The interior of the Ivory Tower was not a room. It was a throat.
Aryan, Mira, Rhea, Sarah, and the massive, silent Siege-Engine (the First Son) stood at the base of a staircase that spiraled upward into a dizzying, infinite darkness. The walls were not made of stone or brick, but of Floating Text. Glowing white sentences hung in the air, describing the very actions the group was taking.
"The intruders hesitated," a sentence floated past Aryan's head. "They looked up at the impossible climb, their hope dwindling like a dying candle."
Aryan reached out and swiped his mahogany hand through the text, scattering the words into meaningless letters. "Stop narrating us," he growled at the empty air. "We're not reading. We're climbing."
The staircase itself was a nightmare of architecture. It was made of floating marble slabs, but every ten steps or so, a step was missing. These were literal Plot Holes.
When Barnaby the fish peered over the edge of one such gap, he didn't see the ground below. He saw a swirling vortex of static.
"I say," Barnaby gulped, his fins trembling in his bowl. "Do not look into the gaps! I just saw a version of myself where I was a hamster named Steve. It was a terrifyingly mundane existence. No dignity in a wheel, I tell you."
"Stay focused," Aryan commanded, leading the way. "Jump over the holes. Don't let the narrative drag you down."
They began the climb. The First Son, despite his immense size, moved with a surprising, eerie grace. He didn't jump; he simply stepped over the gaps, his heavy wooden feet finding purchase on the air itself, as if his sheer refusal to fall created a floor beneath him.
But the Architect was watching. And he was getting bored with the genre.
The Slapstick Shift
Suddenly, the air in the tower changed. The solemn, terrifying atmosphere vanished. The lighting shifted from a dramatic, moody shadow to a flat, overly bright Technicolor. A jaunty, fast-paced tuba music began to play from nowhere.
"What is that noise?" Rhea asked, covering her ears. "It sounds like... a circus?"
"Oh no," Sarah whispered, looking at her hands. Her hands had turned into cartoonish, four-fingered blobs. "He's changed the genre. We're in Slapstick."
Before Aryan could react, a massive 10-Ton Anvil materialized out of thin air above his head.
WHOOSH.
Aryan looked up just in time. His battle instincts screamed at him to use the Chisel or the Mahogany Arm. He raised his arm to block.
CLANG!
The anvil hit him. But instead of crushing his skull, it flattened him into a disc for exactly one second before he popped back up with a vibrating BOING sound, birds circling his head.
"I..." Aryan shook his head, the birds dissipating. "I feel ridiculous."
"It's the physics of comedy!" Barnaby shouted, who was now wearing a spinning propeller hat. "Pain is temporary! Dignity is non-existent! Look out!"
The stairs beneath them greased themselves. Literally. A bucket of oil spilled from nowhere.
Mira slipped. But she didn't fall to her death. She slid down the bannister at impossible speed, her legs flailing in the air, while a slide-whistle sound effect played: WHEEEEEEEE!
"Aryan!" she screamed, but it sounded like a sped-up chipmunk.
"I've got you!" Aryan yelled. He tried to run, but his feet spun in place for three seconds—creating a cloud of dust—before he actually gained traction.
He grabbed Mira's hand just as she was about to fly off the edge. The momentum swung them around, and they slammed into the wall, flattening against it like stickers. They peeled themselves off slowly, with a loud RIP sound.
"This is humiliating," Mira said, looking at her dress, which was now polka-dotted. "I fought the Weaver. I fought the Master. And now I am being defeated by a banana peel?"
"We have to stop taking it seriously!" Sarah realized. "Comedy feeds on resistance. If we try to be cool, we get hurt. We have to be... funny."
"I am not funny," the First Son's voice boomed—or rather, a text bubble appeared over his head saying GRUMPY ROAR.
"Just walk silly!" Rhea shouted. She began to do an exaggerated, high-stepping walk. The grease on the stairs ignored her.
They scrambled up the rest of the Slapstick Section, dodging flying pies and exploding cigars, until the bright colors suddenly faded. The tuba music died with a mournful womp-womp.
The shadows returned. The air grew cold and heavy. They had survived the comedy, but they had entered something far worse.
