I lay on the ground looking up at the sky.
There I stayed until my breath settled and the sweat started to cool on my overheated body. A spattering of thin clouds dotted the clear blue sky; three faint moons hovered in their midst. I let out a sigh and allowed my gaze to sink down with it. My eyes landed on a meadow that stretched out to the horizon. At the very edge of the flatlands stood an enormous, hornlike object that looked as if it had been thrust into the ground. Its name—the Tower of Legions.
Legend had it that the horn belonged to the giant who created this world. Ask a long-lived storyteller, and they’d tell you that the steeple came crashing down out of the sky from a foreign land. Then again, according to the priests of the depths, the myriad gods had discarded the tower here.
Whether those were merely ancient superstitions or the truth, I couldn’t say. What I did know for sure was that the tower brought both prosperity and calamity to the people of this world, and it had become an indispensable part of their existences. At times, it gave birth to great heroes; at others, it cut them down. Its riches erected nations, and its hidden treasures brought them to ruin. The demons it conceived and created were so powerful that the blade to finally fell them would leave an epic tale that would float forever after on the wind in the wake of its swing.
I had one year to explore the depths of that dungeon. My target: the fifty-sixth floor. And I still didn’t even have a clear idea if that would turn out to be an impossible challenge or a walk in the park.
Time to find out.
But first, I had to set myself up for life in this land.