re:SPIRE

[Birdsie]

Ascendants of the Spire sometimes argue that sacrifice isn't the price of magic, but its purpose.

When Earth entered its third millennium, the Spire appeared: shining silver, infinitely reaching, a pillar of paranatural light as if a star had streaked into the earth and its luminescent trail became frozen in time. Countless of its refractions can be found all over the planet, scattered in hundreds or perhaps thousands, of copies of this foundational magical phenomenon.

Within each of those pillars is a single Gate; each Gate usually has its own request.

These requests are varied; deliver a fresh human heart, find and deliver the most beautiful flower to ever exist, bring a piece of the sun itself. A number of them are metaphorical, others are not. Certain Gates unbar to all souls without a single mutter of request, while others silently refuse to budge or share their wishes. Often, the requests are downright alien or inhuman, seeming to not fully understand the world's workings. Had history gone otherwise, perhaps there would've been a dedicated field of study meant to determine the most efficient way to address these demands.

Whoever completes a request, is thereafter allowed to use that Gate as they please. Within the Spire are more Spires, with even more Gates, and strange realms between them. There, one can find monsters and relics of bygone worlds; scraps of magic and spiritual Boons that no mortal man had ever wielded before the Spire's appearance. Those who seek to pierce further and higher, to climb upwards dimensionally through the Gates, whom the Spire itself has blessed with its shining light, we call Ascendants.

Like a lathe, the dowel of the soul is ever-refined by the Gates.

To rise higher, must a balloon not be lighter? To rise to excellence, must a man not shed himself of all unnecessary ballast, casting the dead weight aside to make the next handhold easier to reach?

A hero must prove worthy of the sword in the stone, abandoning mortality. Likewise, an Ascendant must abandon all irrelevance and focus solely on the Gates. On this Earth, the man afflicted with deep madness rules over those who champion sanity. There was no better proof of that than what happened immediately after the Spire's appearance.

When the Spire appeared, the empowered vanguard were not the people already holding the reins of civilization. Ascendants are those individuals whom the Spire deems as having the most potential desire to seek entry through its Gates. Those who are blatantly insane, whom we reject or throw away like yesterday's garbage, those who are set apart from mankind; not in talent or intellect, but simple opinion or attitude. Ascendants are those with the clear will and sense of desperation to face their Gate and do whatever it asks of them, no matter how horrific or absurd.

Within a decade, China and India were ruined wastelands; the crucible of endless onslaught as ferocious as battles of ancient myth. Their massive populations presented a vast space in which eccentrics could hide in while building their own little stairways to heaven, only to eventually sally forth once no amount of mundane armament could hold them at bay. From hotly vengeful to coldly ambitious, their Ascendants tore morsels of territory out of civilization, and over time, the ordeal of that deathmatch created what is nowadays called the Land of a Thousand Warlords.

This was only the earliest incident of a hundred; a foreshadowing of the future, setting the rhythm. As the decades went on, events of similar scope happened elsewhere, and their frequency only rose; until, before anyone could realize it'd already happened and the dust had settled, the world we remembered had already ended.

One cold morning in an otherwise uneventful winter week, the citizens of the Russian Federation awoke, turning on the news, only to find a lich emperor 'holding court' with the reanimated corpses of their once-leaders. The United Kingdom fractured apart into a tribal near-anarchy with dozens of agendas and intrigues, all barely tentatively interested in maintaining a common front against outsiders. In the States, New York came under invasion as portals that wept cinders opened and swept aside the inferior armies of man, obsidian hulls of their ships rebuffing bombardment and basalt of their armor bouncing off bullets.

Within the fire of Central Park, a flag was planted, announcing the colony of New Pandemonium.

Chaos is created for the sake of peace. This was a principle to which a number of the Ascendants subscribed, especially as the Earth became more unstable and embroiled in war. That it seemed increasingly more obvious the Spire allowed antisocial sentiment to thrive didn't mean all its scions had to espouse the same ideals. This time of tumult, if properly channeled, could serve as a ladder not merely for one individual but the entire species; a vat from which a better world could rise, the ashes reborn into a resurgent phoenix.

