Jenny turned without a word, her heels striking the marble with the grim precision of a headsman’s axe. Ben followed, his boots echoing like war drums in the cathedral silence. The elevator doors slid shut behind them, sealing away Greg’s absence.

  Floor 11 – Legal

  The air thickened with the musk of settled lawsuits and overbrewed espresso. A woman in a charcoal pantsuit stood sentry by a water cooler, her posture sharper than a subpoena. As they passed, she nodded at Jenny—once, chin dipping exactly 15 degrees.Ben’s hand twitched toward his hip, grasping for a sword that wasn’t there. “That one reeks of betrayal,” he muttered. “A barrister-assassin.”Jenny didn’t break stride. “Martha. She drafted your non-disclosure agreement.”Martha’s smile cut sideways, a scalpel sliding between ribs. Ben memorized the glint of her pearl earrings—white as skulls, he noted—and filed her face under Enemy of the Realm.

  Floor 8 – Accounting

  A gaunt man stacked ledgers into a precarious ziggurat, his fingers stained with ink that smelled of iron and regret. He glanced up, eyes hollow as emptied coffers, and dipped his chin at Jenny.She returned the nod.Ben’s keycard hung heavy on its lanyard—a pitiful talisman. “That lickspittle trades in numbers,” he hissed. “Coin-counting sorcery!”The man’s calculator chirped. CHA-CHUNK. A sound like shackles snapping shut.Jenny thumbed her security badge. “His name’s Robert. He processes your payroll.”Ben stared at the ledger towers. For a heartbeat, the numbers writhed—37.6 hours PTO accrued. 2.5 write-ups pending. A cold dread pooled in his gut.

  Floor 3 – Marketing

  The stench of desperation and pumpkin spice hung cloying in the air. A graphic designer lurched into their path, her cardigan moth-eaten but her tablet gleaming like a knight’s shield. “Jenny! Did you get my Slack about the brand synergy—”Jenny walked through her as though she were fog.The woman wilted, then brightened, spotting Ben. “Oh! You’re the guy from the All-Hands Incident! Can I get a selfie for the—”Ben loomed, cataloging her frayed cuffs and chipped nail polish. Turncoat’s guise, he decided. “Your camaraderie is artifice,” he growled. “I see your true face.”She blinked. “I… literally just want to make memes.”Jenny jabbed the elevator button. The doors closed on the woman’s confusion.The open area outside the janitor’s closet stretched vast and barren, its walls stripped of motivational posters, its corners empty of vending machines. The air hung heavy with a metallic tang, like blood on the back of the tongue.Jenny stopped before the unmarked steel door. A single flickering bulb cast her face in jagged shadows. “This is where the world ends,” she said flatly, opening the door, its mundane steel frame trembling faintly as if breathing. Ben stared into the void beyond—a darkness that swallowed the hallway. Beside him, Jenny’s finished donning her armor. It gleamed faintly, her gauntleted hand gripping the doorframe like a soldier bracing for siege.“The first floor is a gate, not a battle,” she said, her voice taut. “You’ll see a wooden arch. It won’t open until you declare your name or purpose. Clearly. No riddles. No grand speeches.”Ben smirked, hefting the butter knife that had inexplicably sharpened into a serrated blade. “A gate? You dragged me here to state my name?”Jenny’s gauntlet slammed against the wall, rattling bleach bottles. “Men die on that floor, Ben. Not from blades—from pride. The Tower doesn’t care how many battles you’ve won. Refuse its rules, and you’ll starve in the dark, screaming at a door a child could open.”The First Floor: Initiation GateShe stepped closer, her breath frosting in the unnatural cold seeping from the closet. “When the gate appears, you speak. Not to me, not to your gods—to the Tower. ‘I am Ben.’ ‘I will climb.’ It doesn’t need poetry. It needs truth.”Ben leaned into the dark, squinting. For a heartbeat, he glimpsed it—a weathered wooden arch, its timbers groaning under the weight of centuries. “And if I say nothing?”“Then you’ll rot.” Jenny’s voice frayed. “Chad found a skeleton there once. Still clutching a sword, jaw pried open like it tried to speak postmortem. Don’t be that fool.”Ben snorted. “You think I’d choke on two words?”“I think you’d rather die than admit you’re afraid.” Her gauntlet seized his wrist, cold seeping through his sleeve. “This isn’t a battlefield—it’s a test. Fail it, and there’s no second chance. No glory. Just… silence.”He wrenched free. “You’re overreacting. It’s a door.”Jenny went very still. When she spoke again, her voice was a blade dragged across stone. “The second floor holds a beast. The third, a maze. The fourth, your own voice turned traitor. But you’ll never see them if you mock the gate.”The closet’s darkness deepened, the wooden arch now fully visible in the void—a skeletal thing, its planks etched with names. Aric. Lira. Halthorn. Dozens more, half-eroded.Ben’s smirk faded. “Are those…?”“The ones who hesitated.” Jenny turned away. “Declare yourself or don’t. But know this—Chad bowed at that gate. The greatest warrior of our age. You’re not half what he is.”The door creaked wider, the arch’s timbers groaning.Ben stepped forward, blade raised.Jenny’s final warning chased him: “Pride is the first hunger the Tower feeds on.”The door slammed.Darkness.The Gate loomed, ancient and unyielding. The tower, a monolithic spire of darkened wood, clawed at the sky, its peak lost in the swirling mist above. A weight emanated from its aged timbers, a sense of centuries pressing down, yet beneath it, a strange undercurrent tugged at Ben – a whisper of knowing. Across its vast flank, carved names glowed faintly, like embers in twilight. Each inscription pulsed with a spectral luminescence, a silent, collective moan of those who had attempted and failed. As Ben gazed upon them, a flicker of recognition sparked in his mind, fleeting and indistinct, like a half-remembered dream. He couldn't place it, this sense of having been here before, but it resonated deep within him. Before this daunting monument, Ben stood firm, a subtle furrow in his brow.He drew a breath, the air thick with the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves, a scent that, too, felt strangely…known. Then, with a voice that echoed in the stillness, Ben opened his mouth, “I am Sir Benginold the Strong, Slayer of Vyrathis the Devourer, Vanquisher of Villains, Wymarc of the Iron Sword and I WILL CLIMB THE TOWER!”

