The Tower

A world where people are far crueler and greedier than anyone inside the Tower. A world where you can't expect even the scraps that flow down from the apex, where there are no warm beds or clean water. Where survival is almost nothing but luck. Where animals and [[Outdoorsmen]] roam unchecked.\n\nA world that quite a few people go to - people who fall all the way to the bottom, people who go through a window, or people who just get sick of it all - but that almost nobody returns from.\n\nSome people think that it sprung up around the Tower, formed from the anger and jealousy of those that could never get higher. Others claim the Tower was built as a refuge, protection from the horrors that exist in the wilds. A few think that it's a misunderstood paradise, that life out there would be better, that one could even befriend the Outdoorsmen if they bothered - but they're just a bunch of crackpots, and for obvious reasons, they tend to leave as soon as they get the chance.\n\nAside from them, people obviously prefer to stay [[inside|Fourth Landing]].

You don't allow yourself to rest. Every moment you rest is a moment you're not getting closer to salvation, a moment you're getting more and more complacent.\n\nYou're not letting that happen. You get back in line, and you advance.\n\nBizarrely, it's not quite as hard to climb the stairs now as it was when you left the Fourth Landing. It's still painful, grueling, tedious, yes - but it doesn't compare. You cling tightly to this small relief, reminding yourself with each step you take that things are getting better.\n\nYou have to remind yourself that things are getting better. You can't risk stopping.\n\n[[And sure enough, here's proof of that.|Five Six Encounter]]

'Everyone, listen!' you shout. 'I and the <<print $otherparty>>s wish to tell you of our plan to make things better!'\n\n'That's what the <<print $party>>s said, and look where it got us!' someone shouts.\n\n'Right, and as you know, I backed them. I was a fool to do so. But listen!' You place your hand on your chest and close your eyes. 'I'm not affiliated with any of these jokers. I only care about what's best for you - no, what's best for us. I'll make sure these folks change things!'\n\nThe other denizens of the Ninth Landing descend into debate, but you and the <<print $otherparty>>s can already tell you've won. And soon enough, they're piling themselves up into a pyramid for you - a human staircase piled just high enough to get you to the Top. To get you to the end.\n\nOne of the others nods at you. 'Go ahead, then. You first.'\n\nYou slowly place your foot on someone on the bottom. Then you start climbing - climbing, after all, is what you're good at.\n\nAs you reach the final layer, you tell yourself that it wasn't an empty promise. That you really will keep their concerns in mind, because, after all, those have been your concerns, too. It wouldn't be fair to leave them behind, and you're definitely not an unfair person.\n\nIt's amazing the kind of lies a person can tell themselves if they really want to believe them.\n\n[[You run across the top level's backs, and leap towards the stairs.|The Top]]

'Wise. Follow me.'\n\nThe stranger leads you around to the side of the tower, where they have a pulley rigged up - similar to the mechanisms used to haul the buckets and bins up and down, though it looks a bit jankier. Instead of a container, it looks like it's built to move a simple wooden platform with a sort of fence around it.\n\n'Long story short, this is how we do it. You hop on, haul yourself up, sneak in through a window, take what you can.'\n\n'There's a catch. The guards.'\n\n'Of course. And that's the kicker, isn't it? You can take from the people who don't have anything to spare. Who the guards don't care about. Easier, safer. Leaves less for them, gets less for you. Or you can go for the big money, and probably die.'\n\n'Not a great situation either way, huh?'\n\nThe stranger sighs and leans against the Tower, their head coming to a rest on what used to be someone else's, covering up one of the uncountable horrified faces built into the wall.\n'No such thing as a great situation unless you're at the Top, friend. No such thing. So what're you gonna do?'\n\n[[Go for the safe option|Thief End 2][$thief_choice = 0]]\n[[Go for the risky option|Thief End 2][$thief_choice = 1]]\n[[Screw it, take your chances on the outside|Wilderness End]]

So you <<continue "climb.">>climb.\n\nAnd you <<continue "climb.">>climb.\n\nAnd you <<continue "climb.">>climb and <<continue "climb.">>climb and <<continue "climb.">>climb and <<continue "climb.">>climb and <<continue "climb.">>climb.\n\nMaybe someday you'll be able to stop. Maybe someday you'll be lucky enough to say that this whole thing was for nothing, rather than actively leaving you worse off.\n\nAnd you <<continue "climb.">>climb.\n\nBut that's how it works in the Tower. There's winners and losers. That's how it works, how it's always worked.\n\nHow it has to be, they say.\n\nAnd you <<continue "climb.">>climb, and you don't bother to question that. You <<continue "climb.">>climb and <<continue "climb.">>climb and <<continue "climb.">>climb, not letting yourself think about the situation you've landed yourself in. Not admitting to yourself how miserable you are, how much it hurts - not just physically, but mentally.\n\nYou shove the thought that you're in hell down; you shove it deep, deep down into the bottom of your heart, where you tell yourself it can't do any harm, can't distract you from what's important.\n\nClimbing. [[Climbing is important.|THE END]]

The Top is the source of all the food on the lower levels, which means that they don't have to rely on anyone's scraps, that they always have more than enough food, all of it [[fresh|Fresh Food]]. The Top is full of beautiful things and beautiful people, and up there, you're someone, not just another face in an endless sea of gray bodies. Up there, there's always a party. Up there, everyone is happy.\n\nAt least, that's what people say [[down here|Fourth Landing]].

It's a simple fact that the higher you [[climb|Six Seven Stairway 2]] the Tower, the fewer people there are - people come in at the ground floor, and it's not like everyone can get to the Top.\n\nWith every floor, there's people who either stop climbing or never start climbing or simply <<insert "can't climb one step further">>, like the <<insert "stranger">>- you never got their name, did you? Eh, too late now-<<endinsert>> with the thin frame<<endinsert>>.\n\nIt's not the happiest situation, but you've always heard that if there were more people at the Top, things would be far worse - the people on the bottom would go from getting their scraps to getting nothing at all. You shudder at the thought.

You continue the grueling struggle onward. Every time you feel as if you can't keep moving, you remind yourself that if you slow down for too long, you're inevitably going to fall.\n\nWith fear and willpower working together, you soon reach\nThe Fifth Landing\nThe [[ring|Landing Structure]] here is tighter than it was below - more room to build, to walk, to live, and considerably less to fall through.\n\nYou take a seat by the edge to catch your breath, plucking some food from the bucket as it travels past you. Your body is aching, and it's tempting to stay here, but you know that's no way to get ahead, and you know that you won't be truly happy just one flight higher than you started out.\n\n<>\n<<if visited("The Guards")>>\nThere are a few guards here. Most of them stand by the windows and keeping an eye out for Outdoorsmen, while a few patrol the platform.\n<<else>>\nYou notice the presence of [[men in uniform|The Guards]] - mostly by the windows, some of them strolling around the platform.\n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>\n\nLooking up, you can make out the Sixth Landing way in the distance - as far as you can tell, the gap there is smaller still. You guess it progresses that way the further you [[climb|Five Six Stairway]].

You stare at the <<replace "person below you">>remains of the person you killed<<endreplace>>.\n\nJust a pile of rubble. Most of it just looks like rocks, but you can clearly recognize some of it as <<insert "parts of a statue.">> The face, still mostly intact, stares back at you like a dead fish - that expression where it almost feels like it's accusing you, even though you know that's not possible.<<endinsert>>\n\nShit.\n\nNot particularly eloquent, but when someone's at [[rock bottom|The Bottom]] and they only managed to survive because of another person's death, eloquence doesn't tend to be their first concern.

<<continue "You don't even bother to stop this time.">>You don't even bother to stop this time.\n\nYou <<continue "keep climbing.">>keep climbing, ignoring the Eighth Landing entirely.\n\nFeels like the only thing you really know. The only thing that keeps your heart beating anymore.\n\n<<insert "Getting closer to the Top.">> Slowly but surely. [[One step at a time.|Eight Nine Stairway 2]]<<endinsert>>

The stranger's back cracked from the strain you put on it. The fracture there is massive and deep. Damn near split them in two.\n\nNormally that doesn't happen. Normally when someone gets stepped on, it hurts, but they can deal with it.\n\nThe stranger isn't speaking anymore - just crying softly.\n\nPeople continue to ignore them, to move past them, and you tell yourself that [[you ought to do the same|Sixth Landing]].

No one is truly free: They are [[a slave|Fourth Landing]] to wealth, fortune, the law, or other people restricting them from acting according to their will.\n- Euripides

You manage to push your way through the crowd, and out of the Tower - almost immediately struck half blind by the light outside. Already, you're regretting this decision, and everything that brought you to it.\n\nBut then you make it to the other side of the crowd. <<continue "And you turn around.">>And you turn around. And you see the truth.\n\nA tremendous pile of supplies, all of them apparently carried to the Tower by the people who want to enter it. Next to it... a tremendous bin, easily the size of a hundred buckets, being filled and pulled up to the top of the Tower. \n\nGuards stand on each side of the doorway, making sure nobody gets inside without adding enough to the pile. If someone tries to get in with too little, they're turned away. If they don't have anything at all, three or four guards crowd around them, knock them to the ground, stomp on them until nothing's left but dust and rubble.\n\nAnd as for the Tower itself... <<replace "it's almost too horrible to talk about.">>it's not made of bricks.<<becomes>>it's... the "bricks" weren't just rocks. They just looked like that from inside.\n\nThey're bodies. The bodies of other people, broken apart and repurposed as walls. Here you can make out an arm - there, what must have been a head, because you can make out an eye socket and what looks like half of a mouth hanging open in terror.\n\nYou feel nauseous. You were living in there for so long, never knowing it.\n\nYou don't know which is worse - that, or that such a huge crowd, easily thousands strong if not millions, has gathered around it, desperate to get in.\n\nYou hear a whisper, and turn your head, noticing someone... crudely painted, evidently a job they did themselves. You can still make out bits of gray that they couldn't quite conceal, but at the same time, you're in awe - someone who isn't just another face in the crowd, this low? \n\n'Hey, buddy. I see you're one of the smart ones. I got a [[proposition|Leave Or Stay]] for you.'<<endreplace>>

You approach one of the men on patrol, politely asking if he can take some time from his duties to tell you what exactly they do.\n\n"We're here to protect you, young one. It's our sworn duty to guard the Tower from Outdoorsmen," he says proudly. "See, they'll try to climb up the Tower, steal what we've got for themselves. Without people like me, people like you would all starve to death or get their heads caved in."\n\nYou nod solemnly, grateful that your way of life and chances at something better are safe from those who would seek to destroy it.\n\n[[He smiles, gives you a quick salute, and goes back to his patrol.|Fifth Landing]]