The most defining and noticeable proponent of such an ideology was the so-called Anniversary King, sometimes called the Centurial Hero. From Florida where he'd established a kingdom, he rode in challenge to all who asserted their own tyranny, liberating nations and returning freedom to common mortals. He alone was their shield and sword, a titanic cutting edge that could weather and fight off all-comers all by itself; often deemed the strongest Ascendant. After fifty years of backbreaking work, even that colossus of a man, who is said to have Ascended further than any other, died to an assassin's blade, a death no more ignoble than any other leader's in history.

And in the end, what emerged from the crucible of the Spire was in some ways a stronger and more assertive world, the metaphorical crab bucket abandoned in favor of a shining whetstone.

The incandescent glories of human civilization, the serenity of peace; even humanity and meaning were nothing but sacrifices for an altar on hinges, to be spent like bloodied coins, to create the chrysalis for each Ascendant.

Child of Earth, your home is not as it once was. Tyrants called Ascendants run amok, seeking worthiness and access into the higher realms of the Spire. Their cradle has become a battleground onto which shards of that heavenly Spire rain down from time to time. There are others already within, past the Gates, the dross of dead worlds ready to be claimed.

Either you shall climb, or you'll be made to fall.

But who are you? What is your madness? What did you sacrifice?

---

[ ] Ascendant - When destiny calls, the chosen have no choice. You are not the hero of this tale according to those whose corpses are the pavement of your ascent, but its villain. Even so, you climb because you have a reason to do so: revenge, love, power. All can be found atop the Spire.

Pros:
*A starting Boon of moderate puissance and potential, granted to you by the Spire. It'll have sufficient combat applications to ensure you don't need to fear reproach from mundane mortals.
*Ascendants differ from mortal men; the Gates of the Spire recognize your resolve. The difficulties of fulfilling Gate requests are reduced; some Gates will open of their own accord.

Cons:
*As a rule of thumb, Ascendants are mentally unstable compared to an average human from their demographic. Begin with three major Character Flaws.
*As another rule of thumb, the mortals who inhabit this fallen Earth tend to be leery of your kind. Young Ascendants are a popular 'acceptable target.'
*You most likely start off under dangerous or otherwise undesirable circumstances. Ascendants have a high turnover rate.

[ ] Aspirant - For whatever reason, the Spire did not find you sufficient to confer you its Boon and its attention. You are not enough, merely another face within the sea of mortal scum. Your determination is founded on ash and lost dreams.

Pros:
*You are relatively mentally stable. This will be a surprisingly useful boon in most of your future dealings; being able to view situations with unbiased clarity instead of being bogged down by internal strife will allow you to leverage your talents better and reap greater benefits.
*You are statistically more likely to possess at least a semi-functional family, education, and social position, even if it's in this fallen and wretched world.
*As a consquence, you begin with a number of potentially useful skills, contacts, and other perks which are orthogonal to the Spire-granted Boons and can be leveraged far more usefully with the correct strategy.

Cons:
*Even if you aren't one of the chosen, it still takes a good degree of madness to embark on something such as this without a drop of hesitation; to aim for ascension without being an Ascendant. Begin with two minor Character Flaws, or one major Character Flaw. No escaping your tragic backstory.
*You are, at least to start with, an ordinary mortal with no remarkable magical Boons or powers.

 

[Birdsie]

Rules & Cliffnotes

1) All notable activity, such as non-spammy posts, discussions, arguments for/against, and omake may or may not accumulate a resource, its name potentially to be determined later on, which might have a variety of effects. Or I might be lying.

2) Votes are decided by the strength of arguments as well as the number of votes. This is much lessened when the choices are primarily aesthetic or up to subjective preference. In other words, good tactics will ensure you aren't screwed over by poor choices.

---

For those interested in supporting me, here's my Patreon, where content gets posted semi-regularly including CYOAs, bits of fiction and prose, and various other experiments. I am also open to personal requests.

Here's the link to our Discord Community, on which discussion of this quest among other things sometimes takes place. Users are encouraged to keep most of the vital discussion to the thread, however.

 

[Lealope]

[X] Aspirant

I think the Aspirants are more interesting than Ascendants. What desperation could drive someone to throw away a function life? To the outcast, to the misfit, to the alienated, the Spire asks relatively little. But to someone who has a life worth speaking of, it must be a terrible hunger to drive shuck their cradle's graces. All in all, I think its better to choose yourself than to be chosen.

 

[GenericName]

[X] Ascendant

Go big or go home imo. Commit to the bit, the Spire must be climbed.

