The Never-ending Tower
Akal rushed in madly along with the rest of his peers towards the inviting entrance of the mystical Armazel Academy tower. He had never before been allowed inside; as a mere novitiate he had only just earned the right to listen to lectures in the lecture hall. These special circumstances had doubly provided him with opportunity for advancement, both in knowledge and existence.
Akal crossed the tower's threshold into the wide-open space that was like a grassy plain, featuring a winding stairway in the center. Wind caressed his cheeks as he stared stunned at the surroundings that resembled a land unto itself, completely separate from Ischuros. The occasional fruit tree dotted the landscape, orbs of various size and color swaying from their limbs in the breeze that shouldn't have been in an enclosed space like the tower. Above the surface stretched a seemingly endless blue sky, bright, vibrant, with a shining yellow star lighting up the entire area. No cloud could be seen for miles around, and singing birds flitted to and fro through the beautiful blue expanse.
In a circle, surrounding the staircase taking prominent placement, were large glowing glyphs in rows, stretching through the plains as far as the eye could see. Others who made it inside before were already seated on these glyphs in a meditative pose, one per person.
"Take a seat and a page! quickly, quickly!" Various arachnoid creatures were swarming around the students feet clutching stacks of yellowed papers with their little legs, waving them about. Upon these newly invented papers was one simple verse written in a mystical language. The most pitiful of fallen, Armaros, was given this task since he could be the most places at once. Azazel, for all his newly developed mental acuity, had been unable to detect the Demon King's fingerprints in the gods' request. "You! Novitiate! Snap out of your stupor and take your place!" An Armaros' spider hopped onto Akal's face and bit his nose as he berated him.
"Ah!" Akal flinched, returning from his reverie. "Yes, sorry!" Akal humbly lowered his head at the nipping little bug that had leapt back to the grass below. He snatched up a page and went to find an open glyph to sit upon. It was easier said than done, as the host of young, eager participants stretched on for what felt like miles through the impossibly wide interior. After wearily walking past scores of seated students perusing the verse they were given, Akal finally found an open spot next to a young red-headed lady looking at her paper with a fierce expression of concentration.
Sitting down heavily onto the soft grass beneath the shining round glyph, Akal raised his page up to his eyes as he too attempted to study the verse on it.The script at first seemed to swim before his eyes, indecipherable. However, the floating letters came together in a legible script, though the language was completely foreign to Akal.
"Hey, do you know how you pronounce this part?" Akal turned to the redhead beside him, still locked in concentration.
She looked up with frustration, "You mean you can read it already?" She sharply spat. The girl, Shusa, had been spending the past hour looking at her own page, the mystical script still swimming before her vision like a swarm of insect. 'This guy just sits down for a minute, and he's already looking for pronunciation?' Shusa felt a tinge of bitterness and envy at his achievement.
Akal looked at her with surprise written across his face. He knew wasn't particularly special or smart, and this girl even had the patch of a true student, someone who had certainly frequented this tower countless times. "Perhaps you should just not think so much about it?" He meekly suggested, unable to compete with the girl's fire.
Shusa scowled at him and went back to staring intently at her paper. Akal shrugged and continued trying to sound out the new words in his mind. After another minute of fruitless effort, Shusa groaned in frustration. She looked over at the ordinary-looking Akal, dumbly reading the lines. 'not think, huh?' Maybe there was something to that after all. It was harder than it sounds to stop thinking for Shusa, whose mind was constantly awhirl with musings. She sighed heavily, eyes closed as she tried to still her thoughts. She opened her eyes as she entered a tranquil mental state. At last, the flitting words settled down into their proper place.
"Yes!" Shusa pumped her fist in the air, earning her several glares and gestures for silence by the surrounding students engrossed by their own studies.
Akal nodded at her, smiling. "Good job," he whispered.
Shusa nodded back awkwardly. She did feel somewhat grateful for the advice that turned out to be right, but she was still a bit annoyed by this boy. Returning to the verse, Shusa scoffed out loud, "What's so hard to pronounce? It's all in rhythm." The haughty words escaped almost involuntarily.
Akal blushed as his gaze dipped, "I guess I just don't see it."
