Regression of the Tower's Final Survivor-Chapter 61: The Elven Ghosts

The campfire crackled in the darkness, throwing dancing shadows across the ancient stones while the team sat in various states of exhaustion around its warmth.

They made camp in the temple courtyard because sleeping in the jungle meant waking up inside something’s stomach. The ruins offered walls, defensible positions, and the comforting presence of stone between them and whatever lurked in the trees. The pile of wood that used to be the Guardian Treant made excellent kindling.

Dante sat apart from the others, his back against a fallen column while he turned the Memory Fragment over in his hands. It looked like a shard of crystal, maybe three inches long, with swirling patterns inside that shifted when he tilted it toward the light.

"Are you going to stare at it all night, or are you going to use it?" Astrid asked through a mouthful of dried meat.

"I’m deciding."

"What’s to decide? It’s loot. You use loot."

"Memory Fragments don’t give you skills or stats." Dante held the crystal up, watching the patterns dance. "They give you memories. Someone else’s memories, usually extremely old and not designed for human minds. The last person I saw use one of these spent three days convinced he was a tree."

"A tree?"

"A very confused tree that kept trying to photosynthesize."

Astrid chewed slowly, processing that. "So it’s dangerous."

"Everything worthwhile is dangerous." Dante pocketed the fragment. "I’ll use it later, when we’re somewhere safe and I can afford to be useless for a while if it goes wrong."

"When are we ever somewhere safe?"

"Good point. Maybe never."

Ren laughed from across the fire, the sound warm and familiar even in this ancient, alien place. "You know, for someone who keeps insisting he doesn’t care about us, you spend a lot of time making sure we’re informed about risks."

"Informed subordinates make fewer stupid mistakes."

"Subordinates," Sera repeated with a small smile. "Is that what we are?"

"Would you prefer minions?"

"Team members," Ravenna suggested from where she sat with her knees pulled to her chest, her demon eyes reflecting the firelight like twin stars. "Partners. Friends, maybe."

Dante didn’t respond to that, just turned his attention to the murals on the nearest wall. The firelight made the carved images move, shadows filling the grooves and giving the ancient figures the illusion of life.

"Can you read more of them?" Leon asked, following his gaze. "The murals, I mean. You translated some in the temple, but there seemed like there was a lot more."

"There is." Dante stood and walked to the wall, running his fingers over script that was older than human language. "Most of it is historical record. Creation myths, founding stories, the usual civilization-building propaganda."

"Propaganda?" Leon asked.

"Every civilization tells itself stories about why it deserves to exist. The Sylvani were no different." He found a section that looked different from the rest, the carving deeper and more deliberate, like whoever made it wanted to make sure it survived. "But this part... this is something else."

The team gathered behind him, their shadows stretching across the ancient stone as they waited for him to continue.

"It’s called ’The Great Betrayal,’" Dante said, translating as he read. "It tells the story of how humans came to the Tower."

"We discovered it," Leon said. "Everyone knows that. The Tower appeared one day and humans started climbing it."

"That’s the version humans tell." Dante traced a figure in the mural, a crude representation of a human form surrounded by Sylvani who were clearly not welcoming it. "The Sylvani version is different. According to this, humans didn’t discover the Tower. They invaded it."

"Invaded?" Astrid leaned closer. "How do you invade a tower?"

"The same way you invade anything. You show up armed and you take what you want." Dante moved to the next panel, where the violence was explicit even in stylized carving. "The Tower existed for ages before humans found it, a sealed system that the Sylvani maintained and protected. Then something happened, some kind of dimensional breach that let creatures from outside slip through."

"Creatures like humans," Ravenna said quietly.

"Creatures like humans." Dante nodded. "We weren’t invited. We weren’t chosen. We were an infection that got through a crack in the walls, and by the time the Sylvani realized what was happening, we’d spread too far to contain."

The fire crackled in the silence that followed, the only sound in the ancient temple.

"So what happened to them?" Ren asked. "The Sylvani. If they were here first, where did they go?"

Dante found the final panel, the one that told the end of the story. The carving here was rougher, less precise, like whoever made it was working quickly or under duress.

"They didn’t go anywhere," he said slowly. "They’re still here. Or their ghosts are, anyway. The murals say that when the Sylvani realized they couldn’t stop human expansion, they did something drastic. They bound themselves to the Tower, became part of its operating system instead of its caretakers. They’re not dead, not exactly. They’re... integrated." 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"That’s horrifying," Sera whispered.