 

[Jaguar2234]

[X] Ascendant

I just want to play a crazy person

 

[Maximum Power]

[X] Aspirant

So cool!!! I'm super glad to see this as it begins, I'll be keeping up with it no matter what!!

For now, I'm leaning Aspirant very strongly. I find it a little more compelling and I love underdogs. Make the choice because you can, because you want to, not because you don't have anything else to turn to. It's not about desperation, but will instead.

I think it's admirable to set out on a harsh and difficult journey that'd be easier for others, because it's the choice you've made for yourself, to seize destiny with your own hands.

Hope that makes sense!

 

[Aabcehmu]

[X] Aspirant

Having to start with three major Character Flaws sounds like it's going to be rough.

 

[KreenWarrior]

[X] Ascendant

 

[Orm Embar]

[X] Ascendant

It's not that Aspirant is an invalid path, or that I undervalue the advantages of relative sanity in a world like this, or am uninterested in the story of someone who chose to climb. But the Spire's favor is a nigh-impossible boon to replicate. It makes every toll less grievous, every price paid in blood cheaper, every reward greater. The Aspirant would, by definition, choose to be an Ascendant if they could. Greater initial peril and the hatred of plebs is well worth what we gain in exchange.

 

[Birdsie]

Earning Boons is still possible as an Aspirant, and your ability to leverage them as someone with social connections (or in fact, actual friends) will be much higher! Consider what'd happen if you got a Boon early on that lets you empower a number of allies to stand alongside you; for an Ascendant that'd be nigh-useless since they can't trust anyone! But if you already have a team of friends lined up, the problem practically solves itself.

 

[Some_guy_161]

[X] Aspirant - For whatever reason, the Spire did not find you sufficient to confer you its Boon and its attention. You are not enough, merely another face within the sea of mortal scum. Your determination is founded on ash and lost dreams.

Ah, we're going with the K6BD philosophy of strength, then?

 

[Zampano]

[X] Ascendant
I think that I want to choose carefully from options freely given to a flawed agent instead of needing to work around the rules of a world that isn't interested in mundane sanity.

Free yourself from the burden of 'Outlined Tactics' and instead embrace the path of literally unreasonable power.

 

[Questionable]

[X] Ascendant

This quest voter group is not capable enough to endure hard mmode. Lets be real.

 

[Kufufu]

[X] Ascendant

on second thought, hard mode for the win.
We will either be functional people who refrain from griding endlessly, or we will die! Its a win for me either way.

 

[Zampano]

[X] Aspirant

on second thought, hard mode for the win.
We will either be functional people who refrain from griding endlessly, or we will die! Its a win for me either way.

Click to shrink...

A character with no native power will have no choice but to grind aggressively so that the ambient fuckery of the setting doesn't squash them like a bug. Ascendant has the luxury of exploring the setting: we could talk to a demon without immediately having our eyelids stolen and needing to buy them back with our bone marrow.

Let's take the character that has the luxury of stopping to smell the roses instead of (another) frantic grind to speedrun Birdsie's most innovative setting.

 

[ArcanaVitae]

Ascendants of the Spire sometimes argue that sacrifice isn't the price of magic, but its purpose.

When Earth entered its third millennium, the Spire appeared: shining silver, infinitely reaching, a pillar of paranatural light as if a star had streaked into the earth and its luminescent trail became frozen in time. Countless of its refractions can be found all over the planet, scattered in hundreds or perhaps thousands, copies of this foundational magical phenomenon.

Click to shrink...

So there's a lot of Spires around the world and it changed the world.

Within each of those pillars is a single Gate; each Gate usually has its own request.

These requests are varied; deliver a fresh human heart, find and deliver the most beautiful flower to ever exist, bring a piece of the sun itself. A number of them are metaphorical, others are not. Certain Gates unbar to all souls without a single mutter of request, while others silently refuse to budge or share their wishes. Often, the requests are downright alien or inhuman, seeming to not fully understand the world's workings. Had history gone otherwise, perhaps there would've been a dedicated field of study meant to determine the most efficient way to address these demands.

Whoever completes a request, is thereafter allowed to use that Gate as they please. Within the Spire are more Spires, with even more Gates, and strange realms between them. There, one can find monsters and relics of bygone worlds; scraps of magic and spiritual Boons that no mortal man had ever wielded before the Spire's appearance. Those who seek to pierce further and higher, to climb upwards dimensionally through the Gates, whom the Spire itself has blessed with its shining light, we call Ascendants.

