"You're too foolish to not even realize it… that wasn't a trial that anyone was supposed to pass!" the rabbit said. The words dropped hard, heavier than the shouting. Kael's stomach tightened. Supposed to. That was a phrase that implied design, intention, a script the Tower expected him to follow.
"What do you mean?" Kael asked. He kept his tone sharp, but inside his thoughts were churning. If it wasn't supposed to be passed, why did it present itself like a trial? Why did it reward him? Why did the system congratulate him? His mind began to suspect the answer before it was spoken, and he didn't like where that suspicion pointed.
"The trial of Ulsal, he's throwing a damn fit right now, you took an item of his." The rabbit's irritation turned sharper at the name, like it had personal grievances attached. Fit. Item of his. Kael's brain snagged on the phrasing because it implied Ulsal wasn't some dead figurehead. It implied ownership, personality, anger. An entity.
But why would an administrator intervene if the Tower allowed the reward? Could there be some back-dealing that the rabbit is engaging in? with entities like the gods offering the trials? The thought itself was like a cold bucket of water on a winter night.
"Wasn't the trial supposed to reward people who clear it a trial?" Kael asked. He hated how reasonable the question sounded, like he was arguing with a customer service rep about a refund, when the rabbit had just offered to erase his existence.
"That is if they were meant to take it in the first damn place! You weren't! And YOU TOOK TWO!" Torrac's voice climbed again, and Kael could feel the pressure of it even in the paused world.
Two. Kael's mind flashed briefly to the hammer and the rune, to the way both had sat there waiting like they belonged to him, to the way the system had slid them into his inventory without hesitation. This confirmed his earlier thought, someone wasn't intending on playing 'fair' and they're using the rabbit as a mean to extort and fear.
Kael began analyzing, first of all, there was a lot of info from what the rabbit just said. One of them was the fact that Ulsal is probably a living entity in this tower, since it 'threw a fit'. The second was that the trial is apparently not as simple as it was supposed to be and maybe there is more to than simply collecting cursed gear.
He felt his thoughts stretch out in multiple directions at once, each one unpleasant. If Ulsal was real, then taking "his" items might have consequences beyond angry goblins. If trials could exist that weren't meant to be passed, then the Tower wasn't just testing people. It was curating outcomes. Maybe the Tower's way to retaliate against interference from entities like Ulsal was doing stuff like this… taking away their things?
"Explain, man. I'm pretty lost right now." Kael forced the words out without softness. If Torrac wanted to act like Kael was an idiot for not knowing the rules no one explained, Kael would at least demand the explanation directly.
"Just use your head a bit, do you think that legendary gear is something you can find everywhere?" Torrac snapped. The rabbit's annoyance had that familiar bureaucratic flavor to it, like Kael was wasting its time by existing incorrectly.
"I suppose not, it wouldn't be legendary if so." Kael replied. He kept his face neutral, but his grip tightened again. This was the same logic he'd used when he first saw the hammer's rating. Legendary meant freakishly rare. And freakishly rare meant power. Power meant people died for it. Now he was being told power also meant breaking the Tower's internal economics, something doesn't add up.
"That hammer you have, that's something that you're only supposed to see in floor 40. And the rune… well, that's a different matter altogether. Give them up. Right now!" The demand came hard at the end, like a gavel slamming down. Kael felt irritation flare because the rabbit was acting like it had authority over Kael's inventory, like Kael was a child who had stolen candy.
"Are you mad?" Kael asked. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. The question was blunt enough.
"I'm very sane right now, you'll break the balance of this tower if you use that thing! Give it, right now!" Torrac barked back, and the phrase break the balance made Kael's lips twitch with bitter amusement. Balance. As if the Tower cared about fairness. As if the Tower wasn't a machine built to grind people into whatever shape it preferred.
"Do I have to?" Kael asked. He watched Torrac's face closely, waiting for the answer to reveal itself in body language if it wouldn't in words.
The rabbit opened its mouth and closed it again. That silence was an answer by itself. It wasn't "yes," and it wasn't "I'll kill you if you don't." It was frustration. Constraint. Limits.
Kael smiled, "Seems like I don't have to." The smile didn't come from joy. It came from the small satisfaction of finding a seam in authority, a place where an admin's tantrum ended and the rules began.
"I'll give you enough currency to clear the floor, right now. Fifty cores!" Torrac blurted, pivoting fast from threat to bribery like that was a normal escalation path. Kael could almost see the frantic calculations behind its eyes, like it was trying to throw money at a fire.
"That's not enough buddy, not to mention I need way more than just that if I want to leave." Kael shot back. He wasn't negotiating for fun. He was anchoring the conversation to reality. Fifty cores wasn't "clear the floor" money; it was "maybe buy time" money. And the rabbit's claim sounded less like a promise and more like wishful thinking.
"What?" the Rabbit asked and twisted his monocle. "For god's sake why is someone who never went to the normal tower has THAT MAP! AND FOR FUCKING FIFTY CORES LOAN! BALTAAAAAAK!" The outburst shook the paused air in a way that felt illegal. Kael's eyebrows rose despite himself. The rage was so disproportionate it circled into comedy for half a second, like watching a nobleman lose his mind because a peasant used the wrong spoon for soup.
…and immediately an imp showed up right next to kale completely bewildered on what just happened. It blinked rapidly, wings fluttering in short anxious bursts, eyes darting from the rabbit to Kael and back again like it had been dragged out of a nap and dropped into court.
"Administrator? Did you order a Pause? What happened, and why am I here?" The imp's voice had that strained politeness of someone trying very hard not to die at work.
"Did you sell this man a golden map!" the rabbit asked. The demand was sharp enough that the imp physically flinched.
"Well, yes…" The imp admitted, shrinking slightly as if hoping its own body could reduce the damage of the confession.
"And why did you sell him an item that's worth more than a billion-soul core FOR FIFTY CORES!" Torrac's shout had the force of someone hearing a priceless artifact was traded for pocket change. Kael watched the imp carefully now; this was new information, and it reframed the "map" as something far more dangerous than he'd originally thought.
"Ah… about that…"