Infinity Legends

Chapter 12: The Temple of Light

The Trial Spire stood before the trio like an ancient tree reaching into space. The Spire was located inside the Temple’s central tower, but even indoors the structure was so humongous that the tower’s glass ceiling was barely visible from the ground. In fact, that was all there was inside the main tower. The Spire, rising in all its electrical glory as currents and surges of energy ran up and around it, forming rapid, nearly instant, patterns imperceivable to the naked eye.

It reminded Takol of an oversized iron Christmas tree that had its tiny lights replaced by raw lightning.

And to top the tree, instead of a Christmas star, a Lightning Dark-Matter Sword, hanging from the glass ceiling through which the storm raged on.

“Pretty impressive,” Takol muttered. “Still don’t see your healer.”

“Here!” a dusty voice squeaked behind him, making both Takol and Kramen jump and turn around to meet a black-hooded figure with purple baggy cheeks and lively green eyes. A four-fingered hand stuck out of its loose sleeves to hold a long staff topped by a dark-matter crystal surrounded by a purple aura. “Hi!” the stranger waved her free hand.

“Did you just teleport behind me?” Takol asked.

“Teleport? Don’t be silly! I’m just really fast!”

“Sure…” Takol threw Kramen a skeptical look.

“You don’t look like a healer,” Kramen nodded at the staff she held. More specifically at the crystal and its aura as purple as the stranger’s skin. “Healing dark-matter crystals often shine green. Not purple.”

The stranger smiled, flappy alien cheeks jiggling in the process, then looked at Arlak. “Should we show them?”

“Soon,” Arlak said, then stepped beside the hooded figure. “Gentlemen, this is Gurmonya Bearius.”

“You can call me Gurm,” the stranger stated. “Now, I’ll need a volunteer!”

“What for?” Kramen asked.

“One of you will climb the Spire!” Gurm stepped closer to the structure and placed a hand on a non-electrified plate. “If you make it to the top, you get a very neat sword! One of the best weapons in the game!”

Kramen and Takol looked to the top simultaneously. They could barely see the sword hanging on top of the spire, but they could see a very long death drop, should they fail halfway through. Even harder to see was a clear path to the top. Sure, they saw handles they could climb onto, they saw platforms they could stand on and even moving parts like small elevators, gears and pistons that could boost their ascension, but all of those features were constantly covered by streams of seemingly irregular electricity.

“No way,” Kramen shook his head. “This is a trial meant for Storm Ninjas and Lightning Mages. The obstacles are designed for their skills and powers. We’ll just fry our brains trying.”

Arlak coughed to conceal the chicken sounds he was making.

“Come on, what’s the worst that could happen?” Takol nudged his friend with an armored elbow. “I’ll go.”

“Great!” Gurm said, then signaled the plate she was holding. “Just touch here, first, please.”

Takol glanced at Kramen, who shrugged. Then the reptile proceeded to approach the indicated plate and rested his hand right next to Gurm’s. As soon as he touched the metallic surface, he jerked back, eyes wide and clasping his fist as if the device had burned him.

“What happened?!” Kramen asked.

“This thing!” Takol looked at the Spire. “It’s a permadeath trigger! No way! Not doing this!”

“Aw come on!” Arlak protested.

“Nope! I’m out!”

“I’ll kick your butt if you back out now,” Arlak took a step towards Takol.

“I’m not scared of you, big guy!”

“I meant Dana will kick your real-life butt!”

Takol paused. “Okay, that I’m scared of, but not enough to lose the character I’ve had for almost ten years!”

“I’ll do it!” Kramen stepped forward. “You two just shut it before a storm-monk comes kick us out.”

“See?” Arlak pointed at Kramen, looking and whispering at Takol. “He has balls!”

“I’m a humanoid crocodile! I’m not supposed to have balls.”

“I said shush!” Kramen remarked. “Arlak, I’m trusting you here.”

“Don’t trust me, trust Gurm,” Arlak nodded to the strange hooded being. “Now come on, up you go.”

Kramen sighed. If Dana trusted the odd-looking wizard, so did he. And if she didn’t come through, it was not like he was losing much. Before Barry and Luca met, Kramen Blacksky was as good as dead anyways.

Approaching the Spire, he gripped one of its isolated cables and tugged it twice to test its strength. The permadeath signal was there, a red circle blinking on the upper right corner of his vision. Kramen was about to start his climb when a huge gentle hand clasped his shoulder. Arlak was standing just behind him.

“Remember that Legends Cup when the enemies got to the Command Room, and you had to escape with parkour until we came to your rescue?” Arlak asked, and Kramen nodded. “Well, just do that. You’ll be fine.”

“Difference is that little course was regular parkour,” Kramen said. “This is impossible without the right skillset.”

“You might be surprised,” the hairy alien winked to him, then backed away.