Like a lathe, the dowel of the soul is ever-refined by the Gates.

To rise higher, must a balloon not be lighter? To rise to excellence, must a man not shed himself of all unnecessary ballast, casting the dead weight aside to make the next handhold easier to reach?

A hero must prove worthy of the sword in the stone, abandoning mortality. Likewise, an Ascendant must abandon all irrelevance and focus solely on the Gates. On this Earth, the man afflicted with deep madness rules over those who champion sanity. There was no better proof of that than what happened immediately after the Spire's appearance.

Click to shrink...

Basically to dedicate yourself fully to entering Gates you need to be a certain type of person and those people who are naturally suited and blessed are called Ascendants.

When the Spire appeared, the empowered vanguard were not the people already holding the reins of civilization. Ascendants are those individuals whom the Spire deems as having the most potential desire to seek entry through its Gates. Those who are blatantly insane, whom we reject or throw away like yesterday's garbage, those who are set apart from mankind; not in talent or intellect, but simple opinion or attitude. Ascendants are those with the clear will and sense of desperation to face their Gate and do whatever it asks of them, no matter how horrific or absurd.

Within a decade, China and India were ruined wastelands; the crucible of endless onslaught as ferocious as battles of ancient myth. Their massive populations presented a vast space in which eccentrics could hide in while building their own little stairways to heaven, only to eventually sally forth once no amount of mundane armament could hold them at bay. From hotly vengeful to coldly ambitious, their Ascendants tore morsels of territory out of civilization, and over time, the ordeal of that deathmatch created what is nowadays called the Land of a Thousand Warlords.

This was only the earliest incident of a hundred; a foreshadowing of the future, setting the rhythm. As the decades went on, events of similar scope happened elsewhere, and their frequency only rose; until, before anyone could realize it'd already happened and the dust had settled, the world we remembered had already ended.

Click to shrink...

Makes sense that the world would be upturned like that.

Chaos is created for the sake of peace. This was a principle to which a number of the Ascendants subscribed, especially as the Earth became more unstable and embroiled in war. That it seemed increasingly more obvious the Spire allowed antisocial sentiment to thrive didn't mean all its scions had to espouse the same ideals. This time of tumult, if properly channeled, could serve as a ladder not merely for one individual but the entire species; a vat from which a better world could rise, the ashes reborn into a resurgent phoenix.

The most defining and noticeable proponent of such an ideology was the so-called Anniversary King, sometimes called the Centurial Hero. From Florida where he'd established a kingdom, he rode in challenge to all who asserted their own tyranny, liberating nations and returning freedom to common mortals. He alone was their shield and sword, a titanic cutting edge that could weather and fight off all-comers all by itself; often deemed the strongest Ascendant. After fifty years of backbreaking work, even that colossus of a man, who is said to have Ascended further than any other, died to an assassin's blade, a death no more ignoble than any other leader's in history.

And in the end, what emerged from the crucible of the Spire was in some ways a stronger and more assertive world, the metaphorical crab bucket abandoned in favor of a shining whetstone.

Click to shrink...

Good to see that it ended up being largely positive for all that the crab bucket was what it was like initially.

Child of Earth, your home is not as it once was. Tyrants called Ascendants run amok, seeking worthiness and access into the higher realms of the Spire. Their cradle has become a battleground onto which shards of that heavenly Spire rain down from time to time. There are others already within, past the Gates, the dross of dead worlds ready to be claimed.

Either you shall climb, or you'll be made to fall.

But who are you? What is your madness? What did you sacrifice?

Click to shrink...

HYPE!!!!

[X] Ascendant

I want to be the kind of madlad that this stuff is just a matter of course to.

 

[Birdsie]

In order to help fuel interest and discussion, here are some sample Character Flaws you could expect to get. It should at least signify how dysfunctional you can expect your character to be. These are only demonstrative examples, not necessarily specific traits you'll have yourself; you could instead of the below have an unhealthy obsession with saving people from dire circumstances or martyring yourself on metaphorical (or maybe literal) crosses, and more in that vein. Either way, you're some flavor of crazy.