<>\n<<if visited("Thief End")>>\nYou shake your head and turn your back on the stranger. 'I'm not going to hurt someone who can't afford it, and I'm not gonna gamble with my life.' \n\n'Noble. But what other choice you got?'\n<<else>>\n'Sorry, man. I just...' You glance back at the massive edifice built out of other people's corpses, and can hardly believe you used to call the place home. 'I can't go back there. Not even to steal from it.' \n\nThey nod. 'Can't blame you. You know what the only alternative to going back is, though, don't you?'\n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>\n\nYou pause, looking over the wilderness ahead of you. Uncolonized, fresh, full of life. A lot of that life will probably want to kill you, if you can trust what people said about it.\n\nBut what if that was just to make us stay in the Tower?\n\nYou almost have to laugh (almost), realizing that you've become one of the crackpots you always used to mock.\n\n'I'm going out there,' you say, more resigned than hopeful. 'Honestly, I can't bring myself to believe it's much worse than this place is.'\n\n'People seem really intent on escaping it.'\n\n'But that's the thing. The Tower only works because they take things from out here. So there has to be something to it, right?'\n\nThey shrug. 'Can't fault your logic, at least. Word of advice, though... don't go without anyone else. The Tower's all about making your own way, allegedly, but you know how it really works now. Everybody relies on someone else for something.'\n\nYou turn to the seemingly endless mass of people clustered around the Tower. [['I'll see what I can do.'|Wilderness End 2]]

<>\n<<if visited("Five Six Talk")>>\nYou sigh and walk away from the stranger. You can only hope that your advice gives them the strength to reach the next landing. \n\nAs you continue up the stairs, you hear them grunting, struggling to their feet. If nothing else, they're going to keep trying. \n\nYou hope that's a good thing. \n<<else>>\nYou can't afford to worry about this. As much as it pains you, it's the nature of the Tower: some people can't handle it. Some people get left behind. \n\nSome people fall. It couldn't work any other way. \n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>\n[[Climb|Sixth Landing]]

The Fourth Landing\n\nYou have lived on the Fourth Landing ever since you were born.\n\nYour parents came up from the Second Landing, and their parents came from Outside. Nobody you've talked to seems to know just what it's like outside the Tower, but [[every story people tell, every theory they propose,|What's Outside]] makes it clear that leaving is something only a fool would consider.\n\nInstead, the only refuge is to go up - to scale the staircases of the Tower, get higher and higher. They say if you just keep climbing, you'll eventually reach [[the top|A Dream]], where there's more food than you could ever imagine. Where instead of gray stone bodies and gray stone walls, everything is painted in gorgeous patterns that people like you can only dream about.\n\nYour parents have given up on getting any higher than they already are; they can't move as quickly as they did back in the day, and their bodies are already cracked from age - too much stress might make them crumble into rubble, if not dust. You, however, are still young and hardy.\n\nYou can still [[climb|Four Five Stairway]].

Whatever. This person may have stopped, but the rest of you can't afford to do the same. You're going to keep moving, and maybe if you're lucky, a kick in the pants will get this person the motivation they need to get back to climbing too. Even if it's only through spite.\n\nThat's what you tell yourself as you dash forward, leap onto their shoulders krak, jump off of them krak, grab hold of the edge of the stairs above you.\n\nOnly after you've started to pull yourself up do you realize what you just heard. Once you're standing again, you feel nauseous.\n\n[[Force yourself to look down|Five Six Backbreaker]]\n[[Keep moving and put it behind you|Sixth Landing]]

[[This one|A Panicked Stranger]] will scream, you have no doubt about that. They're not like the others; they were either never as good at hiding the pain, or they can't stand to keep doing it.\n\nTheir screams will slowly fade as they fall into the darkness. The people in the line will be shaken, and some of them will feel guilty.\n\nBut most of them will put it out of their minds and keep moving. After all, how could they live with themselves if they worried about everyone who fell down the stairs?\n\n[[Make a decision|Five Six Encounter]]

Aside from children, the eyes of everyone you've ever met are cold, black, empty. Usually expressionless and unmoving. People like to keep things hidden unless they really trust someone.\n\nThis is the first time you've seen [[an adult|Five Six Talk]] cry.

You can see gorgeous murals and massive sculptures which put all the Landings beforehand to shame, and massive bins of food and drink, not mere buckets.\n\nBut above all else, you can tell - even at this distance - that everyone there has color.\n\nThey are not statues carved of identical gray stone, but people, each with a different pattern, a different heritage, a different personality. Even in a crowd, they would stand out, but most of them have never been in a crowd in their lives, and none of them will ever return to one if they can avoid it.\n\nAnd if you can get up there, you'll be one of them. [[But that's a big if.|Ninth Landing Preview]]

The line travels up the staircase as it spirals up towards the next landing, which seems to be miles away. An uncountable procession of identical bodies, gray stone statues trudging upwards, forcing themselves to continue walking with reminders of what awaits at the Top, reminders of what will happen if they stop.\n\nOccasionally, someone higher up leans down, helps someone move up the staircase. More often, one person shoves another down, steps on their prone body, uses it as a footstool to clamber up to the next level.\n\nOnce in a while, someone just plain gets shoved out of the line and off the staircase entirely, either so the people behind them can get ahead a little more quickly, or just because the crowd shifted the wrong way. They almost never scream, even though they have every right to; their faces say it all, horrified, betrayed, eyes and mouth wide as they disappear into the darkness.\n\nSometimes someone from a higher floor gets lucky, catching the edge of the staircase and climbing up. Or they happen to fall into the line, so they can keep moving once they get to their feet.\n\nMost of the time, they don't. Most of the time, you see them hurtling past you one moment, and the next, they've fallen too far to be seen.\n\n[[...Better not to think about this anymore.|Four Five Stairway]]

You turn to face the stranger and quite deliberately move yourself in front of them, planting your feet at shoulder width.\n<>\n<<set $fightOutcome to random(1, 16)>>\n<<if $fightOutcome is 1>>\nThey slam right into you, and it hurts like hell, but you manage to stay standing. Before they even realize what happened, you draw your arm back and slug them in the face. \n\n'What the hell?' you shout. 'You pay any attention to the people around you, or not?' \n\nThe stranger rubs their face, glowering at you. 'Listen, kid, I dunno how you think it works, but all I know is that I spent a goddamn eternity climbing up from the Fifth Landing. I'm not gonna take it slow just because everyone around me is, and if they can't handle that, so be it.' They move to the side, proceeding with a limp. 'People fall when they climb the Tower, kid. If you're not willing to accept that, then you should stay on your own floor instead of trying to climb.' \n\n[['Oh, I'm willing to accept that.'|Six Seven Finisher]] \n[[Just keep climbing|Seventh Landing]]\n<<else if $fightOutcome < 9>>\n<<set $brought_stranger_down to true>>\nThey slam right into you, knocking you down, and you feel yourself tumbling, rolling. No, this - it wasn't supposed to go like this! I was supposed to stop them! \n\nFor a moment, it seems as if time stands still as you find yourself spinning towards the edge. Feels as if your heart just dropped right into your stomach, and you don't think it's coming back up for a long while. \n\nBut they're not out of sight, yet. You can still save the others if you <<insert "drag them down with you.">> \n\nIn a split second, you reach out and cling tightly to their ankle. They don't notice, keep trying to run - trip, their face hits the stone steps underneath them, and soon enough the two of you have both [[fallen|The Pit]].\n<<endinsert>>\n<<else>>\n<<set $brought_stranger_down to false>>\nThey slam right into you, knocking you down, and you feel yourself tumbling, rolling. No, this - it wasn't supposed to go like this! I was supposed to stop them! \n\nFor a moment, it seems as if time stands still as you find yourself spinning towards the edge. Feels as if your heart just dropped right into your stomach, and you don't think it's coming back up for a long while. \n\nThinking quickly, hoping you can at least bring the bastard down with you, you reach out your arm - to no avail. They're already out of reach. \n\n[[Alone, you suddenly find yourself with nothing underneath you, and begin your descent|The Pit]].\n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>

<>\n<<if not visited("A Glimpse of the Finish")>>\nOkay. Turns out that thing about you not caring, uh, not actually true. \n\nTHE NINTH AND PENULTIMATE LANDING \n<<endif>>\nThere are no more stairs here. Not for the next seventy feet or so, at least.\n<<endnobr>>\n\nWay up above you, if you squint, you can make out [[the Top.|A Glimpse of the Finish]] Or at least, you think it is. It fits the description. How anyone's expected to reach it, of course, is anyone's guess.\n\nThe Ninth Landing itself is disturbingly barren. The stockpile is huge, and the buildings are bigger and more beautiful than anything you've seen before, but... there's so much space in between them, and <<insert "so few people actually seem to live here">>- though, curiously, you'd say almost half of them are guards clustered up at the windows<<endinsert>>. It's a worse squandering of resources than any of the Landings you've seen thus far, and frankly, just being here makes you feel tremendously lonely.\n\nIt's strange, too, because the gap in the middle barely exists at all - this platform is more like a disc than a ring. You doubt anybody has ever fallen through; could it just be that nobody wants to stay here when they're <<insert "so close to the Top?">> ...The question is, then: how do they actually reach the Top?<<endinsert>>\n\n<>\n<<if visited("A Glimpse of the Finish")>>\n[[The argument in the corner continues,|The Election]] the crowd now worked up. They burst into applause, shouts or both after just about every point.\n<<else>>\n[[You hear someone arguing off in the corner.|The Election]] Around them, it looks like a considerable crowd has formed.\n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>

You bid farewell to your parents, and enter [[the line]]. Slowly - very slowly - you start to climb the stairs up.\n\nThe journey is grueling and painful, in a way that's difficult to put into words. Your feet and legs begin to ache as you travel higher and higher, but there's something deeper there as well - not the sort of pain one gets from heat or cold, from a bruise or a cut. It is a deep pain, spread throughout your entire body, and your mind as well.\n\nBut continuing to walk, continuing to climb, silences it a little bit; if you stand still, it becomes far sharper, and everyone shoving to get past you only makes it worse.\n\nOccasionally, there is a smaller landing - not the next floor, just a little rest area with enough room for a few people to sit down, to take what food and drink you can as [[the bucket]] travels downward.\n\nBut it's no place to live - there's no room to sleep, nothing to entertain yourself, nowhere much to go except [[further up the stairs|Four Five Stairway P2]].

