Chapter 2: Dark Tower (1)

There’s a certain kind of dread you feel when your boss calls an “all-hands mandatory meeting” and the subject line just says “The Future™.”

Especially when your boss is Adam— part mad scientist, part corporate visionary— and especially when said meeting is happening in a torch-lit underground war room with no chairs, only standing stones and floating projection glyphs.

So naturally, when I arrived at the central chamber of our cozy secret Illuminati headquarters-slash-game studio, I was sweating through my robe and seriously considering faking a curse-induced nosebleed.

Adam was already there, standing in front of a giant curved wall screen powered by his personal ArcanoFrame. 

Behind him, the title screen for Battle Chess Online looped silently, showing two animated bishops fighting over what looked like a latte.

Everyone — coders, summoners, patch mages, even the guy who enchanted the coffee pot — stood in a wide circle, staring at him like kids waiting to see if Santa brought explosives this year.

And then, in perfect Adam fashion, he clapped his hands once, and said:

“Let’s talk money.”

Several people flinched.

One of the potion brewers muttered a prayer.

I just braced myself.

“Now,” Adam continued, pacing dramatically in front of the screen, “thanks to Battle Chess Online, we’ve become — and this is a technical term — stupid rich.”

He snapped his fingers.

A floating graph appeared behind him, depicting a profit graph that was still going up. 

“The continental economy? We are the economy. A single bronze coin in circulation jingles because we allow it to.”

“The king of Brelsham is paying me to maintain his win streak.”

Everyone chuckled nervously.

“But!” 

Adam raised a finger. 

“As magnificent as chess is, it’s only the opening gambit.”

I groaned at the pun. 

He ignored it.

“What I have in mind — the MMO — is the checkmate. The magnum opus. The thing that will tie kingdoms, currencies, and cravings into one beautiful web of content cycles and cosmetic microtransactions.”

He paused.

“But that project is massive. Costly. I mean, do you know how hard it is to design raid bosses with proper voice lines in twelve languages?”

He waited. 

We didn’t respond.

“Very. It’s very hard.”

Then he snapped his fingers again, and the chess simulation vanished — replaced by a black screen. 

Silence hung thick in the air.

And then — light.

Pixelated. 

Retro. 

Glorious.

A glowing 64-bit logo appeared on the screen.

DARK TOWER

Cue epic chiptune music — a kind of orchestral-lute hybrid theme that sounded suspiciously like someone handed a medieval bard a synthesizer .

The staff leaned in.

Behind Adam, the simulation started to play.

A chibi-style hooded rogue stood at the base of a towering obsidian spire. 

One torch. 

One dagger. 

One hundred levels of doom.

She crept through crumbling corridors. 

Fought pixelated skeletons. 

Dodged spinning spike traps. 

Looted cursed socks. 

Cleared floor after floor with increasingly absurd enemies and weirdly satisfying dodge rolls.

We watched, hypnotized, as she grew stronger — unlocking relics, magical double jumps, and one thing I’m pretty sure was just a talking baguette with a buff aura.

Then came the trailer’s climax.

Floor 100.

The rogue ascended the final staircase, breathing heavily, her chibi-sprite eyes blazing with determination.

The camera panned up.

There, at the top of the Dark Tower… a silhouette awaited.

Broad shoulders. 

Cloaked in shadow. 

A single eye glowing beneath a hood.

Cue dramatic pixel wind effects.

Then:

“Welcome, Player One,” said a distorted voice. 

“Your trial was merely the tutorial.”

And the screen cut to black.

The room stayed quiet for a good three seconds before someone whispered:

“…Holy crap.”

Adam smiled like a man who had just weaponized dopamine.

“This,” he said proudly, “is our bridge game. Dark Tower. A rogue-like. Tight gameplay loop. Short sessions. High replayability. Streamer bait. Nightmare difficulty. And most importantly—”

He turned toward me.

Of course he turned toward me.

“—low maintenance, minimal narrative branching, and Abel can handle the patch notes.”

I gave a thumbs-up while dying slightly inside.

“Now,” Adam clapped again. 

“We launch this in six weeks. Monetization will be simple: the first ten floors are free. Everything else, one silver.”

“They’ll pay?”

“They paid for chess hats. They’ll pay.”

Someone in the back whispered, “He’s going to break the economy again, isn’t he?”

Yes.

Yes, he was.

But as I looked at that charming little rogue stabbing pixelated goblins in the shin, I felt something strange rising in my chest.

Pride.

Not for myself, obviously. 