Character Flaw: Brutal - You are not merely unbothered, but even exult in violence, eager for excuses to indulge as if it were a narcotic or a favored pastime. There is something musically beautiful about - not strife, not martial attainment in the sense of combat sports - but rather the simple event of a human form meeting with pure destruction, a skull shattering as it encounters your fist. You find hurting others vaguely satisfying, even while being hurt yourself still inspires vengeful sentiment. You find those who do not share this view contemptible, lacking a spine, and your esteem towards them diminishes as a consequence; an attitude which borders on disdain for the weak.

A minor variant: While you continue to find violent actions pleasant to indulge in, you understand this urge is not necessarily shared by others and do not find them any more contemptible. While you may still wish to solve problems violently and might even lose yourself momentarily, it'll never become an overwhelming or overriding feeling.

Character Flaw: Hubris - You find other beings rather tiresome and dull; not necessarily more difficult to empathize with, but simply... annoying, like you're not sure if you can find a reason for them to even exist. At best, they are amusements or very irksome sources of danger; at worst, they're infuriating obstacles to getting what you want. Even those stronger than you are people you roll your eyes at behind closed doors; nothing more than temporary roadblocks on your ascent. You were chosen after all, and you know as a matter of fact you're better than that bunch of nobodies. What a better world it'd be if they could conveniently line themselves up so you could kill them without putting in too much effort. Oh well, you suppose you'll have to earn your crown with hard work - shame they couldn't see your self-evident greatness the way you do.

A minor variant: Albeit tending towards self-assuredness in your resolutions and decisions, you do not find it any easier to deride others. Your sense of self-worth is slightly inflated, but not downright narcissistic.

Character Flaw: Death Addict - This is not suicidal or genocidal ideation; rather, the very idea of death excites you, in a completely different way than most people could ever hope to imagine... Ever since you were a child and saw your first corpse, you understood the concept of death was somehow special to you. You seek to incarnate your own ideal of death, a grim reaper avatar, so that you can marry Death Itself - the only bride ever worth contemplating. Naturally, it helps to show death your appreciation on the way there, by flirting with it as often as possible! You will make sure to frequently become embroiled in deathly dangerous affairs and to murder acceptable targets regularly.

A minor variant: You find dead bodies and morbid imagery to be unusually fascinating and will seek to reasonably incorporate them where you can. However, you are not literally on a quest to create a body into which the concept of death can incarnate itself so you can date it.

As you can see, the options are very interesting indeed!

 

[ThatGuyWithIdeas]

Aren't we a bit too quick to dismiss the fact that Ascendant is saddled with 3 Major Character Flaws? It may be a stronger start which would lessen the worry about gathering power, but the Flaws may cripples us to a stronger degree than lack of power would...

 

[Magical_Duck]

[X] Ascendant

Leave Earth behind, adopt that Whetstone Grindset.

 

[Maximum Power]

I COME BARING GIFTS OF THE OMAKE KIND.

---

As the World Goes Dark​

It started with the spike.

It was tall, pointed, a sharp spine made of glimmering ivory. It was thin, then, at least from a distance, and shorter than a man was tall, like a wicked needle subtly protruding from the earthy fields surrounding our once gentle town.

In a manner of speaking, it was almost hiding itself from us back then. As though it didn't want to be observed too closely, at least not yet. Not before it had solidified its position in our lives.

Its miserable business started quietly, reaching out to the frail and the needy, to the outcasts and the helpless.

To the hateful and afraid.

We weren't a big town, but our community was close. We helped our own. Maybe that was why it took so long… But it wasn't enough. Even kindly places like Crystal Falls can have folks who slip through the cracks. Or people who pretend at being human.

The Spires were just starting to cause trouble around the globe then, but we didn't realize- didn't want to consider, that this strange little pointed object was one of them. The common wisdom was that these sorts of things didn't happen to little communities out in the boonies, that nothing could possibly happen to our own quaint slice of humanity.

It all began with a single, gruesome request: 'Murder your enemy and leave their corpse raised to the sky at the base of this Spire.'

We didn't exactly have enemies in Crystal Falls. Not really. Too small and tight-knit for that. We weren't the sort of people to ostracize or judge one another, and we all pitched in to make a place where anyone could live peacefully.

I myself made my livelihood off of it, before everything went to hell. Chief of Police, in fact. I took a great deal of pride in my ability to keep things on the up and up. To keep people safe and happy.

