She led us through a series of corridors, passed several doors that all read “Employees Only” for several minutes before picking one of the seemingly endless copies. She opened it and ushered us in. The security guards did not follow. The walls were a bland gray color, and the only thing the room contained was a large table and several chairs. There was a second door on the opposite wall from where we had come in.

  “Please take a seat. My boss should be with you shortly. It would behoove you to be entirely honest with him. Continuing the lies will get you nowhere,” she said, reminding me of an angry librarian, before exiting back the way we had come, shutting the door behind her.

  “Did I do something wrong?” I asked the brothers as we took our seats nearest to us.

  “Not really. As long as you weren’t lying to us, and that experience orb makes me think you weren’t. We can’t really fix what we didn’t know about. This could be a disaster, though. I’ve heard Spiral clerks can be giant assholes for no real reason,” Elicec answered first.

  “No panicking, Elicec. There’s a good chance everything works out fine once we explain what happened to Dave. Someone will help us,” Cecile said, calming his brother down slightly. I hoped he was right.

  After a short, silent wait, the door in front of us swung open to reveal a very small man with glasses carrying a large stack of paper. He closed the door behind him, pulled out a chair, and hopped up on it. After dropping the stack of paper on the table, he proceeded to stare at each of us for nearly a minute before he finally spoke.

  “Please show me the insignia,” he said, his stare finally focusing only on me.

  I raised my hand up and concentrated on myself again, letting the symbol and information pop into view. “Look, this is all my fault. These guys were just trying to help me, so whatever it is that’s going to happen, they shouldn’t be included,” I said, trying my best to save these two. Even if Elicec had been a bit less helpful at first, they had both gone out of their way to help a complete strange, they didn’t deserve to be punished for it.

  “While this insignia is still registered with the System, the head of the faction was removed from the Spiral. No one has seen anyone with this for much longer than any of you have been alive. Which makes me believe that had you somehow learned who this belonged to, you wouldn’t be stupid enough to also forge it in an attempt to gain free access to the Arena. That leaves me to conclude that you’ve met Sanquar and that he is still somehow alive,” the clerk said, still focusing on me, while he shuffled through some of his stack of paperwork.

  “Uh, maybe? I met a bird who gave me this and sent me here. It was during an Orc attack on my homeworld,” I stuttered, trying to get the words out, before I was cut off.

  “Why, though? Wait, don’t answer yet,” he said as he shuffled through several papers in one of the folders. The ink on the papers seemed to blur as I tried to make any of it out. “Yes, the only Orcish faction to win any universe prizes in the last month does match your origin. Oh,” he started laughing uncontrollably before speaking again. “The idiots, they lost track of him. They couldn’t even be bothered to keep track of something that important to them. Oh, this is just great.”

  “What…? I don’t understand. They lost track of who exactly?” I asked, feeling like I was missing half the conversation.

  “Yes, I suppose none of this would make any sense to you. Here is what I believe is going on. A very long time ago, millions of years by the way your planet would track time, there was an Arena fighter named Sanquar. He was and probably still is the best the Arena has ever seen. The details on what exactly comes next are fuzzy. I wasn’t high enough ranking at the time to really know what was going on, but somehow, he was branded a criminal and thrown into a universe devoid of mana as an eternal prison. That universe was supposed to be locked away and off-limits, but someone screwed up something and gave your universe away as a level-one Arena prize. You’re here because Sanquar used whatever mana he had managed to store up to magic you a possible safe location. I have no idea how he would have gotten the mana, but clearly, he did,” the clerk explained.

  “Okay, well, that explains a little, I guess, but what now? Are you going to remove the Orcs and let us have our world back?” I asked. It didn’t actually explain much. But I was still on the verge of a breakdown, so barely anything was making sense anymore. I was just hoping to get everything fixed by someone. Was it possible this really was all I had to do to save the world?

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  “Oh, no, it’s much too far along for that. You’ve been branded with his insignia, and you are here in the Spire. I can probably make this information disappear into the System for a few years, but eventually, it’ll hit the right person and set off real alarms. When that happens, you’re going to need to be capable of fighting. So what I’m going to do for now is register you with the System, like I would for any new contender. You’re going to get your standard six mana orbs and your choice of a training world. Are these two coming with you?” the clerk asked.

  “After that explanation, how can we not? Dave actually gets access to a real training world?” Cecile asked excitedly.