I was still an unpaid intern with a job title that changed weekly and a desk that occasionally exploded.

But for Adam.

He wasn’t building games.

He was building addictions — very fun, very profitable ones.

And somehow… 

I was part of it.

***

Working with Adam was like cohabiting with a weather system.

You never really knew what was going to happen next — only that it would probably involve lightning, caffeine, and the distinct smell of burning mana cables.

Today was no exception.

We were holed up in the main development chamber — a long, dimly lit room filled with scroll-stacked desks, projection runes, humming ArcanoFrames, and whatever magical creature Adam was experimenting on for processing power (today it was a frog.)

Adam sat at his personal workstation, surrounded by three floating displays and typing directly into the air using a spell called Glyphweave Input Protocol. 

It looked cool. 

It sounded cooler.

I had no idea what he was doing.

He hadn’t said a word in over an hour, unless you counted the muttering.

Something about “pixel density” and “parsing dream logic into reward loops” and “give the rogue a cloak that flaps more dramatically.”

Meanwhile, I had been handed a stack of papers. 

No title, just a sticky rune on the front labeled:

“L̵E̵V̷E̵L̸ ̶D̴E̸S̶I̶G̴N̵ ̶S̴L̸A̴V̸E̷”

Charming.

But the deeper I got into the documents, the more I found myself… absorbed.

This wasn’t just blocky floor layouts and monster spawn schedules.

There was storytelling.

Each floor of the Dark Tower was built with environmental storytelling — subtle, atmospheric details that hinted at the rogue protagonist’s hidden past. 

A broken cradle on Floor 5. 

A blood-stained training dummy on Floor 12. 

A crumbling stage on Floor 26 with a single spotlight that flickered when you walked past.

Every level was tied to a part of her backstory. 

Her trauma. 

Her guilt. 

Her regrets.

Even the bosses weren’t just meat walls.

They were aspects of herself. 

Her flaws. 

Her fears. 

Her failures.

On Floor 10, she fights a beast that mirrors her every move — a reflection of self-loathing.

On Floor 40, it’s a corrupted mentor shouting encouragements twisted into taunts.

On Floor 89, a boss that just… walks away. 

Refuses to fight. 

Forces her to chase. 

Forces her to confront the idea that some people leave, no matter how strong you are.

This wasn’t just game design.

There was something more to this. 

By the time I reached the end of the concept stack, I realized I had stopped taking notes.

I was just… reading.

Like it was a story I didn’t know I needed to hear. 

Like it was whispering to something deep inside me — a part I’d forgotten but apparently survived the soul transfer process.

My memories of my past life were still hazy.

They always had been. 

Trying to recall specific people, places, moments — it was like grabbing mist with numb fingers. 

Sometimes it physically hurt. 

Literally gave me a headache.

But the feelings remained.

And the values, oddly enough.

That weird internal compass — the one that could tell when something was off, or wrong, or dishonest — it hadn’t gone anywhere. 

I could feel it stirring now, somewhere between my third cup of cursed coffee and the line that read:

“Monetization Plan: Lock every 10 floors behind a one-silver paywall.”

I stared at the line.

Read it again.

Then out loud: “Wait… what?”

Look. 

I get it. 

Games need money. 

We’re not printing coins out of thin air, even with literal magic. 

But locking the main mechanic? 

The entire gameplay loop?

That’s not monetization. 

That’s holding the story hostage.

I leaned back in my chair, the rune-cushion creaking under me. 

Across the room, Adam was now flipping between six simulations at once — one was a tower, one was a dragon with a keyboard, and one was just him in sprite form drinking tea.

He looked happy.

Focused. 

Absorbed. 

Maybe even proud.

And that’s when I realized something else:

For all his chaos, Adam wasn’t evil.

He wasn’t some mustache-twirling mastermind trying to ruin the world through game design.

He was just…

Adam.

Brilliant. 

Over-caffeinated. 

Utterly alien in his logic.

But not cruel.

At least, not intentionally.

So maybe — just maybe — if I made my case, if I actually spoke up, he’d listen.

Because Dark Tower had something real at its core. Something that could mean more than just copper per download. 

And I was tired of being just the guy who cried over drop rate math.

I stood up.

The decision felt big in a weirdly dramatic way. 

My knees popped like an ancient spell breaking.

I walked across the chamber, past floating UI windows and sparking projection glyphs, and stopped beside his desk.

“Sir,” I said, not loudly, but clearly.

Adam paused.

The frog paused.

Even the ArcanoFrame’s idle animation seemed to slow.