The corporations were trying to move in again, sure, but that never bothered me very much, not like it did my brother. Still, I didn't think the folks around here hated anyone else enough to do that.

We hadn't had anything so extreme as a murder since I was a boy.

It took me more time than I'd like to admit I was wrong about our community. That, I think more than most things, cost us a lot in the end. My own blindness. Some nights I wondered if I'd just seen what was right in front of me, could the events to come have gone any differently? Could I have stopped this before it all began?

Well, it didn't matter now.

One morning I woke up to frantic phone calls, telling me the Mayor was missing. I wasn't worried at first, but that changed quickly.

I still remembered the old fella's body hanging limply by the spike, tied like a scarecrow to a pole by the spike. He was a family friend, not just our elected leader. The investigation swiftly became personal for me and consumed my focus.

It took much longer than I'm willing to admit before we realized the needle had gotten bigger. Scared me and my boys near shitless. It was a proximity thing, as it turned out. From afar, it was thin and barely visible, but up close it stretched far enough into the sky that binoculars were useless and even the old telescope we busted out of the local antique store couldn't spy the top.

We hadn't actually had reason to approach at first, but finding the Mayor as we did… Well, now we knew, and we were terrified.

Nonetheless, the CFPD wasn't exactly equipped to be poking around something like this, so we kept our distance where we could. No one wanted to be around so strange an anomaly as a silvery white tower that only exists when you're near it.

Made a person jumpy…

In the following days, more people were found dead. A visiting businessman, a couple of tourists, immigrants, the list just went on. But so too did the pattern. We started to realize this sick murderer was targeting a particular demographic, not necessarily just outsiders… but people who were in favour of letting outsiders in.

The Mayor had been writing a letter to the Governor about making the town into a real city. That suit was here on work to buy out small, locally owned properties and get the deeds to the land so his company could move into the area. The tourists were overheard talking about how primitive and rustic things were over in the pub, suggesting that we would be better off with more of a 'big city' feel.

I'd asked my brother to look into the matter on the side as well. He had a good head on his shoulders, and while he himself didn't work on the force like I did, he did have strong opinions about the commercialization of our small town. I figured if I could trust anyone to look into who might be our culprit, it'd be someone who might sympathize with their motives.

He promised to get back to me soon, said he'd talk to his people and find out what he could for me. I wish I'd known that would be the last time I saw him.

I never did hear back from him, and at the time I assumed he'd been killed too, like so many others. I was furious. I wanted that killer dead then, and not arrested. My men all agreed, this bastard had gone too far and wasn't gonna leave Crystal Falls alive after all that'd happened.

Turns out, I'd have bigger problems to deal with soon enough.

The spike had become more of an obelisk then, with how much it had grown in our view, as though fattening itself up with the bloodshed. What once was carefully hidden became much easier for even the regular townsfolk to spot on the horizon, like the spike was welcoming our eyes.

It occurred to most of us then that maybe the string of deaths wasn't so petty as we'd once thought…

Despite its size, it had at least gone silent at that point, no more eerie or murderous requests, finally. The killing also stopped for a while. We all thought our criminal had up and left, that just maybe our idyllic little lives could continue as they once were, calm and quiet again.

There were mixed feelings. Who wouldn't be glad about an end to the serial killing? But the lack of closure…

I personally wrote to the government about what had happened and they sent a team down to investigate the structure. The spooks said it was nothing we needed to worry about, so like the stereotypical country idiots we were, we didn't worry.

We left it to the folks in charge and kept our heads down. We mourned our dead. We moved on.

Well, we tried to move on.

Some time later, we got a measure of the news on the chaos happening over in Asia, of how other places around the world were faring. It was curated by the government, news stations only sharing what was okay for us peons to know about.

We still didn't really understand how the spike factored in…

Not until after the team from one of those letter agencies urgently left the town, citing an emergency.

Not until after we stopped getting visitors from the big city altogether.

Not until after we stopped receiving any kind of information from the outside world.

…

What emerged from the spike- no, the Spire that day was not a man, no matter how it looked, but a monster wearing the skin of one. It took over the town, killing or imprisoning anyone who disagreed or resisted, said it was to protect the sanctity of our culture and our independence against the government and the corporations.

Bullets flattened against its skin, it walked through fire unburned, one of our boys even tried to run it over with a patrol car… Barely made the thing flinch. No tool or weapon we had at our disposal could help us, and those who survived were all goners, one way or another.

