Tower Of Trample -

By the time you reached the fourth landing, you were not a warrior. You were a creature. Bruised, tear-streaked, and hollow.

"The Orb is not an object," she said. "It is an act." Tower Of Trample

She was not large, but she occupied space as a black hole occupies a galaxy. Valdris the Imperious. Her hair was a cascade of silver chains, her gown a simple, severe black dress. She wore no crown; her glare was coronation enough. By the time you reached the fourth landing,

The sky above the Cinder Flats was the color of a bruised plum. At its center, impossibly tall and thin, rose the Onyx Tower. For a century, it had stood as a monument to arrogance, a needle of dark glass and sharp-edged obsidian. They said a mage-queen, Valdris the Imperious, had sealed herself inside, growing fat on forbidden power and contempt for the mortal world below. "The Orb is not an object," she said

It was not pain. It was weight .

The second rung: crawl beneath an archway shaped like her other foot, held suspended just inches above the ground. You squeezed underneath, feeling the cold sole brush your back like a brand.