<>\n<<if $visited_thirdparty is true>>\nThe <<print $otherparty>>s give you disdainful looks as you approach. 'Look, do you want to get a pyramid together or what? Because if you don't, don't waste our time.'\n<<else>>\n<<set $visited_thirdparty to true>>\nYou approach the <<print $otherparty>>s from earlier - they glare at you as soon as they see you, apparently still nursing their grudge. \n\n'Hey, uh, okay, so... yes. I made a bad call, probably.' \n\n'Yes,' one of them growls. 'You did.' \n\n'But, here's what I'm thinking. More than anything else, you guys still want to get up to the Top, right?' \n\nThey look at each other and nod. \n\n'Well, there's more people here now. And they might be wary of the pyramid thing based on what happened with the <<print $party>>s. But I was burned by that too, so if you get me to speak on your behalf...' \n\n'Do you realize what you're saying? I'm not opposed to it,' one of them says, gesturing broadly, 'but... are you sure you have what it takes to do that? To climb to the Top on their backs?'\n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>\n\n[[On second thought... maybe not.|Ninth Landing]]\n[[You have to accept how the Tower works.|The Pyramid]]

As you make for the stairs, the others turn to you and nod.\n\nThey've been there before. You shake your head at your own foolishness. Of course they have. How could someone live on the Top and not realize that there's apparently something above them?\n\nDoesn't matter, though. I have to know, too. You make your way to the stairs. It's an easy, short climb, thankfully, to\nTHE REAL TOP?\n\nYou stand atop the smallish platform that might one day have been a roof. Or another Landing.\n\nYou are alone, aside from the wilderness stretching out endlessly in front of you - lakes sparkling from the light of the setting sun, all the trees swaying in unison with the howling wind - and... <<continue "parts.">>parts.\n\nBody parts. From crushed people, people broken down. Maybe from falling. Maybe from something else.\n\nAnd on a hunch, you <<continue "look down.">>look down. At the walls of the tower.\n\nThey aren't bricks. The whole damn thing was built out of people's crushed <<insert "bodies">>, with their spirits and hopes as collateral damage<<endinsert>>. And here there's a massive pile of those chunks, stacked to a hundred feet above you.\n\nSome of them have been built into pillars, and on the floor, you can see all sorts of plans. Buildings, stairs, walls - this place was supposed to go even higher. The Top was never supposed to be the Top. Maybe there was never supposed to be a Top at all, maybe the Tower was just supposed to go higher and higher, forever.\n\nFor a moment, it's a tempting dream. At some point, the Tower must have been nothing but a bunch of stones and corpses of people who wanted a better life. And they started building it.\n\nAnd if you build it even higher, maybe there'll be room for more people on what will just be the Tenth Landing. And maybe the Ninth won't be so hopeless. And maybe the people will find some sort of unity. But mostly, it would give you a sense of purpose.\n\nIt's a tempting dream. But not one you can accept. More building just means another Top. And maybe another after that, and another after that - but there will always be a Top, and there will always be a stairway that doesn't go all the way there, and there will always be a climb that goes higher and higher, that takes longer and longer.\n\nThis whole place - your home, your journey, your protection from the Outside - is built from death, and standing here, it almost seems like nothing can be done to fix it.\n\nCan you truly live with that?\n\n[[I've come too far to care.|Rich Man End]]\n[[No more. This ends now.|Tumbling Down End]]

You wrap your hands around the bottom step and pull yourself up. Those below you stare in awe - and in hope for what this means for them.\n\n<<continue "You turn away, and climb those last few steps to">>You turn away, and climb those last few steps to\nTHE TOP\n\nFor a long while, it blurs together. It all feels like a dream.\n\nThe people there welcome you, bring forth paint for you. Turn you from another gray face in the crowd into a person.\n\nYou feast ten times as well as you did on the Seventh Landing, and you dance and tell stories and form friendships. And for the first time in your entire goddamn life, you truly relax, because you're at the Top.\n\nAnd you see the sky. There's <<replace "no roof">>only a small bit of roof, which nobody bothered to finish,<<endreplace>> above you, because - after all - this is the Top. If there's not going to be a Landing above you, why hide the clouds as they drift lazily along, the stars and moon shining bright even in the darkest nights?\n\nIt's beautiful. More beautiful than anything you could imagine. And for a long time, you're truly happy, truly satisfied.\n\n<<continue "You made it. You really made it.">>But slowly, you start to grow bored. It's bright and beautiful, and you have everything you could ever want... except a challenge. You're used to climbing, and now that there's nothing left, it feels... empty. Like you went all this way for nothing.\n\nYou talk to the others, and they say it's normal. That it goes away after a month or two of partying, of loving, of lounging around.\n\nThey're all blatantly lying to themselves.\n\n<>\n<<if visited("The Pyramid")>>\nYou recall the promises you made to the people below, and seek out the <<print $party>>s and <<print $otherparty>>s, asking them to aid you with the plan. \n\n'What? What plan?' \n\n'What we promised the people down there, so that we could get up there.' \n\n'Oh. Right, right. We'll get on that in a while.' \n\nIrritated, you <<replace "consider taking matters into your own hands.">>take matters into your own hands. You scrounge some rocks that would suffice as materials and build on the staircase, trying to make it lower, more accessible. And it seems to be going well, until you wake up one morning to see a few of the others attacking the staircase, breaking it apart, throwing the materials out the window. \n\nYou lower extra supplies to those below, but soon enough, the others refuse to let you see the pile. Only giving you access to the bare minimum you need to survive until you learn your lesson. \n\n'Why? We have plenty up here. We'll still be happy if we give them more,' you plead. \n\n'They'd get lazy. Complacent. Stop caring about the climb.' \n\n'Why's any of that matter?' \n\n'Because that's not how it's supposed to work.' \n\nEventually, you give up. Any attempt you make to help the people below is either ineffective or blocked outright, so why bother? <<endreplace>>\n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>\n\nYour journey<<continue " is complete. There's nowhere higher to go.">>... has not ended. While wandering around the Top shortly before sunset, looking for something to do with your excess of time, you notice - tucked away in a corner where nobody tends to go - a staircase.\n\nThere's another staircase. A short one, but it's there.\n\n<<replace "Just... ignore it. Enjoy what you have.">>You're at the Top! There's not going to be anything interesting up there!<<becomes>>What's wrong with you? Why can't you just accept what you have?<<becomes>>But you wouldn't be here if you were capable of accepting things as they are. [[You have to know.|The True Top]]<<endreplace>>

You break into a sprint, taking the stairs two at a time. You aren't turning back until there's no chance of getting knocked down.\n\n<<insert 'Out of my way!'>>\n\nYou make an effort to stay to the side of the people in front of you - more than the person behind you can say, anyway.\n\nStill, going as fast as you are, there's only so much you can do. <<replace "People fall">>You knock people down. You shouldn't forget that<<endreplace>>.\n\n<<insert 'One side, buddy!'>>\n\nYou shout louder, straining your voice as well as your legs, hoping to warn the others as you pass.\n\nYou can't afford to stop at this point. Your legs are aching and it's getting harder and harder to breathe, but you have to keep moving until [[you hit the top.|Seventh Landing]]\n<<endinsert>><<endinsert>>

You take a moment to collect yourself before arguing passionately on the side of the <<print $party>>s. Not everyone present is swayed - but enough are for the rest to begrudgingly agree. Any progress is better than none, after all.\n\nEight people crouch down, and <<insert "seven clamber onto their shoulders">>, then <<insert "six onto theirs">>, and <<insert "five onto theirs">>, and four onto theirs. \n\nThere are five of you now - the Nourisher orators, the Innerguard speakers, and yourself. One of the <<print $party>>s turns to you and nods. '[[Get on up there,|The Election 3]] now.' <<endinsert>><<endinsert>><<endinsert>>.

<>\n<<if visited("Statue Eyes")>>\nThe stranger is taking shallow breaths; they've stopped crying, but their eyes and face are still wet from the tears, their rocky cheeks glistening softly. \n\n'God... what the hell am I supposed to do?'\n<<else>>\nYou start shoving people aside - towards the wall, of course, not the pit - and run up to the panicked stranger. \n\n'I can't do this! I'm a fraud and a failure and if I keep trying to climb I'm just -' \n\n'Hey!' \n\nThey turn towards you, [[tears in their eyes|Statue Eyes]]. You tentatively reach out a hand and place it on their shoulder. 'It's gonna be alright. I know it's hard, but come on, you can make it to the next rest area, at least.' \n\nThey shake their head slowly. 'I really can't. I've - I've tried, so hard, but I can't keep moving. I should have just... stayed where I was. Been content. Dammit, I should've known better! I never had a chance!' \n\nYou take a deep breath, trying to decide what to say.\n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>\n\n[['I'll do whatever it takes to get you to the next landing. I promise.'|Five Six Carry]]\n[['If you give up here, you're going to fall, and then it'll be even worse. I know it's hard, but please, keep fighting.'|Five Six Pass]]

<<if $party is "Nourisher">>\nYou wait on the Ninth Landing for a sign of progress, for a sign that they're making good on their promises.\n\n<<continue "You wait a pretty long time.">>You wait a pretty long time. For weeks, nothing happens that suggests they're putting in any effort at all.\n\n'You get it now, don't you?' shouts an Innerguard. 'They were using us. Talk about how they're going to help, but in the end, you're lucky if they give us anything at all.'\n\n<<continue "You sigh and keep waiting, hoping against hope they'll be proven wrong.">>You sigh and keep waiting, hoping against hope they'll be proven wrong.\n\nAfter several more weeks, the bucket has three more loaves of bread inside when it reaches the Ninth Landing. By the time it passes to the Eighth, one has already been taken out.\n\n<<continue "A few months after that...">>A few months after that, you notice that the stairway above is having a few more steps added to it! You point it out to the others, and for a brief, shining moment, hope rises in your hearts.\n\nAbout twenty steps are added to the stairway before, as suddenly as it started, the project is seemingly abandoned. You're now a mere 67 or 68 feet below the Top.\n\n[[It's now quite clear that this isn't solving anything.|Ninth Landing]]\n<<else>>\nThe rest of you wait patiently on the Ninth Landing, knowing that it will take a while for more people to arrive.\n\n<<continue "And it does take a long while.">>And it does take a long while.\n\n<<continue "Weeks pass.">>Over the next few weeks, about three more people arrive. You turn towards one of the Nourishers and ask them how often someone usually reaches this floor.\n\n'Well, generally, about... two to five a month.'\n\n'Ah.'\n\n<<continue "Weeks pass.">>The next month sees four more people arrive. The month after that sees two more.\n\n<<continue "Months pass.">>The pattern holds. No change in the amount of people that make it up here. As for life on the Ninth Landing itself, all you can say for certain is that there's ten more citizens. Other than that, [[business as usual.|Ninth Landing]]\n<<endif>>