Kramen closed his eyes, counted to ten, took a deep breath, then started.

His hands pulled on the cable. His feet walked up the wall. Up ahead, the body of the tower glowed with the running electricity. Veils of intense white and blue ran over the wall and its features. As Kramen reached the point where the cable ran into the Spire, he could already feel the static creeping up his arms. If he had any hair, it would surely be standing up already.

Right above him, the next step of the climb: A series of small handles and protuberances he could exploit. The issue was that every three seconds, a surge of energy would run through such handles. If he were holding any of them when the energy passed through, he would be fried. There was no way he could climb past the danger in less than three seconds.

Then the energy stopped. Not that the electricity stopped running through the Spire, but the lightning literally stood still a few feet away from the handles.

Kramen frowned. Electricity was not supposed to stop. That made no sense! He looked down, back to his friends, but Arlak simply shouted: “Move! Quick!”

He was right. Whatever was happening, Kramen would be a fool to waste that chance. He hurried up the series of hooks and handholds, the cackling thunders patiently waiting for him to go through. A few meters further, he found a platform sticking out of the Spire. Small, but big enough for him to safely stand on.

As soon as Kramen pushed himself onto the platform, the thunder continued to run, immediately swarming the handles he just passed through. He corked an eyebrow, then glanced down to his friends only to be struck by a wave of vertigo. The climb had been much longer than it felt, and he was still nowhere near the top.

Biting his lips, Kramen calculated his next moves. He could see another platform not much further up, and from that platform he could reach a ladder… Now, to reach the second platform. That wouldn’t be hard. There were three exposed wires connecting the platform he stood on to the one above. Electricity ran through those wires, but never through more than one at a time. If he could always grab the one through which electricity was not running, he could make it!

The current seemed to change cables every five seconds. Right now, it was running through the middle one, so he would start climbing the one on the left. He hurried, a painful memory of gym class coming back along the way. On the count of five, as expected, the current changed. Luckily, not to the cable he was holding onto, but the rightmost one.

Kramen kept climbing, the world glowing and cackling around him, until, suddenly, everything seemed to stop. Looking down, he saw a string of white energy crawling up the cable he was on. The odd thing was that it advanced no faster than a snail up a garden wall. Not wasting another second thinking about it, Kramen jumped to the center cable, and as soon as he did, the whole extension of the leftmost one was electrified.

What the…?

The phenomenon repeated itself once more until Kramen reached the second platform, from where he immediately started climbing the ladder. It seemed to be electrically insulated, unlike everything else on the Spire, but only half of it. The rest of the way was energized, and unlike the rest of the obstacles, there was no cycle to that one. It was constantly electrified. Not an issue for a Lightning Mage, who could clear that out of the way, but Kramen was no Lightning Mage.

To his left, however, Kramen saw an intriguing system. A series of huge cogs and gears spinning rhythmically. Some of said mechanisms had rods sticking out of them. Rods long enough for him to hold onto and swing from. If he followed such path, he saw now, he would be taken up and around the Spire, probably to another platform on the opposite side.

With a deep breath, Kramen jumped to the first rod. He swung from it and immediately grabbed a similar spinning rod just ahead. Perfect timing! Resisting the urge to look down and remembering the permadeath threat he was under, Kramen repeated the gesture a few more times, always connecting perfectly from rod to rod.

The spin of the gears had taken him up considerably when he came upon an interruption on the sequence. The next gear was out of pace. When the rod he was holding on was the closest to the next one, the next one was far away. Whenever the next one came closer, his own rod was far away. The gears had the same diameter, meaning the pace would never change.

Kramen cursed as he understood. A Storm Ninja would be able to bridge the distance using their Static Float skill. Kramen was no Storm Ninja. Feeling his arms start to burn, his sweaty palms threatening to slip, Kramen knew going back was not an option. He had to try it with right timing.

With a swing, he released.

Kramen’s hands reached for the next rod, his whole body stretching to try and grab hold of the metallic pole. He grunted, his teeth pressed together, muscles strained…

Then he stopped midair. Electricity still ran around the Spire, the gears were still spinning, but Kramen was no longer falling. He tried to look around, grab something or boost himself against the wall, but he could not move either. As soon as the rod came withing his reach, though, gravity came back into play, but he was safely holding on to the rod already.

How?!

Kramen shook the though away as another ladder came into view and reach.

Bracing himself, Kramen leaped from the gear to the staircase…

Not realizing it was enveloped in electricity.

With a bright bang, power coursing through his entire body and frying the metallic implants on the back of his head, Kramen Blacksky was thrown repelled from the ladder and the Spire. His heart had stopped, his retinas were burned, and his palms had just been turned to charcoal. If that wasn’t enough the fall would soon crush all the bones in his body.

And the permadeath warning was still there.