Tower of Avarice: A LitRPG story

Emily sat quietly in the passenger seat as her mother drove into the familiar suburban sprawl of her childhood. The houses hadn't changed; they still had the same peeling shutters, and she saw the same cracked sidewalks.

The place felt hollow now, like a set on a stage that had been long abandoned. Her mother spoke to her in short bursts, filling the silence with a discussion about her recollections regarding the neighbours, her distant cousins and a garden that Emily didn't remember planting.

Emily nodded and smiled when appropriate, but her thoughts were a million miles away. Her mother had insisted on driving back from New York, something she hadn't been able to do in months since her health had worsened.

To everyone in their hometown, it would have seemed as if they had just left and returned in a single day, with her mother having regained her health in that short period of time. Barely any time had passed at all for them.

But for Emily, it had been so long that she felt as if she were an entirely different person.

The house smelled the same, filled with cinnamon and old books and baked goods left by Emily's extended family. Her old room was untouched, down to the faded posters on the walls and the books she used to swear she would reread someday.

She tried to fall back into her old rhythms and routines: having brunch with her mother or coffee with old friends. But she found herself taking solitary walks around the lake near her house. It was difficult, and she felt as if the world she knew no longer spoke the same language.

Her friends would stare at her like she was a stranger wearing Emily's face, and she found she could barely remember anything about them. Bits and pieces here and there, but most of her life before the Tower was a blur.

Even speaking to her mother felt foreign to her. No one asked her questions about the Tower, and no one understood what had happened to her. What she had left behind or what she had become.

After a few weeks of trying to wear the skin of her past self, Emily stood in her bedroom with her things packed away and a note for her mother tucked carefully under a book on her desk, the corner sticking out so she knew she would see it.

She knew her mother was going to be alright and that she would approve of what she was doing. But Emily found it easier to say everything she needed to say in a letter. Even after all that time in the Tower, she felt like a coward in so many ways.

Not speaking to her mother, not stopping Mathew when he sacrificed himself for her.

Emily didn't cry when she left. There wasn't any sadness, no remorse. There was only the sharp clarity of knowing that she didn't belong in this world. This wasn't her home.

She returned to Central Park under a bright blue sky. The city was buzzing with activity around her, and the Tower still loomed over everything just where it had been when she left. The crowds had thinned now, and the novelty of watching the Tower had worn off, although she had heard several people had come out of the Tower.

Although, unlike her, they had reached the top and achieved their dreams and wishes. The news had been going crazy about people having incredible wealth, supernatural physical abilities, and even unsurpassed beauty.

It was only a handful of the millions who had entered, but most people were more than willing to try despite the stories the survivors had of the struggles to climb the Floors, the untold deaths and the gods who ruled over everything inside.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

The Tower was changing this world in so many ways, but it was still the same Earth it had always been to her. People still talked about the same problems and went about their lives in the same old way.

Emily stepped through the grass, her boots sinking slightly into the earth until the Tower's door opened once more for her, and it welcomed her like a long-lost friend.

The moment she entered the Tower, the air changed. It thickened in some way and was charged with energy that reminded her of the stillness before a storm. The interior was unchanged and still as empty as ever, except for the young woman in a grey suit who was waiting for her at the far end of the room.

She sat at a desk in front of the elevators with her hands folded neatly in front of her as if she had been waiting patiently in the same position since Emily had left, like a statue waiting for the command to come to life.

"Welcome back, Emily." The young woman said, her voice smooth and professional. She didn't show any sign of being surprised to see her.

Emily didn't respond. She didn't need to since it was clear the woman already knew why she was here and what was expected of her. With a slight tilt of her head, the grey-suited woman gestured toward the elevators behind her.

"You'll need to begin from the first Floor again. The Tower doesn't permit shortcuts. The Tower remembers your climb, of course, so you will not be following a similar path this time."

Emily looked past her toward the plain metallic elevator doors where her mother had left a few weeks before and which she had entered a lifetime ago. She gave the young woman a small nod and walked toward the elevators, which opened with a faint hiss.

"Good Luck. I hope you find Mathew. He has become…memorable." The young woman said just as Emily stepped into the elevator and the doors shut behind her.

Page Break

Emily's second ascent through the Tower of Avarice was nothing like the first. Time lost its shape inside its walls. Days became years, and years became centuries. She fought through collapsing labyrinths of bone and steel, crossed oceans suspended in the air, and survived storms of Aether that burned the heavens themselves.

She saw things that were almost inconceivable. She met celestial creatures that spoke in music that could change the universe around them with a verse. There was a forgotten god that had been buried beneath endless ice and longed for freedom.

Emily relearned magic in a crucible of constant conflict, drawing upon it from the mana inside her, from incantations and dusty tomes. She took everything that was offered by the Tower and demanded more. Her body changed as it became honed through combat and reforged with spells of resilience and speed. She wore armour made from dragon scales and a cloak forged from starlight.

Her mind was sharped into something capable of weaving strategies through impossible odds, and her spirit, which had once been frayed and fragile, was vast and ancient.

She wasn't the same person who had walked into the Tower all those years before, the person who wasn't confident in her ability to succeed. The person who had chosen the easy way, the sure-fire way, of resurrecting her mother.

That version of her was dead and buried, and what remained was something more when she arrived on the 87th Floor of the Tower of Avarice.

Here, the sky burned violet, and the ground seethed beneath her feet. Mountains of black glass jutted from the earth like fangs, surrounding the home of a Demigod.

It was a monster of shadow and fire, a chaotic blend that made it difficult to focus on. Smoke bled from its body like ink in water, and its limbs burned with black flames that devoured everything it touched. When she faced it, she could feel the Buzz screaming a warning in her mind to run away and never look back.

Emily didn't answer it. Instead, she drew mana into her palms and weaved a spell faster than thought. Mana-laced runes bloomed across her skin like constellations, each one a sigil of power learned through centuries of trials.

Her eyes glowed a brilliant green in the dim light as she launched a bolt of condensed light that tore through the smoke surrounding the Demigod. It was like a streak of starlight shooting across the sky as it slammed against the Demigod's molten flesh.

It howled with a sound that shattered obsidian mountains and sent lava spraying into the sky. It countered with a tidal wave of fire, but Emily bent the space around her. The fire split like a river around a rock, devouring the ground beneath as it travelled.

They clashed like gods or demons. She used precision against its fury, her control and mastery of magic against its raw, unbridled power. The battle raged across the land until it felt as if the entire world was quaking under the weight of their fight.

And when the Demigod finally fell, its body dissolved into ash that was carried away by the wind. Emily stood next to it; her body battered as she absorbed the Aether from its defeat and grew stronger for it.

The sky cleared overhead, and the sun finally shone on the land. But Emily didn't enjoy it. She was already entering the Elevator.

The 88th Floor was waiting.