  “It wasn’t my original intention, but if Dave is really getting access to a training world due to the insignia, then yes, that sounds great,” Elicec added. What the hell was a training world anyway?

  “He is, and whoever left that thing active in the System is going to get all kinds of shit, assuming they are still alive. Okay, then, the only real question left for you three is what kind of training world you want to spend this time in. Dave’s insignia gives you access to primarily just some E and F-grade worlds. I suggest something that’s going to push magical abilities as quickly as possible. I also suggest you pick which orb to focus on as soon as you can; don’t waste time getting stuck in decision paralysis there,” the clerk further explained. I was so lost at this point. Why did those two even want to stick with me? What the hell was going on?

  I was getting quite desperate and confused at the deluge of random terms that seemed to mean something to anyone but me. "Can someone please just explain to me what exactly a training world is?”

  “A training world is where new climbers are given some time to acclimate themselves to the System’s path and learn how they want to build their way into it. Without an insignia, it’s harder to get access to a certified one, but not impossible. As I said, you’ve got some choices there, but I strongly recommend a heavy combat world. You’re going to need the training,” the clerk answered. I didn’t know if that was true. The idea of just physically training myself sounded like hell. My knees barely worked as it was.

  “Are there other options? I’m not a young man, and I just can’t do some kind of insane physical training to prepare for something I don’t even understand. Is there a school or something I can start with? I can’t just pick a mana orb to focus on if I don’t even understand what they are,” I said. If I had any chance of getting anywhere in wherever here was exactly, I needed a chance to really learn. Was that an option here? There had to be some system for education, right?

  “There is a single D-Grade archival world you have access to, but I’m not really sure it’s the best plan. There's a reason knowledge worlds sometimes come at lower ranks. While there will likely be at least a few combat-related quests you could pick up, it’s doubtful they will challenge you the entire time you’re there.” The clerk had a look of begging me not to choose it in his eyes.

  “I understand if Cecile and Elicec would rather pick something else, but I’m going to have to go there. My brain doesn’t work on everything being total unknowns. If you say I have to train, then I also need to learn everything I can about whatever the training is for. You have to understand I was eating breakfast happily ignorant that any of this existed a few hours ago, and now I’m on the verge of a complete meltdown from anxiety,” I said, explaining my case as best I could at the moment.

  “If that’s where we’re going, that’s where we’re going. Normally, we wouldn’t get years of practice, so this is a pretty big boon for us either way,” Cecile answered for both of them.

  “Alright, archival world it is. Then, I guess my only other piece of advice is to read a little about core construction. At the very least, the extra time to study should let you make a stronger core than the average newbie. It won’t be much, but it might get you through the first floor of the arena with a lot of luck. Now follow me.” The clerk hopped down from his chair and opened the door he’d come in through. Like many of the conversations so far, it left me more confused than I had been before it. I would need to make a list of priority topics to read about, and hopefully manage to settle my brain down to be able to do the reading. Dammit, was this all even real?

  He didn’t wait to see if we were following before disappearing through the exit, leaving us to play catch-up with him. Despite the man’s short legs, he moved quite fast, and by the time we caught up to him, he was already sitting in a new chair, pushing several pieces of paperwork in front of the chairs we were clearly expected to sit in. “Fill these out. Feed them into the terminal over there, and then, and I stress only then, open this door and walk through. You’ll find yourself in the training world once you’re through. Good luck, oh, and by the way, in case we do ever meet again, I’m Pryte.”

  “Thanks, I think,” I called to Pryte as he left through the door we had just come in through. I was reasonably sure the man had put his neck on the line slightly to help us, not that I understood why or even how, for that matter.

  “I call first through the door!” Cecile said loudly.

  “You can have it, but that makes Dave last,” Elicec replied.

  “I’m okay with that; I took your place in line anyway and got us all into this situation. You may as well go before me this time,” I said as I started to fill out the paperwork. Just how much training was he thinking I needed? And when did I get these mana orbs he was talking about?

  The spire occupies the outermost rings of the Spiral Tower and is where the vast majority of visitors enter the tower. It handles everything from licensing, inspections, and Arena registration. Some of the lines have been known to take years to reach the front of, so it is strongly recommended to hire a proxy if possible.

  An excerpt from A Visitor's Guide to the Spiral Tower by Greg.

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