Our home had become its own personal fiefdom.

I'm writing this now in my old journal from the foot of that blasted Spire, to tell our story so that others don't underestimate the danger of these things.

I don't know if there's anyone still out there anymore, and seeing all that's happened, I don't rightly feel like I know anything anymore.

My lieutenant will be taking it with him and the others as they try to make their way over to the city, both to find out why they went radio silent as well as to seek aid against this calamity.

As for me…

The Spire was willing to welcome me too.

And if it had been able to make our enemy into the unstoppable force that it now was, just maybe I could find something there too.

All it asked was one thing: 'Swallow your pride.'

I left my badge, my gun, and my uniform behind with the others. I wasn't the Sheriff anymore, just another man with no power to change the world around him. Our precious town might as well have been in ruins and I'd utterly failed in my duty beyond all recognition, I wasn't worthy of the title anyway. Not anymore.

And according to the Spire, that was enough. To abandon all that I'd staked my life on and to bid farewell to all that I'd known and trusted. To leave behind not only my possessions and comrades, but my very identity.

The pathway is clear now, I know well how to enter, though I can't say what I'll find on the inside of this horrible rock. If I'm honest with you, I suspect I may never come out of that terrible place, or maybe I will but what returns will only be my shell, a puppet controlled by something even worse than the new Tyrant of Crystal Falls.

But I have to try. I can't let this be, I can't just give up on this chance, however small it is.

This may be our only hope, and our only recourse.

Because deep down, I know whoever reads this won't be some Army General or the President. It won't be the head of the CIA or anyone else with power and influence.

No, I know deep down that this same occurrence is happening everywhere else too. The only thing those hopeful few who carry this message will find is more devastation and suffering. What little news we got before everything went dark suggested nothing less.

Still, I can't help but hope that maybe someone else will have found tremendous power in one of these unholy monuments, someone who is still alive on the inside, someone who is good and just, someone who exemplifies the ideals of humanity.

If you are that person? Then my badge and my firearm are yours, as is this journal and all of my collected notes, limited in value as they are. It may not be worth much in the end, but what it symbolizes means a lot to my people.

You could be the new Sheriff of Crystal Falls, no matter who you were in the past. You could be a protector, someone whom others depend on and respect. All you need to do is take back the town from the monster who's enslaved it.

It's a good life, and it's one worth fighting for.

I'd ask that you take my men with you. They're good sorts and dedicated to boot. They may not be able to topple a tree with their bare hands or remain untouched by a stick of dynamite, but they've got hearts and nerves of steel and they won't abandon the cause.

So please, consider it, won't you? If I'm right about what the rest of the world looks like, this might be your only chance at finding peace amongst the chaos.

The only chance for a lot of people, a beacon of freedom and hope in this wasteland we once called civilization, which is soon to be ruled by lunatics and beasts.

I know it's a long shot.

But a man has to have hope.

Goodbye.

---

 

[Some_guy_161]

Character Flaws

Click to shrink...

I think this should be put under Informational, not Voting.

 

[They Who Watch]

[X] Ascendant
Fuck sanity. Fuck being a mere Mortal begging for scraps. Fuck the nerd option.

We're marching up to the front door of The Spire and grabbing it by the balls to tear our vision onto the world.

Better Mode for the win.

 

[Tetra]

[X] Aspirant

Perhaps this is foolish but I'd like to retain our humanity, to the extent that we can.

 

[Maximum Power]

I'm thinking that it looks sort of as though Ascendant seems like the easier and more overtly potent option in a number of ways. Personally, I'm fond of a challenge, but I also wouldn't despair over you guys going for this stronger side of things.

On the other hand, Aspirant has more options and freedom it would seem, rather than being monofocused or hyper-specialized towards just tower climbing. I think it'll be cool to be able to use what we find there in new and interesting ways in the outside world!

Plus, look at what the Ascendant in my omake did, do you wanna be a mass-murderer?

I joke, of course.

But I say give both options some thought, either one can be cool. And you can still be hardcore as hell by choosing the harder option. Anyone gutsy enough to challenge a Spire despite not being it's favoured champion has to be a little crazy, but I find it admirable.

 

[Pyrurge]

[X] Ascendant
Let us make a Brutal, Hubristic Death Addict. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.