Screams echoed through the decaying city, men with power that transcends mortals clashed with what appears to be devil's pouring out from hell's gate.
A young boy ran through the crowd, skipping and singing a little tune.
The boy was Alexander, his eyes never left the tower, even when a vile spawn, with a head, just a massive head actually, launched itself at him.
He simply dived, dodging its vicious maw, before cutting through a little alleyway, a little shortcut he takes every once in a while to help him get to places, or get away from them when necessary.
Alexander didn't need to run for long, soon he was met with the glorious sight of unexplained mystic divinity, the tower stood proudly, unchallenged by man nor the world around him.
Even the vile spawn didn't dare to get this close, Alexander stopped and turned around for a moment.
"If the middle stratum of New Vale falls, then at least eighty percent of the population will be lost with it, " old man Jerry said, "the last time a flood happened, we lost the lower stratum and most of our means of farming food...
But if this stratum falls, then what will be left of humanity will only be the elites and powerful pathseeker families that live in the upper stratum...".
Alexander stood still for a moment, a woman ran by, her lower body covered in blood, there was a hole in the shape of a claw mark on her abdomen, a long strand of her intestine trailed behind as she ran for dear life.
Alexander spit blood and a broken tooth to the ground.
"I'm sure they'll figure something out".
And then without hesitation he turned around and jumped down into the mining site for rare ore.
Normally, there were several lower ranking pathseekers guarding the interest of the government and the great clans, but today.
There was no one, the whole place was ghosted, Alexander could even steal several pieces of ore if he wanted to, for a rat that lived in the lower stratum.
He would make enough from selling it in the Black Market, enough to live it up large till they find and execute him for stealing that is.
But Alexander wasn't here for glowing rock, he was here for something much more valuable, and that was the gate of almost certain death.
The gate leading into the tower was just as the books described, massive, at least as big as a two story building.
It resembled black gas or whatever the hell the substance was. It slowly rotated as if expanding infinitely, but it wasn't.
The gate was unlike anything Alexander had ever seen before, not that he ever saw much.
"So this is it, either the tower kills me for not being worthy of its call, or it calls out to me and I challenge my first mystery...".
It was a lie to say that Alexander wasn't terrified, even those great clans train their children extensively before waiting patiently for the tower's call.
But Alexander is not only skinny, but also malnourished, he wasn't trained in fancy arts like swordsmanship, or archery, heck.
He couldn't even read until old man Jerry took pity on him and taught him a thing or two, he figured out the rest on his own as time went by.
Alexander began to walk up to the gate, he raised his hand as if hoping to grab onto something that wasn't quite there.
And the closer he went, the more he heard quiet murmuring sounds in his ear, he didn't know what they were, and he couldn't understand what the voices were trying to say.
Alexander didn't find this weird, people always did say the tower was a place of deception and partial truths, so he just assumed that everyone else experienced the same.
While they don't.
While being lost in his torpor, he heard a creak. Alexander reacted within a split second, throwing his body to the side, rolling off the ground a couple times before stabilising himself.
He raised his head, the will to fight eclipsing his cold stone logic, but the next moment, his face softened.
It wasn't a vile spawn, it was another human, about his age, maybe younger.
Alexander had seen many types of people, but never one this beautiful, but of course he wasn't struck dumb or anything like that.
Alexander likes to think of himself as the prettiest person alive, although that belief has just been shattered by the girl in front of him.
Her hair was short, her bangs straight, she had pitch black hair, almost as dark as Alexander's.
Her eyes were a strange grey theme, almost like she was blind or just unfocused, perhaps she saw something she wasn't supposed to, nothing is considered too strange in the city of New Vale.
The girl's skin was smooth and alabaster, one look and Alexander could tell that this was a princess, although he wasn't sure which great clan she was from. There happened to be quite a few of them.
The girl's expression wasn't particularly cold, but she did seem like the type to keep her distance, and judging from her uncontrolled twitching from time to time.
The girl was receiving the calling, and she couldn't bear the weight of it anymore and found herself at the tower's gate.
"Better than waiting to be thrust into a mystery at random times if you ask me".
Alexander feasibly relaxed.
"They say the calling intensified and hundreds if not thousands of children got thrown into their first mystery during the last flood. I guess the tower was trying to strengthen humanity in its own way...
And by that logic, it wouldn't be strange if it happened again, except, what is she doing here, their families typically won't let them into the tower unless they have no choice and the Tower summons them itself...
If a human ignores the calling, they can eventually just wake up one day and find themselves in their first mystery, scary I know, but with the high fatality rate, it's understandable that people would want to choose the path of life, even if it's for an extra day...".
Alexander glanced at the gate he was about to walk through and then back at the girl, the girl didn't stand on ceremony.
She simply turned away from the street rat and stepped steadily into the gate.