Shusa guiltily tried to backtrack, "Hey, look. I didn't mean it like that, okay? Sorry." She regretted not withholding her spiteful jab when Akal had done nothing of the sort when she was in the same position. "Here, let me help. What's the trouble?"
Akal met her sincere gaze and smiled, "You'll really help? Great!" He held up his page, a finger underlining a relatively long word. "I can't make heads or tales of this."
Shusa gave the word a cursory glance, then nonchalantly said, "Nunmanum."
Akal glanced uncertainly at her, "New monym?" He guessed.
"Oh come on, you're not even trying." protested Shusa while she gave Akal's arm a light punch.
"Well, slow it down, I can barely keep up you said it so fast." Akal complained.
"Ok, like this, Noon-Mah-Num" Shusa spoke in a patronizing tone, teasing the hapless youth.
Suddenly, from above and behind them, a voice echoed authoritatively, "Silence, all. The time is upon you, ready your minds and hearts to recite the scripture you've been given." Akal looked up to see a flame-bearded man floating in the air. He was Horchal, god of flame, rage, and pain. "We will begin in three, two..."
As the bearded god began his countdown, Shusa and Akal looked at each other with panicked gazes, before hurriedly holding their papers straight before their eyes, ready to recite. As the voice reached one, a chorus of seemingly millions echoed from the ground up towards the skies within the tower.
"Eru, Eru!
Tirrtu-tal nunmanam!
Murrku, Patkai, alakir yanta
'Katav, unaryi mama!'"
As the first stanza reverberated through the space, the earth shook, trees dropping their fruits, and at the top of the central stair a bright white light shot into the skies, beyond all perception. The glyphs they sat upon rose into the air, each with an occupant. Soon, the hundreds of thousands of young students floated about in a winding circle, twisting around the spiral staircase. On the final line of the stanza, Akal felt a rush of overwhelming energy throughout his body. He raised his head high, practically screaming the next lines under the influence of the stimulating power. Others across the landscape were acting similarly, many no longer even needing to refer to their papers.
"Ilu, ilu!
Cuvaital pron vallami!
Curlai, kattai, akrai ermkam;
Ul'tam mutivarra kopram."
The final stanza echoed forth, and the circling glyphs progressively accelerated more and more.
"Don't stop. Say it again." The proud and passionate god, Horchal, ordered the students, urging them to repeat the verse.
Akal, who was practically glowing himself at the energy within, groaned before continuing with the rest. The energy that had first invigorated him now burned at his insides painfully. He looked over to see Shusa, who had her eyes closed serenely with an expression of rapture. She didn't appear to be struggling. Motivated by the fiery girl beside him, Akal pressed on through the pain.
"... Patkai, alakir yanta
'Katav, unaryi mama!'"
As he yelled out these words, the glowing light withing him exploded upwards like a pillar, tearing his body to shreds. His blood, what hadn't splattered in the bursting apart of his body, was carried with the white light, staining it red as it assimilated with the light in the center of the tower.
Feeling liquid splatter her face, Shusa cracked her eyes open with an annoyed expression. However, when she saw the bloody mess that was the remains of Akal she screamed loudly. As fear broke her concentration, she too exploded in a pillar of crimson-stained light.
"Do not stop! They were weak-willed, that is why they failed. Press upwards!" Horchal mercilessly instructed, caring little to nothing for the students in this ritual. The remaining students, fearing the same fate, didn't stop reciting the verse, until they no longer were in control of their own mouths, the words flowing incessantly without pause. The glyphs upon which they sat spun at near unbearable speeds, as it circled slowly ever upwards.
The resounding chorus shook the heavens and the earth, and all over the great plain little red pillars of light representing another dead student popped up sporadically.
From the airspace on the border-wall of Ischuros, the Demon King Asmodeus watched the trembling tower resplendent with a steadily more crimson-stained light. The radiance marked with blood seemed to wind from the top of the tower, building onto it increasingly higher. "Oh, Azazel what have you given them?" The Demon King chuckled mischievously, before shooting upwards above the cloud cover. "Time to do some covert work of my own." Asmodeus flapped his arm-wings delightedly as he planned his next steps on the fly.