"That’s survival." Dante turned away from the murals. "When extinction is the alternative, people do whatever it takes to continue existing in some form. The Sylvani chose to become the Tower rather than let it fall to invaders."

"Is that what the Core is?" Ravenna asked, her eyes fixed on Dante’s chest like she could see through flesh and bone to the ancient power beneath. "A piece of them? A piece of the Sylvani that survived?"

"Maybe." It was as honest an answer as Dante could give. "The Core feels old. Older than anything I’ve ever encountered. And sometimes, when I use it, I get impressions of things I’ve never seen. Places I’ve never been. Emotions that don’t feel like mine."

"That’s not terrifying at all," Astrid muttered.

"I didn’t say it wasn’t terrifying. I said it was useful."

A sound cut through the jungle, sharp and sudden, and every hand went to a weapon immediately.

It was a scream. Human. Female. And very, very close.

"What the hell was that?" Leon was on his feet, spell already forming between his palms.

Another scream, this one more desperate, followed by sounds of combat, steel on something that definitely wasn’t steel.

"That’s coming from the northwest," Ren said, orienting toward the noise. "Maybe two hundred meters."

A third scream, and this time Astrid’s head snapped toward it with sudden recognition.

"I know that voice," she said. "That’s the girl. Seira. The healer who was following Leon’s old group."

Dante felt his jaw tighten. Of course it was. Of course the woman who betrayed him in another life, who broke his heart and left him for someone stronger, was now screaming for help in the middle of a jungle they had no business being in.

"She followed us," he said flatly, the anger bubbling under his calm facade. "All the way from Floor 11. Through a jungle that kills experienced climbers. She’s either incredibly determined or incredibly stupid."

"Does it matter?" Sera asked. "She’s in trouble."

"It matters because people who follow you without permission are usually planning something that requires them to be close." Dante didn’t move toward the sound. "She’s a liability. We don’t know her goals, her capabilities, or her loyalties."

"Her goals seem to be not dying right now," Ren pointed out. "And her capabilities probably include healing, which we could always use more of."

"She’s following someone she barely knows into dangerous territory. That’s obsessive behavior, not rational behavior."

The screaming intensified, and now Dante could hear other voices, shouts of alarm and pain that suggested Seira wasn’t alone. Her whole team was out there, probably the remnants of Leon’s old group who decided that whatever Dante was doing was worth risking death to be part of.

"Dante." Sera stepped toward him with that look in her eyes that meant she was about to say something he didn’t want to hear. "We could use another healer. Even a low-level one takes pressure off me in sustained combat. And if her team has tanks or damage dealers..."

"They have nothing I want."

"They have bodies that can hold a line while you do whatever it is you’re planning to do next." Sera held his gaze without flinching. "I know you have reasons to distrust her. I don’t know what they are, and I’m not asking. But people are dying out there, and we have the power to stop it."

Dante looked at her, then at the rest of the team who were very carefully not taking sides but whose body language screamed that they agreed with Sera.

He thought about Seira. About her smile, her warmth and the way she made him feel like maybe the Tower wasn’t just a meat grinder that produced corpses. About how she looked when she told him he wasn’t enough, would never be enough, and then walked away with the man she chose over him.

He thought about watching her die in the jungle because he refused to help, and how that would feel tomorrow, next week and in a year.

’She betrayed you,’ the cold part of his mind reminded him. ’She’ll do it again if you give her the chance.’

’She hasn’t done anything yet,’ another part countered. ’In this timeline, she’s just a girl who made the mistake of following us. You can’t punish her for crimes she hasn’t committed.’

"Fine," Dante said, his voice grating. "We rescue them. But they carry our bags and follow my orders without question. If anyone shows signs of disloyalty, I handle it personally."

"That’s fair," Sera agreed.

"That’s not fair at all," Ren muttered. "But I’ll take it."

Dante drew his sword and started toward the jungle, toward the screams and the woman who ruined him in a future that would never happen now.

"Stay in formation," he called over his shoulder. "And someone grab my pack. I have a feeling we’re about to adopt some strays."

The jungle swallowed them as they moved, the ancient temple falling behind while the sounds of combat grew louder ahead.

Dante wondered if saving her was wisdom or weakness. He suspected he’d find out soon enough.