About halfway up, you start to hear cursing and panicked cries behind you, getting closer, louder, with every passing moment. By now, [[the line|Less People]] is clear enough that people can move a bit more freely - and a lot of them seem to be responding by running past you as fast as they can.\n\nYou shoot a glance over your shoulder, and see the cause - a particularly large person is barreling up the stairs as fast as they can, seemingly paying no attention to the people around them.\n\nAll they care about is getting to the Top as quickly as they can, with no concern for anyone else making the journey.\n\nThey're getting closer, now - you're going to need to think fast.\n\n[[Run for it|Six Seven Run]]\n[[Move aside|Six Seven Evade]]\n[[Stand firm against him|Six Seven Fight]]

You reach the Eighth Landing without incident, and take a moment to absorb the people and structures around you. You're in a real place again - not the transition between realities that passes for a Ninth Landing.\n\nYou settle yourself in, start forming friendships, <<insert "carving out a bit of a name for yourself">> - though not much of one, since there's still no paint to distinguish you from anyone else here<<endinsert>>.\n\n<>\n<<continue "And you eat.">>\n<<continue "And you drink.">>\n<<continue "And you learn.">>\n<<continue "And you dance.">>And you explore, and exercise, and love, and laugh. And once in a while, you tell the guards to move aside so you can look out the window at the Outside, and <<replace "feel thankful that you're here, where you're safe and comfortable. ">>enjoy the view, for here you can see all the splendor of nature from the comfort and safety of the Tower. <<becomes>>feel a strange pang of regret, though you don't know why. Regret that stays with you until you tear your gaze away from the setting sun. \n\nBut let's not be disingenous. <<endreplace>>\nWhile you have <<insert "regrets">>, while you doubt you'll ever forgive yourself for not trying harder to reach the Top, not figuring something out<<endinsert>>, you truly are happy. \n\nAnd that, in the end, [[is all you can ask for,|THE END]] isn't it?<<endnobr>>

<>\n<<if not visited("local stockpile")>>\nYou grab a drink from the [[local stockpile]] and sit down, thinking about the journey. \n\nPeople in the Tower - they only live so long. True, you're going faster than your parents are, but your life is still passing you by every time you go up the stairs. You've gained a lot, and maybe you stand to gain a lot more, but you might be losing something too. \n\nIs that just sour grapes, though? You know people back on the Fourth Landing who'd talk about how true happiness came from staying with your own people, from powering through the hard times instead of getting ideas. But as much stress as this is putting you through, you can't imagine a life down there being as happy as one up here. \n\nStill, you think, opening the bottle and taking a swig - it tastes incredible, yet somehow, it doesn't go down smoothly - still, diminishing returns have gotta kick in at some point, right? \n<<else>>\nYou take another sip of your drink, continuing to weigh your options. \n\nIt's tempting to stay here, for certain. You keep reminding yourself that you only have so much life in you, and if you keep climbing, you might well die before you even get to live. \n\nBut the promise of the Top floor... you know it'll take sacrifice to get there. You already knew that! It's just - you understand what that means now, and it's intimidating, and you can't help but worry that in trying to reach the Top, you'll lose more than you gain. \n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>\nOne way or another, you have to make a decision. You either [[keep climbing|Six Seven Stairway]], or commit to [[a life down here|Sixth Landing End]].

<>\n<<if $thief_choice is 0>>\nYou close your eyes. 'I'll play it safe. Taking too many risks, trying to grab the glory... that's what got me here to begin with. I'm not making that mistake again.'\n<<else>>\nYou force a smile. 'Go big or go home, am I right? If I can't live up there, I'll at least pretend like I can.'\n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>\n\nThe stranger nods and helps you onto the platform. 'We're in this together now, okay, bud? I'll introduce you to the other Outdoorsmen once you come back down.'\n\n'If I come back down, you mean.'\n\n'Always good to be realistic. Good luck with the haul, pal.'\n\n'Thanks.' And with not a word more, you grab hold of the other end of the rope and start pulling.\n\nNo longer climbing, but ascending nonetheless. And certainly still risking a very bad fall, if not worse. You wonder if you too will end up turned into bricks when all is said and done.\n\nEither way, for the rest of your life, there's nowhere to go but [[up.|THE END]]

<<continue "WHUM.">>WHUM.\nNobody below you realizes what's happening until the floor has already been destroyed by the falling rubble. When it is, they look around in panic, confusion - only a few even think to look up at you. Most of their faces show fear, a few anger.\n\nYours doesn't show anything. You force yourself to remain stoic, unreadable, even though it's a meaningless gesture.\n\nThe buildings and people and what was once the floor of the Top all fall, fall towards the Ninth Landing, which you can just barely make out at this distance. Everyone looks like mere specks from this distance.\n<<continue "WHUM.">>WHUM.\nBut you can see the floor crumbling, and again, the buildings falling. Everything turns to rubble from the impact, save for the people who are lucky enough not to be struck by falling debris - they remain intact, for now.\n\nThe remains of the Top and the Ninth Landing continue down, far beyond the reach of your vision - though, before then, you see that they're taking out the stairs as well.\n<<timedcontinue 3s>>WHUM.\nMust've been the Eighth Landing.\n\nThe sound of impact, of crumbling, of screaming, have all faded into the distance. You are truly alone now, with nothing but the endless wilderness - which you can never enter - and the howling winds to keep you company.\n\nYou can either stay up here and end up starving to death, or - one way or the other - you can <<continue "fall.">>fall.\n\nYou look down at the massive gray circle around the Tower. Normally, you imagine, they'd be clustered in close, all pushing and shoving, desperate to get in - but now they're moving away, evidently aware of what's happening (or what's happened? Would all the floors be destroyed by now?) inside.\n\nThe Tower is no more. Maybe they'll rebuild it, someday. At least if they do, you reassure yourself, it'll be a while before there's a Top. And maybe it'll actually be better than what we had here. Maybe no one will have to suffer in that Tower.\n\nEither way, you can't stay up here forever.\n\n[[Time to fall.|THE END]]

The Sixth Landing\n<>\n<<if $brought_stranger_down is true>>\nThe two of you pass the settlement. Even with the tiresome journey up the stairs, it feels like you left the place just yesterday. A few of the Landing's inhabitants take note of you, but for the most part, it's just another day in the Tower. \n\nThe stranger yanks their ankle away from your hand and kicks you in the face. 'The fuck is wrong with you, kid? You stand in my way and you bring me down with you when you fall because of it?' \n\n[['You brought it on yourself.'|The Pit 2]]\n<<else>>\nYou pass through the settlement. Feels like you left just yesterday, in spite of everything. A few of the Landing's inhabitants take note of you, but for the most part, it's just another day in the Tower. \n\n[[Is this seriously happening?|The Pit 2]]\n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>

The Tower

THE NINTH LANDING\n<<insert "You can't stay here forever.">> That's... kind of ridiculous, and you know it. It's not a bad place, aside from being a bit empty. Fewer people here than at the Top, now that you think about it.\n\nBut seeing those people up there, at the Top, practically just out of reach? You can't stand it. You'd rather [[go back to the Seventh or Eighth Landing|Minor Descent Ending]] than stick around these parts for the rest of your life.<<endinsert>>\n\nYou contemplate your options. You could always [[organize your own pyramid.|The Third Party]] But... to do that, you'd either have to put a lot of effort into working for them, or <<replace "misrepresent your intentions">>'embellish and exaggerate' your intentions, if we're being charitable,<<endreplace>> just like the <<print $party>>s did.\n\n<>\n<<if $climbs_attempted > 5>>\nOne thing's for sure: no matter how much you try, you aren't getting to the Top on your own. Evidently, that's just... not how the Tower works.\n<<else>>\nThere are [[a few people|The Dreamers]] trying to figure out schemes to get up there, but none of them ever seem to work. The only tried and true method is getting other people to lift you up. \n\n<<replace "If only there was a way...">>...Wait. You have - no, that's a ridiculous idea. Not worth considering.<<becomes>>The walls are more or less brick and mortar. There's handholds of a sort.<<becomes>>No. It'd be impossible.<<becomes>>...It would be extremely difficult to [[scale the wall.|My Own Path]] Not impossible.<<endreplace>>\n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>

You grab the stranger by the shoulders and yank them back.\n\n'What's wrong with you, kid? You gonna climb or are you too busy appointing yourself the savior of the universe?'\n\n'Don't get me wrong, I'm going to keep climbing.' You give them a shove towards the pit-facing side of the staircase, and as soon as they realize what you're planning, you step forward and deliver a kick. 'You're the one who's gonna stop.'\n\nYou turn away, <<insert "slightly disgusted">> - but, if you're being honest, also pretty pleased -<<endinsert>> with yourself, and considerably more disgusted with them.\n\n'People fall when they [[climb the Tower|Seventh Landing]],' you hiss under your breath.

This stairway is all but empty, the sounds of the crowd completely gone. Your footsteps, stone clapping against stone, <<insert "echo.">> You've never heard something echo before - everything's been too bustling, too full. The solitude you're experiencing now feels crushing, even horrifying.<<endinsert>>\n\n<>\n<<continue "Tap.">>\n<<continue "Tup.">>\n<<continue "Tap.">>\n<<continue "You miss your family.">>\n<<continue "You wonder if they're doing alright without you.">>\n<<continue "Tup.">>\n<<continue "Maybe you should've stepped on more people. You'd have gotten to the Top a lot faster.">>\n<<continue "Nah. Probably best you didn't. Enough assholes making the climb as it is.">>\n<<continue "Tap.">>\n<<continue "Tup.">>\n<<continue "Tap.">>\n<<continue "Tup.">>\n\nNo <<replace "voices.">>music.<<becomes>>laughter.<<becomes>>slurping and gulping as people grab meals from the bucket as it journeys downward.<<becomes>>shoving or rushing or cramps, things you never thought you'd miss.<<becomes>>anticipation of what [[the next floor|Ninth Landing Preview]] will bring, because by now you know that if it's not the Top, you won't be able to care.<<endreplace>>\n<<endnobr>>

Hours turn to days, days turn to weeks. You were aware that the staircases were long, but you never really processed what that meant until now - it seemed like you could just keep climbing and it wouldn't be an issue, since you knew it would take a lot of perseverance.\n\nYou're not even halfway up and you're starting to falter. You shake your head and take a deep breath - you're in this for the long haul, and you're not going to give up this easily.\n\nYour parents did this, and they're total clowns, you say to yourself. The joke is enough to keep your spirits high for at least a little while.\n\nIt's okay. I can do this. You stretch as you move, walk two steps at a time, think of songs from your childhood. All small measures, but they add up to make it possible to [[keep climbing|Fifth Landing]].

