The out of breath sensation was only getting worse, and he had a pins-and-needles sensation everywhere. His head was swimming, and thinking was becoming difficult. He could see his wife's expression of panic and concern, sprinting to the house phone. He didn't have the energy to keep his head up, and let it hang. His eyes fell on the little bundle in his arms, his son sleeping quietly for the first time in hours. His thoughts became more disjointed and he closed his eyes, tired. All he could feel now was his heart hammering in his chest. The sensation slowly faded into nothing.



[center][h1][b]Faust[/b][/h1]
[b]Tower Depths: Sealed Portal[/b][/center]


	He awoke in the dim light cast from the walls, snapping to sober awareness in a singular moment. Clarity freed his thoughts, and the realization hit him like a truck. [b]He was dead[/b]. He had died holding his son as his wife tried to call for help. It was too sudden, and there was so much he wanted to do. So much he wanted to see. He wanted to see his son grow up, wanted to grow old with his wife. But he would be forever denied that now. He broke down at that, an anguished, horrified scream echoing through the tower as his knees collided with the featureless stone floor of the tower. his arms hung limp, useless as he wailed, head turned upwards towards the countless stories of the tower above.

	He had no idea how long he had been there, having gone silent. Misery had given way to the muddled sense of despair, and part of him, deep down, wanted to stay there and just wait for death. Eventually he turned away from the lights above and let his head hang, staring at his own legs and the stone floor beneath him.  Absentmindedly he inspected the strange clothing. He'd never seen anything like it, a strange mismatch of colors and materials. Bitter, he reached for the bizarre strings of talismans around his waist, but stopped short. Even his hands were covered by a pair of gloves. Bitterness gave way to unfocused anger. The gloves marked his loss, and he wanted to do away with them, so he did. finding the motivation to move, he reached forward and pulled at the offending garb. Irritation became confusion as he stared at the metal, not flesh, of his hand.

	He had too many questions, and he felt like he was in a fever-dream. He had to get [i]out[/i]. pushing himself off the floor, he looked his location over, the flat, almost-featureless floor extending out an absurd distance to the sides, and forward. He stood on a small rise in the floor at the end of a minuscule depression running to the opposite end of the room where a structure ran upwards along the many floors and out of view. Too far to see easily, he plodded forwards to investigate, his stride feeling oddly long, but natural. taking longer than he'd expected, he came to a stop at the other side of the room and glanced over what looked like the tracks of an industrial elevator recessed into an alcove in the wall, a glowing panel to the side. Without a second thought, he pressed his gloved hand against it, and it flashed. He waited.

	Far above, a cacophony of sound filled the very top of the tower as old machinery spun to life, still as ready as the day it was made. The elevator that had been waiting near the top descended faster and faster, massive pulleys accelerated, the spokes within the enormous metal wheels becoming a blur. The goblins left to guard the Witch's new conquest began to panic as the Tower's machines seemingly began acting of their own accord. They scrambled to find someone smart enough to know what to do in the absence of their Goddess. 

	Minutes passed and nothing had happened. He pressed his hand to the panel again, but it didn't respond as before. His patience endured as he stood in the dim light and silence for something, anything to change. Minutes ticked by, and just as he was about to give up, he heard the hum of tracked wheels from above. Before he realized what was happening, the elevator had arrived, rapidly slowing from a breakneck pace before stopping and opening it's plain metal doors. Stepping in, the only features he observed were a handrail ringing the interior, and a dial filled with countless gears as some sort of interface. looking over it, there were scribbles on the wall marking a button as "return". He depressed the mechanical trigger and the doors quickly shut before the elevator began shooting upwards, causing him to grab the handrail as the constant acceleration caused him to struggle to remain upright.

	[color=7799ff][i]This is insane, how long has this thing been accelerating?![/i][/color] The howl of the wind was deafening, and the elevator was still accelerating, everything outside the cabin a blur of color and movement. His grip tightened on the handrail, fighting to remain standing as gravity and acceleration attempted to drag him to the floor. After nearly ten minutes of struggle, the acceleration reversed, and he felt weightless, feet held to the ground only by the force of his grip on the railing. It was too noisy and terrifying to think about anything beyond just trying to survive an elevator ride out of hell. Fears of the elevator failing in a myriad of spectacular ways filled his mind. Ironically, he still feared death.

	In the last minute of his ascent, the wind noise fell away, and the blur that was the floors of the tower came back into view. The elevator slowed to a stop at a floor with a few unique features. A bridge extended out over the void, and doors set into the exterior wall of the tower... Something else drew his attention away from the room itself. [color=7799ff][i]Are those Goblins?[/i][/color] A trio of short green humanoids were scrambling out of a nearby door, one with decidedly fancier garb pointing at the elevator and yelling something he couldn't quite make out. He strode out of the elevator, and circled the walkway directly towards the Goblins.