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  Ben staggered from the Tower, sweat slicking his brow. The heavy wooden door, now closed behind him, emitted a final, deep groan that still resonated in the otherwise silent room. Jenny leaned against the bare stone wall of the empty space, arms crossed. Her armor, dull grey metal, caught the faint light filtering from an unseen source, reflecting it with a cold, hard glint.“Two hours,” she stated, her voice flat. “To say ‘I am Ben’.”Ben straightened, a flush rising on his face despite the sweat. “The door demanded… presence. I gave it appropriate grandeur.” Had the Tower mangled his mind and distorted time? “My time within the Tower was but a brief moment,” Ben said. Jenny pushed away from the wall, the stone cold against her armored back. “Another person spoke three words. The door opened without issue. You are here to proceed.” She inclined her head towards the second door in the room, plain and unadorned, a simple placard beside it reading: “Janitor's Closet.” “Floor Two. Try not to perish.”“I have died more times than you’ve breathed!” Ben retorted, tugging at his dark fabric coat as if adjusting armor fit for a king.“That is… not the flex you think it is, Ben,” Jenny replied, her voice losing any trace of warmth, becoming sharp and edged. “Floor Two’s creatures are indifferent to tales of your past glories. They will tear apart your body and consume what makes you, you.”Ben scoffed, a short, dismissive sound. “Creatures? I fear nothing. They will become the vanquished.”Jenny moved closer, her gaze unwavering. “The Stray is not some simple beast. It is quick, always hungry, and it does not adhere to rules of combat once you attack.” She tapped her temple with a gauntlet finger. “It learns. The last one who faced it? A skilled warrior from another group. The Stray devoured his body… and his soul. Not to mention it ate his sword…”Ben’s confident grin held firm, growing stronger as Jenny spoke. “An overgrown dog, then. I have dealt with many.”“Dogs do not evolve,” Jenny countered, her voice tight. “This one observes. Allow it to survive your initial encounter, and it will analyze your movements, your strategies.” Her hand shot out, gripping his arm, a faint static charge prickling his skin through the fabric of his coat. “You are saturated in self-importance, Ben. That is what it will truly devour.”He yanked his arm back, his grip tightening on the mug he carried. “Then let it choke on arrogance.”Jenny’s laugh was a dry, humorless sound. “The last individual who expressed such sentiments did not return. This is perilous. Dangerous.”Ben’s eye visibly twitched. “Your nagging will not diminish my resolve, scribe.”“Your resolve?” Jenny flicked an invisible speck from his coat. “That drinking vessel would shatter against a stiff breeze. But very well. Meet your end.” She turned and walked towards the door labeled “Janitor’s Closet,” the painted letters seeming to glow with a faint, unsettling light. “Simply be aware—I have given you clear warnings. You disregarded it.”Ben spat onto the stone floor. “I will demonstrate true valor. This Tower will yield before me. It will know my strength, my increasingly formidable strength.”Jenny glanced back, a sharp, mirthless curve to her lips. “You would do well to maintain that bravado when you confront The Stray. I have witnessed strong individuals break merely from meeting its gaze.”Ben cracked his knuckles. Finally a foe that could get his blood moving.