THE END\n\nThanks for playing The Tower!\n\nThis was the first Twine game I've ever completed, as well as my first fully-fledged piece of interactive fiction, period. I greatly appreciate feedback, both positive and negative, so feel free to drop me an ask at <a href="http://maxpeabodyportfolio.tumblr.com">my portfolio blog</a> if you have any comments or questions. I'm also open to doing collaborations or commissions!\n\nMany thanks to Glorious Trainwrecks for the very useful <a href="http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5462">Combined Replace Macro Set.</a>\n\nDedicated to Stef and Benedict for acting as sounding boards, editors and testers, and to Eva for inspiring me to <<insert "greater heights.">> Although, uh, that sounds pretty bleak in context, now that I think about it. SORRY EVA<<endinsert>>

The Eighth Landing is much like the Seventh.\n\nIt's bigger. It's shinier. There's more in the stockpile.\n\nYou find it hard to care.\n\n<>\nWhen you started climbing, <<continue "it meant something.">> \n<<continue "it was a struggle.">>\n<<continue "it was a quest, a crusade.">>\n<<continue "it meant that each step got you closer to a real improvement in your living conditions.">>\n<<continue "it meant you weren't one of THOSE people, content to stay where they were.">>\n<<continue "you were proving something.">>\n<<continue "you were accomplishing something.">>\nit... meant a lot of things to you. Some shallow, some deep. Some reasonable, some awful. Too many to name, too many to analyze. \n\nNow <<insert "it doesn't seem to mean much of anything.">> And yet you just keep climbing, because at this point, you don't feel like you can stop. You have to see the Top. You've come too far.<<endinsert>> \n\n[[You hope this is worth it.|Eight Nine Stairway]]\n<<endnobr>>

When food gets as low as the third or fourth floor, it's almost always either overripe (if not downright spoiled) or carefully preserved so that it could survive the journey downward. \n\nFresh food is just about exclusively for the people at [[the Top|A Dream]], and apparently there's some foods that just don't keep, and therefore never get this far down. You've heard stories from people who fell from much higher of all sorts of delicacies, elaborate descriptions of fruits and nuts that taste like they just came off the tree, of meat coated in spices that form a wave of flavor as they mix together in your mouth.

<>\n<<if $climbs_attempted < 1>>\n<<set $climbs_attempted to 1>>\nThere's no way this is going to work, you tell yourself, even as you grip the wall tightly. You spend a long while just standing there, breathing, staring at the floor above you. \n\nI have to try anyway. \n\nYou start climbing the bricks, and to your credit, you manage to get higher than you expected. Still, progress is very slow, and you spend more time trying to find decent hand- and footholds than actually moving. \n\nEventually, you drop back to the floor, defeated. \n\n[[Maybe you should try something else.|Ninth Landing]] \n[[Can't hurt to try again...|My Own Path]]\n<<else if $climbs_attempted > 6>>\nYou stare at the wall, disgusted - with it, with yourself, with the way the whole Tower is set up, but more than anything else, with the next Landing. \n\nYou shake your head. Forget it. This is getting me nowhere fast, and I don't see that changing any time soon.\n\n[[This isn't going to work. You have to deal with that.|Ninth Landing]]\n<<else>>\n<<set $climbs_attempted to ($climbs_attempted + 1)>>\n<<set $success_factor to random(3, 15)>>\nYou rub your palms together, take a deep breath, and <<continue "try to scale the walls again.">>try to scale the walls again. \n\n\t<<if ($success_factor - $climbs_attempted) <= 0>>\n\tThis is ridiculous. It won't work.\n\n\tYou practically smash your hand through the wall, clutching every indentation or protrusion like a vice. If there's any chance of getting up there on your own, you're going to find it. \n\n\tJust like when you used to climb the stairs, only with a bit less effort towards the legs and a lot more towards the arms. One step at a time, and you can move. \n\n\t<<continue "Left arm.">>\n\t<<continue "Right arm.">>\n\t<<continue "Left leg.">>\n\t<<continue "Right leg.">>\n\tHave to keep moving. Have to get to the next landing before you get too weak to keep hanging on. \n\n\t<<continue "Left, right, left, right, breathe.">>\n\tA few of the people on the Ninth Landing are staring and pointing at you now. You look down - you're... \n\n\t<<insert "You're actually making pretty good time.">> You actually could conceivably make it.<<endinsert>> \n\n\t<<continue "No time to congratulate yourself. Have to keep moving.">>\n\t<<continue "Left, right, left, right, breathe.">>\n\t<<continue "Left, right, left, right, breathe.">>\n\tYou've gathered an audience on the next Landing, too! The painted ones, the fortunate ones, staring down at you with awe - and, you think, a special bit of respect.\n\n\t<<if ($success_factor - $climbs_attempted) is 1>>\n\tThe tiny pseudo-staircase is almost within your reach \tnow. If you can just [[grab hold of it...|SO CLOSE]]\n\t<<else>>\nThe tiny pseudo-staircase is almost within your reach \tnow. If you can just [[grab hold of it...|The Top]]\n\t<<endif>>\n\n\t<<else if ($success_factor - $climbs_attempted) < 3>>\n\tYou find some decent handholds, and hold onto them tighter than life itself. You're going to make it, you tell yourself. You just have to believe and put in the effort. \n\n\t<<continue "Left arm.">>\n\t<<continue "Right arm.">>\n\t<<continue "Left leg.">>\n\t<<continue "Right... leg...">>\n\tHave to keep moving. Have to get to the next landing before you get too weak to keep hanging on. \n\n\t<<continue "Left, right, left, right, breathe.">>\n\tA few of the people on the Ninth Landing are staring and pointing at you now. You look down - you're... \n\t\n\t<<insert "You're not doing so hot.">> You're making progress, for sure - <<replace "but not fast enough to keep pace with your weakening arms and spirit.">> No. You're making progress. You're not going to be a quitter.<<endreplace>> <<endinsert>>\n\n\t<<continue "Left, right, left... right...">>\n\tIt's not enough. Just telling myself that I can do it doesn't mean I actually can. Your arms are shaking - you can't hold onto this wall any longer. \n\n\t<<continue 'Guys! Cushion my fall with something!'>>\n\n\tThe people below just keep watching you, none of them taking the initiative to help out. Inevitably, you fall - a good thirty feet - and you hit the ground hard. \n\n\tYou grumble as you pick yourself up, rolling your shoulders around to make sure that your arms and back still feel mostly alright. You don't think you sustained any major damage, but... if you get any higher but don't quite reach the Top, it could end very badly. \n\n\t[[This might not be a workable plan...|Ninth Landing]] \n\t[[No! You have to keep trying!|My Own Path]]\n\n\t<<else if ($success_factor - $climbs_attempted) < 6>>\n\tYou focus like a laser on the task at hand. The only thing that matters right now is climbing, you tell yourself. Power through the pain, power through the weakness. Just keep moving. \n\n\tYou find some decent handholds, and start clambering up the wall. \n\n\t<<continue "Left arm.">>\n\t<<continue "Right arm.">>\n\t<<continue "Left leg.">>\n\t<<continue "Right... leg...">>\n\tHave to keep moving. Have to get to the next landing before you get too weak to keep hanging on. \n\n\tUltimately, empty words. You look down - you've made it maybe ten, fifteen feet? Not terrible, you tell yourself, but it's nothing that's going to get you to the Top any time soon. \n\n\tYou cling to the wall for a while, moving neither up nor down, hoping for a <<continue "surge of strength.">>surge of strength that will help you keep moving. But no such surge comes. \n\n\tEventually, when you can't take it any longer, you release your grip - though you continue to press yourself tightly against the wall, so that friction will prevent you from getting hurt too badly on impact. Slowly and painfully, you slide back down to the Ninth Landing, until your feet gently touch the ground. \n\n\t[[This might not be a workable plan...|Ninth Landing]]\n\t[[You're making progress! You have to keep trying!|My Own Path]]\n\t<<else>>\n\tOnce again, you only make it a few feet up before your hands start to ache and your arms start to quiver. You've spent a lot of time climbing stairs, but you don't think you've ever tried something like this before - it feels like you'll never be able to manage it, no matter how hard you try. \n\n\t[[Maybe you should try something else.|Ninth Landing]] \n\t[[It might be hard, but you aren't giving up yet.|My Own Path]]\n\t<<endif>>\n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>

[[Someone|A Panicked Stranger]] is kneeling in the middle of the staircase, talking to themselves - quick words, desperate words. "I can't do this shit anymore, I can't do this."\n\nNobody else seems to notice - if they do, they're making an effort not to care. They're moving around the panicked stranger, shoving them back and forth. You shudder as you realize [[what's going to happen|A Stranger's Fate]] if they stay there.\n\n[[Comfort the stranger|Five Six Talk]]\n[[Help them to their feet|Five Six Carry]]\n[[Ignore them and keep moving|Five Six Pass]]\n[[Use them as a step-stool|Five Six Profit]]

<>\n<<set $climbs_attempted to 10>>\n<<endnobr>>You leap for the stairs, arms outstretched. Your fingertips brush the bottom step, and even as you <<continue "close your hand...">>close your hand...\n\nYou can tell you missed. You couldn't make the final leap.\n\nYou fall, unable to grab onto the wall again... approaching the Ninth Landing, which you were so close to leaving behind.\n\nYou fall <<continue "five feet...">><<continue "ten feet...">><<continue "twenty feet...">><<continue "thirty feet...">>fifty feet, and then \n<<continue "WHAM.">>WHAM.\n\nYou groan as you slowly pick yourself up, the other denizens of the Landing crowding around you, telling you how brave and inspiring that was. You wave them off, more irritated than calmed by their transparent attempts at reassurance.\n\nYou stretch and move around a bit, making sure you're still mobile and in one piece. You look up at the next Landing again, and you look at the wall, and you sigh.\n\nYou tried, and you were close, but it wasn't good enough, and it probably won't ever be good enough. [[You decide to try something else.|Ninth Landing]]

You realize, as you look closer at the stranger, that they aren't made the same way as most people. Same shade of gray, same basic shape but considerably thinner, textured differently, carved differently.\n\nYou realize that they aren't built for a journey like this. They're putting themselves through a stress test that they never had a chance to pass.\n\nIf nobody helps them, [[they will certainly fail.|A Stranger's Fate]]\n\n[[Make a decision|Five Six Encounter]]

The Fifth Landing\nAnother floor rushes past your eyes faster than you can take it in. \n\nYou're still having trouble coming to terms with the fact that you're actually falling, y'know? It's one of those things that happens to other people, just the same as getting all the way to the Top.\n\nBut you were planning on the latter, so you guess you should have expected the former.\n\n[[Before you know it, you're at the Fourth Landing again.|The Pit 4]]

The stairs <<insert "whiz by faster and faster">> - well, technically, you whiz by faster and faster, gravity plotting a course for you that's not going to end anywhere good<<endinsert>>. You're falling towards the center of the gap, too, which... doesn't bode particularly well for your chances of not falling all the way to [[the bottom|Oh No]].\n\n[[Okay. This is actually happening. That's - god, you made a really bad decision.|The Pit 3]]

Ugh, can you even imagine? [[Falling down|The Pit 3]] that far, all because you tried to prevent it for other people? At least if it were solely because you decided to climb, that you could live with, a weird poetic thing. This just sucks.\n\n'That'll teach me to reach out to others, I guess,' you grumble under your breath.

