Knives & Levels - Chapter 108

Colt reached the massive, dark Academy. The outside of it was just as desolate as the hundreds of miles of frozen glacier that led it way to it. But here he was, at the blissful dark beacon that dominated this landscape. Its walls towered upward, radiating a presence that made him feel small and insignificant beneath its sprawling might. In a way, the Academy appeared a monster itself, and being near it left him with an oily feeling of wrongness on his skin.

There was a faint scent of burnt wood in the air… Colt walked closer and trailed a hand against that sleek obsidian surface. It felt colder to the touch than ice itself, as if the depths were one greedy, sucking thing trying to steal every source of heat in its nearby environment. Colt pulled his hand back after a second, rubbing his fingers together to warm them back up.

The next practical thing was to circle the outside. He trailed a path of footprints in the ankle-deep snow while going around the border. Searching for some kind of entrance into the otherwise sealed and impregnable fortress. For him, it might be any section of the wall with a simple Phantom’s Gambit. For his allies, the idea of scaling this wall would be an impossible thing… Better, too, to know the entrances and exits for when they tackled it as a group.

It took a good couple of miles of walking before he found it in the form of a massive gate, which was sealed with a black steel barrier, blocking the outside from getting in.

Colt scanned it, his eyes running over the twisted black steel; like the wall, it was a domineering presence. Behind it, he saw the shapes of the man-connected buildings of the Academy, morphed and in their proximity, once more reminded him of some kind of twisted black castle. Colt grasped the black bars and tested them.

Firm. Impossible to move. For him, this was a simple step to get through. When his allies arrived…

His eyes ran over the walls and surroundings. Nothing. No way to get in—just a big sealed gate of twisted iron.

Fine then.

Colt stepped forward, activating his Phantom’s Gambit.

Within a second, he was in the interior of the Academy. His breath caught in his throat as he took in the scene around him. Magnificent. Large towering buildings with edifices and gargoyles laid out in nooks and crannies—the layout was confusing, and the nearest dark-stone building was at least a block away from the walls. But the way they were laid out and connected made it look like a massive, organic beast looming in the courtyard.

Around here, outside of the walls, was a paved path. Conspicuously, no snow rested on it. All of it had melted in a way that was unnatural, given the raging storm around that had been here, and there wasn’t a living soul in sight.

He refocused on the problem of the gate. Turning, for now, away from the behemoth of a building lurking within the courtyard and back to the wall’s interior around him.

Colt eventually found the answer to opening the gate in the form of a crank, not too far away. Thinking ahead to his allies' eventual arrival and hoping they would arrive before their agreed-upon time limit, he moved to open it.

And, after setting his hands on it and giving it all of his might… The gate didn’t move an inch.

His muscles alone couldn't do it. So when they failed, he shifted and then used Momentum, pressing down on the crank and making the steel gate rise with an application of unnatural force. His Edict amplified his own weight and strength, letting it easily click up. Each second into the turn, there was a click with chains, and the gate raised just a little higher until the end, when the gate was finally suspended, allowing the world to return to this desolate ghost land of an Academy once more.

Colt rolled his shoulders, feeling a strain even though he had used his edict to amplify his own personal power. With that sorted, he turned back to look at the Academy.

And found he wasn’t alone.

High above, in one of those dark edifices and windows, he saw a pale white face staring down at him with an unnaturally wide smile. He stared back at it, and a second later, the face vanished—gone.

Ominous.

It was like a horror movie, almost. Not that he’d ever liked those kinds of movies to begin with. In those types of movies, they would stare and inevitably enter the building that had no business entering, thinking the creepy face staring down at them was a figment of their imagination. The audience would shout ‘don’t do it!’

But as Colt stared at the empty window where the grinning face had been seconds before, he didn’t feel an ounce of fear. No, he was going to enter that building. It was objectively creepy, but so what?

Whatever was inside, he'd kill with his knives.

Still, the strange part was that it had looked mostly human, aside from the unnaturally wide grin.

Although those phantoms they had seen outside of the dungeon, which presumably came from this place, had a human-like torso, their faces were distorted and obviously made of mist. This thing, pale though it was, was every bit a face of a human, and that, in turn, was confusing.

The best he could assume was that it was a monster that appeared human. And now it meant that whatever was lurking in this place knew about him already.

As if summoned in reaction to the face, one of the fine ebony doors leading to the Academy proper splayed wide open. As if someone had kicked it open from the inside. Colt braced both knives coming to his hand as he stared at the open door not far away. Darkness lurked past the gateway, like a portal to a shadow hell. Nothing came out.