The Mirror of Insecurity
The stairs leveled out onto a wide landing. There were no more steps upward. The path was blocked by a massive door made of Polished Obsidian.
There was no handle. There was no keyhole. There was only a reflection.
But when Aryan looked into the black mirror, he didn't see himself. He saw a version of himself that was small, human, and utterly alone.
"To rise," the Architect's voice whispered, sounding like rustling paper, "you must answer the question: What is the lie you tell yourself to sleep?"
"A psychological puzzle," Aryan murmured. "He wants to break us emotionally since he couldn't break us physically."
Mira stepped forward. She looked into the obsidian.
In the reflection, she saw herself back in the glass case of the Weaver's palace. She saw a puppet.
"The lie," Mira whispered, her voice shaking. "The lie is that... I believe I am human. But deep down, I am terrified that I am just a ghost haunting a stolen heart. I fear that one day, Aryan will wake up and realize he loves a doll."
As she spoke the words, the obsidian rippled. The truth was painful, but speaking it robbed it of its power. A crack appeared in the door. Mira felt a weight lift off her chest—not the Heart of Flesh, but the fear of it.
Aryan took her hand. "You are real, Mira. Your fear proves it. Dolls don't worry about being real."
Now it was Aryan's turn. He looked into the black glass.
He saw the "Sleepless" version of himself. He saw the fire in his eyes. He saw the constant need to fight.
"The lie," Aryan said, his voice rough. "The lie is that I want this war to end. The truth is... I don't know who I am without the struggle. I traded 'Peace' not just to save the world, but because I am afraid of the quiet. If the war ends, I'm just a boy who lost his family. As long as I fight, I don't have to grieve."
Rhea looked at her brother, tears streaming down her face. She finally understood why he couldn't rest. It wasn't duty. It was trauma masquerading as heroism.
The obsidian door cracked further, a spiderweb of fractures spreading across the surface.
Then, the First Son stepped forward. The Siege-Engine.
He had no voice. He had been bleached. What lie could a weapon tell?
He looked into the mirror. The reflection showed the Iron Forest. It showed him holding the roof up for centuries.
The First Son raised his massive hand. He couldn't speak, so he carved his answer into the floor with a screech of wood on stone.
I AM NOT A BROTHER. I AM A SHIELD. IF I AM A BROTHER, I CAN DIE. IF I AM A SHIELD, I CANNOT.
The lie was that he had sacrificed his humanity to be strong enough to protect them. He denied his own soul to be useful.
Rhea walked up to the giant. She placed her hand on his white, wooden arm. "You are both," she whispered. "And you are allowed to break."
The obsidian door shattered.
The Librarian's Desk
The shards of the door dissolved into ink. Behind it lay a massive, circular room lined with books that breathed. In the center of the room sat a desk that seemed to be miles away and right in front of them at the same time.
Sitting at the desk was not the Architect.
It was a small, hunchbacked creature made of Red Tape. It was shuffling papers at lightning speed.
"Ticket?" the creature squeaked, not looking up. "You cannot confront the Architect without a Form 404-B: Request for Climax."
"We just climbed a spiral of plot holes and survived a slapstick anvil," Aryan said, stepping forward, his patience evaporating. "I am done with bureaucracy."
"We don't have a ticket," Mira said, stepping up beside Aryan, her dress still slightly polka-dotted but her dignity restored. "We have a deadline."
The Red Tape creature looked up. It saw the burning amber in Aryan's eyes. It saw the Siege-Engine looming behind them. It saw the Fish in the bowl wearing a propeller hat.
"Irregular," the creature muttered, stamping a piece of paper. "Highly irregular. The Architect is in the Dome of Drafts. Floor 100. But be warned..."
The creature leaned forward, its paper-body rustling.
"He is not alone. He has summoned the Protagonist from the Previous Draft."
Aryan froze. "The previous draft?"
"You didn't think you were the first attempt, did you?" the creature sneered. "The Architect has tried to write this story a thousand times. The last hero... he didn't make it. And he's very jealous of your success."
The creature pointed a paper finger toward a dark elevator shaft at the back of the room.
"Meet Vikrant. The Hero who failed."