You carefully creep towards the edge of the platform - the other side of the heap.\n\nThe Landings are sturdy, to be sure, but they're only built to hold so much. Only so many people. Only so many things. If something heavy falls from high up enough...\n\n<>\n<<revision option1>><<revise option2 "You can't go through with this.">> <<becomes>>You take a deep breath, grit your teeth, force down the doubts and the fears and the knowledge that innocent people are going to get hurt. \n\nMore people will be hurt if you don't do this, you tell yourself. They'll keep being born and they'll keep coming in from Outside and they'll keep climbing, endlessly climbing, just so they can keep getting higher.<<endrevision>>\n<<revision option2>><<revise option1 "No more waiting. No more climbing. No more Tower.">><<becomes>>\nYou hesitate. If you do this, people are going to die. Some of them bastards who would do anything to get higher - a lot of them innocent victims, just desperately trying to find happiness and the life they've always been promised. \n\nNo. No more waiting. No more regrets. No more Tower. As much as you hate to do it, as much suffering it will cause... right now, it feels like you'd be causing a lot more suffering by dropping the idea.\n<<endrevision>>\n<<endnobr>>\n\n[[You draw your arms back, and you shove.|Tumbling Down End 2]]

For the first time in your life, you see the ramps, which they have instead of stairs this far down. Here you see why so many people fail to get up to the Fourth Landing - it's so steep that, just as your parents always told you, the slightest misstep can make one lose their balance, send them tumbling back down to\nThe Third Landing\n\n<<timedinsert 2s>>Well, this is it. If you don't die from the impact, it'll take all the strength you have left just to get back to where you started.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 5s>>You notice a couple new bodies have joined you on your descent. You can't help but think they're sort of lucky, since they aren't falling as far - but on the other hand, they never got to see what it was like up there, either.<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 8.5s>>The Second Landing\n\nMan. It's a lot more crowded down here than you could ever have imagined. More and more bodies are falling down, if only because the stairways and the Landing are incapable of fitting everyone present.\n<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 12s>>Wait a minute, the Landings are bigger as you go higher - come to think of it, you're pretty sure the stairs up there are wider than these ramps, too.\n\nWhy the hell would you need more room when there's less people around? Who designed this hellhole?<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 15s>>The First Landing\nYou can't even see the floor - nothing but people's bodies, shoving against each other, desperately jockeying for a chance to start climbing the ramps. You feel bile welling up in your throat as you<<endtimedinsert>>\n\n<<timedinsert 17s>>Crack.<<endtimedinsert>> \n<<timedinsert 17.5s>>Thud.<<endtimedinsert>>\n<<timedinsert 18s>>Thud<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 18.25s>>thud<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 18.5s>>[[clatter.|The Bottom]]<<endtimedinsert>>

Max Peabody

A small group is absolutely dedicated to the idea of getting to the Top without relying on anyone else's help - getting there entirely with their own efforts, on their own merits.\n\nNone of them ever seem to actually get past the [[Ninth Landing]], but they insist it's happened in the past, though they admit it's a very rare occurrence. 'It's all about having the right drive, or the perfect idea,' they say.\n\nMaybe they're right, but honestly, just having other people haul you up seems a lot easier.

You stand up and make for the stairs. It's settled, then. Gonna keep climbing. But once you actually reach the first step, you hesitate, knowing how tedious the journey will be and how much your legs will ache from it.\n\nYou need a proper rest, so <<insert "you take one.">>\n\nYou spend a few weeks on the Sixth Landing, taking it easy, recuperating. It's still hard to get used to the fact that there's more than enough to go around up here, but you aren't complaining.\n\nFor the first time, you feel something resembling contentment, and once it's time to leave, you once again find yourself tempted to stay.\n\nBut no, you made your decision - and if it's this good up here, it's even better up there. It's time to [[get going.|Six Seven Stairway 2]]<<endinsert>>

Surprisingly, it's harder to descend the stairs than it was to climb them - you're too used to the movement, and it's easy to start going too quickly, nearly lose your balance.\n\n<>\n<<continue "Tap.">>\n<<continue "Tup.">>\n<<continue "Tap.">>\nYou pass someone climbing up. They stop dead in their tracks as they see you descending. For a moment, you think they're going to speak, call out to you, ask what you're doing - but ultimately, they stay silent and continue on their path. \n\nJust another sucker, you think to yourself. Just like I was. \n\n<<continue "Tap.">>\n<<continue "Tup.">>\n<<continue "Tap.">>\n<<continue "Tup.">>\n<<continue "Tap.">>\nYou can't claim that you wish you hadn't climbed. The fact was, the Fourth Landing sucked and you're glad you're no longer there. But it doesn't make you any less bitter about the promise being all but a lie. \n\nYour whole life, you were told that if you just kept working, just focused on going up, just sacrificed friendship and comfort every so often for the sake of the climb, you'd be among those at the Top. \n\n[[You just wish you'd known earlier.|Minor Descent End]]<<endnobr>>

You shake your head and turn your back on the <<continue "Ninth Landing.">>Top. You couldn't care less about the Ninth Landing - it was nothing to you, it's nothing to anyone.\n\nAll the other Landings have at least a bit of promise, a little allure, but all the Ninth Landing is, all it was, all it will ever be is the second-to-last stop on the journey.\n\nBut for you, at least, the Top is not going to be <<continue "where it ends.">>where it ends.\n\nYou start walking down the stairs, your footsteps again echoing. Several of the denizens of the Ninth Landing turn towards you, visibly shocked.\n\n'What are you doing?'\n\n<<continue "'Leaving.'">>'Leaving.'\n\nYou make good on that before they have a chance to argue, to talk about how there'll be another chance. To rope you into schemes about building ladders, or trying the pyramid again, or anything like that.\n\nYou're through with the climb, and you're ready to settle down. [[Down|Minor Descent 2]] being the operative word.

You're tired enough already, and you doubt that trying to stop them is going to work out well for you.\n\nInstead, you quickly jump to the side of the stairs, pressing yourself against the tower's wall. Thankfully, it doesn't seem like this person's actively trying to hurt people - they stick to the middle of the stairs, running right past you.\n\nUnfortunately, that doesn't help the people in front of you, and soon enough the stranger is knocking more to the side.\n\n<<insert "'Get to the side, against the wall!'">>\n\nThose above you hear your shout, and quickly do so - then, as they see the stranger charging past them, most of them make sure to pass the message on. Soon, bodies stop falling.\n\nYou take a moment to regain your breath as they pass up and out of sight, the warning shouts fading into the distance.\n\nThen, you get back to [[climbing|Seventh Landing]], thanking god that you managed to at least save a few people.\n<<endinsert>>

<>\n<<if visited("Five Six Carry")>>\nBy the time you reach the top of this flight of stairs, you're damn near ready to collapse - knees shaking, back aching. But you don't care, because you finally made it to \nThe Sixth Landing \n\nYou carefully lower yourself to the ground, and the stranger hops off. You've barely managed to stand up again before they grab you in their arms, holding you tight. \n\n'God, I just - thanks, man. I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't been there.'\n<<revision conv1>> <<revise conv2 "'It was the right thing to do.'">><<becomes>> You shrug. 'Don't worry about it.' \n\n'Nah, look - that was really big of you, and I just... I want you to know, I'll never forget it. And I wish you the best of luck if you keep climbing.' \n\nYou smile - first time you can remember doing it since you started the climb, actually. 'Thanks. So <<insert "what's next for you?'">> \n\nThey laugh uncomfortably. 'No more climbing, that's for sure. I think it's all I can take just to keep it together here.' They look you over, an odd expression on their face. 'You should probably take a breather too, man. All work and no play.' \n\n[['I'll keep that in mind.'|Sixth Landing Reflection]]<<endinsert>><<endrevision>> \n<<revision conv2>><<revise conv1 "'Don't worry about it.'">><<becomes>>You shrug. 'It was the right thing to do.' \n\n'Yeah, well, glad some people still have their principles.' They sigh loudly. 'They say the Top's worth it all, but... god. Maybe for people like you, but I can't imagine anything being worth another four flights of that.' \n\n<<insert "'I assume you're staying here, then?'">> \n\n'You know it, man. Keeping things together here'll be more than enough work. Still,' they muse, 'S'better than being stuck down on the Third Landing, I can tell you that much.' \n\n'You stuck it out that long?' You smile, for the first time in a long while. 'That's not half bad, all things considered.' \n\n'Eh, I'd say it's nearly all bad, but I get what you mean - I did the best I could. Here's hoping you can make it all the way to the Top. For the both of us.' \n\n[['Here's hoping.'|Sixth Landing Reflection]]<<endinsert>><<endrevision>>\n<<else if visited("Five Six Backbreaker")>>\nThe Sixth Landing \nYou reach the top of the flight of stairs, your mind more weary than your body. You can't get the thought out of your head - a flimsy statue nearly split in two, directly because of what you did. \n\nYou couldn't have known, you tell yourself, and you almost believe it. But it was still wrong, would've been wrong even if they were strong enough to bear it. \n\nYou wonder if it gets easier, if you just stop caring eventually. Or maybe it's that certain people are capable of doing things like that all the time, and certain people aren't. \n\n[[Either way, you need to take a rest.|Sixth Landing Reflection]]\n<<else>>\nYou continue climbing, trying not to fixate on the stranger's fate. You need to focus on one thing, and one thing only - your own progress. \n\nThe rest of the journey isn't too eventful, but it's just about as slow as the last flight of stairs was. It feels like an eternity before you finally manage to reach \nThe Sixth Landing \n\nYou wonder if you're journeying at the right pace. Are you going too quickly? Too slowly? Your parents only got two floors up their whole lives, but that was further down, where - if they're to be believed - they didn't even have stairs, just <<insert "ramps.">> (You've heard that ramps are supposed to be easier to climb than stairs, but those ones surely weren't - if you lose your footing, which is all too easy, you tumble right down, probably knocking down others in your path. The actual stairs - and the safety that comes with them - only start after you hit the Fourth Landing.) <<endinsert>> It's supposed to be easier when you have a head start, but you can never experience it without that head start, so how can you know for sure? \n\nYou heave a sigh. Fixating on this doesn't seem liable to bring about an epiphany any time soon, and even if it is, you might as well [[sit down and grab a drink.|Sixth Landing Reflection]] You've definitely earned it.\n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>