He got a distinct feeling, as if he were being welcomed into the Academy. A distinct feeling that left him with unease. He didn't like playing into the hands of a monster, even if it appeared human. If it looked like a human, it made him think it would have the intelligence of a human, and he’d already dealt with the Yeti, which had been a cunning foe to begin with.

Not great. Colt rethought his decision to face the Academy on his own.

The truth was that the Yeti was a bad match-up for him, and he didn't yet know what this would be like. It might go better. And he felt he’d run into a more concentrated number of monsters here to kill for experience. He hesitated a while longer, looking out the iron gateway he had opened, wondering how his friends were faring out in the slopes before heading, with knives in hand, toward the campus.

Intuitively, he did not go through the open door the monster had thrown open for him. It just didn't seem like a great idea to fall for whatever that was. Instead, he wandered around the campus, staying a good distance from the windows.

The campus was massive. Colt kept near the wall, but even as he went around the place, it was easily the size of a small town, with various towers jutting back and forth and tunnels connecting the many buildings, giving the grand impression that this place was somewhere where tens of thousands of students must live and study.

Yet, every single window he saw now—and yes, his eyes were now trained to the windows after the disturbing sight of a face gazing at him, though he dared not get close—were empty, barren, and black, as if staring into the abyss itself.

I should be scared.

That would be the normal thought. But for him, it was mostly just picking a place to enter and fight, knowing that he could simply phase through any of these walls. It was like casing a high-profile target, wondering which way would lead to what he was looking for the fastest. Not as concerned over the odd face and whatever other horrors lurked in those dark walls.

He wanted monsters to slay, but he didn't want to run into a whole horde of things that he couldn't kill. Given the location and the walls, his ability to phase in and out of it might be an environmental advantage. It was less hard to use Phantom's Gambit defensively when standing in an open field of snow.

Whereas here, inside this place, he could only imagine the twisting corridors and hallways that had to make up its interior for such a large, interconnected structure. That wasn't to say it was one cohesive building, more like a bunch of buildings built right next to each other. Some of these connections were routed through the tunnel, and some of them were connected to suspended bridges between buildings that opened up into the frosty outside. Above it all were towers that spanned hundreds of feet up.

The truth was that this place was a dangerous maze for most people. The various entrances and walls made it one big obsidian gem that Colt was trying to figure out the best way to crack into. Colt finally settled on one of the furthest points of the place.

There wasn't a direct door from this wall, but it looked like a standalone building connected to the others via a small tunnel. He could see a few windows leading into this building, the interior of which looked like a few desks, maybe offices. It had a second story that Colt couldn't see from this low. But it seemed, out of anything, a fine enough place to start.

Colt pressed a hand against the wall, and then, having picked his spot to begin this expedition, phased through it using a single use of Phantom's Gambit, stepping into the dark interior. As soon as he reached inside, lights sprang into being. Scones of blue fire ignited, revealing that he had indeed landed himself in what appeared to be a gaggle of offices.

The particular office he’d landed in lacked a door; an open gateway led to a common area with more open offices.

Everything inside was dark black or brown wood, from the desks to the floors. The chairs were made of the same material, ornamentally carved with decorative swirls on the arms. The whole room seemed to have been transported from some sort of dark academic fantasy land.

It was cold too, making him shiver as he stared at the blue scones. The fires within were the source; they felt like a cold wind was coming from them, even though they burned.

Colt ignored it for now and instead closed in on the desk. Peering at the odd tomes laid out on it. The place felt abandoned, like someone had been here, but suddenly vanished… Still, the presence of a book in a dungeon intrigued him. He took a look at the page lying open.

It was illegible. None of the words were any he could understand. The pages appeared old and ancient, frayed at the edges and browning in a way that spoke of their age. He skimmed it, moving page to page, glancing through the diagrams therein—glyphs, marks, geometric shapes, writings, and drawings of monsters and humans… Odd.

When he looked up, he saw a face staring at him. Not like the one in the window. This face was more twisted, paler to the point of being semi-translucent. its mouth was open wide and missing a tongue, leaving just a black hole as it screamed into nothing. Above were two dark sockets where its eyes should be. It raised a boney hand at him.

There wasn’t a second to think as a gust of cold rushing air crashed into him and sent him flying into the wall behind him, pushing him down and holding him against it. Pinning him with pure concentrated air.

Seems they found out their guest arrived.

Colt grimaced as his muscles strained against the rushing air, barely manipulating his hand to grab the sky steel knife at his side.

Well, at least it hadn’t taken long to find his fight.