Entering the Tower

Making her way towards the tower, Evelyn felt an excitement stirring inside her. She had never felt this emotion this strongly before. She had always moved for other people, doing what they wanted. Now that she was moving for herself, she felt a lightness to her steps.

The risks of climbing the tower were immense, but with her new ability 'steal life force', she would at the very least have another safeguard in place.

"Halt!", a low voice commanded, as she was nearing the entrance. "You need to show your awakener's identification to me before you can enter".

From a little shed to the side of the entrance, a stubby man came strutting out, stomping towards her while sneering.

The first thing Evelyn noticed was his similarity to one of the first patients she had healed. His skin was tinted yellow, his face greasy and his overall disposition gave off a bad feeling.

As someone who preferred to stay clean at all costs, she felt an immediate rejection towards this man. The attitude he met her with made his overall evaluation worse. But she was the one in a disadvantageous position, so she forced a smile as she greeted him.

"Good morning. I am so sorry, it's my first time at the tower, so I didn't know I needed to show identification before I entered…"

Seeing the man's ego being pacified by her polite speech, she continued,

"As I am newly awakened, I do not yet have an awakener's identification card," she started, putting on a troubled look, looking expectantly at the man. "But you seem like someone quite important, since I am sure they wouldn't just let anybody guard outside the tower…"

Seeing the stub of a man puff out his chest at her words, she decided to get to the point.

"Could you perhaps help me with the process? Or at least, tell me how I should go about it? I really didn't mean to cause any trouble…", finishing off her statement with some light tears in her eyes, the stub's reaction was as expected.

"Hum hum hum," he started, kneading his hands together. "Others might not have been able to help you out, but you have quite the discerning eye young lady," he proudly explained. "I am one of few who actually know how to work the identity card making machine, so I guess I can do you this favour".

'Ha, a favour. By government regulations, this should all be part of his job as a guard outside the tower. Their job is to make sure that no non-awakened person enters the tower and give awakened people all the information and guidance they might need before starting their climb…', she disappointedly thought to herself. People like him were everywhere. She had met a few like him following her parents around on house-calls, but they were usually butlers or long-time servants at those houses. People who wanted more respect and power than what their positions awarded them.

Evelyn gave him a grateful smile as he led her towards the small shed, all whilst keeping her distaste well hidden. It was a method she had learnt long ago, watching her sister.

Whenever her sister was in a tight spot, or really wanted something from their parents, she would act meek and subservient, playing to their feeling of superiority. Evelyn had tried it herself with their parents to no avail. They had simply ignored her and told her to leave as she was being annoying. It did, however, work on some of the servants.

After years of discreet practice at the mansion, she had found that most of the servants were willing to give her food at mealtimes and stop most of their complaints about having to do so if she buttered them up.

She was even able to orchestrate one of the servants who have been treating her badly through this method. It hadn't actually taken all that much effort on her part. A few comments her and a few hints there to the right servants, and suddenly the ones treating her badly no longer had time to come find her.

Of course, none of the servants actually treated her well, but she figured as long as they gave her daily meals and did the basic cleaning, she would be OK.

Keeping this farce up required her to do quite a lot more work than what was usually expected of a young lady of the house, but it didn't bother her. She had wrapped all of this into her constructed reality and simply chose to ignore how it didn't add up with how a loved daughter should be treated.

Arriving inside the shed the stubby man, having now introduced himself as Klayton, instructed her on how to place her hand on the machine. The process was quick and soon she was issued an identity card with her basic information.

Awakeners ID

Evelyn Cross

Level: 1

Class: Support

When the debate about whether awakeners needed to have their own identity cards first came up, there had been a lot of conflict as many awakeners regarded it as a breach of personal privacy and safety.

If anyone could have access to your skills, abilities, specific class and stats, it would place the tower climbers at risk. There were no police in the tower, after all.

In the end, it was agreed upon that the identity card would contain the awakened person's name, level and main class category. The id would need to be updated yearly to reflect the change in level, but there were still no real regulations in place to uphold it.

From what she heard from Samuel, most tower climbers would simply get an awakeners id card when they first started climbing the tower, and then never bother with it again.

Of course, there were exceptions to this as well. One of Evelyn's favourite tower climbers, Marie Goodall, leader of the government's secondary attack force, would show her card renewal process on the news each year, stepping in as a role model to all who climbed the tower.

Having gotten her card, she politely thanked the stub and entered the tower.