You push your way towards the stairs - well, the ramp, rather, and gaze in horror at what you see.\n\nThere's just... a massive pile of bodies here, all of them desperately writhing to escape it, all of them shoved back down by the crowd climbing over them to start the journey upwards. The ramp itself seems almost impossible to climb, but nonetheless, people are doing it - on all fours, crawling at a snail's pace upwards.\n\nIf you actually try this - especially with the wound you're sporting - it will be absolutely hellish.\n\nIf you never stop, never slow down, never fall or get knocked back by someone else tumbling down, you'll be lucky to get to the Third Landing, let alone back to where you started.\n\n<><<continue "Doesn't matter. You have to try.">>You approach the pile of bodies, bile rising in your throat. I can't do this. This is not a thing I'm capable of. \n\n<<continue "You don't have another option. Not a very good one, at least.">>You inhale, and then run for it, vaulting yourself onto the pile. Shoving everyone else away from you. If you don't, there's no way you'll get higher. \n\nThis is it. If you start climbing now, you're dedicating... nearly all the remaining time in your life, probably. [[Can you... really do this?|Climbing End]]<<endnobr>>\n[[Maybe you should just turn your back on this place...|Leaving The Tower]]

'I'm listening. Not like I've got anything to lose.'\n\n'Smart fella. You've heard stories of the Outdoorsmen in their, haven't you?'\n\nYou nod. 'I take it I'm talking to one.'\n\n'You got it. Simple proposition. You got two choices - join up with us and maybe get a piece of the pie from the Tower, or head for the wilderness.'\n\n[['Sure. Best option I've got.'|Thief End]]\n[['I don't want anything to do with this place.'|Wilderness End]]

<<replace "Days">>Weeks<<becomes>>Months<<endreplace>> pass. And inevitably, you grow restless.\n\nYou never told yourself it was going to go any other way, of course - you knew better than that. You've come too far now, and you're too used to climbing. There's no stopping at this point.\n\n<<continue "You get your things together.">>You get your things together.\n<<continue "You say goodbye to the friends you've made on the Seventh Landing, but who plan to stay behind.">>You say goodbye to the friends you've made on the Seventh Landing, but who plan to stay behind.\n<<continue "You take a bottle of wine and a few sandwiches for the road.">>You take a bottle of wine and a few sandwiches for the road.\n[[And you head on up.|Seven Eight Stairway]]

<>\n<<if visited("Six Seven Run")>>\nAfter all, you ran all the way up here, so you should have a rest one way or another - too much is just going to make you burn out. Take it slow, take it smooth.\n<<else>>\nYou don't want to burn yourself out, and... honestly, after your dilemma back down on the Sixth Landing, you want to make sure you actually want to keep climbing before you commit to it. And, hey, it can't hurt, so long as you don't let yourself lose too much momentum.\n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>\n\n<<continue "So you drink.">>So you drink. <<insert "You enjoy finer wine">> (sometimes to excess, you must admit, but you're at last at a point in your life where you can afford excess, and where excess doesn't mean guzzling down booze that only escaped the higher Landings because of its low quality)<<endinsert>> than you ever knew existed, juice and cider made from fruits you never thought you'd taste. Even the water up here seems more pure, more refreshing.\n\n<<continue "You eat.">>You eat. At last, you've climbed high enough to eat fresh food, and it's<<replace " incredible">>... okay, it's not as phenomenal as people talked it up to be, but it's a major improvement over what you're used to<<endreplace>>. Once in a while, you get a chance to taste a delicacy you've never had before - mostly, though, it's the same food as always, but much nicer than ever before.\n\n<<continue "You learn.">>You learn. Downstairs, your thoughts were occupied - by need, by the <<insert "pain that came as part of existence.">> You don't feel that pain anymore, do you? You always thought that it was normal to constantly suffer just a bit. You did and everyone around you did. But apparently that's gone, now.<<endinsert>> Now you can focus on reading books that never made it downstairs, hobbies and skills that there were no teachers for, gaining knowledge that you never had access to until now.\n\n<<continue "You dance.">>You dance, and you explore, and you exercise, and you live. A wealth of experiences - some you've only had once or twice before, some you've only heard of, some you never knew existed - open up to you.\n\nAnd [[for a while,|Seventh Landing 3]] it's enough.

You head back down to the Top. You didn't come all this way just to give it up. You're going to enjoy yourself, even if you have to force yourself to do it.\n\nThe others nod as you finish descending the staircase. One of them pipes up, 'You felt it, yeah? The burning need to destroy this place?'\n\nYou sigh. 'Yeah.'\n\n'You know that'd be a bad idea. Wouldn't solve anyone's problems.'\n\n'Wouldn't be here if I thought otherwise.'\n\n'Fair enough. Anyway, now that you know there's nothing good up there, you want to go take your mind off it with some partying?'\n\n<<insert "'Sure. Sounds good.'">>\n\nAnd you do all you can. You take in everything the Top has to offer - the supplies, the camaraderie, the sense that you're finally, truly someone. And eventually, you tell yourself that you're happy enough times that you start to believe the lie.\n\nAnd when you look down at the Ninth Landing, you no longer see people like you. You see non-entities; and, in fact, you can practically see through the Ninth Landing entirely, down to the Eighth and the Seventh and the Sixth and all the way down to the bottom.\n\nThey're not people. Never were. They're just a bunch of gray statues trying to get to the Top.\n\nAnd hey, you think, with just the smallest trace of sarcasm and bitterness, [[who could blame them?|THE END]]<<endinsert>>

<>\n<<continue "Up the stairs.">>\n<<continue "Climbin' those stairs.">>\n<<continue "Just gotta... keep climbing.">>\n<<continue "Ugh.">>\n\nYou almost miss when it was a challenge, when the act of climbing put a strain on your body and mind, forced you to push your limits. Now? Now it's just tedious. The whole... mystique, perhaps, of the journey to the next Landing is long gone. It's not the stairs anymore, it's just <<continue "stairs.">>stairs. \n\nStairs which you have to keep climbing. \n\n<<replace "For days.">>For days. For weeks.<<becomes>>For days. For weeks. What seems like forever.<<endreplace>> \n\n<<insert "Nothing even happens">>, not even people falling - thank god for that, at least -<<endinsert>> this time around. \n\n<<continue "Just... climbing.">>\n<<continue "And climbing.">>\n<<replace "And climbing.">>And climbing, and climbing,<<becomes>>[[And climbing, and climbing, and climbing...|Eighth Landing]]<<endreplace>>\n<<endnobr>>

<>\n<<if visited("Five Six Talk")>>\nYou crouch down, motioning at your back. The stranger hesitates, but the pushing of the line reminds them what might happen if they don't take your help as soon as they can. \n\nThey quickly climb onto your back - heavier than you anticipated, but their light frame means that at least it's not impossible. You slowly rise to your feet.\n<<else>>\nWithout a word, you approach the stranger, crouch down, and grab them, hoisting them over your shoulder. \n\nIt takes them a moment to register what's happening. "What - what are you doing? Why are you, uh..." \n\n"I'm getting you to the next Landing. If I don't help you, maybe nobody will, and that means I'd be responsible for you falling. I'm not going to let that happen."\n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>\nIt was hard enough making the journey on your own. Carrying someone else doesn't make it easier. But you plant one foot dutifully in front of the other.\n\nYou were already going to reach the next floor when it only affected you. You refuse to give up if someone else is depending on it too.\n\nLeft foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.\n\nYou don't try to pretend that it doesn't hurt. You don't try to pretend that it'll be over quickly. What you do is focus on the destination.\n\nYou will [[get there.|Sixth Landing]]

.revision-span-in \n{\n\topacity: 0;\n}\n.revision-span:not(.revision-span-out) \n{\n\ttransition: 1s; -webkit-transition: 1s;\n}\n.revision-span-out \n{\n\tposition:absolute;\n\topacity: 0;\n}

You approach the group - looks like about... thirty people, not counting <<insert "the people">> (two groups of two, facing each other)<<endinsert>> doing all the shouting.\n\n'Uh.' You gingerly raise your hand, not wanting to come off as rude or foolish; everyone turns to you, and it takes all your courage not to shrink back. 'Pardon me, but <<continue "what's this all about?'">>what's this all about?'\n\nAll four of the orators begin talking over one another, then abruptly stop. This continues a couple of times before, finally, they manage to decide who should speak first.\n\n'It's simple, really. As you may have noticed, there's no way for an individual to reach the Top, short of scaling the walls. But,' they add, raising a finger, 'there is a way for a group to get someone up there.'\n\nOne of the speakers for the other group clears their throat. 'A pyramid. Stack everyone on top of each other, and a couple of us can climb to the top, make a good leap there. Then we can use what they got up there to make things easier on everyone else.'\n\nYou nod slowly. <<continue "'So what's the problem?'">>'So what's the problem?'\n\n'The problem,' they continue, 'Is that we disagree on how to solve the problem.' They jerk their thumb towards themselves and their companion. 'I say that we should close the doors out front. No more people get in, that means no more mouths to feed, not to mention the stairways near the bottom are easier to climb since they're less crowded. Everybody gets a decent chance for supplies, everybody gets -'\n\n'We think,' interrupts a speaker for the other group, 'that it would be better to focus on two things. First, extend the stairs to the Top, so that reaching it no longer requires you to climb on others to get there; and second, put more supplies in the bucket to begin with, so that more will reach the lower levels. And I refuse to shut out those poor, innocent souls trapped outside!'\n\n'Yeah, well, I refuse to give free stuff to a bunch of clowns if they aren't willing to climb like the rest of us!'\n\nYou suspect that they've been having more or less this exact debate for a long while, now. Still, that's with the crowd as it stands - your presence might be enough to finally tip the scales.\n\n[[Back the Innerguard|The Election 2][$party = "Innerguard", $otherparty = "Nourisher"]]\n[[Back the Nourishers|The Election 2][$party = "Nourisher", $otherparty = "Innerguard"]]

The Fourth Landing\nYou lived on the Fourth Landing from the day you were born until several months ago - or was it years, at this point? The time spent on the Landings above, not to mention the stairways themselves, blurs together.\n\nYou've been focused so much on climbing higher, you sort of lost track of everything else.\n\nIn the blink of an eye, you're [[past the Fourth Landing.|The Pit 5]]