Adam turned his head, gray eyes catching the torchlight.

He looked at me, unreadable.

Waiting.

And in that moment — standing there with level design notes in one hand and way too many emotions in the other — I realized something:

‘I wasn’t just working on a game anymore.’

***

“Sir.”

Adam turned.

His gray eyes locked onto mine, piercing and unreadable like he was about to either bless me or challenge me to a dance-off.

“What is it?” 

He asked, tilting his head ever so slightly, like a cat watching a mouse perform calculus.

I swallowed.

Okay. 

This was it. 

Time to commit social treason.

“It’s the monetization.”

Adam blinked.

“Go on.”

“Locking levels behind paywalls—it’s… I mean, I get it. I do. Money’s great. Love money. Huge fan,” I began, babbling as if that would soften the blow. 

“But this game… it’s good. It’s meaningful. Emotional. You made a story with teeth and heart and cleverly disguised trauma metaphors—”

I was waving my arms now. 

Great. 

Panic flailing.

“And yeah, people will pay. Some will. But most will feel boxed out. Blocked. It’s not a cosmetic or a booster — it’s the actual core progression. That’s going to sour them on the whole experience. You’ll lose goodwill. And the thing is… you don’t need to.”

I finally stopped. Took a shaky breath.

“Sir,” I said again, quieter now. 

“There are better ways.”

The room went still.

Adam’s fingers hovered mid-air, frozen over a rune.

He didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

He just stared at me.

I took a full step back.

Was he about to smite me? 

Lecture me? 

Turn me into an in-game item?

But then—

He laughed.

A low, breathy sound at first. 

Then full-throated. 

Manic. 

Gleeful.

I stared, utterly confused, as he slapped the side of his ArcanoFrame like it owed him money.

“Yes!” he cried. 

“Finally! That’s exactly what I thought too!”

“Wait. What?”

“You nailed it, Abel.” 

He stepped forward, grabbed me by both shoulders like a proud coach after a mildly impressive goal. 

“I’ve been waiting for weeks to hear you say that!”

“You… were?”

“Of course! What, you thought I actually wanted to put the paywalls there?”

He gestured with a flick of his fingers — and the room exploded into motion.

Dozens of floating holographic screens bloomed around us, casting light and color across the chamber. 

Each one played a different Dark Tower cutscene or simulation:

— The rogue girl kneeling by a ghostly child version of herself.

— A hallway lined with mirrors that shatter as you walk past.

— A chibi pixel-boss monologue about abandonment that still managed to be a little heartbreaking.

“This,” Adam said, spinning me slowly like an awkward dance partner in the middle of it all, “is art, Abel. Art! And you don’t lock people out of art. You charge them for optional pet skins and haunted broom mounts, but you don’t lock feelings behind a silver coin.”

I just stared, brain buffering.

“So why put it in the plan at all?”

“To test you!” he grinned. 

“The others — the staff, the mages, the soul engineers — they all just nod. They don’t get it. They try. But they weren’t built for this kind of thinking.”

He waved at the arcane monitors like they were sacred relics.

“I talk about drop rates, and they blink like I summoned a squid. I mention DPS curves, and someone files a magical hazard report.”

He looked at me, sharp and focused now, almost unnervingly sincere.

“But you, Abel — you’re from my world. You get it. Sure, reincarnation may have roasted your brain a little, but even then, you’re the fastest to pick up what I’m saying. You ask the right questions. You worry about balance. You cry over patch notes, for gods’ sake.”

He grinned.

I flushed. 

Still not proud of that one.

“I brought you here for a reason. I needed someone who could build with me. Who could challenge me without being a complete idiot about it.”

He turned away, arms wide, practically vibrating with energy.

“Do you realize what we’ve been handed, Abel? A blank canvas! A world with no rules! No publishers breathing down our necks. No patch-day rollback errors. No government regulations—”

He spun, eyes wild now.

“We can do anything!”

He paused.

Then burst into laughter.

Actual manic laughter.

Like a villain just found out the hero was allergic to sunlight.

I stared at him, feeling a mix of awe and terror. Mostly terror.

And in that moment, I prayed.

To whom? 

I don’t know. 

The gods? 

The world tree? 

A digital game deity?

Didn’t matter.

I whispered:

“Please, please let this man’s grand ambition be only to make games.”

Because I was suddenly very sure of one thing:

‘Adam isn’t just eccentric.’

‘He is absolutely, undeniably evil.’

‘Just… luckily for us…’

‘He’s using that evil to build a perfect rogue-like.’