VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 95: The Tower of Mystica

The rest of her shift as the Val-bot was ultimately uneventful.She took a little time to answer messages that she had received from Percy, seemingly when he was in the shower, as he told her his city and gave some suggestions of things they could do together.

But besides that, little of value happened, unless you count one particularly tough stain on the floor and the battle to dust the high shelf.

Believe it or not, hours of cleaning and housekeeping were not all that entertaining. There was a reason she always listened to music or streams in the background while working.

Percy lived alone, so when he was in Dawd there was no one to talk to, not that she was ever expecting to do such in her line of work anyways. But once she got a taste of it, it unintentionally made the rest of her shift boring by comparison, even if they didn’t do very much talking to begin with.

Of course it was definitely the conversation that she was missing. It couldn’t possibly be anything else, that would be ridiculous.

When her shift was finally over, she placed the bot back in its charging dock and logged off. But not without leaving a few snacks and fresh cans of D-fuel next to Percy for when he woke up.

She practically tore off her work equipment, tossing it down and cracking open a D-fuel for herself. Valerie immediately chugged it, not even thinking about breathing until she had downed the whole can, before tossing it to the side into her own growing pile of cans.

She fought the brief wave of dizziness and slight headache that poor decision bought her, before climbing into her extra comfy dream chair and diving into Dawd herself.

***

Belladonna lifted herself from her resting place on the floor and headed out of the Inn, making sure to pay for a few more nights just so they had a place to log out, before heading out into the city once more.

Her forum research this time had paid off quite well. The players were still exploring the world, discovering new things about it as time went on.

In most games that would simply be a ’fog of war’ covering the map that hid the objective markers or flashing indicators until you went there or pressed a button atop a tall tower. But Dawd had no map to begin with, not unless you bought one.

And thankfully some industrious players had done exactly that. It was only a map of their respective countries, as world Atlas’ were harder to come by, and most of them were crude maps with poor scaling.

They were mostly drawn for merchants, so they relied heavily on drawings of landmarks rather than measurements, which did give them a strange charm with the doodles of mountains and strange trees on them.

However the information they could glean from these maps, for example, let Belladonna know that Rowdan, the city in which Percy had spawned, as in the same country as her own and was a few days travel away by cart.

It, the forums and not the map, also gave her information on the mage tower Percy had mentioned, which was where she was headed now. Not only did it contain knowledge on magic which would increase her main stat and give her more spells - and hopefully glyphs - to work with, it also had a request board of its own, mainly revolving around the collection of magical components.

That was like three birds with one stone. It was hard to argue with that many birds.

The tower in question was found at the edge of the merchants district, where it was nothing but fancy stores fitting for nobles. The type of stores with expensive things that were only expensive for the sake of it, so they could be displayed as a sign of how wealthy the owner was because they could waste this much money on a strange looking fruit.

It was the medieval version of the fancy, unusable hand chairs. Really, nothing changed about the wealthy.

But it was here at the edge that a three story tall, cylindrical building was situated. It stood out as an oddity amongst the more traditionally square buildings, not just for its shape. The merchants buildings were glamorous and decorated extravogently so that they overflowed with wealth.

The tower, on the other hand, was plain and basic. Just stone slabs stacked in a circle, topped with a slanted roof and with a simple wooden door above which there was a sign that read,

’Tower of Mystica’

They didn’t even use a fancy font for it. It was... underwhelming to say the least. The building looked barely big enough for a few dozen people at a time.

When she stepped forwards and tried to enter the bland tower, at least to get a quick look around, the door refused to move. It didn’t even shudder, as if it was restrained by a lock, instead it was as sturdy and solid as the wall itself.

A few seconds later, words woven from pure mana manifested along the wood of the door, spelling out a simple message in the worlds language that her system helpfully translated.

"Only those that have tread upon the path of Mystica may enter its tower. Prove that you belong, and become one of its members."

It didn’t take a genius to figure that riddle out. Belladonna pulled a few slivers of mana from her source, channelling it through her body and into her hand. It took a little more effort for her than it would most mages, but she channelled the mana from her hand and into the door handle until she heard a heavy clunk and the door swung inwards.

It creaked loudly as it did so, as if it had intentionally been left unoiled for the dramatics of it all. An entirely real possibility. Where there was magic, there were those who loved a dramatic flair.

However as she stepped inside, Belladonna realised just how right she was about the flair, and just how dreadfully wrong she had been about the tiny tower.

A smile spread across her lips and her eyes sparkled at the sight as she muttered softly,

"I love magic."