Miraculously, you're <<replace "still in one piece.">>still mostly in one piece.<<becomes>>- okay, you're a little cracked, but it could be worse.<<becomes>>still alive. That's what matters, okay? Don't have to deny what happened to deal with it, you scold yourself.\n\nYou are still alive even if your back has a gash in it and you're pretty sure a chunk of your torso crumbled away and you're worse off than when you started and you're alone in a crowd of miserable, desperate people.\n\nYou're alive and that means there's still a grain of hope. <<endreplace>> Wish you could say the same for the [[rubble]] underneath you.\n\n<<if visited("rubble")>>\nThe crowd on this floor is massive, constantly shoving each other, and you're caught in the middle of with a gigantic wound. The noise of footsteps and chatter is practically deafening, and every time you get caught in between two bodies, your back seizes up.\n\nYou can't just stand around here forever. You either have to [[get to the ramp and try to climb back up,|Going Up]] or [[try your luck on the outside.|Leaving The Tower]]\n<<endif>>

You approach the crowd and shout at the top of your lungs,\n'Don't go in there! Don't give up perfectly good food and drink and goods for a promise at a dream you'll never reach, security that you don't even need!'\n\nMost of them ignore you. You're not the first person that's come here, shouting grand ideas about what could be done instead.\n\nBut a few turn towards you. A few are willing to listen. Slowly, they approach, carrying their things with them.\n\n'What is there, if not the Tower? What salvation is there for when beasts attack, or when weather gets harsh, or when Outdoorsmen seek our goods, or worse, our lives?'\n<>\n<<revision leave1>><<revise leave2 "'We don't need a Tower.'">> <<becomes>> 'There wasn't always a Tower. Somebody had to build it. And we can build a new one.' \n\n'But what if it ends up being just as bad? Or worse?' \n\n'Trust me, I've seen the inside.' You turn around, showing the massive crack in your back, and the others gasp in horror. 'Been pretty high up, too, as you can see. It's not all it's, uh, craaaaaa... it's not as pleasant as people say it is. Doubt we can do much worse.' You stretch and turn back around, smiling. 'And if it's just as bad, then hey, at least we'll probably get to be on the Top this time, right?' \n\nThough a little hesitant, eventually, they all more or less agree. \n\n'Alright, then. Onward, to find a new land, deserving of a new Tower!' \n\nAnd you turn towards the wilderness, towards a land that you have never known, and - with hopes as high as you can get them - [[you head off|THE END]], determined to work yourself to death, if need be, so long as you can build a better Tower.<<endrevision>>\n<<revision leave2>><<revise leave1 "'We'll build our own Tower.'">><<becomes>>'I don't think any of those are going to hurt us if we stick together,' you offer. 'Maybe those used to be threats, maybe they never were. But I truly believe we can survive without a Tower to protect us.' \n\n'Are... are you sure?' \n\nYou shake your head. 'Of course not. This is risky as hell. But it's worth a shot, isn't it?' \n\nThey look at each other and whisper amongst themselves. \n\nAfter an agonizing amount of time, they turn back to you. 'Lead the way.' \n\nAnd so you all turn your backs on the Tower - on the guards that protect it, on everyone clamoring to get in, and on the people inside, forever climbing, trapped in a journey to a promised land that most of them will never reach. \n\nAnd you turn towards the wilderness, towards a land that you have never known, and - with hopes as high as you can get them - [[you head off|THE END]] to see if a Tower is truly necessary.<<endrevision>>\n<<endnobr>>

It brings the food from up there, down here, traveling down between the stairs and through the gaps in the Landings. Other supplies are in there, too - drink, medicine, books. If it's worth having, it's in the bucket, which means slimmer and slimmer pickings the further down you are.\n\nEven though you're only on [[the staircase|Four Five Stairway]], not the next landing, you can already tell that the bucket's getting fuller as you climb - or rather, the higher you climb, the less time it has to become empty.\n\nYou fixate on the fact that you're one of the ones taking things out of the bucket before it hits the Fourth Landing - true, you scarcely have a choice in the matter, but you're still taking things from them. You used to resent the people higher up, emptying the bucket and leaving the scraps for you (to an extent, you still do).\n\nBut now that you think about it, it was the Fourth Landing you lived on, wasn't it? You were taking things then, too, taking things that would now never reach the Third Landing, the Second Landing.\n\nYou shudder as you think about what it must be like to live at the bottom. You hope you never find out.

The Sixth Landing is actually well-off enough to have <<insert "leftovers">>...which is kind of weird, now that you think about it. You guess technically they're taking more than their fair share from the bucket<<endinsert>>, something that never even occurred to you. Your whole life, you had to wait for the bucket to come if you wanted anything, and once it was there, you took what you could get - now, you can actually have things when you want them, once in a while.\n\nIt's weird - you had this abstract sense that things were better the higher in the Tower you were, but only now are you starting to see how that actually works. Compared to the Fourth Landing, [[the Sixth is far better than anything you've ever experienced|Sixth Landing Reflection]].

The [[Fifth Landing]] is - as the Fourth, and presumably all the other Landings - effectively a ring-shaped platform. At one end are the stairs bringing people up from below; at the opposite end, the stairs spiraling upward to the next floor.

No. I refuse.\n\nYou turn your back on the ramp and start shoving your way through the crowd, to the place they're all coming from. To the entrance.\n\nIt's a positively massive doorway - five times as tall as anyone in the Tower, and wide enough to let twenty people in at once. Light streams in from outside, and you can see trees in the distance, their leaves above your head for the first time in your life. You can also see, evidently being carried by the people outside... <<replace "leaves, maybe?">>no, is that... fabric?<<becomes>>some fabric, but mostly... food. Bright, massive fruits and vegetables, carefully-butchered meat, tremendous urns of water and juice and wine. But that's supposed to come from above, isn't it?<<endreplace>>\n\nYou swallow hard as you approach the gateway. This is it. You're sacrificing a life of relative safety for the Outside - sacrificing everything you've ever known, every ounce of hope you have left.\n\n[[...But you don't have a better option, do you?|Outdoors]]

<>\n<<if visited("Six Seven Run")>>\nYou leap right over the last five steps, landing on all fours. Okay. Okay. You take a moment to calm down after <<insert "running">> heh. nice. <<endinsert>> yourself ragged. \n\nThe guy behind you <<insert "casually walks past">>, still either totally oblivious or totally uninterested in the people he knocked over<<endinsert>>. \n\nWhatever. He's not my concern anymore. You take a deep breath and push yourself up, allowing yourself to take in the splendor of \n<<else>>\nIt's not long - or at least it doesn't feel long - before you get to the top of the stairs.\n\nYou're not as tired as you were after the previous climbs, partly because you're getting more practice in and partly because the stairway wasn't as steep, the steps not as tall. At this point, it becomes all about psychological endurance - worrying about your physical condition is nearly a thing of the past.\n\nAnd, looking around, you can already see the rewards your hard work is reaping.\n<<endif>>\n<<endnobr>>\nThe Seventh Landing\n\nIt's self-evident that this place puts everything you've known thus far to shame. The <<insert "walls">>, no longer the same drab gray as everyone they house, but painted gorgeous colors<<endinsert>>; the <<insert "stockpile">>, at least three times as big as the one on the Sixth Landing, and with a far more varied selection<<endinsert>>; the <<replace "buildings">>multi-story buildings, which are actually built with an aesthetic in mind.<<endreplace>>.\n\nThere's beautiful gardens, and <<insert "thriving businesses">> (those technically existed downstairs, but mostly it's a sea of people struggling to stay afloat)<<endinsert>>, and even a museum. Lots of guards around, too, protecting the inside from <<insert "the Outdoorsmen">> the souls on the outside who simply have no chance of getting up here the <<replace "right">>'right'<<endreplace>> way, the <<replace "fair">>'fair'<<endreplace>> way<<endinsert>>.\n\nIt's like a dream just seeing a place like this, let alone knowing you can [[experience it firsthand.|Seventh Landing 2]]

You've only heard stories of the people who live [[Outside|What's Outside]] by necessity rather than choice, but few of them are good.\n\nIt's sad, really; as much as you sometimes wish the bucket had more in it by the time it reaches you, even the people on the Second Landing have abundant resources compared to people Outside. So the Outdoorsmen do whatever it takes to survive - lie and cheat, steal, even murder if they have to. Some people say they're cannibals.\n\nThe Tower keeps you safe, and the Tower keeps you fed. It's hard to imagine where someone gets the idea that it's worth risking their lives to leave, but there you go.

You clamber to the top, taking care to step as gently as you can. The <<print $otherparty>> speakers don't seem to be paying as much attention - in fact, they mostly seem focused on scowling at you and muttering, at the moment.\n\nAt last, the <<print $party>>s climb to the top. One steps on your back, <<continue "judging the distance they can run on you and their defeated opponents.">>then breaks into a sprint, leaping from the back of the <<print $otherparty>> at the other end.\n\n<<insert "Time stands still as they hang in the air, arms outstretched, reaching out towards the tiny faux-staircase to the Top.">>\n\nThey just manage to catch it, holding tightly on. Everyone holds their breath as the first of the <<print $party>> clambers to the Top, extending their hand to help up their comrade, who quickly follows.\n\nThey wave to you. 'Thank you, everyone, for the help! We'll be certain to repay you in turn!' And with that, they move into the Top.\n\n[[For a moment, you are foolish enough to believe them.|The Reign]]<<endinsert>>

Ultimately, what's the point of reaching the Top? Happiness, right? You quickly knock back the rest of your drink, toss the bottle away, and smile.\n\nBecause I can be happy here, I think.\n\n<<continue "And, in the end, you are.">>And, in the end, you are. It's no paradise like the Top is supposed to be, for sure. The Sixth Landing offers a modest lifestyle - but not a meager one, like you'd get below.\n\nAnd this way, you have more time to actually enjoy the things around you, instead of climbing endlessly in search of even better ones.\n\nSo you settle in, and you make friends, and you accept this as your lot in life. And <<replace "you never have any regrets about your decision.">>yeah, okay, you regret your decision fairly often - sometimes you just consider it once or twice a month, sometimes you dwell on it for days straight - but that doesn't mean it was the wrong decision to make. You'd have regrets no matter what, you remind yourself. Might as well have them down here as anywhere else. <<endreplace>>\n\nAnd maybe someday, you'll have a child, and they'll keep climbing - but that's a long way off, and for now, you just want to [[enjoy the present.|THE END]] Because all things considered, it's looking pretty damn good.