could really look at it.

FLOOR ONE LEVEL TWO OPENING: 1 MINUTE 32 SECONDS

FLOOR ONE CLEARANCE RATE: 91%

LEVEL BONUS: 91%

FINAL EARNING ON LEVEL ONE: 19,013 CREDITS

BONUS: 17,302

CURRENT BALANCE: 17,410

Roan felt a smile stretch across his face so wide it nearly hurt. He went to access the marketplace and found that he couldn’t, receiving an error message. Attempting to use this round’s bonus on the level seemed to be frowned upon.

All around him people were cheering or laughing as they saw their earned wealth nearly double in a second. Roan blinked the alerts away and focused on the portal as it changed from a sliver of space and into a long staircase. In seconds where there was once a slit in space there was now a worn wooden staircase, veneer stripped away by time and use.

Roan reached over and snagged the manuscripts, tucking them into his pocket before he jumped on the stairs. A few of the faster people were right behind him, their feet pounding the stairs as they raced upward. In a second the grove was gone and the only thing Roan could see was the wood rising higher and higher above him.

“Might have been dumb to try this so quickly,” Roan thought to himself as he ran. The nap had helped and the exercise banished the last of the fogginess. His mind cleared as he started to slow down, observing the space between levels.

There was nothing to see. It was a blank space with nothing to observe aside from the stairs. Foot after foot, Roan marched up the stairs with no end in sight. He looked behind him and saw nobody, he was alone on the stairs with nothing on either side of him. A sense of vertigo hit him and he suddenly felt on the brink of falling, of sliding free of the stairs and tumbling into the nothing that lined both sides of the stairs.

“Focus,” Roan snapped at himself as he stopped himself from falling and started back up the stairs. Slower this time. Step by step with the same determination and practical efficiency that had taken him this far in life. Step. By. Step.

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The vertigo faded as Roan focused on just pushing ahead. He didn’t look into the nothing that bordered him. Just the wooden steps. He lost track of time as he marched on his solitary route until it ended as soon as it began.

Soft grass rose up to his shin as he blinked against bright sunlight that pierced his eyes. A bird cried out and wings fluttered from a tree, shaking free verdant green leaves. Roan turned around and looked at the forest that teemed with life. Flowers sprouted through the grass in a sea of myriad colors.

“What the hell?” Roan muttered as he shifted the warhammer off of his shoulder. The change in scenario was startling in its abruptness. Where the crypts had been devoid of any hint of life, he now stood in the exact opposite.