Chapter 6- trial of perseverance

{Floor two mission- climb to the top of the mountain and enter the portal.}

Looking at the mission for the floor, Troy decided to put it on hold so he could look at the scenery. In front of him was a mountain, which he guessed was about 15,000 feet. It was covered in trees up to about 10,000 feet, after which the trees thinned out, leaving the last 1,000 feet of the mountain bare of any foliage.

At the base of the mountain, where Troy was currently at, there was a pine forest. Looking back at the mountain, Troy could already see a few people climbing it. Starting to hike up the mountain, he could already see the trails of others who ran up the mountain. Most likely some vagabonds who didn't learn about the second floor.

It took Troy nearly three hours to even see an enemy. It was a bird, flying so high it was out of the range of appraisal. It looked like a falcon or eagle, but it was flying so high it was impossible to tell. It was a reflective gray, which was strange, but if it wasn't going to attack him, he wouldn't care.

Around the time when the sun was reaching its apex, Troy found a cave. 'Strange,' he thought, 'I've never heard of there being a cave on floor two.' Going inside, Troy followed a winding path. After an hour of walking, the temperature started to rise, and he felt fatigue. Getting a drink from the water ring, he continued on. Eventually he found himself in a massive cave. It was so big he wouldn't doubt it was below the mountain, for it seemed the mountain would cave-in if this was in it.

In the center, there was a raised platform, and a circle with a bunch of strange lines going through it. Curious, Troy stepped onto the platform. The circle flashed brightly, and Troy was in a different space.

He was floating in the air. He could not move or interact with anything, like he was a spectator. Looking around he saw the platform. It was in the open air beneath a blue sky, and not buried in the earth. The circle was still there, along with a podium. On the podium, a book was stored. In front of the podium, a person was talking in a language Troy couldn't understand, and that sounded nothing like any he had ever heard. They looked human, but something was off with them. Whatever it was, Troy was unable to figure it out.

Looking beyond the platform with the podium, he saw rows upon rows of chairs, with smaller beings sitting on them. They looked excited. Around the area was a group of adults. The smaller ones were wearing the same clothes, but he did not know what they meant.

Looking back to the podium, he saw the person there lifting a book, and saying something, but he was interrupted by the ground around the area shattering. Everybody started screaming, and then everything faded to black.

Coming back to himself Troy steadied himself, trying to fight off the nausea he was feeling. "What the hell was that," Troy asked out loud, while inwardly pondering what it meant, but was taken out of his thoughts by the sound of something heavy dropping.

Turning around, he found the podium from the vision. It was tipped over on its side, the book it was holding had fallen off and slid to the edge of the raised platform. Picking up the book, it had the same circle with the lines running through it as the platform, along with some other symbols he assumed to be written language. Tumbling through the book, it contained what he assumed to be the parts that made up the circle and their explanations, but he couldn't understand them. Using appraisal on it didn't help much either.

{Ancient book of ????- ?????????}

Putting it away in his storage ring, Troy decided to keep it as maybe he could figure out what it meant after research. Looking back at the platform and around the cave to make sure he didn't miss anything, Troy left the cave the way he came.

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The second troy picked up the book, a being that looked like one of the children in the vision looked around, before shaking his head and smiling before going back to their work.

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When he left the cave, it was past noon. He restarted the hike up to the top, coming across no creatures or monsters. It was peaceful, up until he got to the tree line. This is where the problems began.

Stepping into the barren area above the tree line, he found himself back behind the tree line. This was the hard part of the second floor, known as the trial of perseverance. It is often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. This trial had made many an insane man, as the way to get past it was to keep walking past the tree line and hope you found yourself at the top of the mountain.

Continuing his walk, Troy went past the tree line again, only to find himself behind the tree line. Again, and again, and again, and again. He repeated this process, even as the sun began its descent towards the west. It took thousands of attempts, and at points Troy even wanted to give up.

As the sun was setting, his perseverance finally paid off and after stepping out of the tree line, he found himself on top of the mountain. The peak was flat, and in the middle stood a frame of some sort. This was the portal, and it would only open when everybody had made it past the tree line, or had given up. There were nearly two thousand people on top of the mountain.

Giving a rough estimation that about 5000 people entered the tower this time, with the frenzy upping the death rate from 45% to 60%, the people who were currently on the mountain top would be the only ones to survive to the fifth floor. Some of them would be too confident and get themselves killed against the monsters on floor 5, others would be too unconfident in their own abilities to continue climbing the tower, and would reach the maximum level thy could on floor 5 before leaving the tower and protecting the small farming villages outside the haven cities against the attacks of the horrors that called earth home. Maybe 10% of those that entered in this batch would continue climbing the tower, only 1% of those arriving at the settlement on floor 15. Two weeks after Troy's batch entered the tower, they would arrive at floor 5 and the doors of floor 1 would open to the next group of unfortunate souls to enter. A vicious and cruel cycle that would continue until humanity was nothing but another layer in the earth's layers.

It was almost 2 in the morning by the time the portal opened up. Only 3,500 people had showed up, and the next floor was one of the most deadly in the first 10 floors, the floor of disasters.