Just as the two of them took the first step onto the stairs, a notification appeared in front of them.
***
[You are about to enter Ulsal's challenge area.]
[Ulsal's First Labor- The Measure of Burden.]
[The Tower of Ulsal's Trail greets its first contestants. There is -One- challenge awaiting you upon entry to the upper floor. Proceed with caution.]
***
Kael's eyes narrowed instinctively, the translucent text floating there like a warning sign bolted into reality itself. The light from it made the dusty stairwell look even more dead than it already did. The air tasted stale, like old concrete and rust, and the whole building felt wrong, not in the way ruined places usually felt, but in the way a trap felt when you could not see the teeth yet.
"You see that?" John asked, voice low, almost reverent. Like the notification was a blessing and not a threat.
"Yeah," Kael said, eyes still fixed on the words. "Looks like you're right about that hidden piece thing…"
John's mouth curled into a smile that came too quickly, too naturally. Greed was clear in his eyes, bright enough to make the dim stairwell look darker by comparison. The notion of safety seemed absent from his face, as if the tower had reached into his skull and plucked it out like a bad habit.
"Then let's hurry up," John said, already shifting his weight forward, ready to climb.
"Wait," Kael said, following close behind him, not letting the distance grow. "Who's Ulsal?" he asked, even as his feet kept moving. The question came out casual, but it was not. The tower did not throw names around for nothing. It did not carve them into challenges for decoration.
"Don't know," John shook his head, not even slowing. "I only climbed up to the twenty-second floor, and it's probably not related to the normal tower anyway."
Kael doubted it, but he did not press. He watched John's back and kept his own breathing controlled, quiet. Unknown names in the tower usually meant one of two things. Either the tower was pulling from myths, from history, from some place beyond human memory, or it was pulling from something that had a reason to be remembered. Either option made Kael's skin itch.
Tower trials were not uncommon. In fact, they were some of the best hotspots for new adventurers, at least in the stories and in the scraps of information Kael had consumed. Trials meant rewards, and rewards meant acceleration. Weapons. Equipment. Resources. Hidden pieces. Sometimes even the one thing Kael had kept locked in his head like a prayer, the coveted elixir he wanted. The kind of item that could pull someone's life out of the mud and give it meaning again. A new lease on his mom's life.
But the reward's price was always equivalent to the difficulty of the challenge itself.
The tower did not hand out miracles without taking something for them.
Just as they reached the first floor, the building answered that thought like it had been listening. The ceiling behind them slammed down a massive metal gate, heavy enough that the impact vibrated through the steps under their feet. The sound rolled through the stairwell and died like it had been swallowed.
Locked.
No way out.
Kael felt that familiar tightening in his chest, the sense of being placed inside a box and having the lid sealed. John did not even flinch. If anything, he looked pleased, like a gambler watching the dealer finally start the hand.
Ahead of them, a dark passageway spread out.
Then, one by one, lights ignited in consecutive order from where they stood all the way into the distance. A line of illumination that raced forward, turning darkness into a corridor of pale glow. The path stretched so far that Kael's mind rejected it on instinct. It felt like hundreds of meters. A distance that should have been impossible inside a building that, from the outside, did not look large enough to contain it. It was like the tower had folded space and stapled it into place for the sole purpose of mocking common sense.
Kael stared at the hallway, trying to reconcile what he knew with what he was seeing.
But if that was what caught Kael's attention first, John was a different breed.
"Holy shit look at the weapons!" John's voice cracked with excitement, almost boyish in the worst possible way.
Kael's attention snapped toward where John was staring, and immediately he understood why the man's restraint had evaporated.
Display boxes.
Long glass rectangles stood atop raised platforms like altars, each one resting on a clean pedestal, each one lit from within, as if the items inside were being worshipped. The hall was lined with them. Not one or two. Dozens. More than that. A downpour of gear so sudden and so extravagant that it felt obscene.
Halberds of great length and cruel elegance. Swords of all shapes and forms, some wide and brutal, others slim and refined, their metal gleaming as if it had never known blood. Armors and shields, polished and pristine, as if the apocalypse outside had never touched them. Consumables from every branch, vials and flasks arranged neatly, relics that looked too old to be real, and what looked like books that seemed more deserving of note than any weapon there. Tomes with bindings that looked like they belonged in a cathedral or a vault, not in a hallway of death.
Kael's mind did not go to awe first.
It went to suspicion.
It was too much. Too clean. Too perfectly presented.
If the tower wanted to tempt someone, this was how it would do it. Not by offering a single prize.
By offering a feast and watching who choked on it.
Kael was still trying to think, still trying to feel the shape of the trap, when John jumped the gun.
John rushed toward the closest box like a starving man seeing food.
"WAIT!" Kael shouted, sharp enough that his own voice surprised him.
Too late.
John touched the glass.
A notification appeared in front of both of them.
[You have begun the challenge Measure of Burden.]
[You have 60 minutes to reach the other side of the building where the exit lies.]
[You may take whatever you wish from the hall of Burdens, but do know, you must bear what you take.]
[Items will disappear if not placed back or are worn in their corresponding box after 10 seconds.]
[Item will disappear once unequipped.]
The timer began ticking.